The Mike Hosking Breakfast

The Queensland border bubble has been extended to allow boarding school students to return home, as the state records no new cases.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on Friday added Moree to the list of postcodes Queensland border residents can freely travel to, saying she wanted students to be allowed to return home for school holidays.
It also comes after the mayor of Moree slammed Ms Palaszczuk as “cruel and heartless” after Mungindi’s single supermarket was destroyed.
As a result, if residents wanted to travel to their closest supermarket in Moree, they would have to quarantine for 14 days, prohibiting them from accessing medical care in Queensland.
“We hope this will be great news for families to ensure their boarding school students can be home for school holidays,” she said.
The state’s chief health officer, Dr Jeannette Young, said she had no concerns about potential spread from Moree.
“I am very confident Moree is a safe place to add into our border zone,” she said.
“For a number of reasons we have made this decision … but the most important reason of all is that it’s safe for us to do that.
“This could change, but at this point in time NSW has control of their outbreak, but the risk is the virus can travel to other parts.”
It comes as a specialist unit becomes operational today, designed to assist northern NSW families navigate border measures to access urgent and emergency medical care.
“We want to make sure if people in northern NSW need specialist appointments, we have a dedicated unit that will be there for them,” Ms Palaszczuk said.
“We have a team of 80 people working on exemptions … we are working in the best interest of families.”
Dr Young said in the past week, 900 residents northern NSW residents had been treated in Queensland hospitals.
“We are continuing to provide essential and emergency healthcare to people who live in northern NSW, we have always done that and that has not changed,” she said.
It comes as Ms Palaszczuk is set to come under fire at today’s National Cabinet over border measures that allowed 400 AFL contingents to lap up luxury while medical and compassionate exemptions are denied.



Dr Young’s strict border measures, enforced by Ms Palaszczuk, are set to be targeted at today’s National Cabinet meeting, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison expected to announce a new hotspot traffic light system that would guide states on who to allow in.



Mr Morrison has previously called for more compassion and consistency over border measures, and has told states borders need to be open by Christmas so “families can be reunited”.
Ms Palaszczuk has repeatedly reaffirmed she had ultimate say in what happened at the borders, and that her main priority was “keeping Queenslanders safe”.
A visibly teary premier on Friday said she refused to be intimidated, and that her ultimate responsibility was keeping Queenslanders safe.
“I get up every day and I rely on the best health advice to look after this state,” she said.
“I think it’s a bit disingenuous for this heightened criticism coming from a whole lot of levels when my fundamental concern is to look after Queenslanders.
“There is a high risk when there is an outbreak of it going into aged care homes... I do not want to see what happened in NSW and Victoria to happen here.”






Dr Young said the trigger for Queensland to re-open its borders with NSW would not be pulled until the state had had no community transmission of COVID-19 for 28 days.






“The one standard my team work to is to keep Queenslanders safe,” she said.



Yesterday the state recorded two new cases, including one who worked at an aged care home, an hour southwest of Brisbane, for two days.



Dr Young said the risk to residents was very low...

The Labour Party has been busy trying to pump themselves up as the best party to handle the economy, while taking pot shots at National.
In a closed door speech to the Employers and Manufacturers Association, Grant Robertson has been saying National are dangerous, risky and disorganised when it comes to the economy.
"We don't need a party that's flip-flopping on positions and changing leaders all the time," he said. "They've wanted borders open, they've wanted borders closed, they've said we're spending too much money, they've said we're spending not enough money."
"This is not the party of John Key and Bill English anymore. I don't think it's offering the consistency or certainty that businesses need."
National's finance spokesperson Paul Goldsmith joined Mike Hosking to respond to Grant Robertson's criticism.
LISTEN ABOVE

Auckland University will admit students without University Entrance next year if they've been badly affected by the Covid-19 lockdowns but their teachers believe they can cope with university study.
University vice-chancellor Professor Dawn Freshwater has written to Auckland high-school principals, reassuring them that good students can still go to university despite losing almost nine weeks of classes in the region's two lockdowns this year.
Principals and final-year school students are relieved at the gesture.
Luke Orbell, head boy of Manurewa High School where only 58 per cent of students have returned after the latest lockdown, said he was unable to submit any work in two of his subjects during heightened restrictions.


"I think it will relieve a lot of stress for people. It definitely relieves stress for me."
Secondary Principals Association president Deidre Shea said it was "heartening" that universities understood the problems students faced this year.
"They will be listening to us if we say this particular person may or may not achieve the required grades, but we recommend them as being ready and appropriate for this course," she said.
Some South Auckland principals have called for scrapping the external exams for the National Certificates of Educational Achievement (NCEA) in Auckland this year and allowing teachers to "derive" grades from students' previous work.
Auckland Secondary Schools Principals Association president Steve Hargreaves wants to keep the exams but says Auckland students should be allowed up to four extra "bonus" credits on top of up to eight bonus credits available for all students sitting NCEA Levels 2 and 3 this year after the national lockdown between March and May.
Asked about the principals' calls, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said: "We are constantly looking at that ... we are always getting feedback."
The University of Auckland announced after the first lockdown that it would "place a stronger emphasis on Year 12 results than in the past" and would no longer require NCEA "rank scores" for entry to specific courses.
All NZ universities also agreed that for 2021 they would not enforce the normal rule that students who do at least six months in Year 13 cannot apply for "discretionary entrance" based on their Year 12 results.

Professor Dawn Freshwater told principals: "We are open to considering a recommendation from you as to their suitability for university study." Photo / Supplied
Freshwater told principals that "these changes, along with NZQA's change to the University Entrance requirement, will enable students on a track to access university study in 2021, to do so, despite Covid-19-related disruptions".
"But we are also aware that there may be a small number of students whose programme of study has been so severely impacted by Covid-19 that they are unlikely to meet even these modified requirements for 2021," she wrote.
"For these students we are open to considering a recommendation from you as to their suitability for university study."
She said the university would soon announce preparatory programmes for students to take over the summer if they have not achieved University Entrance (UE) or the specific requirements for their chosen courses.

Manurewa High School students (from left) Florence Folasa, Luke Orbell and Janny Jones are relieved that universities will admit some students without University Entrance in 2021. Photo / Supplied
Janny Jones, another Manurewa High School Year 13 student who wants to study engineering at Auckland University next year, said she was not sure if she could achieve all the prerequisites.
"I need to put the time in," she said. "I personally have that time but I know, speaking for my school, a lot of people don't."
Florence Folasa, also in Year 13 at Manurewa, wants to study social work next year but said the lockdowns had...

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden told residents in Kenosha, Wisconsin, that the turmoil their city has experienced in recent weeks over a police shooting and protests that turned violent can be part of an awakening that helps the United States confront centuries of systemic racism and social discord.
“We’re finally now getting to the point where we’re going to be addressing the original sin of this country, 400 years old … slavery and all the vestiges of it,” Biden said at Grace Lutheran Church in Kenosha, where he met with community leaders after a private, hour-long session with police shooting victim Jacob Blake and his family.
Blake, a Black man, remains hospitalized after being shot in the back seven times by a Kenosha police officer while authorities were trying to arrest him. The shooting is the latest high-profile police encounter with a Black man to spark protests that swelled nationwide in May after George Floyd was killed by white Minneapolis officer in May.
Biden is spending Thursday in Wisconsin, two days after President Donald Trump traveled to Kenosha. Biden says he is seeking common ground that Trump is incapable of reaching with “law and order” rhetoric and repeated refusals to acknowledge racism confronting Americans with black and brown skin.
“I can’t say if tomorrow God made me president, I can’t guarantee you everything gets solved in four years,” Biden said. But “it would be a whole better, we’d get a whole lot further down the road” if Trump isn’t re-elected.
“There’s certain things worth losing over,” he concluded, “and this is something worth losing over if you have to — but we’re not going to lose.”
Before traveling to Kenosha, Biden spent more than an hour in Milwaukee in a private meeting with Blake's father, Jacob Blake Sr., his siblings, and one of his attorneys, B’Ivory LaMarr. Blake’s mother Julia Jackson and another attorney, Ben Crump, joined by phone.
The younger Blake participated in the meeting by telephone “from his hospital bed,” Crump said. Blake, 29, shared the pain he is enduring and Biden commiserated. The family has said that Blake is paralyzed from the waist down after being shot seven times in the back by police as they tried to arrest him on Aug. 23.
Crump said Blake’s mother led everyone in prayer for his recovery. Biden treated Blake “as a person worthy of consideration and prayer,” the lawyer added.
At the church meeting, Biden heard searing commentary from community members.
Porsche Bennett, an organizer for Black Lives Activists Kenosha, told Biden she's “tired” at just 31 years old. “For so many decades we’ve been shown we don’t matter,” she said.
The Rev. Jonathan Barker, pastor of the church, opened the meeting with a prayer asking for “justice for Jacob Blake” and for God to “anoint” a national leader in November who will “seek justice, love mercy ... and love their neighbor.”
A practicing Catholic, Biden ended the prayer making the sign of the cross. He then heard from Kenosha residents discussing the need to address systemic racism so that society — including commerce — will function peacefully.
“I look at the buildings in our community that are gone,” said Barb DeBerge, owner of DeBerge Framing & Gallery, which still stands. “I just I don’t think I really grieved as much as I should because being a business owner, I have to keep going, I have to keep working.”
The trip, Biden's first to Wisconsin of the general election campaign, is intended to draw sharp contrasts with Trump. Biden is emphasizing an argument that he’s a unifying figure, able to lead the nation through a reckoning with systemic racism along with the coronavirus pandemic and its economic fallout.
Trump didn't meet with the Blake family when he visited Kenosha earlier this week.
Biden's emphasis on unity is a staple of his campaign, drawing an intentional contrast with Trump, who thrives on conflict. The...

At the end of each week, Mike Hosking takes you through the big ticket items and lets you know what he makes of it all.
Level 2.
7/10.
"Not level 1, and certainly not what a lot of the country wants.
But it felt better this week than last."
The Government's Attitude to Levels.
6/10.
"The emergence, I hope of a trend. Level 2 with cases, talk of level 1 with cases.
Could it be, at last, they’ve worked out that the health side isn't everything? And life can continue without freaking out and locking down?
The Testing Message.
1/10.
"In that, is all that has been wrong with the handling of this.
Too many departments, too many people, not enough simple common sense, and brain power."
James Shaw and the Green School.
0/10.
"About as bad as it gets, and freakishly similar to Metiria Turei three years ago.
Has he sunk his party? Question of the week."  
Judith Collins' Husband, David Wong Tung.
4/10.
"Bad, but not the scandal  they tried to make it out to be.
Social media is a cess pit, and more fool you if you dabble.
But people are individuals, adults are adults, and trying to contain a spouse is from 1837, not the modern day."
Trump and Biden.
7/10.
"Why? Because it's on.
Post convention the ads are out, the campaign is underway, and if you can pick a winner, it's because your biased not because it’s a forgone conclusion."
Housing.
9/10.
"Through the roof.
Confidence, demand, and prices are defying expectations and records."
Wine.
8/10.
"More wine, more income, and the forecast is cheerier than a crisp rosé at lunch in spring.
Global sales up again, the world will always love and pay for top shelf.
The Warriors.
9/10.
"Come on, four wins out the last five games.
The Knights spanked, a sniff from the top eight, and bring on the Eels.
Could this be our year?"
LISTEN ABOVE FOR MIKE HOSKING'S FULL WEEK IN REVIEW

KEY POINTS• Missing ship carrying 5800 cows and two Kiwis believed to have sank during typhoon• One person has been rescued after jumping to safety• The ship left Napier last month bound for China• MPI has temporarily suspended cattle livestock export applications.
Rescuers are searching for a livestock ship with 42 crew members, including two New Zealanders, that a survivor said sank during rough weather off a southern Japanese island.
The ship was sailing from Napier to China.
Japan's coast guard was on Thursday afternoon (NZ time) searching for Livestock carrier Gulf Livestock 1 carrying 42 crew members and 5800 cows that made a distress call off a southern Japanese island in seas roughened by a typhoon.


Japan's coastguard said it rescued one crew member, Sareno Edvarodo, a 45-year-old chief officer from the Philippines, while searching for the ship.
According to Edvarodo, the vessel lost an engine before it was hit by a wave and sank during rough weather, a coastguard spokeswoman said.
When the ship capsized, crew were instructed to put on lifejackets. Edvarodo said he jumped into the water and did not see any other crew before he was rescued.

The Gulf Livestock 1 departed Napier on August 14 and is now reported to be missing. Photo / Tony des Landes
Pictures provided by the coastguard showed a person in a lifejacket being hauled from choppy seas in darkness.
The ship sent a distress signal at 4.45am NZT yesterday in the East China Sea, an area being affected by Typhoon Maysak.
NHK World Japan reported that the Panamanian registered cargo ship issued the distress signal at 1.40am Wednesday Japan time from a ship about 185km west of Amami Oshima in southwest Japan.
The ship departed Napier on August 14 carrying 5867 cows and reportedly 43 crew members including two people from New Zealand, 39 from the Philippines, one from Australia and one from Singapore.
The ship was on route to the Port of Jingtang in Tangshan, China, with an estimated journey of approximately 17 days.
It was expected to arrive in China on September 3.
NHK World reported that shortly before 7pm Wednesday Japan time Japan's Defense Ministry said crew on a patrol plane spotted a lifeboat-like object in the waters near where the signal was sent and a person in a lifejacket nearby.
New Zealand's Agriculture Minister Damien O'Connor said he was informed of the distress call and search last night.
"I very much hope all the crew on board are safe. My thoughts are with their families, this will be a very difficult time for them as the search continues.
"Officials from MPI are working closely with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the exporter. I am awaiting an update on the situation."
Because it was an overseas incident, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs was the lead agency, a spokesperson said.
Safe Campaigns manager Marianne Macdonald said it highlighted the risk of exporting live cattle. The cows are "likely all pregnant", she said.
However, the MPI spokeswoman confirmed that none of the livestock on board was pregnant.
"No MPI staff were on board the Gulf Livestock 1," she added.
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokeswoman said they were providing "consular assistance" to the families of two New Zealanders aboard.

The Government meets today to decide the immediate future of New Zealand's alert level-2 status - and a health expert believes stricter rules around masks in Auckland will help speed up a lowering to level 1.
Health officials are confident they are on top of the community outbreak of Covid-19 cases, ahead of the Cabinet meeting today to assess alert level settings - but warn cases will likely continue for several more weeks.
There were two new Covid-19 cases announced yesterday - one case a 21-year-old man linked to the Americold cool store group of cases and who was already in isolation as a close contact, and another woman in managed isolation.
The current alert level settings (level '2.5' for Auckland and 2 for the rest of the country) are in place until September 6 – Sunday - but Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is set to announce a decision today on whether the country stays with that status for longer.
Otago University Professor of Public Health Nick Wilson told Newstalk ZB today that he did not expect Cabinet would lower the alert level to 1 from Sunday - but he did not think it would be too far off, especially if masks were used more frequently.
"We are not really seeing enough evidence yet of really good control ... we still get cases every day in the community. To be really confident, we should be waiting to see days where there's no new cases," Wilson told Mike Hosking.
"I think we could move faster [by] using masks better."
He believed masks could be made mandatory in areas other than public transport, which would help speed up elimination of the virus and a return to level 1.
That would be good for business, too, he said, in that with more mask-wearing, physical distancing could be reduced.

Another debate we might want to have before too long is the old "who is paying for this mess" debate.
You'll note so far, despite the billions borrowed, no one has mentioned the bill. We are in an election campaign, and yet no tax policy, and no spending policy other than the old "there is more where that came from.”
The fact we will end up, on current forecasts, at over 50 percent of GDP as far as debt goes, is little short of a disaster. No it's not as bad as some other countries, but all that shows is their disaster is bigger than ours, and that is nothing to aspire to. You don't explain to your bank that the trouble you're having paying your mortgage isn't really a big deal, given your neighbour next door went broke, so you're smelling of roses.
In Britain, to their credit, they have at least started down the track of fiscal repatriation. Chancellor Rishi Sunak is talking of tax increases. This is controversial at the best of times, far less when the idea comes from a Conservative.
Norman Lamont, a former Chancellor, has taken to the papers to mount a defence. He won't be the last. Lamont was Chancellor under Sir John Major but was in power with Margaret Thatcher, who would be turning in her grave over tax increases for debt.
There is more than one way to skin a cat. Tax is but one. Another, of course, is to cut spending. Another is to grow the pie, in other words grow the economy, and gather the increased taxes that come from it.
The greatest argument against tax increases is it kills the economy. In this country the sort of people you would tax aren't actually rich, the top tax rate cuts in at $70,000. No one in urban New Zealand on $70,000 or so regards themselves as rich.
Further those on the sort of money that might be attractive for a government are few and far between. The people on hundreds of thousands, and perhaps even millions are, in comparison, handfuls.
More tax is based largely on envy not sound economic principle. "They can afford it." That's not actually an argument, it’s a statement of jealousy. And look at the stats, it doesn’t actually raise all that much money.
A capital gains tax is often mooted, and it was three years ago, until it got shoved back in Labour's face and the promise was made never to revisit it again.
With spending, are there areas of savings? Of course there are. The Provincial Growth Fund alone was $3 billion that, sadly, never really produced anything close to what it was supposed to.
But most importantly tax increases are a sign of defeat. Aspirational countries look to grow and expand, they create their own wealth they don’t prevent it by taxing it
Norman Lamont understands that, hopefully if we ever get around to it here, whoever is running the place will too.

NZ First leader Winston Peters has completely broken ranks from the Coalition government, saying he'd pushed for the army to be called in, masks to be worn and independent oversight of the Covid response, two days before New Zealand's first lockdown in March.
He told Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking today that he regretted "in a way" not speaking out publicly at the time, but said he was bound by ensuring the Cabinet worked as a team with a cohesive approach - and that systems mattered.
Peters was responding to what he described as a "cheapshot" , after Hosking yesterday suggested Peters was gilding the lily in not taking responsibility for some of the holes in New Zealand's Covid response. "It's a cheapshot, you're wrong."


He said he had urged the Cabinet, two days before the first lockdown, that the military needed to be called in, that masks needed to be used, and that independent overseers such as Heather Simpson should be hired.
"The problem was we were trusting a bureaucracy and frankly I never would. In this business you ensure you have oversight, constant referral back every week - what's going wrong, what's going right."
Asked why he didn't speak publicly at the time, he said if he you wanted to win an argument in an organisation, you work with people behind closed doors. But there was no harm in outlining the facts respectively - and no one in the Cabinet, including the PM, could deny that he'd been pushing the case for the military and masks.
"We're five months too late doing most of these things but we are doing them now. We finally got the army in, we finally got masks in."
He had a final swipe at Hosking: "Your team, Mike, the National party and Act party, haven't got a hope in China of making it. You know that. You better be counting on commonsense and rationality, you better be backing a party called NZ First."

THE BEST BITS IN A SILLIER PACKAGE (from Friday's Mike Hosking Breakfast) Ah, Winston/Labour Gets a Bad Report/Covid Debt Going Nowhere/Mark the Week