The Mike Hosking Breakfast

THE BEST BITS IN A SILLIER PACKAGE (from Thursday's Mike Hosking Breakfast) Too Late to Start Complaining/Attitude Shift/Big Ups for Willis/Happy for Ellis

Australia's hot spot state of Victoria state today extended its state of emergency for another six months as its weekly average of new Covid-19 infections dipped to 95.
The Victorian Parliament's upper chamber passed legislation by a 20-19 vote to extend the state of emergency, which enhances the Government's powers to impose pandemic restrictions.
The Government had wanted a 12-month extension.
The state health department reported 90 new infections and six deaths in the latest 24-hour period. There were only 70 new infections yesterday.
But the latest seven-day average has dropped into double-digits for the first time in weeks. The previous week's average was 175 infections a day.

The Government's being urged to introduce policies to boost business confidence.
Kiwibank chief executive Steve Jurkovich says its biggest headwind over the next six months will be consumer confidence.
The state-owned bank declared a net profit after tax of $57 million for the year to June 30, a fall of nearly 50 per cent on the last financial year.
Business advocate Phil O'Reilly told Mike Hosking business people need to know the Government has their back.
He says it needs to change its policies to reflect that by not increasing the minimum wage, costs for businesses or taxes.
O'Reilly says more businesses complained about the latest Auckland lockdown because they were already fragile.
“Now’s the time for the Government to get out there and say 'we've got your back', particularly as the wage subsidy comes to an end.”
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There are concerns around the funding criteria designed to help schools survive the loss of international students.
The Private Training Establishment Targeted Assistance Fund provides financial support to establishments experiencing difficulties due to Covid-19.
Almost $10 million of funding is available.
Aspire2 International chief executive Clare Bradley told Mike Hosking the fund is for the entire private training sector - which isn't a large amount between providers.
"The funding won't be game changing for establishments who are dealing with large revenue declines."
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Facebook has threatened to cut off Australian publishers and users from sharing local and international news on its platform and Instagram.
The social media behemoth wrote to the NZ Herald today that it will "reluctantly withdraw the ability for publishers and people in Australia to distribute news on Facebook and Instagram" in response to proposed legislation.
The Australian Government wants to introduce a law which aims to have Facebook and fellow internet giant Google financially compensate publishers for the content and value they provide to the global platforms.
Google has also raised issue with the Australian Government's proposal, saying it would see a "dramatically worse" search engine and YouTube (Google-owned) product provided to consumers Downunder.
In Facebook's email to the Herald, representative Andrew Hunter said the potential law has "many serious flaws" and misunderstands the relationship between the news media and social media.
"Assuming this proposed legislation becomes law, we will reluctantly withdraw the ability for publishers and people in Australia to distribute news on Facebook and Instagram. This is not our first choice - it is our last. We would support regulation that truly served the long-term interests of Australian consumers," he said.
In a statement also posted online yesterday, Will Easton, the managing director for Facebook Australia & New Zealand, said the proposed regulation misunderstood "the dynamics of the internet and will do damage to the very news organisations the government is trying to protect".
Easton said stopping Australians from sharing news articles "is the only way" to protect itself against an outcome that "defies logic and will hurt, not help" the long-term vibrancy of Australia's news and media sector.
Despite this, he said Facebook shares the Australian Government's goal of supporting news organisations, particularly local newspapers.
"But its solution is counterproductive to that goal. The proposed law is unprecedented in its reach and seeks to regulate every aspect of how tech companies do business with news publishers."
Easton added it was "most perplexing" that the law would "force" Facebook to pay news organisations for content which publishers voluntarily upload to its platforms.
He said it would also be at a "price that ignores the financial value we bring publishers".
"The [Australian Competition and Consumer Commission] presumes that Facebook benefits most in its relationship with publishers, when in fact the reverse is true. News represents a fraction of what people see in their News Feed and is not a significant source of revenue for us."
Easton said during the first five months of 2020 the US company "sent 2.3 billion clicks from Facebook's News Feed back to Australian news websites" at no charge.
This additional traffic was worth about A$200 million to Australian publishers, he said.
Despite the threat to prohibit Australians from sharing news, Easton said Facebook still recognises news "provides a vitally important role in society and democracy".
"We had also hoped to bring Facebook News to Australia, a feature on our platform exclusively for news, where we pay publishers for their content."
Last October Facebook introduced a separate news section in the US, which pays some publishers for the content, and has plans to expand the function to other parts of the world.
"But these proposals were overlooked," Easton said. "Instead, we are left with a choice of either removing news entirely or accepting a system that lets publishers charge us for as much content as they want at a price with no clear limits. Unfortunately, no business can operate that way."
Facebook products and services in Australia which allow family and friends to connect will not be impacted by its decision, Easton said.
"Our global commitment to quality news around the world will not change...

Other parties are hanging James Shaw out to dry over Green School funding.
The Green party co-leader has apologised for approving nearly $12 million for a private school, in a move that directly contradicts his party's beliefs.
Newshub is reporting Shaw refused to approve $3 billion of infrastructure funding, unless the Taranaki school was included.
National's Mark Mitchell told Mike Hosking it's completely inappropriate for funding to go to a school that hasn't even got full private school registration.
He says it's a huge slap in the face when the government moves away from its own ideological-driven policies.
Labour's Stuart Nash says there should be a clear separation between public and private funding.
He told Mike Hosking state funding is for state schools and private schools should be funded by those who can afford to attend.
Shaw's funding decision was signed off by Labour minister Phill Twyford and NZ First's Shane Jones.
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There are hopes a boatload of mussels is enough to revive marine life in Marlborough.
Twenty tonnes of green lipped mussels will be dropped on top of 12 tonnes of shells off Marlborough shores, with the aim of creating a reef.
The Marine Framing Association hopes it will revive mussel beds destroyed by five decades of over-fishing.
Association member and Clearwater Mussels co-owner John Young told Mike Hosking if we're lucky, nature will take its course.
"It will probably take a long time, but I am noticing these things are starting to come back on their own."
Young says it could be a very long time before we know if it works.
"Nature throws a curve ball every time, and it's not something you can bank on. And tomorrow it could turn around, it's the natural cycle."
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So we finally found James Shaw yesterday, having been flushed out on a scandal that may well sink him and his team.
Is this Metiria Turei 2.0?
The money itself to my mind isn't the end of the world and never has been. The school, as wacky as parts of it may appear, is a shovel ready project, puts money into the economy, and provides jobs. In other words, it ticks boxes required by the government in their $3 billion shovel ready project fund.
The fact Shaw threatened to hold up the rest of the fund unless he got his way is stupid, but a response to the fact, I suspect, that the Greens have been shafted this term and were presumably over it.
They also, given the way the govt has treated Taranaki on oil and gas, probably thought they owed the region something as comparatively small as it may actually be.
The fact Shaw really didn’t do the due diligence is on him, and as Winston Peters, quite rightly points out, is a testament to inexperience.
So politically it’s a catastrophe. Economically, if you're not a Greens supporter, it's hardly the end of the world.
But it's the politics here in the early part of September that really counts. And here is why it's so important, Labour will not get a majority, The polls, if you believe them, are wrong. When National used to track at 50 percent plus, they openly admitted it wasn’t real. This isn't real either.
So the simple maths works like this, to win, Labour need the Greens. If they don't have the Greens, they will lose government. National, by the 19th of October could be in the 40s, ACT is good for 4 or 5, maybe. That's a government.
Ironically the Greens are the balance of power, not in a New Zealand First kind of way. The Greens are wedded to the left, but without the Greens, Labour are sunk.
So are the greens sunk? Metiria Turei didn’t finish them, but she came close. This smacks of something freakishly similar.
Whatever it is about them, they have 2 hurdles. They under perform on the night compared to polling, and polling has them at 5 or less. Plus, they shoot themselves in the foot.
So, if you thought the election was a forgone conclusion, think again. And if you don’t want to think again, you're out to lunch.

Metservice's website was offline this morning in what could be another cyber attack.
It was initially offline, then replaced by a minimalist backup site (see image below).
The weather forecaster did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but yesterday it said it had been a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack - albeit one that was repelled.
"As of 5pm, there has been no notable loss of performance to any MetService digital platforms," a Metservice spokesman said late yesterday.
"MetService also operates a back-up site, this site contains all safety critical information, and includes authorised MetService severe weather watches and warnings, MetService rain radar imagery and brief forecast information."
The Metservice team remained "on the highest alert of any threat" and the forecaster's service provider had extra resources to manage the situation should it escalate, he said.
Westpac updates on attack
Although the NZX has drawn headlines after suffering a five-day DDoS assault - which experts saw as an attempt to extort the exchange - a number of other NZ organisations have also been hit recently.
Fonterra told the Herald it successfully repelled a cyber attack last month.
And Westpac confirmed to the Herald this morning that it had also been hit by hackers a fortnight ago.
"As a large organisation, we are regularly targeted by cyber criminals including through DDoS attacks. We have dedicated teams working around the clock to ensure we are always alert to threats and our systems and customers are protected," a spokesman said.
"On Tuesday August 18 we successfully repelled a DDoS attack. A small number of customers may have experienced intermittent issues logging-in for a short period as the attack traffic was managed, but our systems did not go offline. This was resolved quickly.
"We have not been targeted by any DDoS attacks since then."
Media outlets RNZ and Stuff say they suffered DDoS attacks over the weekend, but were able to deflect them.
What is a DDoS attack?
Security company NortonLifeLocks says criminals prepare for a DDoS attack by taking over thousands of computers. These are often referred to as "zombie computers". They form what is known as a "botnet" or network of bots. These are used to flood targeted websites, servers and networks with more data than they can accommodate.
A volume-based or "volumetric" DDoS attack, which was apparently the variant that hit the NZX, sends massive amounts of traffic to overwhelm a network's bandwidth, NortonLifeLock says.
The company says a DDoS attack has to be repelled at the internet service provider level, which often this involves temporarily blocking traffic from certain IP addresses.
But it is also a good idea to keep security software up to date so your PC does not unwittingly become part of a botnet attack.
The NZX did not immediately respond to questions about whether it had received any extortion demand, whether its communications setup involved multiple providers for redundancy, and what steps were being taken to avoid another attack.
Read more on why NZ is being targetted by hackers in 2020 here.

THE BEST BITS IN A SILLIER PACKAGE (from Wednesday's Mike Hosking Breakfast) Strong-Arm Tactics Too Far/Not Much "B" In the CBD/Wine Trumps Politics/Facebook Will Never Catch On