The Mike Hosking Breakfast

Three people were killed and six others injured Wednesday when a passenger train derailed in northeast Scotland after heavy rain and flooding hit the area.
The train driver was believed to be among the dead, British Transport Police said. The Rail, Maritime and Transport union said that the train conductor was also believed killed. Formal identification has yet to take place. Six people were hospitalized, but their injuries are not considered serious.
Images from the scene show that several cars of the four-carriage train had left the tracks and one had tumbled down an embankment. Smoke was seen billowing from the wreck. Air ambulances and coast guard helicopters came and went as the rescue operation unfolded.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said a police investigation aims to find out what caused the derailment and ensure “nothing like this happens again.”
“As I understand there was about a month’s worth of rainfall in a very short period which undoubtedly aggravated the problem there,” he added.
Torrential rain had caused flooding and travel disruptions in Scotland, and on Wednesday morning Network Rail Scotland tweeted warnings of a landslip affecting services in the area.
It was not clear how many people were on the train, an early morning ScotRail service from Aberdeen to Glasgow.
British Transport Police chief superintendent Eddie Wylie said the derailed train was not a busy service, “and from (closed circuit television) inquiries and witness statements we believe all passengers have been accounted for.”
“However, once the area has been made safe, then a full and thorough search will be conducted, which is likely to take some time," he said.
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon described the derailment as a “major″ incident and said she would be convening an emergency response meeting.
The transport police said officers were called at 9:43 a.m. (0843GMT) to the railway line near the coastal town of Stonehaven, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northeast of Edinburgh and south of Aberdeen.
Local lawmaker Andrew Bowie had been in Stonehaven surveying flood damage earlier Wednesday.
“The situation was really bad this morning. The River Carron, the main river which flows through it, had burst its banks, and the heavy rain had caused flooding in the center of Stonehaven and lots of the side streets leading off it,″ he said.
Bowie added that the water had receded and it was unclear if flooding was connected to the derailment.
“We obviously don’t know why the derailment took place, but obviously we have suffered terrible weather here," he said.
Serious train accidents are rare in the U.K. The country’s last fatal derailment was in 2007.
Queen Elizabeth II sent a message of condolence, saying “it was with great sadness that I heard of the train derailment.” She added that the entire royal family joined her in sending thoughts and prayers to the families of those affected.
The head of Network Rail cut short a family vacation to return to the UK. The chief inspector of railways, Ian Prosser, said inspectors were at the site and assisting in the preliminary investigation.

I have been astonished at how many people personally know Ashley Bloomfield or people who work directly with Bloomfield, who have been able to release in the golden gems of info they’ve gleaned from their highly prized conversations with him.
We have people "in the know." There is an armada of people who knew Level Three was coming, even more know that we will be in Level Four by Monday.
We have people who know people, who know people. There are people who know for a fact these cases don’t even exist, that all the talk about masks, tests, and lanyards was the softening up for what came Tuesday night.
I tell you what, Bloomfield clearly spends most of his time just leaking astonishing amounts of detail. I'm surprised he had time to take that test on Tuesday.
That, by the way was a stunt that the media, sadly, because most of them long ago let go of any pretense around being neutral, failed to see as a stunt.
And it was a stunt as a result of the Prime Minister being sprung on this show Monday for not having had a single test, despite spending the previous days telling everyone to say yes to a test, contact trace, wear a lanyard, download an app, and get a mask.
She, of course, couldn’t front up all of a sudden and do a public test, that would have been too embarrassing. So poor old Bloomfield was thrown under the bus yet again and dispatched to give the media their headline and happy snap, that their administration were at least superficially doing what they were expecting the rest of us to .
For what it's worth and call me sensationally naive, but I am one of the few who seem to believe we'll be out of this by tomorrow night.
Why? Because the government can't afford not to be. They've blown this, their calling card is in tatters, the Covid free status that formed their campaign, and the Covid free election is now shot to bits.
They wouldn't have been so stupid to name Friday if they didn’t think they could deliver. In an election campaign, and make no mistake the campaign hasn’t stopped, the pitch for love, support and your vote rolls on unabated. But in an election campaign,you under-promise and over-deliver.
You don’t say Friday, then go, "whoops it's Level Four, and it'll be weeks."
That, by the way, I didn’t hear from Bloomfield, it's just common sense.

PM Jacinda Ardern traded verbal blows with National leader Judith Collins and deputy leader Gerry Brownlee, with the Prime Minister accused of lacking transparency and sitting on information.
As major parties suspended their election campaigns, Collins urged Ardern to push back the election date given the alert level restrictions and the media spotlight on the Prime Minister.
She said there was a lack of transparency because the Opposition should be provided more information, and should be consulted on such major decisions.
Brownlee added that it was "interesting" Kiwis were warned there could be another outbreak about 10 days ago and told to stock up on masks.
"And then you had the Prime Minister's visit to the mask factory [on Tuesday] ... all very interesting things to have happened a matter of hours before a large residential area of New Zealand went into level 3 lockdown."
Brownlee told Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking today that the election was now a distraction to the fight against Covid-19. "Regardless of how we got here... it's very serious. Although it's Auckland locked down, the rest of the country is also affected."

National Party leader Judith Collins says her party should have more briefings from the Government and should be consulted on major decisions. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Ardern said the suggestion the Government was holding back vital information was "just nonsense".
"There is no reason why we would ever do that ... I do worry that those kinds of theories do nothing to support what needs to be collective action from all of us."
She said the caretaker convention, which would normally mean consulting the Opposition in major Government decisions, only applied after an election was held and before an administration was formed.
"We'll keep the National Party informed. All I ask in return is that we continue to see some unity in our response here."
Asked about the election date, Ardern said the dissolution of Parliament had been deferred until Monday to provide some breathing space to focus on the Covid response.

New Zealand's top health boss has rejected suggestions the country is being too soft on people who have tested positive for Covid, amid revelations a high school student now has the virus.
Cabinet Ministers will meet tomorrow to decide whether Auckland might be eased into alert level 2, stay at level 3, or moved to full lockdown.
Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield confirmed today a Mt Albert Grammar student in Auckland had tested positive - a person who was a close contact of the family whose members have tested positive.
He did not know if the student was one of the four probable cases announced yesterday.
He said some of the original family who had tested positive were in a quarantine facility but not all of them.
"I don't think we have been soft on this at all. We don't round up people in New Zealand, Mike," Bloomfield told Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking this morning. "We round up sheep, we don't round up people."
Tomorrow's Cabinet decision on the future of the lockdown will depend on factors including the extent of the new Covid-19 outbreak, the containment of known chains of transmission, and whether the source of infection has been found.
Bloomfield would not say how he thought the decision would go. "We are getting all our information together so we can get the best possible advice. I feel confident we will have a lot more good information to inform a good decision."
Bloomfield told Hosking: "We get closer every hour" to finding patient zero, and the source of the latest outbreak.
He said it was only a "low possibility" the virus came in on freight - one of the family members works in a coolstore that takes imported frozen goods from overseas.
"We are working flat out to do the contact-tracing we need to do and trace back to find out what the source of this infection is," he said.
But Kiwis would have to wait until 1pm for the latest information on testing results and a full update.
He rejected a suggestion he was playing down the cases and the possibility of community transmission. "I don't think advising on getting Auckland into alert level 3 within about six hours is playing this thing down."
Kiwi epidemiologist at Melbourne University, Tony Blakely, said the Government response had been impressive, but he told Hosking it was "bizarre" how the virus had arisen again. He did not believe it could have come in on freight.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Bloomfield will today reveal the first trends from the push for mass testing, following the re-emergence of community transmission on Tuesday.
Auckland moved to alert level 3 at midday yesterday, inundating testing stations and supermarkets while others clogged up police checkpoints as they tried to flee the city before lockdown lite started.

The rest of the country moved to alert level 2. The restrictions are in place until at least midnight Friday, and if they are extended, the Government will look at targeted financial assistance for Auckland; $14b still remains in its Covid recovery fund.

There are now 26 active cases (confirmed and probable) of Covid-19, after a woman in managed isolation who arrived from Pakistan on August 7 tested positive yesterday.
The four cases of community transmission in a South Auckland family were isolating in their home. Four probable cases - two work colleagues and two relatives - have been linked to them, while 208 close and casual contacts have also been contacted.
They are among up to 1000 people who must stay at home until contacted by health officials, according to a new Public Health order from Bloomfield.
The order also applies to employees or contractors at two workplaces connected to the family, visitors to those workplaces and anyone who lives with those people. They can be forced into quarantine, if necessary.
The Government also moved to enhance contact-tracing by passing a Public Health Response...

Getting on top of this outbreak quickly will be key to preventing wider spread.
Otago University infectious diseases expert David Murdoch is applauding the Government for its swift response.
He told Mike Hosking we're learning from overseas what not to do.
"We're seeing clearly in Victoria but there are other places that have had explosive outbreaks and they have been linked to delays in response, so I think the vigorous response is absolutely the right thing to do."
LISTEN ABOVE

As the Northern Territory looks to keep the hard border controls in place for at least another 18 months, and Western Australia points to a closure until at least the end of this year – experts fear drastic action taken by state leaders could be detrimental to Australia's economic recovery amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
On Tuesday, Northern Territory Chief Minister Michael Gunner revealed he will keep the Territory's border guarded until at least 2022 and recruit extra police to keep the barriers in place. His announcement comes just 24 hours after Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that despite his "hope" Covid-19 restrictions could ease by the Christmas holidays, it's unlikely the rules will change by summer.
"We have got an indefinite ban on Victoria, and Sydney keeps bubbling away to a point to I can't give you a date where that would ever lift," Gunner said.
"My advice to every Territorian, if you can, stay here in the Territory. You're safe here, don't go.
"If you can, cancel your Christmas holiday plans, stay here in the Northern Territory."
The Top End's latest move comes after weeks of shutting out "hotspot" regions in, where currently anyone coming from Sydney or Victoria must complete two weeks quarantine at their own expense if they want to cross the territory's border, and everyone must fill in a border declaration pass.
Just months ago, Morrison had hoped the border restrictions would be lifted by July, a hope that now seems abandoned in the wake of the second wave in Victoria.
Speaking to news.com.au, tourism lecturer Dr David Beirman from Sydney's University of Technology, said the announcement today – and the concept of ongoing border closures until 2022 – is a "step too far" when it comes to any form of economic recovery.
"The statement that the Northern Territory border could be closed for the next 18 months appears extreme at best," he told news.com.au.
"One thing we have learned during this pandemic, is that changes occur rapidly and suddenly.
"Making any predictions about Covid-19 beyond the space of a few weeks is unwise at best and is likely to ensure predictors finish up eating their words when they are proven wrong or alarmist."
Since the second wave of coronavirus cases in Victoria, the Morrison Government has eased on criticism around the border lockdowns adopted by state and territory leaders around the country.
But Beirman said suggestions of hard borders for months on end, such as Gunner's announcement for the Northern Territory, is a "death knell" for Australian tourism.
"In signalling a virtual lockdown and hard borders for the NT for 18 months, the government is signalling the death knell for many of the NT's most lucrative tourism businesses and attractions including Jabiru National Park, Uluru, the MacDonnell Ranges, Alice Springs and Darwin," he said.
"The NT is the least populous mainland territory on Australia with about 300,000 people and its small population cannot maintain the viability of some of the world's greatest tourist attractions.
"I fully respect the right of any Australian state or territory to do all they can to protect the heath of its citizens. However, flagging the sentencing of Territorians to 18 months isolation from fellow Australians and the rest of the world is a step too far."
The Northern Territory's tourism industry is valued at $1.2bn, employing more than 8000 people across the sector.
As a significant industry in regional areas, the Top End had seen an increase of almost 2 per cent in domestic visitors primarily driven by holiday and leisure travellers.
Beirman said the border closure predictions of Gunner's nature will likely cause business owners in the sector to simply "throw in the towel".
"All that kind of ultra-negative thinking really achieves is that a lot of businesses are likely to literally throw in the towel and abandon the Northern Territory,"...

Russia on Tuesday became the first country to approve a coronavirus vaccine, a move that was met with international skepticism and unease because the shots have only been studied in dozens of people.
President Vladimir Putin announced the Health Ministry's approval and said one of his two adult daughters already was inoculated. He said the vaccine underwent the necessary tests and was shown to provide lasting immunity to the coronavirus, although Russian authorities have offered no proof to back up claims of safety or effectiveness.
“I know it has proven efficient and forms a stable immunity,” Putin said. “We must be grateful to those who made that first step very important for our country and the entire world.”
However, scientists in Russia and other countries sounded an alarm, saying that rushing to offer the vaccine before final-stage testing could backfire. What's called a Phase 3 trial — which involves tens of thousands of people and can take months — is the only way to prove if an experimental vaccine is safe and really works.
By comparison, vaccines entering final-stage testing in the U.S. require studies of 30,000 people each. Two vaccine candidates already have begun those huge studies, with three more set to get underway by fall.
“Fast-tracked approval will not make Russia the leader in the race, it will just expose consumers of the vaccine to unnecessary danger,” said Russia’s Association of Clinical Trials Organizations, in urging government officials to postpone approving the vaccine without completed advanced trials.
While Russian officials have said large-scale production of the vaccine wasn't scheduled until September, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said vaccination of doctors could start as early as this month. Officials say they will be closely monitored after the injections. Mass vaccination may begin as early as October.
“We expect tens of thousands of volunteers to be vaccinated within the next months,” Kirill Dmitriev, chief executive of the Russian Direct Investment Fund that bankrolled the vaccine, told reporters.
The vaccine developed by the Gamaleya Institute in Moscow with assistance from Russia's Defense Ministry uses a different virus -- the common cold-causing adenovirus -- that’s been modified to carry genes for the “spike” protein that coats the coronavirus, as a way to prime the body to recognize if a real COVID-19 infection comes along.
That’s a similar technology as vaccines being developed by China’s CanSino Biologics and Britain’s Oxford University and AstraZeneca — but unlike those companies, Russian scientists haven't published any scientific information about how the vaccine has performed in animal tests or in early-stage human studies.
Dmitriev said even as Russian doctors and teachers start getting vaccinated, advanced trials are set to start Wednesday that will involve “several thousand people” and span several countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines and possibly Brazil.
The Associated Press couldn't find documentation in the Russian Health Ministry's records indicating that permission to start the advanced trials was granted. The ministry has not responded to a request for comment.
Putin said one of his daughters has received two doses, and had minor side effects such as slight fever, and is now “feeling well and has a high number of antibodies.” It wasn't clear if she was one of the study volunteers.
The Health Ministry said in a statement Tuesday that the vaccine is expected to provide immunity from the coronavirus for up to two years, citing its experience with vaccines made with similar technology.
However, scientists around the world have been cautioning that even if vaccine candidates are proven to work, it will take even more time to tell how long the protection will last.
“The collateral damage from release of any vaccine that was less than safe and...

Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says Cabinet is considering a law change to make masks mandatory in Auckland.
He told Mike Hosking Aucklanders should be wearing a mask whenever they leave home.
"The encouragement is to go out and get masks, and make sure when you are out you put them on."
Chris Hipkins says the Ministry of Health is working with lawyers on making masks mandatory in Auckland.
The Minister of Health says the Government is moving swiftly after finding community transmission of Covid-19 in a bid to avoid a situation similar to that occurring in Victoria, Australia.
Hipkins told Morning Report it was impossible to move too hard, too soon.
He said the response has been precautionary and swift.
"One of the lessons from overseas is you can't be too hard, too soon, the faster you move the better your chances."
Hipkins said at this stage the restrictions were for three days, which will enable more information to be gathered, and at the end of this they will be able to determine a sensible course of action.
People in Auckland were being asked to wear masks if they were out in public either for essential travel or supermarket shopping, Hipkins said.
He said an order would be issued at midday today making mask wearing mandatory for Aucklanders was one of the things being considered.
Hipkins said the Government had been pushing to increase testing for Covid-19 up and in recent days had been getting around the desired 4000 mark.
He said at this stage the source of this outbreak was a puzzle.
"This person has no known contacts with anybody who has worked in managed isolation or at the border, they have no recent travel history themselves or contact with people who have travel history."
Hipkins said they would keep contact tracing until the source of the outbreak was discovered.
"Immediate family members have been tested, therefore we've got three additional positive results out of that, so therefore the contact tracing for those family members kicked into gear immediately, as soon as their positive results tests came in and we will just keep going until we identify where the source of the case is."
Testing will be undertaken at two workplaces, and Hipkins said he believed one of the children in the family attended Mt Albert Primary School.
But he said that child returned a negative test and at this point the health advice was that testing was not needed for everybody at that school.
Hipkins said at this stage they were in contact with anybody who had been in close contact with any of the four people who have tested positive for Covid-19.
"Getting them tested is our priority and then doing further contact tracing based on those results has been the priority."
Those who tested positive have been interviewed a number of times to determine who they have been in contact with and have been very cooperative, Hipkins said.
He said anybody who has symptoms and wants to get a Covid-19 test should phone the 0800 Healthline number first.
Hipkins said everybody who is leaving Auckland to return home today, they should stay home for the three days in the same way Aucklanders are being asked to.
He said police would help to enforce the level 3 restrictions in the greater Auckland area after midday today.

The Government's being urged to be absolutely transparent on Covid-19.
Auckland's moving to level three at midday after four people in the same south Auckland family caught the disease in the community.
Grant Robertson told Mike Hosking the Government wasn't sitting on information when it started asking people to wear masks and 'say yes to the test'.
"People shouldn't confuse being prepared with some kind of conspiracy theory, which is absolutely untrue."
Parliament's due to rise this morning, and National party leader Judith Collins wants that - and the election - delayed.
The Finance Minister says the Government will cross that bridge when it comes to it.
National Party MP Mark Mitchell told Mike Hosking the Government to be open about what it knows.
"Kiwis have shown they can be vigilant and trusted in terms of doing what they need to, but there needs to be a very high level of transparency and information now for everyone."
Listen to the audio above as Grant Robertson and Mark Mitchell speak to Mike Hosking
 

Is there a sinking feeling? I think so.
The international media have been interesting overnight. One headline had "New Zealand's Covid Freak Out." In other words, it's an awfully strong reaction to four cases.
Another headline called it the end of a golden run.
It does seem a massive reaction. If you're waking up in Timaru, Westport, Nelson, Napier, or New Plymouth this morning,  why are you in level two? Do you even remember what level two is? Is it really worth level three for Auckland and all the businesses that close that really can't afford to?
It also lends weight to the questions being asked these past few days. Just why, when we were celebrating 100 days of no community transmission, is the government launching yes to the test, and telling us to buy masks and we were running short of elastic? There was suspicion, that proved correct. Did they know something was wrong and didn't tell us?
I see a bit of a mess coming. Regionality given it's new, will lead to the old 6000 inane questions. The introduction of masks in different levels will confuse people around whether they're mandatory or voluntary.  Will people start freaking out about distancing again? Where does Auckland start and stop? Do planes fly? Can you conduct business? Do you leave town for a short break in Taupo? Is the Super Rugby still on? What about the election campaign?
In broader terms, is the same reaction coming every time we get a handful of cases?
The big question, of course, can we contact trace properly? PPE was a mess, the flu jab was a mess, if not a scandal as it was uncovered this week. The war footing was a con, the Medical Association said we don't have a hope in hell of rolling out a Covid vaccine.
And the really big question, how did this happen? Think about it, the borders have been closed for months, everyone entering is put in an isolation facility. There should be, has been, no community transmission. Who cocked it up?
A big day of questions and a sense of depressing deja vu.