The Mike Hosking Breakfast

National is being advised to choose prospective MPs with more life experience in future.
Three women have complained to the party about Andrew Falloon sending them explicit images, and one other woman has gone to the media.
Former National MPs Jamie Lee-Ross and Todd Barclay have also suffered embarrassing falls from grace.
Political commentator David Farrar told Mike Hosking National needs to be more careful about candidate selection.
“It's very easy to say 'Here's a young guy with a future, they can do a good speech and wow the delegates', but maybe they should be asking if the candidate has enough life experience.”
Farrar says some young MPs think they know it all, and they've failed to take advice.
“They've decided to sort problems out themselves by doing things like; tape recording their staff or leaking health information.”
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National Party leader Judith Collins claims she has been given information about alleged "inappropriate behaviour" of a Labour Party minister.
Collins says she has passed it on to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and it was up to her to deal with it. The information was about a minister planning on staying in Parliament after the election, Collins said. The Prime Minister has just called an unexpected press conference in Wellington, due to begin at 11am.
Collins said the allegation was serious enough that if it were about a National MP, she would seek more information.
Collins' apparent tip-off came to light when she was speaking about former National MP Andrew Falloon, who quit Parliament on Tuesday after it was alleged he sent inappropriate messages to a young woman.
Asked by MediaWorks if she had "received anything about Labour ministers or Labour MPs", Collins replied: "I have actually".
"I have advised the Prime Minister and I have asked for anybody who has that information to send it directly to her," she said.
"I am not going to be indulging in any attacks on Labour on these things," she told MediaWorks.
"I spoke to the Prime Minister yesterday as we were coming out of Question Time. I asked to speak to her and I said I had received such a tip-off and I did not want to receive any information on it. I would be asking the person to send it directly to her. She has provided me with an email address for that and that has been passed on to the person who contacted me. I don't want to engage in this."
Asked about Collins' comments, Cabinet Minister Chris Hipkins told RNZ that it was a matter for the Prime Minister to comment on.
But he added that it seemed to be a contradiction for Collins to say she didn't want to get involved and then to put the matter into the public domain.
Collins disputed that she had thrown it into the public domain, saying on RNZ that she had been asked a direct question on the AM Show and she had answered it.
She said she had received an email from a member of the public yesterday and that led to her conversation with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern after Question Time.
"I don't want to go into detail but it was fairly inappropriate behaviour. I'm going to leave it up to the Prime Minister to deal with," Collins told RNZ.
It was about a current minister who was planning to stay on after the election, she said.
"This person is not my MP, and I thought she [Ardern] dealt with the matter relating to our MP well, and I'm not going to do anything other than treat this matter as something for her to deal with."
"I don't want us engaged in this. I want to focus on what matters to the people."
A spokesperson for Ardern said there was no comment to make at this stage.
Collins defended the initial framing of Falloon's inappropriate text messaging as a mental health issue, saying she had been "very concerned" for Falloon's
"One of my big concerns is that we would have a suicide," she told RNZ.
She arranged for Barbara Kuriger, the party's chief whip, to put Falloon on a plane to Christchurch, where he was collected by National's mental health spokesman Matt Doocey, who then drove Falloon to his parents' house in Ashburton.
Collins said what Falloon had done was "despicable", but he was "still a human being".
Collins yesterday condemned Falloon, calling him "a liar" and saying it had become apparent his actions were a "pattern of behaviour" with three more women coming forward yesterday to say they'd also received explicit images.
Falloon's political career began to unravel on June 30 when he sent a pornographic image - not of himself - to a university student. Police investigated but decided the matter didn't meet the threshold for prosecution.
The teen's parents then emailed Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's office on Wednesday, which sought permission to pass the matter onto Collins.
The...

Labour's two Coalition partners are officially at war, with NZ First saying the Greens are "away with the fairies" and the Greens hitting back today, saying NZ First are "an agent of chaos".
The veneer of Coalition collaboration has been stripped bare with less than nine weeks to the election and as both parties fight for their survival.
NZ First leader Winston Peters says the Greens are "away with the fairies" and Greens co-leader James Shaw hit back this morning.
"We've known for a long time, that the closer we got to election, the more likely it was that NZ First would start misbehaving," Shaw told Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking today. "We have just taken it in our stride really."
Labour had not been able to exercise any discipline over NZ First over the past three years, Shaw said.
"If you look at some of the difficulties that the Government has had over the last three years, a lot of them have come down to NZ First ankle-tapping them and blaming them for saying they can't get anything done.
"I know they like to say they are a force for moderation; it's more like an agent of chaos."
Peters yesterday took a swing at Labour, his coalition partner, and the Greens, warning that if the two parties were to join in a Coalition it would be a "nightmare".
"If you think a red-green [Labour-Greens] government is good for you, then you're in cloud cuckoo land," he said yesterday, going off-script.
"These people are away with the fairies," he said, referencing the Greens and their wealth tax policy.
Shaw told reporters: "In my experience over the last three years, NZ First has not been a moderating force, but a force for chaos."
He added: "Their organisational culture is chaotic."
Shaw told Hosking this morning that NZ First could have expressed its opposition to policies and issues - such as the rebate for electric vehicles - much earlier, saving public servants' time and taxpayer money. "They basically killed it off at the last minute after the public service wasted two years of effort. That's a familiar pattern."

Shaw said he was proud of what the Coalition had achieved in the past three years.

He did not think NZ First would be back in Parliament, based on current numbers, but the Greens would work with them again "if that's what it takes".
Peters said the Greens and Labour in power together without NZ First as an "insurance policy" would mean more tax for New Zealanders.
"They say they want to get close to you: they're right. [It's] so they can put their hand down the side of your body, and into your wallet."
But perhaps his most cutting blow was reserved for his Cabinet colleagues.

Deputy Prime Minister, Winston Peters says Labour-Greens government would be a disaster. Photo / Alex Burton
"I've been in this game a long time, and I've never had three years so difficult," Peters, who was first elected to Parliament in the late-1970s, said.
He added it was difficult to "manage circumstances when you're surrounded by plain inexperience".
Speaking to reporters outside the House yesterday afternoon, Peters doubled down on these comments.
Asked why a Labour-Greens government would be a nightmare, Peters said: "Because experience matters".
"I knew when we made the decision in 2017 that I was going into a Cabinet with a whole lot of people with no experience at all."
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was again forced to defend herself, and her ministers, from attacks from her Deputy Prime Minister.
Speaking to reporters yesterday, Ardern said her Deputy Prime Minister's comments were not fair.
Asked about the nightmare comments, Ardern said: "I think the Government that we have been over the last three years has been one focused on New Zealanders".
She said she put Peters comments down to "an election period".
"It's an election period and you will see parties starting to...

It seems a little bit ironic that we are busy this week dealing with the Chinese and trade when so much of the world wants to shun them.
The extradition treaty between Hong Kong and Britain is gone. Sanctions are coming the Chinese way from the Americans over Hong Kong
Britain has changed its mind on Huawei, no doubt because of the unrelenting pressure of the Americans.
The Australians are in an openly hostile on going exchange of insults and tariffs over the way the Chinese claim they are being treated
And don’t even scratch the surface on US relations in general and yet here we are at the annual NZ China business summit working out how we do ever more business with them.
The ambassador put it perfectly: stay out of our politics and we will get on fine. Which I think, if we were being honest about things, would be exactly what we’d like to do.
But we have an earnest if not slightly xenophobic government that likes to mix business with politics and ultimately the only loser will be us.
We are of course far too reliant on China. The trade deal done all those years ago has turned out to be spectacularly good for us, but at what prices?
The same questions and scenarios are applicable to a lot of other countries, so it’s not like we are in this by ourselves.
We apparently are still looking to sign up to part of the Belt and Road Vision. We openly look to expand opportunities, and yet the mess we currently find ourselves in is directly on the doorstep of China and I just don’t know how you can hide from it despite the fact they may want us to.
You get the British response to Hong Kong. That doesn’t have to be our issue, nor the plight of the Uighurs, but Covid came from China, and there seems little doubt they weren’t exactly ringing the alarm bells on day 1
Can we let them get away with that? Can anyone let them get away with that?
There are countries in Europe changing laws to prevent the Chinese takeover of strategic companies...now that the Chinese are out the other side of covid and cashed up and set to buy big
The Chinese are increasingly a global concern for a growing number of countries … is it really as easy as looking the other way as they ask? Or because we are so small are we so stuck now …we no longer have a choice.

Ronan Keating has long been a household name.
He made his name with Boyzone back in the 1990s - but has led a mega successful solo career ever since.
That includes global hits, becoming a judge on music shows, and even having his own radio show.
Now, he's got new music , and his latest album, Twenty Twenty, is out this Friday.
Keating joined Mike Hosking to discuss his new album, and raising a new baby during lockdown.
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Businesses around the country filled their coffers over the past two weeks.
But with the school holidays over, many are worried it won't be enough to keep them afloat during the economic downturn.
Ngāi Tahu Tourism chief executive Mike Pohio said business was better than expected over the school holidays.
"We couldn't have asked for better, but we are concerned as we go into the post-school holiday period, we are going to drop down to very, very low levels."
In May, the operator - one of the country's largest in the tourism industry - cut 300 jobs and put most of its businesses into hibernation, saying the domestic market alone would not be enough to sustain it.
But with increased demand over the July school holidays, Pohio said they had been able to rehire some of those staff, although he added it was still a difficult time for the company.
The school holidays have also been a boon for Queenstown's skifields, hotels, shops and other outlets.
Chairman of the sightseeing company Totally Tourism, Mark Quickfall, said lots of people who, given the choice, would have gone overseas for the holidays decided to come south instead. But he added the crisis was not over yet.
"Prior to Covid-19, we had 3.7 million visitor nights to Queenstown. Two and a half million of those were international visitors, so we're not going to make up for that until the borders open."
At Aoraki/Mt Cook, the newly-renovated Hermitage Hotel opened three months earlier than planned - in time for the school holidays - and was able to bring more staff on to support the busy period. Its general manager Jason Winter said guest numbers trumped expectations.
"To see the people come back, it just makes it all worth it again."
Aoraki Court manager Paul Lubas said the motel was usually 75 per cent full each winter night, but it was closer to 42 per cent recently.

Weary European Union leaders finally were closing in on an unprecedented 1.82 trillion euro ($2.1 trillion) budget and coronavirus recovery fund early Tuesday, somehow finding unity after four days and as many nights of fighting and wrangling over money and power in one of their longest summits ever.
To confront the biggest recession in its history, officials said the EU had as good as a consensus on a 750 billion euro coronavirus fund to be sent as loans and grants to the countries hit hardest by the virus. That comes on top of the seven-year 1 trillion euro EU budget. At first the grants were to total 500 billion euros, but the figure was brought down to 390 billion euros.
“There were extremely tense moments. said French President Emmanuel Macron, “But on content, things have moved forward.”
One EU official close to the talks said that “we are as good as there."
A diplomat from a big EU nation said the major issues had been dealt with, but that some member states were looking for final small concessions in the 7-year budget. A diplomat from another nation concurred but said such issues could still take a few hours. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks were still ongoing.
“An extraordinary situation demands extraordinary efforts," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said as the leaders pushed on with one of the bloc's longest summits ever. What was planned as a two-day summit scheduled to end Saturday was forced into two extra days by deep ideological differences among the 27 leaders.
Overall, spirits were high early Tuesday since the talks hit rock bottom Sunday night.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, defending the cause of a group of five wealthy northern nations — the Netherlands, Austria, Finland, Sweden and Denmark — was on the brink of securing limits to costs and imposing strict reform guarantees on any rescue plan for needy nations. It was the focal point of the marathon talks that started on Friday morning.
The coronavirus has sent the EU into a tailspin, killing around 135,000 of its citizens and plunging its economy into an estimated contraction of 8.3% this year. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez insisted the adoption of an ambitious plan was required as the health crisis continues to threaten the continent.
The bloc’s executive has proposed a 750 billion euro coronavirus fund, partly based on common borrowing, to be sent as loans and grants to the countries hit hardest by the virus. That comes on top of the seven-year 1 trillion euro EU budget that leaders had been haggling over for months even before the pandemic.
With Macron and Merkel negotiating as the closest of partners, the traditionally powerful Franco-German alliance could not get the quarreling nations in line for long.
The leaders mulled a proposal from the five wealthy northern nations that suggested a coronavirus recovery fund with 350 billion euros of grants and the same amount in loans. The five EU nations — nicknamed “the frugals” — had long opposed any grants at all, while the EU executive had proposed 500 billion euros.
The latest compromise proposal stands at 390 billion euros in grants.
All nations agree in principle they need to band together but the five richer countries in the north want strict controls on spending, while struggling southern nations like Spain and Italy say those conditions should be kept to a minimum. The five have been pushing for labor market and pension reforms to be linked to EU handouts and a “brake” enabling EU nations to monitor and, if necessary, halt projects that are being paid for by the recovery fund.
Rutte and others also wanted a link to be made between the handout of EU funds and the rule of law — a connection aimed at Poland and Hungary, countries with right-wing populist governments that many in the EU think are sliding away from democratic rule.
The diplomat from the major EU nation said that had been...

It has played host to some of the country's most famous sports games, but now New Zealand's home of rugby is set to become the country's centre of esports as the video gaming scene continues to grow across the world.
Eden Park is out to attract new audiences who may never have attended rugby or cricket at the Auckland venue while showcasing some of the country's top gamers on the world stage.
Advisory and investment firm Guinevere Capital has announced Eden Park as the home for New Zealand's first high-performance esports centre, which will give the best teams in Australia and New Zealand professional practice spaces, stream booths, broadcast capabilities and host weekly leagues as well as being a venue for esports events.
Guinevere Capital has played a pivotal role in the creation of two other groundbreaking esports performance facilities in iconic sports stadiums around the world, at the historic Sydney Cricket Ground, and Twickenham Stadium, the home of British rugby.


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Managing director of Guinevere Capital David Harris said the centre will be crucial for the development of the Oceania esports scene.
"The Eden Park esports high performance centre will be a melting pot of the Aust/NZ esports and gaming communities, where we can develop our esports science and training philosophies, and provide the infrastructure for players and streamers to hone their craft and build their brands," Harris said.
"Whilst esports is a hugely modern industry which brings a new brand of athlete, setting up a facility like this in Eden Park, which holds immense legacy and cultural significance, feels fitting. Esports is going to be a huge part of New Zealand's future, and we're proud that we get to be a part of that."
The facility is expected to open towards the end of 2020.
Teams such as Australia-based Dire Wolves, famed for its flagship League of Legends team, will use the new centre as a hub. Last week they launched a huge expansion of their organisation, including creating rosters in video games such as EA Sports Fifa, Overwatch, NBA 2K, and Valorant.
Dire Wolves is a team that has had a strong Kiwi presence in its League of Legends throughout the years, with its current roster featuring Ryan Short from Tauranga, Hamiltonian Andy Van der Vyver and Auckland duo Daniel Ealam and Ari-Greene Young.
The team also once contained Hamiltonian Quin Korebrits who now features for Legacy esports in the Oceanic Pro League.
While most sports were forced to cease operations during the Covid-19 lockdowns, esports was able to continue across the world thanks in part to competitions being able to be played remotely.


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Eden Park CEO Nick Saunter says the initiative will attract new audiences who may have never attended a rugby or cricket match at Eden Park, while showcasing some of the country's top gamers on the world stage.
"New Zealand's national stadium is iconic and at the centre of many special memories for both Kiwis and tourists around the world. The esports high performance centre will showcase Eden Park's ongoing ability to diversify, evolve, and be at the forefront of new technology," Sautner said.
Eden Park has been struggling financially, with the country's largest stadium operator, booking another loss last year, largely due to the loss of revenue from sports events.
According to the 2019 Eden Park Trust annual report, the yearly crowd numbers from sports events plummeted from 332,200 to 269,400.
The annual League of Legends world championship brought in more than 100 million viewers, including a peak of 44 million concurrent viewers, during the competition's final round on November 10.
The world championship has filled out stadiums across the world including the Beijing...

Scientists at Oxford University say their experimental coronavirus vaccine has been shown in an early trial to prompt a protective immune response in hundreds of people who got the shot.
British researchers first began testing the vaccine in April in about 1,000 people, half of whom got the experimental vaccine. Such early trials are designed to evaluate safety and see what kind of immune response was provoked, but can't tell if the vaccine truly protects.
In research published Monday in the journal Lancet, scientists said that they found their experimental COVID-19 vaccine produced a dual immune response in people aged 18 to 55 that lasted at least two months after they were immunized.
“We are seeing good immune response in almost everybody,” said Dr. Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute at Oxford University. “What this vaccine does particularly well is trigger both arms of the immune system,” he said.
Hill said that neutralizing antibodies are produced — molecules which are key to blocking infection. In addition, the vaccine also causes a reaction in the body's T-cells, which help by destroying cells that have been taken over by the virus.
The experimental COVID-19 vaccine caused minor side effects like fever, chills and muscle pain more often than in those who got a control meningitis vaccine.
Hill said that larger trials evaluating the vaccine's effectiveness, involving about 10,000 people in the U.K. as well as participants in South Africa and Brazil are still underway. Another trial is slated to start in the U.S. soon, aiming to enroll about 30,000 people.
How quickly scientists are able to determine the vaccine's effectiveness will depend largely on how much more transmission there is, but Hill estimated that if there were enough data to prove the vaccine's efficacy, immunization of some high-risk groups in Britain could begin in December.
He said the vaccine seemed to produce a comparable level of antibodies to those produced by people who recovered from a COVID-19 infection and hoped that the T-cell response would provide even more protection.
“There's increasing evidence that having a T-cell response as well as antibodies could be very important in controlling COVID-19,” Hill said. He suggested the immune response might be boosted after a second dose; in a small number of people, their trial tested two doses administered about four weeks apart.
Hill said Oxford's vaccine is designed to reduce disease and transmission. It uses a harmless virus — a chimpanzee cold virus, engineered so it can’t spread — to carry the coronavirus’ spike protein into the body, which should trigger an immune response.
Hill said Oxford has partnered with drugmaker AstraZeneca to produce their vaccine globally, and that the company has already committed to making 2 billion doses.
“Even 2 billion doses may not be enough,” he said, pointing to the ongoing surge of infections worldwide. “I think its going to be very difficult to control this pandemic without a vaccine.”
Hill said researchers were also considering conducting a “challenge” trial by the end of 2020, an ethically controversial test where participants would be deliberately infected with COVID-19 after being immunized to see if the vaccine is effective.
“This has been done before in 19 different infectious diseases to develop vaccines and drugs and is likely to happen for COVID-19 as well,” he said.
Numerous countries including Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy, U.S. and the U.K. have all signed deals to receive hundreds of millions of doses of the Oxford vaccine — which has not yet been licensed — with the first deliveries scheduled for the fall.
Chinese researchers also published a study on their experimental COVID-19 vaccine in the Lancet on Monday, using a similar technique as the Oxford scientists. They reported that in their study of about 500 people, an immune response was...

Britain suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong on Monday and blocked arms sales to the former British territory after China imposed a tough new national security law.
Amid growing tensions with Beijing, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told the House of Commons that he had concerns about the new law and alleged human rights abuses in China, particularly the treatment of the Uighur minority. He described the measures announced Monday as “reasonable and proportionate.″
“We will protect our vital interests,″ Raab said. “We will stand up for our values and we will hold China to its international obligations.″
Britain followed the example of the United States, Australia and Canada by suspending extradition agreements with Hong Kong, which became a special administrative region of China after the U.K. returned control of the territory to Beijing in 1997.
Events in Hong Kong are particularly sensitive for the British government because China agreed to a ``one country, two systems″ policy that was supposed to protect the economic and social traditions of the territory for 50 years after the handover.
Britain and other western nations believe the new security law threatens that agreement because it restricts free speech and erodes the judicial independence of Hong Kong. The law makes crimes such as promoting secession punishable by life in prison and allows some cases to be tried on the mainland.
This means people extradited to Hong Kong could end up being tried in mainland courts, Raab said.
The U.K. previously accused the Beijing government of a serious breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration under which Hong Kong was returned to China and announced it would open a special route to citizenship for up to 3 million eligible residents of the territory.
China’s decision to implement the security law on June 30 triggered widespread protests in Hong Kong. Police responded with water cannon, tear gas and hundreds of arrests.
The ban on arms sales extends an embargo that has been in place for mainland China since 1989. It means the government will not allow British companies to export potentially lethal weapons, their components or ammunition, as well as equipment that might be used for internal repression such as shackles, firearms and smoke grenades.
The measures announced Monday come less than a week after Britain backtracked on plans to give Chinese telecommunications company Huawei a role in the U.K.’s new high-speed mobile phone network.
The U.S. has lobbied its allies to shun Huawei because it says the Chinese government could use the company’s technology to spy on western nations. Huawei denies the allegations.
Beijing objected to the new measures even before they were formally announced by Raab.
China’s ambassador to Britain, Liu Xiaoming, on Sunday told the BBC that Britain was “dancing to the tune” of the U.S. and rejected the allegations of human rights abuses against the mainly-Muslim Uighur people.
He accused Western countries of trying to foment trouble with China.
“People say China (is) becoming very aggressive. That’s totally wrong,” he said. “China has not changed. It’s Western countries, headed by United States — they started this so-called new Cold War on China.”