The Mike Hosking Breakfast

The Chinese ambassador to Britain accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday of meddling in China's affairs by offering citizenship to 3 million people from Hong Kong following the imposition of a national security law.
Ambassador Liu Xiaoming defended his country’s new national security law against accusations it's aimed at eroding Hong Kong's considerable autonomy and curbing dissent. Liu pointed out that the U.K. handed control of the city that was a British colony for more than a century back to Beijing in 1997.
“This move constitutes a gross interference in China’s internal affairs and openly tramples on the basic norms governing international relations,’’ the ambassador said of the British citizenship offer, adding that the Chinese side has expressed “its great concern and strong opposition.’’
Johnson introduced the new visa and citizenship route for certain Hong Kong residents last week after deciding China had committed a “clear and serious breach” of the Sino-British Joint Declaration that set out the transition when Hong Kong was returned to China.
Johnson's Downing Street office also urged China not to interfere if Hong Kong residents who are eligible to reside and seek citizenship in the U.K. want to come and said the government was “also reviewing extradition arrangements with Hong Kong.''
The conflict over Britain’s response to developments in Hong Kong has soured relations with China, the world’s second-largest economy, at a time when Johnson’s government wants new trading relationships following the U.K.'s exit from the European Union.
The national security law China imposed last week makes secessionist, subversive, or terrorist activities illegal, as well as foreign intervention in the city’s internal affairs. Activities such as shouting slogans or holding up banners and flags calling for the city’s independence are violations of the law regardless of whether violence is used.
China argues the measure was needed to quell lawlessness and rioting. But there are signs the law is chilling free speech in Hong Kong after the city’s public libraries pulled books written by pro-democracy figures from shelves. Authorities said the books were being reviewed in light of the new legislation.
When a reporter asked China's envoy to Britain during a news conference Monday about books being removed, Liu replied that it “depends on what the book is about.″
If a book aims to incite secession or subversion, “you know that will be tantamount to a kind of crime,″ he said.
During his news conference, Liu also needled British officials about reconsidering their decision to grant Chinese tech giant Huawei a limited role supplying new high-speed network equipment to wireless carriers. Britain is reportedly poised to backtrack on the initial approval following U.S. government warnings that it would sever an intelligence-sharing arrangement if the U.K. did not ban Huawei.
Liu said that “Britain can only be great’’ when it has an independent foreign policy and that it sets a bad precedent to “make your policy in the morning and change it in evening.’’ He said that while he believed Huawei would simply do business elsewhere, other Chinese companies might think twice about investment into the U.K.
“It also sends out a very bad message to the China business community,’’ he said. “They are all watching how you handle Huawei.’’
Adding to Sino-British tensions, British regulators are weighing a punishment for China’s state broadcaster. CGTN, after upholding a complaint that it broke broadcasting rules by airing a forced confession from Peter Humphrey, a British corporate investigator imprisoned for two years in China.
The U.K.'s broadcasting watchdog, Ofcom, said Monday that CGTN committed a “serious” breach of broadcasting rules when it aired two programs with the footage and is putting the channel “on notice” that it plans to impose sanctions, which could include a...

Bold boycott moves against Facebook could create change.
News company Stuff is joining hundreds of global companies by stopping all content across Facebook and Instagram.
University of East Anglia media law lecturer Paul Bernal told Mike Yardley cutting their advertising spend is one thing, but this decision could change where the audience is.
"If a person sources their content outside of the Facebook platform, that could drastically hit their audience numbers."
Bernal says governments need to show accountability as well.
"When government officials use Facebook for their broadcasts, it creates dependence which the social media platform can rely on.
LISTEN ABOVE

The school holidays are expected to provide another challenge for hotels running managed isolation or quarantine facilities.
Projections show by the end of the week, there'll be more people coming into the country than rooms available.
Colliers national director of hotels, Dean Humphries, told Mike Yardley it's a juggle for hotels which have signed contracts to run isolation facilities, so have to move regular guests to other accommodation.
"For some it might not be a great outcome with guests have to be moved, there are still plenty of hotel rooms in the country."
Humphries says there are 27,000 hotel rooms in the country and the Ministry of Health's only using five or six-thousand of them.
"Hotels need a lot of health and safety tuition, clinical staff and security, mobilising these resources, which will be challenging, particularly during school holidays."
LISTEN ABOVE
 

The NSW-Victoria border will shut on Wednesday night with residents from 36 hot spots in Melbourne already banned from travelling north.
NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard has amended the Covid-19 interstate hot spot order to include residents from Greater Melbourne's 36 local government areas.
The order is in force from 12.01am today, July 7.
The health department said: "This means they will only be able to enter NSW for very limited reasons, such as obtaining medical care, or fulfilling a legal obligation."



"Come midnight tonight, for the next 24 hours, the hot spots will extend to all of Melbourne so nobody from Melbourne will be able to cross the border in the next 24 hours," NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said on Monday.
"But come midnight tomorrow night, it will be all Victorians."
The NSW-Victoria border will close from 12.01am on Wednesday, July 8.
"The requirement for NSW residents returning from Melbourne hot spots to self-isolate for 14 days will then be extended to anyone returning from Victoria. Heavy penalties and fines apply," the health minister's office said.
"Provisions will be in place for residents of border regions, such as Albury-Wodonga."
Ten healthcare workers have been diagnosed with Covid-19 in the past week in Victoria.
This includes three new cases in staff from separate hospitals, among the 127 infections announced on Monday, the Age reports.
The Department of Health and Human Services said one case was a healthcare worker at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, considered "a close contact of a known case".
The hospital said the case is a nurse in the acute medical unit.
The DHHS said another was a healthcare worker at the Alfred Hospital.
"It's believed the worker attended the site while infectious," it said in a statement.
"Contact tracing is under way and the department is working closely with the hospital to ensure all appropriate public health actions are taken."
A healthcare worker at the Joan Kirner Women's and Children's Hospital at Sunshine Hospital has also reportedly tested positive for Covid-19, along with seven in the Northern Hospital emergency department.

Police and Ambulance services at the front of Flemington public housing flats in Melbourne. Photo / Asanka Ratnayake, Getty Images
Australia has recorded a total 8397 cases of Covid-19, with 3240 in New South Wales, 2660 in Victoria, 1067 in Queensland, 443 in South Australia, 621 in Western Australia, 228 in Tasmania, 108 in the Australian Capital Territory and 30 in the Northern Territory.
Australia's coronavirus death toll is 106.
There were 140 new cases of Covid-19 recorded across Australia in the 24 hours to 9pm on Monday, according to federal health department figures.
Of these, 127 were in Victoria – the largest daily increase in the state since the pandemic began.
There were 10 cases recorded in New South Wales and three in Western Australia but all 13 diagnosed are travellers in hotel quarantine.
"The new cases are all returned overseas travellers who flew into Perth on July 2," WA Health said.
Later on Monday, NSW Health said it was investigating after two suspected cases of Covid-19 returned positive results on preliminary testing in Albury.
"Further testing is under way while, as a precaution, close contacts have been identified and placed in isolation," the health department said.

Just as we’ve got over last month’s shameful border bungle, a la Thelma and Louise; faceless, nameless public officials continue to make a joke of their jobs and our security.
I’m a fair-minded person and I have no beef with bureaucracy over the Pullman Hotel bust out. It’s the fence-jumping fugitive that must cop the consequences and the full force of the courts for that feckless escapade. We can’t turn our hotels into razor-wired prisons for managed isolation. So I give our officials a pass on that one.
But someone must take the rap for the egregious security breach of Covid positive patient data. You would hope such a spreadsheet is password locked with highly restricted access. You would hope. Someone must be sacked for that confidence -destroying breach – and perhaps prosecuted, too.
Then just yesterday, the Keystone cops caper continued with the risible case of the Kiwi in managed isolation with a missing Covid test. Nicole Green had served her fourteen days but still wasn’t allowed to leave because her day twelve test had gone awol. The Northern DHB’s dopey system doesn’t register the swabs in the database at the point of collection, so lord knows what happened to Nicole’s nasal swab.
But the most lamentable blow to public faith in our public services emanates from the youth justice facility supposed to be a keeping a teenage killer under lock and key. And after Haami Hanara escaped with his mate from Korowai Manaaki, neither the facility or the police alerted the public to this dangerous offender on the loose for more than twenty four hours. What’s worse, Korowai Manaaki didn’t even notice these two were missing for eighty minutes. And they took a further forty minutes before they bothered to call the police.
An epic failure to protect and an epic failure to inform. And you may have heard, these rogue roosters escaped through the same window that previous escapees have busted out. How about a bars few around the window? This is not Korowai Kindergarten.
But despite this latest spate of clangers, don’t bother waiting for any real sense of accountability or consequences to emerge, from any of these agencies. Hello Snowballs. Hello Hell.

It’s been revealed that Auckland's drinking water pipes are leaking at least 50 million litres a day, far more than residents have been asked to conserve during the shortage.
Watercare don't actually know how much water has leaked over the past five months - there was a huge increase in pipe breakages because of the bone-dry ground. Yet Aucklanders have been directed to save 30 million litres a day, when over 50 million litres is wasted away through leaks.
For context, the entire city of Dunedin uses 40 million litres a day, less than what Auckland is wasting in leakages.
Watercare’s chief executive Raveen Jaduram admits they aren’t even meeting their own leakage target, which is 13 per cent or less.
But if you think 13 per cent sounds egregious, many towns and cities around New Zealand average 18 per cent in leaked water supply.
Living in Christchurch, in my hometown, it’s an undiluted dog’s breakfast. And you only have to note how many water main blowouts get mentioned virtually every day, every week on Time Saver Traffic, to realise how much water is literally running down the drain.
Last year, the Christchurch City Council estimates they lost 9 billion litres of water through leaks and broken pipes and faults. That's the equivalent of 70 Olympic-size swimming pools a week.
So Auckland loses at least 50 million litres a day. Christchurch loses 26 million a day. But in Christchurch, that represents a loss rate of eighteen point four per cent through leaks. The council is promising to do better. Their target for this year is to only lose fifteen per cent. You can’t make this stuff up.
What a potent metaphor for council waste at its most gratuitous. The squander. The neglect.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if councils, up and down the country, actually invested properly in the three waters, in half decent pipe renewals, half decent water supply infrastructure, with the same fervour and obsession they that reserve for their vanity projects and their fripperies. Their cycleways and slow roads, their non-essential off-piste self-glorification spend ups.

Speeding cars in Flaxmere could be getting a paintball bullet makeover if one councillor has his way.
Henare O'Keefe says the community needs to take the streets back from speeding drivers.
He told Mike Yardley paint guns could be used to mark and identify the culprits for Police.
"Then you can pick them up a couple of days later.
"My understanding is this is a system used by the Police in Japan."
However, O'Keefe concedes the idea may not work here.
"It's got people talking about it, and it's generated discussion, so hopefully with all that discussion, whether pro or anti, we may get some solutions."
O'Keefe also suggests a rally of Police cars could go around hot spots to "send a signal to troublemakers".

Labour's latest economic recovery plan is being described by an economist as mostly just catchphrases and slogans.
Their five step plan includes investing in people, creating jobs - and positioning New Zealand on the world stage - under the slogan Let's Keep Moving.
Independent economist Cameron Bagrie told Mike Yardley he likes how money's being put into apprenticeship style schemes and the fact $30 million has been given to the Commerce Commission in the budget.
But he says they need to be able to deliver.
"Now we're in that sort of stage, you've got to see execution, you've got to see a bit of the substance, and what we're still seeing is this exasperation but there's not a lot of substance behind the scenes at a whole lot of levels."
Principal economist Peter Wilson from the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research agreeing, telling Mike Yardley we need to see more details.
"A lot of the Government's job proposals seem to be about spending a lot of money building things out of concrete or sending people out into the bush to clean up the environment. Neither of those are really long term positions."

Three of our biggest seafood companies believe cameras on fishing boats could clear the name of the industry.
Moana, Sanford and Sealord have broken ranks with the rest of the sector, and declared their support for cameras on boats.
Sanford chief executive Volker Kuntzsch told Mike Yardley it could wipe misconceptions around endangered marine life.
"We have things like the Maui dolphin on the west coast on the North Island where we want to highlight that it's not the fishing industry leading to higher mortalities."
However, he says a lot of questions remain - including who covers costs, and who has access to the footage.
Kuntzsch says most of the detail still needs to be worked through.
"We don't have a problem with cameras on our vessels, but we need to sort out somehow what kind of camera we want, who is going to pay for it, do we want as many as 30 on a factory trawler for example."

Thousands of Labour Party members were huddled around their laptops and hovering over their smartphones on Saturday. There was an air of much excitement and great anticipation.
The true-believers were waiting for an email to land in their inboxes that would reveal Labour’s brand new campaign slogan. Let’s Keep Moving.
I’ve never put much stock in campaign slogans, but for the party base it’s a big deal. Maybe the attention span of some of their prospective voters only extends to three words.
But the problem I have with this new slogan is the fact that’s wide open to ridicule. And I’m not talking about the fact that it sounds like a Richard Simmons jazzercize show, circa 1985.
As the successor to Let’s Do This, Let’s Keep Moving presupposes that New Zealand has been moving swimmingly, that we’ve been on a roll, with a high-performing transformational government racking up a wave of achievements. The reality of course is their trophy cabinet is pretty bare.
Economically or socially, the well-being report card isn’t flash.  
With a spluttering economy even before Covid, the failure to deliver meaningful runs on the board, material progress or greater prosperity undermines the credibility of any clarion call to let’s keep moving.
Even before Covid, under Labour’s watch, the dole queues had jumped by a further 30,000 people.
In her key note address to the party Congress yesterday, the intriguing centrepiece of the speech was Cleaning up our Waterways, with two thousand Jobs for Nature. It seems a very flimsy offering as the big takeaway, the bug nugget to anchor a key-note speech. Labour’s 5 Point Economic Plan, like “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs”, currently resembles a loose assortment of glib slogans.
Yes, Jacinda Ardern is a very savvy communicator. She knows how to sell the sausage, even when the product struggles to pass muster.
But I just wonder if Labour is pinning its hopes on the notion that most voters have very short term memories. And a dope referendum thrown in for good measure. Is Labour punting that voters will only judge their record on the past three months, not the past three years? Managing the Covid Crisis is a potent consideration, but it’s certainly not the sole measure.