The Mike Hosking Breakfast

The Children's Commissioner is lobbying for mandatory police vetting for anyone who works with children following revelations a convicted paedophile landed a job on kids' TV show What Now.
Judge Andrew Becroft said the shock news, revealed last week by the Herald, was "a deeply concerning situation and a salutary reminder of the high duty of care those who work with children have for ensuring their safety".
The man who was jailed several years ago for sexually abusing underage girls had access to at least 10 schools in his role on What Now, the Ministry of Education confirmed today.
No one carried out a police vet before hiring him on the show after his release from prison. His criminal past was only revealed when he was arrested last year on serious child sexual abuse material charges as part of a Customs investigation.
He was hired by production company Whitebait Media, which is co-owned by former What Now presenter and children's entertainer Jason Gunn.
The company has apologised for the vetting failure and the screen industry is now working to draft urgent vetting guidelines to ensure children are safe.
NZME, which publishes the Herald, has launched its own investigation after it emerged the media company had also contracted the man.
Judge Becroft told the Herald that under current legislation only "approved agencies" were legally required to vet employees, mostly government agencies.
The What Now case had exposed a serious flaw in the system and he wanted child protection laws strengthened to keep kids safe from predators.
"The time has come to review whether those obligations shouldn't be extended and made mandatory.
"Every organisation that works with children, either directly or indirectly, should ensure every employee has been police checked.
"It is not good enough to do the minimum – we expect high standards where children are involved."

Children's entertainer Jason Gunn is the co-owner of Whitebait Media which contracted the convicted paedophile to work on What Now. Photo / File
Judge Becroft said many non-approved organisations such as sporting clubs and church groups already vetted their employees and volunteers, but the requirement must be enshrined in law.
"It leaves too much to a technical interpretation and it leaves too much to chance. I think children deserve better.
"I support the urgent adoption of industry-wide best practice guidelines to help keep our children safe.
"As parents, we would rightly expect those working directly or indirectly with our children to have been safety checked."
Judge Becroft said clever and manipulative sexual predators were skilled at grooming vulnerable children for abuse.
He intended to raise the matter with Children's Minister Tracey Martin and Police Minister Stuart Nash, and make a submission to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse.
But making police vetting mandatory across industries meant the service must be provided free by the Government to organisations like church groups and charities which often had little money, Judge Becroft said.
In a statement, NZME said it was investigating the circumstances surrounding the engagement of the contractor.
"Initial inquiries have established that the company owned by the individual you have referred us to was contracted on several occasions to provide services for events supported by NZME. One of those events involved children and we have confirmed the individual did attend that event."
Risk assessments were carried out whenever NZME teams supported external events, including the requirement that no team member was left alone with children if an event involved minors.
"We have confirmed that in regard to the event you have referred us to the contractor was accompanied by an NZME staff member as directed by our risk assessment conditions.
"We fully support industry bodies on the efforts underway to...

The Waikato River Authority wants Auckland to pay for more water from the Waikato River and suggested up to 10 cents a litre, or $20 million a day.
Authority chief executive Bob Penter said the 10c per litre figure is a starting point aimed at trying to understand what Watercare will do to support the restoration and protection of the Waikato River.
He said it made sense for Watercare to make a financial contribution to improve the river, but the authority is open to hearing other ways that benefit the awa (river).
Auckland Mayor Phil Goff is opposed to paying for water, but told the Herald that Auckland could pay several million dollars towards remediating damage to the Waikato River.
The authority is an independent Crown and iwi voice acting on behalf of the river.
The pricing issue is contained in documents released to the Herald under the Official Information Act.
They reveal frustration and opposition from the Waikato River Authority to a move by Watercare to invoke emergency provisions under the Resource Management Act earlier this month to take an extra 25 million litres of water a day from the Waikato River.

Recent rain has seen Auckland's lake levels rise to 55 per cent full. Photo / Auckland Council
On June 18, Penter raised the issue of Auckland paying for water in an email to Watercare chief executive Raveen Jaduram
He asked Jaduram for his thoughts on a Watercare fund managed by the Waikato River Authority to fund restoration projects for the awa.
"The simplest form of fund calculation is a value per litre abstracted calculation.
"Labour in 2017 proposed a value for consumptive water use of up to 10 cents per litre - this is perhaps the upper end and we will be interested to hear where you believe the range sits," said Penter.



Today Penter said the 10 cents a litre figure was what Labour had put forward in discussions regarding Canterbury water in 2017.
He said the email was about the need to have a conversation with Watercare about its water-take aspirations and opportunities to support the restoration of the river.
Since 2011, Watercare has only contributed $266,000 towards planting programmes, Penter said.
Watercare declined to comment about the suggestion of paying for water.
It charges Aucklanders 0.001594 cents a litre for water, or $1.594 cents for 1000 litres. The water and wastewater charges from Watercare raise about $2m a day to provide drinking water and remove and treat wastewater.
The average household water bill is about $1000 a year.
Goff said approaches had been made at various stages for Auckland to pay for water, which is contrary to Government police and a claim before the Waitangi Tribunal.
"It is not our view we should be paying on a volumetric basis for water," he said.
However, Goff has given an undertaking "if we are taking more from the river we will put more back into it" and spelt out for the first time what form that could take.
He said a trust could be created with a "significant amount of money" running to several million dollars used to fund projects that would remediate damage to the river.
Goff said he would be happy to meet with interested parties from Waikato this week to look at ways of finding common ground.
The Herald understands one of the sticking points between Auckland Council and Waikato-Tainui has been a request by Waikato-Tainui for "usage-based funding" for water from the river.
A Waikato-Tainui spokesman said "no-one is advancing that position from Waikato-Tainui or the council".
Goff's request last week for the Government to fast-track the city's application to take an extra 200 million litres a day from the Waikato River has triggered a war of words between Auckland and Waikato leaders.
Waikato Regional Council yesterday called for an urgent summit to help find a "pragmatic solution" and today the Waikato...

Paula Bennett says it was inevitable she'd leave the National Party, as soon as she'd been rolled as deputy leader.
The colourful former Deputy Prime Minister is bowing out after a 15-year career in politics.
She lost her deputy slot to Nicki Kaye, when Todd Muller rolled Simon Bridges as National's leader last month.
Paula Bennett told Mike Hosking it took her a couple of weeks to make the call.
"I thought, am I ever going to have the kind of success which I had. I always wanted to leave with some dignity, so maybe this was the right time.'
Paula Bennett isn’t the only person now having to look for new opportunities.
Comedian Tom Sainsbury - who made a name for himself impersonating Bennett, told Mike Hosking he was taken aback by her decision.
He says Paula Bennett was his favourite, but he's sure he'll be able to come up with someone else to take over.
LISTEN ABOVE AS TOM SAINSBURY AND PAULA BENNETT SPEAK TO MIKE HOSKING

COMMENT:
Paula Bennett is all that's wrong with politics. Mind you, I said the same thing about Dame Jenny Shipley at the time.
Politics as a profession, as a means of making large decisions, and running countries leaves a tremendous amount to be desired. It's not like most jobs where recruiting is high quality, expectations are high quality, those who work hard and are driven and talented generally end up doing what they want with a decent number of people benefiting because of it.
Up until she got rolled, Bennett was potentially the Deputy Prime Minister, a senior Cabinet minister, and the chair of the upcoming election campaign for the National Party. After she got rolled, she is on her way out, over it, clearly aggrieved - and looking for a new life and a new start.
Nothing wrong with that, if the latter part of that is arrived at by yourself. You make your contribution, you have set goals, and you move on to new and fresh fields.
But that wasn't the plan. And it is so rarely the plan in politics because politics is hopelessly broken, and it mostly ends badly.
Dame Jenny Shipley, I distinctly remember, was the Prime Minister who lost the 1999 election. Not really because she wasn't up to much, but because the coalition which involved a bloke called Winston Peters had fallen apart, taken Jim Bolger with it and generally left the public with a desire for change.
One of the outworkings of that was Shipley was rolled and sent to the backbenches. Shortly after, she quit and moved back to the real world.
But the skills, experience and acumen that got her to the top didn't vanish with the election defeat, the same way what Bennett offered didn't vanish because Todd Muller came along. You don't go from being a leader to useless on a vote.
But sadly that appears to be the way politics is played and as a result you lose valuable talent.
The game relies on too many variables. It's not enough to be good, you have to be hellishly lucky as well. It has to be the right time, there have to be any number of compromises, trade offs, deals done, and you throw all of that in the great big pot of aspiration, and see what pops out at the end.
It's why people like Sir Geoffrey Palmer, David Cunliffe and Sir Bill English get to be leaders. It's not because they stand out or are obvious choices - they are compromises, last people standing, the only ones we can all agree on in difficult times.
But Bennett is of genuine value and use to her party, and she's now lost to them.
She won't miss them as much as they'll miss her. She will go on to do decent stuff and recover her normality.
But it's a shabby sad way to wrap 15 years, and like many before her she deserves a better conclusion.

Team New Zealand boss Grant Dalton says he came face-to-face with one of the alleged spies thought to be leaking vital information about the organisation.
Asked whether he confronted the would-be mole himself, he said: "Oh, absolutely."
"Something like that, quite simply, you ask the question: 'Were you the leak'? And of course you're going to get an answer: 'No'. And you're looking for body language et cetera.



"The body language was straight - you couldn't have told from that. But they realised the game was up at that stage and within 48 hours, we knew."
Dalton, speaking to Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking this morning, would not say how many people they thought might behind leak allegations, but confirmed that they were not dealing with a single person.
The interview comes after it was revealed yesterday that Emirates Team NZ had ended a contract after claims spies were caught leaking confidential information and spreading inaccurate allegations about the team.
The contractor involved has not been named.
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment - the lead agency staging the 36th America's Cup competition next year - confirmed last night that it was investigating claims relating to the organisation of the event.
Dalton said they were unsure whether the people involved had been planted or simply took the opportunity when they started working in and around the organisation.
"It's hard to believe it would be a plant. But you know, when you get inside an organisation like ours and you've got pretty much free access, you know, it can do things to people."
'Actions didn't feel right'
Dalton revealed members of the team became suspicious about December last year when actions did not feel what he described "team-dynamically right".
He described a plan that involved placing one of the people they were suspicious of into a smaller circle.

Team New Zealand's Peter Burling holds the Auld Mug with Glenn Ashby and Grant Dalton. Photo / Greg Bowker
"We placed one of them effectively inside the main organisation literally just outside my office in with some guys - obviously all our guys we trust, but [who] knew what the game was.
"Then once when I was informed effectively out of Europe, the game was up at that stage."
Dalton would not divulge exactly who those alleged spies were and said they were not 100 per cent sure about what information those involved got.
"But what I do know is that I think the game was up quicker than they expected simply because information that I knew could only come from one source was fed back to me from Europe."
Allegations of spying nothing to do with team itself
Dalton stressed that the allegations of spies had nothing to do with Team New Zealand itself and its members.
"But the event is housed in the same building. Maybe in hindsight, that's not the right way to do it.
"However, in a million years, you couldn't expect this was happening. Everybody else is straight as a die and here to hold on to the America's Cup.
"So, if there's a failing, it would simply be that probably we shouldn't have housed the two together," he told Hosking.
"But again, you just can't foresee this sort of thing. And you don't want to believe it until you have proof that it's true."
The situation is now being handled by the team's lawyers - whom they had spent days with, he said.
He did, however, say that Team NZ did not have any intention to take the matter any further at this point. But he acknowledged that was not necessarily their call.
"The bottom line is it's solved, we've done it, we've sorted it. We've had nothing but help from the Government. They've been brilliant through this, through the process.
"We've just got to finish that process off and get some new people and get on with it."

If you haven't seen the scenes in the Warriors dressing room after their match on Friday night, have a look.
Cameron Smith and Craig Bellamy of the Melbourne Storm are in there trying, I think unsuccessfully, to tell them it isn't the end of the world.
It looked like the end of the world, they lost in spectacular fashion.
When we talked to Richie Barnett last week and I suggested they might implode, I didn’t say that because I wanted that to happen, I said it because I have followed the side for over 25 years, and mental fragility, unfortunately, has been an Achilles heel for most of that time. And I saw no real reason to believe it wasn’t going to be something that might haunt them again.
Barnett suggested otherwise, sadly he was wrong.
The season is over. Even if they win again, even if they win again in outlandish spectacular fashion, which they probably will, this isn't their year. The owners in sacking Stephen Kearney have killed it, they finished it for them prematurely.  
Even if the plan is to hire someone and give them time to reshape and recruit, all of which makes sense, they do it at the expense of this season.
In some senses it's logical. What a mess of a year. As spectacular as the return is for the NRL, one of the first major sports to be back, the poor old Warriors had the biggest burden to carry. Being overseas, no family for months on end, it was always a big ask.
If Kearney's sacking had been a relief, it might be different, but he wasn’t. He was liked, admired, and his demise has clearly been the final straw. To lose is one thing, even to lose badly to a side like Melbourne, but to then have a bunch of your better, if not best, players saying they want to go home is all the proof required that 2020 will go down as the Warriors' worst of years.
Top level sport is psychological. They're all fit and talented, what makes the difference is the mindset. The set up the Warriors face would have tested anyone, far less a side that has rarely fired on all cylinders in the best of times, far less the worst.
I don’t blame the players. You could argue they're professionals and it's their job, but like all things in life there has to be a quid pro quo. To excel you need the right circumstances. Their circumstances are abysmal, and the past week they got worse.
It's going to be a hard watch. A beleaguered side turning out for the rest of the season to meet obligations and little more. The owners better have something pretty good for next year if they want the faithful to even contemplate sticking around.

Life as a politician may seem tough, but Judith Collins says she still enjoys her work.
The National MP and former minister has detailed all about her tenure in Parliament in her new memoir, Pull No Punches. 
The book is due out this week, but has already made headlines over one chapter in which Collins writes that she felt "absolutely hurt" after former Prime Minister John key stripped of the title "honourable," after she had been forced to resign shortly before the 2014 election.
Collins was forced to resign as a minister in 2014 after private third party emails surfaced from blogger Cameron Slater (Whale Oil) suggesting she may have been trying to undermine Serious Fraud Office chief executive Adam Feeley.
Speaking to Mike Hosking about why she brought this up during an election year, Collins says that she has no ill-will for Key, but that it was a tough time for her.
"It is important to set the record straight."
Collins also defended her stance on the Binnie Report into David Bain's compensation claim. Binnie found that Bain was innocent "on the balance of probabilities", but a later peer review by QC Robert Fisher found numerous errors in his findings.
Collins says that she did not know what she felt about the Bain case until she received the report from Binnie.
"I read it three times and I thought how could he come to those conclusions on those facts.
"Looking at the law and the facts, I didn't think I could do anything else."
While her time in the public eye has not always been easy, Collins told Hosking that she enjoys being a politician, particularly helping people in her electorate.
"For my work, I ask if I can make a positive difference most days, and the answer is yes." 
And she expects to stay in politics for some time, rating National as having a good chance at winning the election.
Collins says that she enjoys working with new party leadership Todd Muller and Nikki Kaye - and took a possible dig at former National leaders in the process.
"Even though we aren't always on the same page about everything, there is a tremendous amount of respect that's being shown to people, and I like working with people who respect others."

So where does all this lead? Think about that. 
As we speak, people all over Europe are going on holiday. It is summer, some borders are now open, planes are flying, tickets are being booked, and you can go on holiday.
IATA last week issued a warning for countries like ours that if we keep borders shut we run the risk of being left behind. There is, of course, self interest in that. They are desperate for planes to fly and normality to return.
But for a country like ours, for regions like Central Otago, this is crippling. And it shows no real signs of changing, maybe even this year. Forecasters have Air New Zealand back to 80 percent domestically by Christmas, but internationally, there are deserts full of planes going nowhere.
So once the borders are open and people start moving, we start missing out. So then the question is, what's the big picture? Do we have any sort of plan at all long term? And if so, what is it? What is it we are waiting for? The whole world to reach zero cases?
The clue, of course, is in our lack of action over Australia or the Pacific. We have a handful of cases in isolation, Australia has issues but in the grand scheme of things exceedingly small numbers. The Pacific is good to go and yet we aren't going.
How is it England, with thousands of cases, is off to Benidorm? How is it the good people of France are off to the Amalfi Coast? Because they've worked out that they may have to live with this thing, they may never beat it, and there may never be a vaccine.
Is that our plan? Wait for the vaccine before we open the border? And how long are we waiting? Do we still honestly believe there is a vaccine by September? We might have a years old inflammation treatment that will help, but not cure.
We have a few pills and potions they discover that have some sort of effect. But while all of these maybes unfold, still the borders are closed, and the economy is strangled.
If the whole world opens to some sort of degree, we have seen what happens, people get on with it. If they want to travel and they can, they will. If it doesn’t include us, then the only loser is us.
IATA are, at least, in part right. We run the very real risk of watching the world move on without us. What was the point of a great health outcome if the economic one is a catastrophe? For a country that needs, relies on, and is beholden to the world, that's a disaster.

More and more businesses are feeling vulnerable to scams and fraud.
A KPMG Australian report has found more than 80 per cent of senior executives think their business is vulnerable.
In New Zealand, $10.8 million has been allocated for the Serious Fraud Office to tackle serious financial crime and corruption over the next four years.
Gorilla Technology chief executive Paul Spain told Mike Hosking there's a big uptick at the moment.
"That's impacted by staff being displaced, people being so focused on other things, that attention isn't being given to monitoring fraud."
He says many public entities have been coming under attack recently.
"Part of the reason for that is the huge increase in the amount of money that they are actually demanding in those cyber fraud situations, which in some cases are 10 times more than what they would have been even 18 months ago."

Victoria’s Premier Dan Andrews has issued a stark warning to those in virus hot spots refusing to take a coronavirus test, floating the idea of parts of the state going back into strict lockdown.
“If we have to further limit movement in some of those suburbs, so for instance, a stay at home order — much like we all, as a community, had to endure for what felt like the longest of times — if that is deemed the appropriate public health response, then that is what we‘ll do,” he told media this morning.
“We’ll do it if we need to.”
 “I’m not announcing that today … I’m hoping it doesn’t get to that.
“But it is another reminder that if people in those communities come forward and get tested, that will make it less likely that we need to move to those sorts of restrictions being reimposed.
“If someone knocks on your door, take the test.”
Victoria recorded 49 new cases overnight.
Almost 24,000 homes have been doorknocked with 1000 boots on the ground, according to Victoria Minister for Health Jenny Mikakos.
However, people are still refusing testing.
“It (swab testing) is not necessarily the most pleasant experience, but it is a powerful thing that you can do and it makes a massive difference for all of us,” Mr Andrews said.
With new saliva tests being rolled out as of today, authorities are hopeful that more people will accept this less invasive style of test.
“The saliva testing is also starting, not just in our hotel quarantine today, but also in our priority suburbs,” Ms Mikakos said.
“So please be tested for yourself and for your loved ones. Even if you have very mild symptoms, and this is a very contagious virus and you could — contagious virus and you could give it to the ones you love the most.”
Premier Andrews encouraged people to do the right thing.
“This is not over and there are thousands and thousands of people working day and night,” he said.
“Please work with us, please do the right thing, please follow the rules, please get tested. That is the key message.
“It is not over. It is with us for months and months until we get a vaccine. I take no joy in having to be as direct as that, but it is not over, and the fact you wanted to be over is no excuse for behaving badly.”