The Panel

Acting Prime Minister Winston Peters has stamp on the position during his six weeks filing in for Jacinda Ardern. He's been prepared to criticise his own coalition Government policy, especially regarding the failure of the tobacco taxes. He said regions need a targeted share of GST, he got robustly stuck into Australia over both internment and the flag. The ANZ bank says business conficence is at a 10-year low. Conventional wisdom cites this is because a Labour-led government is in power. Part of this uncertainty is put down to a plan to increase the minimum wageto $20 an hour by 2021which has clearly hit confidence among small to medium employers. Today's Panelist Bernard Hickey is also a business commentator and tells us what he thinks is going on. The Auckland City Council has hired "thinkers" to offer up various future scenarios for New Zealand's biggest city. These go from a wonderful technological utopia to a poverty-stricken, crime-ridden dystopia. Are these kinds of reports of any use? The Council itself says our fast-changing world has meant that what we knew in 2012 no longer provides the necessary direction for decision-making. The Salvation Army's Alan Johnsonn also points out that future-vision of dystopia is happening now in parts of Auckland.

The Sunday Times once called Lennon and McCartney the greatest composers since Beethoven - and their songwriting has been prolific.

Sea salt, news pips and Auckland temperatures.

The population's growing but fewer people are being attracted into teaching. The president of the Educational Institute saying there'll be 40,000 more primary school children - practically all of them in the Auckland area. Lynda Stuart says it'll hit crisis point by 2030.

A case of foot-in-mouth disease for the UK's new Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt. At a meeting with the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi he said "My wife is Japanese " and quickly corrected himself to "My wife is Chinese". This has been viewed very dimly because of the long-standing strained relations between China and Japan.

Lucy Lawless on Twitter. "Truthfully, to those of you who ask, if I saw a NZer burning our flag, I would shrug my shoulders and think, Jeez, that person's really pissed at the govt. It would not offend my sense of identity one bit. I don't think I'm alone. May I ask how you all might feel?" And lots of people told Lucy, pretty politely from the look of the thread, what they thought.

Just how much support do young promising sports-people need and get? Professional basketball player Steven Adams in his new book says Basketball NZ didn't help him when he was trying to make it so he doesn't yearn to play for NZ.Fomer professional player Brendon Pongia agrees a lot of players are left to fend for themselves financially.

Listeners are very sympathetic to Julian Paton who's antique paino is having the ivory stripped from its keys by DoC. Julian talks to us again today about the listener feedback and a couple of offers he's had as well.

What the Panelists Michelle Boag and Mike Williams want to talk about.

National MP Chris Bishop says the woman heading the independent inquiry into the appointment of the Deputy Police Commissioner Wally Haumaha should stand down. It comes after the MP spotted 23 LinkedIn endorsements for Mr Haumaha by Dr Pauline Kingi who's heading the inquiry.