Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby

Midwives want a seat at the table for boosting their work force in the long term. It comes after the Government launched their workforce action plan - aiming to fill more than 8,000 vacancies of doctors, nurses and other health staff. It includes boosting offshore recruitment, rural training, earn-as-you-learn schemes and wellbeing support. College of Midwives Chief Executive Alison Eddy told Francesca Rudkin midwifery has had one of the most significant shortages in the health sector. She says Government claims there's a 40 percent shortage but Eddy says it's likely higher. LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Health advocates are calling for mandatory consent education, throughout someone's high school years. It's often paired with health class, which isn't required past Year 10. However, Family Planning Director Fiona McNamara told Francesca Rudkin students should be learning about consent in schools, around 15 hours a year. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I like to have a good time, I let my hair down occasionally, and over the years I have by no means always behaved perfectly in public after a few drinks on a Friday night. I’ve worked in the media for 25 years after all, an industry that really can’t throw shade at anyone else’s Friday night mishaps. However, Wellington mayor Tory Whanau is likely wishing she had one less glass on Friday night. You know the story; apparently, she turned up to a restaurant with few drinks under her belt, had a meal and a few more drinks with a friend, and then made a bit of scene. Supposedly she said, “Do you know who I am” at some point to wait staff - although we’re not sure of the tone. Was it threatening, like in The Godfather? Comical? Or a genuine question? Then she accidently left without paying the bill - a miscommunication between friends.   Tory Whanau would have been just one of many, many people putting on a show in Wellington, and any other New Zealand town on Friday night. But she’s a public persona responsible f

Public health and nutrition experts are calling for a national food strategy to fix our obesity epidemic. The latest Healthy Food Environment report reveals 1/5 of preventable deaths are related to unhealthy diets. At the same time, one in eight children live in households where there's not enough to eat. Health Coalition Aotearoa Co-Chair Lisa Te Morenga told Francesca Rudkin Government hasn't made food safety a priority. She says not much progress has been made since governments started monitoring the safety of our food supply 12 years ago. LISTEN ABOVE    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Questions have been asked over whether the health system has the resources to deliver the changes to those suffering with cataracts. All New Zealanders with mild vision impairment from cataracts will now qualify for surgery under the new nationally consistent threshold, which removes what's known as the postcode lottery. This will enable approximately 3,500 more surgeries to be delivered. General Practice Chair Bryan Betty told Francesca Rudkin these are likely to be rolled out slowly. He says the issue is that if you put 2,000 - 3,000 people on a operating waiting list you have the be able to resource it. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Building consents are coming back to earth after record highs last year. Stats NZ says consents fell 11 percent in the year to May. Certified Builders Association Chief Executive Malcolm Fleming says homeowners are favouring doing up their own houses instead of building new ones. He told Francesca Rudkin that doesn't mean builders haven't been busy. Fleming says there was already existing high demand so builders have good workloads. LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The family of a French teenager killed by Police is calling for riots around the country to stop. France has seen its most violent riots and protests since 2018, following the death of a 17-year-old by police at a traffic stop. Thousands have been arrested since it started last week. Europe Correspondent Gavin Grey told Francesca Rudkin that 45-thousand Police Officers have been deployed across the country. He says the relatives of the dead 17-year-old want the riots to stop, and say they just want a re-evaluation of how Police carry arms.  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Time will tell whether a move to ease nursing shortages will be sustainable long-term. The Government has announced more than 800 additional clinical placements for nursing students, with 130 starting from the July and August intake. For the 2024 intake, Te Whatu Ora will work with nurse education providers to bring in another 700 placements. College of Nurses Aotearoa Executive Director Kate Weston told Francesca Rudkin that the country needs to increase its supply, but questions whether it will be sustainable. She says they'll need to see high quality placements but the other main concern is the considerable financial pressure on the university and polytech sectors. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Auckland Transport says it's been working hard to trim down the bus driver shortage. It's managed to cut it by 72% since its peak, and the agency only needs to recruit another 170 drivers. Auckland Transport Metro Optimisation Manager Richard Harrison says they've searched both locally and internationally for drivers. He told Francesca Rudkin that pay has been a key factor in getting people on board. He says the average wage is now 28 dollars an hour, with hopes that help from the Government can get that up to 30 dollars. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Saturday marked a year since the new heath system Te Whatu Ora kicked into gear. Twenty district health boards were abolished and replaced with a centralised system aimed at getting rid of our postcode lottery of health care.   A year ago, I wished the then Minister of Health Andrew Little good luck with his venture. Our health system had been under pressure way before the pandemic hit, and clearly needed an overhaul.  I liked the fact the government was taking a big swing at this and trying to make sure that New Zealander’s, regardless of where they lived, got the same services and healthcare. Us Kiwis love fairness!   But, for all the good intentions it turns out making changes as large as this, off the back of a pandemic which had further reduced an already depleted work force, may not have been such a great idea. Nor does it seem the transition was as considered or well executed as well as it needed to be.   A year later, it’s not obvious what has changed – except the automatic signature on the bottom of

If we ever needed proof this Government was one giant overlord of bureaucratic blow outs, it’s the estimated $1 billion blowout on establishment costs for Three Waters. It’s been reported now that “the cost of creating 10 new Water Services Entities over a transition period that now stretches to July 1st, 2026 is expected to reach $2 to $3 billion. The estimate before recent revisions to the plan was $1 to $2 billion.” But wait, there’s more. “The Crown is expected to foot additional costs in the first instance, costing taxpayers, but costs might ultimately be charged back to the new Water Services Entities, costing ratepayers,” it was reported. Ratepayers, that’s you and me. Us mugs who’re already facing rising rates. But there could be even more. “Official documents also showed further costs to the Crown would likely be required to operate the drinking water regulator, Taumata Arowai,” it says. “An extra $200 million in Crown costs is expected due to the later establishment date. And the fixed costs of esta

Single-use plastic items will be officially banned from shelves from tomorrow. It's the second step in the Government's plan to reduce plastic waste. Plastic cutlery, plates and bowls, cups, straws and produce bags will all be cut. Foodstuffs Sustainable Packaging Manager, Debra Goulding joined Kate Hawkesby. LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Time is ticking to fill up, before the fuel tax returns. The Government's relief package ends tomorrow, meaning petrol prices will rise around 29 cents a litre including GST. It'll still be substantially less than the peaks seen after Russia's Ukraine invasion in March last year which saw oil prices skyrocket. Gull NZ General Manager, Dave Bodger told Kate Hawkesby sales have been up, rather than manic. He says yesterday's sales were about 50 percent higher than usual, and expects today will be much like a regular pre-Christmas special. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A primary school principal claims their latest government offer is bittersweet. It includes a six percent base salary increase in July, and further rises next year. There's also lump sum payments and allowances for cultural leadership and professional coaching. Auckland's Laingholm School Principal Martyn Weatherill Kate Hawkesby says it's a step in the right direction - but there's still more to do. He says more funding is still needed for learning support. LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Try as we do to endlessly support the Police, they’re not making it very easy for us are they? This story of the citizen’s arrest this week irked a lot of people - and rightly so. If you missed it, a Christchurch business owner and some tradies tackled a thief to the ground after he allegedly stole motorcycle parts, he had an armload of stuff, they chased him, got him on the ground, held him down while they called Police. The guy was putting up a fight and was yelling apparently that if they called the cops he’d ‘go back to prison’. Some pause for thought there as to whether getting sent back to prison might be your motivator to not rob people in the first place, but that’s another story. So these guys call the cops, the Police ask if the offender has any weapons on him, when they say, not that they can see, the Police tell them to let him go. Let him go. An offender, caught red handed, in possession of stolen goods, let him go. They do, he runs off down the street, free as a bird. Now the Police here make a

Is Meta finally doing better at protecting kids online? The tech giant is adding new safeguards across Messenger and Instagram. It's the first time parental supervision tools will be connected to their instant messaging app. Tech commentator Paul Spain joined Kate Hawkesby. LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's D-Day for Let's Get Wellington Moving. The council will vote on a motion of no confidence today as seven councillors push for the programme to be scrapped. Yesterday, the capital's Mayor Tory Whanau rejected a compromise from the group. Diane Calvert is one of the councillors who's signed the motion - she joined Kate Hawkesby. LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Former President Donald Trump is trying to turn the tables on the advice columnist who won a $5 million jury award against him in a sexual abuse lawsuit, saying in a countersuit that she owes him money and a retraction for continuing to insist she was raped even after a jury declined to agree. Lawyers for the Republican presidential candidate filed papers late Tuesday saying E. Jean Carroll should pay Trump unspecified compensatory and punitive damages and retract her damaging statements. The countersuit comes a month after Carroll's lawyers filed a rewritten defamation lawsuit seeking at least $10 million more from Trump over comments he made after the jury verdict in May. The jury concluded after a two-week trial that Trump sexually abused Carroll in a luxury department store dressing room in spring 1996. It also found that he defamed her in comments he made denying the attack last October. But the jury rejected Carroll's claim, first made in a 2019 memoir, that Trump raped her in the Bergdorf Goodman dress

A new peak has been reached in our drunk driver fatalities. Last year, 111 people died in incidents where a driver was over the limit - up from the 53 seen in 2013. In the last five years, the highest numbers were recorded in Waikato, Auckland, and Northland. Crash Investigator and former Police officer, Hamish Piercy told Kate Hawkesby there's no doubt there has been a spike, but it's important to remember the legal limit changed in 2014. He says they made the limit zero for under 20s, and 250 micrograms per litre of breath for adults - meaning more people have potentially been captured in the statistics. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We are in for a bunch of cost increases over the next few weeks. I know, more. It’s not like we haven’t been facing a steady stream of rising costs for a while already, but a couple of things are coming up to bite us. One, the Government’s petrol subsidy is coming to an end this Saturday, which’ll see petrol prices jump by 29 cents a litre. That’s a lot, and it’ll hit hard in a cost of living crisis. Not just in our tanks, but it’ll be passed on across the board in terms of transport and logistics for pretty much everything we buy. Two, fruit and veges. That’s been rising steadily too, in fact food inflation is at its highest level in 36 years, according to a recent report. “Stats NZ’s food price index rose 12.5 percent in the year ended April, the highest annual rate since late 1987. The main drivers over the year were a 14 percent rise in grocery prices, and more than 22 percent for fruit and vegetables prices,” the report said - more than 22 percent.   That’s huge, and we know it because we see it in our t