Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby

I’m feeling for the South Island this morning, who really shouldn’t be here, but here we all are.  They have a right to be more frustrated than anyone. And even though we had suspicions short and sharp would be no such thing, this seems a stretch for the South Island with zero cases. And every week this goes on, it’s more dire for us economically. Which makes me wonder what the handful of commentators saying the economy is in robust shape for this, are basing that on. If it’s based on printing more money, then your economic bar is very low. If it involves us all rushing out post lockdown and buying more cars and houses, I think that’s misreading the room.  This is different; Delta has changed everything.  Inflationary pressures are mounting, economic gains have stalled, we have no collective faith that we will stay out of lockdowns based on the Government’s flawed elimination strategy, people’s confidence will be more negatively affected this time round. If it’s based on borrowing more, how much more before i

A steady hand is calling for calm amid Parliament being suspended for a week due to Covid-19 restrictions. Select committees will still go ahead online. However, there have been calls for the Epidemic Response Committee to be reinstated in order to ensure the Government is being held to account. But Wellington Barrister Graeme Edgeler told Kate Hawkesby it’s not the end of the world. "They can wait a week; Parliament didn't sit last week. Parliament didn't sit for three weeks in July, it's a week's delay.' LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A call for employers to cut their staff some slack as they juggle their responsibilities. Under Alert Level 4, the majority of kiwis are working from home.  Working parent advocate Emma McLean told Kate Hawkesby employers need to have realistic expectations. "They wouldn't expect us to turn up to work with our three children, yet they're expecting us to work just like we do we don't have them when we're at home, so there's got to be allowances." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Some South Island businesses have been left frustrated.Auckland will stay in Alert Level Four until at least next Tuesday while the rest of the country will stay in lockdown until at least this Friday.That's despite no community cases being detected in any South Island towns or cities.Business South Chief Executive Mike Collins Kate Hawkesby says there are businesses still feeling the pinch from previous Alert Level changes."I was just talking to the teams over in Queenstown the other day and they're really, really struggling. The wage subsidy is a great addition, but at the same time, it's not sustainable for the future, it doesn't cover all of the costs."LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Australian Prime Minister's plan to reopen the country at a 70-80 per cent vaccination rate and treat the Delta variant "like the flu" has been slammed as dangerous and reckless by some of the nation's top health and economic researchers.According to modelling from the Australian National University, if Scott Morrison's current coronavirus plan proceeds, tens of thousands Australians will likely die and hundreds of thousands will likely develop cases of long Covid."We found substantial morbidity and mortality is likely to occur if the Australian government sticks to the national plan," ANU economics professor and study co-author Professor Quentin Grafton said.If Australia reopens with 70 per cent of Australians aged over 16 fully vaccinated, there could eventually be 6.9 million cases of Covid-19, 154,000 hospitalisations, and 29,000 fatalities, Grafton said."We simply can't afford to do that, both in terms of lives and long-term illness from Covid."And even if the PM waits until 80 per cent of the adult

The one thing this government needs to start doing real quick is getting honest. Fewer and fewer people are tolerating the smoke and mirrors, the spin, the fudging. The best example of this was Friday’s press conference where Ashley Bloomfield admitted he’d advised Cabinet that Auckland should in fact stay in Level 4 until August 31st. The PM equivocating on this only does us, and her, a disservice.It’s dishonest because we all know as of today, odds on she'll announce Auckland's indeed staying in level 4 until August 31st.So why did she drag that news out? Why would she not want to give businesses, families, schools, some certainty in extremely uncertain times? Why don’t we get all the facts when they have them?Instead of some government controlled timeline? Is this micromanaging of when we get information a control thing? What’s the point in being disingenuous with people who are already feeling uncertain? It's treating us with contempt to leave us in an information vacuum, until it suits you politically to

Don't dream, it's over.The Warriors still have a mathematical chance, but their playoff chances are out of their own hands after an agonising 24-22 loss to the Broncos tonight.The Auckland club will need to rely on some improbable results from the teams around them, even if they win both of their remaining games.Although the Warriors have showed great spirit with their late-season revival, this was a massive opportunity lost.They led 14-12 with 25 minutes to play, after burning back from 12-4 down, but were guilty of switching off twice as Albert Kelly and Anthony Milford scored opportunist tries for the Broncos.Still they could have forced extra time, after a 77th-minute Euan Aitken try, but Reece Walsh missed the conversion, then was just wide with an audacious two-point field goal attempt with 30 seconds to play.Goal kicking made the difference on the scoreboard, with Walsh missing four from five attempts, though they were all from out wide.But that's tough on the teenager. As a team the Warriors slipped f

A 24-year-old in the US has spent six years creating AI that helps users draft legal letters.If you tell the chatbot what your problem is, it will let you know what legal language to use.Do Not Pay creator Joshua Browder says the cases it's designed to help for are not rocket science to get out of."What the robot lawyer will do is talk to the user, and instantly match it with a legally correct defence, take down a few details and then use all of that, generate an appeal letter to send off to the right place."LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tony Blair, the British prime minister who deployed troops to Afghanistan 20 years ago after the 9/11 attacks, says the U.S. decision to withdraw from the country has “every Jihadist group round the world cheering.”In a lengthy essay posted on his website late Saturday, the former Labour Party leader said the sudden and chaotic pullout that allowed the Taliban to reclaim power risked undermining everything that had been achieved in Afghanistan over the past two decades, including advances in living standards and the education of girls."The abandonment of Afghanistan and its people is tragic, dangerous, unnecessary, not in their interests and not in ours,” said Blair who served as prime minister during 1997-2007, a period that also saw him back the U.S.-led war in Iraq in 2003.“The world is now uncertain of where the West stands because it is so obvious that the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan in this way was driven not by grand strategy but by politics," he added.Blair also accused U.S. President Joe Bi

The hospitality sector has questions about enforcement of the Covid tracer app.The Government's making scanning or manually signing in compulsory, in the hope to improve contact tracing.It will apply to businesses and events, and come into effect seven days after the next change in Alert Level.Hospitality New Zealand chief executive Julie White told Kate Hawkesby they still don't know how it will be enforced and what happens with non-compliance.“It’s going to be essentially a cost to the business by then refusing entry if someone comes in. And then you’ve got the added stress on the workforce.”LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I talked at the start this week about crime in the CBDs and how it’s on the rise, dangerously so.  Businesses are exasperated, retailers are at their wit’s end, city dwellers are fed up. And it’s not like the people running these inner-city business associations haven’t been agitating for action here.  They have, as I said earlier this week, been flagging this for more than a year now.  It‘s not new. And yesterday, frustrated beyond measure, central Auckland business associations sent an open letter to the PM.  It barely got media coverage, which was annoying but not surprising, it was after all, critical of the lack of government response on this over many, many months. But the lack of any response from government is not new either.  If I had a dollar for every person who comes on this show from various sectors and industries saying they’ve tried to get engagement from the government and failed, I’d have a fortune.  And bear in mind, this is all predating this Delta outbreak which many will argue will now be

Children aged 12 to 15 can get the jab from the start of next month, but there might still be a barrier in their way. Parents and caregivers who are already eligible, can bring their children with them before then. But, Waikato University legal expert Claire Breen told Kate Hawkesby a Ministry of Health Covid survey found some parents are still hesitant about vaccinating their children. "About 16 percent of those parents of 12 - 15 year olds said they definitely wouldn't allow it, and that's up from 10 percent a couple of months prior to that." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chances are you've already asked this question to close friends and family. 'Are you getting the Covid vaccine'?   Sometimes it feels like you've started talking about religion and politics at the dinner table.  It really can divide some people. But it does beg another question, whether or not it's okay to ask?  Tim Dare is a medical ethicist at Auckland University and he told Kate Hawkesby creating narratives around subjects like this can do more harm than good. “We ought not to create the impression that this is something which is extremely sensitive like those stereotypes of religion and politics.” LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A Hamilton community service expected to pick up 500 kg's of unwanted food yesterday from the likes of restaurants and cafes to redistribute.  It ended up collecting two tonnes, which has been redirected to feed crisis centres throughout the city. It's called Kaivolution and started up just before last lockdown. Manager Jo Wrigley told Kate Hawkesby Delta has made their job even tougher than previously. “There’s an awareness about how contagious or how easily transmittable it is, so trying to keep that distance while doing the thing.” LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This time yesterday I was saying how hopefully this lockdown would be short and sharp. Oh how much can change in 24 hours, that now looks like a pipe dream. But I was trying to stay optimistic, take it one day at a time, have a good attitude about it. But then I saw the 1 o’clock update. Oh my gosh. It brought everything back didn’t it? I tried, I really did, but I wanted to stick needles in my eyes by about 4 minutes in. I’d forgotten how soul destroying it is to be spoken to like a 3-year-old. I also felt exasperated that the press gallery seem to have all had lobotomies and are unable to ask a single probing question. Not one.  I understand this has come from the top down. The PM apparently has issued instructions on how these 1pm pressers are to go, they have to play by the rules, and the rules appear to include only getting your question answered if your question is an easy one.  Like, 'remind us again Prime Minister of what people should be doing in their bubbles? Or, ‘could you tell the NZ public again

An economist says an Official Cash Rate rise in October is on the cards, but it depends on how this Covid-19 outbreak goes. So far, ten people have tested positive for the virus, but early modelling shows 50 to 120 people could've been infected before the lockdown. The Reserve Bank has kept the OCR at 0.25 percent because of Alert Level Four. NZIER principal economist Christina Leung told Kate Hawkesby you only have to look across the Tasman to see how quickly things can change. "We can see there's a resilience in the economy, however, having a community outbreak does throw a lot of uncertainty over the outlook, the fact that businesses have to close at short notice." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thousands of people who visited locations of interest will need to get tested for Covid-19 over the coming days. Otago University Professor of Biochemistry Kurt Krause told Kate Hawkesby it's crucial that people get tested, as soon as they can. "It's so important not to let this wait, because the Delta variant is much more rapidly transmissible, and if we wait too long then we could get behind." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Frustration is growing around frontline police not being made a vaccination priority. Police Association President Chris Cahill believes this is a breach of work safe legislation, and they’re looking at legal action. Lawyer Chris Patterson told Kate Hawkesby the union definitely has a leg to stand on, in the eyes of the law. "All employers, which includes the New Zealand Police because they are an employer, have to take all reasonable, practical steps to ensure that every employee is protected from harm." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Did you, like me, feel your heart skip a beat when the news flashed across your phone yesterday afternoon that officials were investigating a positive community Covid case? Especially for those of us in Auckland, given it was in the Auckland community, of course it was. It was always going to be. My sister and I have discussed this a lot in recent days, she lives in Christchurch and we were debating when Delta would hit us and how fast we’d go into lockdown, and she pointed out (rightly so) that it would be Auckland first. But even knowing in the back of your mind that it’s a possibility, doesn’t make it any less awful to see the news does it? Even though we have form on lockdowns and we know the drill, it’s still an awful pit of the stomach gut punch. I had a bet with my brother that we’d be in lockdown by the end of September. He bet me it’d be by the end of August. He wins. But even though we were kind of mentally prepared for it, it’s still an UGH moment. Added to that is the fact we've been watching our

Results of genome sequencing are due back this morning. Auckland University Covid modelling expert Shaun Hendy told Kate Hawkesby it could tell us whether Auckland is in lockdown for seven days, or several weeks. "If the whole genome sequencing points us back to a known case, then there's a good chance we will be out of this in that time. Otherwise, the situation is very uncertain." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.