Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

An explosive poll shows National has reached its lowest result since forming a Government, as Labour climbs ahead. The Taxpayers' Union-Curia poll has Labour on 34.4% as National drops six points behind to 28.4%.  The Greens are on 10.5%, with NZ First trailing slightly on 9.7%, ACT on 7.5%, and Te Pati Māori on 3.2%.  Director of Sherson Willis, Trish Sherson told Kerre Woodham the poll is a warning light.  She says 28% isn’t a death certificate, but it does indicate that National has a connection problem as well as a numbers problem.   LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The medicinal cannabis industry could be worth billions of dollars to the country in the not-so-distant future, if regulation's improved.   ACT leader David Seymour says he's looking at further improvements to speed up processing for exports of the plant.  He's open to improving regulation domestically as well.  Co-founder of NUBU Pharmaceuticals Mark Dye told Kerre Woodham New Zealand was one of the first countries to start cultivating cannabis for medical use.  He says the sooner we lean into it, and back it, the sooner New Zealand could become known one of the best cannabis growing regions in the world.    LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When I heard David Seymour talking up the potential of New Zealand's medicinal cannabis industry, I was immediately transported to a world where the Far North was once again a thriving powerhouse of the New Zealand economy, as it used to be. Where bright young people could get meaningful jobs without having to leave home, where once again New Zealand's brilliant scientists combined with primary producers, just as they do in agriculture, to innovate and disrupt.  Now, I realise I was getting a little ahead of myself, but only a bit. The medicinal cannabis export business is growing. A Ministry of Health paper released under the Official Information Act showed we exported more than a tonne of cannabis flower in 2024. That document was obtained by Newstalk ZB and showed that was more than double the 485.6 kilograms exported in 2023 So, you know, there is potential for growth there.  I had the pleasure of visiting ANTG's cannabis growing facility in Armidale in New South Wales towards the end of last year. I had no idea what I was expecting to see when I went to see a cannabis growing lab, but it was just like visiting a high-level medical research lab, which is what it is. It's not a couple of old stoners growing some weed in the back garden. The security is military level. The level of hygiene and sanitation is exactly as you'd expect to see in a medical laboratory.  Before you go in to where the bud has been dried and then is taken off the plant and put into the sterilised capsules to be sent off to its buyers, you have to go into a hermetically sealed room and then you have to put on outerwear and outer shoes and masks and then you can only go through one at a time. You're not allowed to pick anything up or put anything in your pocket. When you come back, you have to take off your outerwear. Like, it's the full rig. It's a full operation, as it should be.  There's an entire research branch where you've got young graduates and young doctorate young people going through their doctorates working on they're either working in medicine, alternative therapies, horticulture, so there's a wide range of skills where they've been given research grants to either come up with ways of alleviating common conditions, get more out of the plant itself, find new ways of growing that are more that need less electricity or, you know, less of the anyway, it was amazing. I can't even begin to explain what I saw. Unless you've seen it, you probably unless you have been to something like this, you probably wouldn't appreciate the level of sophistication, the level of technology, the level of security that goes into exporting cannabis.  We're so used to seeing cannabis as a way of gangs making money and people being sent to jail and it being something dirty and underhand. It's a complete reset of your thinking when you see it in this particular setting and this particular environment. In an interview, Seymour noted that people have said the industry could be the new high value export similar to New Zealand's wine industry. He said medicinal cannabis is some people's drug of choice and they're prepared to pay a lot of money for it. New Zealand could become, just as we are with wine, a high value powerhouse.  He said the Government was looking to give exporters more permanent licenses to reduce red tape and bureaucracy and saw the rise in exports as a positive for the New Zealand economy. We need to get money into the country. Not everybody likes this stuff, but there is definitely a market for it, Seymour said. I would venture to suggest that not everybody likes the idea of cannabis being sold as a recreational drug. Some people really don't like that. Some people don't like the stuff because it's gang currency. Some people don't like the stuff because there are turf wars over it.  But that's illegal cannabis. What we're talking about is medicinal cannabis, which is a whole universe away from the underhand drug dealing that goes on and is undertaken by gangs. This is next level with doctors, with scientists, with horticulturalists, with exporters putting their back into it and turning it into a billion-dollar industry. I think Seymour's quite right. I think we need to get absolutely in behind it and the very areas that would grow it best, where the investment should be, are the areas that need the jobs and the economic boost the most.  The place I visited in New South Wales is just one of many, but is in a small rural area. Their primary industry appears to be private schools where farmers' daughters can take themselves and their ponies and be educated. And apart from that, it's medicinal cannabis. And it keeps really bright young minds in the district. There's a university there and the really bright ones get the research grants to be able to stay and work on cures for epilepsy and irritable bowel syndrome. There's a whole range of things they're working on. So I'm all for it. I see a golden future or a green-gold future.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'd be getting seriously brassed off if I was a primary school teacher, especially if I was a non-union primary school teacher. The NZEI has been in protracted negotiations with the Public Service Commissioner and the Government over pay and conditions. Every other teaching union has negotiated its own deal for its teachers, its principals, and its support staff, but not the NZEI. The Treaty of Waitangi was a big sticking point for them for a while, but according to Sir Brian Roche, who was on with Mike Hosking this morning, that's no longer the major roadblock it has been.   At the moment, primary teachers are teaching the new curriculum, and it's amazing. I've seen the homework books. If you've got little ones in your house, primary school students in your house, you will have seen them too. It's your building block stuff. The kids are responding to it because the teachers are presenting it well. They're doing the job already. They're presenting the curriculum, and in my case, I can see that they're doing it well. The children are engaged, they're excited. The older siblings are like, “why didn't we get these books? Why didn't we have these?" They feel like they've missed out, and to a certain extent they have. A whole generation of kids has missed out.   So they're doing a great job, but they're not getting paid for it because the NZEI is holding out. They're refusing to budge on the pay and conditions negotiations. They chose not to present the latest offer to its members, so the primary teachers couldn't even decide for themselves whether this was a deal they could accept or not. Sir Brian Roche, the Public Service Commissioner, sounds increasingly brassed off. He told Mike Hosking this morning that there is no question that the union works hard for its members, but he does wonder whether the union's acting in the best interests of teachers by failing to even inform its members of the conditions of the latest offer.  “They work very hard for their union members. There's no question about that and provide a range of services. But on this particular issue, I find it deeply frustrating that our offers are not being put directly to their members.”  Why would you not? Members of the union have now rejected three proposed settlements. An offer agreed in December was comparable to what secondary teachers accepted last year, but ultimately, when the union took it back to its members, they didn't ratify it. Teachers know there are no lump sums or back pay available in this bargaining round, according to Sir Brian, so every week without settlement is money the teachers aren't receiving – between $50 and $76 per week.   What exactly is it? What is it that the unions find so repugnant that they cannot bring themselves to even bring it to their members? And if you are a union member, do you accept that your delegates are qualified to make the decisions on your behalf? Do you trust that they will do right by you? Surely, you'd want to see what was being offered, wouldn't you? Or is that what you pay your union dues for? Sir Brian says that he's looking at a way to present the pay and conditions offer to non-union teachers. We've been trying to find how many non-union teachers there are. Apparently that's secret squirrel stuff and it's buried deep – not even AI has the answer to how many non union members of NZEI there are. We're trying to find out. So if you're a non union member, you'd be getting even more frustrated. Apparently, he's bound by confidentiality agreements where he can't present to the non-union members what he's presenting to the union. But he says he's looking for workarounds on that to allow the non-union members to get on and get that extra money in their pockets right now for the work they're doing right now, and many of them are doing really well right now.   Presumably primary teachers are in the classroom teaching, doing what they do best, so they can't respond. Maybe there's a few home with, you know, head colds or what have you for whatever reason. But I would love to hear your view on whether your union is doing right by you, whether you're like, “Absolutely, hold fast, stay firm, don't give in to the government overlords on this one." But if you are a union member, do you feel that your delegates do right by you? Are you getting value for money from the dues that are deducted from your pay every month or every two weeks?   When you look at this, it just seems so old fashioned. And I totally get that unions are there for people who don't have a voice, who can't speak up for themselves, who haven't got the bargaining power. But surely articulate, intelligent, capable, self-possessed teachers would be able to bargain their own pay and conditions. Why would you need a union? Why would you need a union delegate to do it for you? And I guess the same goes for, I don't even know who's the big unions anymore. I think you've got the ones for the cleaners, home help. They do a great job because a lot of those people wouldn't be in the position to throw their weight around and demand better pay and conditions. So good if you're doing it on their behalf. But seriously, unions are going to negotiate themselves out of existence soon. They're halfway there already. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I just want to get your opinion. This follows a, shall we say, spirited discussion in the office around people who are trapped overseas and how they get home. I'd love to hear from people who might have been in this position before, trapped overseas because of acts of war or closed borders or forces of nature. What did you do and what was your expectation? Did you think it was the responsibility of the government taxpayer to get you home? And if you had chosen to live overseas and then the world turned mad, again, is it the responsibility of the government taxpayer to get you home?   I find it really interesting and a little bit sad that people are complaining the government taxpayer should be doing more to help family members trapped in Dubai because of the enormous disruption to flights caused by the Iranian conflict. Sure, the Government sent a Defence Force plane to Iran last year during the Israel-Iran conflict, and during Covid we partnered with Australia to get stranded travellers out of Wuhan in 2020, but I really don't believe there should be an expectation that if you have chosen to travel or chosen to live in another country and then the mud hits the fan for whatever reason, that you will automatically and immediately be rescued.   I had family living overseas in London for a while, and if they had suddenly found themselves in the middle of a war, I'd be doing all I could to get them out. And if there was a plane there, I would want them on it, whether it was a government plane, a commercial aircraft, whatever, I would be doing all I could to get them out of there, absolutely. But I wouldn't expect the government taxpayer to do it for me. I have been stranded overseas before when the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull blew up. I was in Paris doing the Paris Marathon, airspace over Europe was closed, travel insurance didn't help, and you were on your own. And there are worse places to be than trapped in Paris in the springtime, I will grant you that. And it was ash blowing into the cities, not Iranian missiles, but statistically right now, although that could change at any minute, there would be more chance of me being run over on the Champs Élysées back then than killed by a missile in Dubai right now.   But that's statistics and that emotion doesn't come into it, I get that. When your loved ones are stranded overseas, you want them home and you want them safe. But is it on the taxpayer to provide that? I don't think so, but am I being a heartless moll? I've been accused of that before. But I just, you know, I get the emotion, I totally do, because I've been there. You want your loved ones home, you want to get home, but I never assumed that my first port of call would be the Government. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.