Andrew Dickens Afternoons

Destiny Church leader Bishop Brian Tamaki's tweet that he was the victim of an attempted "political gang rape" by senior Government ministers is offensive, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says.Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis called it "disgusting".Tamaki today ramped up his war of words with the Government, tweeting that it looked like Ardern, Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Davis had tried a "political gang rape" on him.The tweet was his latest response in a battle over Destiny Church's Man Up programme, which Tamaki wants to introduce into the country's prisons.Tamaki told the Herald today his reference to gang rape was nothing to do with the experience of people who had been raped but referred instead to a "planned assault by Labour's top MPs on his character".He said that to liken his use of the phrase to the act of gang rape was to "pervert what my real meaning is there because that's nothing to do with that at all"."The term is about three senior Cabinet Ministers … ranting about a prison reform pr

It was sobering yesterday to turn on my phone and see a news alert that eight people had died in a car crash on State highway one at Atiamuri in the middle of the North Island. Sobering because I had driven that very stretch of road not days before.The scene was reportedly horrific, with two doctors by chance first on the scene. One man received 30 minutes of CPR but still died at the scene. One of the cars had crossed the centre line. An investigation has started as to why?The Taupo Mayor, David Trewavas, told Mike Hosking this morning, “you come across the mighty Waikato, at Atiamuri you come across a pretty new bridge, come up a double passing lane and around an easy left-hand corner, so what can I say?” You can tell his disbelief. After that description, I know exactly where the accident happened and I’m in disbelief. One of the drivers has made a small, catastrophic mistake.There’s nothing wrong with the road. Except for the obvious design fault. A fault that for all her own virtue signalling, pregnant p

So on Wednesday, I started the show saying that Jacinda Ardern and Emmanuel Macrons little social media summit idea was a good play. After the events of March the 15th and the complicity of social media platforms, I think everyone agrees that something needs to be done so calling the social media gurus to a please explain seems as good a thing as any.So after my thoughts were published on our social media platforms I was very surprised and slightly horrified to see the outpouring of disdain and negativity towards the idea and most notably the Prime Minister.“It will achieve nothing other than further the global profile of Princess Jacinda” was the general gist. It’s a stunt. Many took the opportunity to say that she should stay at home and sort out all our domestic problems. And there was the hyperbolic belief that she is a communist who will eventually take all our freedom of speech and this is the start.It was surprisingly vehement and also quite wrong.After the shooter used Facebook Live, Australia’s react

On the eve of Anzac Day, there remains a division of public opinion over the cancellation of multiple events. Around the country, 60 events have been cancelled so police can better guard the remaining events in the wake of the Christchurch attacks.Nearly 70 per cent of Auckland's services have been cut, with only 26 taking place instead of the regular 84.Former ACT MP Heather Roy told Andrew Dickens that it is "wrong" for the police to have cancelled these events. She has launched a petition to share the public's anger, though has only garnered around 2,000 signatures so far. "At a timer we should be looking for public unity, for the police to be saying not to go to these events is wrong.”She says that it is generating fear through the community, and that it goes against what our veterans fought for.One veteran, Roger, called in to express his annoyance, saying that he has quit his local RSA over what has happened. "We don't need the police to march, we don't need a band to march, we've all marched the route

What is the point of having a minimum wage if a Government department can simply ignore it?Apparently, about 60 teachers are being paid below the minimum wage and the union has already referred three cases, relating to overseas teachers recruited to fill the teacher shortage, to the Labour Department’s Migrant Exploitation Inspectorate.This is astounding. Firstly these are teachers. Secondly, these are teachers who have taken a big personal risk and costs to travel from their home country to help us out.Apparently, the problem is that the Ministry of Education is still assessing the teacher’s qualifications and experience. Once they get through all that the teachers will be back paid and they hope to get it done by May. May!  The year started in February!The overseas teachers caught up in this are understandably gobsmacked. A Singaporean teacher, who came here with her lawyer husband, last year did a post-grad teaching diploma at Victoria University but even that’s not enough to convince the bureaucratic teac

So no Capital Gains Tax.An old French philosopher once said: "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"It means the more things change the more they stay the same.  We have a Labour led coalition government that came in with a coalition partner saying that capitalism had failed.  They called themselves a transformational government and this year was the year of delivery. The spooked  the busness sector with a minimum wage rise and a halt to future oil and gas exploration and gave beneficiaries a payrise and then……Nothing.Labour law reform stymied.  Immigration is back on the rise. Teachers pay dispute deadlocked.  The Zero Carbon Bill marooned in a rising tide of scepticism.  Vulnerable children on the rise.  Mental Health and State Care Abuse reports still eons away. Quietly this week Grant Robertson reiterated the Budget Responsibility Rules so there will be no spending greater than revenue.I am now finding it hard to find any concrete evidence that this government is fundamentally differing from the previo

It is quite something to walk into a kitchen at 6.30 in the morning to discover your partner in tears. And then, when asked why, for her to gasp out “Notre Dame is burning down”. There’s a mute moment after something like that. A flicker of time where you wonder if it’s all a joke and then a sinking feeling. The realisation that something of great beauty, something with 850 years of history, something extremely rare could be gone in an hour.I often used to wonder if you could take a resident of Athens from 2000 years ago and bring them into the present and showed them the Acropolis today, and see their shock of how that temple broke. The Roman Forum was a centre of all world civilisation and is now a rubble pit with ghosts.It’s a reminder that nothing lasts forever. There’s a transience to our existence. One we wilfully ignore. It’s human nature.It’s what the National Party is learning after the Key Years. So enamoured of their popular leader they thought nothing could spoil the party, so the shock at his sud

What a fantastic weekend I had. Due to a couple of reasons I went for a big ramble all around the hinterland yesterday. Travelling from one side of the island to the other. I drove 200 kilometres and we visited four different beaches in the day. The dog didn’t know what was happening. Not just one beach walk Dad but four!!!!But as I drove around the place I noticed some atrocious driving and particularly some aggressive tailgating and then overtaking and the funny thing was that every time it was the same make of car.A Ford Ranger Double Cab Ute.That shouldn’t surprise me, after all, they are the biggest selling car in the land and diesel-powered double-cab utes are our car of choice. The statistics are incredible. Double-cab utes make up eight of the top ten new vehicles sold every month. The top five double cab utes are outselling the top five normal cars by a ratio of almost two to one right now. Our next favourites are SUVs and vans then way back in the field passenger cars.When it comes to electric vehic

When we come to the end of the week, I often look back on all the events and developments that we’ve talked about on air and in society, and sometimes I wonder what really happened, if anything, at all?So we now have gun laws to get the really bad guns off our streets – though the funny thing is that the really bad guns have never been on the streets.  The illegal guns in the illegal hands have always been hidden and somehow I can’t see how a few new laws is going to stop what happened on the 15th of March happening again.This will be a cull of guns from those people who already wanted to cull their guns, and it’s going to cost an awful lot of money.  But it sends a good signal and the number of bad guns won’t increase but they’re not going to disappear either. By the way – the police would like you to know that if you're a bad  guy with a bad gun could you tai ho a while before you hand yourself in because they're not ready to deal with you.  Awesome.It’s like climate change measures.  Greenpeace released th

Yesterday I started the programme with an opinion piece where I said the government has offered the teachers as much as they can and they should be congratulated for it and that the teachers continued rejection of the pay offer was reminiscent of truculent children.When it was published on line that was one of the headlines.  Our teachers are starting to look like truculent children it said.Later, I got a message and it started like this:  ‘Mr Dickens, I am an ex-teacher’.  And I thought ‘uh-oh, here we go’. Ex-teacher outraged that I’m starting to side with the government and losing sympathy for the teachers.  So it went “Mr Dickens, I am an ex-teacher and may I congratulate you on the excellent use of the word truculent.”  Excellent!So today I thought I’s pay it forward and congratulate my old producer Alex Braae who now writes The Bulletin for the excellent use of the word ‘hyperbolic’  in his column today, which effectively describes much of the discourse that poses as debate these day.This is how he used

Over the events of March 15th, I have been very impressed with the concern shown around our mental wellbeing by so many parties. It shows a positive shift in our cultural outlook. Rather than just putting on a stiff upper lip, gritting our teeth, bottling it up and just soldiering on we have accepted that a lot of people can’t just tough it out.So in that communal spirit, I’d just like to ask the Education Minister Chris Hipkins if he is alright. Does he need to take time out? Because I’ve been worried for a while about the amount of conflict he is in the middle of.It was something I noted a while back and it was absolutely evident last night on Q and A where he was interviewed and it was spread over two segments.I mean just look at what he’s trying to do. He was the first Minister to do anything getting the free tertiary policy off the ground. A policy that hasn’t seemed to have markedly changed a thing regarding enrolment and further education.But not content with that he is also on a mission to reform 30 y

I am the son of a teacher. One of the old fashioned kind. The teacher who left school at 17, went to Ardmore Teacher’s Training College and was back in front of a classroom of kids by the age of 18.A teacher who taught in Canada and the UK and came home destined to never climb up the rankings of teachers because she never went to university and got a degree.The sort of teacher who was still teaching kids late into her seventies. A 60 year career. A person who had a calling to be a teacher.These are the teachers that many principals say save the day. The ones they can call when there’s illness and staffing crises and this older generation would wade in and just get down and teach.And Mum was a teacher who lived in the nice part of town but taught in the poorest. My school was decile 10 while Mum drove miles teaching all through South Auckland and Flatbush until finally ending out at Panmure Bridge School - Decile Rating 1.There’s quite a few of these teachers around. and they’re the ones who have seen every fa

Yesterday I was doing talkback on the Immigration Ministers proposed changes to the employer-led temporary work visa system for skilled migrants.In an attempt to stop the exploitation of migrant workers by paying low wages the Minister is thinking of setting a minimum wage for the migrants that’s in line with New Zealand’s median wage which is around $49,000. And for more highly skilled migrants a pay rate of 150 per cent of the median wage or $76,000.While this is well meaning it raises a number of consequences. Employers are worried it prices the necessary labour out of their reach particularly in the hospitality and aged care sectors. And if it does come to pass there is the fear of price rises that will be passed on to the consumer. $30 takeaway curries anyone? A number of people have since emailed and said where is the corresponding pay rise for Kiwis to match the migrants.But I was fascinated by one email which claims workplaces like minimum wage temporary visa migrants because they also don’t have to p

Well it’s obvious that virtue signalling and political correctness is alive and well in this country, and it’s not where you expect it.As we rampage our way at great haste towards a new gun regime where military style and modified weapons are illegal, National’s police spokesperson Chris Bishop has rumbled into life.He’s brought up a private members bill that he drafted and presented to Parliament back in the old days when National was the government.It would bring in Firearm Protection Orders and warrantless searches and he thinks that’s necessary at this time.  With the gangs already saying you’ll be lucky to see us handing in our illegal weapons, Chris Bishop thinks that the police need more powers to target the gangs.The Firearm Protection Orders would allow Police Commissioners to designate certain gang members with violent offending histories to be subject to orders and allow the Police greater powers to search their cars and search their houses for illegal firearms, without having to seek a warrant.Now

So now we have a new measure of child hardship and poverty in New Zealand.Stats NZ has come up with a survey that asked between 3000 and 5500 households how they are faring. Now already I’m confused because of how many households was it. 3000 or 5500?Anyway. They asked quite a few households how they’re faring and they found that about 183,000, or 16 percent of children currently live in poverty before housing costs are deducted. The figure jumps up to 23 percent, about 254,000 children after housing costs are deducted.Hell of a phrase that, child poverty. In this report, it’s defined as children living in households who earn less than 50 percent of the median national income. In 2018 the median wage was $49,000 so we’re talking about kids in households with about $25,000 coming in.That’s not a lot of money in modern New Zealand. In 2018 Trade Me told us that the median rent in New Zealand for a two to four bedroom house was $525 or $27,000 a year. Or $2000 more than the families of quarter of a million kids

Families who have experienced Oranga Tamariki first-hand say the organisation is not doing enough to help families or the children in their care.It comes after a report last month, the first from Oranga Tamariki's new reporting system on child harm, found that more than 220 children who were removed from their families to keep them safe went on to be harmed in state care over a six-month period.In the worst cases, children had been raped or beaten. Several incidents led to criminal charges.Oranga Tamariki, the Ministry for Children, set up the new reporting system last year, to replace the patchy, narrowly-focused one used by its predecessor Child, Youth and Family.The new system is one of broadest and most detailed in any jurisdiction. It records abuse committed against a child by anyone, not just the caregiver, and in any location, not just within the child's placement. It records all incidents of harm, accidental and intentional, and ranging from over-zealous discipline of a child through to severe physica

So I’ve had a gorgeous 30 hours in the Wellington catching up with my youngest and enjoying the capital’s street life.I know it wasn't your average weekend and that wasn't just the weather which was positively Mediterranean, I’ve got some classic shots on my Facebook page by the way.  It was also the weekend of the Cuba Dupa festival, the celebration of Cuba Street as the thriving beating heart of the Greater Wellington community.It was notable as this was a major event in a city outside of Christchurch that was compromised by the increased security level that is our new norm after the Christchurch Mosque attack.Two weeks after the event the organisers and police decided that the job of protecting 100,000 people on a street in Wellington was too great and so Cuba Street was not closed and most of the musical acts were moved into inside venues.At first, I thought that this was an over-reaction and that in changing our lives it was an example of the perpetrator winning, but I was wrong. The street may not have

Adam Keown talks with Andrew Dickens around his immediate thoughts and feelings post the National Memorial service in Christchurch.LISTEN TO ADAM KEOWN TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVE.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the third Friday in a row tears have been shed as the nation mourns a crime than still amazes us happened here. The last fortnight has been incredible with each day packed with more and more to digest. The pace has been hectic. Of course we’ve seen that pace affect Winston Peters. It’s also an incredible feat of emotional endurance by our Prime Minister.But the people I most want to reach out to today are our police force. My producer and I are hearing stories of how this fortnight has stretched our officers and their families. From that first moment a fortnight ago the pressure was on and it would have been the hardest hour of the involved police’s life ever.What then happened was the largest police investigation in New Zealand’s history with 500 officers on the case. Police were flown into Christchurch from around the country. Plans were scrapped, families left behind.The security now required nationwide is also taxing on time, energy and capacity. So much so that many of the gatherings in towns to watc

The Mongrel Mob has been making headlines lately. And some of those headlines have been what I think most would say “strangely out of normal”.First, they offered to guard mosques after the Christchurch terror attack. It was a strange act of charity in that it was offering a threat of violence to protect vulnerable people. But that said, some people gave them credit for joining the unity movement that New Zealand used to react to the outrage. For an organisation that is usually outside social mores, it was, to some a pleasant surprise.Then the world's biggest Mongrel Mob organisation, the Mongrel Mob Kingdom, told us that they were doing away with their Seig Heil greeting. A greeting that was sourced from Nazi Germany. A greeting that was always slightly ironic after all it was the ultimate white supremacists who coined it in their pursuit of Aryan purity. The mob started using the greeting 50 years ago not because they shared the Nazi’s goal of racial purification by because it posited them outside society. I