Andrew Dickens Afternoons

Well, here we go again with another virtue signalling stoush between greenies and progress.A battle is brewing between Auckland’s Watercare and environmentalists over a plan to replace an ageing processing plant in the Waitakere Ranges.The plant processes 20 per cent of Auckland’s water and it’s been doing the job for 100 years. Obviously, it’s come to an end of its days and it’s time to update it and future proof it for another 100 years.  This is a $400 million project that has to happen.So this is the second time Watercare has tried to do this. Back in 2017 the plan was to put the plant in Oratia. It meant taking 18 homes and properties and the locals rebelled. So everything was put on hold.Watercare has considered four sites and decided on one in Huia way out west in the Ranges and on the harbour.  But this is facing problems principally from environmentalists because of fears of spreading kauri dieback, a newly discovered  flightless wasp that lives in the area.  Some Argentine ants also live there and t

The Government has ordered a review of defence spending.  They say they’re looking for efficiencies and to ensure the spending is of the highest quality and they swear they’re not looking at cutting the defence spend.The first question you have is; do we believe Grant Robertson?I ask this because similar reviews of Ministry of Social Develoment spending in 2017 and 2018 ended out in savings of one per cent with little proof the money was in fact re-deployed within the Ministry.I also ask this because Grant Robertson has been working to build a big pot of money for an election year spend up, and while the perception is that Labour is the spendy party, most will tell you that Grant Robertson guards the taxpayers’ money as hard as any Finance Minister has of any political colour.You can’t help but feel that at the end of the day there will be less money spent on defence than before.So I have more questions for you.If you are a government that believes that climate change is coming.  And if you are a government t

Climate activist Greta Thunberg and Germany's national railway company created a tweetstorm Sunday after she posted a photo of herself sitting on the floor of a train surrounded by lots of bags.The image has drawn plenty of comment online about the performance of German railways.Thunberg posted the tweet late Saturday with the comment "travelling on overcrowded trains through Germany. And I'm finally on my way home!"But German railway company Deutsche Bahn suggested that Thunberg may not have spent the whole time sitting on the floor. And the 16-year-old Swedish activist later sought to draw a line under the matter by tweeting that she eventually got a seat and that overcrowded trains are a good thing.Some Twitter users expressed pity for Thunberg for not being able to get a proper seat on the train for the long ride home from Madrid, where she was attending the U.N. climate change conference. Others wished her a safe trip home after months of traveling by trains and boats to different climate events in Europ

So after the Faafoi fiasco the question is who were the winners and who were the losers.To my mind, the biggest loser was the celebrity who leaked his own pleading texts while the big winner is Simon Bridges. There’s been a lot of chatter that Kris Faafoi should resign because he broke the Cabinet Manual and intervened in an immigration case for a celebrity friend.  The only problem with that is that he didn’t.At that is self evident in a number of ways.  Firstly, the celebrity’s step dad is still fighting immigration for a visa. If there was an intervention, it failed. There’s no proof of an actual intervention.  All there is are some texts.Secondly, the fact that the leaker of the texts was the celebrity himself.  Now he didn’t do it for the good of New Zealand democracy as a whole.  He did it out of anger that his pleas for some help in his family’s immigration case had gone unheeded.Faafoi was guilty of something we all do.  Not saying no but saying maybe.  “We should work together on a project in the fut

Did Grant Robertson die and go to heaven? After a winter of discontent, a new spring has sprung for the Finance Minister.Grumpy old ANZ, the bank that has always had the worst business confidence figures, has reported what they call a changing of the vibe in November."The improvement in the ANZ Business Outlook survey this month was broad and consistent," according to Sharon Zollner, their chief economist.  She reckons the significant easing in both interest rates and the exchange rate is clearly working its way through the economy, and the remarkable resilience of New Zealand's commodity prices is providing an invaluable buffer to the world's woes.No kidding. For the past two years people have been worried about what this Government might do rather than what they’ve actually done. Thankfully the mob in charge are very slack at actually doing anything.Then there’s the fillip of the stabilisation of property prices in a positive way.  Prices are still rising but not excessively so any doom merchants saying a c

New Zealanders have always been good at looking after the little guy.We’ve prided ourselves on our charity. Remember Telethons? We’ve reached out to the dispossessed.Remember it was John Key who first offered to take Manus Island refugees off Australia’s hands, and now we have a refugee from the Papua New Guinea island here.  Berhouz Boochani is revelling in his first week of freedom in six years.At the UN we’ve stood up to the superpowers on the Security Council who use their veto powers to keep smaller nations in misery.Around the world our Prime Minister and our country are lauded for the way we reacted to a terrible atrocity against a minority.  And our Government has been studied by other countries as we introduce wellbeing into our budgetary system.We give goodwill goodwill to the downtrodden and dispossessed and the suffering. Yet we have limited compassion for our own disabled people.A new report on funding for disability support shows we give limited and rationed help to 60,000 families. It also find

We seem to have got into a bit of a muddle over guns and it seems to be getting worse.After the March terror attacks using the infamous AR 15, a semi-automatic military style weapon, the nation has reacted in all sorts of ways and I’m not sure any of them really work.Last week we entered the final days of the government’s buyback scheme. With six weeks left we have so far collected 32,000 guns from 19,000 people which has cost us $62 million.If people don’t hand in the other prohibited firearms and parts by 20 December they will get no money and will face up to five years in prison and the loss of their firearms licence.Now 32,000 guns off the street is better than nothing but let’s compare that with Australia’s buyback programme in 1996 where over  660,000 firearms were retrieved from gun owners with a cost estimated at half a billion dollars. Australia has five times the population so taking that into account New Zealand will be lucky to end out with a third of the guns.Why is anybody’s guess. Perhaps the g

Ousted Justin Lester has officially called for a mayoral vote recount in Wellington.It comes after results put Mayor Andy Foster just 62 votes ahead of Lester to claim the city's top job.Lester was at the Wellington District Court this afternoon to lodge a request with a judge to recount the mayoral votes.Outside of court, he said he believed there was a "strong likelihood" there should be a manual recount.It would now be up to a judge to decide but there had been no indication of a timeframe, Lester said.Justin Lester and Graeme Edgeler outside Wellington District Court. Photo / Emme McKayWellington City Council uses the STV voting system, which sees voters rank their mayoral preferences.There were at least 302 partially informal votes which were excluded because voters filled the form out incorrectly.In Lester's formal application, it said 193 of the partially informal votes were in Lester's favour and 109 in Foster's."The 84-vote difference here would be enough to change the result, if on a close inspectio

So I suppose I should start the show talking about the game.How incredible is it that all I have to say is the game and we know what I’m going to talk about, even though there are other games on this weekend.For goodness sake the Kiwis play Australia in League tonight in Woolongong. Not that you’d know from the coverage. But I’m picking a great match and a Kiwi surprise.Back to rugby, there are other games except for THE game.  Tomorrow Tasman play Wellington in Nelson for the Mitre 10 Premiership, while tonight Bay of Plenty play Hawkes Bay in Rotorua for the Championship title. In the Meads Cup in Oamaru tomorrow it’s North Otago versus Wanganui. Meanwhile in Greymouth on Sunday West Coast play South Canterbury for the Lochore Cup.I’d love to be at any of those games. For the players it’s their World Cup. I like the teams. Most of them are the biggest thing in their town. I like the venues. I’m sure I’d like the crowds who will be happy in a long weekend watching games with stuff up for stakes.This is bedro

Dear me.This Year of Delivery is just getting worse.  Here we are 10 months down and nothing is coming through the letter boxToday the Government dumped plans to bring farming into the Emissions Trading Scheme.  Reminding you that agriculture has been exempt since the scheme started in 2008. Now the government has opted for a sector-led plan to address agricultural emissions. This is what farmers had been asking for all along.I think this is sensible because a penalty scheme does nothing to encourage buy in and long term reductions.  The ETS has always been an artificial scheme to me that does nothing except irritate and squash the economy.This is all round awkward because the Government has always said climate change is our nuclear free moment and because the Emission Trading Scheme has always been part of it’s arsenal.As late as July they were trumpeting a break through in calculating emissions at a farm level and they were proposing a 5 per cent tax on emissions.But today all that is gone and the governmen

It was a very strange commute to work today.Coming in from the west on my motorcycle I stopped across the valley from the burning Sky City Convention Centre. It was a scene from an apocalypse. Four jets of water from snorkels from four corners of the building. Orange Flames to the south and the city shrouded in smokeSo I stopped and took a photo that I’ve now posted on my Facebook page and then I marvelled at the fact that I was driving voluntarily towards that.Because our studios are about 150 metres from this fire. But because of the vicious sou’wester the city is being battered with we are clear of smoke and danger.It’s bizarre because this morning a lawyer friend messaged me. Even though his office is half a kilometre away to the East. Far away really but  the strong wind has blown smoke right at his building which has been closed as a health hazard.When I arrived at work I went to the corner and looked up Nelson Street.  There I was at nearly the base of the fire fighting efforts. I took a video which I’

Herald property editor Anne Gibson says the Sky City Convention Centre project's been marred with controversy from day one.She says it begins with the original deal to build the centre back in 2013.Since then there have been disputes involving SkyCity gaming machines, Fletchers Construction being fined 40-million-dollars for project delays - and now today's fire.Anne Gibson told Andrew Dickens just last week, SkyCity chief executive Graeme Stephens said it will open in October 2020. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So I have an announcement to make.I have prostate cancer. I will be having a radical prostatectomy to remove my prostate on November 20.I’m not telling you this to gain your sympathy or angle for gifts and free stuff and hugs and kisses.I’m telling you this because I think hearing about my journey might be useful for you or a loved one you know. In my business I ask you to share your stories and the quid pro quo of that is that I need to share back. But I also know the difference between the personal and the private.Some people find the tale of their illnesses and diseases and medical battles to be something that should be kept private.I’ve decided that my little thing is something that’s very widespread and yet the processes are rarely discussed in public.Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men. 3100 registrations every year. 1 in 8 kiwi blokes. 650 men die from it a year. We need to talk about it.So here’s my story.I’ve been in the media all my life and there’s some trite lines we dole out. One of

In a landmark judgment released by the Court of Appeal, meth dealers who can prove their addiction caused their offending could have their sentences cut.An offender's role in a drug network will also have a greater bearing on the length of a prison sentence, or if they're jailed at all.What's more, a drug dealer's poverty and deprivation will be considered as potential mitigating factors.CEO of The Drug Detection Agency Kirk Harding, who informs workplace drug policy and testing, told Andrew Dickens with so many factors it will end up coming down to the judge’s discretion.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This weekend saw the New Zealand First conference, which was surprisingly entertaining. I’ve always quite like New Zealand First as a true centrist party. Slightly conservative, slightly socialist, not liberal but still with a heart towards the less well off - particularly if they’re elderly or come from Northland.Winston is the great campaigner and he has started his election campaign one year out on the second anniversary of the coalition he helped form. His role as king maker has always rubbed people up the wrong way. They don’t like the tail wagging the dog event though every coalition has a dog wagging tail. For the National Party, that was the Maori Party who made the Nats do all sorts of things in social spending and introduce Whanu Ora. Tail wagging dog is the price of MMP and always has been.And New Zealand First has mitigated many of Labour’s policies as Winston pointed out.  As they would have if they went into coalition with National. And I don’t think National would have avoided having to agree t

Last week it was announced that the Nobel Peace Prize has gone to the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. The man who brokered a peace deal to the 20 year war with Eritrea.  A man who changed the face of Ethiopia, all of a sudden half their cabinet are female, bans on opposition parties have been lifted and thousands of political prisoners freed. Most remarkably he achieved that in the first eight months of his leadership. He thoroughly deserves the honour.Far more so than 16 year old Greta Thurnberg, who was also nominated. Greta has staged a remarkable protest but that is principally because her parents allowed her to protest everyday outside her country’s parliament. As a PR stunt it’s a good one, but it was just that, a stunt and it is failing to produce any positive change other than infuriating baby boomers.  If that’s all that it takes to win a Peace Prize then how about giving it to the Falun Gong protesters who spent nine months outside our offices because of something Kerre said.Greta doesn’t infur

Ginger Baker, the volatile and propulsive British musician who was best known for his time with the power trio Cream, died Sunday at age 80, his family said.Baker wielded his blues power and jazz technique to help break open popular music and become one of the world's most admired and feared musicians.With blazing eyes, orange-red hair and a temperament to match, the London native ranked with The Who's Keith Moon and Led Zeppelin's John Bonham as the embodiment of musical and personal fury. Using twin bass drums, Baker fashioned a pounding, poly-rhythmic style uncommonly swift and heavy that inspired and intimidated countless musicians. But every beat seemed to mirror an offstage eruption — whether his violent dislike of Cream bandmate Jack Bruce or his on-camera assault of a documentary maker, Jay Bulger, whom he smashed in the nose with his walking stick.Bulger would call the film, released in 2012, "Beware of Mr. Baker."Baker's family said on Twitter that he died Sunday: "We are very sad to say that Ginger

There’s a common factor to the stories that made the headlines over the past few days and that commonality is drugs.Firstly the immense growth in numbers of gang members in New Zealand. According to the police there are 6729 patched or prospect gang members in this country. That’s a rise of nearly 26 per cent over the last two years.It’s an incredible number. 1386 new gang members in just two years. Simon Bridges says it’s because the Labour led government is soft on crime, which I find personally to be the most laughable thing he’s said lately. They’re soft on some crime but it ain’t gangs. Look at what happened over those same 2 years.There have been 10 per cent more officers added over that time. By next year 700 officers will be specifically assigned to police organised crime and gangs. Add to that the 1200 offenders deported from Australia in those same 2 years many of whom are gang members. The Comancheros have been formed in that time.The fact is we have more police fighting more gang members. But the

Another milestone for families of the Pike River Mine victims.The agency has accompanied family members 170 metres in the mine's drift.It's the closest they've come to their loved ones, since they perished almost nine years ago.Newstalk ZB reporter Rachel Das told Andrew Dickens it was a very emotional day for the families. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the most consistent criticisms of the government is that they keep coming up with ideas that sound nice in theory but in reality are completely unworkable.The obvious one is their belief that electric vehicles will save the planet because they’re not burning petrol.  We should all drive one and thus climate change will be mitigated.Now while that’s true when a few people drive electric cars, it’s not the silver bullet answer for all. It ignores the amount of emissions required to build the car, the oil in the plastics and the mining of the material for the batteries. It also ignores the disposal of the spent batteries which is an environmental catastrophe in itself.It’s the same when it comes to blind faith in the value of cycleways. If we’re offered safe cycling highways we will choose to avoid the car congestion and get on a bike.  But that ignores the sheer size of our cities.  Our average commutes are some of the longest in the world because we’re so spread out. And we’re hilly.  The image of demur