Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby

A Māori leader is outraged after David Seymour tweeted a Māori only vaccine code.  The code allows people to book in or turn up without an appointment at a drive through clinic in West Auckland. The Act Party leader argues getting vaccinated shouldn't be a race-based issue.  The National Māori Authority Chair Matthew Tukaki told Kate Hawkesby his rhetoric is unhelpful.  "David has completely lost the plot on this, we are trying very, very hard to get the Māori vaccination rate up, as we are trying to get the vaccination rate up for the country more generally." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Otis, the first New Zealand oat milk brand to grow its own oats, is wanting some company.Its launching the 1 percent fund today where one percent of its sales will be dedicated to funding projects and initiatives to make oats a viable alternative for farmers.Otis co-founder Chris Wilkie told Kate Hawkesby they deliberately set out to be both pro-farmer and pro-environment and believe the two don't contradict."We've always and we will always sing the praises of New Zealand farmers because they're the best in the world, but at the same time, we're conscious that farmers might say 'well that's all very well and good Otis, but talk's cheap' and well we agree."LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How you holding up there Auckland? As the meme says, what a year last week has been. A Level 4 lockdown, an escapee from MIQ, flooding in West Auckland, and a terrorist attack. I mean you wouldn’t read about it. Except that we have. How’s everyone’s nerves?I have so many questions.Why was someone on a terror watchlist out in the community? Why was someone known to the PM at the highest level of office, as a serious threat to Kiwis, and yet the law was never changed to get him in jail? Why, after Christchurch, has nothing been learned? Why wasn’t this aspect of the terror laws tightened up? Why did they not act faster to fix the legal loopholes? Why did Police wait for him to not just grab a knife, but then go on and stab 6 people before shooting him? Can we believe in a socially distanced supermarket that he was able to stab one person every ten seconds? Six people in 60 seconds? Really? How much has been spent on surveillance of this guy 24/7 for the past 5 years? Reports of up to 30 people surveying him. Th

How things can change in just three games.After an embarrassing first-up capitulation and the last-ball loss that followed, the Black Caps have gone full circle to spin their way to a crunching 52-run win in their third Twenty20 against Bangladesh, and stay alive in the five-match series.A rapid adaption to the conditions in Dhaka has caused the drastic turnaround, and after the bowlers showed promise in the first two clashes on the slow spinning wickets, this time the batsmen and the fielders backed them up in a display that earned Rachin Ravindra and Cole McConchie their first international victories.They were key contributors to the win as well, with Ravindra hitting 20 before taking a miserly 1-13 from his four overs, while McConchie returned his best T20 figures in his professional career with 3-15.Add in the star turn of Ajaz Patel, with 4-16, and the Black Caps ripped through Bangladesh for 76, a statement performance from a second-string team against a full-strength Bangladeshi side in their home cond

A former close aide to Prince Charles stepped down temporarily from his role as chief executive of a royal charity amid reports that he helped secure an honor for a Saudi donor.The Sunday Times and Mail on Sunday newspapers reported that Michael Fawcett coordinated support for an honor for Saudi businessman Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz.The Times said the businessman donated sums of more than 1.5 million pounds ($2.1 million) to The Prince’s Foundation to fund heritage restoration projects of interest to Charles, including residences Charles used.The report said Charles gave Mahfouz an honorary CBE, or Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, at a private ceremony in 2016. The Saudi denies wrongdoing.The Prince’s Foundation said in a statement that Fawcett offered to temporarily step down from active duties as the organization’s chief executive while an investigation takes place. It said Fawcett will assist the investigation.Fawcett began his royal service in 1981 as a footman to Queen

Don't blame terrorism on mental health issues or treat extremism like a mental health condition.A police scene examination is continuing at Auckland's Countdown LynnMall, after seven people were injured in an ISIS-inspired terror attack on Friday afternoon.The terrorist was shot dead by police officers at the scene.Mental Health Foundation chief executive Shaun Robinson told Kate Hawkesby the terrorist may have been experiencing mental health issues, but that doesn't explain or excuse his behaviour.“Hundreds of thousands of Kiwis experience mental health issues. They don’t then become terrorists.”LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Before we blow a fuse at managed isolation, let's have some context. Nearly 170,000 people have been through the system. 12 escapes all up involving 16 people, and that includes this one we had yesterday, who'd been in there not even 7 hours before he made his break. What makes you sick about this guy is that a whole bunch of police have had to go chasing after him, and be exposed to him. They now all have to be tested and I suppose isolate until they come up clear. Ironically, if they've caught it in the process of picking this character up, they'll end up in MIQ. The point is that this one escape is really serious; the guy has put a whole lot of people at risk. We don't know anything yet about where he went while he was out and who else might have been exposed. Hopefully, because everyone is meant to be at home and this happened in the middle of the night, it won't be a lot of people. But there was a driver, whether that person was a deliberate accessory is another matter. What I'm wondering, is whether thi

Even in the midst of lockdowns, the hospitality sector has been vocal about labour shortages. The industry wants urgent visa extensions and border exemptions But a McDonald's in the United States has found a solution, recruiting kids as young as fourteen. Questions are being raised as to whether employers in New Zealand should be more open to hiring teenagers. AUT Professor of Management Jarrod Harr joined Kate Hawkesby. LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Waikato University is launching the world's first degree in climate change today.  The aim is to produce graduates to lead future climate change solutions - combining science, economics and social and political systems.  Margaret Barbour, the University of Waikato's Dean of Science joined Kate Hawkesby. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Concerns a new MIQ booking system may not make things any better. A new virtual queue for spots will come into action once the outbreak-induced pause is over. People will be selected from random, meaning they won’t have to constantly refresh the website.  But Travel Technology Consultant Mike Moore told Kate Hawkesby there should instead be a system that provides people with some ability to plan. "One is the idea of a wait list, which basically provides the opportunity for people who want to to form an orderly queue, and other part is to extend the booking horizon as far as possible into the future." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Of those working in our construction industry, just two point six percent are women.  Research out this morning shows both employers and women want the number to be higher, so questions are being raised as to where the disconnect is. Kelly Bennett, who is the Principal Advisor for Women at the Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation (BCITO) joined Kate Hawkesby. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Shout out to Auckland this morning, and Northland for that matter. The only two places still waking up in Level 4. Doing the heavy lifting for the rest of the country. Let’s hope it’s only for another two weeks Auckland.. fingers crossed. I saw some stats out of Australia yesterday where lockdowns are really starting to bite. One poll showed 86 percent of Australians intend on getting vaccinated – which is higher than pre-Delta. 50 percent of them want lockdowns to end when 80 percent of the country is vaccinated, so getting out of lockdowns is a big impetus.  Their fears are the same as ours – 58 percent feared businesses closing and job losses, 56 percent worried about what effect lockdowns are having on mental health, which I talked about yesterday. And 52 percent of them find home schooling a negative. I think the thing with home schooling is the isolation of children at such a social time of their lives, but also the inequality of it. Your household’s home schooling regime may look very different to some

Deliveries are also an option for those who don’t want to queue    Domino's New Zealand general manager Cameron Toomey told Kate Hawkesby they’re expecting a big day   But he says, they’ve been here before and they know what to do   "We do serve a lot of customers every day normally, so we just make sure we've got the right amount of people rostered on and we've got the right procedures in place to allow us to meet the demand." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An immunologist says new vaccine eligibility should be celebrated. From today anyone over the age of 12 has the ability to book in to get the Covid-19 jab.  Despite this some are set to face long waits.  Malaghan Institute immunologist Graham Le Gros told Kate Hawkesby it needs to be targeted.  "The regions, Māori community, Pacific community and really make sure that they're really safe too, because they're the ones that live in high-density conditions and they're very vulnerable to this virus if it gets into them." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today will see the return of cafe coffee and gloriously greasy takeaways for those south of Auckland, regarding it can be picked up or delivered under Covid guidelines. But for a small business outside of a major city centre the cost of delivering is often hardly worth the profit margin. Development West Coast has got a scheme to help with that, and the CEO Heath Milne told Kate Hawkesby an incentive is more effective than a payout. "We thought, rather than give cash to businesses, we’ll help them to get into that market, by giving them a rebate for every delivery that they do.” LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A lot of talk around mental health at the moment, and rightly so. This lockdown feels tougher, and we’re right to feel deflated by it, our lockdowns are stricter than Australia’s. In Melbourne you can still meet up for coffee with people outside your bubble, exercise with someone outside of your bubble, go out for takeaways, coffees, flowers.  My girlfriend in Sydney says basically most businesses are considered essential and are therefore open, the same mixing of bubbles applies, and there’s more movement. That’s arguably why it’s spreading faster, but it pays to remember their lockdown is not our lockdown, so we are rightly feeling the pinch of our super strict Level 4 rules. Some say the mental health shadow pandemic will be bigger than the Covid one. In Australia it already is. There are 342 young people a week in Victoria being admitted to hospital for mental health issues, 40 kids a day in New South Wales. It’s tough.  Anxiety levels are through the roof, isolation is triggering all sorts of feelings, a

Two weeks is a long time when it comes to Covid. There are 562 community cases in the current Delta outbreak -- with just 53 new cases reported yesterday. That's 30 fewer than the day before. Most of the country comes out of Level Four at midnight and Northland is likely to follow on Thursday night, while Auckland faces another two weeks under Level Four restrictions. Otago University infectious diseases physician Kurt Krause says told Kate Hawkesby while yesterday's drop in case numbers is encouraging, only time will tell whether we have the outbreak under control. "There's new variants brewing around the world, different things are happening. It really has been hard to settle down and be confident about what's going to happen from one week to the next." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Civil Defence officials still don't know the full extent of the damage, from a night of heavy rain and extensive flooding in Auckland. Emergency services have received more than 150 calls about flooding, mostly in West Auckland. One Swanson resident has described seeing cars being swept down the road, children being carried through shoulder-height flood waters, and homes ending up underwater. Auckland Emergency Management Deputy Controller Rachel Kelleher told Kate Hawkesby response crews will head out to assist, where needed. "It's still an emerging situation at the moment, we're just working through what the needs are out there." Kelleher says the need to evacuate overrides any alert level requirements, but people should socially distance where possible. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Those on one side of a Waikato road will wake up tomorrow in level three, but the other will still be in level four. Everywhere south of Auckland will move to level three at midnight but the boundary cuts across Koheroa Road at Mercer. Waikato District Mayor Allan Sanson told Kate Hawkesby he's spoken to the Prime Minister's office about it but they're sticking with their decision. "The stupidity in having a boundary down the middle of the road, I can't defend that position, it's just crazy." LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It may be easier than we think to combat online scams that are continuing to run rampant in New Zealand.New research by BNZ shows nearly four out of five New Zealanders are being targeted by a scam and nearly a quarter are falling for them.It comes as BNZ launches its annual Scam Savvy Week, running from today until Friday.BNZ's Head of Financial Crime, Ashley Kai Fong told Kate Hawkesby with everyone online in lockdown, they’re more susceptible.But he says there are simple steps people can take.“Keep their software updated, do all the software patches that are required and actually educate their staff not to click on links.”LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.