Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast Newstalk ZB

David Seymour says they had no choice over leaving 13 new cancer drugs out of the Budget, breaking a National campaign promise. 

The ACT leader told Kerre Woodham that the Government inherited a financially struggling Pharmac, and made some tough choices. 

He says a Coalition Government can't keep all promises. 

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A deal's been made with New Zealand’s Aluminium Smelter to keep the smelter at Tiwai operating for the next 20 years.  

The agreement includes a significant demand response deal to make more electricity available for the country when it may be required during times of high demand. 

It also has commitments for the environmental remediation of the smelter site. 

Invercargill Mayor Nobby Clark told Kerre Woodham that this is outstanding news for the region. 

He said that there was a nervousness as to how much power Tiwai needs and where that power could be diverted to other industries, but it seems as though power companies are able to deal with both. 

It’s outstanding, Clark said, as they have other industries wanting to make their way into Invercargill. 

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Donald Trump has become the first former US president to be convicted of a crime. 

The former US president's charges are in connection to a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in the final weeks of the 2016 election. 

He was found guilty of 34 felony charges but will appeal the outcome. 

US Correspondent Katherine Firkin told Kerre Woodham that now that the verdict has been reached, Trump will try to turn it around and turn himself into a martyr. 

She said that there’s already Trump supporters who support him no matter what, and there are already people saying that the trial is a political witch hunt, and he’s a victim for the cause. 

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We need information. To create a functioning society, there's certain information that we need to know. How many of us there are in the country for starters. How old we all are, so we know where we need to build schools and what sort of aged care we might need in the future. Roads, public transport, all that sort of stuff depends on knowing where we all are, who we all are, where we work. So many questions and so many answers needed. And since 1851, we've been getting that information via the Census.  

People from the statistics department would come on foot, or by horse, or on boats, or by tram, or by train, or by bus, or by cars and drop off forms to dwellings, as they're called, and New Zealanders filled them out. Then the stats people would come along and collect them. Then the number crunchers would sharpen their pencils and do their thing every five years.  

But times change and attitudes change, and not everybody trusts the government the way they used to. There was a great big data dump from Stats New Zealand yesterday with all sorts of factoids coming out of it. But are the factoids worth the paper they are printed on? The backbone data system effectively broke during the Census of 2023 causing significant failures, according to internal Stats New Zealand documents. The Azure Cloud Storage System used simply wasn't capable of handling the torrent of responses and that led to an estimated 100,000+ unnecessary field visits. At the backlogs peak a million individual and dwelling forms were queued, and the backlog wasn't cleared until April the 3rd. So, really? You've got all of this data coming in. I mean, bring back the pencil sharpeners really, and bring back the accountants, and bring back the men with the pocket protectors, and the walk shorts, and the knee socks, because they seem to do a far better job than the Azure Cloud Storage System has ever done.  

Then you have the human frailties factor. People on Heather's show yesterday were texting and saying they've ticked all sorts of boxes that bore no relation to reality. That they wanted to get the jab, and they wanted to get it early so they ticked the Māori box because they wanted to get the vaccination when Māori did. They said I know loads of people that did it, why shouldn't they? I identified as Māori, says Tim, for the Census and it works well for me. I also identify as Māori for all medical work, it improves Māori stats for health, crime, and income, all of the stats says the texter. A friend of mine, who's as white as anyone you could imagine identified as Māori, within a couple of weeks he was notified he was eligible for some free screening, whereas if he had put European, it would have been another seven or so years. When you when you take into account the fact that a lot of people don't trust the government, a lot of people will just tick whatever when people don't trust the government to be able to protect the information they're giving them, when some of the questions seemed very, very odd in the last Census.  

I remember when I was doing nights on talk back and asked to fill out the Census between a specific set of hours. I wasn't there. I was at work. So, they rang me and said right, we need you to sit down and do it with us, when are you free? And I said, well, from about 12:15 to 2:00am, plenty of time. That's when I relax and I've got nothing to do. That's when I usually do my paperwork. Oh well, we don't have anybody on. Well, you asked me when I was free, I'm a shift worker. And presumably when you have shift workers who can't fill out their Census because they're at work then you might have to look at stats and Census information seekers who can work beyond 9 to 5.  

So, all sorts of issues with the Census. Is there any way to collect the information we need to run our society effectively that you would trust?  When it comes to the Census, did you fill it out accurately and correctly and properly and with due diligence? O

The result is in for New Zealand Rugby’s long-awaited governance vote. 

Proposal Two, the structure put forth by the country’s provincial unions has won with 69 votes. 

The proposal includes a stipulation that at least three of NZR’s nine board directors must have experience serving on a provincial board, in contrast with proposal one —backed by NZR and the players— which wanted all nine directors to be entirely independent. 

ZB’s Rugby Correspondent Elliott Smith told Kerre Woodham that it hasn't been a pleasant period, and the arguments and division hasn’t been a great look for the game. 

He said that what happens next is anyone's guess. 

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Prolific author and former investigative journalist Jake Adelstein has quite an extensive knowledge of the Yakuza. 

He was a reporter for the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s largest newspaper, between 1993 and 2005, and from 2006 to 2007 he was the chief investigator for a US State Department-sponsored investigation into human trafficking in Japan.  

He’s written for outfits such as the Independent and The Guardian, as well as writing three books: ‘Tokyo Vice: a Western Reporter on the beat in Japan’, ‘The Last Yakuza: Life and Death in the Japanese Underworld’, and ‘Tokyo Noir’. 

‘Tokyo Noir’ is his latest, covering his life post-journalism as well as some details of Japan’s criminal underworld. 

He joined Kerre Woodham to discuss his life, career, and extensive knowledge of the Yakuza. 

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