Politics Central Newstalk ZB

Producer Andy put together a small taste of Trumps most 'brazen and bizarre' comments from the last four years.
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National leader Judith Collins' "very literal come-to-Jesus moment" this week has raised suspicions among some people that she is politicising her faith to win over conservative Christians.
Some political commentators say her public comments and actions about her religion seem to have come out of nowhere, and the New Conservative Party thinks she's targeting voters who may be more inclined to side with them.
Collins is adamant that she has been upfront about her faith throughout her political career.
"I have always been a Christian and I have never been a lapsed anything."
Political commentator and former minister Peter Dunne told The Weekend Collective that Collins is entitled to her private belief, but the fact she has raised it so frequently this week is "odd". 
"Making it more overt suggests strongly to me that she's pitching out to the New Conservative party voters, because that's where the rump of the old Christian right has ended up. 
"Maybe she feels that they are getting too strong or whether she's worried about the votes she is losing from ACT."
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Marine One was idling on the South Lawn Friday as President Donald Trump's advisers were inside the White House making a last-minute push to get him to board the helicopter.
The President, who had recently tested positive for coronavirus, was reluctant to go to the hospital, multiple sources familiar with what happened later told CNN. Though Trump had developed symptoms and was now on experimental drugs, he didn't want to be "hospitalized," he said.
Aware of his hesitancy to appear seriously ill or convey the serious nature of his condition, Trump's aides now appear to be scrambling to provide a portrait of a mildly ill commander-in-chief. But on Friday, medical officials were concerned about his vitals and thought it would be better to monitor his response with the vast resources that Walter Reed National Military Medical Center provided. Trump was told the facility was a more prudent place for him to be in case his condition deteriorated.
"The White House is fully committed to providing transparent and regular updates on the President's condition and recovery," Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, said in a statement.
A decision was made by senior officials to schedule his departure after markets closed to avoid an inevitable tumble, two people familiar with the matter said.
Looking tired and somewhat pale, Trump walked past the cameras he has stopped for so many times with a small wave, and boarded.
At the most fraught moment of Trump's presidency -- or of any presidency in decades -- the White House is facing a credibility crisis with dramatic repercussions for Americans' confidence in their government and its leadership.
Inside some areas of the White House, the lack of information about Trump's condition is causing concern as aides fear speculation and panic could fill the void, some of those officials said. On Friday evening, as the President was being flown to Walter Reed, several high-placed government officials -- including a Cabinet official and two senior Republicans -- had not been briefed fully about the situation, the officials told CNN.
Instead, many even inside the White House and the wider administration are relying on news reports to glean information about the President's health. That includes several White House allies who believe they could have potentially been exposed to coronavirus over the past week, but have not been contacted with instructions from the President's medical team.
Rosy portrait
At a late morning news conference on Saturday, the President's physician offered a rosy portrait of a man on the mend but repeatedly evaded questions about Trump's condition, including whether he'd been placed on supplemental oxygen over the past days and what his highest recorded temperature has been. He offered a timeline that appeared to place Trump's diagnosis well before it was publicly disclosed only to later say he misspoke.
"This morning the President is doing very well," Dr. Sean Conley said. "At this time, the team and I are extremely happy with the progress the President has made."
Moments later, another person familiar with Trump's condition offered a stark and very different portrait of the President's health to a group of reporters gathered at the hospital: "The President's vitals over last 24 hours were very concerning and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care. We are still not on a clear path to a full recovery."
The second official was granted anonymity by the small group of reporters who traveled with the President and isn't known to the wider group. Chief of staff Mark Meadows was the only other White House official present when doctors came out of the building Saturday at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center ahead of the news conference.
A day earlier, Meadows told reporters at the White House that Trump was experiencing only "mild symptoms."
The disparity in how Tr

Labour leader Jacinda Ardern wants to make it illegal to discriminate on the grounds of someone's religion as well as possibly sexual orientation or disability.
Her commitment follows a visit to Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch today where Imam Gamal Fouda made an impassioned plea for stronger political leadership around hate speech laws.
The Government has been reviewing hate speech in the aftermath of the March 15 attacks, and NZ First is thought to be why nothing has changed.
Justice Minister Andrew Little told The Weekend Collective that there are already laws around hate speech that are around race and ethnicity, including the Human Rights Act and the Harmful Digital Communications Act.
"The problem with the law is that it criminalises conduct in relation to inciting hostility to others on the grounds of race but not on any other grounds, including religion."
Little says that provisions such as Incite to Violence only apply to abuse targetted at specific people, rather than wider groups. 
He says that freedom of speech is there to protect minorities and those who speak up against those in power. 
"It's not there to protect against those who want to threaten and intimidate others because of who they are."
The proposed move has prompted criticism from ACT leader David Seymour.
He told The Weekend Collective that they don't want a Government department to decide what people can and can't decide. 
"No matter how they try and dress it up, that's the only way it can work."
Seymour says that this is legislating against offence, which he says it will led to high-level censorship. 
He says that the current provisions on defending race against hate speech have not worked properly for several decades.
Prior to Seymour coming on the show, Little told The Weekend Collective that Seymour is a smart enough guy to know there should be limits and they can be well-defined. 
"He's got to explain why it is that it's a criminal offence to say 'let's kill at the Māoris' but it's not a criminal offence to say 'let's kill all the Jews and the Muslins'. And if his defence to that is to say 'we should be allowed to say let's all the Māoris', then that's on him."
Little says that there are no plans to make it illegal to be offended.