Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Full Show Podcast: 29 September 2026

Transcript

Full Show Podcast: 29 September 2026 · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

0:00
Speaker 1: The issues, the interviews and the insight. Ryan Bridge on
0:04
Speaker 1: Early Edition with Spark for Business. Technology that keeps business moving.
0:09
Speaker 1: Newstalk ZB.
0:10
Speaker 2: Good morning, welcome to Tuesday, six after five. Great to
0:13
Speaker 2: have your company. The government books will get open today
0:15
Speaker 2: and we'll have probably a tax cut announcement coming from national.
0:19
Speaker 2: Sydney residents have managed to kill off a data centre.
0:21
Speaker 2: We'll tell you why with Donna DeMayo out of Australia.
0:24
Speaker 2: What happens if your school posts a photo of your
0:26
Speaker 2: kid on the internet and you didn't want them to? Plus,
0:29
Speaker 2: we'll talk new builds, the houses that are too hot.
0:33
Speaker 2: Tuesday the 29th of September, these five guys they reckon
0:37
Speaker 2: were planning a terror attack in the UK, they just
0:40
Speaker 2: got bail?
0:41
Speaker 3: To be very clear, this does not mean that the
0:43
Speaker 3: investigation is over. They are subject to stringent conditions on
0:48
Speaker 3: their movement and contact with others. They absolutely remain under
0:53
Speaker 3: investigation as we explore multiple lines of inquiry.
0:57
Speaker 2: They're all British nationals arrested under the Explosives Act. Here's
1:00
Speaker 2: the Home Secretary.
1:01
Speaker 4: We must all remain vigilant. And to all those who
1:06
Speaker 4: mean us harm and plot violence on our soil, let
1:10
Speaker 4: this be a reminder. You will never defeat us.
1:17
Speaker 2: But you will immediately get bail. Andy Burnham, he's going
1:19
Speaker 2: to be calling a Cobra meeting at the moment. I
1:21
Speaker 2: will chair a meeting of Cobra later this afternoon.
1:25
Speaker 5: Just to make sure we have the full picture, the
1:28
Speaker 5: full situation very clearly.
1:32
Speaker 2: In our sights. Elsewhere in the UK, Chancellor John Healey,
1:35
Speaker 2: remember he was Defence Minister, that's now West Reading, but
1:38
Speaker 2: John Healey has been speaking at a Labour conference. And
1:41
Speaker 2: this is a Liverpool pledging fiscal discipline from Labour.
1:46
Speaker 6: And I tell you, these levels of debt, an assault
1:49
Speaker 6: on our common sense, they're an affront to our values.
1:52
Speaker 6: And that's why the Prime Minister and I are in lockstep,
1:55
Speaker 6: that we will meet the fiscal rules, that we will
1:58
Speaker 6: maintain control of Britain's finances.
2:02
Speaker 2: Filing this morning's SpaceX, big launch for them. This is
2:04
Speaker 2: the world's most powerful rocket carrying the biggest payload ever,
2:09
Speaker 2: now into orbit for the first time around.
2:11
Speaker 7: Five, four, three, two, one.
2:24
Speaker 2: Engine's lit on super heavy. The window's shaking.
2:29
Speaker 8: A bit here.
2:29
Speaker 2: Booster and chip avionics power and telemetry nominal. Yes, it
2:32
Speaker 2: is pretty cool. I'll tell you more about that in
2:34
Speaker 2: a couple seconds.
2:36
Speaker 1: News and views you trust to start your day. It's
2:40
Speaker 1: early edition with Ryan Bridge and Spark for Business. Technology
2:44
Speaker 1: that keeps business moving.
2:46
Speaker 2: Newstalk ZB. 9292 is the number to text. Always love
2:49
Speaker 2: to hear from you. So SpaceX, this is pretty fascinating
2:53
Speaker 2: and pretty cool, actually, no matter which way you look
2:56
Speaker 2: at it. And when you look at the size of
2:58
Speaker 2: the rocket, it's massive. And when you look at it
3:02
Speaker 2: next to a space shuttle, it's massive. So the height
3:06
Speaker 2: is 120 meters and a space shuttle, your old school
3:10
Speaker 2: space shuttle, 56 meters in height. So much larger, can
3:14
Speaker 2: carry a way bigger payload. I think it's around 200
3:19
Speaker 2: metric tons you will get out of a new Starship rocket,
3:23
Speaker 2: which means that Elon Musk can do what he said
3:25
Speaker 2: he would do, which is send a whole bunch of satellites,
3:28
Speaker 2: Starlink satellites into space so that when you are trying
3:30
Speaker 2: to dial up to the internet in Masterton, out in
3:34
Speaker 2: the whops, you'll be able to do that via the
3:37
Speaker 2: satellites that he puts into space. A giant reusable one
3:40
Speaker 2: it is. And this is the first, and the only
3:42
Speaker 2: thing that's really interesting about this one, because you would
3:44
Speaker 2: have seen they've done a bunch of these before, is
3:46
Speaker 2: the fact that this is the first time it's actually
3:47
Speaker 2: gone into orbit. Previously, they got close to orbit and
3:52
Speaker 2: then pulled out on purpose. So it's been around Earth
3:55
Speaker 2: six times and then splashes down the Pacific Ocean near Chile,
3:58
Speaker 2: which it's done. So great, successful. They reckon that each
4:02
Speaker 2: launch will add 10 times as much capacity to that
4:08
Speaker 2: Starlink internet network as the Falcon 9, which is their
4:12
Speaker 2: current workhorse. So this is all about money. Speaking of,
4:15
Speaker 2: they've spent $ 15 billion US so far getting the Starship
4:21
Speaker 2: to this point. enormous cargo capacity, as I said. And basically,
4:27
Speaker 2: in order to justify the $ 2 trillion valuation that SpaceX
4:31
Speaker 2: currently has, you need to get all of these satellites
4:35
Speaker 2: up into space. But you also need to have the capacity,
4:39
Speaker 2: have the room to put AI data centers in space
4:43
Speaker 2: and to compete with an AI data center on Earth.
4:47
Speaker 2: There's a consultancy firm that estimates the launch cost of
4:50
Speaker 2: doing this must fall sixfold. So at the moment, they're
4:54
Speaker 2: too expensive to justify the valuation of SpaceX. But the
4:58
Speaker 2: hope is that once you do one, you do another one,
5:01
Speaker 2: you refine, you refine, you refine, they're reusable and the
5:04
Speaker 2: whole cost starts to come down and begins to wash
5:07
Speaker 2: its own face. 11 after five. Homes are too hot
5:11
Speaker 2: here on planet Earth. We'll talk to the Green Building
5:14
Speaker 2: Council about what on Earth you can do about that.
5:16
Speaker 2: 11 after 5.
5:25
Speaker 1: The first word on the news of the day. Early
5:28
Speaker 1: Edition with Ryan Bridge and Spark for Business. Technology that
5:33
Speaker 1: keeps business moving. Newstalk ZB.
5:35
Speaker 2: 5.13, some good jobs numbers coming out yesterday from Stats NZ.
5:39
Speaker 2: This is for August. So their month-on-month data always read
5:42
Speaker 2: with a slight grain of salt because they do tend
5:44
Speaker 2: to get revised lower. However, it's good news. Highest jobs
5:47
Speaker 2: growth since April 2024. We added 20,800 more jobs than
5:49
Speaker 2: a year ago. In the month, Southland up 3.1% on
5:56
Speaker 2: a year ago. Canterbury up nearly 2%. Otago 1.4%. Waikato,
6:01
Speaker 2: Europe 1.3%. So good, good, good, good, good. Auckland, on
6:06
Speaker 2: a year ago, we've only added 0.6%. And Wellington, no
6:10
Speaker 2: growth for you, though I don't think you will be
6:12
Speaker 2: surprised to hear that this morning. Earnings, by the way, 3.8%
6:15
Speaker 2: up from a year ago, not keeping pace with inflation,
6:18
Speaker 2: which as we know is 4.1. 14 after 5. No
6:22
Speaker 2: quick fix for hothouses. These are the newly built apartments
6:25
Speaker 2: getting cooked by the sun, pushing some bedroom temperatures above
6:29
Speaker 2: 35 degrees during the day. Well, you'll have to wait
6:32
Speaker 2: years before rules are changed to cool you down. MBIE
6:36
Speaker 2: says they are reviewing the rules, they're looking into it,
6:39
Speaker 2: but nothing will change before 2031. Andrew Eagles, Green Building
6:43
Speaker 2: Council CEO with us this morning. Andrew, good morning.
6:46
Speaker 7: Good morning.
6:47
Speaker 9: Great to speak with you.
6:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you too. So what exactly have they said?
6:49
Speaker 2: They said we are considering the issue, but we can't
6:52
Speaker 2: make changes or won't make changes before then?
6:56
Speaker 7: Yeah, look, I think this is just a real shame.
7:00
Speaker 7: You know, a home should be a place which is
7:02
Speaker 7: a sanctuary you go to recover from. And instead, Kiwis
7:05
Speaker 7: have got discomfort and stress. You know, they're saying things like,
7:09
Speaker 7: my home is like an oven or it's a sauna
7:11
Speaker 7: without the sun. Auckland Council is really, really alarmed about
7:16
Speaker 7: this and is calling for action. And there's just no
7:19
Speaker 7: way we need to wait five years to fix this.
7:22
Speaker 7: Australia did this in 2019. There are no qualms from there.
7:28
Speaker 7: We have the clause. We could implement this and have
7:31
Speaker 7: better homes. And the thing they're not saying, the thing
7:34
Speaker 7: they're failing to say, is that a delay of five
7:38
Speaker 7: years will impact over 60,000 families. 60,000 families will be
7:44
Speaker 7: more at risk of these sweltering, terrible conditions.
7:47
Speaker 2: Is that because new homes, new townhouses, apartments getting built
7:52
Speaker 2: will be bought and are too hot?
7:55
Speaker 7: Yeah, so around half of the homes we're building at
7:59
Speaker 7: the moment are terraced homes and apartments, and those are
8:02
Speaker 7: the ones that are more at risk. And if we're
8:04
Speaker 7: not asking designers to check this at that stage, then
8:09
Speaker 7: we've got a huge number of homes that are at
8:11
Speaker 7: risk of these conditions. And Kiwi families just shouldn't have
8:15
Speaker 7: to put up with that. And, you know, if that's
8:18
Speaker 7: 60,000 homes, if you say that's three people per home,
8:21
Speaker 7: that's 180,000. thousand people at risk of these conditions. And
8:25
Speaker 7: we really need politicians to just say, this is ridiculous.
8:31
Speaker 7: We've got a solution in other countries. Let's crunch through
8:34
Speaker 7: this bureaucracy and analysis and delay and get on with
8:39
Speaker 7: solutions for Kiwi families.
8:41
Speaker 2: Andrew, if you're someone listening to this, you're about to
8:43
Speaker 2: buy a townhouse, you're about to buy an apartment, or
8:45
Speaker 2: you're thinking of doing that, I mean, I've been reading
8:48
Speaker 2: about the story. So if it's west-facing, if there's floor-to-ceiling windows,
8:52
Speaker 2: you can barely crack the window open, and there's bugger-all ventilation,
8:56
Speaker 2: no eaves, no window shading, all of those sort of
9:00
Speaker 2: telltale signs.
9:02
Speaker 7: Exactly. So your question to the developer is, have you
9:06
Speaker 7: modelled this, and is it going to overheat? Show me
9:10
Speaker 7: the model, right?
9:11
Speaker 10: Yeah.
9:12
Speaker 7: Or you could ask for a Homestar certification that will
9:15
Speaker 7: confirm that risk has been dropped down markedly. But do say,
9:20
Speaker 7: show me the model. And has this been controlled for?
9:23
Speaker 7: They can reduce the glazing size. They can put on
9:27
Speaker 7: the shading. And that will reduce that risk. It means
9:31
Speaker 7: your family isn't going to be uncomfortable and sweltering through
9:34
Speaker 7: January through to March. You're going to be able to
9:36
Speaker 7: get better sleep. We actually think there's a real case
9:40
Speaker 7: that these homes are breaching the building code because the
9:43
Speaker 7: code is meant to be delivering comfortable, healthy homes. And
9:48
Speaker 7: it's just not. And no way we should wait five years.
9:51
Speaker 7: Sounds a bit dumb.
9:52
Speaker 2: Andrew Eagles, Green Building Council, CEO, 18 after five. 9292,
9:58
Speaker 2: the number to text is nothing I hate more. I
10:00
Speaker 2: was actually thinking about this yesterday, unrelated to this story,
10:03
Speaker 2: but would you rather, I was watching a documentary about
10:07
Speaker 2: war and I was thinking would you rather, it was
10:09
Speaker 2: actually about the Aussies who were fighting the Japanese and
10:12
Speaker 2: they were doing that in Papua New Guinea in the bush,
10:14
Speaker 2: in the heat, in the humidity and I was thinking, man,
10:17
Speaker 2: would you rather fight a war in the cold, the,
10:21
Speaker 2: you know, Russian cold winter or in the tropics, probably
10:25
Speaker 2: go for the cold personally. I just hate the heat.
10:28
Speaker 2: And imagine being in, you know, in some shoebox apartment,
10:33
Speaker 2: sweating every night. People are saying that their doors, because
10:37
Speaker 2: they've got aluminium doors, they are so hot you can't
10:40
Speaker 2: touch the front door and the heat radiates back into
10:43
Speaker 2: the house. Can't let the baby, you know, around the
10:46
Speaker 2: floor because the floor gets too hot. Just sounds disgraceful, disgusting.
10:50
Speaker 2: 19 after 5, Newstalk ZB. We will talk kids and
10:54
Speaker 2: photos at school next.
11:03
Speaker 1: Get ahead of the headlines on Early Edition with Ryan
11:07
Speaker 1: Bridge and Spark for Business, technology that keeps business moving.
11:12
Speaker 1: 521 Newstalk ZB.
11:13
Speaker 2: We're straightening the Defence Minister over in the UK. He said, well,
11:17
Speaker 2: there's actually no discrepancy between what we talked about yesterday,
11:21
Speaker 2: Trump coming out and saying, oh, we knew about these
11:23
Speaker 2: alleged terrorists with their terror plot. And the farmer who
11:28
Speaker 2: was in the town in Fairfield near the Air Force
11:30
Speaker 2: Base who rang it in and said there's these dodgy
11:32
Speaker 2: white vans driving around with guys in them and they've
11:34
Speaker 2: got balaclavas on. So who's right? Did they not know
11:38
Speaker 2: about it and some farmer had to phone it in?
11:40
Speaker 2: Or did they know about it? Well, it turns out
11:42
Speaker 2: he hasn't said it specifically. He hasn't said it explicitly.
11:46
Speaker 2: But what West Reading's basically saying is that they're both right,
11:49
Speaker 2: that we knew what they were doing. um but that
11:52
Speaker 2: didn't mean that you know and we were letting them
11:54
Speaker 2: get to a certain point but then the farmer obviously
11:57
Speaker 2: called it in too so thanks to the farmer 22
11:59
Speaker 2: after five new research released to zb shows two-thirds of
12:04
Speaker 2: schools surveyed have accidentally published an image of a child
12:08
Speaker 2: online despite their parents saying don't andrew england darfield high
12:13
Speaker 2: school principal with me this morning hey andy Well done, Orion.
12:16
Speaker 9: That was very formal, Andrew.
12:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry. Sorry about that.
12:19
Speaker 9: No, you're good.
12:21
Speaker 2: Andy, speaking of formal, don't parents sign like a formal
12:25
Speaker 2: declaration and say, tick a box that says, no, don't
12:28
Speaker 2: post a photo of my kid?
12:30
Speaker 9: They do at the time of enrolment, absolutely. But as
12:33
Speaker 9: a school, you're kind of between a rock and a
12:35
Speaker 9: hard place. And it is true, and I know that
12:39
Speaker 9: we've also done that, made that same mistake and then
12:42
Speaker 9: fixed it. But you, as a school of, say, 800 students,
12:46
Speaker 9: you might have a handful of students who don't want
12:47
Speaker 9: their pictures or whose parents don't want their pictures to
12:50
Speaker 9: be online. You get busy during the day. You're taking
12:52
Speaker 9: those pictures of all this great stuff. You've got lots
12:55
Speaker 9: of other parents who love seeing their kids doing great
12:58
Speaker 9: school things. And then you throw it all on social
13:01
Speaker 9: media so everybody can enjoy it and you realise you've
13:03
Speaker 9: made a mistake.
13:05
Speaker 2: So when you say social media, do you mean public pages?
13:09
Speaker 9: Yeah. The most common thing that schools use is... It's
13:13
Speaker 9: public pages here. It's Facebook, Instagram, et cetera. And it
13:17
Speaker 9: is a real risk. I mean, as I say, I
13:19
Speaker 9: can't actually remember when we did it as a mistake,
13:22
Speaker 9: but I do remember we had to retrieve it one time.
13:25
Speaker 9: If you think about all the different media channels that
13:27
Speaker 9: schools use nowadays, and it's largely, I'll say, it's for
13:31
Speaker 9: a good reason because people want to share all the
13:33
Speaker 9: cool things that's happening. And I guess it affects by
13:35
Speaker 9: marketing as well. There's all sorts of reasons for it.
13:38
Speaker 9: But you've got the commercial products, the meta range, your
13:43
Speaker 9: school website, your newsletters, et cetera. And then often within
13:48
Speaker 9: the school, you've got several people organizing all of your
13:51
Speaker 9: different media for you. So you've got to try and
13:53
Speaker 9: coordinate that knowledge across all of them.
13:55
Speaker 2: So why not just– I mean, if the risk is
13:58
Speaker 2: that you put a photo up that a parent didn't
14:00
Speaker 2: want to be there, why not just keep it to
14:02
Speaker 2: a newsletter?
14:05
Speaker 9: Exactly. And I think what the– What this article is
14:09
Speaker 9: saying that you've got there is that the landscape has changed.
14:13
Speaker 9: The risks have changed in the last few years. The
14:16
Speaker 9: ability for AI to go out and harvest and mass
14:18
Speaker 9: images and names and all that kind of stuff from
14:21
Speaker 9: schools didn't exist five or ten years ago, and the
14:24
Speaker 9: awareness of it and so on. So I think most
14:26
Speaker 9: of us as schools are looking at how far do
14:28
Speaker 9: we pull back. There's technology available now where you can
14:31
Speaker 9: actually just, for families who want to, you can scan
14:34
Speaker 9: the faces of their children and then you can now
14:36
Speaker 9: blur them out automatically, so you can't really make those
14:40
Speaker 9: same mistakes. There are a range of things, but who
14:42
Speaker 9: wants to see blurred out faces in there? in their
14:45
Speaker 9: school website. So we've got to get our hands to
14:47
Speaker 9: try and manage all this.
14:48
Speaker 2: Andy England, Darfield High School principal, 25 minutes after five.
14:52
Speaker 2: By the way, your yields on your 10-year bonds are
14:55
Speaker 2: hitting 5.2%. That is the highest since 2000. So they
14:59
Speaker 2: just keep going up and up and up. Brent crude
15:01
Speaker 2: up to $ 106 a barrel overnight too. This after Iran said,
15:05
Speaker 2: you know, Iran said, we'll do a deal on the straight.
15:07
Speaker 2: Trump said no. And then Iran came back and said, well,
15:10
Speaker 2: we're not changing our terms. So it's a stalemate again.
15:14
Speaker 2: Newstalk ZB. Newstalk ZB 527. There's an irony to this
15:18
Speaker 2: latest poll, which won't be lost on Labour. This is,
15:21
Speaker 2: of course, one poll and should be read as such.
15:24
Speaker 2: The big parties are getting, this is the general trend,
15:26
Speaker 2: big parties are getting smaller, smaller parties are getting bigger.
15:29
Speaker 2: The trend, I think, will reverse course a bit on
15:32
Speaker 2: polling day because not everyone who's polled bothers to vote
15:35
Speaker 2: and not everyone who votes is polled. But the fact
15:38
Speaker 2: the Greens have half the support of Labour and would
15:41
Speaker 2: probably have quite a big say in government is no
15:45
Speaker 2: good thing for the centre vote that Labour has been courting.
15:49
Speaker 2: It's like BO to a centrist voter. Every time a
15:52
Speaker 2: poll has Labour slumping and its coalition partners rising, the
15:55
Speaker 2: chances of Chloe Swarbrick getting finance and tax hikes become
16:00
Speaker 2: a real thing. This is no good for Hipkins because
16:04
Speaker 2: those scenarios scare away the centre votes that he and
16:06
Speaker 2: the Nats are desperately trying to attract. You are the
16:09
Speaker 2: company you keep, and if the company you keep says
16:11
Speaker 2: comrade a lot, it can be a little off-putting for
16:14
Speaker 2: people who don't use that language. The opposite logic but
16:18
Speaker 2: same principle and problem applies to the right. Right voters
16:23
Speaker 2: don't so much want a right-wing government as they loathe
16:26
Speaker 2: the idea of another left-wing one. They worry about borrowing,
16:30
Speaker 2: ill-disciplined spending, the interest bill now the fourth biggest line
16:34
Speaker 2: item on the government's books. If an engineered overhang, could
16:39
Speaker 2: stop that from happening, they might just ignore John Key
16:43
Speaker 2: and split their votes. Sure, you would lose a few
16:46
Speaker 2: star ministers from National, but better an ACT or New
16:49
Speaker 2: Zealand First Minister around a cabinet table the coalition still
16:53
Speaker 2: runs than no seats around a table they don't. This
16:56
Speaker 2: is one poll. It should be taken with a grain
16:59
Speaker 2: of salt, of course, as always. But at this stage
17:01
Speaker 2: of the cycle, polls can start to dictate voter behaviour,
17:05
Speaker 2: especially if you are thinking about voting strategically. As John is, Ryan,
17:15
Speaker 2: I don't know what all the fuss and angst is
17:16
Speaker 2: about with the splitting of votes. I was always Party
17:19
Speaker 2: Voting Act and candidate voting national. The other thing is
17:23
Speaker 2: the supermarket debate. We saw Seymour on that yesterday. I mean,
17:28
Speaker 2: if you were a national voter and you were right of,
17:31
Speaker 2: you know, probably leaning towards that, that might have just
17:33
Speaker 2: pushed you over the edge. ZB, Australia next.
17:37
Speaker 1: The Early Edition Pool Show Podcast on iHeartRadio. Powered by
17:42
Speaker 1: Newstalk ZB. On your radio and online on iHeartRadio. Early
17:48
Speaker 1: Edition with Ryan Bridge and Spark for Business. Technology that
17:53
Speaker 1: keeps business moving.
17:54
Speaker 2: Newstalk ZB.
17:54
Speaker 1: Hiding from hell.
17:56
Speaker 2: 24 away from 6 here on Newstalk ZB for your
18:03
Speaker 2: Tuesday morning. Great to have your company, Donna DeMose, out
18:06
Speaker 2: of Australia for us. Sydney's managing to stop a data centre.
18:09
Speaker 2: Residents are upset about it, so it won't get built.
18:11
Speaker 2: Brad Olsen, we'll talk to him about the pre-foo. We'll
18:13
Speaker 2: get the numbers out today. I'll tell you what numbers
18:15
Speaker 2: we got out of the budget and how they might
18:17
Speaker 2: compare to what we'll see today. And will we get
18:20
Speaker 2: tax cuts announcements from the Nats? That's the other question,
18:23
Speaker 2: of course. Now, a couple of quick things. One is
18:26
Speaker 2: from Trish. She says 13% undecideds in this poll.
18:30
Speaker 10: Really?
18:30
Speaker 2: Really? Does it not just show you who didn't get
18:33
Speaker 2: the phone call? Well, no, that's 13% of those who
18:36
Speaker 2: got the phone call. It's online forums and mobiles only.
18:39
Speaker 2: This is why I say don't read too much into
18:41
Speaker 2: a single poll or even into the poll of polls,
18:45
Speaker 2: which is not just looking at the poll numbers. It's
18:48
Speaker 2: also doing projections on vibes and momentum.
18:53
Speaker 10: So.
18:54
Speaker 2: The people that are polled, very different from the people
18:57
Speaker 2: that actually vote, is the first thing. And the people
19:00
Speaker 2: that vote, different from the people that were polled. So
19:02
Speaker 2: I always take it with a slight grain of salt,
19:06
Speaker 2: as Winston Peters always has. Now, Marine Le Pen over
19:09
Speaker 2: in France, this is an actual result, not a poll result.
19:12
Speaker 2: So on Sunday their time, they had the Senate election.
19:16
Speaker 2: So what happens is a very different system to ours.
19:18
Speaker 2: Of course, they've got a Senate, but 348 seats there.
19:20
Speaker 2: And every three years... They have local officials, local councillors,
19:26
Speaker 2: who pick half of the Senate seats. That's what's happened.
19:30
Speaker 2: For the first time, Marine Le Pen and her National
19:33
Speaker 2: Rally Party, this is your populist right-wing party, they have
19:36
Speaker 2: got a record 14 seats in the upper house. You
19:40
Speaker 2: need 10 to actually be represented as a group there.
19:43
Speaker 2: So for the first time, they will have parliamentary representation.
19:49
Speaker 2: Next year is their presidential election. So the timing is
19:52
Speaker 2: working well for them at this point in the cycle.
19:54
Speaker 2: 22 minutes away from six. Let's go to our reporters.
19:57
Speaker 2: Callum Dunedin, good morning.
19:58
Speaker 10: Morning, Ryan.
19:59
Speaker 2: You got fast track for these homes in Wanaka, but
20:01
Speaker 2: there's a bit of a catch.
20:02
Speaker 5: There are hundreds of new homes on the way for
20:05
Speaker 5: the popular central Otago town, but there's strict limits on
20:08
Speaker 5: How many can be used as visitor accommodation? Infrastructure Minister
20:12
Speaker 5: Chris Bishop says the Mount Iron Junction scheme will deliver
20:15
Speaker 5: 250 homes, a childcare centre and two recreational reserves. This
20:20
Speaker 5: is the 35th project to be approved through the fast
20:23
Speaker 5: track process. But just 20% of the homes will be
20:26
Speaker 5: allowed to be used for visitor accommodation for no more
20:29
Speaker 5: than 120 days a year. That means most will be
20:32
Speaker 5: available for people to actually live in. In Wanaka, the
20:34
Speaker 5: development will be built in five stages over the next decade.
20:38
Speaker 2: All right, how's your weather in Dunedin?
20:40
Speaker 5: A chance of a shower through to this afternoon, then fine.
20:43
Speaker 2: Gusty Westerly's here, 15 the high. Cheers, Callum. Claire in Christchurch. Morning, Claire.
20:47
Speaker 11: Good morning.
20:48
Speaker 2: You've got some good news for healthcare in Canterbury.
20:50
Speaker 4: Yes, we love this.
20:51
Speaker 12: Canterbury's skin cancer waitlist has been slashed after an intensive
20:55
Speaker 12: winter push by a plastic surgery service. So Health New
20:59
Speaker 12: Zealand says that more than 1,000 patients waiting for skin
21:01
Speaker 12: cancer assessment or treatment were seen in May and June alone.
21:06
Speaker 12: That included 700 non-urgent patients who had been waiting more
21:09
Speaker 12: than 120 days. They had some Saturday clinics open as well.
21:13
Speaker 12: They saw up to 40 patients a day on a Saturday,
21:16
Speaker 12: while extra weekday sessions were also rolled out. This has
21:19
Speaker 12: helped lift Canterbury's compliance with the government's quicker elective treatment
21:22
Speaker 12: target to 67%. It is still short of the 80% target.
21:27
Speaker 12: But Health NZ says that figure is their next goal
21:31
Speaker 12: to reach.
21:31
Speaker 2: How's your weather, Claire?
21:33
Speaker 11: Should be fine.
21:34
Speaker 12: A bit of cloud about early today and again this evening.
21:36
Speaker 12: Westerly's turning lighter. Easterly, the high will be 17.
21:39
Speaker 2: Nice one. Thank you very much. Tobias Wellington. Good morning, Tobias.
21:43
Speaker 8: Good morning, Ryan.
21:44
Speaker 2: You've got an influx of some special visitors over the weekend.
21:48
Speaker 8: Yeah, how's this? Because as people were hitting the walkways,
21:51
Speaker 8: bars and shops this weekend, so were sales. In less
21:55
Speaker 8: than 72 hours, DOC received almost 75 seal-related calls, around 200%
22:00
Speaker 8: higher than it would normally expect this time of year.
22:03
Speaker 8: So these are fur seals, and they were seen right
22:05
Speaker 8: across the coastline. This includes places like the train station,
22:09
Speaker 8: Cuba Street, Petone Esplanade, even over on Parliament Grounds. So
22:14
Speaker 8: on Sunday, police, they even had to come and collect
22:16
Speaker 8: one venturing over Hutt Road, which is a busy road
22:19
Speaker 8: at that. Doc says they're full of curiosity and young
22:22
Speaker 8: seals often leave their breeding colonies to explore their environment
22:26
Speaker 8: and show up in odd places while out adventuring. It's
22:29
Speaker 8: reminding people to observe from a distance and contact Doc
22:32
Speaker 8: if they're in immediate danger.
22:34
Speaker 2: So was this multiple seals? So 75 reports. It's not
22:38
Speaker 2: just one seal that's seen 75 times. They reckon lots
22:40
Speaker 2: of different seals.
22:42
Speaker 8: Yeah, quite a few seals and they're hitting the hot spots.
22:44
Speaker 8: So out campaigning on Parliament and shopping on Cuba Street.
22:49
Speaker 2: How's your weather?
22:50
Speaker 8: Fine today, areas of morning frost, just light winds for
22:53
Speaker 8: us and 16 the high.
22:55
Speaker 2: Nice one, Tobias. Thank you. Neva's in Auckland. Morning, Neva.
22:57
Speaker 4: Good morning.
22:58
Speaker 2: From seals to swans.
23:00
Speaker 11: That's right, and.
23:01
Speaker 4: Swan poo at that. And excessive breeding. Now, it's bothering
23:05
Speaker 4: residents on Auckland's eastern beaches. So an Auckland local board
23:08
Speaker 4: calling for action against the black swans, which have become
23:11
Speaker 4: very prolific breeders on some of the eastern beaches. Margaret Voice,
23:15
Speaker 4: now she's an Orakei local board member. She says, look,
23:18
Speaker 4: these birds, the swans, have come up from the northern
23:21
Speaker 4: lakes of Waikato and they're currently taking residence. This is
23:24
Speaker 4: in St Helier's Beach. Probably a lot of those locals
23:27
Speaker 4: will be, they would have seen them, all these swans there,
23:30
Speaker 4: the real pest, or Kahu Bay. She's concerned, this is
23:33
Speaker 4: Margaret Voice, concerned about the environmental impact it's having on
23:37
Speaker 4: the local beaches. She said the poo is everywhere. And
23:40
Speaker 4: apparently a recent collection effort saw 21 kilos of swan
23:44
Speaker 4: poo collected in an hour. And there is, I've got
23:48
Speaker 4: to say this, there's, you know, like, there's signs.
23:51
Speaker 2: How big is a swan poo? How big is that?
23:52
Speaker 2: Do you pick it up with a bag like a dog? Well, probably, I'd.
23:56
Speaker 4: Say there'd be big poo, wouldn't you? I'm just only surmising.
24:00
Speaker 4: But the thing is, too, is that they're just saying, people,
24:03
Speaker 4: stop feeding them.
24:04
Speaker 2: Oh, that's the problem.
24:06
Speaker 4: Because, you know, that's the problem. You know, people are
24:08
Speaker 4: feeding them.
24:09
Speaker 2: You don't want a swan coming from Hamilton, do you? Oh, well,
24:11
Speaker 2: I know.
24:11
Speaker 4: I thought, Hamilton, keep your swans.
24:13
Speaker 9: There, please.
24:13
Speaker 2: You don't want your Hamilton swans crossbreeding with your St
24:16
Speaker 2: Helier's swans. I can see why they'd be upset. Are
24:21
Speaker 2: they saying, is there any link between the excessive breeding
24:23
Speaker 2: and the poo that's happening? They go hand in hand.
24:28
Speaker 2: How's our weather?
24:31
Speaker 4: Cloudy, showers easing, becoming isolated in the afternoon, fine spouts increase.
24:35
Speaker 2: Did you just snort?
24:36
Speaker 4: I did snort because I was just thinking too, I
24:39
Speaker 4: was just visualising.
24:40
Speaker 2: I know.
24:41
Speaker 4: Picturing what you were saying, it's like, well, it's visual.
24:44
Speaker 4: But I'm also thinking too, because it's school holidays, you
24:46
Speaker 4: can just imagine, you know, like down there, it's an
24:48
Speaker 4: hell of years. It's not just the locals. It's everyone going, oh,
24:51
Speaker 4: I'm going to park my car, go for a walk,
24:54
Speaker 4: you know, and then, yeah, it's chaos.
24:57
Speaker 2: If people knew, I mean, you should label the Hamilton ones,
25:00
Speaker 2: shouldn't you, so people know what not to feed. Go home.
25:05
Speaker 4: It'll be handbags at midday, St. Heliers versus Hamilton swans.
25:09
Speaker 2: Have you done our weather?
25:10
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh, yeah. Did I say cloudy? Whatever, 16 to high.
25:14
Speaker 4: That's the most important thing.
25:16
Speaker 2: The high. Great weather for a breeding swan, 17 to 6.
25:22
Speaker 1: Pre-Fu update coming.
25:28
Speaker 2: Pre-Fu preview coming your way in a few seconds. First,
25:31
Speaker 2: let's get to Donna DeMeo, our Australia correspondent. Donna, good morning.
25:35
Speaker 13: Oh, good morning to you.
25:35
Speaker 2: We've got another rate hike expected from the RBA today.
25:39
Speaker 13: Yes, well, today's the day. It looks like this rate hike...
25:44
Speaker 13: is coming and it will push interest rates to the
25:47
Speaker 13: highest level in 15 years. Treasurer Jim Chalmers had a
25:53
Speaker 13: bit of a chat with Australia yesterday and also has
25:56
Speaker 13: defended the government's track record on inflation and he's saying
26:01
Speaker 13: that it's the high petrol prices. that are to blame
26:04
Speaker 13: rather than government spending. He's actually confirmed the budget deficit
26:07
Speaker 13: for last financial year was about $ 6 billion better than
26:12
Speaker 13: what was forecast in May, which was about $ 28. 3 billion.
26:15
Speaker 13: But yesterday, it is widely tipped that the Reserve Bank
26:18
Speaker 13: will lift that official cash rate to around 4.6%. Now,
26:23
Speaker 13: last time it was that level, it was late 2011.
26:26
Speaker 13: Also hearing from Finance Minister Katie Gallagher, who says.
26:29
Speaker 10: that the.
26:30
Speaker 13: Budget savings are due to less spending across aged care,
26:33
Speaker 13: childcare and pharmaceutical benefits scheme. But the Treasurer has been
26:38
Speaker 13: saying a few things. He says that the global economic
26:40
Speaker 13: pressure and the Iran-US war are absolutely disastrous for family
26:45
Speaker 13: budgets in Australia. And he says there's some difficult months ahead.
26:48
Speaker 2: Donna, what about the data centre? It was a big
26:50
Speaker 2: one planned for Sydney, been spiked. What did the community,
26:54
Speaker 2: what did they not like about it?
26:56
Speaker 13: Oh, they just don't want these huge construction, these, you know,
27:01
Speaker 13: massive developments, these data centres in their backyard. So this
27:07
Speaker 13: huge plan, $ 1. 2 billion project in Sydney's North Shore, it's
27:13
Speaker 13: just not going ahead. They said that changes in regulatory
27:17
Speaker 13: environment is the reason they're not going ahead. But, in fact,
27:21
Speaker 13: there was absolute, you know... outrage from many many people
27:26
Speaker 13: in the community so it's going to be interesting to
27:29
Speaker 13: see what happens because they have to go somewhere i'm
27:31
Speaker 13: assuming this project was about 20 meters from the nearest
27:35
Speaker 13: house and about 160 meters from a public school um
27:39
Speaker 13: so it looks like the people's voice won and uh
27:43
Speaker 13: in this instance but it'll be interesting to see you
27:45
Speaker 13: know these data centers i i suppose have to go
27:47
Speaker 13: somewhere so where is this one going to go.
27:50
Speaker 2: Who knows All right. Donna DeMayo, our Australia correspondent. Good
27:53
Speaker 2: to have you on the show, as always. Very quickly, taxes,
27:55
Speaker 2: a percentage of GDP over in Australia. This is for
27:58
Speaker 2: the 25-26 financial year. They were thinking they would get 23.6%
28:04
Speaker 2: of GDP. Instead, they got more than 24%, which is
28:10
Speaker 2: almost as high as the Howard government's all-time record of 24.2%.
28:15
Speaker 2: which was in 2006 financial year. That was before the crash, obviously.
28:19
Speaker 2: And the reason is superannuation. Higher than expected returns from superannuation.
28:23
Speaker 2: That gets taxed and the government's books go north. It
28:27
Speaker 2: is 10 to 6.
28:27
Speaker 1: So it is pre-food day today.
28:28
Speaker 2: Budget 26 forecasts were GDP 1.2% for 2026, 2.3% for 2027.
28:30
Speaker 2: Unemployment they thought then would be 5.5%. Inflation, they thought,
28:43
Speaker 2: would peak at 4%. Well, we know that's slightly outdated already.
28:46
Speaker 2: And the surplus, $ 28. 29. So the update happens today. Brad Olsen,
28:50
Speaker 2: Principal Economist, Infometrics. Brad, good morning. Hello, Brad.
28:57
Speaker 10: Good morning.
28:57
Speaker 2: So are you expecting we will see much change from
29:00
Speaker 2: the budget numbers?
29:02
Speaker 10: We do expect a slightly rosier look coming through in
29:06
Speaker 10: the books, but part of that's also around timing. Treasury
29:09
Speaker 10: will have signed off their forecast, I believe, towards the
29:12
Speaker 10: end of August. And, of course, that was before you
29:14
Speaker 10: saw fuel prices that have gone up considerably the last
29:18
Speaker 10: couple of weeks through September, and also the fact that
29:21
Speaker 10: bond rates, so government interest rates, effectively, having lifted quite
29:26
Speaker 10: materially too. So in a sense, we are looking likely
29:30
Speaker 10: to have better numbers emerging. I think you've seen the
29:33
Speaker 10: Finance Minister highlight that a little bit over the weekend
29:36
Speaker 10: and saying that there would be a bit more of
29:38
Speaker 10: an upside positive. surprise showing through. But even with that,
29:43
Speaker 10: we're still expecting that, yes, OK, maybe the government will
29:46
Speaker 10: drag the surplus forward a year or be slightly larger
29:50
Speaker 10: when we eventually get there. There's still a bit of
29:53
Speaker 10: water under the bridge between now and then. And of course,
29:56
Speaker 10: we've got this election campaign going. This, the pre-fill, of course,
29:59
Speaker 10: the opening of the books so that everyone's working off
30:01
Speaker 10: the same assumptions and forecasts. But there's always that concern
30:05
Speaker 10: that given how fast moving events are at the moment,
30:07
Speaker 10: those forecasts might be a little bit more out of
30:09
Speaker 10: date than we might first like.
30:11
Speaker 2: So read it with a bit of a grain of salt.
30:14
Speaker 10: Have a look at where those expectations around oil prices
30:17
Speaker 10: and government interest rates are, because, again, they can start
30:20
Speaker 10: to flip things around. There's a lot of debt that
30:23
Speaker 10: government took on during the COVID period. that is at
30:25
Speaker 10: some point going to have to be refinanced, probably at
30:28
Speaker 10: these high interest rates. And again, those fuel prices, they
30:30
Speaker 10: are continuing to hit. And if they are sticking around
30:33
Speaker 10: at higher levels, that does have risks around inflation and
30:36
Speaker 10: everything else.
30:37
Speaker 2: Brad Olsen, Infometrics. Time is 8 to 6, Newstalk ZB.
30:41
Speaker 1: Before the news breaks, hear it first. Ryan Bridge on
30:45
Speaker 1: early edition with Spark for Business, technology that keeps business moving.
30:50
Speaker 2: Newstalk ZB. 6 to 6, Newstalk ZB. I was having
30:53
Speaker 2: a look yesterday at the Israeli GDP number. So this
30:57
Speaker 2: is for quarter two. Well, it's the annual rate, but
30:59
Speaker 2: it's two quarter two. 15%. Bit of a war economy
31:04
Speaker 2: going on there. Also this morning, we have had an
31:06
Speaker 2: announcement from NVIDIA. This is the world's largest company by
31:09
Speaker 2: market cap, something like $ 4. 5 trillion American it's worth. They've
31:14
Speaker 2: announced a bit of a buyback, an increase to the
31:16
Speaker 2: buyback that they were doing. So $ 150 billion increase. Thank
31:19
Speaker 2: you very much. Taking it to $ 235. It is 5-2.
31:21
Speaker 2: Ryan Bridge. Good morning, Mike. Ryan, good to see you.
31:27
Speaker 2: Good to see you.
31:28
Speaker 11: Let me ask you a question.
31:30
Speaker 1: Yeah.
31:31
Speaker 11: So Luxon turns up yesterday at the Lucky Fortune restaurant
31:34
Speaker 11: in Mount Roskill.
31:35
Speaker 10: Yeah.
31:35
Speaker 11: What did you notice? Did you see it?
31:38
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I saw the photos and read the article. Well,
31:40
Speaker 2: I saw the video.
31:42
Speaker 10: Yeah.
31:42
Speaker 11: So what I noticed was the place was packed.
31:44
Speaker 10: Yeah.
31:44
Speaker 2: Well, it's school holidays. So all the families were there eating.
31:48
Speaker 2: Well done.
31:49
Speaker 11: So that answers the question. So you're arguing, because I'm
31:51
Speaker 11: thinking to myself, because when was the last time you
31:53
Speaker 11: did yum cha?
31:54
Speaker 2: About three or four months ago in West Auckland.
31:57
Speaker 11: See, I haven't done it for years. So it used
31:59
Speaker 11: to be a kid thing. And the kids would love you.
32:01
Speaker 11: And you'd always go on a Sunday. And so it
32:04
Speaker 11: struck me. I'm thinking, who's got time?
32:06
Speaker 2: Where are all these people coming from?
32:07
Speaker 11: Where are these people coming from?
32:08
Speaker 2: Who's got time for this?
32:09
Speaker 11: So do you reckon it was a bunch of kids
32:11
Speaker 11: in there?
32:12
Speaker 10: Yes.
32:12
Speaker 2: Well, the article I read. See, isn't that funny? I
32:14
Speaker 2: read an article, you watched a video. Anyway, the journalist
32:18
Speaker 2: who was there said it was families and it was
32:21
Speaker 2: school holidays. That's why everybody was there packing their yumcha.
32:24
Speaker 11: So that's a very good answer. So the next question is,
32:27
Speaker 11: so what happened to the cost of living crisis, which
32:29
Speaker 11: of course doesn't exist? So you've got 850,000 people have
32:32
Speaker 11: all jetted off somewhere. Because they can't afford petrol. They
32:35
Speaker 11: can't afford meth. They can't afford petrol.
32:37
Speaker 10: Yeah.
32:38
Speaker 11: But they can afford airfares and yumcha. Because yumcha is
32:41
Speaker 11: not cheap.
32:42
Speaker 2: No, but, well, yumcha is quite good in that you
32:44
Speaker 2: can just get a couple of little things and you
32:48
Speaker 2: can leave with, you know, $ 20 for lunch.
32:50
Speaker 11: That's not true. Because you've got a large table. That's
32:53
Speaker 11: the other thing. What I thought it was great, because
32:56
Speaker 11: the weirdest thing about it was it was a Monday.
32:58
Speaker 2: Yeah.
32:58
Speaker 9: No, it is weird.
32:59
Speaker 10: It's strange.
32:59
Speaker 11: And even on school holidays, that's fine. You do it
33:01
Speaker 11: on a Thursday or a Friday or Saturday. Monday seemed
33:04
Speaker 11: to me to be a weird day.
33:05
Speaker 2: Did you see he also went to McDonald's on Luxembourg?
33:08
Speaker 11: There's too much focus on food. Chippy was at the
33:11
Speaker 11: Orange Chip place in Christchurch with the gelato.
33:13
Speaker 2: They're going to be enormous by the end of this campaign.
33:15
Speaker 2: I know.
33:16
Speaker 11: It's a problem, isn't it? Anyway, we've got some good
33:18
Speaker 11: news on the jobs today.
33:19
Speaker 10: Yes.
33:19
Speaker 11: We've got some jobs numbers. We've got some, presumably, as
33:22
Speaker 11: you just said, some good news on the pre-food.
33:23
Speaker 10: Yep.
33:24
Speaker 11: We've got some good news on the red meat.
33:26
Speaker 10: Yep. Yep.
33:26
Speaker 11: Anyway, I was talking to some people from, you know,
33:28
Speaker 11: that Neely show, you know, Reacher.
33:30
Speaker 2: Yeah.
33:31
Speaker 6: Right.
33:31
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
33:32
Speaker 10: Right.
33:32
Speaker 11: So there's a spinoff called Neely. Anyway, that's all exciting.
33:35
Speaker 11: So somebody said to me the other day, why don't
33:37
Speaker 11: you get Lee Child on? And I haven't had Lee
33:39
Speaker 11: Child on for ages, so I rang him up yesterday.
33:41
Speaker 2: Great.
33:42
Speaker 10: Yeah.
33:42
Speaker 2: How cool. He's on this morning. Hey, have you seen
33:44
Speaker 2: The Gentleman on Netflix?
33:45
Speaker 10: Oh, yeah. Yes.
33:46
Speaker 2: Great, eh?
33:46
Speaker 11: I'm an expert in it.
33:47
Speaker 9: Are you?
33:48
Speaker 11: Oh, I've seen it all.
33:50
Speaker 2: When is season three?
33:52
Speaker 11: Good question, because I can't wait. Mobland v. Gentleman is
33:56
Speaker 11: the great discussion, both made by Guy Ritchie, but brilliant.
34:01
Speaker 2: You just took ZB. Mike, next.
34:05
Speaker 1: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live
34:08
Speaker 1: to News Talk ZB from 5 a.m. weekdays or follow
34:12
Speaker 1: the podcast on iHeartRadio.