Larry Williams Drive

How many times have you heard the Prime Minister say this Government is different because it will set targets, track progress and be open about its actual results? That's how we're going to get back on track, that's what we've heard from National so many times. And what's more important than turning around education and getting on top of youth crime? Not much. Which is why they've got charter schools and bootcamps. Everybody said 'yep', those kids need sorting out in the case of bootcamps - or those kids deserve more choice in the case of charter schools. But now this week, we’ve heard from the agencies involved in these programmes and they've decided they won't be telling the public how many students are enrolled at the new charter schools. And in the bootcamps- they won’t talk about how many of the kids are re-offending. They’ve given various excuses for this, but none of them stack up. They reckon telling the public general details, no specifics or names, about youth re-offending is potentially h

The All Blacks selectors have rung 10 changes to the starting XV for Saturday's third and final test against France in Hamilton. Ethan de Groot, Fabian Holland, Patrick Tuipulotu, Ardie Savea and Rieko Ioane are the only players remaining from the last run-on side. Samisoni Taukei’aho, Tyrel Lomax, Samipeni Finau and Luke Jacobson come into the starting pack. The backline changes includes promotions for Cortez Ratima, Damian McKenzie, Quinn Tupaea, Anton Lienert-Brown, Sevu Reece and Ruben Love. All Blacks assistant coach Jason Holland says it's important to make changes - and he's expecting the squad to deliver a solid performance against the French. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The pressure's on Oranga Tamariki - as it announces it won't release more details around bootcamp reoffending. The Ministry for Children initially confirmed teens in the pilot military-style academy programme had offended again. It's since said releasing information could've been harmful to those involved. Green MP Tamatha Paul says the agency is shifting the goalposts. "That is one of the measures of success for the pilot, so I think it's really important that we do know." Paul claims Oranga Tamariki doesn't want to publish the data because the programme's been a failure. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Households are still finding it tough to pay for the basics, with high prices not easing yet.  Stats NZ has revealed the cost of food rose 4.6 percent in the 12 months to June. It's largely driven by double-digit increases for products like red meat, cheese and milk Infometrics principal economist Brad Olsen says the general economy is still experiencing intense price pressure and weakness - which isn't comforting. "Mince prices are now hitting nearly $22 a kilo. You can't even have a cheap mince meal at a cheap price." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Food Safety New Zealand says a study of campylobacter infection rates is unnecessarily alarmist. The Public Health Communication Centre claims more than 10 percent of the population contracted the infection from eating chicken in the past few years. It suggests it's caused 9000 hospitalisations, and at least 60 deaths since 2008.  Food Safety NZ's Vincent Arbuckle says the numbers are way off.  "Every time there's a death, the clinician has to determine the primary cause and that goes on record - and the primary cause has been only three cases." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

David Seymour's urging councils to axe what he calls 'puppy dogs and ice cream'. The Deputy Prime Minister's adding to the coalition's call for councils to focus on basic, core services - and ditch 'nice-to-have' projects. Newstalk ZB senior political correspondent Barry Soper explained why David Seymour's speech was so controversial. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Qantas has filed court action in a bid to stop the compromised data of millions of customers being accessed or released following a recent cyber attack. The accounts of 5.7 million Qantas customers were compromised in a data breach at the end of June, with millions of phone numbers, addresses and dates of birth caught up in the leak. Australian correspondent Oliver Peterson says the airline is trying to negotiate with the hackers before the information gets shared on the dark web. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Concern in the All Blacks camp over a hand injury to first five Beauden Barrett. While Barrett was unlikely to start in the third and final test against France in Hamilton on Saturday, he's been ruled out entirely after suffering the damage in training. Sportstalk host Elliott Smith explains further. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Retail NZ is criticising the Commerce Commission's regulatory change to card payment fees. The Commission today announced new regulations on interchange fees, reducing charges to businesses for taking Visa and Mastercard payments. Retail NZ Chief Executive Carolyn Young says it's a complex issue - and these changes won't address everything. "This is one part of the merchant service fee, there's about 5 or 6 fees depending on how you structure your payment portfolio that may cut the merchant service fee. The Commerce Commission has said they won't get that fee down to one percent maximum." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thousands of Afghans have moved to the UK under a secret scheme which was set up after a British official inadvertently leaked their data, according to new reports. In 2022, the personal details of nearly 19,000 people who had applied to move to the UK after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan were leaked. UK correspondent Gavin Grey says the name of the MoD leaker hasn't been unveiled, but it's prompted widespread backlash.  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

ANZ has declined a proposed settlement by lawyers leading a massive class action against the bank for giving customers the wrong information about their loans. The lawyers asked ANZ to agree to pay a penalty of up to $300 million, on top of the $35 million it has already paid more than 100,000 customers to compensate them for the error. ASB, which is also subject to the class action, is yet to respond to the proposal for it to also make a payment of up to $300 million. NZ Herald Wellington business editor Jenee Tibshraeny explains further. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ryman Healthcare's share price has gone up for the first half of July, leading experts to speculate about the company's future.  This follows a downturn from earlier in the year. Milford Asset Management's Jeremy Hutton explains further. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive Full Show Podcast for Wednesday, 16 July 2025, open plan classrooms will no longer be built, the Education Minister says they lead to worse learning outcomes. Rangiora High School principal Bruce Kearney tells Ryan his school spent $1.5 million to put the walls back into its open-plan classrooms. The Local Government Minister has confirmed he wants a cap on council rates increases by the end of the year. Local Government boss Sam Broughton says caps are not the solution. Why does Labour think a new commissioner is the solution to NZ's modern day slavery? Camilla Belich explains. Plus, a DoC hunter tells Ryan how he found the kiwi pukupuku - the first sighting on the mainland in 50 years. Get the Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive Full Show Podcast every weekday evening on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tonight on The Huddle, Jack Tame from ZB's Saturday Mornings and Q&A and Jordan Williams from the Taxpayers' Union joined in on a discussion about the following issues of the day - and more!  Australia seems to have turned the corner on teenage vaping, with rates among young people dropping. Do we need to follow suit and crack down on vaping? Members of Local Government NZ have voted in favour of strong opposition to a rates cap. What do we make of this? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We owe our kids an apology. School students of all ages in this country have been used as guinea pigs in failed experiments that have been demonstrably bad for their learning. We've had two announcements from the Government this week that prove this. First, the latest NCEA maths results from low decile schools. They improved by around 70 percent. 19.8 percent passed the co-requisite test last year. In June it was 34 percent. This is, obviously, excellent news. Well done to those students for putting in the hard work. The begging question is why and how on earth did this happen? I asked both Erica Stanford and Chris Hipkins, the former Education Minister, this question. Both agreed it was a more relentless focus on the basics. Both agreed that teachers have been teaching too much 'fluffy' other stuff to students and their results in core subjects have been declining as a result. Both politicians blamed the other party for changing where the focus goes. And that's politics. But it's the students who've missed o

The winter season means higher power bills will impact Kiwi households, but the Electricity Authority has promised changes are on the way. The nation's largest power companies will be required to offer 'time of use' plans that make it cheaper to use power at off-peak times. Electricity Authority Chair Anna Kominik says there's no silver bullet for bringing prices down, but these changes are important for the sector's future.  "Basically, we'll make sure that cheaper off-peak power and most New Zealand households can access a pricing plan that gives them a cheaper rate for electricity use during off-peak hours."  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Australia may have turned a corner on youth vaping, according to new reports. A new study has found the country's rates have fallen among 14 to 17-year-olds, from 17.5 percent at the start of 2023 to 14.6 percent this April.  It's putting it down to banning disposable vapes last year.  Lead study investigator Becky Freeman says the rate's still worryingly high - but it seems to have peaked. "We're really pleased to see that our youngest teens are telling us that vaping is no longer the norm amongst their friends, they're not as curious about it as they were before."  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Labour's taken quick action on demands from thousands of Kiwi teens to counter modern slavery. The students today delivered letters to Parliament - written at World Vision NZ Youth Conferences and universities. Labour's Camilla Belich announced a draft bill today to set up an anti-slavery Commissioner. National put a similar bill to the ballot this year.  Belich says nothing currently addresses issues of modern slavery - so any start is a good one.  "There'll be a chance to see whether that Commissioner is effective in their role, and a chance to look at whether there's more that needs to be done in that space." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Open-plan classrooms will soon be a thing of the past, according to a new directive from the Government. Education Minister Erica Stanford's announced plans to build all new classrooms with standardised designs. Rangiora High School's already spent one and a half million dollars removing its open-plan style classes. Principal Bruce Kearney says it ended up being distracting. "They tend to be noisier, but it was also the combination of 60 kids, two teachers - the whole deal, really. It didn't really work out for us."  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A rare little spotted kiwi has been spotted in the wild on the mainland for the first time in nearly 50 years.  The bird was seen in March in the remote Adams Wilderness Area on the West Coast. It's estimated only 2000 remain, and were thought to be only on offshore islands or in fenced predator-free sites. DoC diversity ranger Iain Graham discovered the bird - and says they're more vulnerable to predators than other kiwi species.  "It takes these guys a whole lot longer than our other kiwi species, it takes them up to two years to get to that stoat-proof weight, so they're vulnerable for a much longer period of time." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.