A New Zealand Herald article a couple of weeks ago revealed 87 properties across South Auckland have either been purchased, are being purchased, or are earmarked for acquisition to make way for the Mill Road corridor.

The properties collectively represent around $2 billion worth of taxpayer funded land acquisition.

It was now revealed that NZTA has sent a number of householders within the affected area an email saying, "With no confirmed construction timing nor funding for Mill Road, we advise that NZTA will not be purchasing your property at Redoubt Road at the present time and will be formally withdrawing from negotiations. We appreciate the time you've taken negotiating with us in good faith and understand that this may not be the news that you were hoping for."

Lawyer Adina Thorn is acting for people who have been waiting in limbo for their lands and homes to be acquired, and she joined Kerre Woodham to discuss. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

A New Zealand Herald article a couple of weeks ago revealed&nbsp;87 properties across South Auckland have either been purchased, are being purchased, or are earmarked for acquisition to make way for the Mill Road corridor.
The properties collectively represent around $2 billion worth of taxpayer funded land acquisition.
It was now revealed that NZTA has sent a number of householders within the affected area an email saying, "With no confirmed construction timing nor funding for Mill Road, we advise that NZTA will not be purchasing your property at Redoubt Road at the present time and will be formally withdrawing from negotiations. We appreciate the time you've taken negotiating with us in good faith and understand that this may not be the news that you were hoping for."
Lawyer Adina Thorn is acting for people who have been waiting in limbo for their lands and homes to be acquired, and she joined Kerre Woodham to discuss.&nbsp;
LISTEN ABOVE&nbsp;

Join Kerre Woodham one of New Zealand’s best loved personalities as she dishes up a bold, sharp and energetic show Monday to Friday 9am-12md on Newstalk ZB. News, opinion, analysis, lifestyle and entertainment – we’ve got your morning listening covered.

Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

Adina Thorn: Lawyer chats NZTA South Auckland property acquisition twist

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/7dd06848-3909-4558-ba93-b4b4003caa44/transcript

Families are desperately waiting to hear from loved ones thought to be caught in the deadly flash flood and mudslide along the Nepal-Tibet border.

Almost 400 people were killed in yesterday's torrent - caused by a glacial collapse and landslide, and hundreds remain missing including five New Zealanders.

Dr Tom Robinson of the school of earth and environment at University of Canterbury joined Kerre Woodham to discuss how these events occur and the likelihood of one taking place in New Zealand. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

Families are desperately waiting to hear from loved ones thought to be caught in the deadly flash flood and mudslide along the Nepal-Tibet border.
Almost 400 people were killed in yesterday's torrent - caused by a glacial collapse and landslide, and&nbsp;hundreds remain missing including five New Zealanders.
Dr Tom Robinson of the school of earth and environment at&nbsp;University of Canterbury joined Kerre Woodham to discuss how these events occur and the likelihood of one taking place in New Zealand.&nbsp;
LISTEN ABOVE&nbsp;

Dr Tom Robinson: Senior Lecturer discusses the risk of events like Nepal's flood

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/b5a62b4f-f8b7-48c6-900d-b4b400382115/transcript

Labour has jumped on the no new taxes bandwagon, promising that if they're elected, there'll be no increase on the fuel excise duty for their first term.

I don't know why Labour and National don't just join forces and be done with it and leave the left hand side to the Greens, Te Pāti Māori and the Opportunity Party.

The fuel excise duty is due to rise by 12 cents a litre from January, followed by a 6 cents per litre rise in 2028 4 cents per litre in subsequent years.

The thing with taxes and excise duties, tariffs, whatever you want to call them, they provide an income. Without money coming in, as Transporting New Zealand pointed out, there'll be no money for new roads, for roading repair and maintenance, and any money saved from not having to pay more for petrol will show up in the cost of living through the increased price of goods because it's going to take longer for trucks to get places.

The government's position is that it is unlikely the fuel excise duty will be increased in January, although there'll be discussion around the cabinet table and a decision will be announced soon.

National's view is that the increase should be delayed.

But the fuel excise duty is set at a flat rate per litre, currently around 70 cents, and that has meant that as inflation and the cost of petrol rises or falls, the excise duty stays the same, and in real terms it means the fuel excise duty has fallen by 21% since the last increase in 2020 while at the same time the cost of repairing and maintaining and building new roads has risen.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis told Mike Hosking on the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning that they don't want to raise the fuel tax at all, but they accept down the line they just might have to.

We can't forever put it off. The current circumstances are not only the heightened oil price, but also we are still recovering from that heightened inflation that the oil price has come on, and we recognise that things are still very challenging for people.

Ultimately, where we want to get to is that we've got growing economy, low inflation, and actually we can lift the petrol tax in small, modest, regular increments so that we know there is funding going in to maintain your local roads.

Because the issue is, if you're not putting more money into roads, you get potholes everywhere, you get bridges that get washed away in major cyclones that can't be rebuilt, you get road closures that can't be fixed up.

These are problems that occur for everyone. And so that's what we're conscious of.

I think, you know, Chris Hipkins' policy yesterday, it's really just a fig leaf because we're putting him under heat on his tax plan.

Like it or not, we need to pay taxes if we expect to keep services running and to build stuff. If we haven't got money coming in, then there isn't the money to spend on the services. And what it's kind of a trust, a pledge of faith between ourselves and the government.

Yes, we will pay taxes, you will spend them wisely on the services that we as a community need.

And I think we've been let down by successive governments in terms of how they've spent the money.

They've spent it thoughtlessly, they've spent it carelessly, they've spent it on vanity projects, pet projects, all the things they accuse councils of doing, governments have done themselves.

The last lot were just wanton in their irresponsible, irrational spending.

Even taking into account the spending, the necessary spending that needed to be done during COVID, so much of it was wasted, and that's not coming from me, that is coming from my old boyfriend who was the Auditor General, whose comments I just loved, whose reports I just loved because he was able to get the information. 

He's not my boyfriend, that was in my mind. I just loved his reports, I loved the way he wrote and the way he pulled no punches.

So you have an accord between the taxpayer and the government. We will pay taxes, you will spend it sensibly and wisely, and we have been let down, so I think we're a bit anti tax because of that.

But we do need to contribute either through taxes, through duties, through tariffs, through GST, whatever you want to call it, we need to contribute to keep the country going. And a fuel tax seems to be one of the fairest.

You can also see where it's going.

A tax by consumption has always been the fairest way to tax.

It's a bit like GST. The more you spend, the more GST you pay, and that seems about right.

If you've got the money to spend, then we can take the GST off you.

The more fuel I buy, the more road I'll be using, the more tax I will then pay to maintain the roads I'm using, and that seems fair.

If you're somebody who does not drive, yes, you might have to pay a little bit more if the fuel tax goes up because the price of goods will go up, because perhaps the buses will go up, public transport, but only a little bit, and you won't have to pay as much as I do if I'm using petrol to get from point A to point B.

Of all the taxes, if the fuel tax is ring fenced, this is one I don't mind paying, and accordingly, I don't mind seeing it keep pace with inflation.

I think they're doing the wrong thing by saying no raise in the fuel tax.

They'll have to get the money from somewhere, and I'd far rather see the transparency that comes from having a ring fenced tax that's paid by road users and is spent on road users. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

Labour has jumped on the no new taxes bandwagon, promising that if they're elected, there'll be no increase on the fuel excise duty for their first term.
I don't know why Labour and National don't just join forces and be done with it and leave the left hand side to the Greens, Te Pāti Māori and the Opportunity Party.
The fuel excise duty is due to rise by 12 cents a litre from January, followed by a 6 cents per litre rise in 2028 4 cents per litre in subsequent years.
The thing with taxes and excise duties, tariffs, whatever you want to call them, they provide an income. Without money coming in, as Transporting New Zealand pointed out, there'll be no money for new roads, for roading repair and maintenance, and any money saved from not having to pay more for petrol will show up in the cost of living through the increased price of goods because it's going to take longer for trucks to get places.
The government's position is that it is unlikely the fuel excise duty will be increased in January, although there'll be discussion around the cabinet table and a decision will be announced soon.
National's view is that the increase should be delayed.
But the fuel excise duty is set at a flat rate per litre, currently around 70 cents, and that has meant that as inflation and the cost of petrol rises or falls, the excise duty stays the same, and in real terms it means the fuel excise duty has fallen by 21% since the last increase in 2020 while at the same time the cost of repairing and maintaining and building new roads has risen.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis told Mike Hosking on the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning that they don't want to raise the fuel tax at all, but they accept down the line they just might have to.
We can't forever put it off. The current circumstances are not only the heightened oil price, but also we are still recovering from that heightened inflation that the oil price has come on, and we recognise that things are still very challenging for people.
Ultimately, where we want to get to is that we've got growing economy, low inflation, and actually we can lift the petrol tax in small, modest, regular increments so that we know there is funding going in to maintain your local roads.
Because the issue is, if you're not putting more money into roads, you get potholes everywhere, you get bridges that get washed away in major cyclones that can't be rebuilt, you get road closures that can't be fixed up.
These are problems that occur for everyone. And so that's what we're conscious of.
I think, you know, Chris Hipkins' policy yesterday, it's really just a fig leaf because we're putting him under heat on his tax plan.
Like it or not, we need to pay taxes if we expect to keep services running and to build stuff. If we haven't got money coming in, then there isn't the money to spend on the services. And what it's kind of a trust, a pledge of faith between ourselves and the government.
Yes, we will pay taxes, you will spend them wisely on the services that we as a community need.
And I think we've been let down by successive governments in terms of how they've spent the money.
They've spent it thoughtlessly, they've spent it carelessly, they've spent it on vanity projects, pet projects, all the things they accuse councils of doing, governments have done themselves.
The last lot were just wanton in their irresponsible, irrational spending.
Even taking into account the spending, the necessary spending that needed to be done during COVID, so much of it was wasted, and that's not coming from me, that is coming from my old boyfriend who was the Auditor General, whose comments I just loved, whose reports I just loved because he was able to get the information.&nbsp;
He's not my boyfriend, that was in my mind. I just loved his reports, I loved the way he wrote and the way he pulled no punches.
So you have an accord between the taxpayer and the government. We will pay taxes, you will spend it sensibly and wisely, and we have been let down, so I think we're a bit anti tax because of that.
But we do need to contribute either through taxes, through duties, through tariffs, through GST, whatever you want to call it, we need to contribute to keep the country going. And a fuel tax seems to be one of the fairest.
You can also see where it's going.
A tax by consumption has always been the fairest way to tax.
It's a bit like GST. The more you spend, the more GST you pay, and that seems about right.
If you've got the money to spend, then we can take the GST off you.
The more fuel I buy, the more road I'll be using, the more tax I will then pay to maintain the roads I'm using, and that seems fair.
If you're somebody who does not drive, yes, you might have to pay a little bit more if the fuel tax goes up because the price of goods will go up, because perhaps the buses will go up, public transport, but only a little bit, and you won't have to pay as much as I do if I'm using petrol to get from point A to point B.
Of all the taxes, if the fuel tax is ring fenced, this is one I don't mind paying, and accordingly, I don't mind seeing it keep pace with inflation.
I think they're doing the wrong thing by saying no raise in the fuel tax.
They'll have to get the money from somewhere, and I'd far rather see the transparency that comes from having a ring fenced tax that's paid by road users and is spent on road users.&nbsp;
LISTEN ABOVE

Kerre Woodham: Politicians need to stop ruling out raising the fuel tax

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/dbac94af-a3ae-4345-b64f-b4b40032f420/transcript

What will it take for public servants to be held accountable for their most egregious mistakes? Not even talking the little faffy silly ones. We're talking really, really big mistakes. Never was a group of people more misnamed than public servants. The current generation are not servants of the public, for the most part – many of them appear to have absolute contempt for the public they are supposed to serve.  

The latest and perhaps the most salutary is the MBIE boss Nick Blakeley. The Privileges Committee has found that Blakeley and former Immigration New Zealand head Alison McDonald deliberately misled, what you and I might call lying, deliberately misled Parliament. And the Privileges Committee said their conduct was an insult to the public service. That is damning. The reason why, in a select committee hearing back in March, Blakeley and McDonald were asked about the progress of an expensive biometric upgrade program, and they failed to disclose that the project had already been cancelled. When the truth was revealed that the people responsible for the failed program had just kept going, just kept taking taxpayers' dollars knowing that the money was going to be wasted, when asked direct questions about it, they lied.  

Immigration Minister Erica Stanford was quite rightly apoplectic. Blakeley has offered his resignation to Public Service Commissioner Brian Roche, who rejected it on the basis that Blakeley had only been in the role six weeks. Yeah, but he lied, and so did Alison McDonald. And despite Blakeley uttering weasel words on Heather du Plessis Allan's show last night, explaining just how the lie came about, he should have been sacked. 

NB: The committee found that the incomplete information that we provided amounted to a contempt of Parliament, to deliberately misleading Parliament. That's extremely serious and I'm deeply disappointed that the ministry and myself have fallen well short of expectations. At the time, there were budget and commercial sensitivities that we understood couldn't be discussed in a public forum. We got that wrong, we should have taken a different approach. That's what I said to the Privileges Committee when I gave them evidence. 

HDPA: So you went to Brian Roche, and you said that you're prepared to quit, and he said don't? 

NB: I offered my resignation. He came to his judgment. He pointed out one of the factors. 

HDPA: What was his judgment, Nick? Did he say don't quit? 

NB: One of the factors that he took into account was that I hadn't long been in the role. That was also noted in the Privileges Committee. 

HDPA: Who cares? You're the one sitting there fibbing. That's the most important thing. Nick, did he say to you don't quit? 

NB: He said he thought that would be the wrong response and that he will be holding me account for how I respond and that is what I'm focused on doing now. 

HDPA: Yeah, well, that's disappointing. I think you should have quit because how are we going to know next time that you're telling the truth or just giving us a Nick special? 

NB: Look, I have accepted the finding, I've apologised, I'm fronting up and I'm going to be fixing it. We're going to be much better prepared in future for select committees. 

God, I love my colleague. While I do believe that nothing short of a public flogging in the town square will begin to drive the message home to public servants that they need to be more accountable, more responsible, more careful in how they spend our money, more like the private sector and taking ownership for snafus, until the public floggings begin, a good grilling from Heather du Plessis Allan will do as a good down payment. No wonder she's the broadcaster of the year, second year running. A "Nick Special" may well enter the lexicon as a euphemism for a lie.  

We think 'Gliding On' and 'Yes Minister' are clever, funny comedies from yesteryear, but public service incompetence, public service lies, public service cover ups, public service treating ministers like children, it's alive and well. And when it involves the wasting of so much taxpayer money, when it involves complete and utter contempt of Parliament, nothing my Minister needs to worry her pretty little head about, I'll deal with this, throwing good money after bad so your own incompetence is not exposed, when you're asked directly about it, you lie, when it involves bringing the good hard working members of the public service into disrepute, there is nothing bloody funny about it. 

What will it take for public servants to be held accountable for their most egregious mistakes? Not even talking the little faffy silly ones. We're talking really, really big mistakes. Never was a group of people more misnamed than public servants. The current generation are not servants of the public, for the most part – many of them appear to have absolute contempt for the public they are supposed to serve. &nbsp;
The latest and perhaps the most salutary is the MBIE boss Nick Blakeley. The Privileges Committee has found that Blakeley and former Immigration New Zealand head Alison McDonald deliberately misled, what you and I might call lying, deliberately misled Parliament. And the Privileges Committee said their conduct was an insult to the public service. That is damning. The reason why, in a select committee hearing back in March, Blakeley and McDonald were asked about the progress of an expensive biometric upgrade program, and they failed to disclose that the project had already been cancelled. When the truth was revealed that the people responsible for the failed program had just kept going, just kept taking taxpayers' dollars knowing that the money was going to be wasted, when asked direct questions about it, they lied. &nbsp;
Immigration Minister Erica Stanford was quite rightly apoplectic. Blakeley has offered his resignation to Public Service Commissioner Brian Roche, who rejected it on the basis that Blakeley had only been in the role six weeks. Yeah, but he lied, and so did Alison McDonald. And despite Blakeley uttering weasel words on Heather du Plessis Allan's show last night, explaining just how the lie came about, he should have been sacked.&nbsp;
NB: The committee found that the incomplete information that we provided amounted to a contempt of Parliament, to deliberately misleading Parliament. That's extremely serious and I'm deeply disappointed that the ministry and myself have fallen well short of expectations. At the time, there were budget and commercial sensitivities that we understood couldn't be discussed in a public forum. We got that wrong, we should have taken a different approach. That's what I said to the Privileges Committee when I gave them evidence.&nbsp;
HDPA: So you went to Brian Roche, and you said that you're prepared to quit, and he said don't?&nbsp;
NB: I offered my resignation. He came to his judgment. He pointed out one of the factors.&nbsp;
HDPA: What was his judgment, Nick? Did he say don't quit?&nbsp;
NB: One of the factors that he took into account was that I hadn't long been in the role. That was also noted in the Privileges Committee.&nbsp;
HDPA: Who cares? You're the one sitting there fibbing. That's the most important thing. Nick, did he say to you don't quit?&nbsp;
NB: He said he thought that would be the wrong response and that he will be holding me account for how I respond and that is what I'm focused on doing now.&nbsp;
HDPA: Yeah, well, that's disappointing. I think you should have quit because how are we going to know next time that you're telling the truth or just giving us a Nick special?&nbsp;
NB: Look, I have accepted the finding, I've apologised, I'm fronting up and I'm going to be fixing it. We're going to be much better prepared in future for select committees.&nbsp;
God, I love my colleague. While I do believe that nothing short of a public flogging in the town square will begin to drive the message home to public servants that they need to be more accountable, more responsible, more careful in how they spend our money, more like the private sector and taking ownership for snafus, until the public floggings begin, a good grilling from Heather du Plessis Allan will do as a good down payment. No wonder she's the broadcaster of the year, second year running. A "Nick Special" may well enter the lexicon as a euphemism for a lie. &nbsp;
We think 'Gliding On' and 'Yes Minister' are clever, funny comedies from yesteryear, but public service incompetence, public service lies, public service cover ups, public service treating ministers like children, it's alive and well. And when it involves the wasting of so much taxpayer money, when it involves complete and utter contempt of Parliament, nothing my Minister needs to worry her pretty little head about, I'll deal with this, throwing good money after bad so your own incompetence is not exposed, when you're asked directly about it, you lie, when it involves bringing the good hard working members of the public service into disrepute, there is nothing bloody funny about it.&nbsp;

Kerre Woodham: What will it take for public servants to be held accountable?

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/d9e13ff2-ebb0-44e4-8f64-b4b300180029/transcript

Adina Thorn: Lawyer chats NZTA South Auckland property acquisition twist

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