AG Research principal scientist Axel Heiser joined Kerre Woodham to answer questions on Foot and Mouth disease and whether we can stop it entering the country.

LISTEN ABOVE

AG Research principal scientist Axel Heiser joined Kerre Woodham to answer questions on Foot and Mouth disease and whether we can stop it entering the country.
LISTEN ABOVE

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

Axel Heiser: AG Research principal scientist answers questions on FMD

Well, the polls close at 7pm tomorrow, fat orange pens notwithstanding, and the votes will be counted. By the time I'm back here on Monday, we should have a fair idea of what the government for the next three years could look like. Notice I have used a conditional sentence: should, could, because really, who would know if you look at the polls? 

It's been a funny old election. At least it'll be interesting – the electorate battles, there are many of those that are going to be fascinating. I will be glued to ZB throughout the evening. This is one of the times when you think, oh, wish I could be working on Election Night. It's great being part of the team that brings you results. But the next best thing is being able to hear the fruits of everybody's hard work, so I'll be listening to ZB – I'll find that more interesting than the television coverage. 

And there were so many undecided voters, myself included. I think the most helpful comment came from a texter a couple of weeks ago who said, "rule out who you simply cannot vote for and tick the box for who's left", which is advice I've heard before, but that text came at a time when I needed to hear it. Are you still undecided? I think I'm clear now, pretty clear now. 

Are you still undecided? Have you changed your mind over the course of the election campaign? And when it comes to the election campaigns, who in your mind ran the best one? As far as I'm concerned, National and Labour ran terrible campaigns, absolutely awful. Boring, repetitive, uninspiring, negative, nasty. 

Losing Chris Bishop as campaign manager as punishment – never have the lines "this is going to hurt you more than it's going to hurt me" or "this is going to hurt me more than it's going to hurt you", never have they rung more true, as you dump Chris Bishop as campaign manager for being involved in the attempted coup. And that's cost National. I don't think Simeon Brown will be getting another call up. The National campaign was so bad that Harry Mowbray and Don Brash decided to put down the lattes and take over the campaign. And then core voting messages were a distraction. Split voting: no, yes, no, yes. To convince voters you're a strong and stable party, surely you need your supporters to be harmonising and singing from the same song sheet. So no, absolutely dreadful. 

Their coalition partner hasn't helped them either. ACT's been very sensible, they've learnt their lesson from the last campaign, but ew, Michael Laws, ew. But then Labour's coalition partners haven't helped them either. The Greens and Te Pāti Māori might have policies that their voters support and that they believe in and that they think will reduce the impact of gangs and the misery they wreak by engaging with the gangs. But good solid swing voters get mightily spooked by soft on gangs policies and Chris Hipkins had to come out all puffed of chest and steely of jaw to try and right the ship. 

No, the minor parties have run relatively good campaigns: ACT, the Greens, Opportunity, they've stuck solidly to their guns. They probably will get over, just. But for if you're a centre swing voter, it's been pretty uninspiring. 

When it comes to voting, are you pretty clear? Have you been clear all the way through? What was the pivotal moment of the campaign for you, or was it simply taking the advice of my texter: ruling out the parties you simply cannot, cannot bring yourself to vote for and ticking the box for what's left? 

Well, the polls close at 7pm tomorrow, fat orange pens notwithstanding, and the votes will be counted. By the time I'm back here on Monday, we should have a fair idea of what the government for the next three years could look like. Notice I have used a conditional sentence: should, could, because really, who would know if you look at the polls?&nbsp;
It's been a funny old election. At least it'll be interesting – the electorate battles, there are many of those that are going to be fascinating. I will be glued to ZB throughout the evening. This is one of the times when you think, oh, wish I could be working on Election Night. It's great being part of the team that brings you results. But the next best thing is being able to hear the fruits of everybody's hard work, so I'll be listening to ZB – I'll find that more interesting than the television coverage.&nbsp;
And there were so many undecided voters, myself included. I think the most helpful comment came from a texter a couple of weeks ago who said, "rule out who you simply cannot vote for and tick the box for who's left", which is advice I've heard before, but that text came at a time when I needed to hear it. Are you still undecided? I think I'm clear now, pretty clear now.&nbsp;
Are you still undecided? Have you changed your mind over the course of the election campaign? And when it comes to the election campaigns, who in your mind ran the best one? As far as I'm concerned, National and Labour ran terrible campaigns, absolutely awful. Boring, repetitive, uninspiring, negative, nasty.&nbsp;
Losing Chris Bishop as campaign manager as punishment – never have the lines "this is going to hurt you more than it's going to hurt me" or "this is going to hurt me more than it's going to hurt you", never have they rung more true, as you dump Chris Bishop as campaign manager for being involved in the attempted coup. And that's cost National. I don't think Simeon Brown will be getting another call up. The National campaign was so bad that Harry Mowbray and Don Brash decided to put down the lattes and take over the campaign. And then core voting messages were a distraction. Split voting: no, yes, no, yes. To convince voters you're a strong and stable party, surely you need your supporters to be harmonising and singing from the same song sheet. So no, absolutely dreadful.&nbsp;
Their coalition partner hasn't helped them either. ACT's been very sensible, they've learnt their lesson from the last campaign, but ew, Michael Laws, ew. But then Labour's coalition partners haven't helped them either. The Greens and Te Pāti Māori might have policies that their voters support and that they believe in and that they think will reduce the impact of gangs and the misery they wreak by engaging with the gangs. But good solid swing voters get mightily spooked by soft on gangs policies and Chris Hipkins had to come out all puffed of chest and steely of jaw to try and right the ship.&nbsp;
No, the minor parties have run relatively good campaigns: ACT, the Greens, Opportunity, they've stuck solidly to their guns. They probably will get over, just. But for if you're a centre swing voter, it's been pretty uninspiring.&nbsp;
When it comes to voting, are you pretty clear? Have you been clear all the way through? What was the pivotal moment of the campaign for you, or was it simply taking the advice of my texter: ruling out the parties you simply cannot, cannot bring yourself to vote for and ticking the box for what's left?&nbsp;

Kerre Woodham: When it comes to voting, is it a clear choice?

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/dc3e9be1-4fbb-4263-bf57-b4f901782b29/transcript

General practices around New Zealand are still overwhelmed, thanks to a shortage of doctors and a influx of patients. 

Dr John Armstrong returned to general medicine after seven years of retirement as the practice, taken over by his daughter, was overwhelmed with demand. 

With more than 6,500 patients on the books, the wait time for a routine GP visit was around four months. 

Armstrong told Kerre Woodham GPs up and down the country are doing 15-20 minute consultations, but it's difficult when you have so many patients to deal with the multitude of problems people come in with..

He says if people are on a waitlist for three or four months, they often come in with a list of issues.

LISTEN ABOVE 

General practices around New Zealand are still overwhelmed, thanks to a shortage of doctors and a influx of patients.&nbsp;
Dr John Armstrong returned to general medicine after seven years of retirement as the practice, taken over by his daughter, was overwhelmed with demand.&nbsp;
With more than 6,500 patients on the books, the wait time for a routine GP visit was around four months.&nbsp;
Armstrong told Kerre Woodham GPs up and down the country are doing 15-20 minute consultations, but it's difficult when you have so many patients to deal with the multitude of problems people come in with..
He says if people are on a waitlist for three or four months, they often come in with a list of issues.
LISTEN ABOVE&nbsp;

John Armstrong: General Practitioner on GPs being overwhelmed due to a lack of doctors and influx of patients

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/e76e9ab0-4006-4d45-9255-b4f9001bf196/transcript

Michael Laws. It should come as absolutely no surprise that he has shown his colours, he's shown them time and time again. When Winston Peters was in studio with me when we were doing the leaders discussions and you were phoning in and asking questions of the leaders, I thought I'd said it to him on air, but I must have said in a commercial break after I'd talked about the sort of calibre of the candidates and I said to Winston, "Michael Laws, what on earth are you doing with him?" Winston looked a bit surprised and said, "No, he's very intelligent. What's wrong with Michael? Very intelligent." I said, "He's awful, he's. No, I don't think he's going to be an asset to you. Oh, no, no." And the thing about Winston is he is very loyal, he and Michael Laws go way back, but I could not understand the rationale. Are there not enough candidates of sufficient calibre wanting to stand for New Zealand First? Why on earth would you bring Michael Laws back into the fold unless you were myopically loyal to somebody with whom you'd had a long-standing professional relationship?  

And what do you know? Just a few short days later, he's proving a problem for New Zealand First and a distraction, a major distraction. I know we live in a world where you can have a US president who boasts about grabbing women by the pussy, but still, that's the US. We don't have to follow suit. Winston Peters told Ryan Bridge this morning that they haven't had time as a party to decide what they're going to do about Laws, they'll deal with that after the election. 

WP: It's careless, it's not thinking the issues through and thinking out loud is a silly way to behave, especially if you're a candidate for a party in an election. And it's all of those things and worse. So we've just made it very clear to Michael how we feel about it. The party's brassed off, the women in the party are very annoyed because they've done so much work to get this party where it is. 

RB: After Stuart Nash? 

WP: Well, you know, Stuart Nash was never. When he made the comments he wasn't an approved candidate, so it was not difficult to deal with. 

RB: Right. 

WP: I'm going to make sure that the party's fully aware of all the circumstances of this and the moment this election's over, but we are flat out with two days to go in a campaign. Is it a serious difficulty or is it a handicap in what we're trying to do? Of course it is. It's all of those things and we are brassed off the beat the band, make no bones about it. 

I'm glad he didn't try and minimise it because the dichotomy is that you have Winston Peters as leader of the party and whatever criticisms I have of Winston, he is a chivalrous man. I do not believe for a second he would make the sort of comment that Michael Laws did or the previous candidate Stuart Nash has made about women, not even in private, he wouldn't even think those thoughts. And yet his party attracts men who seem to have extremely odd views of women. Michael Laws' sexualising of women in the Opportunity Party, which was gross, comes on top of Stuart Nash's comments about his former opponent in Napier taking parental leave and also his crude definition of a woman, let's not forget that. And Ron Mark's linking the sinking of the Manawanui, which was captained by a woman, to the appalling diversity in the New Zealand Defence Force. 

Thomas Coughlan has written an excellent piece in the Herald this morning and as he says, this shouldn't rattle what people think of New Zealand First. It has always been scandal prone and like the lost boys without Wendy, has always been a home for candidates, often male, who have a habit of saying outrageous, often offensive things. Lost boys without Wendy, excellent line. But it's true. I mean, here you've got and that's what the dichotomy is, that's what's so dichotomous. You've got Winston Peters, who is a gentleman. You can, and I have, fulminate against all sorts of things that he does, but he's never crude. I don't believe for a second he thinks women are just sex bits or lazy cows for taking parental leave or whatever, and yet this is what the party attracts.

And he is going to have to deal with Michael Laws after the election because these are the comments from the party leaders. Christopher Luxon: "He will not be a minister in my government," referring to Michael Laws. Chlöe Swarbrick: "It's just gross." Yes, it is. "He's from another era, he should go back to Noah and the Ark," Nicola Willis. Barbara Edmonds said, "Women have a place in politics, we have a place in leadership. The fact that we have three finance spokespeople who are wāhine shows that women have a place here. We should be respected as opposed to being talked down to." And Qiulae Wong, "He makes my skin crawl," which sums it up beautifully.  

But still, I have never voted for New Zealand First and I can't imagine doing so. Stranger things have happened and hopefully I've got a few elections left in me, but I've never voted New Zealand First, so what I think doesn't really matter. It's not going to affect my vote and it's certainly not going to affect my opinion of Laws because it's pretty much what I thought of him before he made the comments, he's done it before, he'll undoubtedly do it again. But it makes me wonder, is there a place in politics for this sort of party? Are there people who yearn for the days where women were just two tits and a pussy? Is there a cohort of people who think that? Maybe so. I don't know any of them, it doesn't mean they don't exist. I mean, how could you possibly have somebody like that in politics?

It is going to be a problem for New Zealand First the way I see it, but as I say, never voted for them and it's not going to change my vote. Will it change yours? If you're a New Zealand First supporter, do you scratch your head about the candidate selection? And if you are leaning towards New Zealand First, does this change your opinion whatsoever or do you still think it's basically a Winston Peters party, you love Winston, he would never say anything like that, so therefore your vote goes to Winston?

Michael Laws. It should come as absolutely no surprise that he has shown his colours, he's shown them time and time again. When Winston Peters was in studio with me when we were doing the leaders discussions and you were phoning in and asking questions of the leaders, I thought I'd said it to him on air, but I must have said in a commercial break after I'd talked about the sort of calibre of the candidates and I said to Winston, "Michael Laws, what on earth are you doing with him?" Winston looked a bit surprised and said, "No, he's very intelligent. What's wrong with Michael? Very intelligent." I said, "He's awful, he's. No, I don't think he's going to be an asset to you. Oh, no, no." And the thing about Winston is he is very loyal, he and Michael Laws go way back, but I could not understand the rationale. Are there not enough candidates of sufficient calibre wanting to stand for New Zealand First? Why on earth would you bring Michael Laws back into the fold unless you were myopically loyal to somebody with whom you'd had a long-standing professional relationship? &nbsp;
And what do you know? Just a few short days later, he's proving a problem for New Zealand First and a distraction, a major distraction. I know we live in a world where you can have a US president who boasts about grabbing women by the pussy, but still, that's the US. We don't have to follow suit. Winston Peters told Ryan Bridge this morning that they haven't had time as a party to decide what they're going to do about Laws, they'll deal with that after the election.&nbsp;
WP: It's careless, it's not thinking the issues through and thinking out loud is a silly way to behave, especially if you're a candidate for a party in an election. And it's all of those things and worse. So we've just made it very clear to Michael how we feel about it. The party's brassed off, the women in the party are very annoyed because they've done so much work to get this party where it is.&nbsp;
RB: After Stuart Nash?&nbsp;
WP: Well, you know, Stuart Nash was never. When he made the comments he wasn't an approved candidate, so it was not difficult to deal with.&nbsp;
RB: Right.&nbsp;
WP: I'm going to make sure that the party's fully aware of all the circumstances of this and the moment this election's over, but we are flat out with two days to go in a campaign. Is it a serious difficulty or is it a handicap in what we're trying to do? Of course it is. It's all of those things and we are brassed off the beat the band, make no bones about it.&nbsp;
I'm glad he didn't try and minimise it because the dichotomy is that you have Winston Peters as leader of the party and whatever criticisms I have of Winston, he is a chivalrous man. I do not believe for a second he would make the sort of comment that Michael Laws did or the previous candidate Stuart Nash has made about women, not even in private, he wouldn't even think those thoughts. And yet his party attracts men who seem to have extremely odd views of women. Michael Laws' sexualising of women in the Opportunity Party, which was gross, comes on top of Stuart Nash's comments about his former opponent in Napier taking parental leave and also his crude definition of a woman, let's not forget that. And Ron Mark's linking the sinking of the Manawanui, which was captained by a woman, to the appalling diversity in the New Zealand Defence Force.&nbsp;
Thomas Coughlan has written an excellent piece in the Herald this morning and as he says, this shouldn't rattle what people think of New Zealand First. It has always been scandal prone and like the lost boys without Wendy, has always been a home for candidates, often male, who have a habit of saying outrageous, often offensive things. Lost boys without Wendy, excellent line. But it's true. I mean, here you've got and that's what the dichotomy is, that's what's so dichotomous. You've got Winston Peters, who is a gentleman. You can, and I have, fulminate against all sorts of things that he does, but he's never crude. I don't believe for a second he thinks women are just sex bits or lazy cows for taking parental leave or whatever, and yet this is what the party attracts.
And he is going to have to deal with Michael Laws after the election because these are the comments from the party leaders. Christopher Luxon: "He will not be a minister in my government," referring to Michael Laws. Chlöe Swarbrick: "It's just gross." Yes, it is. "He's from another era, he should go back to Noah and the Ark," Nicola Willis. Barbara Edmonds said, "Women have a place in politics, we have a place in leadership. The fact that we have three finance spokespeople who are wāhine shows that women have a place here. We should be respected as opposed to being talked down to." And Qiulae Wong, "He makes my skin crawl," which sums it up beautifully. &nbsp;
But still, I have never voted for New Zealand First and I can't imagine doing so. Stranger things have happened and hopefully I've got a few elections left in me, but I've never voted New Zealand First, so what I think doesn't really matter. It's not going to affect my vote and it's certainly not going to affect my opinion of Laws because it's pretty much what I thought of him before he made the comments, he's done it before, he'll undoubtedly do it again. But it makes me wonder, is there a place in politics for this sort of party? Are there people who yearn for the days where women were just two tits and a pussy? Is there a cohort of people who think that? Maybe so. I don't know any of them, it doesn't mean they don't exist. I mean, how could you possibly have somebody like that in politics?
It is going to be a problem for New Zealand First the way I see it, but as I say, never voted for them and it's not going to change my vote. Will it change yours? If you're a New Zealand First supporter, do you scratch your head about the candidate selection? And if you are leaning towards New Zealand First, does this change your opinion whatsoever or do you still think it's basically a Winston Peters party, you love Winston, he would never say anything like that, so therefore your vote goes to Winston?

Kerre Woodham: How could you have someone like Michael Laws in politics?

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/ff90deb7-986a-439a-a242-b4f900069a75/transcript

Axel Heiser: AG Research principal scientist answers questions on FMD

In 1 playlist(s)

Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

Social links

Follow podcast

Recent clips