The news New Zealand is out of a technical recession isn't necessarily cause for celebration. 

Stats NZ figures show GDP rose 0.2% in the three months to March and 0.2% in the year to March.

But Herald Business Editor Liam Dann told Kerre Woodham that we could still see a series of further per capita contractions over the next few quarters.

He says if we don't end up back in a technical recession, things could go backwards in another quarter due to the crunch starting to bite on interest rates. 

The Reserve Bank says the growth outlook for the rest of this year is slightly more positive.

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The news New Zealand is out of a technical recession isn't necessarily cause for celebration.  
Stats NZ figures show GDP rose 0.2% in the three months to March and 0.2% in the year to March. 
But Herald Business Editor Liam Dann told Kerre Woodham that we could still see a series of further per capita contractions over the next few quarters. 
He says if we don't end up back in a technical recession, things could go backwards in another quarter due to the crunch starting to bite on interest rates.  
The Reserve Bank says the growth outlook for the rest of this year is slightly more positive. 
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

Liam Dann: NZ Herald Business Editor on the 0.2% rise in the GDP

I thought we'd have a look at the plans to amend New Zealand sentencing laws. 

National, ACT, and New Zealand First campaigned on the law-and-order ticket. Tougher sentences, consequences for serial youth offenders, safer communities. It is their thing, all of their parties, this is what they do. Let's get tough on crime whenever there's an election campaign. But given that there had been an increase in crime during the last six years, crime had been steadily going down and then it did not. There was a 70% increase in gang membership, violent crime was up by a third, 100% increase in retail crime, and I would venture to suggest even more than that, just people weren't reporting it. 

A majority of people were feeling less safe on the streets, in their businesses, in their homes. It was a safe bet that voters would respond to a let's get tough on crime stance and now the coalition government is delivering on its campaign promises. They will cap sentence discounts that judges can apply to 40% of the maximum unless it results in manifestly unjust sentencing outcomes. Prevent repeat discounts for youth and remorse. That's good. Introduce a new aggravating factor to address offences against sole charge workers and those whose home and businesses are interconnected (that would be the dairy owners). Encouraging the use of cumulative sentencing for offences committed while on bail, in custody or on parole, so rather than it being three sentences of six years and they're all served concurrently, it would be 18 years, not three lots of six.  

At the moment a lot of concurrent is done. A maximum sentence discount of 25% for early guilty pleas, reducing to 5% if a guilty plea is entered once the trials begun. And adding a requirement for judges to take information about the victim's interests into account. Convener of the Law Society's Criminal Committee, Chris Macklin, sounded a note of caution on the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning. 

“Oh well look, it's early days. You say these things are coming and of course they are, they do still need to go through Select Committee. The signal is clear that tougher sentences are coming, whether that achieves exactly what people want will be the acid test, and that will be reducing people's experience of crime. There's a worry that some areas of offending might be less accurately reported if tougher sentences appeared. I think there's a concern about undermining restorative and rehabilitative purposes of sentencing.  And the profession probably needs to highlight as well to the extent it can, it's by no means clear the tougher things to do to effectively some of the crimes we're talking about.”

I don't know about you. But I am not supportive of these raft of measures because I think it will bring down crime. That will have to happen in other areas. More support for at risk families, getting kids back into school and actually teaching them something to give them more options, that sort of thing. Alcohol and drug rehabilitation. Mr Macklin, I am not naïve. I know criminals won't suddenly stop and go, well best not beat up that pensioner because I'm going to spend longer in jail. I support the tougher sentences because I am sick and tired of the hurt perpetuated by people who do it time and time, and crime and crime again. I want to see them punished for that. 

There's a million cases we can point to but remember the case of the teen Mongrel Mob member who broke into the home of a pregnant woman and indecently assaulted her and the bed she was sharing with her child? He was sentenced for breaking into a home and then sexually assaulting a pregnant woman. He was sentenced to 12 months home detention. And as Stevie Taunoa, 19, thanked the judge and walked from the dock and to the police cells, he yelled, “cracked it”. So, the discount he got for his youth and remorse doesn't seem to be very genuine, does it? I don't want to see gangsters gloating about how they've gamed the system. I don't want to see offenders be allowed to use their youth or their dreadful backgrounds to get lesser sentences time after time, crime after crime. When the person responsible for attacking an 85-year-old woman on a walker as she walked up the side of her house - when they are caught, I don't want to hear about how sorry they are. I want to see someone responsible for an 85-year-old woman who's now got a broken nose, facial bruising, a broken wrist and bruising to her fingers, who has been stalked as she has made her way home from withdrawing money from the ASB Bank, I want to see them punished. We can get to the rehabilitation and yes, I'm very sorry and gosh, I had a terrible background later. But as the police said, it was a gutless and cowardly attack. So let's see a sentence that reflects that. Not oh, that poor offender, look at where they've come from. Look at what has forced them to attack a frail old woman on a bloody walker, in her home. 

So, Mr. Macklin, you might think that we're all a bit stupid and maybe there are some people who think all with these harsher sentences by crikey, we'll see those criminals quaking in their boots and not offending. They will continue to offend, of that, I am certain. It's not going to mean an end to crime. It's not going to mean an end to cowardly and gutless attacks. It's not going to mean an end to gang membership. And we certainly can't resolve societal issues by just locking up people for longer. There has to be early intervention. There has to be the opportunity for rehabilitation, but there also has to be consequences for crime. I do expect, and call me old fashioned, to see criminals punished for the crimes that they do.

I thought we'd have a look at the plans to amend New Zealand sentencing laws.  
National, ACT, and New Zealand First campaigned on the law-and-order ticket. Tougher sentences, consequences for serial youth offenders, safer communities. It is their thing, all of their parties, this is what they do. Let's get tough on crime whenever there's an election campaign. But given that there had been an increase in crime during the last six years, crime had been steadily going down and then it did not. There was a 70% increase in gang membership, violent crime was up by a third, 100% increase in retail crime, and I would venture to suggest even more than that, just people weren't reporting it.  
A majority of people were feeling less safe on the streets, in their businesses, in their homes. It was a safe bet that voters would respond to a let's get tough on crime stance and now the coalition government is delivering on its campaign promises. They will cap sentence discounts that judges can apply to 40% of the maximum unless it results in manifestly unjust sentencing outcomes. Prevent repeat discounts for youth and remorse. That's good. Introduce a new aggravating factor to address offences against sole charge workers and those whose home and businesses are interconnected (that would be the dairy owners). Encouraging the use of cumulative sentencing for offences committed while on bail, in custody or on parole, so rather than it being three sentences of six years and they're all served concurrently, it would be 18 years, not three lots of six.   
At the moment a lot of concurrent is done. A maximum sentence discount of 25% for early guilty pleas, reducing to 5% if a guilty plea is entered once the trials begun. And adding a requirement for judges to take information about the victim's interests into account. Convener of the Law Society's Criminal Committee, Chris Macklin, sounded a note of caution on the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning.  
“Oh well look, it's early days. You say these things are coming and of course they are, they do still need to go through Select Committee. The signal is clear that tougher sentences are coming, whether that achieves exactly what people want will be the acid test, and that will be reducing people's experience of crime. There's a worry that some areas of offending might be less accurately reported if tougher sentences appeared. I think there's a concern about undermining restorative and rehabilitative purposes of sentencing.  And the profession probably needs to highlight as well to the extent it can, it's by no means clear the tougher things to do to effectively some of the crimes we're talking about.”  
I don't know about you. But I am not supportive of these raft of measures because I think it will bring down crime. That will have to happen in other areas. More support for at risk families, getting kids back into school and actually teaching them something to give them more options, that sort of thing. Alcohol and drug rehabilitation. Mr Macklin, I am not naïve. I know criminals won't suddenly stop and go, well best not beat up that pensioner because I'm going to spend longer in jail. I support the tougher sentences because I am sick and tired of the hurt perpetuated by people who do it time and time, and crime and crime again. I want to see them punished for that.  
There's a million cases we can point to but remember the case of the teen Mongrel Mob member who broke into the home of a pregnant woman and indecently assaulted her and the bed she was sharing with her child? He was sentenced for breaking into a home and then sexually assaulting a pregnant woman. He was sentenced to 12 months home detention. And as Stevie Taunoa, 19, thanked the judge and walked from the dock and to the police cells, he yelled, “cracked it”. So, the discount he got for his youth and remorse doesn't seem to be very genuine, does it? I don't want to see gangsters gloating about how they've gamed the system. I don't want to see offenders be allowed to use their youth or their dreadful backgrounds to get lesser sentences time after time, crime after crime. When the person responsible for attacking an 85-year-old woman on a walker as she walked up the side of her house - when they are caught, I don't want to hear about how sorry they are. I want to see someone responsible for an 85-year-old woman who's now got a broken nose, facial bruising, a broken wrist and bruising to her fingers, who has been stalked as she has made her way home from withdrawing money from the ASB Bank, I want to see them punished. We can get to the rehabilitation and yes, I'm very sorry and gosh, I had a terrible background later. But as the police said, it was a gutless and cowardly attack. So let's see a sentence that reflects that. Not oh, that poor offender, look at where they've come from. Look at what has forced them to attack a frail old woman on a bloody walker, in her home.  
So, Mr. Macklin, you might think that we're all a bit stupid and maybe there are some people who think all with these harsher sentences by crikey, we'll see those criminals quaking in their boots and not offending. They will continue to offend, of that, I am certain. It's not going to mean an end to crime. It's not going to mean an end to cowardly and gutless attacks. It's not going to mean an end to gang membership. And we certainly can't resolve societal issues by just locking up people for longer. There has to be early intervention. There has to be the opportunity for rehabilitation, but there also has to be consequences for crime. I do expect, and call me old fashioned, to see criminals punished for the crimes that they do.

Kerre Woodham: There has to be consequences for crime

It's estimated New Zealand throws away $3.2 billion of food every year.

The Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor, Dame Juliet Gerrard, has issued 27 recommendations to the Government.

It calls for a national plan and target, smarter monitoring, better strategies to tackle food loss at source, promoting food rescue and upcycling to ensure edible food isn’t thrown out.

KiwiHarvest is a food rescue business, taking food that is still perfectly usable so it doesn’t get thrown away and giving it to charities and institutions where it would be of use.

CEO Angela Calver told Kerre Woodham that the best way to stop wastage in your home is to meal plan and plan ahead.

She said that a lot of waste happens because of demand, supermarkets doing their best to ensure that if you buy a loaf of bread today, that loaf of bread will be on the shelf tomorrow as well.

Calver said that planning and not over-buying food will help further down the supply chain and reduce waste.

LISTEN ABOVE

It's estimated New Zealand throws away $3.2 billion of food every year. 
The Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor, Dame Juliet Gerrard, has issued 27 recommendations to the Government. 
It calls for a national plan and target, smarter monitoring, better strategies to tackle food loss at source, promoting food rescue and upcycling to ensure edible food isn’t thrown out. 
KiwiHarvest is a food rescue business, taking food that is still perfectly usable so it doesn’t get thrown away and giving it to charities and institutions where it would be of use. 
CEO Angela Calver told Kerre Woodham that the best way to stop wastage in your home is to meal plan and plan ahead. 
She said that a lot of waste happens because of demand, supermarkets doing their best to ensure that if you buy a loaf of bread today, that loaf of bread will be on the shelf tomorrow as well. 
Calver said that planning and not over-buying food will help further down the supply chain and reduce waste. 
LISTEN ABOVE

Angela Calver: KiwiHarvest CEO on reducing food waste

A second Covid inquiry has been announced. And while that may sound like two Covid inquiries too many, this one may well get the answer a lot of us are looking for. New Zealand First has invoked the Agree to Disagree clause that allows a party within a coalition government to disagree in relation to issues on which the parties wish to maintain a different position in public. Generally, in a coalition agreement you like to present a united front, but when there are real disagreements, the clause can be invoked and that is what Peters has done. 

He wanted the first inquiry scrapped, saying it was nothing more than a political tool being used to craft a message through its limited scope and the lack of suitability of the Commissioners. The chair is epidemiologist Professor Tony Blakely, who advised during the pandemic, the economist John Whitehead, and former National MP Hekia Parata. He's not wrong, though. Unlike most other recent Royal Commissions, New Zealand's focus is explicitly on planning for the next pandemic, rather than assigning blame for any failings from the decision makers. It's like oh well, that happened, let's look ahead and see what we can do next time around. Its full name is “New Zealand Royal Commission Covid -19 Lessons Learned”, and the parliamentary order bringing it into being describes its intentions as examining the lessons learned from Aotearoa New Zealand's response to Covid-19 that should be applied in preparation for any future pandemic. 

So there would be no blame, no finger pointing, no public floggings in the public square. Really, it would be more like a series of patsy questions in Parliament. Did you do well? [Previous Labour government]. Thank you. Just how well did you think you did? [Previous Labour government]. What learnings do you think you can take forward? How many lives were saved? [Labour government]. You know, that sort of thing. 

Now Brooke van Velden, Internal Affairs Minister, says that when this inquiry finishes its work a second one will get under way and this one will ask the hard questions.



“Where I think people are looking for more focus and what Phase Two will focus on, are things like the government's response and how that was weighed up against education, health, business, inflation. What its response did to debt and business activity? The social division that was caused in our society, and importantly also touches on New Zealand First’s commitment where they wish to look into vaccine efficacy. So it's a bit broader in range and I think answers a lot of those questions that will be on the top of people's minds. Was the government too fixated on just one aspect of its response?”



And I think that's a reasonable question. That was Brooke van Velden talking to Mike Hosking this morning. I think those are really relevant questions. The vaccine efficacy and safety, the extended lockdowns in Auckland, in Northland. Now that we have the luxury of hindsight, you have to look and say, okay was that worth it? Was having borders at the Bombay Hills worth it? 

I'd be really interested to know whether there's any explanation for ‘the computer says no’ letters that so many families were given when they couldn't be with loved ones who were very, very ill or dying. Despite the fact that they were vaccinated, the family they were going to were vaccinated, there was just a simple computer say no denial from MBIE, a nameless official at MBIE, saying they could not be with a dying family member, or somebody who was very, very ill. And the pain that that caused was immeasurable. The grief that that generated was immeasurable. So I'd really love to know how you made the decision and who these faceless, nameless people were at MBIE who just deny, deny, denied access across the border, which all sounds incredibly weird. 

You know, I think you have to ask those questions before you can move forward. I don't know that it's going to resolve anything. I mean basically I'd be quite happy with stocks in the public square, quite frankly. But then there are others who will be not satisfied until anybody who dared to so much as criticise any of the decisions made, abases themselves before the likes of Ardern, and Hipkins, and Robertson, and all the public health officials and kisses the hem of their garment and repeats three times, I am so sorry. I am so grateful to be alive and it's only thanks to you. I am so sorry. I'm so grateful to be alive. And it's only thanks to you, which I think is tosh. 

I do think the hard questions have to be asked this first patsy inquiry was precisely that. How well did you do Labour government? Ooh very well. Really. Just how well? Exceptionally well. Any learnings? Oh, a few. You have to be able to weigh the costs. You have to be able to weigh the different decisions that were made that had so many impacts on so many different people's lives. Some breezed through, loved it, thought it was amazing, thought every decision made was the right one, but not everybody did. And I think we're going to see the damage for a very long time to come. As I've always said, it'll be 100 years from now, there'll still be people debating whether that second year of decision making they were making the right decisions. But it would be good to start now, to ask a few tough questions now, rather than just sugar coating the response, which is all we'd have got from the first inquiry.

A second Covid inquiry has been announced. And while that may sound like two Covid inquiries too many, this one may well get the answer a lot of us are looking for. New Zealand First has invoked the Agree to Disagree clause that allows a party within a coalition government to disagree in relation to issues on which the parties wish to maintain a different position in public. Generally, in a coalition agreement you like to present a united front, but when there are real disagreements, the clause can be invoked and that is what Peters has done.  
He wanted the first inquiry scrapped, saying it was nothing more than a political tool being used to craft a message through its limited scope and the lack of suitability of the Commissioners. The chair is epidemiologist Professor Tony Blakely, who advised during the pandemic, the economist John Whitehead, and former National MP Hekia Parata. He's not wrong, though. Unlike most other recent Royal Commissions, New Zealand's focus is explicitly on planning for the next pandemic, rather than assigning blame for any failings from the decision makers. It's like oh well, that happened, let's look ahead and see what we can do next time around. Its full name is “New Zealand Royal Commission Covid -19 Lessons Learned”, and the parliamentary order bringing it into being describes its intentions as examining the lessons learned from Aotearoa New Zealand's response to Covid-19 that should be applied in preparation for any future pandemic.  
So there would be no blame, no finger pointing, no public floggings in the public square. Really, it would be more like a series of patsy questions in Parliament. Did you do well? [Previous Labour government]. Thank you. Just how well did you think you did? [Previous Labour government]. What learnings do you think you can take forward? How many lives were saved? [Labour government]. You know, that sort of thing.  
Now Brooke van Velden, Internal Affairs Minister, says that when this inquiry finishes its work a second one will get under way and this one will ask the hard questions. 
 
“Where I think people are looking for more focus and what Phase Two will focus on, are things like the government's response and how that was weighed up against education, health, business, inflation. What its response did to debt and business activity? The social division that was caused in our society, and importantly also touches on New Zealand First’s commitment where they wish to look into vaccine efficacy. So it's a bit broader in range and I think answers a lot of those questions that will be on the top of people's minds. Was the government too fixated on just one aspect of its response?” 
 
And I think that's a reasonable question. That was Brooke van Velden talking to Mike Hosking this morning. I think those are really relevant questions. The vaccine efficacy and safety, the extended lockdowns in Auckland, in Northland. Now that we have the luxury of hindsight, you have to look and say, okay was that worth it? Was having borders at the Bombay Hills worth it?  
I'd be really interested to know whether there's any explanation for ‘the computer says no’ letters that so many families were given when they couldn't be with loved ones who were very, very ill or dying. Despite the fact that they were vaccinated, the family they were going to were vaccinated, there was just a simple computer say no denial from MBIE, a nameless official at MBIE, saying they could not be with a dying family member, or somebody who was very, very ill. And the pain that that caused was immeasurable. The grief that that generated was immeasurable. So I'd really love to know how you made the decision and who these faceless, nameless people were at MBIE who just deny, deny, denied access across the border, which all sounds incredibly weird.  
You know, I think you have to ask those questions before you can move forward. I don't know that it's going to resolve anything. I mean basically I'd be quite happy with stocks in the public square, quite frankly. But then there are others who will be not satisfied until anybody who dared to so much as criticise any of the decisions made, abases themselves before the likes of Ardern, and Hipkins, and Robertson, and all the public health officials and kisses the hem of their garment and repeats three times, I am so sorry. I am so grateful to be alive and it's only thanks to you. I am so sorry. I'm so grateful to be alive. And it's only thanks to you, which I think is tosh.  
I do think the hard questions have to be asked this first patsy inquiry was precisely that. How well did you do Labour government? Ooh very well. Really. Just how well? Exceptionally well. Any learnings? Oh, a few. You have to be able to weigh the costs. You have to be able to weigh the different decisions that were made that had so many impacts on so many different people's lives. Some breezed through, loved it, thought it was amazing, thought every decision made was the right one, but not everybody did. And I think we're going to see the damage for a very long time to come. As I've always said, it'll be 100 years from now, there'll still be people debating whether that second year of decision making they were making the right decisions. But it would be good to start now, to ask a few tough questions now, rather than just sugar coating the response, which is all we'd have got from the first inquiry.

Liam Dann: NZ Herald Business Editor on the 0.2% rise in the GDP

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