Checkpoint LIVE, Tuesday 28/09/2021

[Music] time to pin down the delta tail as the call goes out to all level three workers get a covert test actually get two at least five days apart symptoms or no symptoms the super cities vaccination rates slowed down ahead of next week's alert level review as our government gears up for a home isolation trial south australia has been there done that we talked to one participant about facial recognition and random phone checks about now kiwis are piling into the virtual miq lobby hoping to win the lottery we'll talk to some hopefuls and auckland children have basically been locked down for weeks and weeks we hit the streets to find out what they're up to from a safe distance of course news at five course sarah thompson thousands more aucklanders are being asked to get tested for covert 19 as health authorities try to stamp out the delta outbreak people back at work under alert level 3 in the hospitality retail and construction sectors are the focus of the latest surveillance testing efforts sarah robson reports over the last month about 50 000 essential workers have been swabbed as part of the ongoing efforts to rule out further spread of covert 19. with more people back at work under the eased lockdown restrictions director general of health ashley bloomfield wants to extend that surveillance testing he's asking those permitted workers to get two tests five days apart over the next fortnight workers who don't have symptoms who are swabbed as part of the surveillance testing won't have to self-isolate until they get their result there are eight new cases of covert 19 in the community today a wastewater test in tauranga has also been detected from september 23rd and a further test result was taken today and is due back on thursday people who need to move out of auckland permanently will be able to do so under alert level 3 but they will have to follow strict rules prime minister jacinda ardern says from midnight tonight people will be able to move across the boundary if they are relocating permanently that includes people who have bought or rented a property are starting a new job or need to get to a hall of residence for tertiary study people who are returning home to an alert level 2 area or have shared caregiving arrangements will also be covered people will need to have a negative test before they leave provide proof of their reason for leaving and not be sick the prime minister says she has confidence that police can deal with a planned anti-lockdown protest in auckland this weekend led by brian tamaki the destiny church leader has a virtual meeting with the police commissioner andrew costa and deputy commissioner wally omaha to discuss the future action police have now released a follow-up letter sent by mr costa discussing the protest and warning of potential enforcement jacinda ardern says she needs to leave police to do their job and i have confidence in them to deal with every compliance issue they face with you know right judgment because there are judgment cause in all of this jacinda ardern says no one wants lockdowns or restrictions to last longer than needed 13 police officers self-isolating after an arrested woman tested positive for covert 19 have returned initial negative results the custody unit at waitakere station was closed after corrections notified the positive case on sunday it reopened last night after being deep cleaned seven people who were in custody at the time have also returned negative covert 19 tests all custody unit staff are being tested as a precaution an investigation into why some of the police officers were not wearing full personal protective equipment when they arrested the woman continues eleven officers were incorrectly wearing their masks contravening requirements to wear full protective gear during an arrest property investors say rents may rise as a result of new tax changes for the sector the government has clarified that new houses will be exempt for 20 years from change tax rules that prevent residential property investors from deducting interest payments as an expense the policy to stop investors claiming a tax deduction will be phased in over four years for properties brought bought before march this year property investors federation chief executive sharon kollek says investors caught out by the change may look to raise rents it does mean that property investors do have to try and get that money back somehow and of course we would get it back from our customers and our customers are tenant which means that rents really and have been going up uh since this announcement but i'm guessing that rents will probably still keep going up just to help pay for this sharon colwick says the policy should encourage the construction of new properties it's four minutes past five moving into sports news auckland's mount smart stadium has been confirmed as the home ground for moana pacifica's super rugby team jointly using it with nrl's warriors moana pacifica's sir brian williams says while they've committed to be based in new zealand for the foreseeable future the intention is to play games in samoa and tonga sir bryan says it's appropriate the side is starting out at mount smart just as the warriors did in 1995 and it means many of the moana pacifica supporters who live in south auckland will know the venue well he says having training facilities there too means longer term the two cones will be able to share resources great animosity that used to exist between the codes is long gone and dare dare i see it and say it pacifica players right right through both games and that has also helped the easing of animosity that used to exist the phoenix captain stephen taylor says the reality of another season based in australia is behind his shock retirement just a few days after he was named captain taylor's announced he's returning home to england taylor who spent 13 seasons in the english premier league says having been in lockdowns or competition bubbles for a prolonged period the thought of relocating to australia for the entire season forced the decision and finally october's auckland marathon has been postponed until january because of the covet outbreak in the city and that is your news and sport act on the rise it's a very encouraging response for the center right and for new zealand that puts us on track not only for a change of government but a change of direction business leaders to skip miq we've had lots of businesses contacting us several months now wanting to be part of this frustrations being building and moulin rouge hits the high notes [Music] it was by far the splashiest jazziest and most popular show come what may morning report weekdays from six on rnz national te reo auntie roa funded through new zealand on air now the short forecast from met service to midnight the apple wednesday northland south to waitomo tomorrow nuit taupo and bay of plenty scattered showers some possibly heavy and thundery with hail in toppo and bay of plenty until evening taranaki and taihape to manawatu also gisbon and wairarapa mainly fine remaining rain or showers with snow to 700 meters about taihape and inland manawatu clearing this evening a few showers returning to the west tomorrow morning horowhenua carpet wellington nelson and marlborough fine today with cloudy periods tomorrow and a few showers developing about nelson and north of wellington in the evening bulla to fjordland showers spreading north today becoming rain for a time tomorrow canterbury to southland mainly fine with isolated showers today showers becoming widespread tomorrow afternoon and for the chatter islands rain turning to showers late tonight possibly heavy and then clearing tomorrow afternoon that concludes the short forecast from that service to midnight wednesday it's seven minutes past five now my heidi mikey checkpointed tenera lisa owen tna the government's issued a new plea to aucklanders as the tale of delta continues to bear down on the city of sales it's asking all people working in level three businesses to get a covert test at least two in the next two weeks there are eight new cases in the community today and aucklanders will have to wait until next monday to find out if they'll drop down an alert level our reporter nick trubridge joins me now from bayswater in auckland nick what's the deal with the new testing push yeah lisa well for those who are interested it's targeting the people who work in hospitality those people who work in construction and those people who work in retail as well and those people might be driving home right now they might be listening to the show and they might be wondering why on earth do i have to go and get two tests five days apart over the next two weeks well this is about casting a wide net this is about surveillance testing this is about making sure there are no cases that have slipped through the cracks so to speak and five hundred thousand aucklanders went back to work at level three so if everyone sticks to those guidelines well we could see a million cases in the next two weeks let's see how aucklanders go let's see if they take it up and do it yeah so potentially a million tests as you say there now what did the prime minister also say about auckland vaccination rates yeah well it wasn't great news on that today lisa in the auckland metro area there were just over 15 000 vaccinations yesterday now that might sound bad but the even worse news is that just 4 000 of those were for the first dose and that of course means uh that also the pm has said that uh 90 is the goal uh for auckland before that level announcement on uh next monday she's now though appeared to indicate that getting to that target might be a tough ask for me it's what we do what our total vaccination rates are looking like uh and around the 77 mark for first dose you know it's really encouraging and the bookings suggest that we have the ability to get to that 80 but we know that last 10's really really tough uh and what i just remind everyone is that it actually what matters is what our total population looks like in terms of the percentage that are vaccinated and so because our children can't be vaccinated even at 90 percent you end up somewhere around 75 percent of your population vaccinated so quarter not and so that's why it's not enough just to say well give everyone a chance to be vaccinated if i'm vaccinated i'll be fine when 25 of your population isn't vaccinated that does require management to ensure that outbreaks don't impact your health system and don't impact people like children so that's why those high numbers really matter so on that i'm i'm pleased that we're seeing it continue to tick up in auckland we're sitting around the 82 mark it's getting harder and so every if it's required which is why we keep imploring everyone to join those efforts particularly employers so it's epitome or jacinda dune there and nick aucklanders aren't the only ones who are being encouraged to get off their butts and go get a test what's the deal with tauranga yeah well unfortunate news coming out of tauranga this afternoon as well lisa esr results finding traces of covert in the wastewater now those results came back after testing was taken on september 23 there's going to be some follow-up testing over the next uh well day or so it's probably going on the moment actually uh in bay of plenty and wider waikato results expected back on thursday but as a precaution those with symptoms and those who have been to places of interest are asked to go and get a test now testing stations in tauranga will be having extended hours tonight there will also be a number of pop-up testing stations are in locations in and around tauranga over the next couple of days you can go online onto the healthpoint website to find out exactly where those pop-ups are thanks nick that is nick trubridge live from auckland's north shore it is 12 minutes past five and deal with checkpoints on rnz national motel coming up we take a look at south australia's home isolation pilot complete with facial recognition technology and random phone checks well about now thousands of kiwis are jamming into the virtual miq lobby for the next lottery of vouchers 3 800 rooms in managed isolation for october november and december are being released at 6 pm it's the second room allocation since the government introduced the new system where people are randomly placed in a queue apparently giving everyone the same chance of securing a spot but the last voucher offer was massively over subscribed with 25 000 people at the lob in the lobby at any one time vying for just over 3 000 rooms henry perenata's nrl career took him to australia 20 years ago and he's been a ref for the last 13. but the nrl season's almost done a heart condition and other factors has seen henry call time on his offshore career now he and his son need to get home to other family and henry joins us now kia ora henry have you made it into the lobby yeah kyoto thank you thank you for having me i'm in the lobby but um yeah like you said before it was uh massively overestimated and i'm not very hopeful but in saying that i'm pretty realistic i mean i've been been in australia for over 20 years now and whilst i do want to get home i you know i understand the circumstances around around the way things are at the moment so you're not particularly hopeful did you did you pop into the lobby last time yeah yeah i i jumped in probably 10 minutes after it started uh i think it started at 9 00 a.m and which is obviously 7 a.m over here and i i had a bit of a sleep in and and um i jumped on and i think there was i think they said 5 000 rooms and i was like numbered 12 000 or something so i i just gave up pretty quickly um in that sense but yeah like i said it's it's disappointing and it's hard and you know there's a lot of things that are you know very difficult on both sides of the tasman but you know kind of just got a role with what we've got so you're in sydney at the moment right so no red flights in december so you've got even more limited options not only are you in the lottery for an miq spot but you've got limited uh months that you could actually even get home if you wanted to if you get a spot yeah yeah that's exactly how you know basically what you said and and the the tricky thing around it is is the availability on both sides both getting a flight and then obviously trying to get a room i mean i don't i don't need my queue last year um to come home i was lucky enough to come home for three months but obviously um you know looking to actually move back home um you know trying to get a room is you know quite difficult at this stage how keen are you to get back home yeah oh absolutely you know i was very lucky to come home in june um i've got four young children there that i'm dying to see i've missed um a couple of birthdays and i'm going to miss another one coming up but i haven't um i've been here for yes since 2000 and i haven't missed one christmas i've been been home every christmas and i think i think the realization that i may have to have a christmas here is is slowly starting to dawn on me but you know obviously the cover situation is very dynamic and and it changes very uh dramatically so hopefully if things change you know we might be able to fingers crossed get back there what do you think of the system this the so-called lottery oh i think it's difficult i i yeah i'm not one to turn around and provide my opinion on on things because you know everybody is in completely difficult and trying circumstances like i said on both sides of the tasman um i've been here for 20 years i've made my home here um so i've got kind of that to lean on but i guess the people that you know i've just i was just reading about people that um you know organized the charter plane from new zealand australia you know people but people are stuck on both sides of the tasman when they were you know only expected to come back for or go on holiday for you know a week two weeks at the most and you know people are stuck there um i know my brother's got a daughter in brisbane and i was in new zealand at the time and new zealand shut the border on the saturday night and she was due to fly in on the sunday morning um and she's obviously pretty stuck too so you know peop people are you know have different situations all across um both like i said both sides of the tasman and i guess i'm pretty lucky but also pretty realistic in the sense that um yes it's not ideal but you know people are just trying to do their best with what they've got best of luck henry we'll check back with you later after the vouchers start getting handed out that's henry pettinada who's in the miq virtual lobby and i suspect he's got quite a lot of company in there we will check back with him after 6. it is 16 minutes past five kia moto numai stay with us you're listening to checkpoint on rnz national it's the battle of the border blueprints opposition parties are this week setting out how they would manage the border although one got their first both want vaccinated new zealanders to be able to travel freely by the end of the year it comes off the back of the latest political poll which shows act leader david seymour has overtaken nationals judith collins in the preferred prime minister rankings here's political reporter katie scotcher former prime minister sir john key has kicked off a flurry of discussion about the future of the border and out of the blue act leader david seymour has waded into the debate too releasing a brief life after lockdown policy document we cannot continue eradication there will be higher rates of covert in new zealand at some point in the future whatever strategy we adopt david seymour wants the government to ditch lockdowns and focus on isolating individuals instead like the medically vulnerable and recent arrivals he also wants the border to start reopening from november once he says everyone has had a chance to be vaccinated ex-proposal comes on the eve of the release of nationals covet 19 border plan although david seymour insists he wasn't trying to steal nationals thunder we've been working on this for around a month there's only so many days in a week and we've put out a policy because we think it's our duty to hear from people and propose better ideas nationals stuck with its plan to release its border blueprint tomorrow with leader judith collins today announcing the announcement it will be the most complete comprehensive and well-researched blueprint to immediately address the significant issues within the government's lack of planning around managing the covert response and reconnecting new zealand with the world national is refusing to share details about its plans to reconnect with the world until tomorrow but mp chris bishop has signaled the party wants new zealanders to be able to travel freely in and out of the country by christmas i think it would be fair to say that if you're a double vaccinated kiwi offshore or a double vaccinated kiwi in new zealand you will like our plan the battle over the border blueprints follows the latest political poll which shows david seymour has overtaken judith collins in the preferred prime minister's stakes the one news colmar brunton poll shows mr seymour has 11 support while ms collins dropped to 5 her lowest results since becoming leader ms collins however is still confident she'll be elected prime minister in 2023 i have had a very successful career so far defying expectations support for the act party has also shot up increasing by five percentage points to 14 those numbers would see the party bring in 18 mps and who is ranked 18 on axe list another david seymour double davids it's a bit of a a new territory for democracy i don't think any uh party in a western parliament has ever experimented with two david seymours but if we had achieved that i think it could have been possibly uh the biggest moments for new zealand since ernest rutherford split the atom support for both major political parties has dropped slightly during the delta outbreak labour and national have both dropped three percentage points sitting at 43 per cent and 26 respectively while humayun are you in the miq lobby text us we'd love to hear from you and also why do you reckon should double vaccinated kiwis be allowed to travel home freely before christmas and with what kind of rules or restrictions partuimai text me 2101 tweet us at checkpoint rnz or you can email checkpoint at rnz.co.nz more people will soon be able to leave auckland under alert level three and into level two territory the government announced today that from 11 59 pm tonight more reasons will be added to the permitted travel list until now those crossing the boundary uh have been limited to essential workers and for urgent cases however prime minister jacinda dern says people's situations have changed over the last six weeks and their need to leave auckland has become more urgent people have been able to delay moving house for only so long for example or starting a new job or continuing with their tertiary education many people intend or need to leave auckland permanently or part of their life such as their child is across the boundary and they may have sheer care arrangements however those people will need to follow certain rules first if you're leaving auckland and not returning you need to get a negative test within 72 hours before your departure so that's the same as the requirements for those where it is already a permitted activity to move across the border for those crossing the boundary for shared caregiving arrangements because this involves more back and forth travel than a one-off they'll need to have a test within seven days of each crossing just like the crossing requirements we have for those who are moving freight or a part of essential work everyone must carry proof of why they are traveling and you must not be sick when you travel it's epitome here jacinda dern says students should speak to their accommodation provider beforehand to help facilitate their return she says the increased flexibility on leaving the boundary is because level three is working however the government will continue to monitor the situation meanwhile a pause on the housing market during the latest lockdowns is unlikely to be enough to increase affordability latest figures show in the year to august all major centres saw house prices rise with median values and some suburbs like auckland's ponsonby increasing by close to six hundred thousand dollars but with uncertainty around what activity will look like over the coming months real estate agents have snapped up more than one million dollars in wage subsidies need a black person reports data from core logic doesn't quite cover the latest lockdown but it paints a pretty clear picture of where prices were headed before things stalled in the year to august 771 of the country's 983 suburbs saw median increases of 100 000 or more and only 24 saw increases of less than thousand dollars corelogic's head of research nick goodall says activity dropped right off during lockdown but it could be about to bounce back because there's limited supply we do have strong demand and that can be boosted by people who are sitting at home and lock down and want some more space or want to move to a different area then they can start to look for property once they come out of lockdown as well so that could be a short-term boost to demand short-term drop and supply and that can mean you see a little bit of support for prices but as i said we don't expect that to be long-term so the longer term would expect that peter out and the the market prior lockdown continue on ponsonby saw the biggest jump in median value with a gain of 597 000 tiano was the only suburb to record a growth rate of less than five percent its median value is 554 000 goodell says he's not expecting prices to skyrocket to the dizzying heights they did after last year's lockdown i think this time around it's not quite as bad last year was you know the first time we've ever seen something like this as many people would have been considerate of their income might have been impacted in the short term or long term and so they may have held off making a big purchase like a house whereas this time around i think many people would see it as a short-term lockdown they probably know if they've got job security or not and it should put them off in general but it may just push back some transactions because they're unable to transact as opposed to being unwilling to property commentator ashley church agrees a huge flurry of activity is unlikely but he doesn't expect the market to cool either already the indications are that the market's continuing to be strong house prices are increasing week on week and there's nothing to suggest that anything will change that the one thing we can probably predict with some level of confidence is that we won't see that really really big burst as to the 30 30 plus percent uh increase that we saw last year despite that strong activity there has been some nervousness from real estate agents about what the future will bring agencies across the country have claimed more than 1.3 million dollars in wage subsidies although the bigger outfits like barford and thompson have decided not to this time around property brokers is one of the largest claimants it says the future is uncertain and the subsidy can't be claimed retrospectively and it remains open to returning the subsidy ashley church says many agencies will be competing for houses to sell so remember there's two sides for selling real estate one of them is selling but the other side is gaming listings in the first instance and in order to be successful you really need to be doing both well so you need to be getting people who are prepared to list their property with you and then you need to be able to sell that property at the moment because listings are so short it's generally the better sales people who are actually getting those listings and if you're not getting listings essentially 50 percent of your income's being cut out it's not just prices that the housing market affects but access and equality too social housing advocate and policy designer jade kake says government interventions to limit the spiraling prices are too slow and too late and she expects the housing waitlist will grow again after this lockdown lifts it's quite sobering when you get the figures year on year or quarter on quarter and just see that consistent persistent increase and it's not evenly felt um so i think around 50 percent of the housing wait list maori despite only being 15 16 of the population and i'm sure an equally or disproportionate amount are also pacifica she says lockdowns have highlighted issues around grossly unaffordable and inappropriate housing and wants tighter regulations of the rental market for parents and children in auckland it's been a juggling act of homeschooling and working from home for the last six weeks and as school holidays begin next monday children will spend nearly nine weeks at home all up regardless of whether we move to level two or not reporter louise denos and camera operator marika habazi went to see how they're faring skateboarding working out or walking whatever these aucklanders can do to get out of the house and into the sunshine it's week six of lockdown and we're in onihanga where we bump into annalise who's out with her dad liz and their dog locky for escaped she admits the novelty of lockdown is wearing off it's sort of fun and it's sort of boring because like now i kind of want to go back to school because i don't really have any activities to do every day is similar i always just go on my um laptop or something and sometimes we'd go for a skate we'd go for a walk because loki needs to go for a walk dad liz says as long as there's a balance they're not stressing over school work at home as long as she's learning something we don't really worry about the schooling she's in an age where it's not too important lockdown's been a chance for them to find a hobby they both love oh no no just getting back into it like i haven't skated for about 20 years and i'm learning and she's learning twelve-year-old darcy armstrong is missing the excitement of his first year at intermediate be nice to hang out with my family but i'm always missing my friends and so that's been pretty hard not being able to see them and like so many activities at school have been cancelled so i was on the ski team and we were supposed to go to mount rupay huth but we completely missed out and also school camp has been cancelled and that just really sucks that he's enjoying managing his own day i just try to focus on my math and english for the first half of the week and then do my design in textiles art japanese and yeah all the other subjects his dad conrad explains they split up their days with bike rides or walks here at point chevrolet beach so i think you know you got you got so many things that you're balancing you know with your mental state putting up with this sort of thing but i think if you're clever about it it's actually quite a nice kind of grounding centering kind of moment really you know if you can look beyond that initial kind of of stress of it all as for the school holidays next week irrelevant really school holidays another two weeks of kids being at home it's like well what's the difference i've got i had no idea what the dates were for the school holidays janelle de zouza is year three and is desperately missing her friends today i had a zoo meeting with my whole class and what was that like to see everyone's faces it felt a little bit scary scary at first but then i liked it what's the thing you're most looking forward to doing when you go back to school i want to do some math and reading and play with my friends when she's not doing school work her family comes to the beach for a swimming break i love the beach because me and my sister get to boogie board underwater but mom lorraine paints a least rosy picture it gets more challenging and you don't have enough of activities to keep them occupied and busy with and you have your own stuff to deal with as well as working from home a little bit you know as and when possible you're okay yeah this is the first time we've done it for a while oh yeah tracy yeahberry and her son floyd morgan are just finishing their workout they keep each other accountable even in lockdown kind of like an excuse sometimes not to do anything more just getting through the day whereas we try and take it the opposite way that if we do this we get more out of the rest of it floyd's a new rate while the change is frustrating he's taking it in his stride now that i'm not at school um there's like no really long break so i just usually like to get all my work done like just right in the uh the start of the day just get it all done so i have to worry about it later on and then just after freshwater just hit yeah go out for a run get some exercise and yeah now get home and have a shower and just hang out for us today they're all hoping it'll be good news next week so they can get back into the classroom for term four and if you were listening to that piece on radio do check it out online we'll put the video from marika and louise's story so you can check it out some amazing kids there [Music] hold that thought we join some hopeful kiwis in the miq lobby and as the government prepares to give details of a limited home isolation trial for travellers we speak to someone who's been there done that already and the 25 million-year-old eagle homai or fakaro we'd love to hear from you on anything you've heard on the program tonight text us on 2101 tweet us at checkpoint rnz or email checkpoint at rnz.co.nz we were hearing from some of the young people in auckland about their well ongoing lockdown and how they've been keeping themselves occupied love to hear how it's been going for you it is time now though for the headlines called sarah another name lisa rmz news headlines call sarah thompson a kiwi trying to get home from australia says he's coming to terms with the fact he's likely to miss his first christmas with family in 20 years as the government's new booking system for managed isolation rooms gets its second workout in the next hour the latest release of rooms will go live at 6 p.m with another 3 800 rooms for october november and december available the new system which randomly assigns rooms was massively oversubscribed on the first release when more than 25 thousand people tried to secure 3000 spots former nrl player and referee henry pettinada who is returning home permanently after two decades in australia has told checkpoint he is already in the system's waiting room but not optimistic about getting a spot the director general of health ashley bloomfield is asking aucklanders to get tested for covert 19 as officials look to stamp out the delta outbreak in the city there were just eight new community covert cases announced today dr bloomfield also says that there are just three active subclusters with more people back at work under the eased lockdown restrictions he's asking those workers to get two tests five days apart over the next fortnight workers who don't have symptoms who are swabbed as part of the surveillance testing will not have to self-isolate until they get their results all of the 20 police staff and prisoners who came into contact with a covert 19 positive woman at waitakere police station at the weekend have returned negative initial results 13 police officers are self-isolating after the woman who had been arrested tested positive seven people were also in custody at the time the custody area was closed and underwent a deep clean but reopened last night and finally two people have been taken to hospital with serious injuries following an altercation in the auckland suburb of utah police say it occurred between three people who knew each other those are your headlines our next news and sport update is at six who's here same time every day talk business now no no the government has put out some more details about how tighter tax rules are going to apply to the housing market so what are the details yeah interesting so property investors will be able to to deduct some of the interest on loans used to buy new houses for the first 20 years after they first gain a code of compliance you get that after you finish your building and it meets up all the building code and so on now this is going to be regardless of whether they are the first buyer of this property or a subsequent investor and they'll be exempt for 20 years from those change tax rules that will stop property investors from deducting interest on loans that they use for residential properties now it's part of a change to that the government has brought in different policies to cool the property market and encourage new builds and so these will this this new policy will cover buildings properties that get a code of compliance certificate after march 27 uh 2021. now for the companies for the properties that fall between the cracks that tax deduction will be phased out over four years so the head of the property investors federation sharon colwick says that since the policy was first announced some investors have already been divesting of their properties with a lot of our larger investors so what they've done is um not following their whole portfolios but they have started to trickle feed some of their properties onto the market um just to reduce it down because they know that the tax implications of this are quite significant so they're getting themselves in a position that um you know over the five years when they slowly bring it down to nothing that they will be uh fine and able to hold on to existing properties and sharon colwick she says that some investors who are going to be caught out by this change may raise rents to cover the bigger tax bill that they are expecting to see in the future no no let's talk about kiwisaver now and the funds are growing again after a bit of a downturn caused by covert 19. so what kind of numbers are we talking all right well some people might remember that they're looking at their balance on their kiwisaver fund and would have thought it's gone down and yes it did last year we had an 820 million dollar overall loss this year we've had a gain returns of 13.2 billion dollars so that's a big big increase in a turnaround from last year so a gain of 13.2 billion versus last year's 820 million dollar loss now overall the fund has reached 81 billion dollars and the fma who prepared the report the director of investment there he said that it was a momentous year for kiwisaver and that there were significant shifts also in the regulatory focus for the kiwisaver providers so they needed to do things like start to get on top of their fee structure and for sure the fma found that fees that are being charged for funds under management have definitely increased at a much slower rate so some people will be looking at their fma their uh kiwisaver accounts and thinking they've done pretty well in the past year and no i know what numbers have you got for us from the market uh it's an interesting day um look there's been some interest we talked about that china evergrand group that's that property company that's uh got an unsolved debt crisis i mean 305 billion u.s dollar as a debt crisis we're talking and also now there's been some power outages and shortages in china which is worrying the commercial sector in terms of whether or not they can continue to produce and manufacture goods and so forth and what effect that might have on the economy there so our index uh that's the top 50 index it fell 0.4 percent today that's a 53 point drop to 13 174 but the new zealand dollar it's steady at 70.2 u.s cents 96.1 australian and 51.2 pounds thanks no no that is nona peltier with our business news a cut price covered rent clause slipped into legislation at the last minute has blindsided some property managers the amendment to the property law act would mean commercial tenants won't have to pay full rent if they can't do business as usual due to covert restrictions landlords can only demand a fair proportion of what's due and both sides have to agree on that amount leonie freeman's the ceo of the property council and joins me now leone what's the problem with this well there's a number of key issues the first one that this has come through without any consultation with the industry either landlords or tenants and what we see is that uh my first reaction to this is that it's a great day to be a lawyer because all it's going to do is create a whole lot more uncertainty and litigation when we want businesses focusing on getting back to business the the second thing is that you know the vast majority of landlords and tenants have already come to some agreement so what we've effectively done is the government's created a sledgehammer to to crack a nut and you know the focus really needed to be on the areas where the tenants are really vulnerable particularly in hospitality and that sort of thing and then what we're looking at is what does actually a fair proportion of rent mean and it's it's it's done nothing to address ambiguity so it doesn't mean if you're an office for example and you've carried on your business from home and had no impact on your uh income to the business do you get a do you get rent relief or if you're in a retail business that was shut in lockdown but when you came back had an absolute boo in the next month or two you know what what's a fair proportion and none of that's been resolved and even here's a curious one lisa is that the government itself has a large number of tenancies right throughout the country so are they looking for rent reductions and could this be seen as a little bit of self-interest so leonie when you say there's been no consultation did you ask to be included in the discussion yes we did so we i mean we work closely with government and many of the ministers over a vast array of things whether it's housing development construction opening up the buildings you know at various levels uh shopping centres all that sort of thing we wrote to mr farfalli about a month ago uh and said look if you were looking at this issue please come back to us we're happy to work with you like i know many of the other um interested organizations did and we received no response and in fact the minister in the media comments seemed to be indicating that uh it was supporting the stance that you know the landlords and tenants to sort it out amongst themselves so this came absolutely out of um out of nowhere i've just got smacked with it are you saying that you believe the government purposely hid this from you till the last minute we we don't know anything because i mean have they just created it today because we we knew nothing about it and um and i've heard nothing about this uh despite trying to do that and i think i i think it actually raises a bigger issue too which is around the sanctity of commercial contracts because does this mean next week the government's going to override every mortgage contract in the country to say that if you've been impacted by covert you don't have to pay your mortgage or are they going to do this with insurance payments or rates they say that their office are offering mediation services and arbitration services is is it unreasonable to well expect some growing adults to sit down and work out what is a fair proportion when something totally out of the blue like a pandemic means they can't even access their premises to do business absolutely yeah no no no that's that's absolutely right but what i'm saying lisa is is a lot a lot of the industry the vast majority of the tenants have already done that whether they're well then this doesn't apply to them does it leonie sorry to interrupt but what this says it will take effect from today but if you've already got some kind of adjusted rent clause in your contract already you're sweet you just go with that it's for the people who don't have any protection that's right but but you explain this to me lisa if you're a business and you're an office and you've been operating there's been no impact from to to your income but you've been working from home should you get a reduction in your rent really appreciate you joining us that is leone freeman who's the property council ceo interested in your feedback on that one text us on 2101 government well introducing a fair rent clause a fair proportion of rent for businesses affected by covert 19 where landlords basically can't charge you the full amount so let us know your thoughts it is almost a quarter to six i'm lisa owen and you're with checkpoints on rnz national hammuriaki in a pizza pizza after the news at six we look ahead to next week's alert level review and what it means not just for auckland but for the rest of the country the government's expected to release more details of its pilot home isolation scheme for business tomorrow with a long list of companies keen to get on board meanwhile across the ditch in south australia they've already been trialling a similar scheme for interstate arrivals and it's now expanding to include defence force workers coming home from overseas returnees spend their 14 days isolating at a private home rather than a government-run hotel they're tested for coverts several times and every day are subject to multiple random checks to make sure they are where they're supposed to be but gary lowe who was one of the first home isolation guinea pigs says there's still a lot of trust involved between the hours of say 7 am to 9 pm i'd probably get three or four pins via the app to actually respond within 15 minutes and they were quite random sometimes they'd only be an hour apart other times they were they were three or four hours apart and when they ping you what do you have to do basically it comes it comes up on your phone just like a social media message notification and basically opened the app and there was a series of selectors in the app and one of them is um respond to um self checking request and you've got 15 minutes to do that how do they know it's you though gary um so you have to have go location services turned on on your phone um so you know you google your google location equipment i guess um and your phone number and your devices is tagged to that account so they know it's your account and then there's a facial recognition scan that happens as well and tell us about the facial recognition scan was that easy enough to use yeah it was easy to use um literally just given a um i guess a picture frame analogy to locate your face within and if if you're holding it too far away it asks you to bring it closer or if you're too close then you your face doesn't fit in the frame um and then it just when it's in place um correctly it starts to scan up and down a whole range of colors fancy sort of um um application type movements and um then when the scan successful it says um just basically says um success so every time it pings you you need to respond but you also need to do that face mapping thing do you to make sure it's you well that's the only way to respond is actually do the face mapping yes the facebook recognition the only way to respond you can't um send a you know a verbal text or um there's no other way to respond it has to be the facial recognition what about health assessments gary well you were locked down in isolation did you actually have any covert tests or do they send you any questionnaires about how you're feeling if you've got a fever anything like that uh yes well both both of those are included in the program so part of again part of the sa health requirement for home isolation is that you get tested on day one day five and day thirteen um you are allowed to take yourself from where you're isolating you must be in a vehicle you must be able to drive yourself or get yourself to one of the drive through testing stations i'm lucky that there's one quite close to where i'm living um about 700 meters away it's open 24 hours so i was able to go there at my own convenience i didn't have to make an appointment and just drive through and get tested and then part of the app there's also a um a symptom checking requirement so each day you do have to respond on if you're showing any covert any of the covert covarialistic symptoms and then also there's also a selector there that you know i have no covert symptoms so you just you've got to respond um you know with the appropriate response for how you're feeling outside of the testing regime were you allowed to leave the property at all for exercise or for any reason no no basically just to take my rubbish out to the bin i had to wear have to wear a face mask at all times when i'm if i was outside the front door so yeah i literally in my little 40 square meter one better that i've got i was literally in here for two weeks except for taking the rubbish out to the pin which was quite quite a trip are there any penalties or what was the what was the potential outcome if you were breaching the rules what did they say would happen so i had one facial recognition where the image didn't go through didn't go back in time and i missed the 15-minute check-in um and i just had a follow-up phone call i'm just asking you know was there a reason why i missed this fat check-in window so yeah i just had to explain that the facial recognition didn't work on that one time um you know and they're obviously being part of a trial i guess the the follow-up's a little different to um you know if it was for general use they'd have a different follow-up do you know why it didn't work um i believe it was because and i had another time because i was just i've got my my cycling trainer with me so i was doing an indoor training routine and i think i was a bit sweaty to be honest um and then the second it did happen one other time and so i i just you know ceased my activity worked myself down and kind of took the scan no worries so i think on the first occasion that's most likely what it was so i guess in a way you know because it was all covered in sweat and probably pulling a face it was showing that it wasn't me and that is gary lowe who was part of the home isolation trial in south australia if you're curious participants were transported from the airport to the place that they were isolating at by police um if you don't check in you get a call as in a physical call from the police and some of you are asking how do they stop you having visitors well it's a trust model when it comes to that the clock is ticking down to tonight's miq lottery with 3 800 rooms to be allocated from six this evening it is the second one since the government changed the system people get an hour to pile into the virtual lobby and randomly get allocated a spot in the queue now last time the demand way well our way outweighed supply and there was there's likely to be thousands of disappointed people this time around as well poet and writer hini moana baker has been on a creative new zealand writing residency in germany jose when the pandemic hit and waited to be double vaccinated before trying to get home and then the freeze went on miq okay corneria inaudinae she joins me now from the miq lobby tina queer team tell me this is your second time in the lobby what do you make of the system well i mean to be honest it's kind of um it's distressing and it's it feels a little bit humiliating to have to be kind of taking a lottery ticket to come back home um so you know that's always there that's always present those feelings um in the moment it's just very stressful i guess we're all in a facebook group a lot of us and we're all going we're in there eight minutes to go you know i hope everybody does well this time so there's also this balance of getting a lot of warmth and reassurance and kind of i guess um comradeship from the people around the world who are going through this and also the people at home who are going through it wanting to leave new zealand to see loved ones and then come home again with some level of security is your fenway has this changed the way you think about home that's a massive question i kind of um yeah i mean shout out to to kore here and um and uh otako i um i'm kind of a human being at the end of the day and so everyone in this lobby is um is in the same situation i if i if i start to sneak up on those feelings of being maori and being essentially locked out of the country it's kind of too much i can't really um even approach it inside myself let alone um kind of on the radio so yeah the whole thing has changed my feelings massively about home and that's a very tender part of it why do you want to come home now my whole process here has been that i waited till i i got double vaccinated to come home everybody else almost everyone else i know new zealanders friends over here went home immediately and i i totally understand that um but i i for myself i had certain health conditions i didn't feel it was a good idea to leave without being vaccinated and um and at that stage everything was so up in the air we didn't even know whether we could come back i mean i have a job over here i'm doing a phd and god bless germany they pay us to do phds over here so so that's my job i'm a researcher and i felt like it also wouldn't be responsible to kind of pitch up on the shores of new zealand in this very scary time with no job and and nowhere to live um so i decided i took the decision to stay till i was vaccinated and then that timing pretty much in a perfect storm coincided with when the miq booking system started breaking down and shortly afterwards it went offline completely so it's just been very bad luck for me i want to see my dad essentially it's not a holiday for me i what i'm doing right now i'm in the south of france with my partner who is half french that's a holiday i want to come home to see my dad and um and potentially to stay it's really difficult i think other people are probably in this situation too i don't know if i could actually survive but i'll see at all nowadays i'm an artist on an artist's income and prices have kind of skyrocketed since i i left um so i would need to actually be there to even understand if i can actually survive there nowadays so um yeah but mainly i want to see my dad he's he's unwell and i mean he's in many ways very well but he i want to see him while he remembers me is what i'll say yeah best of luck we will be checking back in with you and that is hini moana baker who is in the lobby hoping to get a spot in miq we're picking that there are probably thousands of people in there with her and will check back after six when they start releasing vouchers an electric revolution is coming in public transport and the city of dunedin today took the first step to ensure it doesn't miss the bus a month-long electric bus trial started in the southern city today our otago southland reporter timothy brown went along for the ride everyone has a memory of riding the bus as a kid but in the interest of ensuring the bus doesn't remain a distant memory for many dunedin is looking to the next generation the gbv enviroline 35-seater electric bus will be out on dunedin's roads for the next month but whenever sustainable transport is raised in dunedin questions about the city's hills immediately follow gbv's executive vice president mike parker says there'll be no problem for the enviro line i think people are going to be amazed how well it does perform electric drive systems have a lot more torque than diesel buses so when it comes to climbing up hills they're actually superior and then you get all that regenerative energy breaking coming back down again so it makes it far more efficient that's right the enviro line which is manufactured in aotearoa and christchurch actually charges itself when going down hills the government has ordered all fossil fuel buses out of the public transport fleet by 2035 so this is the first step in ensuring dunedin gets on board but electric buses are already in use in tamaki makoto and ototahi so mr parker is confident they'll also perform in otiputi obviously the the slower circuits the more start stopping and hills you do lose a bit of efficiency but it's still going to do well over 300 kilometers we suspect and then what's your recharge time uh with the normal recharger it's about four hours to recharge it back up again it's ready for the next day right now so i mean you could you could conceivably have this running two eight hour shifts a day and charged up in between yes you could i spoke to mike parker while riding the enviro line and what you may not have noticed is the bus's noise there is none the silence of its operation stands in stark contrast to the fleet currently on dunedin's roads and as peter dalden who got to drive the enviro line on its inaugural journey around dunedin tells me the lack of a combustion engine actually makes the experience better for the driver oh it's an absolute honey to drive especially starting off it's extremely smooth earlier we started on a hill and had to do it quite a tight right turn and the bus just glided around really gracefully and you know that is the best thing and also the lack of vibration when you're waiting at a bus stop to load people the lack of vibration it just removes that fatigue and and the sort of the clatter of the noise which makes it harder to converse with the passengers for those concerned about the safety of pedestrians fear not mr dowden says they've thought of everything it doesn't rattle and rumble so when you're coming into a stop people will actually not notice that you're there so if you give them a little ring on the bell then it warns them and for the passengers who got to experience the first trip it ticked all the boxes regular bus user connor marshall says he's looking forward to taking more trips on the e-bus i think um on behalf of all the bus passengers in dunedin it would be brilliant for uh uh it would be brilliant for the city you'd hope to see more of these oh yes definitely more of these on the roads that would be lovely to see electric vehicle owner helen patterson agrees it's nice and smooth actually yeah it's not it's bumpy i don't it's not as jerky like often changing the gears it's quite jerk in a diesel bus but it doesn't seem to be that way so it's good nice and smooth otago regional councillor alexa forbes says the council needs to get more people on buses and ensure they're a cleaner option this is a start i think it's 47 of our carbon emissions in otago as a result of transport so that figure needs to come down and one of the greatest ways of bringing that figure down is getting people out of their private cars while it's only day one of the trial it seems to be a hit and all the passengers have the same message for the rest of dunedin change is coming so don't miss the bus [Music] don't forget send in your feedback on anything you've heard on the program text us on 2101 or tweet us at checkpoint rnz if you're waiting in the lobby at miq we'd love to hear from you more on that after 6. ahiahi maria rnz news at 6 core sarah thompson pressure on auckland retail workers to get covert tested is meeting early resistance from employers workers in level three particularly those in construction hospitality and retail have been asked by the government to get two tests at least five days apart over the next two weeks regardless of symptoms the chief executive of retail new zealand greg hartford says it's too much to ask if it's really important to be maintaining surveillance testing of retail workers at level three then really we think the government needs to roll out low-impact saliva testing that can be done in the workplace rather than expecting workers to travel to testing centres that are open limited hours and expecting employers to pay for that greg harford says retail workers are already stressed about working during level three and higher levels of abuse from customers the covert 19 response minister chris hipkin says it's completely false that the government could have paid extra for early access to vaccines earlier in the week former prime minister john key claimed that new zealand could have paid 40 million dollars to vaccine maker pfizer to get doses quicker during parliament's question time today mr hipkins rejected that claim i simply refer everybody to the statements made by pfizer that new zealand has never never been offered the opportunity uh to get extra earlier access to vaccines pfizer have been allocating a operating a global allocation model to ensure that countries have equitable access to vaccines chris hipkin says pfizer have worked constructively with the new zealand government to supply vaccines as quickly as possible thousands of kiwis are jamming into a virtual miq lobby for the next lottery of vouchers 3 800 rooms in managed isolation for october november and december were released at 6 00 pm the new system which randomly assigns rooms was massively over subscribed on the first release when more than 25 000 people tried to secure 3000 spots former nrl player and referee henry patanata is looking to return home from australia he has told checkpoint he's not hopeful about securing a spot after what happened last time i jumped on and i think there was i think they said 5 000 rooms and i was like number 12 000 or something so i i just gave up pretty quickly um in that sense but yeah like i said it's it's disappointing henry perrinata says many people are in trying circumstances on both sides of the tasman it's been revealed the trade minister damian o'connor is heading overseas this week to discuss trade in the united states united kingdom and possibly belgium his trip was made public by the acting u.s ambassador kevin covet who posted a photo on twitter with the minister captioned that he met mr o'connor on the eve of his trip to washington dc damien o'connor says he was not being secretive about his trip at this stage is probably later this week details yet to be finalized i will be making an announcement um before i go there's nothing secret here but we do have to respect those people who we want to meet with that we we agree to those meetings before we go out and make any announcements the new zealand and uk government had previously missed the august deadline for a fair trade agreement but mr o'connor says he is confident such a deal can still be struck property investors say new details on how tax rules will be applied gives the sector much needed certainty the government has clarified that new houses will be exempt for 20 years from changed tax rules that prevent residential property investors from deducting interest payments as an expense it's part of a suite of government measures to cool the housing market property investors federation chief executive sharon colwick says its members have been waiting for the details there may still be changes they have said though but at least the design is out so at least people now can start getting uh financial advice and find out okay how is this actually going to affect me and then they can make any changes that they need to make to make sure that they can hold on to whatever properties they've got in the future sharon colwick says a downside is that investors may look to raise rents to cover their bigger tax bill it's four minutes past six the ford motor company has announced an investment of more than 16 billion dollars as part of its transition to the mass production of electric vehicles the company will build two new factories to make electric vehicles and batteries the bbc's samara hussein has the details ford's plans represent a major part of its transition to the mass production of electric vehicles one of the plan new factories outside memphis tennessee will produce the electric version of its f-150 pickup truck which for 40 years has been the biggest selling auto in the united states the success of the electric version which will hit the roads next year could be key to ford's future the automaker predicts that by 2030 between 40 and 50 percent of its global vehicle output will be electric and moving now into sports news the all blacks are back in quarantine in their hotel in queensland authorities are trying to contain a potential covert 19 outbreak in the brisbane region which has led to restrictions for the site first five richie monga has joined the team from managed isolation having initially remained at home for the birth of his second child assistant coach scott macleod says maonga is available for selection against south africa on saturday he's been inside for two weeks he's been working hard but we just need to have a look at him on the training field and just assess where he's at and what's best for the team four-time olympic gold medalist simone biles says she should have quit gymnastics well before the tokyo games the american withdrew from her opening games event after just one vault saying she was struggling with the twisties a mental block where gymnasts lose their sense of orientation in an interview with new york magazine the cut bile said she struggled with anxiety triggered by memories of former team usa doctor larry nassar who has been jailed for sexually abusing her and hundreds of others brighton have missed out on going to the top of english football's premier league for the first time drawing one all with crystal palace and finally emma radicanus outfit from her u.s open tennis campaign will be displayed at the tennis hall of fame after the 18 year old britain became the first qualifier to win a grand slam and that is your news and sport tonight on nights tony stamp samples the new album from new zealand-born london-based adventurer jordan raqqa we've got the final episode of bad cops the story of a baltimore gun control squad that went feral now they're in jail question is are they still other cops out there just as bad as them then there's our after dinner speaker eric crampton with a libertarian viewpoint in our current approach to covert 19. on night to meet brian crump after the news at seven on rnz national te reo te rua on air online and on demand now the short forecasts from met service to midnight are for wednesday northland south to waitomo tomorrow topo and bay of plenty scattered showers some possibly heavy and thundery with hail in toppo and bay of plenty until evening taranaki and taihape to manawatu also gisbon to wider upper mainly fine remaining rain or showers with snow to 700 meters about taihape and inland manoa too clearing this evening a few showers returning to the west tomorrow morning horefenua carpets wellington nelson and marlborough fine tonight cloudy periods tomorrow with a few showers developing about nelson and north of wellington in the evening bullet to fjordland will see showers spreading north today becoming rain for a time tomorrow canterbury to southland will be mainly fined with isolated showers this evenings showers becoming widespread tomorrow afternoon and for the chatham islands rain turning to showers late tonight possibly becoming heavy and then clearing tomorrow afternoon that concludes the short forecast from map service to midnight up on wednesday it's eight minutes past six no my hawkie mai this is checkpoint call lisa oh and then a kiwi is desperately hoping for a ticket home now having to go through the latest release of miq rooms 3 800 rooms are up for grabs they're in october november and december the lobby or the virtual waiting room opened just over an hour ago and thousands of expats poured in when the clock struck six all those people were given a randomized number let's go back to henry pettinada who's been working in sydney as an nrl ref and is trying to get home now that the season is over ten acres henry how are you faring yeah yeah i'm going okay thanks what's your number so how many rooms did you say was available 3800 you got it yeah okay i'm 18 875 in the queue so i think i think it's fair to say i won't be getting one of these um 3800 which is unfortunate but um here's hoping the people that desperately need it um get to get home see their families when the number flashed off henry what did you think i was just going to turn it straight off absolutely um yeah i mean it's stuff it's difficult it's tough it's it's every single one of those things that you guys and everybody else is talking about but at the end of the day we've got you know we can only do so much and you know it's difficult and unfortunate but i can't do much about it henry we're hearing there's about well another 6 000 plus behind you so you're not got the highest number um where does that leave you now yeah you know what um the realization that christmas will probably be in sydney uh as a very real possibility i'm just hopeful that maybe vaccinations or all rates go down new south wales are very very high in terms of what level of vaccination rates are up to i mean i'm double vaccinated um fully fully vaccinated if that's what you call it so you know with a bit of luck they might um open the bubble but i i guess that's probably my only slim hope that the trans tasman bubble where we don't need a quarantine opens up prior to christmas and you know flights start to flow but like i said it's a very very hopeful optimistic view at this stage thanks for sharing your experience henry that's henry perenada has you heard there has thousands and thousands of people back in the queue and poet and writer hini moana baker is well she's been studying in germany and she wants to come home and see your dad who's not that well and she is also in the miq lobby tena moana how are you going what number did you draw tina lisa this time i drew ten thousand seven hundred and sixty-five so um i i won't be coming home either anytime soon yeah and when you saw that number what kind of went through your head how are you feeling about it well i was already crying um before it before it too that um i'm a bit of a um tonguey little but um it's just because you read all the stories of everybody else as well um so at least i mean i guess the good thing is that there are 3 800 people who'll be coming home or 300 rooms that will be filled with people who really really need them um in very dire circumstances so talk to me about all that all that energy that you have you go into that lobby for an hour right your weight there's pressure anticipation and hope talk to me about that and then you get this number talk me through it yeah um well that keeps me going personally through it is knowing that there are you know i don't know thousands tens of thousands of other people going going through it so initially um you know when when all of the difficulties with miq started it was kind of a harder time because you felt a little bit like you were crazy like uh you know the the responses are always it's working fine there's nothing we need to change but now at least we know that there are um many things that aren't working fine and that things need to be changed and we we have people that we can talk to about that so in the moment you know as the lobby opens and in those 60 minutes while we're waiting for it we talk to each other and you learn all of the circumstances that people are going through people with family members who are um who are very you know mortally ill and um unfortunately their family member might die uh and then they can't uh qualify for an emergency place anymore it's kind of inhumane sometimes it makes you it reminds that you're just one of many and uh in the circumstances my circumstances are actually really really comfortable compared to many people in the world so um i guess in that 60 minutes that's our time to touch base with each other and then when the number comes up you just see in the facebook group thousands of um you know thousands hundreds of people posting their numbers going oh yeah i'm number twenty one thousand just like like our mate who you were talking to just then i'm number eighteen thousand i'm number seven thousand and every every now and then you'll get someone who goes i got two thousand four hundred and twelve and then everyone piles on with their hearts and their likes and everything because they're really behind people who are finally going to get a chance to go home so yeah that that's how the hour takes over and that's how the moment um passes for me henry moana what now do you think you have another crack um well last time um when i did it i was kind of destroyed at the end of it so i thought i'm never going to do this again i'm never going to lose again but two weeks passed and you know my lovely friends and um and fatsano are very supportive and so i um i did i gave it another go and every time i do it it kind of gets a little bit less difficult um and my skin is a lot sicker than it was in march 2020 so so i guess i will try again because the fact is if i don't and something happens to my dad i don't think i could handle it so yeah i'll be back thank you for joining us that is hini moana baker who wow she drew a high number as well missed out on the miq um voucher handout allocation and we're hearing that there's potentially in excess of around 26 000 people crammed in to that lobby it is a quarter past six you're with checkpoints on rnz national there's a lot riding on this monday's covert level announcement and not just for aucklanders desperate to get back to life as normal a shift down to level two for the country's biggest city could also mean a drop to level one for everyone else opening the door to events with no restrictions on crowd numbers as conan young reports in christchurch it would allow cup and show week to happen and help to fill some coffers left very empty by lockdown the cup field is set tapes are back they're underway the biggest week on the christchurch social calendar starts on november the 9th with the new zealand trotting cup then the gallops at ricketton and the canterbury amp show bringing in a whopping 30 million dollars to the local economy but at level two none of that can happen at least not with a crowd looking on eddington raceway's darren williams can't afford to wait for monday's 4pm briefing and has already set in place plans for eight different scenarios that might play out from full cup as we were planning to do to level two with pods of a hundred and then everything that we can imagine might be workable in between with the highest turnover of any race in the country mr williams says cup day is this country's equivalent of the melbourne cup we have around 900 staff on cup day from gate staff to chefs to kitchen hands to bartenders they actually look forward to working cup day because it's part of a tradition and canterbury that everyone's very very proud of tickets were supposed to go on sale on friday but as of today all sales have been halted until the prime minister makes her announcement on monday the government's decided that that is the best way to operate with wisconsin and try and stamp it out i guess the frustration that we've been so long on the south island without a without a positive makes things frustrating the president of hospitality new zealand's canterbury branch peter morrison says the ripples of cup and show week are felt widely i like to call it the butcher the baker the candlestick maker everyone gets more business because of cup week you know the taxi driver that picks people up from the airport the service station that he gets his gas from the hydroponic lettuce grower in horsewell that supplies the restaurants for many of his members this is the last chance to bring in some much needed money and cancelling could be the final straw resulting in some having to close for good we should be back to level one the south island it's ridiculous we haven't even got a proper plan on vaccinations what level are we gonna be at before they will open open borders and all that covert last year forced the scrapping of canterbury's amp show for the first time since world war ii but director jeff bone says at this stage it's all go to hold it in november as long as the city moves down to level one you just have to wake up in the morning and put a positive mind frame on it so we are positive and focused until we can't be but with money already spent on holding the show they'll face a huge financial hit if it has to be cancelled we don't divulge that stuff but really is significant and so we are certainly looking to try and make this work cup day organizers need a shift down to level one within two weeks of monday's announcement otherwise crowds will be shut out from attending for the first time in its 117 year history for the amp show a continuation of level two through to november will result in it being cancelled for just the second time since world war ii tourism has been one of the most disrupted industries during the pandemic with frequent restrictions and lockdowns regional new south wales will finally welcome back fully vaccinated sydney siders most likely in late october but there could be a hitch the sectors lost a big number of trained workers it relies on it might not be easy to get them back the abc's david sparks has more if you're in the tourism game in regional new south wales you rely pretty heavily on visitors from the state capital katy tony runs reflections holiday park in seal rocks on the mid north coast to us here at seal rocks the sydney newcastle market make up most of our guests especially during those peak times of school holidays and over summer so to confidently be able to welcome them back is is a huge relief and it's just exciting fully vaccinated sydney residents will be allowed to leave the capital once 80 percent of the state has had two shots a mark that will probably be reached towards the end of next month katie tony is confident she'll have enough staff when the big crowds come back yeah we will we've been trying to give them whatever hours we could during during this time we were only closed for you know not not a very long time so we still had staff on just on reduced hours and like i said we were really lucky to be um to have lots of local visitations so even the weekend just gone we were filling up really quickly and this octo this october long weekend everything we lost by sydney and newcastle not being able to come we've pretty much made up for in local visitation while some tourism businesses have been able to keep on workers for others it's a different story leanne harwood is president of the accommodation association of australia business was booming uh when it came to june and july you know we were looking like we were starting to be able to get our uh our hotels back up and and a lot of the hotels out in the regions were actually having to even at that point in time actually compress their occupancy levels or unfortunately have parts of their hotel shut down because they didn't have enough staff then we went into uh lockdowns and of course over the last three months we've sadly lost an awful lot of those fantastic people that have worked in our hotels so now we're going back into uh the the delightful uh time where we're going to have our hotels open back up again and we're faced with the challenge that we just don't have enough staff and in order to be able to serve our guests and there's no silver bullet staffing is also a problem in states where there are no lockdowns because closed interstate borders have created a different sort of uncertainty in south australia craig wickham runs a four-wheel drive to a company exceptional kangaroo island the tourism game is very much a skills knowledge experience one and we've got an amazing team and everyone's been really accommodating to the best they can be but you get to a point where people need to need to eat they need to find a job so right across australia i think we're there's a lot of concern for a loss of knowledge and i'm just concerned that uh you know some of those good people have gone on to other jobs and we're going to have trouble finding them to replace when demand comes back and you know the absence of a firm target that makes it that so much harder and some of you getting in touch about the um miq lottery this evening so the lobby opened from five to six and then the vouchers started being given out i suppose from six o'clock um this listener says my 18 year old son and girlfriend are stuck in sydney put both their profiles in the queue fifteen thousandths and sixteenth thousandths they beat henry at least henry pettinauer we were talking to earlier in the program again he was way down the queue peter says my daughter in london is up in the 26 thousands probably won't see her for another christmas and a couple of sad face emojis from peter um and someone else has pointed out to us that on the grounded kiwis facebook page one person has drawn 35 000 as their number in the queue on the issue of home isolation in the border stephen reckons um how we if we do home isolation how are we going to stop people isolating at home from having people visit them and are we really going to trust them to obey the rules i mean i suppose so much in life is based on trust isn't it stephen buttons whether we want to risk this uh someone else says yep fully vaccinated kiwis should be allowed to come home to a form of regulated home quarantine uh such as that being trialled in south australia another what person reckons double vaccinated from perth with negative test results should be able to come home and liz says why not tag them like prisoners on parole or give them a tagged wristband like you have for a music festival another person's got a question about the miq lobby and they say it's a serious question can anyone tell how many of the people who have applied for miq are actually in new zealand already but whether some of them are hoping to travel overseas in the future and therefore are booking an miq spot i don't see anything that would stop them doing that but someone else may be able to confirm or deny you can text us on 2101 germany's general election left no clear answer as what the next governing coalition will look like in the country's politics beyond angela merkel's long reign like new zealand germany uses the mmp electoral system so smaller parties will have a lot of power in deciding what happens next both main parties the center-left social democrats in the centre-right christian democrats think they have a plan that could tempt minor parties to join them the bbc's katja adler reports from berlin if you find yourself wondering what just happened in germany after yesterday's election you're not alone german voters have followed hourly news updates today trying to get a sense of where their country's headed these two rivals one social democrat one conservative each say they want to form germany's next government with the votes so splintered here who will be the first to form a stable coalition we have seen that the public have given us a mandate to make a serious go at driving this forward no party can derive a clear mandate to govern from this result but we are convinced a government led by cdu csu is best for our country and we will feel obliged to our voters coalition building will be tricky there are competing priorities between the political parties now in negotiations including smaller parties like germany's greens and the business-minded fdp but voters we spoke to today said they just want them to get on with it food is ridiculous it's it's really ridiculous we still don't know who will lead our country in the next years and i like personally i feel like the cdu should realize that we voted against them that a lot of people at least voted against them all this political uncertainty might be unsettling for germany's allies and trade partners abroad who are used to relying on german stability and predictability but this is not about germany imploding the fact that angela merkel was chancellor here for 16 long years was down to her she was like a stopper in a bottle now she's going a lot of those votes simply went elsewhere this is a country used to coalition building and in the meantime chancellor merkel remains firmly in place a dusty lake beard in remote south australia has yielded an amazing discovery from the past paleontologists have unearthed the country's oldest eagle fossil a creature they believe soared through the skies 25 million years ago the abc's rhett bernie has the story the wedge-tailed eagle is australia's largest bird of prey but when paleontologist dr aaron caymans was looking for ancient remains in a dry lake bed in remote south australia it was something small that caught his eye i was just walking along an outcrop where this particular layer was exposed and there were two tiny little toe bones on the ground dr cayman's and his flinders university colleagues started a careful excavation 49 times out of 50 when you do that you're lucky if you have any more of the bone but in this particular instance not only did the rest of the bone go into the ground but there were more bones associated with it and further digging led it to being you know what is now one of the most complete eagle skeletons from that time period the time period an astonishing 25 million years ago and what they'd found was a well-preserved fossil of an eagle a 60-piece skeleton lying in the now dry lake pimper on an outback cattle station 600 kilometres north of adelaide the eagle has now been given a name the archie hyrax dr trevor worthy runs the paleontology lab at flinders uni well it's not just another species because on the land this would have been the biggest carnival the other carnivores were small mammals probably smaller than a cat so this was the apex predator in this ecosystem dr worthy says the raptor would have feasted on smaller animals like koalas and possums when the area around lake pinpa was fertile and part of a lush forest and he says this ancient bird was smaller and leaner than the current day wedge-tailed eagle the birds that live in forests where they're ducking and weaving in amongst trees and vegetation they tend to have robust but short wings good for flapping lake pempa is what paleontologists call a fossil treasure trove earlier this year a 25 million year old fossil of a tiny skink was found at the site and several decades ago they uncovered a wombat-like marsupial four times the size of the ones today so what remains of other creatures might be preserved there dr cayman says the team has found other fossils but for now they're being kept a secret it is going to be an exciting one too i can't tell you anything yet but yeah we'll be sure to be in touch uh well let's go to a last word from one listener on the home isolation trial and how it should operate here they say home isolation house needs to have a sign outside so they are under the watchful eye of neighbours yeah interesting point don't know how well that would work um that's all we've got time for don't forget the late news team will keep you updated throughout the night quartet kaupapa tua tahia purple and tomorrow from 5am for all you early birds first up speaks to an auckland moving company literally run off their feet as people make plans for a permanent shift out of the region that's with the new slightly relaxed rules rnz news headlines at 6 30 call sarah thompson anyone in bay of plenty with covert known team symptoms is being urged to get a test after covert 19 was detected in wastewater in tauranga thousands of kiwis are jamming into the virtual lobby for the next lottery of managed isolation vouchers which were released at 6 pm the covert 19 response minister says the government were never offered an opportunity to get early access

Channel: RNZ

Views: 3,533

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Id: c9YW6dwXMlg

Length: 91min 25sec (5485 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 27 2021