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  • Kerre Woodham: Spend a dollar to save five - why wouldn't we fund weightloss drugs?

    Kerre Woodham: Spend a dollar to save five - why wouldn't we fund weightloss drugs?
    2025/11/07
    New Zealand has the third highest adult obesity rate in the OECD, and the rates are going up. One in three adult New Zealanders is classified as obese, and one in 10 children. Even if you take into account, yes, yes, yes, a lot of the All Blacks front row are considered obese if you use the BMI. And yes, you might have a slow metabolism or it's your hormones and there's nothing you can do about it, that's still a lot of fat people and a lot of associated health issues. The cost of obesity in this country is estimated as being between four and nine billion dollars per year. It's a huge range, four to nine billion, but it's where you classify the different illnesses, and it depends on which survey you look at. Even if you go at the lower limit, $4 billion is a hell of a lot of money to spend on something that doesn't need to happen. Cardiovascular disease alone costs more than three billion. The human misery too that comes with being obese for many kids and adults is another intangible cost. But now we have a drug for that. GLP-1 is the magic ingredient. It regulates blood sugar levels and slows down the rate at which food leaves the stomach, thus making people fuller for longer. And apparently, according to those who've used it, it turns off the chatter in your head, the constant thinking about food. Well, if I have this and then I walk for an hour and then I'll be able to have something else. Ooh. Ooh, I'm not hungry now, but ooh, imagine what I could have for dinner. Planning the next meal before you've actually finished the one in front of you. It's that constant food chatter. I think Oprah was the first one to talk about it, how she never realised until she took the magic drug, that you didn't have to listen to that noise in your head, that other people didn't have it. So the GLP-1-mimicking drugs seem to be a powerful tool. They're actually effective. And after decades of research and money being poured into weight loss drugs, this one seems to work. More importantly, this one doesn't have the side effects of the speed drugs that were given out in the 70s as diet pills. It was basically methamphetamine. Some people are losing around 15% of their body weight or more after just over a year on the semaglutide. Wegovy became available to New Zealanders in July. It's not publicly funded. It's a weekly drug and comes at an ongoing cost of about $500 a month. Should it be funded? David Seymour, the Associate Minister for Health, seems to think so. In the past he said, well, if you spend a buck to save five, why wouldn't you? Although as he points out, Pharmac's decisions are independent of any ministers. The NHS in Britain has done the sums. If the weight loss drugs were prescribed to everyone who needed them according to the stringent criteria, the prohibitively expensive cost would bankrupt the NHS even after taking into account the cost of the health problems that they would inevitably solve. So you would have to do the sums for this country to work out whether it would pay off in the long run. If that's what it does, if, you know, one buck is going to save us five long term. If a huge cohort, in every sense of the word, of New Zealanders is going to live a better life, a healthier life as a result of the investment, surely it's worth it? But to get buy-in, you would have to get the support of the majority of New Zealanders. One in three adult New Zealanders is classified as obese, two in three aren't. And they might say, well, I'm doing everything right for my body. I'm doing the exercise and I'm not greedy. Some might well see obesity as a moral failing. Throughout history, it's been seen as a moral failing. One of the seven deadly sins is gluttony. In Dante's Inferno, the gluttons are consigned to the third circle of hell. Gluttons are people with uncontrolled appetites who worship food as a kind of God, according to Dante. Therefore, the gluttons' punishment in the third circle of hell, instead of eating fine delicate foods and wines, they're forced to eat filth and mud and be rained upon by foul smelling rain. Cerberus, the dog, ravages them and mauls them. It's a miserable punishment. Gluttons have always been seen as moral failures. Which may, I think, have been fair at a time where resources were scarce, and if you were wealthy, you got other people to get food for you and you ate it at the expense of the poor. But these days, when the food industry is making money out of processed food designed to hook you in and give you an insatiable appetite for more, I think we can take the moral failing out, can't we? Most people know what to do. There's far more to it than just calories in, calories out and more exercise, and even the makers of Wegovy and Ozempic and the like understand that too. They say it's not going to work on its own. It's the same with bariatric surgery, you have to do so much more than just stop the food going in. There is much, much more to it than that....
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    7 分
  • Christopher Luxon: Prime Minister on the India FTA, remaining National leader

    Christopher Luxon: Prime Minister on the India FTA, remaining National leader
    2025/11/06

    The Prime Minister says he's confident a free trade agreement with India will get across the line soon.

    Christopher Luxon denied negotiations had hit a rough patch after skipping Parliament last minute this week to meet with India’s Trade Minister.

    He told Kerre Woodham India has very strong positions on certain aspects of trade.

    Luxon says they’re really hard negotiators, but equally they want the best possible deal they can secure for New Zealand.

    The Government's aiming to finalise the FTA this year and the Prime Minister's confirmed Trade Minister Todd McClay will head there next week.

    Luxon's popularity has lagged in polls this year and there’s a growing sentiment that National should consider a leadership change for the next election.

    However, the Prime Minister told Woodham a potential successor hasn't crossed his mind.

    When told people aren’t buying the product he and his government are selling, he told Woodham to wait and find out what happens next year.

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    35 分
  • Dave Letele: Butterbean Motivation Founder on whether weightloss drugs should be publicly funded

    Dave Letele: Butterbean Motivation Founder on whether weightloss drugs should be publicly funded
    2025/11/06

    Publicly funding weightloss drugs may not be the answer to the country’s obesity problem.

    New Zealand has the third highest adult obesity rate in the OECD, with one in three adults classified as obese, and one in ten children.

    Associate Minister of Health David Seymour believes publicly funding things like Wegovy would help save money in the long run.

    But community leader and Founder of Butterbean Motivation, Dave Letele told Kerre Woodham that we can’t prescribe our way out of this issue.

    While he's not against weightloss drugs, he says they don’t change habits, mindsets, and they don’t break cycles for children.

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    9 分
  • Bosses Unfiltered Episode 5: Aidan Bartlett

    Bosses Unfiltered Episode 5: Aidan Bartlett
    2025/11/06

    What do you do, when you have invested all your money into an idea you thought was going off, and then the whole world shuts down?

    Do you try to fight on? Or do you completely change your business to survive?

    That’s the decision Aidan Bartlett faced.

    He’s the co-founder and chief Executive of online marketplace Designer Wardrobe. It was, once upon a time, a designer rental shop.

    Covid-19 wrecked the business but also gave it a new life.

    Aidan Bartlett joined Kerre Woodham in studio in the latest episode of Bosses Unfiltered.

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    38 分
  • Kerre Woodham: What's the attitude towards sick days?

    Kerre Woodham: What's the attitude towards sick days?
    2025/11/05
    It's one of those circular discussions, really, where people are extremely staunch in their opinion and no amount of debate can bring them over to the other side. A bit like the secondary tax discussion – you either think you're paying more tax, or you don't, you understand that it all comes out in the wash. Sick leave is a bit like that. People either believe it's an entitlement and you use every single day of sick day every single year, whether you're sick or not. Or you're one of those people who will only take a sick day when you're like the Black Knight in Monty Python, down and out, completely incapacitated, no limbs left, bellowing, "Tis but a scratch," as you're dragged out of the workplace snuffling and sneezing and feverish. The latest workplace wellness surveys say New Zealand workers are taking more sick leave. The average rate of employee absence of the organisation surveyed in 2024 was the highest since the survey began, 6.7 days per employee compared with 5.5 days in 2022. The report blames it on Labour's 2021 increase in legal sick leave entitlement. You'll remember it went from five to ten days, but it's also down to a change in attitude as Katherine Rich, Business NZ CEO, told Mike Hosking this morning. “It certainly has been a change in the workplace culture, and in some cases, employees are doing exactly what they've been told to do – if you're unwell, don't come to work and splutter all over your colleagues. But certainly with the rise in leave entitlements, we do think that it's reflected in the jump in the average absence of, you know, 6.7 days per employee per year, and that's a big jump since 2012 when it was about 4.2.That has a material impact on the economy and of course productivity of not just businesses but the whole economy. “Post-Covid, people really think about their wellness and they're less likely to soldier on like the Codral ad. They're more likely to think, am I going to be productive? If not, I'm going to stay home.” So the old Codral soldier on mentality is very outdated since Covid made it socially unacceptable to turn up at work with the slightest sniffle. But sick leave isn't just used because people are sick. It's also down to people using it because they have children who are home from school and they need to look after them. They have elderly parents, and you need to look after them as well. The sandwich generation needs to be looking after kids who are unwell and parents who have hospital appointments or who are unwell. So it's not just you who is sick, that you'll be the one taking the sick leave. Where do you stand on this one? It's really interesting because when you have that mentality of this is my entitlement and I will take it whether I'm sick or not, there's no getting around it. As a boss, you just have to accept that's what this particular worker with this particular attitude will do. It's interesting too to see the split between government workers and those working in the private sector. Guess who takes more sick days? Yes, you're right, it's the government workers. They take an average of nearly two more sick days than people who work in the private sector. An average of 6.5 for those of us working in the private sector, 8.4 for workers in public sector organisations. Now, why doesn't that surprise us? You know, it's because you can. When it's a private sector employer, I suppose everything's run leaner and tighter. You don't take the piss when you work for the private sector. If you are working for a boss and you know that she or he has put everything into this business, that the house has been put into the business, you're less likely, I think, than taking a couple of sick days off the government, because you can, because it's nobody's money. And that attitude would be pervasive right across the public sector. The idea of taking mental wellness days – I guess if you're in a job you don't enjoy, it's going to be hard to summon up the enthusiasm to get to work. Apart from Covid, the few times during the Covid years, I've never not wanted to come to work, and I appreciate that's a privilege. When I first started in the workforce in antediluvian times, the idea of ringing up the boss and saying, "You know what? I'm just not feeling it today. I might need just a couple of days to reset my equilibrium," or whatever it is you do, unfathomable to me. I'm not saying it's wrong or right, I just cannot imagine doing that. And maybe we should be more proactive about mental health. One thing I have noticed the bosses clamping down on, the people who ring in and go, "Yeah, feeling a bit poorly, might just work from home.” And the bosses, quite rightly, are now saying, "a bit poorly? Right you are. Don't worry about working, take a sick leave day," because they know that when you ring in and go, "Yeah, you know what? Not so good today, a bit of a scratch, bit of a tickle, might stay in and work from home." ...
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    8 分
  • Nick Saunter: Eden Park CEO on the proposal to increase the number of concerts at Eden Park

    Nick Saunter: Eden Park CEO on the proposal to increase the number of concerts at Eden Park
    2025/11/05

    The events calendar at Auckland's Eden Park could soon be a lot busier.

    RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has asked Auckland Council for feedback on a proposal to increase the number of concerts it hosts from 12 to 32 a year.

    It's recommending the venue should be allowed to host up to 12 large concerts of more than 30 thousand attendees.

    Eden Park CEO Nick Sautner told Kerre Woodham they’ve been hamstrung by so many regulations, and this is about simplifying and modernising the rules so the national stadium can be utilised.

    In the last five years, he says they’ve invested $45 million into the stadium and redefined their business model, so they need to be able to continue evolving.

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    10 分
  • Kerre Woodham: I don't blame retailers for wanting to ban the homeless

    Kerre Woodham: I don't blame retailers for wanting to ban the homeless
    2025/11/04
    A month ago to this very day, Heart of the City, the business association for Auckland City Centre, released a scathing report that found store owners and offices believed homelessness, too few police, neglect and disorder, and frightening anti-social behaviour were crippling their businesses. Amongst the most dire findings was 91% of those surveyed saying rough sleepers and begging were affecting their business. 81% believed the city centre was not in a good state to attract significantly more people and investment. The findings came from 102 business owners in and around the Queen Street valley area in late September who were asked about the state of the city centre and what factors were hindering their financial success. This isn't news. There have been problems with rough sleepers for years now. But the business owners I've talked to in Queen Street say although there was always the odd person around before Covid, it was when Labour turned the inner-city hotels and motels into emergency housing during Covid that things became absolutely dire. Because when everything was freed up, the people stayed. They'd made a home there, they'd found a home there, they weren't going to be moved on, they'd found their people. In Ponsonby, when I was living there, there were about three or four characters, men and women, who were either sleeping rough or living in halfway houses. But they were part of the community. You knew them by name, you greeted them. They were they were different. They were odd, but that was okay. We're all different and odd at different times and perhaps not quite as odd as these ones, but they were there first, and they were part of the community. And I think we all do have empathy for those who are doing it tough or are going through a tough period in their life or who are just wired a little bit differently. But when you are swamped with people in need, when you are one district, one area that is overrun with people who are odd, who are wired differently, who don't behave as you would imagine civilised humans would behave, who quite literally crap on your empathy, inevitably you will start to take a tougher stance. And I think that's what's happened to the store owners and retailers in Queen Street. It's back in the news again. As I said, homelessness is seldom far from it because Labour has suggested that the Government is looking at introducing a ban on rough sleepers in the city. Well, as Chief Executive of Heart of the City Viv Beck told Mike Hosking this morning, bring it on, something needs to change. VB: What I'm seeing is we need a game changer. We can't just keep moving people around. As long as there were really good solutions for vulnerable people, I think a majority of the people that we represent would support a scenario where you don't lie on streets or you house people. MH: I don't know if you were watching Parliament yesterday, but they seem squeamish about it. Why don't we just be a bit blunt about it? And the cold hard truth of homelessness is that it ruins central cities, and we need to clean it up and clear it out. I mean, it's that simple, isn't it? VB: I believe so. And what's been really pleasing in the last four weeks is that there has been constructive debate and people are recognising these are real issues. We need to be bold about this. We do have to care for people. We've got a track record of caring for people. The reality is though, we cannot leave it the way it is. It does need a game change and I really hope the politics don't sabotage a really important issue that needs resolving. Oh, I think it probably will. Politics generally does, especially when there's an election looming. I was listening to Ginny Anderson and Mark Mitchell this morning, on the Mike Hosking Breakfast. Ginny said, "Well, where are they going to go? People don't want the homeless outside schools or their homes." Well, no, they don't, but they also don't want them outside their bloody businesses either. Hairdressers and cafe owners and accountants and clothing retailers and the like in Queen Street have had enough of looking after them. And I don't think many of the retailers would have a problem with rough sleepers if that's all they were doing. Looking for a warm, safe, dry place to sleep, then packing up and moving on. It's the detritus and the bodily fluids and the aggressive, pugnacious attitudes that most retailers have the problem with. Sleep in the doorway, but it's the associated issues that come with it that are the real issue, the real problem. We have got people out of motels. There are no children on the streets, and that's got to be a good thing. There are places, as Mark Mitchell referred to, for people to go. It's the associated issues, the problems that they have that mean they don't feel either safe staying there, they don't want to stay there, they don't feel comfortable being within four walls, they're quite claustrophobic, ...
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    8 分
  • Liam Dann: NZ Herald Business Editor on the unemployment rate rising to 5.3%

    Liam Dann: NZ Herald Business Editor on the unemployment rate rising to 5.3%
    2025/11/04

    Today's rise in unemployment isn't unexpected.

    Latest Stats NZ data shows the unemployment rate has reached an almost nine-year high of 5.3% in the September quarter.

    160 thousand people have been looking for a job, while another 138 thousand have been wanting more work.

    The Herald's Liam Dann told Kerre Woodham today's figures are exactly as forecast by economists.

    He says the labour market will remain tough for a while yet because companies are nervous to hire, and some are still having to let staff go.

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    9 分