Stuff reports:

Auckland media celebrities Mike Hosking and Kate Hawkesby are reportedly preparing to tie the knot.

Hosking, NewstalkZB’s breakfast host, and Hawkesby, a former TVNZ Breakfast host and Newstalk ZB newsreader, are reportedly getting married at her father John’s Waiheke Island property in the coming days.

I’m glad they are finally getting married.

When they were on One’s Breakfast together, they always looked liked they desperately wanted to jump each other.

Tags: Kate Hawkesby, Mike Hosking

Mike Hosking’s editorial:

In a way, you can’t blame the wharfies for putting up the fight they are at the Ports of Auckland. I mean if you were being paid to do nothing, you would be looking to hang on to the deal, wouldn’t you?

Eight hours pay, three hours work – good on them for getting the deal. God only knows who was thick enough to sign it off, but the game’s up. The port is lacklustre. it’s losing business and money to other ports. Its reputation isn’t flash and at long last they’re looking to get things tidied up.

What a good summary.

The wharfies have lost. They don’t have the support of the company, of the council which owns them, they certainly don’t have the support of the Auckland ratepayers who are watching a company they own get destroyed, and they don’t have the support of the wider public. Through all the bluster and hot air and jibes at management pulled directly out of Arthur Scargill’s handbook on how to run a class ridden industrial dispute, they have been seen for what they are – a fiefdom on a deal from another age refusing to be realistic.

Even Len Brown doesn’t back them. The man who took their money to get elelcted sees it for what it is. He should have been playing a far greater role before it ever got to the state it’s in. Ports of Auckland is a major company with a major contribution to the economy of the biggest city in the country and it’s operating in a time warp. Business is leaving – Maersk has walked, Fonterra’s gone.

This even goes beyond Auckland. Reducing freight costs through more efficient ports and the like has benefits for all of New Zealand, especially exporters.

Where’s the council? The owners? The representatives of all the rate payers who have a stake in the business? The dividends are a joke compared to Tauranga. Do they think the port is a welfare scheme? A jobs programme? Why aren’t they demanding better performance and better returns? The answer is there – lay them off. Too many strikes, too many lock outs, too much disruption. Get rid of them and find some people that actually want to do the job.

We must thank Mike Lee for buying out the minority private sector answers, so ratepayers would be the only ones having to tolerate a return of just 2% on capital.

Tags: Auckland Council, Maritime Union, Mike Hosking, Mike Lee, Ports of Auckland

Mike Hosking writes at NewstalkZB:

If the Labour Party has reached just that bit too far this campaign, it’s with their leaflet targeted at solo mums who have babies while on a benefit. …

But what it implicitly implies, and where it shows Labour to be so badly out of touch with the bulk of middle New Zealand, is that it presents a view of work as negative.

The message is, if you work, you don’t spend enough time with your kids, that being a parent of a one-year-old means you shouldn’t have a job because that somehow is bad.

Yep, the Labour Party thinks mothers who work are bad parents. That is why presumably they are going to give an extra $70/week to a sole parent on the DPB and only $10/week to a working parent.

The children of parents who work, are shown that the world is an exciting place where all things are possible if you put your mind to it – where good work ethic is rewarded.

What does a child of a parent who is happy to collect Labour’s lifetime solo parent money make of their Mum or Dad?

And why would it then be unsurprising to see them recreate that attitude for the next generation.

Exactly, welfare dependency is generational in many cases, and welfare dependent households are highest in all the negative stats. Welfare should be there to support those who need it temporarily (unless permanently unable to work), but should not be a reason for able bodied adults not to seek work.

Tags: Labour, Mike Hosking, welfare reform

I confess to loving the Australian version of Who wants to be a millionaire. Eddie McGuire is brilliant in that role.

The HoS has an article on the NZ version, with a contestant saying:

Washington’s criticism wasn’t confined to the questions. She found Hosking “arrogant” and “off-putting”.

Hosking said his role was not to help or hinder any contestant and it was “impossible” for him to be off-putting.

“I ask a question, I give you four options, answer one or not, or use a lifeline or not. What else can I do?”

The fact Hosking is asking the question, answers it. Hosking is a very talented news and current affairs interviewer but a game show host is about empathy and warmth. He has not displayed it to date and I am not sure if it is something you can learn. Watch Eddie McGuire and you see him bond with the contestants, get a bit blokey with them sometimes, chat Aussie Rules of course, and he helps make the show.

The other aspects of the article focus on whether the initial questions are too hard. Again I think they may be. The first five questions should be incredibly easy so everyone gets at least $1,000. People don’t like a show where too many people leave with nothing. The second set of five should be moderately challenging and the final five incredibly challenging.

Tags: Mike Hosking, Reviews