Andy Bowley: Forsyth Barr Head of Research on their prediction Air NZ will lose $338 million this financial year

Some say it's too hot, others too cold – a challenge for the operator of Christchurch's new covered stadium. Some areas of One NZ Stadium reached 32 degrees during Sunday's Rugby League matches and Monday's NPC final. Daytime fixtures could be scrapped in future to help players and fans cope with the heat. Venues Otautahi Chief Executive Caroline Harvie-Teare told Mike Hosking the stadium bowl is also retaining heat on colder days, with a 4.5 degree temperature variation around the venue on Monday. She says it's the variation which is the issue, with some complaining it was too cold at the weekend. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

National's Christopher Luxon says it's great to see so many people already showing up to vote. Nearly 70 thousand people cast their ballots on day one of advance voting. That's slightly more than the same time at the last election. Luxon told Mike Hosking he's hoping that's a sign people are going to give his government another crack. He says people understand it's been a difficult three years, but that his plan just needs more time as it's starting to work. When it comes to the economy, the Prime Minister's blaming the conflict in the Middle East for headline inflation remaining stubbornly high. Economists are predicting the Reserve Bank's will lift the OCR by 25 basis points this afternoon, taking it to 3%. Inflation's running at 3.7%, outside the target band of 1–3%. Luxon told Hosking the war's pushed up oil prices around the world, and how you respond to it matters – you can't just get the money hose and spray cash around. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Wellington City Missioner says Labour's rent-to-own scheme could help more people own a home. The party wants $100 of Kainga Ora tenants' weekly rent put towards a home deposit. Labour would also expand eligibility for 5% home deposits by increasing the income threshold to $300,000. Wellington City Missioner Murray Edridge told Mike Hosking this could help make people's dreams of owning a home a reality. He says the issue for a lot of people isn't the amount of repayment whether it's rent or a mortgage, it's getting a deposit. Edridge told Hosking these types of schemes have worked in the past. He says his parents along with many other built their homes by capitalising their family benefit. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What do they say about the truth always coming out? By Friday morning Kerrin Leoni was gone. She lied and she got caught with the photo and the video. Not only didn’t it pass the pub test, it didn’t pass the truth test. Campaigns almost always have things in them you never saw coming. For Labour it was a combination of dishonesty and their past. Law and order was not part of the vote of 2026, until it was. It was very much a part of 2023 because Labour was perceived to have failed abysmally on the subject. Law and order was, if not the number one issue, certainly in the top three and a major part of the law-and-order story was the perceived weakness Labour had around gangs. They ruled the streets, they paraded the patches, they sold the drugs and they abused the women. Labour opposed the new Government's gang patch ban, until they didn’t. Labour has been hoisted by their own petard. This started as a Greens/Māori Party mess that infected a third party. The initial issue was reputational. Could Labour be seen to be alongside a couple of radical operators in the gang space? An embattled Chris Hipkins did his best by saying none of their people would hold justice/police, or law-type portfolios. Then he said funding gangs was wrong. Then when asked why his party had funded the Mongrel Mob, he said it was a mistake and, in doing so, threw his former leader under the bus. It was a miserable ten days and a story that he couldn’t shake. But then it got worse, disastrously worse, after one of his own turned out not only to hang with gangs and campaign with gangs, but then when sprung, lied. The only thing he can do now is hope this fades, which it will. But what won't fade is the simple truth that all three parties in the left bloc now, in some way, shape or form, associate with the gang culture, like and support the gang culture, or are not averse to funding the gang culture. All three share the same broad ideology towards gangs. Given that it makes them so far removed from middle New Zealand, it's fatal. Other issues could be forgiven or looked past, but gangs are in a league of their own. Criminality and dishonesty might have been the singular event that caught all three. And blew it for all three. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Subsidising access to GLP-1s through Pharmac would be a “win-win” for New Zealand, according to an Auckland University medical professor. New research has found more than 80% of healthcare spending in New Zealand goes into treating chronic and long-term conditions. A huge percentage of those conditions were tied to obesity, Professor of Molecular Medicine and Pathology Peter Shepherd told Mike Hosking. “We’ve now got these wonderful medications to reduce weight, and they’re showing massive effects long-term in terms of improved outcomes for heart disease, for Alzheimer’s, for diabetes…we need to start proactively funding some of these solutions.” Some 30-40,000 Kiwis were already paying for the medicines themselves. “But if we funded it more widely, it'll benefit not just those people who are suffering, but also the rest of us by reducing healthcare bills.” Illegal versions of the drugs cost around $100-$200 per month, and Shepherd predicted official medications would cost a similar amount once patents ended. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.