I hope people are sitting-up and paying attention to what BusinessNZ is saying today.

Especially the people who have their heads in the sand about our ability as a country to keep paying for things like healthcare and pensions.

Because, as BusinessNZ puts it, we don’t have enough people to keep on doing that and we need a lot more people.

As one headline today says, New Zealand needs 10 million people to stay afloat.

BusinessNZ says we need twice as many people just to keep the lights on. For several reasons.

For starters, in 20 years’ time we’ll have a labour shortage of 250,000 people. And unless we bring a truckload more people into the country, we won’t have enough workers to do the work. But also, we won’t have enough workers paying tax to pay for the likes of healthcare and the pension.

That’s why I hope people are paying attention. Because, if we think we can keep on keeping on, providing the same services and doing things like dishing out the pension to anyone and everyone just because they turn 65, then we have to either stop doing that or somehow find a way to keep doing it.

If BusinessNZ was a political party, it wouldn’t last five minutes, because the stuff it’s saying today is the stuff that doesn’t win elections. But it’s the stuff we have to listen to and accept.

Example: raising the retirement age. If we are going to be five million people short of being financially viable as a country, we’re all going to have to keep on working longer. Most politicians are too scared to say that, but it’s true.

Or if we still want to retire at 65, we’re going to have to pay for it ourselves. Again, most politicians are too scared to say that, but it’s true.

Now I’m not talking about this happening next week or next year. I’m saying that it’s inevitable that, at some point, we are going to have to accept that everyone retiring at 65 and everyone getting the state-funded pension is a thing of the past. Because we can’t afford it.

Which is why BusinessNZ is also saying today that we’re going to have to start putting more into our KiwiSaver.

That’s another no-brainer. Because, if we’re in a position where we need to double the population just to keep the place running, then we need to change how we do things.

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New Zealand is about to become a dumping ground for dirty vehicles.

That’s what the electric vehicle people are saying today about the Government’s urgent changes to the clean car standards for imported vehicles.

Of course they’re unhappy. Because I reckon they are seeing and we are seeing the EV bubble about to burst.

I’ll tell you why. I’ll also tell you why you’re not going to hear me ripping into the Government for doing what it’s doing.

Reason 1: imported petrol, diesel and hybrid vehicles are going to be cheaper, and we would all be complaining if the Government wasn’t doing anything about it.

Reason 2: penalising car importers for importing the types of vehicles that people actually want to buy makes no sense to me. And what I’m getting at there is I reckon most people still want to buy petrol or diesel vehicles or hybrids. In fact, with imported petrol, diesel and hybrid vehicles likely to be cheaper because of this move by the Government, why would you even bother with an EV?

That’s why the EV people are so antsy.

And reason 3: I’d be a complete hypocrite if I said otherwise, because I drive petrol cars. One of them is a Toyota Prado that’s been around the block a few times and is a real gas guzzler, and probably isn’t that great for the environment. Not to mention the Vespa 2-stroke nightmare.

I have never had any interest in having an EV. I can’t tell you exactly why, it’s not a protest of any sort. It’s not climate change denial. It’s none of that. And I think most of us are the same. If we can get our hands on a decent petrol, diesel or hybrid vehicle for a decent price, then we’ll do it.

So, as of the end of this week, the penalties car importers get stung with for bringing high-emitting vehicles into the country are going to be slashed by nearly 80%. Which will be music to the ears of the 86% of car importers that Transport Minister Chris Bishop says are facing penalties already.

How the scheme works, is car importers have to meet annual emissions targets.

And when they balance things up at the end of each year, if they’ve brought more dirty cars than clean cars into the country, then they get hit with a penalty, or a charge. Which, of course, gets passed on to customers.

At the other end of things, if they bring-in more clean cars and less dirty cars, they earn credits.

Which sounds great in theory. But, as it stands, most of the importers haven’t been meeting their targets and so they’re facing charges. So the Government is slashing the dirty vehicle charges by 80% to stop that happening.

But the electric vehicle people aren’t happy.

Kirsten Corson is the chair of Drive Electric —which is an advocacy group that wants more of us driving EVs— and she’s saying today that this move by the Government is “embarrassing”.

She says: "If you look at us compared to Australia, in Australia you're paying $100 as a penalty and now we've just slashed that to $15 in New Zealand. So we are going to become a dumping ground for high emission vehicles."

She says: "We keep our vehicles on our road for two decades. The average car is 15-years-old in New Zealand, so the decisions made today are going to impact our transport emissions for the next three decades."

But what do you make of this move by the Government?

Do you think the EV bubble is about to burst?

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The city is back mingling with the country at New Zealand's Royal A&P Show in Canterbury.

Thousands are set to descend on the Agricultural Park over the next three days.

This year’s event has re-gained its royal status for the first time since 2010.

Canterbury A&P Association chair Sir David Carter told John MacDonald that the Royal Agricultural Society approached them after they saw them put on last year’s show, and asked if they were prepared to run under the Royal Show status.

They agreed, he says, because it gives prestige to the show, and means livestock people are prepared to enter more animals and travel further to attend.

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Whatever you thought of Andrew Coster as Police Commissioner, you probably felt you could trust him to do the right thing. To be upfront, honest, and certainly not hide stuff.

And if you thought the attitude within the Police towards women had changed from what it used to be – well you might be having a bit of a re-think on both of those. Because I certainly am after this damning report by the Independent Police Conduct Authority on the way Police handled accusations of sexual offending by former Deputy Commissioner Jevon McSkimming.

It’s become a bit of a cliche in recent times to describe reports as “damning”, but there’s no doubt how damning this one is.

It is so damning that we had the Police Minister and the current Police Commissioner doing a live media conference at six o’clock last night as soon as the report came out. And no wonder. Because, in my mind, this could prove to be one of New Zealand’s biggest public sector scandals.

And it tells me that despite all the talk from the Police after the experience of Louise Nicholas back in the 1980s with cops involved in sexual misconduct, it seems the memo about a culture change hasn’t yet reached some of the top brass either still working there or who worked there until very recently. Including Andrew Coster.

Let me quote a comment in the IPCA report from one of the country's most senior adult sexual assault investigators. Named in the report as “Officer D”, they said: “You know what's the worst thing – if you make a mistake, the only worse thing that you can do is then cover it up. You can paint all sorts of nice words but to an outsider looking in, and I mean even me, this looks like a cover-up."

So what happened is Jevon McSkimming got into a relationship with a woman in her early 20s. He was in his early 40s. After that, she started writing dozens of emails to the police, accusing Deputy Commissioner McSkimming of being a sexual predator.

But instead of investigating the allegations, the emails were used by police as evidence to prosecute her under the Harmful Digital Communications Act last year.

All of that overseen by Andrew Coster.

His successor, Richard Chambers, is livid.

He says there were about five or six senior leaders in the Police —including Coster— who were responsible for what looks to me like a cover up. Some are still with the Police, others aren’t.

The Commissioner says these people were too quick to believe that the complainant was a spurned woman out for revenge.

As for Andrew Coster, how ironic is this comment he made when he was commissioner? He said: “We rely on the support of most of the community to be successful and that depends on the way we operate and on the extent to which people feel that they can trust us and that what we’re doing is appropriate.”

Oh really?

Coster, these days, is chief executive of the Government’s Social Investment Agency. He’s on leave at the moment. But now that we know what we know, should he be allowed to stay on the government payroll?

I’m in no doubt that he shouldn't. Because he presided over what I think could prove to be one of New Zealand’s biggest public sector scandals. And, for that reason and that reason alone, he should be toast.

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The Labour Leader is “absolutely disgusted” by the handling of complaints against Jevon McSkimming by former Police Commissioner Andrew Coster.

The Police Complaints Authority has released a report finding some of our highest-ranking Police didn't deal properly with a woman's anonymous complaints against the former Deputy Police Commissioner.

Hipkins is deeply disappointed in Coster, and believes the Police have a right to feel very disappointed in him as well.

“Clearly he had standards that he needed to uphold as a Commissioner of Police, and he did not do that.”

He says the frontline police, who go to work every day with high levels of integrity to serve the public and keep them safe have been badly, badly let down by the leadership.

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Be careful what you wish for.

That’s how I’m feeling about the Government giving Christchurch an exemption from the new housing intensification rules, which would have enabled three, three-storey properties to be built on single sections anywhere in the city.

Instead, that level of intensification is going to be limited to certain parts of town, including the city centre, Church Corner, Riccarton, Hornby, Linwood, Shirley, Merivale, Edgeware, and Papanui.

But I think the Government is just letting Christchurch shoot itself in the foot. Because we will, eventually, come to regret it.

Mayor Phil Mauger is delighted though, because the city council pushed back and claimed we were doing enough already on the intensification front.

A few months back, the council agreed to extend the areas where it would be happy to have medium density zoning with three, three storey buildings per section. Then wrote to the Government saying it thought it had gone far enough and requested an exemption from more intensification in other parts of the city.

The council has got what it asked for, and I think we will live to regret it. Because it’s only going to mean one thing: the city expanding beyond where it is now.

Which is why I’ve always said that we need to get over ourselves and accept that greater housing density is the only way forward, especially when we consider the population growth happening here.

And, with the city growing, the options are either growing outwards or upwards.

Whether we want to keep chewing up land and building more to the south, more to the north, and more to the west; or whether we do more with the space we’re occupying at the moment.

Unfortunately, the lack of foresight at our city council —and the government buying-into that lack of foresight— means we’re going to continue expanding. Chewing up good land.

All because we have this old-hat idea that everybody needs and wants the quarter-acre section.

But we’ve got a housing affordability problem in this country and, if you want your kids to be able to afford to buy their own place, it’s not going to be somewhere with a big backyard. So we need more apartments and townhouses – the places you get with greater housing density.

What’s more, putting limits on housing intensification in Christchurch is going to mean more and more houses being built in places like Rolleston and Prebbleton. Which are not in Christchurch, they’re in the Selwyn district, and that will mean more and more people travelling into the city every day, using Christchurch’s roading infrastructure and not paying a bean towards it.

Another reason why this limit on housing intensification in Christchurch is a bad move.

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Just as punters hoped, showers have cleared in Christchurch in time to fling open the gates at Addington Raceway before the 122nd running of the New Zealand Trotting Cup.

The grey start's made way for some blue skies and enough sun to fry off rain that fell this morning.

Race caller Matt Cross told John MacDonald the track's in good order.

He says the afternoon forecast is pretty good, so by the time the Cup comes around this evening, we should be in pretty fine form in terms of the weather.

The Trotting Cup is the richest harness race in the Southern Hemisphere, with a million dollars on offer, and Cross says that while he might be a bit biased, he thinks it’s the greatest harness race in the Southern Hemisphere too.

It’s the history that makes it special, he told MacDonald, and every year this is the race people talk about.

“It’s the pinnacle. It’s the race that not only defines horses, but it defines people as well in terms of where they sit in the pecking order within the industry.”

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At least they’re doing something. But I don’t rate the chances of it working.

That’s how I’m feeling about the Government’s declaration of war on methamphetamine, with this new plan that will see spy agencies working with customs and the defence force to target ships carrying drugs in the Pacific.

It's also going to work with ports and the shipping industry.

The feature of the plan that I like most is this $30 million increase in funding for addiction services. Because, as the Drug Foundation is saying, we can’t arrest our way out of the meth problem.

Sarah Helm is executive director and she says help for people caught up in meth addiction has been significantly under-funded for many years.

She says: “It’s clear to everyone that we can’t arrest our way out of this issue. Spending on treatment and harm reduction is also a better investment of taxpayer money than criminalising people, because it results in savings downstream in health, justice and social costs.”

And we know about the cost - $19.4 million a week. That’s what the National Drug Intelligence Bureau estimates is the value of the harm caused by methamphetamine use every week in New Zealand.

That’s the cost of things like people ending up in hospital, dying - all the social harm. Just under $20 million a week.

The Government’s plan also includes a four-year advertising campaign to educate people about the dangers of meth use.

Which I’m not convinced will be effective. Because everyone knows how bad meth is already - and still we’re using more of it than we ever have.

It's been about 25 years since methamphetamine - as we know it - really took off in New Zealand. And it’s turned out to be a great market for the suppliers.

Some numbers I’ve seen the police refer to is how someone can bring-in 600 kilos of the stuff for a couple of million dollars, sell it and make a profit of around $120 million.

So who is going to turn their back on that kind of opportunity?

But, even though I don’t see it changing things greatly, good on the Government for trying something.

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