The former Prime Minister, the former Health Minister, the leader of the Labour Party has to go. His position is simply untenable. Chris Hipkins has consistently maintained he never received advice telling him there was a risk involved in requiring 12 to 17-year-olds to have a second Covid vaccination. As the Herald headline says this morning, a Cabinet paper shows otherwise.

Derek Cheng's story shows that the Covid Vaccine Technical Advisory Group told the Health Ministry in November that younger age groups are more at risk than older age groups of myocarditis after a second dose. They said one dose was still worth it based on early data, catching Covid-19 presented an even greater risk of myocarditis. Consideration should be given to permitting younger people 18 and under who have had one dose to be permitted to work or undertake other activities covered by the education mandate. So that was from the Covid Vaccine Technical Advisory Group, they gave that advice to Sir Ashley Bloomfield. That information was passed on. Chris Hipkins says don't know, don't recall, didn't see it. Health Minister Simeon Brown says those protestations do not stand up under scrutiny.

“The paper trail proves that he did know and the question is what did he do when he did know? And if the answer to that is nothing, well then the reality is there were 12 to 17-year-olds who there was known risk around a second dose, and nothing was done.”

And that's what I want to know. Like when National Party Minister Simon Watts told Ryan Bridge today that as a parent of a teenager, he was upset he didn't have all the information. And that's it, as parents you want to know about the potential risks of any vaccine.

“You sort of get paid to read your Cabinet papers, don't you? I can't remember, that doesn't cut it. If he had the advice, he didn't read it or he didn't review it, you've got to own it. He was in charge, he's accountable.”

Absolutely. And that's why he has to go. Hipkins says look, we had to make tough decisions under extraordinary pressure and a rapidly changing environment. Of course he did. But New Zealanders surely expect their Minister of Health during a public health crisis to stay abreast of changing information, to stay abreast of data and advice around vaccines, especially when people were concerned about a nationwide vaccination programme, about the fact that we couldn't do anything, go anywhere until we were all vaccinated up the ying yang. When people had concerns about how quickly the vaccines were being developed and you know, I read what I read around the research around that and was happy enough to take the risk. Other people, all people wanted to know was the information, and I do not think it is unreasonable to expect the Minister of Health to be on top of all that.

As for his claim that the Government made numerous efforts to communicate safety issues around myocarditis and pericarditis, that is absolute BS. Can you recall on any occasion when the pulpit of truth illuminated any concerns whatsoever around the vaccines? I mean, I might have missed it. I was in my own world of pain and misery and going quietly insane myself, but I may have missed it. But I would really love to hear from parents of teenagers, did at any time did you hear any concerns? Anybody who did dare raise questions was cast out as a Covid denier, they were everyone was lumped into one, ‘oh watch this YouTube video, that'll open your eyes’. You were all cast into one box. If you were a parent of a teenager, you might have been listening more closely because it was more relevant to you. Chris Hipkins claims when he was Minister of Health he did not see information around potential health risks around vaccinating teenagers. So he's either incompetent or he's a liar. Either way, he cannot stay on.

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I doubt there'll be many people out on the water —certainly not in the upper North Island on the East Coast— but the next time you go out, let me know what the catch is like. The Government's done a U-turn on minimum size limits for commercial fishers, but that's not enough for fishing advocacy groups. They want the Government to kill the Fisheries Amendment Bill entirely. They say it's not doing enough to protect our fish stocks. Meanwhile, Seafood New Zealand says it's ironic that the change has resulted in an outcome that's not great for the environment and doesn't provide the incentive to avoid catching small fish. So when the advocacy groups and the commercial fishers are not happy, you'd have to wonder at the point of the bill.

The Fisheries Amendment Bill as drafted would have ditched most commercial size limits, effectively allowing commercial vessels to land and sell baby fish if they can, including snapper and tarakihi. Recreational fishers said this is madness, the changes would decimate future populations. Other people say, well, it's a bit more complicated than that. Catching the big fish, they're the ones that have the babies. So nobody's happy. Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has argued that the change would prevent wastage, but after public outcry was forced into a major U-turn over his plans. He says, hey ho, it's democracy in action and isn't that good to see. But still, no one is happy. Sam Woolford from LegaSea told Mike Hosking this morning that the fight is not over.

“No, it's definitely not over and I think that's the really important thing is that there's actually some really nefarious stuff still in the legislation. They want to remove judicial reviews or make it really hard for public to get involved in public consultation. They're still going to legalize dumping and discarding of fish at sea. So even if they catch those undersized fish, they're still going to be legally allowed to dump them.”

Well, quite. Seafood New Zealand Chief Executive Lisa Futschek told Radio New Zealand she was disappointed because the proposal would have strengthened the incentives for commercial fishers to avoid catching small fish. She says we don't want to catch small fish. Our processors don't want to process small fish. This proposal would have provided incentives not to catch small fish. She said the change would have meant those catching small fish would have needed to balance that fish against their quotas. They would have had to pay for it. As it turns out, removing that clause means the status quo remains. That is, fishers that catch small fish return them to the sea and don't pay for it.

So is it time to go back to the drawing board? If everyone thinks the bill is a dog and isn't addressing the real issues, everybody within their own particular lobby group or advocacy group is saying no, it doesn't address the issues. The environmental groups, the commercial fishers, the recreational fishers, maybe it's time to tear it up and start again.

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A commercial fisherman is aiming to clear up some misconceptions around the industry in the wake of the Government’s controversial Fisheries Amendment policy.

The Government yesterday U-turned on one clause, which would’ve eased the minimum fish size limits for commercial companies.

Doug Saunders-Loder, the President of the NZ Federation of Commercial Fishermen, told Kerre Woodham they’re unfortunately in a situation in which they’ve been poor at educating the public over the years on how the industry works.

He says it does them no good at all to be operating in a space where they’re destroying the livelihood they create.

Saunders-Loder told Woodham they have people catching fish in whatever way they can, all at a level that is nothing more than responsible and working under a fisheries management system that is world-leading.

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The Education Minister’s pressing ahead with a major overhaul of NCEA, scrapping the current system and replacing it entirely.

Cabinet’s signed off on a move to subject-based assessments in Years 12 and 13.

The first changes will roll out from 2028, when NCEA Level One will be axed altogether.

Erica Stanford says English and Maths will be compulsory for all Year 11 students under the new model, and is seeking more information on making Science compulsory in Year 11.

She told Kerre Woodham she believes the work they’ve done in implementing the new system has set them up for success and longevity.

Stanford says they put in the work to understand what the sector and parents thought so they could accurately highlight the problems with the system, and build a curriculum and qualification that works.

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If Trump's envoys weren't talking to Iranian officials, who the hell were they talking to? When you get older, you expect that you can make more sense of the world, but I've got to be honest here, I am struggling to make sense of anything. I was reading the headlines at about 5 this morning. Trump talking about the good and productive talks having been conducted by special envoy Steve Witkoff, his son in law Jared Kushner. There'll be no nukes. No, the Iranians have said, yep, absolutely, we'll open the Straits of Hormuz and there's no nukes.

So that's good. It's a great way to start the day, until you then read that Iran's Parliamentary Speaker says, um, no, no talks have happened. It's all fake news. Normally, you could understand perhaps that talks have taken place and that people might take different messages out of the discussions or things might be highlighted and others glossed over to show respective countries in good light. But in this case, they're saying it didn't happen at all.

Got to admit, that was a head scratcher. Whether the talks happened or not, Trump's announcement that somebody had talked to somebody on Truth Social led to a US stock market rally and global oil prices to drop as fears were assuaged that Trump would now not go ahead with his threat to bomb Iranian nuclear power facilities. Who knows? Honestly, who knows what's true and what is not? There's very little we can do. We don't even, we can't even begin to speculate as to who might have been talking to whom.

In the meantime, here at the bottom end of the world, as we deal with the fallout and wait for sanity to prevail, the Government's expected to announce a support package for families today with an emphasis on low to middle income households and working families with children. The emphasis is on low to middle income. It's also on temporary support, so that temporary, timely, targeted support.

If you are in a low to middle income household, if you are working parents with children, do you welcome such support? Is it right and proper that the focus be on working families rather than all and sundry? I tend to think it is. Is it right and proper that any such support is offered at all? I know there are grave fears from some that this is just another Covid situation where money is being sprayed everywhere. That is not the case.

There are no payments being made to everybody. Remember the payments that were made to dead people? The IRD said and Treasury said, I don't think this is a very good idea. No, no, let's just dole out the money. There were Covid payments made to businesses on a high trust model. Payments were made to everybody under a certain income at one point. Remember those? Even to dead people. We're not doing that. This is not what it's about. It's about targeted assistance for working families who are having to pay through the nose at the pump to get to work, to get the kids to school.

And all of those who say, well, we weathered stock market crises and the global financial crisis. Yep, sure you did. High interest rates. Absolutely you did. But this is coming on five years of just knock after knock after knock after knock for people trying to do the right thing. So I'm okay with it. It's not normally something I would advocate, but in this instance, I think it is necessary for all those workers who are absolutely essential, who have to live out of the main centres because of the cost of housing, who don't have public transport to be able to get from point A to point B, who need to get their kids to school, who just want to be able to go to work and earn enough to look after themselves and their family. A little bit of targeted assistance out of the enormous extra tax money that's coming in from the government's fuel tax is fine by me.

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The Green Party is offering its support to National to fast-track a fossil fuel relief package, bypasssing other parties with their combined 63 votes.

The proposal includes three months of free public transport, a windfall tax on fuel companies, and targeted payments for rural and low-income earners.

The Green Party co-leader Chloe Swarbrick told Kerre Woodham, "we have put a sensible and urgent fossil fuel crisis relief package on the table, and we're really willing and able to work with the National Party to make it happen."

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