Perfect 10?

Mike cleans up.

Last night was a big night for our most celebrated radio presenter.

Mike Hosking was named the Sir Paul Holmes Broadcaster of the Year - for the third straight year - as well as Best Talk Presenter (breakfast/drive) at the New Zealand Radio awards. Do you feel proud Aotearoa?

In the presenter category Mike beat Heather from Newstalk ZB, Lisa Owen who should be at Newstalk ZB, Corin Dann who should be anywhere other than RNZ, and Susie Ferguson. That’s right New Zealand, according to the judges Mike Hosking is a better presenter than Susie Ferguson!

Today in honour of Mike’s achievement, Nick’s Kōrero will pay tribute by emulating one of his famous segments. Not his two minute hate, where he rages incoherently like a gammon with a saveloy caught in his zipper. Not Mike’s Minute, because that always leads to the inevitable question - Mike’s minute what?

No, I’ll be reproducing Mike’s famous segment - Mock The Weak.

Mike’s weekly ratings of the government, accompanied by a buzzer sound effect indicting dire failure, and National, with angelic horns heralding their magnificence. Instruments blown directly from Mike’s other, non speaking, wind outlet.

Mike Hosking named Broadcaster of the Year. Photo: Sylvie Whinray

As an aside, have you ever heard Mike Hosking speak? Every once in a while, when he seems particularly pleased with himself, he makes this revolting sloppy wet noise with his mouth. I imagine Mike thinks it sounds luxurious as he audibly mulls over his genius, but really it sounds like a mud pool in Rotorua plopping thermal ooze. Hmm, I feel like this metaphor could be taken further.

So what did Mike have to say in his Mark The Week today, following his glorious victory? What fair and balanced assessment of the week did he trumpet flatulently?

I’ll save you his justifications, but his ratings were:

Ron DeSantis, Florida Governor and Republican Presidential candidate. A man who campaigned against raising the state’s minimum wage from $8.65, attacked LGBT rights, loosened gun controls, and restricted a women’s right to get an abortion. Mike gives him a 6/10.

Wayne Brown, Mayor of Auckland. Another stellar media performance, and a lesson in cooperating with colleagues, from Wayne later in this newsletter. Mike says 7/10.

Labour MP and Education Minister Jan Tinetti - 2/10. Labour MP Arena Williams - 3/10. Yawn, so predictable Mike.

Did he mention National’s brain fart on contraception fees? No, so I think we’ll leave that there then. Right, on to Nick’s version. A week where things got a bit Trumpian.

David Bennett 1/10

Yesterday in parliament National MP David Bennett, a 6th term MP - that’s right he’s been there for 18 years, spoke in response to the Fuel Industry Amendment Bill. Legislation intended to provide a more competitive market for fuel in New Zealand.

"The Commerce Commission is one of the evils that we see in this country. The Commerce Commission has got everything wrong it's ever done in the last 20 years.

"There has been no decision that the Commerce Commission has made that has been right." He later said the commission could not be trusted.

"Bless their socks. You know, I don't even know who's in there now, but they need a bullet, and they need to be sorted out, and they need to be put into their place because the Commerce Commission has had a really bad history in New Zealand."

Is this where we’re at? A veteran Member of Parliament saying that whoever is running a government agency needs a bullet?

Image: David Evans Bailey.

Why is it that when avowed free marketeers from National come up against anything that might reduce profits, through fairer competition, they always cry foul? Could it be campaign contributions or is it just a general opposition to corporate transparency?

It’s quite a big call really, saying the ComCom has “got everything wrong it’s ever done”. This includes things like enforcing the Fair Trading Act, or having broken up the absurd situation where Telecom was a retailer of services while having a monopoly on the wholesale market. According to Mr Bennett this was not the right thing to do.

The Newstalk ZB writers 6/10.

On the one hand the stuff they produce is execrable nonsense written to mislead the poorly educated and perennially angry. It’s main goal being to persuade them to vote for the National Party. On the other hand, would you like to be the person telling Kate that once again Mike gets all the best material, and she’s left with the stuff he rejected and tossed in the bin?

It made me wonder, is it PC to refer to the ZB writer working between Hosking and Hawkesby as "the perineum"?

Wayne Brown’s media skills 0/10.

I saw a photo come up on Twitter from the mayor, crowing about including the media, and mocking criticism of him. This was my response:

Except it was all bullshit, the audience was cherry picked and much of the media was excluded. "RNZ was allowed in, but Stuff, TVNZ and Newshub were not.” As you can imagine this went down like a plastic bottle of extremely overpriced, luke warm, Tui at Eden Park - ugh.

Seriously Wayne, if size is a problem pick a bigger room. And what the heck is Graham Lowe doing there in the second row? Do the Warriors have an in house magazine that he is reporting for?

Dude, you’ve absolutely cherry picked and filled the room with people friendly to you. You could have found a better seat for ole mate Simon Bridges, he looks like he’ll have a sore neck from sitting in the back row.

Brown just gets worse. Seriously how Trumpian is this quote? "Some of the media have been pretty nasty. We did invite media who are sensible; and the media who are not weren't invited, and have now decided, some of them, to bugger off - well, that's all right with me."

Auckland mayor Wayne Brown outlined his budget. Photo / Michael Craig

The temptation is to just laugh at the absurdity of the man. But don’t lose sight of the fact we’re talking about excluding entire media organisations, perceived as not friendly, from a major announcement. I can’t recall that happening in New Zealand before Wayne.

The mayor will now be looking for support for his budget from the council colleagues he has been slagging off all week in the media. Ah well Wayne, if they won’t roll over and give you what you want you could always try the media for a sympathetic ear.

Ginny Andersen 8/10.

Yesterday the Police Minister gave it right back to National over how their record on police funding compares with Labour's. Former Police Minister, Poto Williams, seemed to quite enjoy it.

National asked repeatedly this week whether ram raids have gone up, or down, since she became Police Minister. Ginny explained that numbers are down since the peak last August, but move around on a month to month basis. National kept insisting, it was all a bit silly. For goodness sake she’s only been the Minister for two months!

Anyway good on her. It made a nice change to see a Police Minister giving it back to National. Pointing out the absurdity of a party that reduced funding, resulting in the closure of many community stations, claiming the high ground on policing.

New Zealanders told us that they wanted more police in our communities, and we committed to delivering that. So it was with great pride today that I attended the graduation, along with the Prime Minister, of Wing 366, this morning, which now sees Police with 10,700 officers—an increase of 21 percent since 2017.

With the recent commitment to maintaining an ongoing ratio of one police officer to every 480 New Zealanders, the public can be assured that under a Labour Government, there won't be a cut to the number of officers keeping our communities safe.

Our issues with youth crime are complex. One thing that would seem clear though is that having more Police under Labour is surely better for addressing crime, than having fewer Police as occurred when National was in government.

A good note to end the week. Below are more good notes to end it on. Happy Days.