At the end of each week, Mike Hosking takes you through the big-ticket items and lets you know what he makes of it all.    The 5% first home buyers policy: 8/10  Small house deposits for first-timers is the policy of the week. In fact, it's the policy of the campaign so far. It's easy, practical, and solves an issue important to voters.    Michelin: 7/10  Possibly the most encouraging story of the week. The Michelin effect is real, it's ongoing, and the good operators can prove it.    Chris Hipkins: 4/10  Worst week in a long time. A second bad poll and growing questions around the campaign, or lack of it, and his personal ability to look like he's actually interested.    Trump: 2/10  Is making stuff up about 9/11 a new low? When does exaggeration and bombast wander into the territory of insult and plain BS?    The Warriors: 9/10  Rounded it out with yet more victory. Home advantage, a week off and, potentially, it's all a dream coming true.    LISTEN ABOVE FOR MIKE HOSKING'S FULL WEEK IN REVIEW See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is this the week the tide turned for the Labour Party and their chances of Government slipped away?  It's indisputably true to say it hasn’t been their week, or even a good week.  Some of the stuff that’s been bubbling for a while came to a, sort-of, head.  The lack of policy, the waiting for this magical PREFU, which allegedly contains Lord-knows-what by way of fiscal revelation, that will somehow make billions upon billions of dollars in promises make some sort of sense.  Are people who could vote Labour tired of waiting? Uninspired by the lack of vigour? Or just realising that the economy is coming back and the recovery is real, so some of the angst that drove them away from the Government is now melting?  Are Labour not radical enough, so the Greens get a look in?  Are people scared of the Greens and even more scared of the Māori Party, so the realisation has dawned on them that Labour can't do deals with mad people, so maybe the Government aren't that bad after all?  Does the first meeting of the campaign for their leader, which involved 100 people and a cat, display the lack of enthusiasm, not just from Labour, but from their supporters who are channelling the lacklustre approach of their party?  It's important to remember that of all the polling so far this year, the vast majority have never actually had Labour winning the election. But it did have them in front of National, which has given the media enough to feed on.  But even that, in the past two polls, has slipped away and what was once the 'Luxon nightmare' is now the 'Hipkins drama'. "Is he the right guy?"  Or is the ghost of 2023 back? As more people focus on their vote and what's happening around them, do the memories of the lockdowns, the fiscal failures, the kids not at school and the crime waves remind them that Hipkins, Sepuloni, Jan Tinetti, Ayesha Verral, et al are the same people? They haven't changed and the party hasn’t changed.  Do the memories of the endless working groups come flooding back? And does the laziness of that period look a lot like the laziness of this period of minimal policy, of lack of vigour, of a lackadaisical Government bagging sound bite obsession? Does it remind us these guys work office hours and are out of original thought?  It ain't over. But man, they look flat.  And Hipkins looks flatter than most. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Friday has arrived, which means Kate Hawkesby and Tim Wilson are back with Mike Hosking to Wrap the Week that Was.  Donald Trump has offered every American adult $5000 if Republicans win the midterms in November – what would it cost to swing someone's vote?  They also discussed whether there's such a thing as being too young to have a bucket list, and how despite the tough economy, there seems to be no shortage of money for things people want to do.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's confidence there'll be no issues when Auckland's long awaited City Rail Link opens this weekend.  The $5.5 billion project opens on Sunday, with twin three-kilometre tunnels, two new underground stations, and an entirely new timetable for Aucklanders.  It'll also see three new main services: the East West, South City, and Onehunga West lines.  KiwiRail Chief Executive Peter Reidy told Mike Hosking they've done significant testing and run the trains over the last few months, and have had international experts look at the project as well.  He says of any large infrastructure project he's been involved in, this would be one of the best in terms of a readiness plan before it goes live.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast for Friday 11th of September, Social Development Minister Louise Upston fronts up on the MSD screw-up that affected thousands of people.  Andrew Webster details how the Warriors are going to beat the Dolphins this week as the NRL Playoffs begin.  Kate Hawkesby and Tim Wilson discuss what we could bribe Kiwis with to vote, whether 19 and 20-year-olds can have a bucket list, and the fact we always have money for concerts and activities as they Wrap the Week that Was.  Get the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast every weekday morning on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Warriors coach Andrew Webster is stoked to have another difference maker available for tomorrow's NRL league preliminary final.   The team have completed their best regular season ever, securing a club record 18 wins and 728 points.  They're now facing the Dolphins at home on Saturday in front of a sold-out Mt Smart Stadium.   Versatile forward Jackson Ford's made a full recovery from a torn pectoral muscle suffered in June to feature on the bench.  Webster told Mike Hosking he was voted the best player in the competition before he got hurt and probably should've played for State of Origin.  He says he's a welcome return for the finals.   Webster told Hosking he's confident they'll claim the victory.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Renewables have hit a record high, but the Associate Energy Minister says New Zealand still can't quit coal and gas.  A new MBIE report shows renewables supplied 92% of electricity in the June quarter, with record geothermal generation and solar up 56%.  Wholesale electricity prices also fell 66% compared with the same quarter last year.  Shane Jones told Mike Hosking New Zealand needs coal and gas because there's not enough water in lakes or battery storage to guarantee supply.  He's tired of people who think you can have these green accoutrements without a backup and won't support a model where New Zealand imports everything from overseas.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Social Development Minister's apologising it took so long for the Government to figure out thousands of benefits had been accidentally cut.  Around 30 thousand benefit and winter energy payments were stopped after an error caused by legislation rushed through Parliament under urgency last year.   Minister Louise Upston doesn't accept the legislation was rushed.  A review reveals issues were raised as early as April but only seriously addressed in August.  Upston told Mike Hosking individual cases were being raised, but no one was putting it together and escalating it.  She says the day she and senior leaders were told, it took 48 hours before all of the winter energy payments had been repaid.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As big of a fan as I am of good news, something wasn’t right in the latest PISA report.  Like all reports, you can look at stats in any number of ways.  For example, if you want to feel good about yourself have a look at the Australian results. They're not good.  So for a bit of Trans-Tasman rivalry, their numbers will give you no end of good vibes.  The socio-economic gap the Government talked up seems real, so that’s indisputably good.  But I have two major worries:  We look good because essentially, we went nowhere, and we went nowhere against an OECD that went backwards. Standing knee-deep while others drown doesn’t seem to me to be a thing.  I mean you'll take it. But I would've thought that comparing yourself to the ordinary is not quite as fulfilling as actually moving forward.  But the really big one is the OECD going backwards, and the 'why'.  I surmise the 'why' is the death of critical thinking. Kids no longer think for themselves and it's only going to get worse.  The reports raise issues around disruptive classrooms, the old screen-time issue, and of course the fact that kids don’t read.  This is global. We have multiple generations of non-readers and reading is the key to everything.  Mix the lack of reading with AI, which will answer whatever you want, and basically, we are headed for intellectual oblivion.  Like the calculator before it, technological advance is efficient and gets you the answer. But the link to critical thinking is "do you know the answer is right"?  Of course you don’t and you don’t care either.  No one asks questions No one is inquiring. The rise of gormlessness is frightening.  It's there in the PISA reports – our kids are going backwards. Not reading, not adding and not firing up the ol' brains.  In the intellectual swamp that is global education, we aren't too bad. So instead of worrying about that, we decide to pretend it’s a good news story.  But being okay, or average, in a world of the hopeless isn't what I call achieving. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sir Peter Beck is one of the country's greatest ongoing success stories.  The self-taught engineer turned his love of rockets into a multibillion dollar space company, and Rocket Lab is now the third largest launcher of payloads to orbit.  He's competing directly with the likes of Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Elon Musk's SpaceX, managing to hold his own against the billionaires, and can be credited as the reason New Zealand has a space industry in the first place.  Although the future of the industry may seem uncertain, Beck's confident in his ability to chart a path forward.   "The space industry right now is an amazing place," he told Mike Hosking.   "It's just growing rapidly. Like, it was $360 billion, they reckon it's going to be $1.7 trillion in the next five years."   "It is really, you know, a new bastion of ... industry and growth."   Going from being a small player starting his own company to a major corporation answerable to shareholders was a steep curve, Beck said, but one they were able to handle.  "We've always run the company, you know, incredibly frugally," he explained.  "We are never gonna outspend Jeff and Elon, so we have to be, you know, much more careful with how we build the company."  "We have to out-hustle them and out-innovate, and that's the only way we can survive."   And that ethos of hustling to survive has become a great advantage for the company, Beck's self-described 'workaholism' and drive flowing through into the very culture of Rocket Lab.  "If you look at the resources and what we try to chieve in the time frames – it's insane," he told Hosking  "We built two spacecraft that are currently on their way to mars right now, we did that in a couple years ... ten years ago that would be like, a half a decade NASA project, and we did it in two years."  "The Rocket Lab hustle is everybody's expected to get out their spades and just start digging under the barrier or, you know, climbing over the top of it, or whatever it takes."  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.