On the Early Edition with Andrew Dickens Full Show Podcast Friday the 18th of July 2025, jobseeker benefit numbers are continuing to climb, former welfare advisory group member Phil O'Reily shares why.

It's final All Blacks test against the french tomorrow night at FMG stadium in Hamilton, Rugby commentator Tony Johnson shares his thoughts on the line up.

Dairy prices around the globe are soaring and Kiwi's are footing the bill, Federated Farmers dairy chair Karl Dean tells Andrew Dickens why prices have become so high.

Plus, UK/Europe Correspondent Vincent McAviney has the latest on the UK lowering the voting age to 16 at the next general election expected in 2029.

Get the Early Edition Full Show Podcast every weekday on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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A welfare expert's pointing to the lack of jobs being the main reason more people are ending up on the benefit.

Ministry of Social Development statistics show almost 8-thousand more were receiving a main benefit in June compared to March.

It follows the Government instating new requirements for beneficiaries in hopes of getting more into the workforce.

Former Welfare Advisory Group member Phil O'Reilly told Andrew Dickens the Government needs to up public spending, to help the lagging economy.

He says it's about trying to reinvigorate the construction sector which has seen 17-thousand jobs lost in the last 18 months.

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We all know the Covid Inquiry is on looking at MIQ amongst other things.

And we all know that MIQ had noble aims and notable successes.

But we also know the execution was far from perfect and many people ended out feeling ostracized from the rest of New Zealand.

And the idea of the Inquiry is to find out what went wrong and so we do better next time.

And yesterday Les Morgan, the Chief Operating Manager of Sudima Hotels, wrote an exceptional piece in the Herald on the rights and wrongs of MIQ and in the middle of his piece he took my heart away with a stunning piece of writing.

He learnt at an 1pm briefing that his hotel had been requisitioned for an MIQ facility.

Except no-one had told him and his team and their first refugees were expected that very day. He wrote this.

“The hotel in question had been closed indefinitely, meaning staff had moved on and there were no consumables or PPE gear on site.

Once I had run the gauntlet of shock and bad language, our team swung into action and I am proud to say our local staff welcomed the first guests by 8pm the same day with full PPE equipment and comprehensive operational procedures. (The military and public health teams involved arrived on-site equally unprepared but also rallied.)

These were staff who had left the business earlier in lockdown but came back to bravely face an unknown health risk and the enormous task of recommissioning a hotel, all because they thought it was the right thing to do to help save the lives of fellow New Zealanders. They are all heroes, and they deserve to be properly recognised by the Government.”

Damn right.

In London there is a Covid Memorial Wall on the banks of the Tames opposite the Houses of Parliament.

It features over 240,000 individually hand-painted red hearts. Each heart represents a person in the UK who died with COVID-19 listed as a cause of death on their death certificate.

It’s all ages but particularly the young and the old.

We have nothing like that in New Zealand.

This Inquiry will not give everybody want they want. It will prove MIQ to be neither right or wrong.

But it will remind us that there are silent heroes in New Zealand who we have not thanked nearly enough.

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