If I asked you who you would rather go and have a beer with, Christopher Luxon or Chris Hipkins, who would you choose?

I’d choose Luxon any day. One slight technicality is that he doesn’t drink. But he’d have a lime and soda or whatever he likes to drink, I’d have a beer and we’d probably have a very nice time.

Reason being that on the occasions that I’ve met him in person, he comes across as a very good guy and good fun to be around. I’ve met Hipkins several times too, but I think he’d be a bit more earnest or serious than Luxon.

So why isn’t that coming through in the poll results? Why aren’t there more people wanting to go and have a beer with Luxon?

Why are there almost as many people who would choose have a drink with Chippy? Which I know isn’t the official question polling companies ask voters, but you get what I mean.

According to last night’s 1News-Verian poll, Christopher Luxon’s popularity as Prime Minister is the lowest it’s been in two years.

Last night’s preferred prime minister result had him on 20%, and Labour’s Chris Hipkins breathing down his neck on 19% – which has all the headline writers predicting his demise.

Here’s an example of one: “Luxon’s leadership running out of oxygen as polls tighten”.

You may think these poll results are a load of nonsense, but I don’t. Because it wasn’t just the 1News poll that came out in the last 24 hours.

We also had a Taxpayers Union poll out yesterday which showed a very similar result in preferred Prime Minister. That poll had Christopher Luxon on 20.2% and Chris Hipkins on 20.2%.

So do I believe these poll results? Yes I do.

And why do I think Christopher Luxon is so unpopular with voters? I’m taking my cue from National Party voters I’ve spoken to recently who are shaking their heads.

The common themes that come through are that Luxon is letting Winston Peters and David Seymour run rings around him, that his government —especially his Finance Minister— isn’t delivering anything meaningful, and that he’s still blaming everything on the previous government.

Not that the last government achieved much, but surely people expected the bar to be a bit higher with this government. So that’s why he is polling so low – people see him as a let down.

He’s seen as weak, letting Seymour and Peters rule the roost and he doesn’t own the problems he’s trying to fix. He’s still pointing the finger at Labour more than halfway through his government’s three-year term. That’s letting him down big time.

And people don’t think his government delivering them anything —especially on the economic front— and that he should be giving Nicola Willis the flick and giving someone else the finance job.

Because these National voters I’ve spoken to are saying that she has been a big disappointment.

But when you’re the leader of the party and when you’re the Prime Minister, you’re the one who cops it. And Christopher Luxon is copping it. And he deserves to cop it.

And if we did go and have that drink – that’s what I’d be telling him.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

TOPIC 1 EDITORIAL: STADIUM TRAIN

I love this plan for an express passenger train to get people into Christchurch for events at the new One New Zealand Stadium, which is due to open in April next year.

But I’ll love it even more if the councils around here chip-in to pay for a new railway station at the corner of Moorhouse Avenue and Colombo Street, which the rail company behind the plan is describing as a “key ingredient”.

Because, otherwise, there’s a 4.3 kilometre journey by road from the current station at Tower Junction - which could take about 22 minutes by car.

Private outfit Mainland Rail has come up with the idea to get nearly 6,000 people into Christchurch from Rolleston and Rangiora (and even possibly Ashburton). It’s saying an express service from Rolleston would get people into the centre of town in 20 minutes. It would be about 25 minutes from Rangiora.

It’s worked out how it can work-in with the KiwiRail freight train schedules and it’s already bought second-hand carriages to run the service.

But it’s the new railway station on the corner of Moorhouse and Colombo that needs sorting out.

And, with the likes of Selwyn and Waimakariri councils not putting any money at all into the stadium itself, this is the opportunity - at last - for them to have some skin in the game.

Especially, considering that this service is all about getting people from their areas into town for the big matches and concerts.

Maybe even Ashburton council could get involved. ECAN, as well - considering it’s been pushing the idea of commuter rail services in the Greater Christchurch area.

I know there will probably be no shortage of people who think that, if a private company wants to set-up this service, then it should cover all of the costs. Including the costs of a new train station.

But I don’t see it that way, at all. Because some sort of drop-off point for train passengers at that spot on the Colombo/Moorhouse corner would be brilliant - and not just for people using the stadium trains.

There’ll be others too who think it should be KiwiRail paying for it. But you can forget about Kiwirail coming up with the money anytime soon. If at all.

So, if this thing is going to fly, then it’s time for our local councils to step up.

Who wouldn’t want to see tourists getting on and off the Tranz Alpine service to the West Coast in the centre of town? Instead of that toy town train station at the back of Tower Junction.

And if we are really serious about getting people in Rangiora and Rolleston to even entertain the idea of taking a train to work instead of driving, then we need to offer them something better than a train to Addington.

This idea has the potential to be the start of something bigger and I think it's brilliant

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You can tell council elections are coming up, because that’s the only reason the Christchurch City Council is going to start using high friction road surfaces at pedestrian crossings, instead of speed humps.

Even though it knows that speed humps are safer. Even though it knows that it won’t slow down traffic. But you’ve got to keep people sweet when there’s an election coming up.

They’re starting with a pedesttian crossing Halswell, with the local councillor saying they’re doing it so that people don’t get brassed off.

Andrei Moore says: "We are putting safe infrastructure in without pissing everyone off.”

And there’s your evidence that this isn’t being done for safety. It’s being done to try and calm down all the whingers ahead of October's election.

Talk about shallow.

I know when these speed humps things started appearing, twe all thought “what the hell are these things all about?” And, since then, it's become incredible fashionable to slag them off.

But this is the problem when you get a bunch of people sitting around a council table all thinking they’re road safety experts when the only thing they're expert in is pandering to voters.

Apparently, the plus side of these high friction surfaces is that vehicles are less likely to skid, but they do nothing to slow traffic down. When some muppet is screaming up to a pedestrian crossing and has to slam on the brakes, they’ll be at less risk of skidding.

At least with the speed humps, even the muppets are forced to slow down – that’s not going to happen with your high friction surface, is it?

Cost is another thing in favour of the high friction surfaces, as opposed to the sped humps. A report I’ve seen says installing a speed hump —including the aspahalt, the road marking, and the signage— costs somewhere between $30,000 and $55,000.

Whereas, the anti-skid, high friction road surface costs between $25,000 and $35,000. The fly in the ointment there though is that this special surface costs more to maintain than your speed hump.

But are these speed humps really that much of a problem? What’s so bad about something that forces drivers to slow down – especially when they’re approaching a pedestrian crossing?

There’s nothing wrong with that.

And, if you are totally honest with yourself, do speed humps really have that much of a negative impact on your life?

Or do you think you might have fallen into the trap and followed the crowd in your opposition to speed humps? Because I reckon that, in the grand scheme of things, they aren’t a problem at all.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Local politicians from both sides of the political divide are slamming police process around the proposed restructure in wider Canterbury.

Federated Farmers, City Councillors, and schools are concerned at the lack of community consultation.

Banks Peninsula MP Vanessa Weenink told John MacDonald the communication, for a start, hasn't been well managed.

She says police will need to do a lot to assure her, and the community, that what they're doing is the right step.

While Labour's Tracey McLellan says the community's rightly concerned about the internal-only consultation, which is not at all in line with expectations.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When I heard Transport Minister Chris Bishop talking about the Government’s changes to the road user charges system, I had a bit of a Max Bradford moment.

Max was the National Party minister who told us back in 1988 that his reforms of the electricity sector were going to mean cheaper power prices.

Which is what Chris Bishop was saying yesterday about the plan to ditch petrol taxes and move all vehicle owners to road user charges which, at the moment, are only paid by people with diesel, electric, and heavy vehicles.

He said: “From a cash flow point of view, it’ll help people. At the moment, when you go and fill your car up you pay petrol tax at the pump, right there at 70 cents per litre, roughly.”

The part of yesterday’s announcement that really caught my eye was NZTA not being responsible for collecting and processing the road user charge payments. Instead, that’s going to be farmed out to private operators which the government says will encourage “fairer competition”.

And, in saying that, the Government is trying to sell some sort of idea that by not having NZTA involved, these charges are somehow going to be cheaper.

Which is why I had Max Bradford ringing in my ears. Because he was talking nonsense when he said his reforms back in 1988 were going to mean cheaper power prices.

And Chris Bishop is talking nonsense if he expects us to believe that contracting private outfits to take over is going to mean cheaper costs for vehicle owners.

The minister says it’s possible we’ll pay our road user charges through an app, which is why the government wants to get private operators involved. Because it doesn't want to spend the time and money developing the technology and the systems.

But will this “fairer competition” it’s talking about really mean things being cheaper at our end? Of course not.

And this is not me having a dig at any of the companies who might have heard that announcement yesterday and saw an opportunity. Because that’s what business is all about: seeing opportunities.

And, again, this isn’t me having a dig at businesses, but they don’t do these kinds of things for free.

Being in business is all about clipping the ticket as much as possible. And no business is going to want to get involved in the new road user charging system if it can’t clip the ticket. That’s just how it is.

Which is why I don’t like the Government's plan to take NZTA out of the picture.

Yes, I support the shift to everyone paying road user charges, because that makes sense. Because when you use a road, it makes no difference whether you drive an old dunger or something more modern – you’re still using it.

With road user charges, you pay depending on how many kilometres you drive instead of how much fuel you buy.

And if you’ve got the most fuel-efficient vehicle on the market, why should you effectively pay less to use the same road as someone who can only afford an old gas guzzler?

You shouldn’t. So the move to us all paying road user charges will get no argument from me. What I am pushing back on, though, is the plan to get private companies running the new system.

To let private companies clip the ticket which, as far as I can see, will only lead to us paying more.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With the Government wanting artificial intelligence to be used to mark high school exams, I asked a ChatGPT bot how it felt about that.

And here’s what it said: "If the Government were to ask me to mark high school exams, I would feel (if I could feel) cautious optimism, with a big dose of responsible hesitation."

The bot said, on the upside, it could process thousands of scripts quickly, never get tired, and not suffer from the end-of-day brain fog that human markers do. It also wouldn't mark one student generously and another harshly on a bad day. And it could apply marking schedules with perfect consistency.

The bot also said there would be downsides. It said exam answers aren’t always clean-cut. A brilliant, unconventional insight might not fit the marking template, but a good teacher sees its value. That’s harder for AI to interpret correctly without "massive nuance training".

It said AI can reflect biases in its training data. Even small disparities in language use, cultural references, or phrasing could disadvantage students if the system isn’t carefully designed and constantly audited.

The ChatGPT bot also told me students, parents, and teachers would rightly ask how something was marked, and public confidence could be eroded.

It said, on balance, it would be in favour of "hybrid marking”, with AI doing pre-marking and humans handling the grey areas and double-checking. So AI would be a support tool.

In short, the AI bot said: "I’m capable. But I shouldn’t be trusted alone. Exam marking is too important to hand over fully to a machine - at least not yet."

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Opposition leader says he's worried Police are retrenching from rural communities.

A planned staffing restructure could move some permanent posted rural officers move to work from 24/7 hubs in Rolleston and Rangiora.

Officer headcount won't drop.

Chris Hipkins told John MacDonald he's been through this in his own area, in Wellington's Upper Hutt.

He says it means Police presence reduces.

He says rural communities are being sold the same story it won't affect local policing but the reality is, it will.

The Labour leader says Minister Mark Mitchell was happy to see more Policing in Auckland city, and it’s time for the Minister to walk the talk and tell the Commissioner he wants rural areas better provisioned.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Canterbury police say they'll still serve rural communities under a plan to centralise officers.

They're mid-way through two weeks of internal consultation on a plan to shift some officers from smaller rural stations, to larger 24/7 hubs in Rolleston and Rangiora.

District Commander Superintendent, Tony Hill, told John MacDonald rural liaison officers will still work with smaller areas, and police will respond and come in from one of the hubs.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.