On the Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive Full Show Podcast for Thursday, 19 June 2025, New Zealand has pulled almost $20 million of funding to the Cook Islands. Cook Islands News journalist Rashneel Kumar broke the story, he tells Heather how he found out and how terrible our relationship is right now.

Kiwibank's Jarrod Kerr is celebrating a surprisingly good GDP number for the first three months of the year - but still thinks more cuts to the OCR are desperately needed to boost the economy.

Another talkback-walkback! The Government u-turns on proposed changes to Fringe Benefit Taxes for utes.

Heather speaks to the only one person in the country who can prescribe magic mushrooms, Professor Cameron Lacey.

Plus, the Huddle debates whether it was a mistake to pull funding from the Cook Islands.

Get the Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive Full Show Podcast every weekday evening on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer recently chaired a meeting to discuss the UK’s response to the crisis in the Middle East.

There's growing concerns the conflict could escalate further, should the US enter the conflict between Israel and Iran.

UK correspondent Enda Brady says the UK Government will be weighing up a series of options, as the US hasn't revealed what actions they plan to take.

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Tonight on The Huddle, Auckland councillor Maurice Williamson and Wellbeing Economy Alliance director Gareth Hughes joined in on a discussion about the following issues of the day - and more!

Farmers are up in arms over new changes to the FBT that could potentially impact ute owners. What do we make of this? Do we see the Government changing this?

Was it a mistake for New Zealand to pull funding for the Cook Islands? How bad do the optics look here?

Shane Jones is floating the idea of getting rid of regional Government altogether. Is this a good idea?

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The Israel-Iran conflict has continued on for a week - and it's seen markets dropping as more fear the conflict intensifying.

Experts also believes markets are likely to drop further if the US gets more involved in the conflict.

Sam Dickie from Fisher Funds explains the market impact of the conflict.

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Brendan Attrill, of Caiseal Trust in Taranaki, has been announced as the 2025 National Ambassador for Sustainable Farming and Growing.

Attrill received the Gordon Stephenson Trophy at the National Sustainability Showcase at Tākina in Wellington.

The Country's Jamie Mackay explains further.

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New data out of Stats NZ reveals the country's gross domestic product grew by 0.8 percent in the first quarter of 2025.

It's a stronger result than predicted by the Reserve Bank and Treasury.

NZ Herald business editor at large Liam Dann unpacks these results - and voices his concerns about the future.

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New research indicates New Zealand may be removing more carbon than it produces.

A new study from NIWA has highlighted a potential carbon sink in Fiordland's native forests - and researchers found our environment absorbs at least 170 million tonnes of carbon per year.

NIWA atmospheric scientist Beata Bukosa says it's still unclear where the carbon goes - and more research needs to be carried out.

"It's maybe potentially exported somewhere else, so that's something we still need to figure out."

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Federated Farmers is calling on Revenue Minister Simon Watts to rule out new changes to the Fringe Benefit tax that would impact utes.

The IRD has proposed major changes to the way FBT applies to utes and farmers are concerned this would set them back thousands of dollars a year.

Federated Farmers' transport spokesperson Mark Hooper says this issue started drawing in more attention post-Fieldays.

"We've had a little bit of communication with the minister's office - as I said, we looked at it from a farm perspective, we could see that there were some issues with the categories they had laid out."

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