A mate was telling me last night how surprised he was that he was breath-tested by the police yesterday afternoon.

If he’d been riding an e-scooter, though, he would have been waived straight through.

If he’d been riding an e-scooter he also wouldn’t have been drug-tested. He also wouldn’t have had to have the thing registered like any other vehicle.

Which the AA is saying today is nuts and needs to change. Because even though the number of e-scooter injuries is going through the roof, e-scooter riders and e-scooter companies don't pay any ACC levies. And I agree with the AA.

Because when a vehicle is registered, it enables all sorts of things. One of which, is to charge ACC levies.

Which is way overdue for e-scooters, especially when you consider these new stats which show that ACC paid-out nearly $15 million for e-scooter injuries last year. Which was a 50% increase on the year before.

The number of injuries were up across all age groups. Although, one-in-four people injured were in their 20s. About half of the claims were for soft-tissue injuries. More than 1-in-20 were for fractures and dislocations.

People bang on all the time, don’t they, about people coming here from overseas and getting free ACC cover. The reason for that being that you can’t sue in this country and so we have to provide cover for people from overseas.

But the exact same thing is happening with e-scooter riders. Because they don’t have to pay ACC levies, they’re getting free ACC cover.

And if you don't like the fact that tourists get ACC for free, then you should be just as brassed-off about e-scooter companies and e-scooter riders getting the same.

There have been numerous efforts over the years to have e-scooters recognised as vehicles. None have been successful.

So the Automobile Association is trying again. Writing to the outgoing Transport Minister and the incoming Transport Minister, as well as the minister for ACC, telling them that the time has come for e-scooters to be registered.

The particular point that the AA is making is that the number of privately-owned e-scooters has reached the point where these things are not novelties anymore.

It’s not unusual for someone to own their own e-scooter and the laws need to catch up with that. They need to reflect that.

And it’s not as if the people who do own their own e-scooters don’t recognise the dangers. Most of the time they’re dressed up like Darth Vadar, aren’t they?

Full-face helmets and all of that. Plus, the protective clothing. And the speeds these things can get up to still blows me away.

Then you get the muppets on the Lime scooters and all those other rental scooters, riding as if there's no tomorrow. The one thing I’ll say about the people who own their own e-scooters is at least they put some effort into keeping themselves safe with the helmets and all that.

Another thing the AA wants to see is e-scooters being allowed in cycleways. It also wants e-scooter riders to be tested for alcohol and drugs. It wants them banned from using mobile phones, as well.

The Government has said it’s “open to changes”. As it should be. In fact, it should more than open to them, it should be getting on with it.

You’ll remember how, at the end of last year, motorcyclists were fired up about their ACC levies going up.

Motorcycle Advocacy Group New Zealand was even going to the Human Rights Commission about it, because motorcyclists are facing an 80% in ACC levies over three years.

And, at the time, I said if that’s what needs to happen —given that motorcyclists are at much greater risk and potentially more likely to need ACC cover— then why shouldn't they pay more cover?

As far as I’m concerned, the same goes for e-scooter riders. And the e-scooter rental companies too.

Because, like motorbikes and anything else on two wheels, they are inherently more dangerous than something on four wheels, and our transport laws need to recognise this.

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In the first Politics Friday of 2025, John MacDonald was joined by Matt Doocey and Megan Woods to dig into some of the biggest political stories of the week.

New data reveals that ACC paid out almost $15 million for e-scooter injuries last year, a nearly 50% increase on the year before – is it time for the businesses operating them to pay levies?

What does Megan make of Shane Jones honing in on the banks and their dealings —or lack thereof— with fossil fuel companies? Is it wise to sell off the country’s state-owned assets? And the new school lunch programme has seen some criticism – would Matt eat the meals?

LISTEN ABOVE

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I like to think that I care about the climate and climate change. Well, I know I care.

But, like most of us —if I’m really honest— I’m all a bit token on it.

Which might be why I’ve got absolutely no problem with Associate Energy Minister Shane Jones taking on the big banks for refusing to lend money to the fossil fuel industry.

I’m not like some people who I actually know —friends of mine— who are deeply committed to trying to do something about climate change. And it shows through the way they live their lives. I go along with the recycling and all that, but that’s about it.

If I was more of an eco-warrior, maybe I’d be ripping into Shane Jones for threatening the banks with a private members bill which —I’ll admit— could set quite a precedent. Because if Parliament forces banks to do business with the fossil fuel industry, what could be next?

And if I was more of an eco-warrior, maybe I’d be jumping to the defence of the banks and saying that they have every right to decide who they do and don’t do business with. Which, technically, they do.

But, despite all the things the fossil fuel industry gets accused of, it is not an illegal operation.

Which is why Shane Jones is planning this intervention to force banks to drop their “woke” approach and to stop treating people who own petrol stations, for example, like second-class citizens.

There’s similar talk across the Tasman. Peter Dutton —the opposition leader who could very well be prime minister in a few months in Australia— is saying the exact same thing as Shane Jones.

Which I agree with. If you’re running a perfectly legitimate business, then banks shouldn’t be allowed to close their doors to you.

Where this has all come from is a thing called the Net Zero Banking Alliance, which is a global thing that banks around the world have signed up to.

It’s voluntary, but a pretty good sell job has been done on it, obviously. Because all up, there are 136 banks around the world involved.

136 banks in 44 countries with assets worth about $NZD100 trillion.

The purpose of the alliance is to get banks to lend money to businesses and industries that align with the idea or the goal of having net zero emissions by 2050.

So you can see why the banks here have been pulling the pin on lending money to petrol stations. Because petrol is "bad" and doesn’t do much for achieving your net zero emissions by 2050.

And I’m perfectly happy if the banks want to be part of this. Good on them.

I’m perfectly happy if they want all their mobile mortgage managers to run around the place in EVs because that would align with zero emissions. Go for it.

I’m perfectly happy too for the banks to give all their staff free bus passes – although it would be us customers who would end up paying for it.

What else? Solar panels at all branches? Yep, go for that too.

But turn your nose up at petrol station owners and the general fossil fuel industry? No thanks.

Because, whether the banks like it or not, they are legitimate businesses - just as legitimate as any other sector. And what the banks are doing is wrong.

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Christchurch Mayor Phil Mauger is in campaign mode after confirmation he's seeking a second term in October's elections.

He'll battle Councillor Sara Templeton for the top job, the only other contender so far.

In his first catch up of 2025, he discussed his motivations with John MacDonald, as well as thoughts on alcohol bylaws, changing speed limits, and the lack of GPs in the area.

He’s prepared to talk to the new Health Minister about Canterbury's GP shortage.

Victoria University research has found half of family doctors in the region have no room for new patients.

It's worse in south Canterbury, and 59% of GPs have closed their books.

Phil Mauger told MacDonald he'll talk with Simeon Brown about potential solutions.

He says there's more people in Christchurch than ever, meaning the load is greater on general practices.

LISTEN ABOVE

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Generally speaking, when something isn’t making you any money, you try to get rid of it.

That’s in business, especially. And it looks like that’s the approach National might want to take with state assets too.

Christopher Luxon says he’s open to it, and I am too. To a point. And maybe not in the way Christopher Luxon is thinking.

The Prime Minister is saying that state asset sales are not on the agenda this term - but he’s willing to take it to the next election.

But let’s be honest, he’s more than just open to it. Especially when you hear him saying things about “recycling” assets making good sense if you’re not getting an adequate return on your capital.

But when I say I’m open to the Government selling-off some of its assets —or our assets— the approach I would want to see taken is a bit different from what most people think of when they hear talk about governments selling assets.

Anyone who opposes selling public assets —and these can be assets that are owned by the government but also owned by other outfits like local councils— argue that once something is sold you can’t get it back.

Which I get. It’s like finding yourself in a bit of financial strife and selling an old heirloom or something precious to you because you need the money. And then, down the track, you really regret it. Once something’s gone, it’s gone.

Which is how some people will be feeling about the PM saying that state asset sales are not on the agenda this term - but he’s open to it and willing to take it to the next election.

And he seems to be up for asset sale - like his predecessor, Sir John Key, who said on Newstalk ZB this morning that, if he needed urgent health care today, he wouldn't give two hoots about who owned the bricks and mortar.

And maybe that’s an easy thing for someone with plenty of money behind them to say.

But if you put that aside, he’s actually spot on. If something happened to you today, all you would care about is getting the treatment you needed.

And, if the government is going to down the track of selling assets, this is what it should focus on.

It should be trying to find buyers for all of our hospital buildings. It should be trying to find buyers for all of our state school buildings.

It should be selling all of the things that actually suck money away from the key public services that are provided inside those buildings.

Because the challenge when it comes to selling anything, is finding buyers.

The Christchurch City Council discovered that a few years back when it wanted to sell City Care because it wasn’t making it any money.

But I bet that if we put all of our hospitals and schools up for sale —I’m talking here about the bricks and mortar— I reckon the Government would have no problem finding buyers.

As former Labour and ACT party politician Richard Prebble puts it in the NZ Herald today: "If we want to be a first world country, then are we making the best use of the Government’s half a trillion dollars plus worth of assets?”

And I would argue that owning the bricks and mortar that Sir John Key talked about isn’t the best use of government capital. Owning hospital buildings isn't, nor is owning school buildings.

Because who cares who owns the buildings?

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What do you think someone in their 40s is thinking about right now?

I can think of a few things, and I bet it’s not retirement. Even though we’re being told today that that’s what someone in their 40s should be thinking about.

But I bet they’re not.

I reckon if someone is in their 40s and they’re a parent with kids at school, they’ll be cursing about all the back-to-school costs. But they’ll probably also be loving the fact that the holidays are pretty much over.

What else might people in their 40s be thinking about right now?

Maybe, with it being January, they might be thinking about trying to get a new job this year. Some of them will be thinking about getting a job full-stop.

If they’re in their 40s and they run a business, they’ll probably be hoping they can get through this year just like they got through last year. They might even be looking at their mates who have a job and get paid a salary and be thinking that working for someone else doesn’t actually look that bad after all.

There will be people in their 40s dealing with relationship break-ups. Some will be moving on to the next one, blending families and all of that.

They’re just some of the things that a person in their 40s might be thinking about right now.

But do you think anyone in their 40s is thinking about their retirement? In fact, not just thinking about it, actually planning for it. How likely do you reckon that is? Very unlikely.

But apparently they should be.

That’s according to the author of a new report out today which says “oh you know how we’ve been telling you that you need to have a million bucks in the bank if you want to have a comfortable retirement? Well, you might not need that much after all.”

In fact, you might even get away with having just $120,000 in the bank.

That’s the “no frills” version of retirement, by the way. If you want the frills, you’re going to need a million.

So where’s this thing today about young people proactively planning and preparing for their golden years coming from?

It’s coming from Massey University’s financial education and research centre, which has looked at spending by people who are retired now, and they've worked out that $120,000 in the bank could be enough for a comfortable “no frills” retirement.

They’ve found that retirees in urban areas spend less than retirees in provincial areas. But they pretty much put that down to things being more expensive in provincial areas and people having to drive more in provincial areas.

But even though they’re saying that $120,000 might do it instead of a million, they say that some other form of income after the age of 65 is needed for a really comfortable retirement.

And this is what Associate Professor Claire Matthews wants people in their 40s to be thinking about right now.

She says the standard of living most people hope to have when they retire requires more than just NZ Super, and that requires long-term thinking and planning.

But I think that kind of talk is unrealistic for the reasons I mentioned earlier. People in their 40s have got enough on their plate without thinking about retirement.

Granted, we are light years ahead from where we were when I began my working life, now that we have KiwiSaver.

In fact, I reckon people closer to my age —I’m 56— I reckon a lot of us are pretty distracted with life too and retirement isn’t really on our radar.

Sure, I’m doing the KiwiSaver contributions each fortnight, but that’s it.

And I’ll be totally honest with you, when it comes to my retirement, I’m probably preferring not to think about it.

Which I know is pretty reckless.

But it’s for the exact same reasons why I think someone in their 40s today won’t be giving too much thought to how life is going to be once they hit 65.

It’s called life. And doing what you have to do in the here and now.

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Do you know what the most pointless piece of road safety advice is? Drive to the conditions.

I get it and it’s well-meaning. But it’s pointless. A waste of breath. Because some people are incapable of doing it.

And it would seem from some of the reports in the past 24 hours about those two buses which went off the road yesterday on the Twizel-Tekapo highway after hitting black ice, that perhaps the drivers of those buses knew nothing about how you should be driving in sub-zero temperatures.

So they either didn’t know how to drive to the conditions - or just didn’t care.

This isn’t a one-off, either, by the way, and, I reckon the time has come for us to stop mucking around with this “drive to the conditions” nonsense and do one of two things.

We either follow the lead of some European countries and make winter tyres mandatory on all vehicles. Or, as soon as we know temperatures are going to be sub-zero where there’s a state highway, we close the road. We don’t wait around until the road is frozen over and it’s too late.

I see the guy in charge of the bus company involved in yesterday’s crashes is disputing any suggestion that they were going too fast. He would say that, though, wouldn’t he?

It’s not like he’s going to come out and say ‘oh yeah, those muppets I pay to drive my buses have got no idea about driving to the conditions’.

So, instead of relying on some bus company owner in Auckland, I’m going to give more credence to the eyewitness account of a chap by the name of Tony McClelland, who was on the road at the time. I bet he isn’t buying what the bus company guy is saying, either.

He was driving from Christchurch to Omarama. And he’s been in the news saying that the road conditions on that highway yesterday morning were the worst he’s ever seen.

He hit black ice himself near Tekapo Airport, nearly lost control of his van and almost ended up in a ditch. So he called the police and asked them to close the road.

Here’s a quote from what he’s saying: “You're looking at minus-5, minus-4 degrees, foggy conditions - that State Highway should have been closed. No doubt and it wasn't. There's just a big black sign up by the airfield saying 'dangerous conditions, black ice'. That's how people die."

Thankfully, no one did die. One person has serious injuries and two others have moderate injuries. And thank goodness those buses ended-up where they did - off the road and not in the middle of it.

But back to Tony McLelland. Once he’d called the cops, asking them to close the road, he thought about turning back but decided to press-on. But he stuck to 60kph. And it wasn’t long after that that he saw these two buses “flying out of the fog”. That’s what he’s saying.

And here’s how he describes what he saw. "They were not doing 60. They were not doing 80. They were doing at least 100, probably a little bit more."

And he obviously drives that road quite a bit, because he says it’s not uncommon to see drivers hoofing along at 100 kph during winter, when there’s black ice on the road.

But this sort of nutbar driving happens everywhere. Less than two weeks ago, police caught a driver doing 134 kph in icy, foggy conditions on the road to Aoraki/Mt Cook - with the whole family on board.

This was on State Highway 80. It was around minus-3.

The day after that, the police came out with a warning, saying the number of people driving at “horrendous” speeds in winter conditions is appalling.

Over a two-week period, 26 people had been caught doing speeds over 120 kph in icy conditions.

So what happened yesterday isn’t an isolated one-off. It’s happening on an all-too-regular basis and just telling people to “drive to the conditions” is worthy, but lame.

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