It's thought there are few silver linings to come from the Government's road cone hotline.

The pilot, which encouraged the public to report excessive cone use, ends tomorrow, six months ahead of schedule.

Site visits found 86% of worksites were already compliant, and Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden says the trial has done what it needed to do.

CEO of traffic management company Parallaxx Dave Tilton told Andrew Dickens some of the data collection may be useful.

He says it brought the road control authorities including NZTA, WorkSafe, and councils together well.

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One of the major banks is predicting some of the best quarterly GDP figures in years.

Stats NZ is releasing the economic figures for the three months ending September this morning, with the Reserve Bank's forecasting growth of 0.4%.

Westpac predicts a 0.9% gain, putting that down to a jump in activity across the board.

Chief Economist Kelly Eckhold told Andrew Dickens it would fill in a hole from the previous quarter.

But he says there needs to be two or three quarters of growth before people can be confident the country is on an upward trend.

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The self-inflicted deaths of six Northland young people reveals dangerous flaws in our suicide prevention system.

An inquiry by Northland Coroner Tania Tetitaha into the deaths, calls for a single, coordinated system.

The youths had worked with up to 17 agencies - that hadn't seemed to identify or follow up on their need for support.

Mindworks psychologist Sara Chatwin told Andrew Dickens we don't need more thinking groups and documentation - but rather people who have the skills and willingness to deal with these issues.

She says in New Zealand, we clearly have a huge problem - that other countries are very aware of.

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I’m still in slack mouthed shock at Barbara Edmonds performance on this programme yesterday.

After the release of the Government’s books showing, we’re still in deficit and will be in deficit longer and with every day that passe our debt grows.

Labour was quick to say National had screwed things up and we should have voted Labour onto the Treasury benches.

I would have thought that would mean they knew how to do things better. Therefore, they could perhaps tell you and I what should have been done.

So, we gave them the opportunity to share their superior knowledge particularly with you the voter yesterday morning

And what did we get. Nothing other than slogans and a general tone of just trust us things could have been better and we’ll tell you why next year.

Now to be fair she did criticise Nationals tax cuts.

That was the moving of the thresholds and reinstating the rebates for landlords.

That had the effect of reducing government revenue by $14 billion dollars. $14 billion that could have been used to repay the debt or build infrastructure.

Now the thresholds were morally wrong, and I agree with resetting them.

They were giving Government an automatic tax rise due to wage inflation.

But changing them in a time of economic downturn when your revenue was reducing anyway was a self-inflicted wound on the books.

But they had promised them in the election calling them a tool against the rise in the cost of living.

But that was no better than Barbara Edmonds yesterday. It was a slogan to get votes.

I don’t know if National knew that purposely reducing their revenue was unsustainable. Slashing their own revenue undid all the work they did cutting spending.

If they did know that was possible then that’s a piece of economic foolishness.

And this is what worries me the most about this country and all its politicians.

They’ll say anything to get votes. They care more about keeping their jobs rather than making the country better.

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On the Early Edition with Andrew Dickens Full Show Podcast Thursday the 18th of December 2025, it's the final GDP for the year, Westpac Chief Economist Kelly Eckhold tells Andrew what he's expecting.

The Government's announced the road cone hotline will close as it hits it's objectives, Dave Tilton, Chair of the Temporary Traffic Management Industry Steering Group shares his thoughts.

Coroner Tania Tetihaha says the system is broken after probing the suicides of six young people, Psychologist at Mindworks Sara Chatwin shares her thoughts.

Plus, US Correspondent Jagruti Dave has the latest on Trump announcing a "blockade" of sanctioned oil tankers in and out of Venezuela and the White House reaction to Trump's chief of Staff Susie Wiles's Vanity Fair interviews.

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

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A transport voice says there's some sense to the Government's new mega-Ministry idea.

It wants to abolish the environment, housing and urban development, and transport ministries and introduce a new Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport – M CERT.

It argues these areas are undergoing reforms and right now the system's too fragmented.

Transporting NZ's Dom Kalasih told Andrew Dickens navigating across multiple agencies can carry challenges, and sometimes "less is more".

He says transport's one part of a larger eco-system so taking a more unified connected approach makes some sense.

However, there’s a worry that projects that are already on the go, such as road user and congestion charges, may not be achieved as efficiently.

Kalasih says the sector’s just started to gain momentum in these areas.

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Labour believes it's more financially responsible than the current Government following the release of Treasury's Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update.

It's predicting economic growth of just 1.7% in 2026, well down on the May Budget's 2.9% forecast.

Labour's Finance and Economy spokesperson Barbara Edmonds was asked by Andrew Dickens whether her party would have increased taxes to get back in black faster.

She says they would have followed the same plan they had in 2023, before the election, but ultimately it comes down to choices.

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Belief whistleblowers are vital to exposing voting failures, after a South Auckland local body election was overturned.

Judge Richard McIlraith ruled irregularities altered the outcome of the Papatoetoe vote for the Otara-Papatoetoe Local Board.

The case involved stolen voting papers and fraudulent use.

A new election must be held by April 9.

Transparency International NZ CEO Julie Haggie told Andrew Dickens there’s no sign of wider system problems nationally.

She says it does seem to be picking up them, as someone made a case for a district court inquiry and got a result.

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