Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald

About Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald

Every weekday join the new voice of local issues on Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald, 9am-12pm weekdays. It’s all about the conversation with John, as he gets right into the things that get our community talking. If it’s news you’re after, backing John is the combined power of the Newstalk ZB and New Zealand Herald news teams. Meaning when it comes to covering breaking news – you will not beat local radio. With two decades experience in communications based in Christchurch, John also has a deep understanding of and connections to the Christchurch and Canterbury commercial sector. Newstalk ZB Canterbury Mornings 9am-12pm with John MacDonald on 100.1FM and iHeartRadio.

Publisher

Newstalk ZB

Category

news

Language

en

Explicit

Yes

First episode

16 Jun 2021

Latest episode

8 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

1,406 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   8 Oct 2026

   John MacDonald: If you're over 50, be wary of National's plan

   Anyone over the age of 50 should be very wary of this plan National has to reduce benefit payments for people on the Jobseeker benefit longer than two years. I’ll tell you why. But first, here’s what it wants to do to save taxpayers $572 million over four years. A single person receiving the Jobseeker benefit would get $48 less per week after more than two years. A couple both receiving it who don’t have kids would get $82 less. While a couple with kids would get $24 less. And a sole parent on Jobseeker would also have their benefit cut by $24 a week. National’s view is that the Jobseeker benefit is there to provide temporary support for people. That it’s a backstop. Which, broadly, is how I see it too. I have never been on the dole or the Jobseeker benefit. And, when I lost my job at the start of Covid, signing up never actually occurred to me. I just got on with setting myself up as a sole trader to get some money in the door. And I went from there. But that’s me. Everyone approaches things differently. And not everyone has the confidence or the skills or the wherewithal to create something themselves. That’s not a criticism of anyone. It’s just a fact. National, though, sees everyone being the same and having the same opportunities to find work. Here’s how leader Christopher Luxon put it: “I am not happy to have people sitting out there on welfare when there's a massive opportunity to connect them to work. That is what we want to do.” Which all sounds great. But here’s the kicker. Bringing me back to my warning that anyone over the age of 50 should be very wary of this idea. Those of us over 50, like I am, know that if we find ourselves out of work, it’s going to take us way longer to find a job than someone younger than 50. I’ll give you an example. Sue’s her name. She has decades of experience in law and engineering. At 63, she was out of work and putting in half a dozen job applications every day for six months, with no success. And she’s convinced it was because of her age. In fact, she says: "I got one response. She phoned me up from Australia and asked me over the phone: 'I need to verify your age.' And when she found out what age I was, that was it." That’s the brutal truth. And I can imagine two years disappearing very quickly for someone over 50 trying to get back into the workforce. Not to mention someone over 60. Like Yvonne, who has removed anything in her CV that might give away her age. She says: “As soon as you start getting into your 50s, even in your late 40s, people start looking at you and wonder why you haven't become a manager.” And this is why this policy of National’s has unintended consequences written all over it. I get what its social development spokesperson, Louise Upston, means when she says the Jobseeker Benefit is supposed to provide temporary support for people. But this idea that anything longer than two years isn’t temporary totally ignores reality. Especially for anyone over the age of 50. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.

2. 

   8 Oct 2026

   Election 2026: Matt Doocey and Dan Rosewarne make their pitch to be the MP for Waimakariri

   This week's Politics Friday Election Special focused on the Waimakariri electorate. The candidates, Matt Doocey from National, and Dan Rosewarne from Labour, made their pitch about why they want to become the next local MP. They discussed their backgrounds before getting into politics, and what issues face the electorate including the Woodend bypass and the Pegasus Golf Course, as they made their pitch to get elected in November. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.

3. 

   8 Oct 2026

   John MacDonald: What's wrong with letting kids be kids?

   Let kids be kids. That’s what I thought when I read about a very successful young guy with 12 university degrees, who thinks we need to be pushing Kiwi kids harder from a younger age. Jamie Beaton is co-founder of Crimson Education, which helps Kiwi students get into the top universities around the world. Sir John Key is Crimson’s chairman. It’s done very well, with a capital value of $1 billion. But I don’t like what Jamie Beaton is saying about pushing kids harder. The way he puts it is that we need to “crank up the intensity” for kids 12 and older. He thinks we let them cruise through school and we make it too easy for them to get into university. And, instead, we should be bringing up kids the way they do in places like Singapore. Where kids have to compete to get into university and, from a young age, are very driven. Jamie Beaton says: “Kids are hustling from 12, 13, 14 to study for these exams, build their leadership skills, launch different projects, do community service, and the incentives actually make the child very motivated.” Is that really the ideal? I don’t think so. He goes on: “I would much rather Kiwis be 12, 13 and hustling, motivated, ambitious, trying things, competing and striving, than just going to school and watching the clock hit 3:30 and going off and using TikTok.” But here’s where I’m at. The world kids live in is stressful enough and what do you think would happen with things like anxiety levels if we went down the route Jamie Beaton is pushing for? In an age where we’re all talking about adults having work-life balance, why on earth would we want to force our kids from the age of 12 to use every hour God sends them doing this and doing that? Besides which, the way he’s talking, you would think there are no teenagers in this country out there doing amazing things. There are truckloads of them. You go to any major school sporting event. Find out more about things like the Young Enterprise Scheme, where school students get to start businesses and learn all sorts of skills. So the opportunities are there for these kids, if that’s what they want to do. But sometimes, even the really motivated kids find that they have limits and can’t keep pushing themselves. Which is why this talk about forcing kids from the age of 12 to hustle and compete, get into university and do community service and everything else, is the last thing our young people need. It is the complete opposite of letting kids be kids. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.

Who has been a guest on Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Chris Hipkins
• Dave Ananth
• Vanessa Weenink
• Reuben Davidson
• Phil Mauger

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

7,631,690

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Podcast Authority Score: 71 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

85

Social presence

0

YouTube

93

Engagement

50

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