On the Early Edition with Andrew Dickens Full Show Podcast Wednesday the 21st of October 2026, Police arrests for retail crime are through the roof, Retail NZ CEO explains.

Labour’s promising to cut emergency department wait times, Association of Salaried Medical Specialists' Executive Director Sarah Dalton tells Andrew if the plan will work.

The Drug Foundation says three New Zealanders a week are needlessly dying to overdoses; Drug Foundation Executive Director Sarah Helm tells Andrew what needs to change.

Plus, Gavin Grey UK/Europe Correspondent has the latest on Prince Harry says he would like to 'reconcile' with his family, and the BBC has confirmed the closure of tv and radio channels BBC Three, BBC Scotland and BBC Radio 4 Extra linear broadcast services in Q1 of 2027.

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Retailers are celebrating the Police crackdown on retail crime.

Annual Ministry of Justice data to June, shows record-high finalised charges for theft from a retail premises, topping 21-thousand - more than tripling since 2022.

Retail NZ believes offending's down as much as 30 percent since last year.

Chief Executive Carolyn Young told Andrew Dickens Police's national retail crime unit has had success tracking repeat offenders.

She says they're able to pull together a file on someone connecting a wide range of offences from different stores and send officers to apprehend them.

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The other day Christopher sent conniptions through the commentariat by saying we'll be lucky to have a Government by Christmas.

I'm not surprised.

So we have an election on November 7.

Writ day is December 3.

That's the deadline for all the votes to be counted.

It's 3 weeks later.

It's always been 3 weeks later.

Now here's a thing.

Same day voting was removed from this election and the reason given was to make the vote count faster.

If it's not faster then the allegations of electoral manipulation will be strengthened.

That is was done to disenfranchise the votes of the lazy, ignorant and young.

So let's watch to see if they beat the deadline aye?

And by the way, there are 64,000 young voters yet to enrol with 3 days to go untill the deadline which was brought forward by a fortnight.

So let's just say we know the vote by the start of December.

Then the negotiations begin with the so called minor parties looking to have a stronger hand. That's going to slow things down.

Then there's Christmas.

Then there's the January holiday.

And all this depends on whether the mandate is clear which it is fair to say is currently looking murky.

So it's going to be a while. Christmas looks a forlorn hope to me. February seems more likely.

And then I have odds on any coalition being shaky and it's be an even bet on whether we'll be back to the polls in a year.

Buckle yourself in. This is going to be a wild ride.

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Our Superannuation fund is seeing great returns, but growth is still needed for the long term.

The 25-year-old fund is now worth $94.35 billion dollars, excluding tax, with it earning $9.3 billion in the past reporting year – a return of almost 14.2%.

Infometrics' Brad Olsen told Andrew Dickens that it's useful money to have, but the expectation for the fund is to grow it to $200 billion by 2040.

He says there's a lot of growth still to come, but it's at a time when the bill is still growing and we have to pay for it in the short term.

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There's excitement in the apple sector over access to 1.4 billion Indian consumers being unlocked.

Our new Free Trade Agreement with the world's most populous nation takes effect today, with 57% of exports to India now tariff-free.

The number of tariff-free exports would rise to 82% over time, with the next round of cuts due from next year.

Apples and Pears Chief Executive Danielle Adsett told Andrew Dickens there's huge demand for our products.

She says we have the best apples in the world and India's growing middle class want them because they're tasty and can be trusted.

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On the Early Edition with Andrew Dickens Full Show Podcast Tuesday 20th of October 2026, Labour's pledging to ban social media for under-16s within its first 100 days if elected, Secondary Principals Association Chair and B416 expert advisory panel member Steve McCracken shares his thoughts.

The New Zealand Superfund has posted a 14.17% increase, Infometrics Principal Economist Brad Olsen tells Andrew if it's enough.

The India FTA kicks in from today, New Zealand Apples and Pears CEO Danielle Adsett tells Andrew if it's time to celebrate.

Plus, Nick Harper has the latest on Trump's approval rating and Russia says Putin could hold a meeting with Trump and Xi on ending the Ukraine war.

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A school leader says it's fantastic both major parties are backing a crackdown on children's social media use.

Labour says an under-16 social media ban will go before a select committee within 100 days, if they're elected, alongside a new digital duty of care law.

National introduced a similar bill to Government in August.

Secondary Principals Association Chair and B416 Expert Advisory Panel member Steve McCracken told Andrew Dickens both policies have merit.

He says it's hard to determine which is better, as more detail is needed for each.

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So, there's an election promise to train more dentists in Otago.

The first increase in training numbers in 10 years.

And if it comes to pass you will have to say why did this not happen earlier.

In John Key's day economic policy supercharged our economy on the back of mass immigration and surging property prices.

But as our population rapidly grew nobody stopped to have a hmm.

More people are going to need more dentists.

But as has been New Zealand's want for a long time now, we took the growth but did not invest in the services it demanded.

It's the same for doctors.

New Zealand has had only two medical schools since the 1960s, and for about 20 years successive governments kept a fairly tight cap on medical student numbers.

The cap was only substantially lifted in 2024 after years of warnings about doctor shortages.

The New Zealand Government has approved a third medical school, to be based at the New Zealand Graduate School of Medicine at the University of Waikato.

The decision was announced in July 2025, and work is now underway to establish the school.

The first intake is expected in 2028 with an initial intake of 120 students per year.

If we have a shortage of qualified medical staff it has been entirely of our own choosing and has smacked of short termism that will only cost us more than if we had done it in the first place.

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