Heather du Plessis-Allan

Todd McClay is the Trade Minister and is with us.

Morning, Todd.

Did you see this coming?

Okay, so is this a case of we get rid of one tariff, we fight it off, and another one will just pop up with some other reason for it?

Can we fight this one off?

Is it even worth us fighting it off, Todd, if they're just going to come up with some other thing?

It does feel that way.

Todd, thank you very much for talking to us and enjoy Paris.

Credit to Simon Watts.

Some time ago he told me he was going to do something to stop the councils like the Far North District Council putting 10 iwi representatives, not elected by ratepayers, on a committee with six councillors who were elected with full voting rights, thereby outnumbering the elected folk.

So I sent him a text a couple of weeks ago asking him when I should check back in with him to see what he was going to do.

He responded, asked me to give him two weeks.

Two weeks ran out yesterday.

Yesterday is when he announced that he would be changing the law to take those voting rights away from the unelected representatives on council.

Now, this has become something of a race relations issue because the greatest number of unelected members that get attention are Maori.

There are iwi reps, there are mana whenua reps and so on.

But it is actually more than that.

It actually also involves youth representatives under 18s who haven't even learned to live in their own houses and pay their own power bills, who are then given permission by councils to vote on council issues without being elected.

This is a heartwarming yarn for you.

Ginger Nuts Angels, which is the foundation that was created by Jamie Lupton to help families pay for IVF and fertility, has raised more than $3.5 million and now funded 197 grants.