If you want to racially abuse hospital staff and demand white only nurses, fine. We will draw a curtain around your bed, and you’ll lie there and wait. You need pain relief, assistance to go to the loo, have your sheets changed, have your blood pressure monitored - make sure it's not getting dangerously high. You lie there and you wait. You wait for a white nurse to come on duty. You might be waiting a while.

I don't know how this ugly racist who the poor people at Waitakere Hospital have had the misfortune to be dealing with defines “whites only” in his tortured little brain. Do they mean Pakeha New Zealanders? Although I'm sure they never refer to them as Pakeha. Would an Irish nurse with a pale complexion but without New Zealand citizenship do? If it was based on whites only, I wouldn't have had the operations I've had done in a timely fashion if I was waiting for someone with a pale face to turn up and do them. Nor would I have had the care and attention I've received in hospital if I had depended on white only nursing staff and hospital aides to provide it.

More than 30 staff at one of Waitākere Hospital wards took the unusual step of signing a cease work order in July, after a patient had reportedly abused them and made sexually suggestive comments over a period of six weeks. They shouldn't have had to put up with it for a minute, far less six weeks. It was only when they signed the cease work order that management actually did something about it, and told the patient he would be discharged, or they'd call on the police if he didn't stop what he was doing immediately. And guess what he did? He stopped. That's what bullies do. You front up to them, you face them off and they will back down.

Six weeks they had to put up with this. Health workforce leaders say Health New Zealand needs clear national guidelines for responding to racial discrimination against staff, saying it should not have required a cease work order to resolve the incident, and no it bloody should not. Nor should hospital management acquiesce to any patient’s demands about the ethnicity of hospital workers. Remember the Herald report earlier this month that revealed leaders at North Shore Hospital agreed to a patients request to have no Asian staff at their surgery? A decision which angered workers and was condemned by unions. These are not isolated incidents.

I can't imagine how ugly the abuse would have had to have been for the staff to take a stand, because they're abused every single day – which is incomprehensible. These are people trying to help you, trying to fix you, trying to give you comfort no matter if you've bought about your own misfortune or not. They, unlike some of the patients, leave judgement at the door and they are professional, they are caring, they are skilled, and they are human. They have a breaking point – six weeks of constant abuse, a barrage of racial abuse and sexually suggestive comments, you know what? They're going to draw a line too. They also come from all over the world, as do hospital staff in just about every healthcare system in the world. Hospitals are a beautiful meld of cultures and ethnicities, all working together to do their very best for you.

You want whites only? You won't find any hospital anywhere in the world that can offer you that, because the global health system would collapse without the very best from every country in the world working collaboratively.

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More than 30 staff at Waitākere Hospital refused to care for a racially abusive patient in a bid to get hospital managers to defuse the situation.

The male patient had asked for white-only staff, making racist and sexual remarks over a period of six weeks.

Their drastic action prompted hospital managers to escalate their response and defuse the situation.

New Zealand Nurses Organisation delegate Ben Basevi told Kerre Woodham he thinks management was out of touch, and didn’t come down to see what was happening when complaints started arising.

He said that when they talked to staff about the situation, it was clear that nothing short of the cease work order was going to work.

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Yesterday afternoon, a woman was taken to hospital in a critical condition after being seriously injured in an assault on board a bus broad daylight. Shortly before 6pm, police confirmed the person had died in the hospital – they said the victim was a passenger on the bus. They say nobody else is at risk at the moment, they know who the alleged offender is, but it's unsettling. This is not the norm, this is not what should be happening. You should be able to board a bus on a quiet Wednesday and get to your destination safely without being abused, without being spat at, without being assaulted, and without being stabbed until you die.

There's something horribly aberrant about this. We've had a lot of good news recently, the Coalition Government has been talking tough on crime since they were campaigning to be elected, and then we've had the good news announcements of major criminal organisations being busted - Comanchero’s down south, Mongrel Mob in Opotiki. We've had the announcement of more cops on the beat, a visible sign of the police being around, which does so much to make people feel safe and does a lot to prevent crime. There are already about 30 officers working the beat in Auckland City. The total police force on the beat in Auckland will exceed 50, it’s expected to have exceeded 50 by the end of last month. Seventeen officers deployed in Wellington, in Christchurch an extra 10 tramping the footpaths, and by the end of the two-year roll out Coster said there would be 21 officers deployed in each of Auckland's three policing districts, making up 63 additional officers on the beat across the region.

So that is great, these are good news stories that do make you feel better, but you cannot have a police officer on every bloody bus or every train. You can't even have a security guard on every bus or every train. Incidents like this happen, and then you get the New Zealand Crime and Victim Survey coming along, asking questions, do you feel safe? And you say no, I bloody don't. I don't feel safe when a person can be stabbed on a bus in broad daylight on a Wednesday.

The sixth New Zealand Crime and Victim Survey that was released in June interviewed thousands of New Zealanders about their experience of crime, whether they reported it or did not report it. Although it should be noted they didn't talk to businesses, and a hell of a lot of crime affected business over the last few years. People said they felt unsafe, despite the fact that crime rates have remained steady over the last three or four years. All of the good news can be forgotten when something as random and as savage as this incident occurs.

I think the idea of addressing the situations where crime occurs is a good one. If we're looking at families that are at risk, we need to focus on them. So, the Social Investment Agency, that is a good move. Investing in community programs that work is good. Investing in more rehab centres, drug and rehabilitation centres would be excellent. I still don't believe there are nearly enough facilities available for people who want to get help, for families who want loved ones to get help. The promised care in the community for those who are severely disordered, not there, and hasn't been there for a very, very long time. So you've got to look at the drivers of crime as well as crime itself.

Great, we've got the Coalition Government talking tough on crime, actually making a difference when it comes to getting police on the beat, actually making a difference when it gets more police officers policing, rather than acting as social workers. When you've got drug rings being disrupted, all of this is good. This is feel good stuff, but it only takes one random incident and people are unsettled.

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Who doesn't love hosting a good party? Who hasn't enjoyed the buzz that comes from having people from all over the world heading into town intent on having a good time?

Even if you can't afford the price of the tickets to the Rugby World Cup, or through fee for Women's World Cup, or you haven't got a gin palace to head out on the water to get up, close and personal to the America's Cup racing, you can still share in the good times and the positive vibes that are generated when a marquee event is set up in New Zealand.

Attention, of course, is now turning to whether New Zealand can mount a defence of the America's Cup and New Zealand waters. Of course we can do it, we've done it before, it's whether there's a willingness to do it.

Former Prime Minister and patron of Emirates Team New Zealand Helen Clark says the case for public funding to host a future America's Cup is as strong as when her government was a significant financial backer. Clark's Labour-led coalition backed hosting the 2003 event in Auckland and sponsored the team in Valencia and San Francisco for the 32nd to 34th iterations of the America's Cup. She said it was all-round a hard economic case of what is good for New Zealand.

But right now, in this time, can we afford it? And really, when you crunch the numbers, could we even afford it back then?

The Government says it's open to a discussion about hosting the Cup in New Zealand, but any government support would need to be assessed against many other competing priorities in these tight economic times and demonstrate clear value for money and economic benefit.

When you have got the sort of infrastructure spending that we need, when you've got community groups that are crying out for funding, which has been cut or has been cut back, can you really make a case that hundreds of millions of dollars taxpayer dollars should go to a defence of the America’s Cup?

How you work out whether it will indeed be profitable depends on which report do you want to commission and which report you want to read. Helen Clark says Barcelona used the hosting of the cup as a catalyst for reviving its economy, and it's absolutely thrilled with the outcome of it. Five years from now, you'll probably read a report saying poor decision.

When we last defended the America’s Cup, it was extraordinary times. We're in the middle of lockdowns, open for business and then we were not. It was very odd times. And not nearly as many people as organisers had hoped made their way to New Zealand (who can blame them) for spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and getting their boats redesigned and rebuilt and refurbed by skilled New Zealand Craftsman.

All of the cases made for hosting the America's Cup fell a bit short and a fell a bit flat. And if you look at other countries around the world too, they say it cost them an awful lot, a bit like hosting the Olympics.

Conversely, you look at the FIFA Women's World Cup that appears to have been a success, again depending on the reports you read, but it appears to have been a success both in terms of the profile of the sport, support of the sport and turning a buck.

In these times, where we've all been told and I've said and you know, that things are tough. Right now, most of us are dealing with the have to haves, not the nice to haves. We're trying to find money for the essentials, the necessaries of life. Not the frilly, gorgeous, good time of fun things of life.

Is now the right time to be saying hold it here, because Emirates team New Zealand won a lot of money? They have to have a lot of money. It's an expensive sport. These are expensive sailors. There are a lot of rich men who want the kudos of being the one that won the America’s Cup. They're willing to spend billions to do so. And they will pay any price.

And I think we've all grown up and got past the whole New Zealand sailors should simply sail for the love of their country. Remember the BlackHearts campaign? Just about tore ZB apart. So it costs and Emirates Team New Zealand will make whoever wants to host it pay through the nose for the privilege of doing so.

Is now the right time? Doesn't appear to be.

The only thing I'd say in its favour is that we've got all that infrastructure there at the Viaduct. It's not being used.

It would be at about 40 percent capacity, which is a damn shame. Everything was built and nobody came because of the extraordinary times.

So it would be nice to see that that investment could be used, could be capitalised upon. But right now I would say hosting a defence of the America’s Cup would be in the nice to have category, not in the is absolutely imperative that we do so category.

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Former Prime Minister Helen Clark says it's politically viable for New Zealand to host the America's Cup as we've done it before, and if we don't step up, someone else will.

She says Kiwis love to see New Zealand doing well and winning – and says we know having the Cup at home comes with economic benefits.

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown says the hosting decision is in the hands of Team New Zealand boss Grant Dalton.

AUT Sailing Professor and former New Zealand world champion sailor Mark Orams joined Kerre Woodham.

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The Greens voted last night to swallow a dead rat. Even the vegans had to chew on a dead rat last night. Green Party delegates overwhelmingly decided to use the Waka Jumping law, which they hate, to eject Darleen Tana from Parliament if she decides not to quit first. Darleen Tana, the former Green MP, currently sits, useless as tits on a bull, as an independent and was the subject of a late night special general meeting zoom. All 185 party delegates present at the meeting reached consensus —I don't think they do anything so trad and bourgeois as vote— they reach consensus within the Green Party, to endorse using the legislation against Tana.

Political reporters say that suggests the party is far more united on the issue than previously thought. There had been some hoohah about treatment of women and treatment of women of colour within the Greens, but it appears not. It appears they can all see that the reason that Darleen Tana is sitting there squatly in Parliament is because she's got nowhere else to go. She's not acting on a matter of principle, she's not acting on a matter of the higher moral ground the Greens are very fond of finding, she's just sitting there because she needs a gig and as to pay the bills.

So the Greens have been historically vocal about their dislike for the same law they've now opted to use against Tana, but Green Party Co leader Chloe Swarbrick says everyone should be open to changing their minds when faced with issues like this.

What do we expect our politicians to do? If a party is elected and you as a voter have listened to the campaign promises, and you've read through their policies, and you understand what it is that they intend to do when they get into power, do you then sit back and watch as they go and renege on every single promise and are not the party you voted for? You'd want to see politicians take a principled stand, wouldn't you?

Do you expect them to stick to a party that has been disloyal to its voting base, or do you expect them to take a principled stand? Resign and sit as an independent in the House, being a burr under the saddle of the government, reminding them of the broken promises? I think we can all see with Darleen Tana that she needs a gig. She needs a job. She's not going to get one that pays that well. Sitting doing nothing in Parliament is paying her a hell of a lot more than she'll get doing anything else. She is not principled, but other MPs have been, and they should be allowed to do so. They should be allowed to sit in the house and remind a party that it's broken its promises to its voters, in my opinion.

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