The Panel with Gary McCormick and Niki Bezzant (Part 1)

Nurses are to strike on Thursday for the first time in 30 years. They're sticking to their guns but the acting Prime Minister Winston Peters says there's just no more money. So, what happens now? We ask law professor Margaret Wilson of the University of Waikato. The government's confirmed the purchase of four new maritime patrol planes. It's costing $2.3bn. Green MP Golriz Gharaman doesn't want to see them fitted-out to carry missiles and bombs and that leads us to asking just what is New Zealand's military role in the Pacific? Should we be combat-ready or concentrate on search and rescue and monitoring the fishery? An EU diplomat has managed to get away with not paying $20k she owed a Wellington landlord in rent. Her landlord says it proves landlords have no power. And maybe it proves diplomatic immunity has too much. We talk to law professor Bill Hodge from the University of Auckland about whether changes are needed for the immunity statutes. When the going gets tough some MPs just bottle it. The UK's Boris Johnson has joined his Tory colleague David Davis in exiting the Cabinet in the face of an unpalatable Brexit deal. And in New Zealand we saw the likes of Steven Joyce and Jonathan Coleman say goodbye to politics altogether after National lost the 2017 election. Whatever happened to having the courage of ones convictions?