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Speaker 1: Warning only call the ambulance today if you have life

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Speaker 1: threatening health issues. Saint John Ambulance staff are voted to

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Speaker 1: go ahead with a national withdrawal of labor after months

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Speaker 1: of foul pay negotiations. More than two and a half

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Speaker 1: thousand officers are staggering at four hour withdrawals of labor

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Speaker 1: until four am tomorrow. So this is all kicked off

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Speaker 1: in well an hour and a half ago. Now, this

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Speaker 1: withdrawal of labor. We're joined by Mark Quinn, who's with

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Speaker 1: the New Zealand Ambulance Association. Mark, good morning, good morning,

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Speaker 1: thanks for being with us. What is the worst time

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Speaker 1: to call an ambulance today? Do you have an idea?

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Speaker 2: No, I mean I think in every person's world there's

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Speaker 2: always never a good time to call an ambulance. Would

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Speaker 2: be the simple way to call it.

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Speaker 1: So, yeah, they're saying this is Saint John have mentioned

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Speaker 1: between the hours of six and ten am and then

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Speaker 1: ten to six to ten pm tonight, just because of

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Speaker 1: the way that shifts are structured and stuff.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so of course there is life preserving services across

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Speaker 2: and particularly covering from six to ten would be at

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Speaker 2: a time and six till ten tonight as well. That's

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Speaker 2: where generally the shifts on these multiple times when shifts

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Speaker 2: are changing over and even in Auckland which has an

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Speaker 2: exception and it has what we call swing shifts, so

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Speaker 2: those shifts start at various times eight nine, ten o'clock

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Speaker 2: through the twelve o'clock, So again those tifts will be

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Speaker 2: incurring a late start of four.

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Speaker 1: Hours and we'll be operating at seventy percent capacity. Is

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Speaker 1: that enough for the life preserving side of it?

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Speaker 2: Well, to be honest, that's what we run sometimes on

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Speaker 2: a daily basis. We've run lower than that at times

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Speaker 2: due to sick calls, particularly when we had COVID. So yeah,

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Speaker 2: some days in some areas. And that's the first interesting

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Speaker 2: feedback we're getting back that some of the areas are

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Speaker 2: not noticing the difference because they're running that low that

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Speaker 2: sometimes with ambulances due to various reasons.

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Speaker 1: How low do we go?

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Speaker 2: Good question, and this is the question we're asking, do

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Speaker 2: you want to have a third world run eminand service

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Speaker 2: or a first world eminance service which is well funded?

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Speaker 2: And that's the underlying issue.

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Speaker 1: Mark, what's the shortfall at the moment between what the

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Speaker 1: unions want and what acc and how new Zealand are

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Speaker 1: willing to fund Saint John.

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Speaker 2: An actual percentages. You know, there's at least we haven't

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Speaker 2: got into the numbers, but we're probably well that offer

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Speaker 2: has been made below inflaciery pressures and we need to

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Speaker 2: get it up above a flation pred because we're playing.

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Speaker 2: We're nine months into an agreement and it's all very

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Speaker 2: well for people, just you know, politicians are particularly excited

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Speaker 2: in the coalition government to talk about allowing CPI, but

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Speaker 2: you know, we've been missing out and we had a

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Speaker 2: previous deal that was at six percent that Saint John

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Speaker 2: pulled out of where it was a sign seal settlement

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Speaker 2: and they pulled out of it. So this is that

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Speaker 2: this is our problem, expecting us to take a live

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Speaker 2: percentage on one that they had previously agreed to.

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Speaker 1: What are they what are they offering if not.

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Speaker 2: Sex well below CPI. The at the moment there's a

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Speaker 2: two in there.

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Speaker 1: What a two? It starts with a two yep. So

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Speaker 1: we've got a way to go, haven't we. And more

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Speaker 1: strike actions planned for Saturday for those who are interested. Mark,

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Speaker 1: Thanks for your time. Mark Quen The New Zealand Ambulance

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Speaker 1: Association twenty for.

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