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Speaker 1: Now, last night of Wellington, Winston Peters delivered a speech

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Speaker 1: that showed he's not missing around with the Cook Islands.

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Speaker 1: He said, we need to reset the government to government relationship.

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Speaker 1: We need to formally restate responsibilities, obligations and the overall

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Speaker 1: parameters of the free association model. Or this no small task,

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Speaker 1: so does it be political? Editor Jason Walls is listening

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Speaker 1: to the speech enjoins me, now, good morning to you, Jason,

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Speaker 1: good morning. Does Winston want an apology for Mark Brown

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Speaker 1: or does he just want a conversation?

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Speaker 2: Oh, listen, I think he probably wants a bit of bolls.

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Speaker 2: It's clear that Winston is well passed fed up at

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Speaker 2: this stage. I mean the fact that Mark Brown went

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Speaker 2: to China, he signed this agreement with that practically no

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Speaker 2: oversight from New Zealand, no consultation or anything of the

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Speaker 2: sort has obviously, so I think of grave concern in

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Speaker 2: Winston has been quite upset about this for a number

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Speaker 2: of weeks now, and I can underte I can understand

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Speaker 2: why it's no small feats to completely snub New Zealand

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Speaker 2: in a sense and signed such a major agreement with

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Speaker 2: China without giving New Zealand much of a heads up,

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Speaker 2: and the government is still in the dark about the

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Speaker 2: details of this agreement. I mean they've released essentially what

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Speaker 2: can be described as the executive summary to New Zealand,

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Speaker 2: but Winston Peter's his officials in the Prime Minister for

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Speaker 2: that matter, are still waiting for some more information on

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Speaker 2: this one. So quite worrying times between the relationship between

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Speaker 2: the two countries and why the reset is occurring.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, it's a real telling off, but to some

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Speaker 1: diplomatic language, but that's the way you do it. So

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Speaker 1: that's the big thing, the restating the parameters of our

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Speaker 1: free association model. What could that look like?

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Speaker 2: Well, that's the thing. We need to wait and see

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Speaker 2: what that is. We've had about sixty years of this model,

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Speaker 2: and it's quite fitting that the that the Winston is

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Speaker 2: looking to reset it now in terms of what it

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Speaker 2: looks like, I mean, that's exactly the question that we're

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Speaker 2: asking at this stage. And with New Zealand and the

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Speaker 2: Cooks are extremely close. We've got say, passports, same currency,

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Speaker 2: various different things like that. So what it actually looks

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Speaker 2: like we'll be asking win Pete is that very question today?

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Speaker 2: I mean, I'm quite interested to see is we actually

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Speaker 2: at this situation is this is sort of almost a

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Speaker 2: block that he could make to say, if they actually

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Speaker 2: give us the details of what they signed with China,

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Speaker 2: can he go back on this and is using this

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Speaker 2: as just a bit of a trump card to say,

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Speaker 2: if you don't play by our rules, where we're going

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Speaker 2: to drop you.

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Speaker 1: Yes, if New Zealand's two hash, there is a real

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Speaker 1: risk that the Cook Islands will go okay. Well, China's

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Speaker 1: that mate, Well.

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Speaker 2: There is that risk and is the sort of the

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Speaker 2: trade off here because China have been sort of muscling

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Speaker 2: their way into the Pacific with their seemingly limitless amounts

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Speaker 2: of money. New Zealand, what we do have with the

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Speaker 2: Cook Islands is a long history of cultural connection with

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Speaker 2: the country. I mean there are a hundred thousand Cook

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Speaker 2: Islanders in New Zealand for example. So that is our

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Speaker 2: real trump card in this situation. But you know, is

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Speaker 2: it enough when China come calling with just bottomless pockets?

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Speaker 1: Jason Walls, thank you so much for getting up early

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Speaker 1: for us. That is Jason Walls, our political editor. For

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