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Speaker 1: Government's trying to get the cash out the door quickly.

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Speaker 1: This is to help the trades keep their jobs. Their

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Speaker 1: accelerating funding as part of a four hundred million dollar

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Speaker 1: fund to fix up and maintain old multi classrooms which

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Speaker 1: we know need to be fixed. This comes after, of course,

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Speaker 1: we had a one point eight percent drop in construction

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Speaker 1: quarter to a ten percent drop over the last year.

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Speaker 1: Education minist Minister Erica Stamford is with me, Minister, good evening, Hello, Hi,

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Speaker 1: very well, thank you. Why accelerate this funding now? Why

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Speaker 1: not six twelve months ago when the trades really needed it.

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Speaker 2: Well, we were already doing a huge amount. This is accelerated,

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Speaker 2: but if you look at the amount of classrooms were

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Speaker 2: built over the last year, it's thirty percent more than

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Speaker 2: the year before, last year, on the year before that,

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Speaker 2: This year we're going to build more than we did

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Speaker 2: the year before that. And I've got eight hundred million

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Speaker 2: dollars of stuff in the pipeline between now and Christmas.

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Speaker 2: So we were already doing a huge amount of heavy

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Speaker 2: lifting in education. And the reason we're able to do

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Speaker 2: that is because we got our act together. Because you

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Speaker 2: remember I turned up and it was an absolute, unmitigated disaster,

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Speaker 2: hundreds of projects unfunded. Basically, we've got to get act together.

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Speaker 2: We've got the property report done, We're building classrooms at

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Speaker 2: half the price. We've accelerated the number of classrooms we're building.

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Speaker 2: This is just the next step because we're in the

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Speaker 2: position to be able to do it.

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Speaker 1: Okay, you're saying money, now, how much money just for

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Speaker 1: our tradees listening? How much money is going to be

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Speaker 1: available this side of Christmas that wasn't going to be

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Speaker 1: available before this announcement.

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Speaker 2: Well, there's fifty eight million dollars of new money which

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Speaker 2: is going to be going out the door very quickly.

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Speaker 2: So school, every single school up and down the country

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Speaker 2: is going to be getting a fifty percent top up

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Speaker 2: on the school property maintenance grant.

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Speaker 1: So from when school now.

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Speaker 2: Now it'll be available now. Schools usually will do it

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Speaker 2: over the school holidays, so we're going out to every school.

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Speaker 2: They'll know now they'll be getting a form that says

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Speaker 2: what are you going to do with it? Because we're

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Speaker 2: going to track it, which we haven't done in the past,

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Speaker 2: but under this government we will What are you going

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Speaker 2: to do with it? When you're going to do it?

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Speaker 2: And get We're going to get money out of the door.

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Speaker 2: So this is for things like painting and washing and

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Speaker 2: gutters and minor fix up and roofing and bits and pieces,

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Speaker 2: but it is significant. There'll be some schools he'll be

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Speaker 2: getting one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The small schools

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Speaker 2: will be getting well more than a fifty fifty percent

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Speaker 2: up tech. They'll be getting a minimum of five thousand.

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Speaker 2: So for a very small school, you know, with just

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Speaker 2: you know, a handful of students, they'll be getting more

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Speaker 2: than that fifty percent.

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Speaker 1: All right, Minister, appreciate your time tonight, Erica Stamford, Education Minister.

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