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Speaker 1: Now it looks like christ Church is about to head

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Speaker 1: into a bit of an asset selling debate. Christchurch City

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Speaker 1: Council's commercial arm has floated selling some assets to pay

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Speaker 1: for others, in particular selling the broadband business in city

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Speaker 1: Care and then taking over more of the airport.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: Sam McDonald is a christ Church City councilor and is

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Speaker 1: with us. Now, Hi, Sam, Hi, here the how are

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Speaker 1: you well? Thanks?

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Speaker 2: Mate?

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Speaker 1: Do you like this idea?

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Speaker 2: Well, look, I cheered the finance committee at christ Church

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Speaker 2: City Council and there's obviously some pressure on you know,

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Speaker 2: really what we're doing for our budgeting purposes, so we're

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Speaker 2: going to have to do something. But you know, this

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Speaker 2: isn't wholesale asset sales. And this was effectively just a

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Speaker 2: letter from the chair of our holdings company, which you

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Speaker 2: would expect, signaling that actually we need to work through

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Speaker 2: challenges as they come up. So pretty relaxed about it.

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Speaker 2: They're obviously full public consultation, but no decisions have been made.

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Speaker 1: Okay, would you support selling enable the broadband business?

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Speaker 2: Look, well, I've floated the idea some time ago because

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Speaker 2: if you think about our portfolio just for people listening,

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Speaker 2: there's about five billion dollars worth of versus sitting within

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Speaker 2: there we get between sixty five and seventy five million

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Speaker 2: dollars in the hand each year at council to offset raids.

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Speaker 2: And if you look at them, there are three which

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Speaker 2: are regulated monopoly. So you've got your port, your airport,

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Speaker 2: and a Ryan and then you could say, well, actually

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Speaker 2: enable sits there a really good company built from scratch

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Speaker 2: and christ uch But actually, if you look at the

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Speaker 2: technology risk, it's probably the one that isn't as regulated,

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Speaker 2: and you know, if you're looking long term, maybe that's

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Speaker 2: the one that isn't necessarily need to be held by

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Speaker 2: the people of christ Uche. So you could you could

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Speaker 2: restructure that in a way and I think, you know,

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Speaker 2: that's something that I think would.

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Speaker 1: Make sense, and City Care be happy to sell it.

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Speaker 2: Oh look, I'm least worried about that. I mean, if

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Speaker 2: you look at it, it's not as material in the

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Speaker 2: scheme of our of our book. You know, really you

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Speaker 2: want to protect those three core assets for christ use

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Speaker 2: the airport, you know, you really want to grow the port.

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Speaker 2: That's a lifeline to the South Island and we need

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Speaker 2: to invest in that. And then you've obviously got power

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Speaker 2: which is core critical and continuing to grow, so you

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Speaker 2: know it's probably not the one right away, but actually

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Speaker 2: if you look at it, enable was the one that

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Speaker 2: logically makes sense because what you could do is, you know,

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Speaker 2: put it to the market. And again this is just

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Speaker 2: my yeah, this isn't even the holdings companies. That's just

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Speaker 2: what I think. And I'm a chart account by trade,

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Speaker 2: so I look at it and go, how do we

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Speaker 2: get the best return for the people of christ Church.

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Speaker 2: You would take take the money, take down the historic

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Speaker 2: earthquake dept that sits on the balance sheet of the

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Speaker 2: holdings company, use the difference to put it into a

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Speaker 2: bit of a future fund, but like Auckland have done,

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Speaker 2: and then that will throw a dividend every year At council.

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Speaker 2: I think you'd probably get another thirty million a year,

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Speaker 2: which you know, in our rate camping environment is going

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Speaker 2: to be necessary, so we don't need to close things.

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Speaker 2: So you know, there's a real I think the people

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Speaker 2: of christ Each will come along on having a conversation

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Speaker 2: about it because it's not core critical to what the

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Speaker 2: people of christ Each expect us to own. And you know,

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Speaker 2: I think it's worth him a conversation.

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Speaker 1: Look, it makes sense, but there is something I mean

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Speaker 1: people get funny about today. They get really weird about

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Speaker 1: asset sales. Do you think you might just lose the

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Speaker 1: argument on account of the words asset sales?

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Speaker 2: Well, I think, you know, we just need to be

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Speaker 2: really cognizant in a rates environment, rates camping environment that

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Speaker 2: you know, there are hard choices and there's only so

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Speaker 2: much money to go around. You know, I look at

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Speaker 2: it and go, actually, if you've got more money to

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Speaker 2: spend to invest and grow the port, you know, potentially

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Speaker 2: the airport and continue to invest in the lines company Ryan,

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Speaker 2: actually they're far better being for back for christ hutch

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Speaker 2: and Canterbury going forward, and if you can offset people's

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Speaker 2: rate increases. When you know, I reckon if you went

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Speaker 2: out on the streets of Christouch now and said, hey,

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Speaker 2: what do you think about the public or the counselor

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Speaker 2: owning a nable, they'd go what's enable? And I didn't

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Speaker 2: know we owned it. Whereas if you talked about the

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Speaker 2: port a Ryan or the airport, you know quite rightly

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Speaker 2: because I don't want to sell them either. There are

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Speaker 2: things that I think need to be held in that

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Speaker 2: public ownership so you know, I think it's worth a

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Speaker 2: conversation having. At the end of the day, you know,

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Speaker 2: I've kind of I've been in the role six years

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Speaker 2: now and you're looking at it and go, at some point

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Speaker 2: we need to have these courageous conversations or else we're

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Speaker 2: just going to keep taking more and more money off people.

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Speaker 1: Well, Sam, good luck with the argument, and I don't

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Speaker 1: think if anybody can can convince people, it may well

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Speaker 1: be you. Thank you very much, Sam McDonald, christ Church

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Speaker 1: City councilor

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