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Speaker 1: Just when you thought local council couldn't get more absurd extravagant,

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Speaker 1: they've dreamed up a new way to not make decisions,

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Speaker 1: to do less with more citizens. Assemblies. You heard of

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Speaker 1: these crackpot idea the Romans once used. But Romans did

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Speaker 1: lots of weird stuff that we stopped doing, and this

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Speaker 1: should be one of them. They've got one on the

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Speaker 1: boil in Huanganui. You might have heard of it. In

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Speaker 1: Napier forty unelected locals have just finished sitting around talking

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Speaker 1: about where to put a new swimming pool and what

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Speaker 1: that pool might look like. Four weeks later, eight hundred

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Speaker 1: dollars per person including refreshments and god knows what else

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Speaker 1: one hundred thousand dollars in total from the rates take.

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Speaker 1: It's basically a catered chin wag between neighbors and they

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Speaker 1: call it an assembly. And guess what. They couldn't come

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Speaker 1: up with a consensus on where to put the pool,

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Speaker 1: despite all the expertise, the opinions for Africa, the specialists,

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Speaker 1: the Lamington's no location was decided. You cannot make the

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Speaker 1: stuff up. Why bother with a council, why bother with

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Speaker 1: a mayor, Why bother with a government like Keffer's d

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Speaker 1: Day sets and recycled period cups. These citizens Assemblies are

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Speaker 1: very much in vogue with the radical left across Europe

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Speaker 1: right now, but they are also a massive waste of

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Speaker 1: time and money. And the more I read about stuff

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Speaker 1: like this, the more I think we'd be better off

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Speaker 1: dispensing with democracy and bringing in a dictator. The napier

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Speaker 1: Meir Kirsten Wise was quoted as saying the assembly's recommendations

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Speaker 1: were an invaluable starting point in the journey towards a

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Speaker 1: new pool, Give me strength, an invaluable starting point for

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Speaker 1: a new swimming pool as a hole in the ground.

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Speaker 1: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live

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Speaker 1: to News Talk Set B from five am weekdays, or

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