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Speaker 1: Going Saga of the Brindeau and Hills gets a positive

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Speaker 1: update for Marto Riqi weekend in Zta. They're in the

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Speaker 1: process of finishing the remainder of those closure works. They

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Speaker 1: will reopen the road this Wednesday. James Smith is with

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Speaker 1: the National Road Carrier's Union. James Morning, Good morning, Mike.

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Speaker 1: You'll be looking forward to it. The thing I've always

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Speaker 1: found a bit weird as they open it for Marto

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Speaker 1: Rican and I get why that is, and that's for cars,

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Speaker 1: whereas you guys have had to do the back road

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Speaker 1: for all that long. Do you reckon there's enough emphasis

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Speaker 1: on trucks and you know, getting stuff to market in

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Speaker 1: this country or not.

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Speaker 2: No, not not amongst the general public. But n ZTA

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Speaker 2: get it. And I mean they've been working as hard

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Speaker 2: as I can to get this thing repaired and ready

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Speaker 2: for to get the trucks back where they need to

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Speaker 2: be on the state highway.

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Speaker 1: How bad has it been in terms of the diversion.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been. It's been difficult because I mean effectively

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Speaker 2: you're putting putting trucks on back onto local roads where

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Speaker 2: you know, there's state highways for that sort of thing.

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Speaker 2: So it has provided increased cost to operators, especially those

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Speaker 2: that are operating on higher mess because they've had quite

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Speaker 2: a significant diversion that they have to go to Dargable

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Speaker 2: to get one array, which is not great.

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Speaker 1: Is the fix. So they've done two fixes. One they

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Speaker 1: thought they had it, then it fell over again, and

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Speaker 1: so the fix this time is that they've got some

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Speaker 1: room on the side. Should it go again to keep

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Speaker 1: going with the traffic and then fix it on the side.

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Speaker 1: Should they have done that in the first place, Well,

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Speaker 1: that's what.

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Speaker 2: They were attempting to do, so then the slip came down.

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Speaker 2: So this is important to note that this repair that

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Speaker 2: they've done really only gives us another seven years in

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Speaker 2: the brand doings, and then the whole lot's coming down.

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Speaker 2: So what we're sort of saying is is, Okay, we've

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Speaker 2: got the fix under wave that keeps it going for

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Speaker 2: seven years, but let's get on with straight as fast

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Speaker 2: as we can building that diversion. Because if the previous

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Speaker 2: government had have actually continued and done the diversion, the

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Speaker 2: darn thing would have been just about it.

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Speaker 1: Understand, I mean you will have been on that road north.

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Speaker 1: I mean that that is a world class road. And

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Speaker 1: then all of a sudden bingo the roundabouts there and

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Speaker 1: it stops, and you think, why the hell didn't they

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Speaker 1: just carry on?

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Speaker 2: And that's just a very good example of the stop start,

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Speaker 2: stop start. That the political football that is infrastructure in

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Speaker 2: New Zealand, and that's just got to stop. We're going

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Speaker 2: to have a fifty year plan. We just got to

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Speaker 2: crack on and get it done.

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Speaker 1: The unfairness and for people listening around the country, you

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Speaker 1: don't know that particular part of the world. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you can't have a whole region just cut off in

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Speaker 1: a third world goat track sort of way, can you.

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Speaker 2: No, you can't. And in North London's Northunder's suffered from

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Speaker 2: decades of under investment and transport infrastructure, and you've got

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Speaker 2: other parts of the country that are similarly face you

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Speaker 2: look at the East coast of the North Island which

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Speaker 2: are absolutely totally reliant on a reliable stay high anywhere.

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Speaker 1: Well, let's opened, let's hope something good happens as martin

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Speaker 1: Rica weekend unless people get up to Northland and spend

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Speaker 1: a bit of money in that particular part of the world.

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Speaker 1: James appreciate it. General Manager of Policy and Advocacy at

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Speaker 1: the National Road Carriers Union.

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