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Speaker 1: Plenty of questions have been left unanswered this afternoon on

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Speaker 1: the future of the inter Islander ferries. Finance Minister Nicola

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Speaker 1: Willis has announced there will be two new fairies, but

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Speaker 1: won't say how much money has been set aside for

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Speaker 1: the project or whether the fairies will be rail enabled.

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Speaker 1: A new current company will be established to procure the

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Speaker 1: new ferries to begin service by twenty twenty nine. Remember

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Speaker 1: the other ones would have been in operation inside the

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Speaker 1: next couple of years. Winston Peters has been appointed the

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Speaker 1: Minister for rail Minister. Thank you for being with me

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Speaker 1: on the show. It's great to have you here. How

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Speaker 1: much money? How much have we saved as taxpayers on

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Speaker 1: this deal?

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Speaker 2: Oh look, those questions, as I told the media today,

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Speaker 2: cannot be answered in the first hour or two. Have

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Speaker 2: taken over a new portfolios and Minister for Railways. But

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Speaker 2: I've done it before and turned the railways around between

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Speaker 2: seventeen and twenty and so we're setting out again and

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Speaker 2: by our first of ward will be consolting with all

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Speaker 2: the people that are involved, so we ensure that we

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Speaker 2: go forward. We've got all the motions we need to

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Speaker 2: make proper, sound and frugal decisions.

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Speaker 1: Will it be deeper than the previous cost of three

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Speaker 1: billion odd.

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Speaker 2: Well, the previous cost that actually was said by Treasury

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Speaker 2: to be when we got to government heading towards four

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Speaker 2: billion and more so. Yet it'll be massively cheaper than

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Speaker 2: what we're inherited.

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Speaker 1: How can you say that when you don't know what

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Speaker 1: the cost will be yet?

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Speaker 2: Because I've got some experience in this matter, know bit

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Speaker 2: about the markets and know bit about commerce. The last

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Speaker 2: thing you do is tell the market what you're going

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Speaker 2: to pay. That's not how you do business. We want

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Speaker 2: to get the best deal for the taxpayer.

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Speaker 1: We just have to trust that you'll be able to

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Speaker 1: do that.

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Speaker 2: Well, this is not asking them to trust you. That's

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Speaker 2: the wise way of going about it. If you're going

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Speaker 2: out there using taxpayers money, hard ended as it is,

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Speaker 2: it's paid for by taxpayers. You your job is to

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Speaker 2: use it wisely. And now I'm going to do that

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Speaker 2: as I did when I was last Minster of Rails

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Speaker 2: and will we turn things around quite to many all

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Speaker 2: the tunnels up north, all seventeen tunnels were lowered. Will

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Speaker 2: the will stop workshop, but Hillsli Workshop and Needin was revived.

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Speaker 2: It's operating now all these things were done back.

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Speaker 1: Then, will the overall cost, including the cost the ports

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Speaker 1: might be wearing that everybody else involved might be wearing,

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Speaker 1: be lower than the overall cost of the previous project?

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Speaker 2: Way way lower.

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Speaker 1: Yes, do you have confidence in KBI rail and are

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Speaker 1: you now the minister in charge of kbrail.

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Speaker 2: Signed the midicine in charge of q rail. That's true.

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Speaker 2: And the second thing is I'm going to have a

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Speaker 2: chat downtown and see what they've got to say for themselves.

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Speaker 2: But this was a project which I instructed them to

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Speaker 2: go out in May of twenty twenty and buy two

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Speaker 2: fairies at the price of four hundred point one million dollars.

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Speaker 2: And look what we ended up with, four billion dollars

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Speaker 2: called a treasury because what they ended up doing was

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Speaker 2: to buy fairies which were only twenty percent percent of

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Speaker 2: the cost, and all the rest was infrastructure that nobody foresaw.

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Speaker 1: I know. But the thing is, you still don't know

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Speaker 1: what the cord the infrastructure the ports side will be

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Speaker 1: either for the new fairies that you don't know how

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Speaker 1: much will cost.

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Speaker 2: I'll have a serious idea on that, because I know

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Speaker 2: what kind of fury we're looking.

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Speaker 1: For and what kind of fury.

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Speaker 2: Is that one that will do the job probably and

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Speaker 2: go into the next few decades and a sound proposition

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Speaker 2: which needs to be up and going in twenty twenty nine.

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Speaker 1: Will they be bigger than the current theories but smaller

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Speaker 1: than the ones we won't get?

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Speaker 2: Oh? I was possibly talking to nid meters.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so bigger than the current ones.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but not the ones that they had ordered.

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Speaker 1: No.

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Speaker 2: Those were massive and they required massive infrastructure, which no

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Speaker 2: one was told about until all of a sudden in

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty one we found out that a four hundred

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Speaker 2: point one million dollar project had blown out and was

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Speaker 2: building costs and we had no way of turning it

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Speaker 2: around if we kept it going.

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Speaker 1: Which brings us back to Kiwi Raw. We're going to

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Speaker 1: be buying two ships for more than we would go,

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Speaker 1: two smaller ships for more than we were going to

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Speaker 1: pay for two bigger ones, and Kiwi Rail is the

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Speaker 1: organization that stuff this whole thing up, and you still

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Speaker 1: have confidence in them.

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Speaker 2: Did I say a conference in them? Do you know? No?

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Speaker 2: I didn't, and so I didn't answer your question. I

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Speaker 2: said I'm going to go. I don't have a tap

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Speaker 2: them before I start going to put enough off my head.

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Speaker 2: I want to hear this oide of the story.

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Speaker 1: Are you worried about whether issues If we've only got

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Speaker 1: two ships and they are two hundred meters long, one

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Speaker 1: goes out of action, we're becoming a bit vulnerable.

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Speaker 2: Well no, you see, people aren't looking at all the

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Speaker 2: permutations of Ford decision making. I am, and that's why

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Speaker 2: there are things in my forward planning which I have

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Speaker 2: never been mentioned publicly yet. Because to go to the

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Speaker 2: market you have to have a plan, and that plan

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Speaker 2: is going to be formulated with speed over the next

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Speaker 2: few months.

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Speaker 1: When can we see the report from the working group?

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Speaker 2: Oh, well, you'd have to trail on the official information

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Speaker 2: that can see how you go. The question, manly is

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Speaker 2: whether there's any commission sensitive information there that you can't

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Speaker 2: get because that would be contradictory to wise decisions making

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Speaker 2: and Vice's business.

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Speaker 1: On ownership, can you rule out private investment or a

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Speaker 1: mixed ownership model.

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Speaker 2: I have not talked about privatization, the politic mixed ownership model,

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Speaker 2: like all other aspects would be in the mixed stivety considered.

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Speaker 2: But let's see them go out there. It'll be actually

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Speaker 2: when we're making decisions knowing what we're talking about, rather

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Speaker 2: than guesswork and acting like an ad armed octopus, which

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Speaker 2: the previous regime was tossing money around all over the

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Speaker 2: place and no one knew what the costs are going

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Speaker 2: to do.

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Speaker 1: Minister, what's taken so long? It's been a year since

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Speaker 1: these ferries were canceled. It's been six months since the

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Speaker 1: report came in from the working group. We haven't even

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Speaker 1: got a procurement company set up yet. There's not a

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Speaker 1: director being appointed until next year. What's been going on?

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Speaker 2: Well, a article four companies going to be set up

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Speaker 2: very quickly. The shareholding ministers are the Minster Finance and

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Speaker 2: me and we'll get on with the job. You're asking me,

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Speaker 2: after four hours in the job, to explain what's going

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Speaker 2: on in the past. Well, i'll let you know when

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Speaker 2: I found out all those things of myself.

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Speaker 1: Why are you suddenly the Minister of rail.

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Speaker 2: Because I had the job and turned well around, turned

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Speaker 2: railways around. You recall in twenty seventeen they've been run

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Speaker 2: down and being shut down all over the place, and

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Speaker 2: I turned that around. So I think that the Minister's

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Speaker 2: confidence that the person did it probably one time, can

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Speaker 2: do the same job a second time. Whose idea was

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Speaker 2: but this is not my first railway rodeo?

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Speaker 1: Whose idea was it? What do you mean to come

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Speaker 1: back to bring back the Minister of rail.

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Speaker 2: Ah, it was just a wise suggestion that somebody made.

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Speaker 1: Would that somebody be you, Minister?

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Speaker 2: Well, you know as well as I do that modesty

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Speaker 2: is my middle name.

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Speaker 1: Camera doesn't talk about how sweet it is only on me.

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Speaker 2: Well you're coming on here, you're learning real fast.

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Speaker 1: Hey, on the on the right, because rail is obviously

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Speaker 1: I mean you are now the Minister of Railways. A

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Speaker 1: cheap ship is not a rail enabled one, right, So

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Speaker 1: have you conceded that point to your colleagues?

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Speaker 2: No, I'm not considered anything at all, because, as I say,

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Speaker 2: your job when you get a job as a minister

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Speaker 2: to find out everything, and if there's got you know,

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Speaker 2: fifteen angles to it, then find out all fifteen, not

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Speaker 2: just act on three of them. You might have found

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Speaker 2: out about.

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Speaker 1: But you've got a fiscal inote reportedly nine hundred million dollars.

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Speaker 1: You're not going to get rail enabled for that.

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Speaker 2: Well again that's not true. See that's what was ledd

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Speaker 2: to TV three. You could perhaps ask General linchfi you

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Speaker 2: pepped on putting that stuff out.

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Speaker 1: That's false as that number is false?

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Speaker 2: Is it false? Yes, of course it is.

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Speaker 1: Yes, So what what's the real number? More or less

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Speaker 1: than that?

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Speaker 2: Oh? See, No, I knew you're going to go there,

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Speaker 2: but you just specified that. I told you.

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Speaker 1: Here's the problem.

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Speaker 2: I'm going to say the question without I can do

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Speaker 2: be transparent if.

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Speaker 1: Your fair, fair enough, But here's what you're talking about.

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Speaker 2: But when you're talking about the market, the last thing

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Speaker 2: you go to the market and say is this is

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Speaker 2: what I'm better pay.

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Speaker 1: I understand that. I understand that, But.

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Speaker 2: The your money has carefully you're own.

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Speaker 1: The problem the public has is that we've been dicked

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Speaker 1: around on this for years now, and it feels like

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Speaker 1: we're being dicked further down the road because we don't

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Speaker 1: know how much we're going to be paying for these things.

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Speaker 1: We don't even have an entity set up to buy

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Speaker 1: them yet, and we've been told trust us, we'll fix this.

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Speaker 2: No, I'm not doing that. I'm saying that I have

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Speaker 2: taken railways on in the past and dramatically turned around,

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Speaker 2: go and ask the unions, going to ask the maritime

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Speaker 2: unions and all those people whether they've got confidence I

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Speaker 2: can do this job.

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Speaker 1: Probably would you be happy to go down in history

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Speaker 1: as the railway minister who killed off rail enabled links

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Speaker 1: between North and South Island.

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Speaker 2: Look, I was just telling the media today, your colleagues,

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Speaker 2: if they were listening, that a man called Voguel built

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Speaker 2: more railways and ten years addy than we did for

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Speaker 2: this one thirty years. We've got a can do attitude

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Speaker 2: and we're going to make sure that rail is a

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Speaker 2: key part of our future infrastructure.

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Speaker 1: Minister, thank you very much for your time. I appreciate

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Speaker 1: you coming on the program. That is the newly appointed

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Speaker 1: rail Minister Winston Peters. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive,

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Speaker 1: listen live to news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays,

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Speaker 1: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.