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Speaker 1: Heather Duplicy, Allen Throw Minister and the Transport minuts to

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Speaker 1: have taken to the air to assess the damage to

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Speaker 1: the roads on the East Coast cause by last week's weather.

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Speaker 1: Speaking of the weather, they say that urgent work is

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Speaker 1: underway to get those transport links restored. And let's talk

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Speaker 1: to Chris Bishop about that high bish.

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Speaker 2: Hi.

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Speaker 1: But you've been up in the air, how to look around?

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Speaker 1: What's it looking like?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we've been been in Hicks Bay today and Toodera

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Speaker 2: all the way up on the top of the East Coast.

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Speaker 2: Tarafari justin gis been today meeting with the mayor and

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Speaker 2: checking in with the emergency response team here who are

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Speaker 2: doing a great job, and checking in with local communities too.

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Speaker 2: Made a KFC delivery to the hard working team at

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Speaker 2: Tower which was I think they appreciated. But to answer

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Speaker 2: your question, the roads are not a great shape up here,

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Speaker 2: as I think people know that. The two big challenges

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Speaker 2: are the Wyawiki Gorge, which is a key freight route obviously,

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Speaker 2: and MZTA is working really hard on that. They're basically

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Speaker 2: approaching at at either end and just clearing the slips

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Speaker 2: and the debris and the contractors are working really hard

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Speaker 2: on that. We're hoping that within a bout a week

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Speaker 2: they'll be able to get one lane open, which will

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Speaker 2: be a big you know, be a big step forward,

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Speaker 2: means that people will be able to come and go.

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Speaker 2: So that's that's what they're aiming for in about a week.

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Speaker 2: State Highway thirty five, you know, right that wraps around

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Speaker 2: up up the coast. That's where that big slip that

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Speaker 2: I think people listening will have seen, you know, shots

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Speaker 2: of that's about two hundred thousand cubic meters on that

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Speaker 2: one slip alone by the campground or camp site and

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Speaker 2: five hundred thousand cubic meters on the on the road itself.

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Speaker 2: That's going to require moving. That's a big job, and

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Speaker 2: you know that that's going to be that's going to

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Speaker 2: be a tougher challenge.

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Speaker 1: Okay, do the guys who want an alternative to why

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Speaker 1: we could gorge actually have a point?

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Speaker 2: Well, that's I think something that's a conversation we're gonna

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Speaker 2: probably end up having, you know, as as the days

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Speaker 2: and weeks and months go by. The focus right now

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Speaker 2: is obviously just the immediate response, and we've been on

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Speaker 2: the ground talking to people about you know, what they

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Speaker 2: need in terms of medical supplies and and you know,

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Speaker 2: food and housing support and things like that. So that's

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Speaker 2: the sort of immediate focus obviously from a transport point

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Speaker 2: of view, which I'm in charge of. You know, it's

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Speaker 2: just actually getting the road open because it's a major

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Speaker 2: freight road and it's like three and a half hours

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Speaker 2: four hours the other way if you can't use it.

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Speaker 2: And then you know, as we as we clear all

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Speaker 2: the debris and reopen the road, ENSTA and the contractors

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Speaker 2: that we're having a really good look at the Wiwiki

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Speaker 2: gorgeon you know, thinking about what we need to do

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Speaker 2: to rebuild and be the same with State Highway thirty

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Speaker 2: five as well.

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Speaker 1: And look, i mean there's a lot of talk at

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Speaker 1: the moment of you know, we can't keep doing this.

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Speaker 1: The roads get shut down by slips every few years,

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Speaker 1: we reopen them again. What do we actually have an alternative?

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Speaker 1: Like is there another way of doing this or is

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Speaker 1: this simply the game we have to play.

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Speaker 2: Well, one of the good things over the last you know,

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Speaker 2: four or five years, is that NZTA has been building

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Speaker 2: resilience into all of its planning and its forecast right now,

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Speaker 2: So if you think about the response to the severe

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Speaker 2: weather events from Gabrielle, you know, there's been hundreds of

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Speaker 2: millions of dollars put into this region rebuilding roads after

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Speaker 2: those events, and what they've been doing is making really

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Speaker 2: sensible improvements to the road so they're a lot more resilient.

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Speaker 2: So for example, there's there's a couple of bits of

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Speaker 2: state highways where they've raised them up a meter or so,

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Speaker 2: they've put some culverts in the right place, for example,

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Speaker 2: those sections of the state highway network actually came through

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Speaker 2: the weather events really well. So it just shows that

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Speaker 2: actually when you do rebuild, if as long as you

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Speaker 2: rebuild in the right way and you're sensible about it

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Speaker 2: and you take all the engineering advice that you can,

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Speaker 2: you know you can build resilience into the build. And

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Speaker 2: that's that's what we'll be aiming to do. And you

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Speaker 2: know that is happening now and actually, as I say,

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Speaker 2: it's proven, you know, been very effective in the last

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Speaker 2: and last couple of years.

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Speaker 1: Besh, thanks very much, Christmaship Thing Transport Minister. For more

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Speaker 1: from Heather Duplessy Allen Drave listen live to news Talk

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Speaker 1: sai'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast

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Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio