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Speaker 1: Heller D for see Allen.

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Speaker 2: Now, the Marty Wards debate has turned ugly unfortunately. New

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Speaker 2: Plymouth counselor Murray Chong has been an outspoken opponent of

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Speaker 2: Marty Woods. He's revealed he's been receiving death threats and

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Speaker 2: his car was shot at, and he's not sure it's

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Speaker 2: got to do with that opposition, but he thinks it is.

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Speaker 3: I've had a message is saying that you know, ilvii

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Speaker 3: kin one day, so watch, you know, watch she beat

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Speaker 3: because you own you won't know about it. You'll wake

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Speaker 3: up from the hospital. I've had then saying they'll grab

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Speaker 3: my dog from my house and cut it up in

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Speaker 3: pieces and put up my doorstep in the sack. You know,

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Speaker 3: my my daughter's been hassled. Yeah, so you know enough

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Speaker 3: enough now, Murray.

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Speaker 2: Chong says he's not going to campaign against Marty Wards

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Speaker 2: anymore because he's too scared. Neil hold him is new

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Speaker 2: plymouths mayor and with us. Now, hey, Neil, did I Heather,

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Speaker 2: did you know that this stuff was going on?

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Speaker 3: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Murray, Murray let me know a few days ago sent

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Speaker 1: me to images of the you know, the dent that

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Speaker 1: are left in his vehicle and I've kind of checked

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Speaker 1: in on as how he's feeling about that. He's obviously,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's appalling behavior. He's you know, highly stressed that.

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Speaker 1: The team came together today. We had a sort of

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Speaker 1: a strategy session today, but we discussed, you know, what

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Speaker 1: we're going to what measures we can take to protect

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Speaker 1: team members, because actually it's a it's indication of a

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Speaker 1: pattern that's actually occurring across the country. I think more

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Speaker 1: than half of elected kind of counselors across the country

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Speaker 1: surveyed indicated that they've had some form of kind of

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Speaker 1: online aggression, and then about a third of them have

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Speaker 1: experienced it in person. So there's increasingly kind of aggressive

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Speaker 1: and intimidatory behavior towards local government elected people. And unlike

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Speaker 1: our peers and the Beehive, we don't get the benefit

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Speaker 1: of having security sweeps of our house, where basically, if

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Speaker 1: you're an MP, they send someone out, they do a

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Speaker 1: security assessment, they put in place protection measures. We're just

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Speaker 1: basically hanging out there.

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Speaker 2: Okay, is it any particular subject you guys a getting

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Speaker 2: hansled on.

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Speaker 1: Look, people get you know, a range of things. A

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Speaker 1: rate increases individual projects. You know, obviously there's the issue

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Speaker 1: around Mary Wards. There's a broad range of issues and

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Speaker 1: if you look at the pattern though, what we're seeing

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Speaker 1: is there used to be people used to write in

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Speaker 1: emails and you know that express their views kind of

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Speaker 1: what i'd say, quite professionally and constructively. Now it's just

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Speaker 1: becoming increasingly aggressive and I mean it's putting people off

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Speaker 1: from expressing their views. And you know, we've discussed we've

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Speaker 1: got a broad range of views. We've got quite a

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Speaker 1: diverse council. But actually as a team we get on

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Speaker 1: really well because we respect that diversity. And what we

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Speaker 1: do is we talk about ideas and values and we

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Speaker 1: argue and debate and then we make decisions. But what

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Speaker 1: we've got here is people that are just you know,

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Speaker 1: that crossing lines that you know, basically threatening intimidatory behavior,

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Speaker 1: that's criminal acts. And you know, we've got to look

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Speaker 1: to ensure that our team are safe, and we're going

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Speaker 1: to look at how we can support Murray and the

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Speaker 1: wider team because there are other team members have had

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Speaker 1: abuse and threats for different issues.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, some luck dealing with it. Neil, appreciate your time.

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Speaker 2: It's Neil Holdham, you plum It's mayor.

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