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Speaker 1: So it's a big day for the Prime Minister. Today

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Speaker 1: he's delivering his State of the Nation's Speech in Auckland.

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Speaker 1: It's his first major speech to the year, where he'll

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Speaker 1: be sharing his vision for New Zealand and share the

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Speaker 1: inside track on the government's growth agenda. Former Senior Ministerial

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Speaker 1: advisor for the National Party and political commentator Bridget Morton

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Speaker 1: is with me now. Thanks for your time this morning.

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Speaker 2: Bridget, good morning.

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Speaker 1: First of all, how big a deal actually is the

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Speaker 1: State of the Nation's Speech? Does anyone care?

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Speaker 2: I think you've got to be a bit realistic. They

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Speaker 2: are big set pieces for the year and a lot

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Speaker 2: of effort goes into them, but realistically, most people aren't

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Speaker 2: paying that much attention to all of the messages that

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Speaker 2: are in that speech.

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Speaker 1: What are you expecting to come out of it?

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Speaker 2: The economy, The economy, the economy. Without a doubt, there's

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Speaker 2: a big focus this year by the government on economic growth.

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Speaker 2: You've seen that in the cabinet reshuffle, you've seen it

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Speaker 2: in the announcements and the media interview's given over the

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Speaker 2: last twenty four hours. I think you're going to be

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Speaker 2: talking about how they can get the New Zealand back

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Speaker 2: out of that recession, get employment back up, get you know,

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Speaker 2: retail spending, business conference, all of those things happening. I

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Speaker 2: think that's going to be absolute focus today.

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Speaker 1: How much detail do you think we're going to get,

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Speaker 1: bridget because we've heard from the Prime Minister and the

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Speaker 1: Finance Minister Nicola Willis. They're painting this lovely big picture

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Speaker 1: narrative at the moment, but we're not really getting down

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Speaker 1: to the nitty gritty or any detail or how we're

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Speaker 1: going to get there. Should we expect that today?

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Speaker 2: Not in the State of the nation. They are much

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Speaker 2: more about building that narrative, setting out that message about

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Speaker 2: what the year will look like, what the sort of

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Speaker 2: aims are, you know, so much more like a news

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Speaker 2: resolution type speech as opposed to the detail about how

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Speaker 2: they get to those goals. There'll probably be a small

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Speaker 2: announcement in there. It normally is something, but for the

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Speaker 2: most part is about setting the tone.

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Speaker 1: But no one sticks to the New year's resolutions.

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Speaker 2: Have you already given up on yours?

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Speaker 1: I don't even bother anymore, Not not until it don't about February,

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Speaker 1: when I've really thought about it long and hard. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so maybe a little bit of policy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. But I think you'll hear some

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Speaker 2: of those things we've heard, you know, trade deals, you know,

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Speaker 2: how they can get rid of red tape in terms

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Speaker 2: of regulation, what they can do in terms of getting

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Speaker 2: business confidence and getting people back you know, spending. I

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Speaker 2: think you saw yesterday, you know, they were applauding the

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Speaker 2: fact that low inflation was staying relatively steady. So I

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Speaker 2: think you'll hear a lot of those messages coming through.

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Speaker 1: Is that enough? Do you think? Is that enough at

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Speaker 1: the moment, especially when we've had a recent poll which

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Speaker 1: has got you know, national dropping into the twenties.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I think you've got to be careful here in

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Speaker 2: terms of you know, as I said, that's the State

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Speaker 2: of the Nation, that is about setting the toad. I

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Speaker 2: think without a doubt there will be something in there

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Speaker 2: that'll be something new. But you've got to be realistic

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Speaker 2: that they're not going to dump out a whole lot

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Speaker 2: of new policy right at the beginning of the year, because,

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Speaker 2: as we've talked about, at the beginning, not that many

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Speaker 2: people are listening to all of the detail in the

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Speaker 2: State of the Nation speech.

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Speaker 1: Is this speech away for him to entice voters.

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Speaker 2: Oh, of course. I mean, at the end of the day,

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Speaker 2: he's a politician. He needs the popular vote to keep

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Speaker 2: him in. So everything's going to be about talking to

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Speaker 2: voters and about what they hear about. We know in

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Speaker 2: recent polls that cost of living in the economy is

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Speaker 2: the biggest issue, and that is something that the National

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Speaker 2: Party has really campaigned on that they're the right party

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Speaker 2: to really focus on those issues. They're going to continue

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Speaker 2: to demonstrate what they've done to date and what they're

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Speaker 2: planning on doing to get those two issues under control.

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Speaker 1: Bridget, thanks so much for your time today. Appreciated. That

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Speaker 1: was former Senior Ministerial Advisor of the National Party and

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Speaker 1: political commentator Bridget Morton. What do you want to hear

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Speaker 1: from Luxem this morning? Is Bridget said, Look, this is

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Speaker 1: kind of once again another big picture, set the tone

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Speaker 1: for the year kind of speech. Oh what does Luxan

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Speaker 1: need to do to catch your attention? To impress you?

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Speaker 1: You can text on ninety two ninety two for more

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Speaker 1: from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge.

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