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Speaker 1: International correspondence with ends and eye insurance, Peace of mind

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Speaker 1: for New Zealand business. Murray Olds is our Australia correspondent. Murray,

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Speaker 1: good afternoon. Good to have you on the show.

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Speaker 2: Thanks Ryan here, good afternoon.

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Speaker 1: So we better start the cyclone. What is the latest here?

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Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I heard you say there Friday night, Saturday morning.

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Speaker 2: They are now saying Saturday morning. Much more likely. Alfred

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Speaker 2: of course turned west, heading now towards the Queensland coast.

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Speaker 2: Expected to hit between Noosa, which is way up north

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Speaker 2: of Brisbane and cool and Gata, which is on the

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Speaker 2: New South Wales border. That will be the zone where

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Speaker 2: it's going to hit. That's a very big zone and

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Speaker 2: that's nearly three hundred k's. Supermarkets are closing from this afternoon.

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Speaker 2: Petrol stations are still serving petrol and diesel, but not

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Speaker 2: sure for how long. Hundreds of schools have closed. The

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Speaker 2: Australian Defense Force has been mobilizer sending a few dozen

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Speaker 2: soldiers up north. Are prepositioning some sort of areal assets

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Speaker 2: as well. You've got federal cash ready to go for

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Speaker 2: more than two days. Local government areas that are going

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Speaker 2: to need some help. Maybe twenty thousand homes have to

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Speaker 2: be evacuated from northern New South Wales because there's plenty

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Speaker 2: of bad weather already. There's heavy rain, strong winds and

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Speaker 2: very very big seas. You're talking waves off the coast

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Speaker 2: of southeast Queensland twelve meters, so the seas are pounding in.

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Speaker 2: Airline schedules of course disrupted as well. And this is

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Speaker 2: just the start. Next forty eight hours seventy two hours

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Speaker 2: are going to be very very difficult.

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Speaker 1: The defense spending issue.

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Speaker 3: I saw the story yesterday, I thought, well, that's a

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Speaker 3: heck of a lot of money. In fact, I went

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Speaker 3: and looked it up in dollar terms, what the Americans

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Speaker 3: apparently are wanting you guys to spend on defense is

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Speaker 3: more than what the Brits are going to increase their

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Speaker 3: spending by.

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Speaker 2: Well, we're coming up a lower based out figure, although

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Speaker 2: Australia is still spending and I like to sit down

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Speaker 2: and I read this too. I was looking up a

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Speaker 2: similar like. I was doing a bit of research as well,

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Speaker 2: knowing you wanted to talk about this. Australia currently are

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Speaker 2: spending more than one billion dollars a week in events. Okay,

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Speaker 2: it's now under alban Easy labor has boosted the defense

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Speaker 2: spend to two percent of GDP over here, but Washington

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Speaker 2: is saying, you want to get to three percent or

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Speaker 2: you know, all bets are off. That's a huge increase.

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Speaker 2: That's an increase of what is that fifty percent? So

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Speaker 2: I'm not sure what the timeline is. We're already in

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Speaker 2: the whole of nearly four hundred billion dollars for these

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Speaker 2: Americans are nuclear powered submarines that may never be delivered.

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Speaker 2: And plus has got to be a big worry about

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Speaker 2: Donald Trump, who didn't know what Aucust was. You know,

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Speaker 2: it's the agreement between Australia and the United Kingdom and

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Speaker 2: the United States August Donald Focus, Mate Concentrate. He didn't

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Speaker 2: know where the hell it was. So he's also applying,

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Speaker 2: apparently going to apply tariffs to Australian aluminium, even though

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Speaker 2: he just handed over a check for hundreds of millions

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Speaker 2: of dollars as a down payment for these wretched submarines

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Speaker 2: that apparently will be out of date before they arrive anyway.

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Speaker 2: So it's it's just it's an absolute bloody mess. Yes,

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Speaker 2: and knows like headless chucks are here, really and truly

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Speaker 2: they're not sure what's.

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Speaker 3: Going on, Yeah, well we feel a very similar way

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Speaker 3: over here. Just we're not spending a billion dollars a week.

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Speaker 3: At least it's a lot less than that. I think

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Speaker 3: it's fine billion a year. So country Road, this is

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Speaker 3: the boss of Country Road in Australia. They reckon, we're

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Speaker 3: in a retail you're in a retail recession there, yes.

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Speaker 2: Not according to broader figures. I mean country Road. You know,

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Speaker 2: it's expensive tat for yuppies is the way it's been

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Speaker 2: described here. You know, pairachinos, if you want to spend

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Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty two hundred bucks, that's fine, go

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Speaker 2: and do that. Most people would prefer to spend sixty

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Speaker 2: or seventy bucks for pirachinos. Don't look any different. So

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Speaker 2: you know, country Road may be feeling good, pinch, but

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Speaker 2: other retail. The retail figures for January came in this

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Speaker 2: week and they weren't too bad. I just forget the

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Speaker 2: exact figure. But look, there's been some economic news this week.

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Speaker 2: The National accounts figures were about where labor expected. So

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Speaker 2: labor's heading into an election. It could be called this

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Speaker 2: weekend as well. Anthony Albanezi, you know, he says, I'm

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Speaker 2: not talking about election speculation. I'm spending next the next

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Speaker 2: few days working out of the National Situation Room as

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Speaker 2: we monitor the cyclone. I mean, it looks good for

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Speaker 2: the cameras, but it wouldn't surprise me to see him

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Speaker 2: go to the Governor General on Sunday at Gordon an election.

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Speaker 2: There's lots of point to this, and then you know

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Speaker 2: the polls out that flash for Labor, but it's only

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Speaker 2: fifty one to forty nine two party preferred. Peter Dutton

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Speaker 2: remains deeply unpopular. Labor can port to an interest rate

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Speaker 2: cut and say well, there's more on the way, even

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Speaker 2: though they have no idea there's more on the way.

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Speaker 2: There's a bunch of different things. Both sides have pledged

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Speaker 2: billions of dollars in spending. Not sure where the cash

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Speaker 2: is coming from, but certainly labor's on the ball with childcare,

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Speaker 2: with pay rises for the lowest paid. These are the

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Speaker 2: people working in aged care. For God's sake, they take

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Speaker 2: over forty bucks an hour, some of them much less

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Speaker 2: than that, and that's just not a good thing for

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Speaker 2: the economy when so many people are getting older. I'm

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Speaker 2: going to need someone looking up to me.

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Speaker 1: Oh, come over, Murray.

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Speaker 2: Hey, you're a good man.

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Speaker 3: Just quickly if the storm is really bad, he can't

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Speaker 3: call on Sunday, Kenny, I mean that will be well surely.

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Speaker 2: Well, you know we're still like April twelve, we're still

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Speaker 2: over a month away. It's going to be hard to

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Speaker 2: campaign obviously, but it's a big country. You might have

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Speaker 2: to miss out and see South East Queensland for a bit.

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Speaker 2: But there's plenty of Victorian seats they need to prop up,

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Speaker 2: plenty of new South Wales in Sydney's West as well.

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Speaker 2: Perth remains very very much live, but all the intelligence

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Speaker 2: is pointing to a very strong performance from the Teals

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Speaker 2: over here the Independents who say they're not aligned, but

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Speaker 2: bore they are and it could very much be a

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Speaker 2: minority government. Not sure which side's going to have the

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Speaker 2: biggest handericarts.

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Speaker 1: Murray Old's are Australia correspond

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Speaker 3: For more from Hither Dupless Alan Drive, listen live to

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Speaker 3: News Talks a B from four pm weekdays, or follow

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