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Speaker 1: Now to something that I do care about. Less so

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Speaker 1: at the moment, but most of the time I do.

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Speaker 1: The ACT Party have launched a new members bill to

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Speaker 1: abolish the remaining liquor monopolies around the country. Now, the

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Speaker 1: bill would repeal the current trusts model. It would allow

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Speaker 1: locals to sell booze under the same nationwide scheme like

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Speaker 1: the supermarkets and bottle stores and stuff like that. Simon

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Speaker 1: Court is a west Auckland based act MPN is with us.

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Speaker 2: Now, Hey, Simon, good afternoon, Heather.

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Speaker 1: Is this born from your own personal frustration at not

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Speaker 1: being able to get the booze from the normal places

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Speaker 1: like the rest of us do.

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Speaker 2: It's incredibly frustrating, it's confusing to visitors who come to

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Speaker 2: west Auckland, and it's frankly condescending to the nearly three

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Speaker 2: hundred thousand people who live in west Auckland that we

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Speaker 2: can't enjoy the same access to hospitality, being able to

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Speaker 2: buy beer and win.

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Speaker 1: New Zealand because we don't trust the bergains with the booze.

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Speaker 2: Well well, yeah, indeed, but yeah, the same also applies

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Speaker 2: to Invercargo and Gore, Matada also have like hotspots. Is

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Speaker 2: that yeah, Well, we think we deserve the same rights

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Speaker 2: as all the rest of New Zealanders. And I'll just

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Speaker 2: give you one stat that really triggers me. There's three

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Speaker 2: hundred thousand people almost of west Aukland. We've got eight bars.

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Speaker 2: The rest of Auckland has one bar for every three thousand,

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Speaker 2: two hundred people. We've got one for every thirty seven

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Speaker 2: thousand people. Not only are we lacking choice, but there's

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Speaker 2: a huge opportunity here in terms of jobs and economy

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Speaker 2: for west Aukland to participate that we currently don't have.

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Speaker 2: So what my members bill does is said, look, you

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Speaker 2: can these lock of licensing trusts can keep owning bars,

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Speaker 2: they can keep selling alcohol, but they will no longer

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Speaker 2: have a monopoly.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So if your if your bill passes and becomes law,

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Speaker 1: does it just basically wipe it immediately, And it's it

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Speaker 1: just it starts from from the get go. It just

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Speaker 1: resets it so that it becomes like everywhere else in

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Speaker 1: the country.

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Speaker 2: That's what it is. That would mean that they can

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Speaker 2: continue with business, but that any and will now set

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Speaker 2: up the hospitality.

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Speaker 1: Business famously in the past, and I don't know what

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Speaker 1: the situation is at the moment. But famously in the

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Speaker 1: past Invercargol actually used this model for a lot of good.

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Speaker 1: Do they not do that anymore?

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Speaker 2: Well, the trusts have had a real struggle in the

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Speaker 2: past few years. Their overheads have gone up in Auckland

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Speaker 2: from three to four million a year to nearly fourteen million.

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Speaker 2: They struggle to make a profit. They've closed stores, but

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Speaker 2: when you actually look the hood, eighty percent of their

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Speaker 2: profits come from Pokey's and not from selling alcohol or

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Speaker 2: having bars. So our proposition is quite simple. If they

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Speaker 2: want to give back to their community, if they want

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Speaker 2: to fulfill what they think is this community need, then

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Speaker 2: they should do it. But they shouldn't have a monopoly

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Speaker 2: in selling alcohol, and they shouldn't have a monopoly on

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Speaker 2: running hospitality venues in West orcond.

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Speaker 1: You realize that you would be moving West Auckland in

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Speaker 1: a completely different direction of travel to the rest of

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Speaker 1: the of the wider Auckland region. At the moment where

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Speaker 1: the council is basically trying to shut down the places

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Speaker 1: you can get booze from.

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Speaker 2: Well, unfortunate. We're also subject to the local alcohol policies,

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Speaker 2: but we have even less opportunity to participate in the

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Speaker 2: hospitality lifestyle that people who live in the rest of Auckland,

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Speaker 2: I mean Westis spend over one hundred million dollars a

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Speaker 2: year on hospitality outside of west Ackland because we simply

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Speaker 2: can't get it here. We can order alcohol to be

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Speaker 2: delivered to our door, we can order it from a

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Speaker 2: supermarket through Quick and Collect, but we can't go and

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Speaker 2: buy it in the supermarket. So we're living in a

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Speaker 2: really throwback era here to prohibition and temperance. And what

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Speaker 2: my members bill will do say, Look, the government has

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Speaker 2: this Commerce Commission that's meant to be smashing monopolies. Unfortunately

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Speaker 2: we've got this law that says that we're enforcing a

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Speaker 2: monopoly on liquor licensing. We're going to open that up

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Speaker 2: and we're going to give West's and the people of

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Speaker 2: Southbound freedom back.

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Speaker 1: Brilliant stuff. Hey, so I'm a best of like that

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Speaker 1: Simon called Act MP for Westalkland. For more from Hither

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Speaker 1: duplessy Ellen Drive, listen live to news talks. It'd be

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Speaker 1: from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.