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Speaker 1: News that Wilson Parking and Fort Street Auckland is the

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Speaker 1: most expensive parking in New Zealand says a lot more

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Speaker 1: than just about the company that is absolutely creaming it.

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Speaker 1: And you know it. If you turn up first thing

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Speaker 1: at this Wilson car park and you use the on

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Speaker 1: site machine and you want to park for a day,

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Speaker 1: this will cost you, wait for it, seventy four dollars

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Speaker 1: a day. Now, who pays seventy four bucks for a

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Speaker 1: day's park? If you go there and you park casually,

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Speaker 1: it will cost you twenty two dollars an hour. Now,

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Speaker 1: hold on, what was the minimum wage? What did I say?

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Speaker 1: The minimum wage was, Oh, it's just under the minimum wage,

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Speaker 1: but anyway, it's pretty close. So obviously minimum wage people

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Speaker 1: aren't going to be parking at this Wilson's car park.

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Speaker 1: I'm picking that if you park in this park, you

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Speaker 1: are not working in hospital, you're earning enough to blow

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Speaker 1: money like this. You don't feel like you have an alternative,

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Speaker 1: and you love your car and you want to park

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Speaker 1: near work, so you pay seventy four bucks. Let's break

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Speaker 1: that down average wage and allan seventy two thousand a

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Speaker 1: year after tax. That's nine hundred dollars a week. The

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Speaker 1: media rent is seven hundred dollars a week. You need

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Speaker 1: one hundred dollars a week for power, phone, internet and

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Speaker 1: gas and oh, by the way, you need to eat.

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Speaker 1: So where's a spare money for that park? At seventy

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Speaker 1: four dollars for a day, the only people paying that

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Speaker 1: are paid way more than seventy two grand on having

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Speaker 1: no alternatives, well, we don't have any. Fifty percent of

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Speaker 1: the workers in Auckland CBDD take public transport into work.

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Speaker 1: That's because they don't get a park from their employer

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Speaker 1: and they don't earn enough to face the parking charges.

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Speaker 1: After all, seventy four dollars a day twenty two bucks

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Speaker 1: an hour. It's not their choice to take the public transport,

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Speaker 1: it's an economic necessity. That's why public transport is critical

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Speaker 1: to our productivity. Fifty percent of the workers in the

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Speaker 1: CBD need it. Remember that the next time you can

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Speaker 1: plain about a bus lane. And finally, we love our

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Speaker 1: cars because actually there are plenty of cars. Sorry, there

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Speaker 1: are plenty of parks. They don't cost seventy four bucks

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Speaker 1: an hour in the CBD, like the city owned downtown

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Speaker 1: car park, a car park which on most days is

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Speaker 1: half empty, which which is why the council has now

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Speaker 1: sold the car park to developers to become a skyscraper

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Speaker 1: because it's half empty. Part there you may have to walk,

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Speaker 1: so many don't and so they go and pay a

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Speaker 1: fortune on waste of productivity. Eh there's here's the thing.

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Speaker 1: The fact that so many orchands are prepared to pay

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Speaker 1: so much to park a car and the CBD makes

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Speaker 1: me believe that the idea of congestion charges reducing traffic

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Speaker 1: will fail because we're prepared to pay this rubbish. We're

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Speaker 1: just going to pay to stay stuck in the same

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Speaker 1: traffic queues. For more from Early edition with Ryan Bridge.

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Speaker 1: Listen live to News Talks it Be from five am weekdays,

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