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Speaker 1: The punters will love this new major Events fund seventy million.

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Speaker 1: It's new and old money. Infrastructure, cycle way money, ten

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Speaker 1: million for regional tourism. The showstopper, though, is this forty

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Speaker 1: million bucks for significant high impact events for New Zealand.

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Speaker 1: We had the PM and the Minister out yesterday while

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Speaker 1: they're saying these things are money makers. Hospital does well,

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Speaker 1: Tourism operators do well, retail does well. They call it

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Speaker 1: a bonanza. But if you're a fan of sailing, if

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Speaker 1: you like the America's Cup, you might be scratching your head.

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Speaker 1: Remember it was only five months ago we had the

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Speaker 1: PM saying oh no, thank you to backing the cup.

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Speaker 1: Why well, I went back and looked at the reasons

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Speaker 1: to see specifically, we're in a financial mess, a fiscal mess.

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Speaker 1: We need to invest in proper infrastructure like hospitals and roads.

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Speaker 1: He said, we need to be quote more responsible with

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Speaker 1: taxpayers money. And now we have new money for a

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Speaker 1: Pearl Jam concert. To be fair, the sums involved here

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Speaker 1: are important. The Cup would have cost somewhere between forty

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Speaker 1: and seventy million dollars on its own, depending on who

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Speaker 1: you ask. This entire fund, the bit for major events

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Speaker 1: is forty million total. But if you follow the reasoning

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Speaker 1: and ask yourself the basic question, is the least demand

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Speaker 1: for hospital or roading infrastructure now than there was five

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Speaker 1: months ago, you'd be right to feel a bit confused

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Speaker 1: by all of this. Either the Cup was a crap investment,

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Speaker 1: or these investments more generally are simply not a priority.

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Speaker 1: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live

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Speaker 1: to news talks. It'd be from five am weekdays, or

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