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Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from news Talk zed B.

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Speaker 1: Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio,

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Speaker 1: and you've.

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Speaker 2: Probably heard that jewelry pioneereer Sir Michael Hill has died.

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Speaker 2: The eighty six year old founded and grew Michael Hill

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Speaker 2: Jewelers from humble beginnings and fun ad to become a

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Speaker 2: global retail jewelry brand spanning brand spanning Australia and New

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Speaker 2: Zealand and Canada. He stepped back from the business in

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Speaker 2: April to undergo cancer treatment. So, yeah, passed away at

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Speaker 2: eighty six. And as I was saying before, he's one

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Speaker 2: of those people that has just been omnipresent in New

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Speaker 2: Zealand life for a very long time. And his story

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Speaker 2: is very very famous from being at forty years old

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Speaker 2: and coming up with a completely different way of doing

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Speaker 2: jewelry that hadn't been done anywhere in the world and

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Speaker 2: just exploded and an example of how you can change

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Speaker 2: things at the age of forty.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely inspirational.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, and of course a huge supporter.

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Speaker 4: Of the arts. And you know, here we go, this

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Speaker 4: is what you think of.

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Speaker 5: Hello Michael Hill Jeweler. Don't as my great annual sale.

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Speaker 5: These diamond eternity rings great buying at three hundred and

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Speaker 5: six dollars, are now just ninety nine dollars. Silver bracelet

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Speaker 5: with four charms, we're sixty five dollars now twenty nine.

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Speaker 5: Be there, Michael Hill Jeweler.

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Speaker 4: That's so iconic. It's a really good deal.

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Speaker 2: By the way, I'm going to say, yeah, well that's

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Speaker 2: from nineteen ninety, so I'm sure if it don't go

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Speaker 2: into Michael Hill Drawler.

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Speaker 4: And ask for that deal. It's thirty five years old.

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Speaker 2: But my good friend Bill is on the line here

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Speaker 2: and he's he's he's had some dealings with Michael Hill

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Speaker 2: back in the day.

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Speaker 4: Welcome to the show, Bill.

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Speaker 6: Curtin, did I, Matt did I? Tyler? How you going?

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Speaker 6: That's a certain news.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's sort of one of those things that's

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Speaker 2: just been in the background of New Zealand for the

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Speaker 2: longest time.

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Speaker 4: Just Michael Hill Jewelery is iconic.

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Speaker 7: You have to yeah, you have to remember that back

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Speaker 7: in the eighties when he started his business, New Zealand

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Speaker 7: had finally you know, sort of anyone older than fifty

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Speaker 7: will know that New Zealand has finally emerged from a

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Speaker 7: centrally planned, you know, Soviet style.

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Speaker 6: Economy under.

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Speaker 7: Under Rob Muldoon, and so businessmen like him, business businessmen

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Speaker 7: and women like him, they sort of all came popping

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Speaker 7: out of the bottle like corks, you know, they were

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Speaker 7: suddenly able to do things like that. And he was

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Speaker 7: one of them, and you know.

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Speaker 6: Made quite a fortunate as a result.

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Speaker 7: But I had just started my career in broadcasting in

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Speaker 7: nineteen eighty four at the age of seventeen, up in

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Speaker 7: Fang at a radio station called kble CFM, And because

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Speaker 7: Michael had his primary residence up there, he would come

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Speaker 7: into our new studios and quite often record commercials there

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Speaker 7: because you know, that made sense. He was sort of

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Speaker 7: not too far away and he could he could do

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Speaker 7: them there and we would duplicate them and send them

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Speaker 7: off to other radio stations around the country. So he

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Speaker 7: was very nice, and I met him a few times

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Speaker 7: when he came in.

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Speaker 6: But I have to admit something that you know, that

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Speaker 6: I did.

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Speaker 7: He without without necessarily running it past anyone. I was,

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Speaker 7: you know, because I was I was a junior copyright.

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Speaker 7: I felt that his yeah, I felt.

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Speaker 6: That his voice was just a little bit squeaky.

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Speaker 7: And and so What I did was is I got

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Speaker 7: the pitch shift on the two track recorder, the analog

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Speaker 7: two track recorder, and I turned it up slightly so

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Speaker 7: that when you played it back a real speed, it

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Speaker 7: sounded a bit slower and therefore a bit deeper. And

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Speaker 7: that went on for a little while until.

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Speaker 6: Until it didn't. I don't know whether he knew about that,

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Speaker 6: but yeah.

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Speaker 1: What was it?

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Speaker 6: So was it?

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Speaker 4: So this is where it ended up. His voice here

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Speaker 4: be there, Michael Hill Jeweler.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, you can hear it, you can hear it, but

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Speaker 7: our commercials were not quite there, you know, they were

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Speaker 7: just sort of shifted down slowly.

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Speaker 2: It's so iconic and for him to be a businessman,

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Speaker 2: and it's sort of a confidence thing, as you say,

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Speaker 2: like as the as the nation sort of became more

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Speaker 2: confident into the eighties and business people came through.

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Speaker 4: But to be the face of Michael Hill Jewelers. Was

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Speaker 4: was that odd at the time, because.

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Speaker 6: It just well, yeah, man.

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Speaker 7: That was the other thing is that in those days,

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Speaker 7: you would you were positively discouraged not to read your

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Speaker 7: own ads.

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Speaker 6: That was quite you know, that was quite quite radical

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Speaker 6: to do that. You just you didn't you didn't do it, but.

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Speaker 7: He did and then and then you know, time went

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Speaker 7: on and today you have Adrian and John from Magnuspenner

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Speaker 7: and everyone does their own ads. But it was it

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Speaker 7: was a bit of a departure in those days, that's

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Speaker 7: for sure.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: What was he like when he came into the studio built?

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Speaker 3: Did he have that confidence? Clearly he backed himself as

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Speaker 3: a bit of a hustler as well. Was that the

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Speaker 3: vibe you got that this was a guy who backs

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Speaker 3: himself wholeheartedly. He's going to sell the crap out of

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Speaker 3: out of his jewelry business, and that's arguably what got

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Speaker 3: him ahead.

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Speaker 7: Oh no, I never noticed that. He was just very

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Speaker 7: He was just very friendly, very kind and knew what

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Speaker 7: he wanted. And you know he was pretty much in

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Speaker 7: and out like a robber's dog and very busy, busy guy.

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Speaker 6: But no, he was nice. I liked them.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's an incredible story to you know, be forty

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Speaker 2: years old, as I was saying, before, change the way

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Speaker 2: jewelry shops are run up there and fang it ay

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Speaker 2: then just explode to yachts and golf courses and giving

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Speaker 2: that much to the arts. I mean, it was an

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Speaker 2: unlikely arc you've got to.

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Speaker 6: Say absolutely, you know. But like I said, here's one

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Speaker 6: of many.

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Speaker 7: People who found the new environment in the mid eighties,

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Speaker 7: that whole revolution where New Zealand completely changed with in space.

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Speaker 6: I mean, I remember fung it at that time.

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Speaker 7: I mean I do know if school, but just there

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Speaker 7: was just development happening everywhere, you know, like there was,

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Speaker 7: and it was repeated all around New Zealand where suddenly

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Speaker 7: people could you know, borrow but the regulations were removed.

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Speaker 6: I mean, yeah, New Zealand was.

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Speaker 7: A very very different place before the Roger Douglas David

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Speaker 7: Longy government, that's for sure. So these guys, these guys

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Speaker 7: just they had the keys to the kingdom and off

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Speaker 7: they went.

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Speaker 6: It was all not just not to the same extent.

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Speaker 7: But in Soviet Russia when they got rid of communism,

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Speaker 7: no one.

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Speaker 6: Really knew what to do, and maybe not quite as extreme.

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Speaker 7: But in New Zealand, the people that did ever bit

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Speaker 7: of get up and go, they just went for it

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Speaker 7: and did all sorts.

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Speaker 6: Of cool things.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was all Porschas being abandoned on the Harbor

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Speaker 2: Bridge and then huge stock market crash in eighty seven

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Speaker 2: and then since then we'll pull our head back in

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Speaker 2: and just invested in property.

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Speaker 4: Going back to the previous hour, Hey, thank you, thank

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Speaker 4: you so much. Bill.

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Speaker 6: Good to chat to you, good to catch up. MT

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Speaker 6: to see It for more from News Talks, ed B.

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