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Speaker 1: Now Wellington City councilors have spent the day arguing amongst

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Speaker 1: themselves about what to can't out of the city's long

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Speaker 1: term plan. You'll remember that the plan was initially funded

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Speaker 1: by a sale of the council's shares in Wellington Airport,

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Speaker 1: but then that fell through after some councilors changed their minds.

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Speaker 1: Council has voted in favor of cutting back on its

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Speaker 1: Cycleway Project a program, rather reducing funding for the Begonia

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Speaker 1: House and the Botanic Gardens. I think demolishing the thing altogether,

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Speaker 1: along with other bits and pieces, and there was a

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Speaker 1: lot of disagreement over whether anything else needed cutting. We

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Speaker 1: are not going broke to only focus on things that

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Speaker 1: you never supported in the first place. For cuts is

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Speaker 1: not brave or bold or progressive decision making. And we

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Speaker 1: do not have money for capital projects.

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Speaker 2: We're already pissing around on stupid cuts here and there

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Speaker 2: with some of these things that we just shouldn't need

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Speaker 2: to be doing well.

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Speaker 1: I'm hearing from our city community in al Langataki and

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Speaker 1: our progressive submitters this morning is to stay the course,

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Speaker 1: keep going, and the next generation will thank.

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Speaker 2: Us for it.

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Speaker 1: Counselor Tony Randall proposed the scaling back of the Golden Mile,

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Speaker 1: but that was voted down and he's with us now, Hey,

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Speaker 1: Tony Hill, good, thank you. So is the Golden Mile

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Speaker 1: safe the complete package? Nothing cut out of that.

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Speaker 2: Well, the Mayor's actually added in the Lampton Key part

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Speaker 2: of it. So the Golden Mile, or one hundred and

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Speaker 2: forty million dollars of it, is all still going to

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Speaker 2: go ahead.

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Speaker 1: Okay, how much has been cut out of the cycle

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Speaker 1: ways budget?

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Speaker 2: Well, as far as I can tell. The officer said

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Speaker 2: there was forty million cut, but the numbers to me

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Speaker 2: don't add up as far as I can tell. In fact,

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Speaker 2: the cycle way budget has gone up by about ten million.

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Speaker 2: What but yeah, really really, but we've got information that's

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Speaker 2: been so late it's very very hard to check it.

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Speaker 2: So we're sort of passing a budget that we're still

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Speaker 2: a bit unclear about.

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Speaker 1: Well, this is not what's supposed to happen. This is

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Speaker 1: why the observer is there. Have you guys not gone

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Speaker 1: to the observer and been like, help us out.

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Speaker 2: The observers is still observing his feet. I've met We

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Speaker 2: met Lindsay yesterday and it was a very positive meeting

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Speaker 2: and he's his brief is really to watch and advise,

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Speaker 2: but we've still got to get ahere and make these decisions.

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Speaker 2: And that's what happened today.

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Speaker 1: Tony, I am alarmed that you guys are passing budgets

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Speaker 1: where you're not sure of the figures. How is this happening?

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Speaker 2: Look, it's it's a it's a very truncated process. We

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Speaker 2: got the actual figures in the spreadsheet version on Friday.

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Speaker 2: Officers were still passing back information as late as five

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Speaker 2: pm yesterday, and then this morning we went through the

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Speaker 2: whole thing and decided on literally hundreds of millions of

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Speaker 2: dollars worth of funding.

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Speaker 1: Okay, now is this a done deal? Like, is this

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Speaker 1: thing set in stone, You've saved enough, you can pass it,

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Speaker 1: it's going to go through or are we going to

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Speaker 1: have more snacks?

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Speaker 2: It's very hard to tell that the aim was to

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Speaker 2: restore the five hundred million dollars worth of emergency money

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Speaker 2: that that officers set we needed because we didn't sell

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Speaker 2: the airport years. But the mayor has added in a

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Speaker 2: whole lot of spending that the officers advised to be

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Speaker 2: cut to meet that target. The officers advised that we

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Speaker 2: wouldn't meet the target till years nine or ten, which

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Speaker 2: is like almost and they never never say while we

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Speaker 2: really haven't done the hard cuts yet, and I'm just

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Speaker 2: worried that there's not going to pass the audit when

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Speaker 2: the auditors look at it saying what's prudent? And have

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Speaker 2: we got enough emergency money?

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Speaker 1: Okay, so you guys have done enough as far as

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Speaker 1: you're concerned as a council, it's about whether the auditors

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Speaker 1: think you've done enough? Is that right? Like this is

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Speaker 1: the end of the council involvement in this.

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Speaker 2: No, the office are going to go away and report

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Speaker 2: on the amended you know, the decisions we made today,

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Speaker 2: and they're going to report back on the seventeenth of December.

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Speaker 2: Hopefully we'll get some workshop work before then to find

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Speaker 2: out how that we were. The numbers do add up,

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Speaker 2: and I but I suspect they don't, because you know,

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Speaker 2: we're still doing We added money into the Golden Mile

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Speaker 2: project from what the officers have. Yes, we didn't postpone,

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Speaker 2: for example, the organics. We didn't. We didn't actually cut

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Speaker 2: the cycle ways by a significant amount. And you know

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Speaker 2: when you add up, well, I think that I think

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Speaker 2: they've increased it and the only things we've cut a

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Speaker 2: sort of ten million dollars off the facilities management and

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Speaker 2: a few other things. If you look at the list

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Speaker 2: of what the mes amendments were, they were largely adding

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Speaker 2: in more spending. And so I'm worried we haven't made it.

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Speaker 1: Tony, is somebody dicking you guys around here with figures?

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Speaker 1: Because I feel like the council, the council officials are

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Speaker 1: dicking you guys around. They keep on changing the figures.

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Speaker 1: It feels dodgy to me.

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Speaker 2: I don't want to blame the officers one hundred percent,

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Speaker 2: but it's very frustrating to raise questions and not have

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Speaker 2: them answered until just before the meeting. I know they've

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Speaker 2: been working really really hard.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, but angler I mean, okay, you can make

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Speaker 1: excuses them. Is you have an existing relationship and I don't.

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Speaker 1: But how did we go from needing to find two

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Speaker 1: six hundred million or something to needing to find five

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Speaker 1: hundred million to today apparently only needing to find two

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Speaker 1: hundred and eighty million Like this, this fills dodgy.

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Speaker 2: Well, I've got to go back to the nervous emotion

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Speaker 2: when the officers said this is the consequences of not

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Speaker 2: selling the airport.

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Speaker 1: She is.

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Speaker 2: They said, by years five or six, we need to

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Speaker 2: have five hundred million, yeah, you know, below our own limit,

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Speaker 2: or a billion dollars overall.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. But then today apparently Tory goes isn't fine, it's

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Speaker 1: only two hundred and eighty. Well that's a massive difference.

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Speaker 2: I know, I know, and it's because counselors do not

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Speaker 2: like to cut projects. This council, especially and dis Council

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Speaker 2: I don't think, has cut enough projects. Sony, what do

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Speaker 2: you find out?

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Speaker 1: What's your background? What did you do before you were

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Speaker 1: in the council. I was.

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Speaker 2: I was a business analyst who write business cases and

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Speaker 2: you know, ran it projects.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so if the business guy, the business case guy

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Speaker 1: who deals with numbers is thinks that there's something weird

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Speaker 1: going on here and the numbers don't add up, we

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Speaker 1: should be why worried.

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Speaker 2: I'm worried. Look, a lot of councilors are very happy

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Speaker 2: with what happened today. I'm not happy. I'm also not

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Speaker 2: happy because this means that the Golden Mile was not

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Speaker 2: going to be subject to public consultation anymore. I think that,

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Speaker 2: you know, it's quite clear that as at the moment

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Speaker 2: they're going to sign contracts and start construction in January.

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Speaker 1: You guys, honestly, I feel like I feel sorry for you, Tony.

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Speaker 1: Thank you. I really appreciate your running us through that,

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Speaker 1: Tony Randall, Wellington City Council. So there we go. I mean, jeez,

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Speaker 1: if you need it, if you were, like Simeon Brown

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Speaker 1: did not really have a case for bringing in the

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Speaker 1: Wellington Observer, tell me what you think now, this sounds

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Speaker 1: like a shambles hither as late as five pm last evening. Wow,

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Speaker 1: that's commitment to the cause working until normal hours, isn't it. Well,

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Speaker 1: that's what it's like at the Wellington City Council headquarters

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Speaker 1: with the officials. Oh, I tell you what. Tony doesn't

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Speaker 1: want to say it, but I'll say it to you.

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Speaker 1: Those officials, I wouldn't trust them as far as I

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Speaker 1: can throw them. They've got an agenda here about what

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Speaker 1: they want and what they don't want, and they prepare

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Speaker 1: to screw the scrum constantly. And I reckon that they

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Speaker 1: realize I reckon, I'm starting to form the you and

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Speaker 1: this is in my opinion, so no one gets sued.

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Speaker 1: I have to say that I have a feeling that

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Speaker 1: they know that a lot of counselors are not sit

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Speaker 1: somewhere between being somewhat financially illiterate and also just a

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Speaker 1: little bit confused by numbers. Like if Tony Randall, the

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Speaker 1: numbers guy, is confused by what's going on, then everybody

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Speaker 1: sits somewhere in that ballpark, don't they. So their officials

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Speaker 1: just throw all kinds of numbers at them. Here's of

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Speaker 1: moving facets, different numbers, differ numbers, differ numbers. Just confuse them,

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Speaker 1: get what they want out of it. I think the

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Speaker 1: whole thing looks dodgy as and I'm gonna yeah, I

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Speaker 1: think we're I don't think we've seen the end of this,

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Speaker 1: by the looks of things. For more from Hither Duplassy

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Speaker 1: Allen Drive, listen live to news talks it'd be from

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