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Speaker 1: And so if you're trying to get a driver's license,

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Speaker 1: here's another problem. If you're trying to get a driver's license,

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Speaker 1: that's still an issue. The average wait times over a month.

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Speaker 1: We do seemingly have as temporary fix. Overseas licensed conversions

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Speaker 1: will be extended from twelve to eighteen months. So in

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Speaker 1: other word, to become here, you get an overseas license,

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Speaker 1: you've got to convert it, but you can now hang

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Speaker 1: around for a bit longer, from twelve to eighteen months.

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Speaker 1: Transport Minister Summing and Brown is with us on this

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Speaker 1: good morning.

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Speaker 2: Good morning mine.

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Speaker 1: Of all the leavers you can pull, how material is this?

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Speaker 1: How many people we got on overseas licenses that may

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Speaker 1: or may.

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Speaker 2: Not convert, Well, there's tens of thousands are The reality

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Speaker 2: is we've had significantly high immigration the last number of years.

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Speaker 2: That's adding to the backlog of people trying to get

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Speaker 2: their driver's license, which is exacerbating a situation which was

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Speaker 2: created when the last government unlimited free resets for people

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Speaker 2: doing tests. So we're pulling a number of levers to

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Speaker 2: get these weight times down. We've removed the free research

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Speaker 2: is now only one for New Zealand citizens and residents.

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Speaker 2: There's no free resets for people on overseas driver license conversions.

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Speaker 2: We're now extending the actor from twelve months to eighteen

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Speaker 2: months for people doing these conversions just to free out

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Speaker 2: more space. And we've got over fifty more driver training

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Speaker 2: officers across the country in place, so we're getting the

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Speaker 2: numbers down, but there's still a ways to go.

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Speaker 1: I was going to say, do we need more people

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Speaker 1: just doing the job.

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Speaker 2: That's one of the leavers we've done. So n DTA

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Speaker 2: has recruited an extra fifty two full time driver training officers,

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Speaker 2: We've got nineteen temporary driver training officers, and there's more

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Speaker 2: in training at the moment, and of speeding up the

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Speaker 2: training process to get more people on the job at

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Speaker 2: the same time. So we're pulling all the levers to

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Speaker 2: get these numbers down. I get a lot of people

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Speaker 2: writing to me about how long it's taking for their

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Speaker 2: children to be able to get a driver license test.

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Speaker 2: My own sister who lives in Norkland, she's had to

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Speaker 2: go to Rhoda Orua. So we need to do everything

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Speaker 2: we can to get these numbers down.

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Speaker 1: And that we've just been through, is this a cartel?

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Speaker 1: Because we had real troubles out, took a what do

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Speaker 1: you call it, the defensive driving course, you know, to

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Speaker 1: speed up to get your license, and they get that.

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Speaker 1: You can't ring anybody. It's all online. You can't get

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Speaker 1: to choose the guy you had was an idiot. You

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Speaker 1: wanted somebody who wasn't an idiot. They said, no, no,

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Speaker 1: this is the system. You do as you told. The

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Speaker 1: whole thing seemed gerrymandered and Soviet Union to me.

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Speaker 2: Well, the NDTA is doing some work around the contracts

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Speaker 2: for the driver training or sorry, the driver testing. Those

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Speaker 2: contracts will be coming up for renewle at some point

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Speaker 2: I think next year, and so there does need to

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Speaker 2: be some work done around that. They will be making

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Speaker 2: sure that it's more efficient. But in the meantime, we

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Speaker 2: need to get these numbers down so that people can

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Speaker 2: get their driver license tests in a timely fashion.

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Speaker 1: Do you know what you do? Do you want a

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Speaker 1: top tip?

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Speaker 2: Sameon I'd love a top tip.

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Speaker 1: They refresh every hour for the people who have booked

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Speaker 1: and then drop out. You go on the top of

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Speaker 1: the hour and you get in. We got in the

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Speaker 1: next day.

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Speaker 2: Oh, that's it's fantastic. Top tip and one of the

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Speaker 2: other initiatives they are doing is actually ringing people beforehand.

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Speaker 2: They are you actually coming along because no shows is

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Speaker 2: a big problem.

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Speaker 1: That, by the way, was free from me to you.

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Speaker 1: You have a good day. Appreciate it, Simmy and Brown,

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Speaker 1: who is the transport mines. That's what we did. It

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Speaker 1: wasn't that hard. It's not to say it works every

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Speaker 1: time and don't tell me and go. And that's because

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Speaker 1: that's who you are. It's got nothing to do with it.

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Speaker 1: They refresh every other computer. You just go to the computer,

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Speaker 1: ring them up straight after. Would you said you've got

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Speaker 1: any cancelations? They go, oh, yes, we've got one drop off,

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Speaker 1: now go bank, we'll take it. For more from the

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Speaker 1: mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks.

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Speaker 2: It'd be from six am weekdays, or follow the podcast

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Speaker 2: on iHeartRadio.