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Speaker 1: Now on another matter, there is a growing chorus of

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Speaker 1: Auckland voices who are calling for more action to help

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Speaker 1: Auckland's economy thrive again. Simon Bridges from the Chamber of

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Speaker 1: Commerce is called for a corporate tax cut. Mayor Wayne

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Speaker 1: Brown has now renewed calls for a bed tax. Viv

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Speaker 1: Beck from Heart of the City is with us on this,

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Speaker 1: Heybiv Viv, Hello, Well, sorry for stuffing up. You know

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Speaker 1: what a start. Hey, listen, do you agree with these

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Speaker 1: guys that there is not enough help at the moment

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Speaker 1: for Auckland.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I do absolutely, And I think the operative word

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Speaker 2: you just said then is action and I think speed

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Speaker 2: because things do tend to go round and round of it.

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Speaker 2: And you look at that bed tax. If the government

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Speaker 2: doesn't like it, what there needs to be is discussion

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Speaker 2: around what are the alternatives so that we actually can

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Speaker 2: get moving. Because we're talking to people on the street,

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Speaker 2: businesses who have struggled through ten years as you know here,

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Speaker 2: and they need people, they need customers, they need people

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Speaker 2: here and events are a proven way of doing that.

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Speaker 1: So what's your preference. Is it for a corporate tax

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Speaker 1: rate cut or is it for a bed tax?

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Speaker 2: Well, tax cuts are sort of a little bit out

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Speaker 2: of our organizational field, but the reality is what we

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Speaker 2: deal with. There's a lot of street trading businesses that

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Speaker 2: need people here, and we can't just have this sort

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Speaker 2: of stalemate stuff where things don't go anywhere. So we

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Speaker 2: need people here. If they don't like a bed tax,

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Speaker 2: give us our GST back and let us get on

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Speaker 2: with it. America's cup was a great example, totally missed opportunity,

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Speaker 2: and I think with a different attitude, that could have

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Speaker 2: been a different outcome.

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Speaker 1: So what do you think is going wrong? Do the

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Speaker 1: guys and I mean, do you sheep this home to

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Speaker 1: central government?

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Speaker 2: Well, I think it can't all go back there. But

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Speaker 2: I look at our situation here and it's going to

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Speaker 2: need all the players working together with speed to determine

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Speaker 2: how we actually get the action we need. You look

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Speaker 2: at crime that's worked. It's had a minister that's been

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Speaker 2: wanting to sort of grab it and get on with it.

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Speaker 2: We've had all the right people here working together and

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Speaker 2: we've had a significant reduction in crime. We met Minister's

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Speaker 2: Bishop and Brown last week and said we need the

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Speaker 2: same level of ministerial support to deal with the social

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Speaker 2: issues because we know that it's troubling a lot of

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Speaker 2: our businesses and many others, and we want it's an

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Speaker 2: attitude with the right people working together to make stuff happen.

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Speaker 2: And it actually can happen on social issues because it

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Speaker 2: happened before COVID.

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Speaker 1: Right, and so who would be the right minister? Who's

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Speaker 1: the minister who you think should be the one who

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Speaker 1: does something here?

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Speaker 2: Well? Actually, on the social issues, it's cross agency. Mental

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Speaker 2: health has been missing in action. We need mental health,

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Speaker 2: we need housing. So we've got Minister Bishop's attention, mister Brown,

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Speaker 2: and also we do need Louis Upstein because at the

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Speaker 2: end of the day, this is it affects tourism and

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Speaker 2: it's a social development issue. So it's a cross agency approach. Actually,

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Speaker 2: we don't think it needs more money. It's actually how

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Speaker 2: do we work together to solve the issue, make sure

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Speaker 2: people are housed thoughtfully with the right support, that we've

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Speaker 2: got the right mental health support for them. Before COVID

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Speaker 2: we had two hundred Rough sleep is successfully housed and

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Speaker 2: we've developed a great alternative to begging. Let's be bold

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Speaker 2: and aspirational and make stuff happen.

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Speaker 1: Do you think that they do not realize in other

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Speaker 1: parts of the country, like perhaps in Wellington, how bad

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Speaker 1: it is in central Auckland.

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Speaker 2: I don't think they do. And when I presented at

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Speaker 2: the COVID inquiry recently, I had it on a graph

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Speaker 2: the stark reality of the central city versus the rest

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Speaker 2: of Auckland versus the rest of New Zealand, that it

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Speaker 2: may not be as severe as it was during COVID,

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Speaker 2: but the gap is still there. They need to understand that.

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Speaker 2: I heard the Prime Minister say this afternoon. Apparently he

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Speaker 2: said something like, well, they're getting a six billion dollar rail.

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Speaker 2: You cannot seriously think that you're going to open up

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Speaker 2: a rail and it's mysteriously going to imagically going to

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Speaker 2: take away the woes of ten years of disruption, the

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Speaker 2: worst impacts of COVID in the country and the residual

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Speaker 2: social issues is not going to happen. So we've said

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Speaker 2: to Minister's Life last week, please be cautious about this.

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Speaker 2: We need action urgently and it's not all on them,

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Speaker 2: but they need to work with us locally and not

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Speaker 2: leave the small business voice out. It's critical to this.

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Speaker 2: You don't want to go to a city without retail

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Speaker 2: and hospitality on the streets.

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Speaker 1: Fair Point, viv Thank you so much, vive Beck, Heart

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Speaker 1: of the City.

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Speaker 2: For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive, Listen live to

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