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Speaker 1: Change your heart from the government over transgender sport and funding.

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Speaker 1: So the threat was to cut funding to sport that

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Speaker 1: did not comply with a push to separate transgender athletes

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Speaker 1: from grassroots competition. So it was part of the coalition

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Speaker 1: deal between New Zealand First and National. They will now

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Speaker 1: instead be taking a quote unquote watching brief. This is

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Speaker 1: after extensive feedback from sport in New Zealand apparently, who

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Speaker 1: have advocated for flexibility, opposing a one size fits all solution. Now.

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Speaker 1: Row Edge is the co founder of Saved Women's Sport

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Speaker 1: and is with this road. Very good morning to you.

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Speaker 2: Good morning Mane.

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Speaker 1: You'd be disappointed, Yeah, I am.

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Speaker 2: But look I could be wrong, but there's something about

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Speaker 2: this that actually reeks of government bureaucrats trying to create

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Speaker 2: problems for the coalition government by feeding a busy minister

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Speaker 2: and accurate information. Chris Bishop contacted me by email about

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Speaker 2: two or three weeks ago and sent me a letter.

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Speaker 2: In it he wrongly stated that Sport New Zellain's transgender

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Speaker 2: guidelines had exemptions for ennis and safety in relation to

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Speaker 2: female sport, and they don't at all. So yeah, it

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Speaker 2: just feels like Bishop's been manipulated by officials, because I

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Speaker 2: would have thought he that have brought a fair minded

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Speaker 2: and reasonable view to this based on science and evidence,

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Speaker 2: not the catch opinions of Sport New Zealand, which unfortunately

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Speaker 2: they've long since played their cards on the table and

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Speaker 2: they're not a mutual party in this no.

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Speaker 1: I know. Having said that, we've also got Winston Peters

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Speaker 1: on later and it's a back to. I think this

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Speaker 1: was more his idea than it was National Party's idea

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Speaker 1: and therefore that's a back down on his part. So

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Speaker 1: I'll be interested to hear what he's got to say

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Speaker 1: about this. So how do we get around this, because

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Speaker 1: I mean part of the argument from Sport New Zealand

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Speaker 1: is it's you know, each individual sport does each It's

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Speaker 1: a mess, isn't it, because we don't know where we're

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Speaker 1: at it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well it's been created. A mess has been created

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Speaker 2: by Sport New Zealand developing these guiding principles. If they

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Speaker 2: wanted to allow sports to step back and create policies

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Speaker 2: that were right for each sport, they would remove those

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Speaker 2: guiding principles and that element of control. Because Sport New

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Speaker 2: Zealand is the funding leaver holds the funding leaver for

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Speaker 2: all sports, so if they don't comply with Sport New

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Speaker 2: Zealand's guidelines, sports are worried that those funding leavers will

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Speaker 2: be pulled. So if they do want to stay back

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Speaker 2: and allow sports to make the decision themselves, then they

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Speaker 2: need to take away the guiding principles and allow sports

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Speaker 2: for freedom to do that. We recently saw International Cricket

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Speaker 2: came out to protect the female category and New Zealand

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Speaker 2: Cricket had always told me they would follow their international

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Speaker 2: federation's guidelines, but because of Sport New Zealand's guiding principles,

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Speaker 2: I believe they haven't. And in every sport I speak

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Speaker 2: to say that we've got to follow those and so

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Speaker 2: our hands are tired. We're not making any progress. You know.

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Speaker 2: The only sport we've made progress with, apart from boxing

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Speaker 2: because Steve Hartley, the president of Boxing New Zealand obviously

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Speaker 2: doesn't want to condone male violence against women, is triathlon.

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Speaker 2: And that's because last year they were the only sport

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Speaker 2: descend a representative to the International Summit on Women's Sport

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Speaker 2: over in Colorado. So it's you know, I mean, it's

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Speaker 2: really disappointing. Might we play sport with our bodies, not

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Speaker 2: our identity exactly? And we all know that male bodies

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Speaker 2: are bigger, stronger and faster than females.

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Speaker 1: Interesting, right, all right, good catch, uppreciative very much, row Edge,

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Speaker 1: who's the Saved Women's sport spokesperson? For more from newstalkst B,

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Speaker 1: listen live on air or online, and keep our shows

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