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Speaker 1: Cudos to Philip Mills, he of Jim Empire. As it

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Speaker 1: turns out, this election year's star turn in the donation

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Speaker 1: department now is money for the Top Party is the

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Speaker 1: first large declared donation. If you haven't followed this now,

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Speaker 1: I like it for a couple of reasons. Business owners

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Speaker 1: and leaders too often display a fear when it comes

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Speaker 1: to views and support and commetary I mean, I learned

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Speaker 1: this sadly during COVID. The anger privately never matched the

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Speaker 1: anger publicly from some of the nation's biggest names and

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Speaker 1: businesses because they feared retribution from the government of the day. Mills,

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Speaker 1: like any owner, especially in this day and age, risks

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Speaker 1: pushback from the public that he wants to give him

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Speaker 1: money to turn up at his place to pump iron.

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Speaker 1: It's way easier to keep your head down. So good

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Speaker 1: on him. Sadly he has wasted his money, but that,

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Speaker 1: I suppose is the beauty of election year and democracy

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Speaker 1: were all free to do the same. TOP will not

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Speaker 1: make it the way that Mills thinks they will. Personally,

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Speaker 1: I kind of hope I'm wrong. The ho MMP thing

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Speaker 1: was about greater representation, and if TOP cracked it, I'd

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Speaker 1: be pleased to see another player. Sadly it is not

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Speaker 1: to be because top are two nuanced. There is no

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Speaker 1: obvious gap to fill. They are the middle of the

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Speaker 1: road music radio station looking to find a spot between

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Speaker 1: the hits coast and the breeze. Except unlike radio, where

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Speaker 1: entry is free, in politics you need five percent, and

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Speaker 1: five percent is actually a lot. The Gareth Morgan era,

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Speaker 1: if you remember it, as I've seid a number of

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Speaker 1: times before, was their opening. The easier route is an electorate,

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Speaker 1: of course, with plenty of choice already. You get a

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Speaker 1: high profile player like Morgan in an electorate split that vote,

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Speaker 1: win the seat, and the coat tail at about two

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Speaker 1: percent might in fact give you two MPs, not one.

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Speaker 1: They've got no Morgan's even rape Mangi, who ran in

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Speaker 1: christ Yuch last time, had some profile, he didn't do it.

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Speaker 1: So as we sit here this morning, dollars to doughnuts,

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Speaker 1: you can't even name the leader. Bet you can't name

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Speaker 1: the leader or any member of the party. And as

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Speaker 1: for the policies, there are a mix of the obscure

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Speaker 1: and overlap. In other words, a lot of what they

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Speaker 1: think is already in the parliament. If that's what you want, so,

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Speaker 1: in simple terms, our Parliament's full six apparently rightly Wrongly's

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Speaker 1: all we want. Philip has fifty grand that says I'm wrong.

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Speaker 1: But of all the predictions I will make the selection year,

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Speaker 1: this is right up there on the confidence scale. For

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Speaker 1: more from The Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to News

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Speaker 1: Talks at B from six am weekdays, or follow the

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Speaker 1: podcast on iHeartRadio