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Speaker 1: Totonger has elected a new mayor and councilors. According to

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Speaker 1: preliminary results, the former Olympic rower Mahe Drysdale will be

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Speaker 1: the first person to take the mayoral chains after the

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Speaker 1: last council was replaced by commissioners. You remember that back

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Speaker 1: in early twenty twenty one. Local government elections for the

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Speaker 1: rest of us will take place next year, making this

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Speaker 1: the first council that will serve a four year term.

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Speaker 1: They're telling Business Chamber Chief executive Matt Cowley is with

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Speaker 1: me this morning. Matt was, mahey, the best of the bunch,

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Speaker 1: do you reckon?

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Speaker 2: Look? He was a moderate that obviously managed to appeal

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Speaker 2: to as many people and from a business perspective, gave

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Speaker 2: a bit of certainty in terms of not wanting to

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Speaker 2: be too radical in terms of going forward. And it

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Speaker 2: looks like the team around him might be in a

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Speaker 2: similar position. So nothing too crazy.

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Speaker 1: And there's only one guy on there who was from

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Speaker 1: the Sax Council, the guy called Steve Morris. What's he like?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, look right, he's a really good champion atma

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Speaker 2: I think he was the obvious person full pat noma,

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Speaker 2: but really, look, it's more around how well they get

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Speaker 2: along in between meetings. I think it was an absolute

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Speaker 2: pressure cooker situation last time with COVID and a whole

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Speaker 2: bunch of other things. But that's beyond that's our history.

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Speaker 2: That's all portionship paper now and hopefully we can remove

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Speaker 2: those embarrassing days from us.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I so what about the turnout? Speaking of embarrassing,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's around thirty percent.

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Speaker 2: Gad. Hopefully with specials we get somewhere close to twenty nineteen,

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Speaker 2: so it's not going to be It's be our usual trend,

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Speaker 2: which is still low but not embarrassingly low. But it

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Speaker 2: sort of raises questions around is this really the full

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Speaker 2: democracy that the so called community had wanted?

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Speaker 1: Well? Do you think it is? I mean, do you

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Speaker 1: think there's something fundamentally broken here when they didn't have

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Speaker 1: the to vote at the last one, they haven't been

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Speaker 1: represented democratically for a couple of years because of these commissioners,

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Speaker 1: and then here's your chance and only thirty percent turn up.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I think the whole sect is a little bit

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Speaker 2: broken in terms of engaging communities, being relevant, and a

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Speaker 2: little bit of sentences and fatigue out there as well,

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Speaker 2: and just apathy Mike Hoskin said some comments last Friday

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Speaker 2: which I kind of agree with in terms of maybe

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Speaker 2: a bit of balance with some skills and some elected members.

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Speaker 1: Who knows, Yeah, have you got any concerns or does

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Speaker 1: it talk in the town about the fact that Marheede

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Speaker 1: lives one hundred k's away from the White Kato. Does

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Speaker 1: anyone care about that?

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Speaker 2: Well, some people do, But it sounds like he'll be

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Speaker 2: considering coming over when as kid finishes his year of school,

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Speaker 2: so he will be part of it very very soon.

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Speaker 2: So that's not a major not a big deal.

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Speaker 1: It's probably yeah, what's the big what's the one big

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Speaker 1: thing that they need to start fixing?

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Speaker 2: For you, Matt, Well, before they can fix anything, they

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Speaker 2: need to know how local government works and know how

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Speaker 2: to work together as a team. But then there's a

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Speaker 2: risk that they might be a little bit too scared

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Speaker 2: of not wanting to disagree and wanting to get along

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Speaker 2: so well that they might get a bit of group

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Speaker 2: thinking and rubber stamp some recommendations that come through from staff.

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Speaker 2: So somewhere in between some constructive discussion and robust opportunities,

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Speaker 2: the commission is pushed back on staff. A couple of times,

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Speaker 2: which is good. It's healthy and governance and they shouldn't

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Speaker 2: be too scared to do that either.

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Speaker 1: Matt, thanks for your time this morning. Good luck with

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Speaker 1: a new council. It sounds like just a bare minimum

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Speaker 1: functioning council is what mattter is after. There for more

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Speaker 1: from News Talks' b listen live on air or online,

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Speaker 1: and

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Speaker 2: Keep our shows with you wherever you go with our

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