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Speaker 1: Now you will recall before the election we spoke quite

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Speaker 1: a bit about the issues at Sanderson Middle School with

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Speaker 1: Woon's coming onto the oval and damaging it. Well, on

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Speaker 1: a number of occasions we'd spoken to the board chair,

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Speaker 1: Mark Ferguson, as well as the Nightcliff Dragons who train

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Speaker 1: on that oval, and there were a number of different

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Speaker 1: situations which saw you know, people driving on to the oval.

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Speaker 1: They'd ripped up the field, they'd rendered it unsafe for

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Speaker 1: the students and also for players, and it really reignited

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Speaker 1: the calls for ballards to be elected to stop cars erected,

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Speaker 1: I should say, to stop cars from driving on the oval.

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Speaker 1: But when I spoke to Mark back in August before

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Speaker 1: the election, he was told that the ballards could be

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Speaker 1: quite a long way off, bureaucracy really holding things up.

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Speaker 1: Now I understand that that situation may have changed to

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Speaker 1: some degree. Mark Ferguson joins me on the line. Good

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Speaker 1: morning to you, Mark.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Katie, welcome back.

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Speaker 1: Oh thank you, it's good to be back. And well

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Speaker 1: hopefully you've maybe got a bit of better news.

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Speaker 2: Talk to me.

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Speaker 1: Where are things at with these bollards?

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Speaker 2: Well, I can confirm that the education Department has asked

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Speaker 2: us to go ahead with getting this was only happened

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Speaker 2: in the last couple of days. Has told us to

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Speaker 2: go ahead and put the ballood in and they'll reimburse us.

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Speaker 1: Well, my dad, is good news because the money. We

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Speaker 1: knew the money was already sort of earmarked, didn't We

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Speaker 1: We knew it was there, ready to go, but it

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Speaker 1: was a matter of then waiting for things to sort

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Speaker 1: of you know, to fire off progress.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. So we've got an email sating that that

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Speaker 2: the Education Department is more than happy for us to

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Speaker 2: go forward getting a few quotes and getting it all

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Speaker 2: installed and then they will reimburse us back. This has

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Speaker 2: all come through the school. I still have had to

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Speaker 2: reply back to my email personally, but.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so what so, you know, why aren't they getting

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Speaker 1: back to you? Do you think or is it just

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Speaker 1: that now there's been that change of government I suppose,

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Speaker 1: or is it you know, is that the bureaucrats that

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Speaker 1: you're not hearing back from.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, basically as the bureaucrats, so we're not hearing back from,

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Speaker 2: but they're still contacting our school and everything's come through

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Speaker 2: the school and then they've passed it on to me.

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Speaker 1: So, well, what do you like, what are the next

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Speaker 1: steps from your perspective in terms of the time frame

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Speaker 1: and and you know what you're going to be able

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Speaker 1: to do to get these ballards in stall because it

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Speaker 1: is good news and hopefully means that not only are

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Speaker 1: the kids going to be safe at school, but that

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Speaker 1: also the footy club's able to you know, to be

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Speaker 1: reassured that they can rock up for training and there's

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Speaker 1: not going to be great big donut you know damage.

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Speaker 2: Well, absolutely, but unfortunately we still had an incident a

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Speaker 2: couple of weeks ago where a car did come on

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Speaker 2: and rip up our nice terf again, so you've had

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Speaker 2: to spend a bit a bit more money on getting

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Speaker 2: that all six. But what it means now is we've

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Speaker 2: already been out getting some quotes and then we'll start

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Speaker 2: installing them probably in the next couple of weeks and

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Speaker 2: then hopefully by the middle of the term to coming

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Speaker 2: up to the end of the term, we actually will

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Speaker 2: have ballards right around our school ovals, which would be great.

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Speaker 1: Good stuff. That is really good stuff. I mean, what's

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Speaker 1: the Have you had much of an opportunity to talk

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Speaker 1: to sort of parents of the school or to the

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Speaker 1: footy club or anything like that. How people feeling about

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Speaker 1: this final ay looking like it's going to happen.

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Speaker 2: The unfortunate thing is, Katie, everyone was on holidays when

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Speaker 2: everything came through. So I'm just waiting to get back

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Speaker 2: to school next week. With school coming back next week,

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Speaker 2: letting everyone know and having a good old yarn with

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Speaker 2: the the Nightcap Dragons and making sure that they're well

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Speaker 2: aware of what our time frame is, as well as

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Speaker 2: getting back to our students and teachers and also the

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Speaker 2: community just to let them know as well.

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Speaker 1: All good stuff. Well, hopefully some of them are listening

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Speaker 1: this morning and they'll know and they'll be happy to

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Speaker 1: hear that it is going to go ahead. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's been a long time coming, isn't it.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely considering you know, we started this little bit of

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Speaker 2: a fight a couple of years ago when we actually

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Speaker 2: had we had to cancel one of our biggest events,

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Speaker 2: which was our sports day, our school sports day, because

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Speaker 2: someone came on the field on a vehicle, So we

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Speaker 2: canceled it so that none of our students, staff, or

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Speaker 2: even the community were injured during it.

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Speaker 1: Look, it has just like to me, it's just seemed

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Speaker 1: like you know, bureau like bureau Christy at its worst.

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Speaker 1: The fact that it has sort of taken this long,

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Speaker 1: and you know the fact that there could potentially be

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Speaker 1: dangerous situations for our young people at a school. It's

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Speaker 1: sort of just highlighted to me all that can go

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Speaker 1: wrong in terms of waiting for something to happen. So

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Speaker 1: I am so very pleased that it is now going

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Speaker 1: to go ahead and happen.

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Speaker 2: I tell you, Katie, I am estatic it's going to happen.

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Speaker 2: But it had to take a lot of effort, a

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Speaker 2: lot of fighting, a lot of letters, a lot of

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Speaker 2: discussion with ministers and as well as our local members,

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Speaker 2: just to try and get this at the forefront of

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Speaker 2: everyone's mind. Because it's our students' safety that we were

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Speaker 2: mainly worried about, as well as our teachers and the community.

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Speaker 2: We didn't want anyone seriously endured. We didn't want anyone

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Speaker 2: to you know, it's the unfortunate accident of someone dying happened.

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Speaker 2: We didn't want that. So that's why we kept pushing Katie.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, which needed to happen, right, And you know,

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Speaker 1: I knew that you guys were not going to take

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Speaker 1: no for an answer which I would be exactly the

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Speaker 1: same when you're talking about the safety of young people

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Speaker 1: at a school mate. Do we have any idea how

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Speaker 1: much it's going to cost.

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Speaker 2: I think we've gotten a rough estimate of about ninety fouds.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, right, it's it is a fairly sort of expensive process,

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Speaker 1: I suppose in that sense. But you know, you can't

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Speaker 1: put a price really on the safety of our.

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Speaker 2: Kids, exactly, Katie. And that's exactly what I was going

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Speaker 2: to say. You know, what's the price of losing one

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Speaker 2: of our students. What's the price of, you know, having

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Speaker 2: one of our community members or even parents, teachers, or

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Speaker 2: staff actually either seriously injured or unfortunately dying.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, this is exactly right, Dock. It needed to happen.

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Speaker 1: It absolutely needed to happen. So I please that it

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Speaker 1: is finally going to be happening. Geez, you must have

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Speaker 1: been happy when you finally got that call or when

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Speaker 1: the school, because I know they didn't call you directly,

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Speaker 1: but when you finally found out that it was that

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Speaker 1: it was a goer.

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Speaker 2: Well, I did email all our lovely board members, all

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Speaker 2: our school representative council, and I got a lot of

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Speaker 2: your peas and thank god.

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Speaker 1: Good stuff.

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Speaker 2: Well.

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Speaker 1: Sanderson Middle School board chair Mark Ferguson, good to speak

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Speaker 1: with you this morning, mate, And yeah, I'm really pleased

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Speaker 1: that this is going ahead and common sense has prevailed.

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Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Katie, and thank you for helping

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Speaker 2: Creature and all your listeners because without them we would

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Speaker 2: still be probably chasing our sales trying to get this done.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, any time, Mark, Thank you mate. We'll talk to

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Speaker 1: you again soon.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you,