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Speaker 1: And we know that there has been quite a bit

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Speaker 1: of conjecture. I think you'd have to say, following on

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Speaker 1: from that interview that we've done. Yesterday, just after ten o'clock,

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Speaker 1: we had the opposition's health spokesperson on the show, Bill Yan,

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Speaker 1: and we talked about these change instead of coming to

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Speaker 1: play when it comes to the Chief Health Officer direction.

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Speaker 2: So you're no longer if you're unvaccinated.

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Speaker 1: You can now go into some of those larger events

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Speaker 1: over five hundred people and also different sporting events. You

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Speaker 1: no longer need to show your vax status. But if

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Speaker 1: you want to get yourself a beer, you're not allowed

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Speaker 1: to do that. If you want to have a pie,

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Speaker 1: well that's okay, you can go and get one of those.

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Speaker 1: You're not going to have to show that you're vaccinated

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Speaker 1: for that. Unfortunately, though, what we are seeing is you

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Speaker 1: do still need to be vaccinated to go into a

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Speaker 1: licensed premises. Now, this is something that we've been speaking

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Speaker 1: about for a little while now. And joining me on

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Speaker 1: the line is the CEO of Hospitality here in the

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Speaker 1: Northern Territory, Alex Bruce.

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Speaker 2: Good morning to you, Alex, Good morning Katie. Alex.

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Speaker 1: Earlier in the week, you were pretty frustrated by this situation.

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Speaker 2: How are you feeling today?

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Speaker 3: Oh, look, we had that very respectful meeting with the

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Speaker 3: Chief Health Officer and your deputy on Monday where we

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Speaker 3: put to them that we're feeling like we're getting targeted.

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Speaker 3: This is an anti alcohol measure, you know, the vaccine path,

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Speaker 3: the vax path has turned into a license to drink.

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Speaker 3: And they pushed back and said that wasn't the case

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Speaker 3: the whole time they were drafting a carve out that

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Speaker 3: makes it absolutely linked to just the sale of a beer.

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Speaker 3: You know, the Shadow Minister's right. The absurdity of it.

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Speaker 3: You can be in a crowded too stadium watching the footy,

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Speaker 3: you can go buy a pie. But somehow if you

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Speaker 3: grabbed a grape and all the mid strengths can you're

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Speaker 3: suddenly the arch enemy and you're super high risk and

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Speaker 3: you're a super spreader or something. It's just out of garbage, Katie.

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Speaker 1: What if they sort of said to you in this space, Alex,

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Speaker 1: is there you know, is there a medical reason behind

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Speaker 1: it in terms of you know, in terms of why

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Speaker 1: those that are licensed venues at this point are still

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Speaker 1: having to go through this process.

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Speaker 3: Katie, we share the concerns that there haven't been enough

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Speaker 3: published in writing analysis on any of these measures the

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Speaker 3: whole time, throughout you know, and the whole Oh well

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Speaker 3: we do daily press conferences. Well, whoopee, that's that's something different,

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Speaker 3: you know, And since January I've been speaking to you

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Speaker 3: about it at least that you know, we know that

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Speaker 3: transmission occurs right across society, right across activities. Health do

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Speaker 3: tell us that you know, Omicron was a game changer

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Speaker 3: versus Delta, both in terms of happily not not as deadly,

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Speaker 3: but also it spreads through workplaces, it spreads and schools,

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Speaker 3: it spreads everywhere. And yes, across the world we've seen

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Speaker 3: focused on you know, high intensity dance club nightclub activity

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Speaker 3: where people whether they're drinking or not, there in crossed

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Speaker 3: proximity to people not in their bubbles. To use a

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Speaker 3: previous term, you know, and that and that is a

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Speaker 3: case of transmission. But to flatly ignore the cry since January,

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Speaker 3: what is the difference in a licensed cafe versus our

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Speaker 3: licensed cafe when you're sitting in an outdoor our fresco

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Speaker 3: table having a coffee for half an hour. This obsession

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Speaker 3: with alcohol is very laid bare now and we've been

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Speaker 3: doing a survey all week and the responses that we're

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Speaker 3: getting from our members, they just had a gutful of this.

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Speaker 3: If this is an alcohol measure, call it for what

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Speaker 3: it is.

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Speaker 1: Alex, What have those responses been to that survey? Talk

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Speaker 1: us through what you've asked and where that survey's at.

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Speaker 3: We've been engaging on the two year bill that's before

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Speaker 3: Parliament and due to be debated and past next sitting.

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Speaker 3: We did catch up with the Health Minister this week

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Speaker 3: and we do respect that they will need to continue

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Speaker 3: to have the opportunity to do for As you know,

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Speaker 3: no one can crystal ball what the next two years

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Speaker 3: look like, but all the data is showing that, you know,

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Speaker 3: they're no more waves, there's ripples. Let's talk about ripples.

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Speaker 3: Let's talk about how you've had two years to plan

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Speaker 3: for your hospital situation. Beyond the point. This is not

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Speaker 3: a hospitality issue. This is a hospital issue, and just

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Speaker 3: get out of everybody's life and leave us alone. And

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Speaker 3: that's the kind of our commentary that's coming back very

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Speaker 3: loud and clearly. You know, we've got survey responses now

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Speaker 3: over eighty of our businesses. They represent you know, twenty

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Speaker 3: eight hundred workers. We did everything. We played by the

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Speaker 3: rules for the last two years. You keep changing the rules.

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Speaker 3: You're now threatening to do that for the next two years,

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Speaker 3: and it's making a lot of people unsettled.

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Speaker 1: So over eighty of your businesses have so far being

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Speaker 1: back to you, more than two thousand members, and they

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Speaker 1: are really saying, please let us get on with things.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely, Katie. I mean, what's left of the rules. There's

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Speaker 3: that many holes in them. We've had the Police Minister

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Speaker 3: break break the rules the first day out of COVID

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Speaker 3: quarantine and not going to find. We've had the Chief

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Speaker 3: Minister break the rules three days before the indoor mass

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Speaker 3: mandate was lifted and not going to find. I just

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Speaker 3: wonder how it would be at all possible for them

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Speaker 3: to find anybody for breaking the chow rules now when

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Speaker 3: they're not enforcing it themselves, and we know, you know,

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Speaker 3: and your listeners would be aware. Not all venues are

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Speaker 3: doing this, not all instances. When it's happening, you know,

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Speaker 3: particularly if it's busy and there's multiple entrances, you can

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Speaker 3: understand when we're getting more and more pushback from our

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Speaker 3: customers not to do it. They don't want to do it.

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Speaker 3: We can't be any clearer with the government. They're holding

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Speaker 3: on too tight. There is no health finance behind this

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Speaker 3: and it just needs to go, and it should have

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Speaker 3: gone when they lifted it off. You know, Peter Garrett

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Speaker 3: coming to town and having two and a half thousand

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Speaker 3: people on Saturday night down at the Downy Gardens.

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Speaker 1: Oh, look, I just think it's such a you know,

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Speaker 1: it's such a difficult situation right now where there's so

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Speaker 1: much confusion from people in the sense that you know,

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Speaker 1: like I've spoken about through the week, and we spoke

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Speaker 1: about it earlier during the week that was you know,

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Speaker 1: if you can go into a venue where there is

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Speaker 1: a large number of people, or you know, a sporting

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Speaker 1: event where there's a large number of people, you can

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Speaker 1: go and buy a pie, but you can't go and

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Speaker 1: get a beer. I just sort of I think there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of people questioning right now why some of

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Speaker 1: these decisions are being made. And I can understand the

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Speaker 1: frustration from the hospitality sector when right now you're having

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Speaker 1: to follow a set of rules that others aren't.

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Speaker 3: Katie, you can be COVID positive, but send your little

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Speaker 3: kid off to school to pay it forward to the

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Speaker 3: next family. Quantus has changed it's online check in system

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Speaker 3: and it's removed the questions that you would to fall

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Speaker 3: foul of. So you can jump on a plane and

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Speaker 3: I'm aware that people were doing this even yesterday, COVID

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Speaker 3: positive and they're on the plane. You can take your

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Speaker 3: mask off on that plane and eat and drink, including

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Speaker 3: you know, horrible alcohol. You know this now no longer

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Speaker 3: makes any sense for our roadhouses down the track or

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Speaker 3: our venues when people fly into the only place where

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Speaker 3: we're having a conversation about vaccination status. And you know,

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Speaker 3: with regard the booster rate being of fifty five percent,

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Speaker 3: well good, but it's got nothing to do with the

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Speaker 3: vax path because it's only ever checks the two ticks,

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Speaker 3: the two vacs. So you know, like this whole Oh,

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Speaker 3: we've got to keep it there because it's going to help. No,

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Speaker 3: it's not, how Alex.

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Speaker 1: It sounds like you are incredibly frustrated, and I can

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Speaker 1: understand because it sounds like your members are incredibly frustrated

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Speaker 1: at this point.

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Speaker 2: Look, what do you want to see happen here?

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Speaker 1: Do you want there to be a time frame in

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Speaker 1: terms of how much longer are you going to have

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Speaker 1: to be checking people's vax status.

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Speaker 3: It's got to go now, Katie. We don't want to

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Speaker 3: see a situation where they go, oh okay, we're going

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Speaker 3: to just do it on the nightclubs now, because the

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Speaker 3: science really is that it's that kind of activity that's

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Speaker 3: a bit more high risk. Bully to that. You've let

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Speaker 3: everybody else go, You let the gym go, you let

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Speaker 3: the unvaxxed construction workers start building at CDU. Again, we

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Speaker 3: put that to the show when he nodded, he knows

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Speaker 3: there's no compliance, there's no enforcement going on, so hospitality

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Speaker 3: just needs to be let go to.

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Speaker 1: Well, Alex Bruce, we appreciate your time as always. Well,

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Speaker 1: we'll wait and see exactly what decision is made and

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Speaker 1: when we're going to get an outcome to this situation,

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Speaker 1: because yeah, I do feel for.

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Speaker 2: The hospitality industry right now.

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Speaker 1: I know even you know, when we had the week

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Speaker 1: that was Matt Cunningham saying, you know I went for lunch,

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Speaker 1: You've got people behind bars trying to check vaccination status.

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Speaker 2: I think we all understood it.

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Speaker 1: You know, when we were trying to get those vaccination

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Speaker 1: rates up and before.

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Speaker 2: Omicron had really run through the community.

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Speaker 1: But right now, when there's so many other things that

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Speaker 1: you're allowed to do, there's just so many people questioning

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Speaker 1: why we're still checking the vaccination status of people when

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Speaker 1: they go into a license venue.

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Speaker 3: That's it, Katie, and I'll say it again. You know,

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Speaker 3: the vax path has become a license to drink our territorians.

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Speaker 1: Are we comfortable, sat Alex Bruce. We always appreciate your time.

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Speaker 1: Thank you very much for speaking with me today.

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Speaker 2: Katie, thank you