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Speaker 1: Good morning, and welcome to the Daily os. It's Thursday,

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Speaker 1: the twentieth of May. My name is Sam Kezlowski, and

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Speaker 1: helping me make sense of today's news is Zara Sideline.

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Speaker 1: Making news today, Donald Trump investigated wasted vaccines, some good

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Speaker 1: news about COVID in the US, and.

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Speaker 2: A chat about the government's new gas fired power station.

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Speaker 2: Here's today's Daily Digest.

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Speaker 1: The New York State Attorney's investigation into the Trump organization

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Speaker 1: is now a criminal probe instead of being entirely civil.

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Speaker 1: The investigation is looking into whether the Trump organization falsely

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Speaker 1: reported property values to gain loans and tax and economic benefits.

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Speaker 1: Cirrus Vance, whose Manhattan's District Attorney has additionally been investigating

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Speaker 1: the business for more than two years on tax and

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Speaker 1: insurance fraud and the falsification of business records.

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Speaker 2: We found out, according to government data, that there's an

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Speaker 2: estimated six hundred one thousand doses of the COVID nineteen

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Speaker 2: vaccine that are sitting unused across state run clinics. Both

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Speaker 2: the NT and Queensland are using the least amount of

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Speaker 2: doses available, sitting it around fifty eight percent and sixty

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Speaker 2: four percent, respectively. A recent survey found that thirty percent

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Speaker 2: of people were unlikely to get the COVID nineteen vaccine,

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Speaker 2: prompting the AMA to call for a campaign to encourage

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Speaker 2: Australians to get the jab.

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Speaker 1: We read a very funny tweet yesterday from Lee Sales,

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Speaker 1: the host of ABC seven thirty, that she's seen more

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Speaker 1: ads for Hamilton than she has for vaccinations. Meanwhile, the

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Speaker 1: Australian military will set up a new space division comprising

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Speaker 1: of Army, Navy and Air Force officers to protect satellites

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Speaker 1: from attack. Who knew seven billion dollars will be spent

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Speaker 1: over ten years by the Defense on space capabilities. The

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Speaker 1: Chief of the Air Force, Mel Hupfeld, did clarify on

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Speaker 1: the spending, saying, however, this does not mean that defense

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Speaker 1: encourages the militarization of space.

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Speaker 2: And finally, to today's good news, which is really just

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Speaker 2: a relative good news, and we should probably say that

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Speaker 2: from the outset by more of a silver lining exactly,

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Speaker 2: US weekly COVID nineteen deaths have fallen to their lowest

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Speaker 2: rate in nearly fourteen months.

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Speaker 3: As new cases continued to decline.

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Speaker 2: Deaths from the week ending sixteenth of May came to

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Speaker 2: foury one hundred and sixty five, which is the lowest

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Speaker 2: weekly toll since March twenty twenty. As of Sunday, thirty

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Speaker 2: seven percent of the US has been totally vaccinated, with

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Speaker 2: forty seven percent receiving at least one dose of a

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Speaker 2: COVID nineteen vaccine. So yesterday was a big news day

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Speaker 2: for a number of reasons. Most importantly, the daily ods

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Speaker 2: got verified, and that was the best good news we've

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Speaker 2: had in a while. But aside from that very very

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Speaker 2: important piece of information that we just had to tell you,

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Speaker 2: the federal government also announced a new gas fired power

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Speaker 2: plant and it's not as sexy as verification, but it's

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Speaker 2: really important and it ties into quite a few political

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Speaker 2: things that are going on at the moment.

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Speaker 3: So I'll start with the announcement. Yesterday.

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Speaker 2: The federal government announced they were allocating six hundred million

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Speaker 2: dollars and that was unallocated money that was included in

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Speaker 2: the budget to building a new gas fired power plant

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Speaker 2: in the Hunter Valley, which is in New South Wales.

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Speaker 2: There have been reports about the government's environmental impact statement

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Speaker 2: that was provided and what it said was that the

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Speaker 2: plan is expected to be initially powered by diesel, which

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Speaker 2: is by all accounts extremely bad for the environment, before

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Speaker 2: later receiving its gas supply. This fits into a broader

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Speaker 2: economic and environmental narrative that the federal government has been

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Speaker 2: pushing post COVID. The federal government has been pushing something

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Speaker 2: called a gas fired recovery, and it's, to be honest,

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Speaker 2: a bit of political spin because it doesn't really mean anything.

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Speaker 2: But in reality it's playing out that the government is

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Speaker 2: funding a lot of gas fired projects.

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Speaker 1: Back to the Hunter Valley, though, was there an energy

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Speaker 1: shortage in the area, why do they need a whole

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Speaker 1: new six hundred million dollar project.

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Speaker 2: So the way that the government justified it was that

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Speaker 2: the Laddell Power Station, which is a cold fired station,

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Speaker 2: is set to be closed in twenty twenty three, and

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Speaker 2: they see that with the closure of Laddell, there's going

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Speaker 2: to be basically this energy hole, and they've calculated that

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Speaker 2: to be one thousand megawatts, but that is disputed either way.

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Speaker 2: They've positioned this money and this investment and this new

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Speaker 2: plant as the plug to the whole that Laddell will cause.

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Speaker 2: This didn't come from nowhere those so a couple of

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Speaker 2: months ago, Scott Morrison gave the private sector basically a

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Speaker 2: deadline to detail investment plans to fill that gap I

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Speaker 2: just mentioned. He basically said that if the private sector

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Speaker 2: wasn't able to fill it, that the government would step

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Speaker 2: in and that's exactly what they've done. Angus Taylor, who's

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Speaker 2: our Energy Minister, said that the government had given the

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Speaker 2: private sector every opportunity and that they were now fulfilling

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Speaker 2: the promise to deliver cheap, reliable power and that's the

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Speaker 2: line that the government is very much running, that this

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Speaker 2: will drive down electricity prices, maintain jobs and basically keep

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Speaker 2: the lights on for Australians as we transition away from coal.

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Speaker 1: When we discussed this topic on Instagram yesterday, somebody left

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Speaker 1: a comment about the political context that surrounds the decision.

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Speaker 1: What's your views on that?

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Speaker 3: Thanks for that, Dorothy Dixer.

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Speaker 2: So someone rightly pointed out that the timing of this

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Speaker 2: announcement was very interesting. There is a by election on

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Speaker 2: Saturday that is in the exact same region that this.

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Speaker 3: Power plant will be built in.

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Speaker 2: And as we've discussed on the part previously, we know

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Speaker 2: that energy, mining, coal, all of that stuff is really

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Speaker 2: important in the Upper Hunter region. So it's abundantly clear

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Speaker 2: that this announcement was time to coincide with the upcoming election.

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Speaker 2: That said, the timing wasn't perfect. It was also reported

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Speaker 2: yesterday that the International Energy Agency had advised that there

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Speaker 2: can be no new gas, coal or oil projects if

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Speaker 2: the world's to achieve net zero missions by twenty fifty.

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Speaker 1: That was an unfortunately timed announcement for the launch of

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Speaker 1: a new strategy.

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Speaker 2: That is, well, it's not a new strategy, it's just

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Speaker 2: it's part of a broader strategy. This gas fired recovery

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Speaker 2: is the long term strategy and.

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Speaker 3: This just fits into that.

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Speaker 1: Right, I get that, but I'm still a little confused

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Speaker 1: around the alternatives that were on the table. Are there

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Speaker 1: solutions out there that wouldn't have cost triple as much

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Speaker 1: that the government could have positioned?

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Speaker 2: Critics haven't been pointing to the cost necessarily is the

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Speaker 2: biggest issue, but more the environmental impact. So some experts

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Speaker 2: in the field say that the one thousand megawatt hole

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Speaker 2: that the Energy Minister refer to actually isn't that big

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Speaker 2: in reality, and that two hundred megawatts was all that

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Speaker 2: was needed to replace Liddell's. So there's a bit of

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Speaker 2: conjecture there about whether or not this sort of energy

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Speaker 2: output really is necessary to go back to that baseline

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Speaker 2: of providing electricity at low prices for Australians and that's

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Speaker 2: something that Labor's really picked up on. So despite the

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Speaker 2: fact that this has seemingly divided Labor because some of

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Speaker 2: the Labor Party supports this and others don't. As a whole,

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Speaker 2: the party's demanding that the Morrison government should release the

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Speaker 2: business case for this taxpayer funded gas plant, and they've

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Speaker 2: said that the six hundred million dollar proposal just isn't

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Speaker 2: justified by economics or engineering, and that view was backed

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Speaker 2: up by a lot of climate bodies and councils.

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Speaker 3: So specifically, the Climate.

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Speaker 2: Council labeled the move as quote an appalling decision and

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Speaker 2: they said that it just made no commercial sense and

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Speaker 2: would be harmful to Australians.

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Speaker 1: For the passionate climate listeners of the POD, what sort

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Speaker 1: of weight should they be putting on this announcement in

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Speaker 1: the big scheme of things.

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Speaker 2: I think, more than anything, this just shows the priorities

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Speaker 2: of the current government. This hasn't been the only announcement

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Speaker 2: of funding for gas operators this week. We actually saw

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Speaker 2: earlier this week that there was two point three billion

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Speaker 2: dollars in subsidies to Ampole and Viva Energy to keep

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Speaker 2: their oil refineries open.

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Speaker 3: So this is becoming a theme.

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Speaker 2: And this, taken together with the gas fired recovery, shows

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Speaker 2: the direction that the government is taking in moving away

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Speaker 2: from coal, which is that they're moving to gas. And

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Speaker 2: it's not for us to pass judgment on whether or

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Speaker 2: not that's the right move, but it certainly shows how

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Speaker 2: they're going about a changing energy mix in Australia.

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Speaker 1: Sounds like the comments from the founder of a verified

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Speaker 1: Instagram account to me, if you want to check out

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Speaker 1: our verified Instagram account, you can on Instagram where we're verified,

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Speaker 1: and one hundred thousand people notice that we're verified because

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Speaker 1: of the verification that is now verified. That's enough for today,

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Speaker 1: but we'll speak to you tomorrow and happy Verification Day.