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Speaker 1: Now we know that it was a massive weekend in

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Speaker 1: the territory, particularly here in Darwin. I've got to say,

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Speaker 1: with all of those people attending Base in the Grass

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Speaker 1: about fifteen ten ds, but reports in about eight thousand

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Speaker 1: of them were visitors. So what kind of impact has

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Speaker 1: it had for the hospitality industry? Well, joining us on

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Speaker 1: the line right now, Hospitality int CEO Alex Bruce, Good morning, Alex.

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Speaker 2: Gooday Katie Alex.

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Speaker 1: How did the hospitality sector go on the weekend with

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Speaker 1: such a large number of visitors?

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Speaker 2: Ah? How good of it being in the top end

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Speaker 2: right now? Walking around the restaurants are full, the pubs

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Speaker 2: and bar, the cranking. We do need more kid convoys.

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Speaker 2: They're a fair few taps around town that were covered

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Speaker 2: up yesterday and they're a mad scrambled to get at

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Speaker 2: replenished for the next weekend.

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Speaker 3: So what do you mean they ran out? They ran out?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, ran out of beer, not entirely, but yeah, some

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Speaker 2: of your favorite drops were a bit hard to find

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Speaker 2: around town. That the cool rooms were run quite low. Again.

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Speaker 1: Goodness me mate, that's like that is some breaking and

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Speaker 1: big news some of you some locations know.

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Speaker 3: Bit, what about the wine? Will we short on wine too.

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Speaker 2: I think they're realizing Carl Cox effect plus base. They

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Speaker 2: just need to keep a little old territory well stocked

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Speaker 2: throughout this season. We're going to have a bump up.

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Speaker 1: Ronnie my producers, saying she's a bit worried that there

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Speaker 1: could have been a shortage of shaw and smiths.

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Speaker 2: I think that's always in abundance of here.

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Speaker 3: It's a favorite, no doubt about it. But you just

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Speaker 3: talk us through.

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Speaker 1: I mean, have you got any idea like how much

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Speaker 1: beer actually flowed on the over the weekend.

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Speaker 2: No, but I do know that they've got more trucks

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Speaker 2: on the road. They had to put more trucks on

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Speaker 2: the road after Carl Cox weekend. That one probably caught

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Speaker 2: more by surprise just how big it was going forward. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's a lovely problem to have where we need the

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Speaker 2: Southern brewers to just keep the supplier.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so just let me delve into this a bit

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Speaker 1: more deeply, Alex Bruce. So the kegs, we ran short

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Speaker 1: on the kegs, but we're still alright with the bottled stuff.

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Speaker 2: Yes, that's right, right.

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Speaker 3: Wow, Well it just goes to show you really how

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Speaker 3: busy it's been.

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Speaker 1: But also I guess you know, what we've seen over

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Speaker 1: the last six months or so is it's been tough

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Speaker 1: on a lot of businesses. When you talk about going

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Speaker 1: through those COVID times and now with such an influx

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Speaker 1: of visitors, it's a wonderful thing, but yet it also

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Speaker 1: means that I guess in some cases we may not

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Speaker 1: have been expecting such a high volume of people.

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Speaker 2: That's it. And you know, the police reported that the

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Speaker 2: festival particularly was quite well behaved that the before and after,

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Speaker 2: the days before and after. You know, there's the odd

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Speaker 2: incident here or there that Southerners have come up and

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Speaker 2: they're largely behaved. They're jumping on those orange scooters. I

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Speaker 2: feel like there's ten times as many orange scooters around

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Speaker 2: town at the moment.

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Speaker 1: Well, we've got Lord Mere combat scarlets on next we

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Speaker 1: can ask him about that. How are we going in

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Speaker 1: terms of the hotels are they are they?

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Speaker 3: Are they full?

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Speaker 2: Yes, they have been full over the last couple of

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Speaker 2: weekends and most weekends going forward Darwin Cup weekend. It's

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Speaker 2: very very tight already Darlin Festival after that. So not

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Speaker 2: all rooms and not all properties are back online and

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Speaker 2: some of it. If you're a hotel and you're completely closed.

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Speaker 2: It'd be really hard to reopen now and staff up

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Speaker 2: an entire operation. So we are working with not full capacity.

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Speaker 2: It's not it's not out of any desire to do so.

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Speaker 2: And we know that that then does knock onto some

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Speaker 2: of the tour operators, restaurants and and other parts of

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Speaker 2: the tourism and hospitality space. So there has been a

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Speaker 2: concerted effort, particularly in their common sector, to boost workers

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Speaker 2: so that more capacity can come online. Darwin's doing a

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Speaker 2: lot better. It's quite a cute down in the Red

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Speaker 2: Center at the moment. Unfortunately.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Hey, just talking about you know, not all of

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Speaker 1: the hotels being back to that full capacity, and as

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Speaker 1: you said, some of them not online. What percentage would

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Speaker 1: you say that we do sort of have back online

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Speaker 1: at this point.

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Speaker 2: I don't really have that figure, and I think it

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Speaker 2: does change on a daily basis when you think about

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Speaker 2: how your roster up to house keep all those rooms

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Speaker 2: and also have the cooks and chefs to do the

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Speaker 2: breakfast buffet and in the morning. They seem to be

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Speaker 2: the two pinch points in that sector, and so they

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Speaker 2: will surge around weekends so that there are more rooms available.

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Speaker 2: They're trying to link up with major events to make sure.

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Speaker 2: You know, we sent some staff down when Alice was

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Speaker 2: cranking over the cup, and we're hoping to get some

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Speaker 2: Alice staff up when we really hit that August peak.

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Speaker 2: So we're doing what we can to try and fill

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Speaker 2: the gap.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Alex, talk us through those workers. I mean, how

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Speaker 1: many workers are we short now? I know a couple

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Speaker 1: of weeks ago we were talking seven thousand, but how

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Speaker 1: are we placed at the moment.

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Speaker 2: Look, it's really hard because the wave has hit us.

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Speaker 2: And I suppose Farmers realized as soon as the International

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Speaker 2: Board has closed twelve months ago that they were going

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Speaker 2: to have a workforce shortage. And Paul and Anti Farmers

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Speaker 2: have led the nation in some of the stuff they've

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Speaker 2: done in getting seasonal workers in. Over the last twelve months.

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Speaker 2: We had to go closing, laying everyone off job keeper,

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Speaker 2: putting them all back on the books, reopening. You know,

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Speaker 2: sheath it only you couldn't stand up to have a

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Speaker 2: beer and you must have a bowl of ships. So

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Speaker 2: we probably came to the workforce shortage issue a lot later.

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Speaker 2: And we were ride up to Christmas. You know, there

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Speaker 2: were these snap closures going on down South that was

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Speaker 2: wiping out a large chunk of our forward bookings every

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Speaker 2: time it happens, So we didn't really know that we'd

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Speaker 2: have the problem that we now face. So by the

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Speaker 2: time we really did that survey at hit crisis point,

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Speaker 2: it was already on the cusp of Alice Springs going

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Speaker 2: nuts with part of it, you know, and now Darwin's

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Speaker 2: in full swing. So even our businesses, if I were

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Speaker 2: to survey them today, I'd get less responses because everybody

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Speaker 2: is on the tools. You've got general managers out of

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Speaker 2: Kakadu that are part of the house keeping staff going

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Speaker 2: around making beds. Every mum and dad restaurant operator are

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Speaker 2: working phenomenal hours right now. So it is what it is.

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Speaker 2: Bear with us, We'll get through it and we really

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Speaker 2: shift now for some of these longer term solutions. Blade

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Speaker 2: and Point, if we could work with NTI Farmers and

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Speaker 2: the governments, we need.

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Speaker 3: Companies with that, Blade and Point.

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Speaker 1: I know it's something that you and nt Farmers have

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Speaker 1: been talking about for such a long period of time.

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Speaker 1: You know, you and I have discussed it before. I've

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Speaker 1: certainly up with Paul Burke about it before as well.

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Speaker 1: But the Prime Minister put it back on the agenda yesterday.

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Speaker 1: From your perspective, how helpful would it be to have

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Speaker 1: a facility like blading point back online.

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Speaker 3: Or put online.

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Speaker 2: We need to we need to appreciate that next year

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Speaker 2: we're going to have another bumper season and we need

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Speaker 2: to get some of our critical skilled workers back landed, safe, quarantined, vaccinated,

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Speaker 2: all the rest of it landed, probably by the end

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Speaker 2: of the year, otherwise we will be not fully playing

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Speaker 2: with next season either.

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Speaker 1: So by the sounds of it, it's really about talking

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Speaker 1: about having some of those strategies in place for the

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Speaker 1: longer term, longer down the track than just this dry season.

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Speaker 2: Yes, Look, it's not going to give us an immediate

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Speaker 2: workforce boost in the next month when we need it,

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Speaker 2: but we've got to start working on it. Other states

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Speaker 2: are working on it, and I do look at some

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Speaker 2: more positive action parts of the country on it than

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Speaker 2: in the territory at the moment. Unfortunately, because we need

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Speaker 2: to tackle this before next season ramps up, you.

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Speaker 1: Would understand what's your understanding of why it's not happening

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Speaker 1: at this point in time.

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Speaker 2: Look, we definitely have sympathy for some of the issues

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Speaker 2: that both governments and industry are all trying to tackle

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Speaker 2: and there are limited health people that can assist in

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Speaker 2: having another large quarantine facility running. It's the Defense are

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Speaker 2: in there now and they've all got their own health

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Speaker 2: experts and all the rest of it. We really love

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Speaker 2: Defense Health to stick around and help us run the

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Speaker 2: facility going forward. But you know, if that's not possible,

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Speaker 2: then where do we How do we solve the health question?

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Speaker 2: I suppose is the sticking point at the moment. Look, look,

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Speaker 2: the big change from when we hit the panic button, though,

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Speaker 2: has been that international student hours relaxation. They can work

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Speaker 2: more than twenty hours a week, which limited to I've

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Speaker 2: got many many operators around town saying they saw an

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Speaker 2: immediate impact on their rosters and that's helped.

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Speaker 3: That's good, That's really good to hear.

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Speaker 1: I mean, at least then it goes part of the

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Speaker 1: way in terms of making sure that it helps to

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Speaker 1: fill some of those positions.

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Speaker 3: Alex just looking.

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Speaker 1: At things, I guess from a bit of a different perspective,

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Speaker 1: taking into account the massive success that we've seen as

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Speaker 1: a result of some of these major events like bas

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Speaker 1: In the Grass and Kyle Cox, we know that we've

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Speaker 1: got things like the Darwin Festival, the Darwin Cup coming up.

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Speaker 3: But you know, when we look to the wet.

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Speaker 1: Season and how things are going to go, then for

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Speaker 1: the wet season, is this an area that we realistically

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Speaker 1: need to be trying to expand in to keep the

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Speaker 1: Northern territory moving and to keep those visitors coming in

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Speaker 1: a season which is traditionally a much slower one for us.

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Speaker 2: Look, there's probably mixed schools of thoughts on that, even

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Speaker 2: within our industry. We know that there's a lot of

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Speaker 2: focus on expanding the shoulders on either side of our

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Speaker 2: peak season, and this year that's definitely happened. Even naturally,

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Speaker 2: we've hit peak season a lot earlier on and it

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Speaker 2: will last a lot longer as well. About stimulating the

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Speaker 2: wet you know, we saw the benefit from those territory

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Speaker 2: tourism vouchers. The best wet season boost that we've seen

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Speaker 2: ever was from locals being incentivized to get out and about.

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Speaker 2: It's still so much harder to get southern older travelers

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Speaker 2: to come and experience the build up all the wet

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Speaker 2: season with us, but we're very happy that this next

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Speaker 2: week wet season, at least the locals that are already

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Speaker 2: here are going to be stimulated to get out and

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Speaker 2: about and see their own backyard. And for a four

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Speaker 2: million dollar spend, we saw the benefit of that was

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Speaker 2: a lot larger than tropical lights or something like that

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Speaker 2: affecting that accepting that their season got impacted by the

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Speaker 2: bushfires down south and then the COVID hit, but you're

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Speaker 2: talking a similar amount of spend and we just got

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Speaker 2: so much more reboost from giving it to locals.

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Speaker 1: Well, Alex Bruce, we are going to have to get

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Speaker 1: ready to wrap up, but mate, just very quickly, are

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Speaker 1: you expecting that truck to arrive with all the beer

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Speaker 1: before the weekend?

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Speaker 2: I think we mean multiple trucks. It looked like the

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Speaker 2: vps are coming early with their teams.

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Speaker 1: And then you've got the Hospitality Industry Awards night tomorrow night.

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Speaker 3: You probably need a truck for that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll give that a good shake, coating and we've

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Speaker 2: got a very good MC again this year, So a

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Speaker 2: great night.

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Speaker 1: I'll try my best. Good on you, Alex Bruce. Good

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Speaker 1: to catch up with you, mate, Thank you, thank you.

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Speaker 1: That is Hospitality and t CEO there, Alex Bruce. I

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Speaker 1: tell you what that was a bit of a bombshell

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Speaker 1: that he dropped with us there at the start, that yeah,

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Speaker 1: that we certainly drank a lot of beer by the

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Speaker 1: sounds of it, over the course of the weekend