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Speaker 1: You are listening to mix now. Plenty of messages coming

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Speaker 1: through on the text line. I'll get to all of

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Speaker 1: those shortly. But with all of these wet weather that

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Speaker 1: we've seen, we're getting more and more messages every day

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Speaker 1: about the potholes around the place. There are a number

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Speaker 1: of locations on both Northern Territory government roads and also

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Speaker 1: council roads around the top end causing concern. I did

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Speaker 1: get a message from a friend a little bit earlier

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Speaker 1: this morning and she had sent me a photo of

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Speaker 1: the exit from one of the Shell servos well on

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Speaker 1: the corner of Daily and mcmin Street. She said, you'd

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Speaker 1: think that they could spend some of those fuel profits

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Speaker 1: on fixing up the road, and it is massive, and

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Speaker 1: I do think that's some of those you know, some

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Speaker 1: of those private owners surely would be looking at fixing

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Speaker 1: the roads in and out of their locations. But look,

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Speaker 1: we know some of those roads fall under the Northern

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Speaker 1: Territory governments, you know, their sort of area. Others fall

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Speaker 1: under the Darwin City Council, Palmerston City Council, the various councils.

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Speaker 1: But joining me in the studio to talk a little

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Speaker 1: bit more about the situation, is the Lord Mayor of Darwin.

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Speaker 1: Peter Styles.

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Speaker 2: Good morning Styles, E morning Katy in the morning to

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Speaker 2: your listeners.

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Speaker 1: Now, what is the process from the council's perspective in

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Speaker 1: terms of identifying and fixing the potholes that are on

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Speaker 1: council roads.

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Speaker 3: So, Katie, we've got our rangers out there. Obviously they

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Speaker 3: are driving around the city and out in the northern

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Speaker 3: suburbs and the parks and things. They will identify major

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Speaker 3: potholes and obviously ones that they believe need to be

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Speaker 3: fixed immediately. They'll get the road crews and we've got

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Speaker 3: trucks out there working over time basically trying to fill

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Speaker 3: podoles in. But of course the unprecedented wet season that

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Speaker 3: we're having at the moment has led to lots of potholes,

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Speaker 3: so we've got lots of people out there fixing potholes.

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Speaker 1: Do you have any idea how many potholes you've got

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Speaker 1: on council roads.

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Speaker 2: I don't know whether they want to have I guess

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Speaker 2: there's a.

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Speaker 1: Lot, would you think in the thousands, in the hundreds

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Speaker 1: at least in the hundreds pooles and maybe even the thousands.

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Speaker 3: But we'll get to them as soon as we can,

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Speaker 3: and the crews are working hard.

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Speaker 2: Obviously.

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Speaker 3: If you've got a big pothole outside your home, do

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Speaker 3: a snap send and solve and we will monitor that

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Speaker 3: and then we can tresh it. If it's a big podole,

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Speaker 3: upload a photo we'll go that one needs to be

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Speaker 3: fixed first. This is a smaller pothole, so we get

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Speaker 3: to the big ones because as soon as you get

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Speaker 3: them fixed, the less damage that.

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Speaker 1: Well, this is the thing, right because once they're sort

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Speaker 1: of there, if you just keep driving over them, over them,

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Speaker 1: they get bigger and bigger. I know there's one that

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Speaker 1: doesn't fall under the council as I understand it, but

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Speaker 1: it's around Marara near the Netball stadium. Honestly, it's gone

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Speaker 1: from being like a smallish pothole to absolutely massive. Luckily

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Speaker 1: you're driving slowly around there anyway, but some of these

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Speaker 1: potholes of you know, you can almost lose your Corolla

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Speaker 1: in there. It's getting ridiculous.

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Speaker 3: The amount of rain we've had is just amazing. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: I don't think I've seen a wet season quite like

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Speaker 3: this in forty years.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, in terms of the potholes, so are the

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Speaker 1: highways they fall under the Northern Territory government.

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Speaker 3: They do a lot of the major arterial roads all

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Speaker 3: fall on the Northern Territory Government and then of course

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Speaker 3: the rest of the roads and through the suburbs belong

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Speaker 3: to the City of Darwen or Palmerstan City Council. Those

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Speaker 3: local councils have a lot of local roads, but the

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Speaker 3: main roads are predominantly Northern Territory Government.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so snap scends save. That's the app, isn't it

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Speaker 1: the council app.

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Speaker 3: That's an app that the council monitors. So if you've

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Speaker 3: got a pothole, take a photo of it, snap it,

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Speaker 3: send it and we'll get it solved. But what they

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Speaker 3: do is then the council staff they triarch the potholes,

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Speaker 3: so if you've got one, we hide your Corolla in.

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Speaker 3: We'll get to that first, and something that's just a

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Speaker 3: smaller pothole will we get to the second.

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Speaker 1: How many crews have you got working on these potholes

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Speaker 1: at the moment you mentioned a couple today, two full.

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Speaker 3: Crews, and of course there's obviously the bitchmen people in

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Speaker 3: town will be out there with the Northern Territory Government

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Speaker 3: repairing some of those highways. But when you look at

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Speaker 3: the damage across the territory. There's a massive amount of

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Speaker 3: work to do and there's only a certain number of

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Speaker 3: contractors out there that can do this, So we ask

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Speaker 3: people to be careful and just try to be a

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Speaker 3: little patient. We get to the worst ones first and

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Speaker 3: then we'll get to the smaller one second.

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Speaker 1: Starzy a couple of locations that people have asked about

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Speaker 1: McMillan's Road and also Bagot Road. They fall under the

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Speaker 1: Northern Territory Government.

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Speaker 2: Uh.

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Speaker 3: Bagot Road I think is norn Terurchy government, Millon's Roads,

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Speaker 3: norm CHURCHIY government. But if that's snap send solved, we'll

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Speaker 3: pass it on to those authorities to get onto it

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Speaker 3: straight away.

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Speaker 1: The other one that had been raised is dick Wood Drive.

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Speaker 1: Is that in TG.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think dick Wood Drive belongs to us, okay,

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Speaker 3: And if there's a problem there, yep, I reckon.

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Speaker 1: You guys would have seen it like you would have

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Speaker 1: had to have seen it. There's quite a few potholes there.

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Speaker 3: I drove down it the other night. Actually I saw

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Speaker 3: a few potholes there. But I've got some the staff

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Speaker 3: listening to this, Katie, and.

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Speaker 1: So if you've got a pothole, let me know, and

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Speaker 1: I'll make sure we pass it on and I'm going

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Speaker 1: to have Bill Yam, the Minister on tomorrow for Transport Infrastructure,

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Speaker 1: et cetera. So if you've seen a big one along

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Speaker 1: a highway, well let me know about that as well,

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Speaker 1: and we'll do our best to try and get them sorted.

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Speaker 3: It goes all the way here to the South Australian border,

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Speaker 3: and it's the same border.

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Speaker 2: It's a bigger job, I reckon.

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Speaker 1: The juggle has been though as well that because the

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Speaker 1: rain has just been unrelenting, it would be difficult then

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Speaker 1: to get crews to go out there to patch it up,

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Speaker 1: and then you know it's raining again. It wouldn't necessarily last.

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Speaker 1: I'm assuming for as long as usual.

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Speaker 2: You're right, because all those podoles are full of water.

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Speaker 3: We're going to dry them out, try to get them

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Speaker 3: dry so that the actual podole repair works. And when

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Speaker 3: you said that the stuff in Marara where you saw

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Speaker 3: the podole and you saw the bitchumen starting to collapse,

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Speaker 3: what happens is the sand that's.

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Speaker 2: All part of the base.

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Speaker 3: Actually the sands are taken out by the water, which

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Speaker 3: only leaves your larger rocks. Because when you drive over

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Speaker 3: those rocks. It breaks up the bitchamen, which exacerbates.

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Speaker 1: Them gets worse and worse.

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Speaker 3: And roads a constructed bitchumen on top of the road

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Speaker 3: is not the actual road, it's underneath. The bitchmen only

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Speaker 3: protects the sub base, which is the actual the road structure.

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Speaker 2: So we've got a bitchmen on it to protect it.

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Speaker 1: Well, look bit of bitchamen to sort out. I reckon

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Speaker 1: over the coming days and weeks. Ay, in some good news,

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Speaker 1: last week Lake Alexander reopened. Why was it closed?

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Speaker 3: It did locate the whole east point was closed because

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Speaker 3: of the tree situation. And I must say that we've

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Speaker 3: we've taken out, for instance, one hundred and three stumps

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Speaker 3: so far on road vergis that are dangerous, and we

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Speaker 3: have another five hundred low risk stumps from road verges

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Speaker 3: to go. But what happens is when we closed the park,

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Speaker 3: they didn't do the testing because it was pointless because

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Speaker 3: you couldn't swim there anyway. So when we got to

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Speaker 3: the stage we reopened this point. We've now done the testing.

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Speaker 3: The bacteria levels are fine and it's okay to go

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Speaker 3: for a swim.

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Speaker 2: So you want to go for a swim, on the weekend.

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Speaker 1: Or good to hear, good to hear well. I did

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Speaker 1: see some of the triathlon crew there as well on

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Speaker 1: the weekend, so I know that they're happy to be back. Starzy,

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Speaker 1: one of the areas that you and I have talked

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Speaker 1: about on numerous occasions. I was a bit disappointed last week.

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Speaker 1: I went back there to Chapel Lane. It is still

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Speaker 1: not open. That work is still happening.

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Speaker 2: What's the go So what they've got.

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Speaker 3: To do is they've got to put a surface on that,

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Speaker 3: on the repairs that they've done and the new stuff there.

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Speaker 3: So they've got to wait until get a couple of

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Speaker 3: dry days. They just can't actually finish.

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Speaker 1: So is that what's caused it?

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Speaker 3: It's the weather that's caused the problem. Initially it was

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Speaker 3: the gas pipeline underneath, which no one knew about unfortunately,

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Speaker 3: so they had to get experts to come up. You

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Speaker 3: can't just get anyone to repair these gas pipelines because

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Speaker 3: obviously you need experts in that. So that was delayed,

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Speaker 3: and of course we have had some delays. But the

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Speaker 3: weather now is.

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Speaker 2: Just killing us.

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Speaker 3: It's right over the city of course, in anywhere in

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Speaker 3: the top end. We've got problems. Catherine's got major problems.

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Speaker 3: We think we've got problems. They've got more, but we're

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Speaker 3: getting to that. I saw them there yesterday. They're back

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Speaker 3: there trying to get some work done. You might notice

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Speaker 3: it in the Mitchell plazas they're causing it, calling it,

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Speaker 3: which is next door to the Hilton's. So that works progressing.

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Speaker 3: They reckon that it will be finished by the end

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Speaker 3: of April.

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Speaker 1: Okay, end of April, all right, Starzy. A couple of

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Speaker 1: messages just coming through. One person had said that near

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Speaker 1: the turf Club is where there's some massive potholes. Somebody

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Speaker 1: else saying daily straight. So there's a couple of tips

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Speaker 1: for the staff if they're listening this morning. They're listening,

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Speaker 1: I we'll do our best to make sure that we

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Speaker 1: identify all the potholes across the top end. I should

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Speaker 1: know because I split my tire a couple of weeks

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Speaker 1: ago in Palmiston. Don't worry. Not a road under your responsibility,

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Speaker 1: but it is something that causes a heap of damage

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Speaker 1: to your car if you're unfortunate enough to hit one,

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Speaker 1: and hit one of those big ones.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I had another lady ring then, and so you

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Speaker 3: had the same issue with the pothole in Bayview. They

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Speaker 3: got that to that two days later and got it repaired.

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Speaker 3: But I just encourage you your listeners snapsend solve yep,

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Speaker 3: and then we can triage those big ones. But we've

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Speaker 3: got crews going out there obviously looking for podoles to

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Speaker 3: fix yep.

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Speaker 2: But if you've got a big.

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Speaker 3: Podole, we'd love to know about it because we can

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Speaker 3: get to it and stop further damage.

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Speaker 1: It's like a new segment for us stars, for you,

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Speaker 1: for Bill jam for Athena, for everybody. We will identify

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Speaker 1: them all. There's plenty around, plenty of work for the Bitchman. Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: Peter Styles, good to catch up with you, the Lord

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Speaker 1: Mayor of Darwin. Thanks so much for your time this morning.

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Speaker 2: It's always good to catch up with your card. You

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Speaker 2: have a great thank you you two