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Speaker 1: Earlier this week, Northern Territory police were calling for witnesses

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Speaker 1: to a stealing with violence incident at a licensed liquor

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Speaker 1: premises in Leanna, which occurred in October. It was just

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Speaker 1: after seven thirty on the twenty sixth and police said

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Speaker 1: that two unknown males had attended this licensed premises on

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Speaker 1: Lean your Drive before stealing a quantity of alcohol. One

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Speaker 1: of those blokes allegedly threatened a staff member with a

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Speaker 1: pair of scissors before fleeing the scene. Police are investigating

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Speaker 1: and calling on the public if you've got any info

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Speaker 1: that could assist them in any way. One three, one,

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Speaker 1: Triple four. Now joining me on the line to talk

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Speaker 1: about well plenty of different things is the CEO of

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Speaker 1: hospitality here in the Northern Territory, Alex Bruce ged a.

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Speaker 2: Alex, good morning, gaye mate.

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Speaker 1: I've seen that vision of the incident. Now it's frightening stuff,

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Speaker 1: really scary to think that this kind of thing is

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Speaker 1: continuing to happen. Do you know if those staff were

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Speaker 1: okay at that bottle shop?

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Speaker 3: Look, it is confronting footage and unfortunately what it shows

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Speaker 3: is that guard when threatened with an edged weapon being

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Speaker 3: scissors in this case steps away, providing the opportunity for

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Speaker 3: the person who's stealing the grog to get the spirits

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Speaker 3: without any further incident occurring. You know, and we talk

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Speaker 3: a lot about verbal de escalation and all the rest

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Speaker 3: of it, and this hasn't stopped that young person lunging

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Speaker 3: at him aggressively trying to stab him anyway. So it

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Speaker 3: was a near miss. It sends a shiver down people's

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Speaker 3: spye in our industry. Given everything else and where we

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Speaker 3: were back in March with the tragedy of Declan, this

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Speaker 3: kind of behavior is not going away. So you know,

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Speaker 3: I know people are a little bit concerned with giving

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Speaker 3: powers to different people, but you know, you're not going

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Speaker 3: to find these extra polley overnight. And we can all

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Speaker 3: say we want more police, but right now we need

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Speaker 3: guards to have non lethal options to protect themselves, our

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Speaker 3: staff and our customers.

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Speaker 1: Alex, where are things that you know with the announcement

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Speaker 1: that was made in light of the tragic deaths of Deckline,

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Speaker 1: the government had said, well, they announced a few initiatives,

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Speaker 1: but one of those was crowd controllers being able to

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Speaker 1: carry OC spray. Is there any kind of timeline for this?

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Speaker 3: No, And we reiterated our call for a public timeline

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Speaker 3: Friday last week off the back of this near missic Lenya.

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Speaker 3: It haven't been forthcoming. It's on the Great Glow Slope.

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Speaker 3: They have everything they need. There is some institutional pushback

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Speaker 3: in certain bureaucracies and you know, unfortunately, and I'm not

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Speaker 3: trying to sensationalize this. Is it going to take another

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Speaker 3: stabbing for us to actually pull our finger out and

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Speaker 3: get this done.

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Speaker 1: Well, the thing is you're not sensationalizing it because we've

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Speaker 1: actually seen somebody here lunging with a pair of scissors.

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Speaker 1: So it's really frightening stuff, and it does indicate that

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Speaker 1: this is still a very real and present danger and

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Speaker 1: we need to have some measures in place to try

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Speaker 1: to make sure that people are safe.

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Speaker 3: That's it, And unfortunately, Catie, we know seasonality is a

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Speaker 3: factor up here and also in Central Australia for a

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Speaker 3: range of reasons that it's not the bottle shops or

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Speaker 3: our venues or police as are fault. We know that

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Speaker 3: we're heading towards the peak time when violence and theft

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Speaker 3: and crime in our industry spikes as people come in

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Speaker 3: and aggregate around our urban centers. So you know, We

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Speaker 3: would have liked to be a lot further down the

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Speaker 3: path than we find ourselves heading into what we know

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Speaker 3: is going to be another hot, angry peak season for

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Speaker 3: crime for US.

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Speaker 1: Alex, what was your reaction then to the full Corners report,

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Speaker 1: because we know that, you know, in your industry, there

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Speaker 1: is certainly a need for crowd controllers, but there's also

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Speaker 1: been you know, we have seen over the over the

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Speaker 1: year or whatever period of time, more security guards on

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Speaker 1: our streets. What what was your reaction to that full

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Speaker 1: Corners report?

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Speaker 3: One sided, a bit of a beat up the particular

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Speaker 3: junior journal and Bob Tail inserted herself into the story

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Speaker 3: and it was more about her than anything else, you know,

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Speaker 3: And we were aware of some of their clandestine efforts

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Speaker 3: to you know, co opt vulnerable people into locations, like

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Speaker 3: you know, I heard the people that have been removed

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Speaker 3: from shopping centers for their antisocial and aggressive behavior were

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Speaker 3: conveyed back there so that they could film the interaction

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Speaker 3: about them getting kicked out again.

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Speaker 2: You know, I'm serious on the point.

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Speaker 3: This is not the role of media to create the

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Speaker 3: story that they want to sensationalize and paint a very

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Speaker 3: dim picture of us all down down South for their audience.

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Speaker 3: We understand that, you know, this was probably going to

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Speaker 3: drop the other side of the referendum. The credit to

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Speaker 3: the government. They got some of the body worn footage

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Speaker 3: from some of the guards and some of the intel

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Speaker 3: from what the guards were observing about the horrent ABC

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Speaker 3: behavior and out of them, and I think that's probably

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Speaker 3: delayed the four corners to the other side of the

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Speaker 3: referendum because no one can watch that and not see

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Speaker 3: it just dripping with bias.

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Speaker 1: So, Alex, are you saying that you know that You've

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Speaker 1: had people on the ground basically saying to you that

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Speaker 1: that you know, they were trying to take people who'd

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Speaker 1: maybe been banned from shopping centers and that kind of

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Speaker 1: thing back to those locations for an altercation to.

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Speaker 3: Occur, to film the interaction with the guards and that coport.

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Speaker 3: That's that's what I understand. So, you know, fine line

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Speaker 3: between reporting the news and creating your own narrative. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 3: we seem to be going more for the insert opinion

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Speaker 3: here rather than deal with the facts. And we know,

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Speaker 3: you know, from time to time there's things that do

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Speaker 3: happen in the guards, like in any industry, like in

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Speaker 3: other parts of our industry that are not okay, and

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Speaker 3: by all means Swiss Swiss sanction, and just on that

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Speaker 3: everyone with the same brush is just not right well,

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Speaker 3: and just on.

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Speaker 1: That because I know, look, God don't want to be

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Speaker 1: accused of being one sided either on that. You know,

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Speaker 1: have we got some in the industry who do things

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Speaker 1: that are obviously not the right thing to do? And

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Speaker 1: are there different mechanisms to actually deal with those that

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Speaker 1: are not treating people in the correct manner?

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Speaker 3: There are pretty much any it's one striking you out,

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Speaker 3: you're out, you get you get, you get fired very quickly.

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Speaker 3: So not not adhering to the standards that you're meant

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Speaker 3: to is my understanding. But you know, they're a fit

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Speaker 3: and proper person test for guards, like there are taxi drivers,

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Speaker 3: and like there are for our licensees in our license apprentices.

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Speaker 3: So there are tools there. So and there are situations

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Speaker 3: where where people are deemed no longer suitable for guard

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Speaker 3: work in our industry, and that does happen from time

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Speaker 3: to time, but by and large, the vast, vast majority

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Speaker 3: of them are just out there trying to keep us

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Speaker 3: all safe.

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Speaker 1: Alex, could I just ask, is there sort of any

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Speaker 1: evidence to support those claims that people are making that

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Speaker 1: that is what the ABC was doing, you know, that

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Speaker 1: they were trying to then put people in to confrontational

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Speaker 1: situations to film it.

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Speaker 3: I heard there's actually you know, there was some cynicism

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Speaker 3: about four Corners bona fide, genuine interest and intent given

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Speaker 3: previous smashups they've done up here and elsewhere across the country.

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Speaker 3: So I think some of the guard groups and some

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Speaker 3: of the shopping center groups were fore warned and forearmed,

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Speaker 3: and they do have They did provide some stuff into

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Speaker 3: Policeman's Kate Warden's office. Is my understanding sufficient enough for

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Speaker 3: the government to come out publicly and call out the

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Speaker 3: ABC for its behavior and also lodge of formal complaint

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Speaker 3: with them. So probably best just to leave it there.

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Speaker 3: From my perspective, we'll get to the bottom of it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I can follow on from the governmentalisms alive and

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Speaker 2: well and we we we went through it, you know,

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Speaker 2: even down in Alice earlier in the year when that

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Speaker 2: community town hall that many of that my members went to,

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Speaker 2: but just a lot went.

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Speaker 3: Across section of the Alla Springs community went to and

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Speaker 3: the overarching theme from people in the room was how

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Speaker 3: do we all get together and pull together as a

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Speaker 3: town and address crime and try and make it a

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Speaker 3: better and safe the place to live. And the National

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Speaker 3: actually Indigenous affairs reporter at the time came out and

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Speaker 3: said it was just racist and full of white racist rednecks.

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Speaker 3: So you know, I'm happy they're referendum over without commenting

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Speaker 3: one way or the other and the result. We just

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Speaker 3: need to get some of this this colored perspective out

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Speaker 3: of the place and just get back to being all Territorius,

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Speaker 3: trying to work together, play together, have fun together. You

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Speaker 3: know in our industry thrives when we can achieve that,

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Speaker 3: Alex can I.

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Speaker 1: Ask earlier this week there was that cabinet reshuffle. You've

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Speaker 1: got a new minister, I believe, Joel Bowden. Have you

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Speaker 1: met with him, Yette.

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Speaker 3: I met with Joel minister out and yesterday along with

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Speaker 3: the Federal Minister Giles at the industry roundtable. They had

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Speaker 3: to discuss the dharma and the migration changes. So yeah,

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Speaker 3: he was he was putting his seat under the desk.

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Speaker 3: He seemed to have a grash of it all and

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Speaker 3: we'll look forward to continuing to work with him. Obviously,

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Speaker 3: we did reach out to Minister Kirby who you know,

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Speaker 3: through all the workforce stuff and now missing you know,

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Speaker 3: with those thousands of staff that we were looking for

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Speaker 3: last year particularly and into this year. We do acknowledge

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Speaker 3: that we worked quite closely with Minister Kirby in his

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Speaker 3: office throughout that and really appreciated the genuine engagement and

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Speaker 3: support that we got.

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Speaker 1: Now, just like on that Dharma, the Albanezi government obviously

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Speaker 1: announcing making that announcement, as you said, you met with

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Speaker 1: them yesterday. So it is going to see or it's

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Speaker 1: going to benefit over two hundred and eighty employees as

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Speaker 1: I understand across the territory. What's it going to mean

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Speaker 1: for us, you know, and what's it going to mean

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Speaker 1: for the hospitality industry.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So traditionally about sixty percent of those positions have

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Speaker 3: gone to hospitality workers in the NT's DAMA, so we're

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Speaker 3: the biggest sector that they've been using these for, you know,

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Speaker 3: cooks and chefs in our kitchens, hotel managers and the like.

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Speaker 3: So it was good to see a one year extension

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Speaker 3: of the arrangements and a couple of peaks which are

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Speaker 3: beneficial I think, you know, childcare and primary school teachers,

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Speaker 3: and the like are on the list now and we

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Speaker 3: know that we're not alone in terms of needing skilled workers.

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Speaker 3: And it's a cross sector public and private, so it

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Speaker 3: looks to be quite responsive in that regard that it's

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Speaker 3: a band aid. At the end of the day, our

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Speaker 3: DAMA was expiring in December. This is a twelve month

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Speaker 3: extension while we all wait with baited breath to see

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Speaker 3: which way Prime Minister and Anthony Albernizi and his team

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Speaker 3: go on the migration reviews. So we put that message

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Speaker 3: through the Federal Government minister yesterday saying this is good.

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Speaker 3: It's a bit of a stopgap. One year at a

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Speaker 3: time is not really what we're after. Would like to

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Speaker 3: do some strategic workforce planning three, five, ten years away.

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Speaker 3: So the review that they launched and tabled and made

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Speaker 3: public earlier in the year's got a lot of recommendations

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Speaker 3: good and bad in it. So we're just waiting to

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Speaker 3: see where that lands, I suppose, and once that lands

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Speaker 3: then we can probably go back to getting a five

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Speaker 3: year DARMA next year at some point.

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Speaker 1: Well, Alex Bruce, it is always good to catch up

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Speaker 1: with you. I really appreciate your time this morning, mate,

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Speaker 1: And no doubt we'll talk to you again soon.

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Speaker 3: Katie the Bet, thank you,