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Ryan Bridge: Is funding major events a priority? · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The punters will love this new major Events fund seventy million.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's new and old money. Infrastructure, cycle way money, ten
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: million for regional tourism. The showstopper, though, is this forty
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: million bucks for significant high impact events for New Zealand.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: We had the PM and the Minister out yesterday while
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: they're saying these things are money makers. Hospital does well,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Tourism operators do well, retail does well. They call it
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: a bonanza. But if you're a fan of sailing, if
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: you like the America's Cup, you might be scratching your head.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Remember it was only five months ago we had the
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: PM saying oh no, thank you to backing the cup.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Why well, I went back and looked at the reasons
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: to see specifically, we're in a financial mess, a fiscal mess.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: We need to invest in proper infrastructure like hospitals and roads.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: He said, we need to be quote more responsible with
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: taxpayers money. And now we have new money for a
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Pearl Jam concert. To be fair, the sums involved here
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: are important. The Cup would have cost somewhere between forty
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: and seventy million dollars on its own, depending on who
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: you ask. This entire fund, the bit for major events
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: is forty million total. But if you follow the reasoning
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: and ask yourself the basic question, is the least demand
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: for hospital or roading infrastructure now than there was five
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: months ago, you'd be right to feel a bit confused
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: by all of this. Either the Cup was a crap investment,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: or these investments more generally are simply not a priority.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live
• 1:31
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• 1:34
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