So 80%, you're saying, are probably not requiring an ambulance?

Well, yeah, this is the hard part, is that the ProQRE system that is used to triage the calls as they come in, and that uses common words like shortness of breath and chest pain.

So that can relate to anything from a chest infection, as you can imagine, because people will experience those right through to having a genuine heart attack, for instance.

So when a call comes in and triaged through that system, It obviously responds under a red, would probably likely put it under a red call, and that would determine the response of the ambulance, which would be under lights and sirens.

So this is the trouble with the triage, is not to downplay people's illnesses or need for an ambulance, but certainly there is a need for for there is other pathways to address, but those pathways have been overloaded as well, as well being well documented.

Is that happening a lot?

Well, that's been well documented over a number of years and it has increased, certainly arriving at the scenes and then being presented to or being threatened even verbally or physically with violence.

And that's been occurring anyway on top of it.

I think whether it be collective bargaining or employment or industrial relations matters, how does it come to be that we're sitting here having a great chat?

Well, I didn't know what to expect, to be honest, when we initiated with Northern Rescue originally when we had some members who were obviously based out of Whangarei that said, we want you to be involved, you know, the union and Mark and Neil.

And I initiated, and I think your CEO was going, I put his name down, he said, no, it's not me anymore, it's somebody else.

And then, obviously, Lisa made contact with representing, and we went from there.

And so it was all a bit unknown, really, and it's been a great journey.

And I think memory, remember walking away after we did four days of bargaining, and going, actually, this is a real positive, because there's a lot in the union side, You mentioned the word union.

Again, you can get a lot of negativity and there's an image people have around it.

What works? What do we recommend? What would be useful?

I mean, you know, it's a bit of a cliche, The Rolling Stones provocative at 82 years old, but anyway.

So much of that music, for me, it feels like the work that I ended up making for them.

You know? It feels like that.

It's, it's not seamless.

It's not the, the, it's not designed to be cute or pretty.

It's, it's raw, and it's authentic, and it's, it's very sincere.

After we left Snugbra and after we left secondary school, what did you do after secondary school?

Well, thanks for having me on the show, first off.

What did you do after secondary school? I'd kind of worked in, you know, we all had jobs back then, different than the younger ones now.

We all had jobs since we were 14 or 15, once we could get out the door and do something.

So I always ended up working in kitchens.

So it was a kind of, I suppose, a natural progression that when my first job was in, first proper paid tax job, in case the tax man is looking in, was Casey Jones, if you remember that at the time.

It was on Main Street in Castlebar.

I

he's an interesting horse it's not easy at highway level this early in your career so obviously you've got a good opinion of him

yeah for sure always have liked him hence why he went to Brisbane for his first start he ran a cracker behind foreign press and you know we put him away then with the championships in mind the country championships he just probably was 12 months too soon for him he went bang bang and won his made in his class one and it was probably a trainer error that I got a bit excited and thought oh well we'll have a crack at it where I probably in hindsight I probably should have just put him away and waited but you know you're there you're fit you're going well and it just wasn't to be so but no he goes really well.

Okay and looking at his trial he's spelled well.

He did he's a very good doing horse very clean winded um We gave him a decent hit out in the trial just to, you know, iron any potential kinks out.

And he pulled up beautifully.

By the time he got back to the enclosure, he'd recovered his wind.

And I haven't heard Aaron give one a wrap after a trial like the way he did.

He just said he's gone to another level.