Latest / The Bolt Report / The Bolt Report | 9 September

Transcript

The Bolt Report | 9 September · The Bolt Report

• 0:11
  Speaker 1: This is the Bolt Report.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Thanks for your company on The Bolt Report. I'm James McPherson.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Here's what's coming up tonight. Anthony Albanese tells the ABC
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: to do better after questioning him how a golf club,
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: of which he's an honorary member, got a $ 6 million grant.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: But maybe it's the PM who needs to do better
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: on this one. One Nation's satirical cartoon series has branded
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Andrew Hastie a traitor.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: But can satire go too far?
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Rowan Dean will join me to talk about the escalating
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: war between Pauline Hanson and Andrew Hastie. And members of
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: the jury speak out after the trial of Lindsay Clancy,
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: who killed her three children, ends in a mistrial. Gemma
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Tognini and Caroline DeRusso are going to unpack all of
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: that with me a little later in the program. But first,
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: you're probably aware that right now the New South Wales
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: state government has 44,000 Aboriginal land claims sitting on its desks.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: just waiting for a determination, 44,000. That number has grown
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: from 40,000 just three years ago. So if you do
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: the math, on average, there are three new Aboriginal land
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: claims made in the state of New South Wales every
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: single day. You can accuse Aboriginal land councils of a
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: lot of things, but you can't accuse them of lacking ambition. Remember,
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: every single one of those 44,000 land claims means a person,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: a community group or a local council currently in limbo,
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: waiting to find out whether the park, the tennis club
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: or the surf club will be taken from them. And
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: so you've got to ask the obvious question, how did
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: successive New South Wales governments allow a system to develop
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: where tens of thousands of people can be left waiting
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: for years to find out what happens to their community land? Well,
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: today the Minister responsible for sorting out Aboriginal land claims
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: in New South Wales revealed a couple of reasons why
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: there are so many of them. And I think you're
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: going to be furious when you hear his reasoning. Have
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: a listen to New South Wales Lands and Property Minister
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Steve Camper on 2GB Radio today.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Honestly, I could not believe this.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: I think it's important to appreciate that, you know, a
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: land claim is a one-line email. And essentially, it's pretty
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: easy to lodge a land claim.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: A one-line email, that's it.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: You can apparently launch a claim over Crown land with
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: less administrative effort than it takes to order a Domino's pizza.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: So the time it takes to make the claim can
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: literally be less than a minute, which then raises another question.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: If it takes less than a minute to make a
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: land claim, how long does it take the government to
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: decide whether that claim has any merit?
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Well, I think you can probably guess.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: But then to process that land claim can take months
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: and months and months.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: So there you have the basic economics of the entire system.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: One side can fire off an email. The other side
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: gets to employ people to spend months and months and
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: months working out whether that email has any merit. And
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: the email is free.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: The investigation, of course, is not.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: So who pays for all of these months and months
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: and months?
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Well, the New South Wales taxpayer, obviously.
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: To process a claim takes months and months and months
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: of work, Ben. So it's, you know, that process, we're
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: stepping up, we're staffing, we're Crownlands are staffing. This has
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: been going on for 43 years and we're processing claims
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: as they come in.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: The minister then went on to explain that many of
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: these claims are entirely speculative, which might also explain why
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: there are 44,000 of them and why the number keeps
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: growing by about three a day. Have a listen to
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: how he describes it.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: It's a moving feast. It's been, you know, there's claims
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: are processed, then there's new claims that come on board,
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: and it is easy. It is easy to lodge a
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: land claim.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: A moving feast.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Indeed, although most restaurants would probably close if the customers
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: could order for free while someone else was required to
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: cook every meal. But there's another reason the number of
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: land claims is exploding in New South Wales, aside from
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: the fact that it takes only a one-line email to
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: generate a claim that takes many months to process. Minister
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: Steve Camper says claims are supposed to be made over
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: crown land that is unused. That sounds reasonably straightforward, except...
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: There are apparently some rather extraordinary loopholes. Imagine, for example,
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: your local community tennis club is a day late signing
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: the paperwork renewing its use of the land. Well, for
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: that brief period, technically the land would be considered unused
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: and suddenly it may become vulnerable to a claim.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: It gets more ridiculous if you can believe it.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Imagine your local surf club allows, I don't know, a
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: coffee cart onto its grounds, but that particular activity isn't
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: permitted under the lease. Well, technically, the land wouldn't be
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: used in accordance with the agreement, and so suddenly the
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: entire property can be vulnerable to a claim. You couldn't
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: design a more effective incentive for speculative claims if you
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: sat down with a whiteboard and tried. And the Minister
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: himself acknowledges that was never the intention.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: I don't think it was ever intended. You know, well-used,
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: valuable community assets, community facilities, community services were basically, you know,
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: ceased because of a glitch within a leasing document or
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: a minor breach within a lease.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: So let's review.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: There's 44,000 claims sitting unresolved. Claims can be lodged with
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: a one-line email and they take months and months to process.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: Three new claims arrive every day and loopholes can apparently
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: make well-used community assets vulnerable because of.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Something as trivial as a paperwork glitch.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: Now it becomes a little easier to understand why an
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: Aboriginal land council might lodge a claim over somewhere like
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: the iconic icebergs at Bondi Beach.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Clearly, it's being used.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: But if someone can discover that at some point there
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: was a delay in the paperwork or a minor technical
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: breach of a lease, well, apparently the game changes. And
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: that's the extraordinary part. The Minister himself says valuable community
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: assets are at risk.
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: Land rights have been around for 43 years and respective
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: governments have been managing these things. The way the system works,
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: as I said, It's simple to lodge a land claim,
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: but it's not a fait accompli. I think we need
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: to appreciate that, but we also need to identify where
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: there's risk of, you know, really important, valuable community assets
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: being lost. Because once you lose them, you never get
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: them back.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: That last comment was rather important. Once you lose these sites,
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: you never get them back. But there's one more reason
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: the number of land claims has been banking up. And
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: as I've said, I've left the most concerning reason to last.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: The Minister was asked whether it might be the case
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: that the government was deliberately not resolving land claims because
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: they were scared, given the loopholes, that if they start
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: looking into some of these claims, well.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: At the end of the day, if the Crown facility,
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: if the Crown land site has been operated and been used,
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: it's safe. It wouldn't bring about a successful land claim.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: And if it's been, the only problem has been, have
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: been those glitches that we're looking to address.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: In other words, the government's been sitting on these claims
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: until they can get legislation before the New South Wales
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Parliament that would make it safe to consider these land
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: claims without fear of being caught out by a loophole.
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: Look, it's important that we tidy up these small indiscretions
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: because once it goes to appeal, then it's exposed to
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: being transferred through those proceedings.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: I'd add just one more thing.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Isn't it completely unscrupulous for Aboriginal land councils to make
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: claims on well-known sites that are obviously being used by
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: the Australian community in the hope that they might catch
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: someone out on a technicality? The Minister was asked why
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: he hadn't just told land councils to quit acting in
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: bad faith by making these speculative claims.
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: I've spent three months consulting with the land council communities
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: and You know, there's been some difficult conversations within that,
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: but overwhelmingly the Aboriginal communities don't want to see very
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: important community assets shut down, so to speak.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: 44,000 land claims and growing would seem to argue otherwise.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: The New South Wales Labor Government plans to introduce legislation
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: in Parliament next week to close these loopholes. Well, the
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: Prime Minister today has lashed out at the ABC for
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: failing to give him a warm bath. The ABC were
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: rightly reporting that the PM held an undeclared honorary membership
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: to a golf club in his electorate. The same golf
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: club which was promised a lazy $ 6 million in taxpayer
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: funding at the 2025 election. Elbany Nisi went on the
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: ABC this morning to admonish them over their reporting. 15
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: years ago, someone decided to say, oh, we'll make him
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: an honorary member.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: I don't have a card. I don't go in there.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: I haven't been in there for years. ABC were told this.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: Think we'd all be feeling pretty conflicted after watching that.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, on the one hand, I love the ABC
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: putting the heat on Albanese, but on the other hand,
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: Elbow telling the ABC to do better was quite satisfying
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: as well. So it was a situation where I found
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: myself literally cheering for everyone in that fight. The opposition
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: pressed the PM on the $ 6 million grant in question
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: time today.
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: When the Prime Minister said, and I quote, shameless pork
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: barrelling must stop and it will under a Labor government,
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: was that just another broken promise?
• 10:35
  Speaker 5: This is a public golf course. known affectionately as Royal Marrickville.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: I make this point, Mr Speaker.
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: If anyone wants to join what is affectionately known as
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: Royal Marrickville, what they need for two years membership is $ 5.
• 10:53
  Speaker 6: We'll get them two years membership. For two years!
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Now, it's true that a two-year social membership at the
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: club costs $ 5. A full membership actually costs $ 1, 100 a year. Now,
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: if this story sounds a little familiar to you, you're
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: not imagining things. Back in 2020, Bridget McKenzie was forced
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: to step down as sports minister and deputy leader of
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: the Nationals.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: After she approved.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: A $ 35, 980 government grant for a shooting club of which
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: she was an undisclosed member. A membership she claimed was
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: an unrequested gift worth $ 180. And what did Anthony Albanese,
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: the then opposition leader, have to say at the time? Well,
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: let me quote for you. She's got to go. This
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: is just red hot. This is just a rort. It
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: fails the pub test. It fails every test. Joining me
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: now is my Wednesday political panel, former New South Wales
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Labor Treasurer Michael Costa and One Nation Senator Sean Bell.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Michael, hypocrisy much?
• 11:58
  Speaker 7: Well, it's hypocrisy on both sides, I have to say
• 12:00
  Speaker 7: with this.
• 12:01
  Speaker 8: And, you know, the best thing that can happen with
• 12:03
  Speaker 8: all of these grants is that it'd be taken into
• 12:06
  Speaker 8: an independent authority. under the supervision of the Federal Corruption Commission,
• 12:11
  Speaker 8: because it's not just the Labor Party that's done this.
• 12:14
  Speaker 8: As you rightly point out, it's all political parties, and
• 12:17
  Speaker 8: the public's had enough of this.
• 12:19
  Speaker 7: I mean, it's not based on merit.
• 12:20
  Speaker 8: It's based on political advantage, and that is not the
• 12:24
  Speaker 8: basis for public policy.
• 12:25
  Speaker 7: And the funds have got so large that it's a disgrace.
• 12:30
  Speaker 8: that there isn't an independent body that actually administers this and,
• 12:34
  Speaker 8: as I said, under the direction and supervision of the
• 12:37
  Speaker 8: Federal Corruption Commission. But, you know, they're all hypocrites and
• 12:40
  Speaker 8: that's the bottom line on this.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: Sean, does the fact Anthony Albanese doesn't actually use the
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: golf club, he says he just walks his dog past it,
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: does that absolve him from a conflict of interest here?
• 12:53
  Speaker 9: Look, I don't think this is an issue the Prime
• 12:54
  Speaker 9: Minister can just walk past. because it does sound like
• 12:58
  Speaker 9: sports frauds. And this is something that the abuse and
• 13:02
  Speaker 9: the explosion of these non-competitive grant programs, this is something
• 13:05
  Speaker 9: we've been looking into. And I think the Prime Minister,
• 13:07
  Speaker 9: despite his attempts to play this off, looked particularly rattled.
• 13:11
  Speaker 9: I think where there's smoke, there's fire. And I think
• 13:13
  Speaker 9: there's more to come. I will also say I can't
• 13:16
  Speaker 9: help but admit that I did find myself agreeing with
• 13:18
  Speaker 9: the Prime Minister when he said the ABC could do better.
• 13:21
  Speaker 9: I also agree they could do a lot better. And
• 13:23
  Speaker 9: I think if he wants to consider our proposal to
• 13:25
  Speaker 9: have them defunded and made a private entity, I'd be
• 13:28
  Speaker 9: welcome to discussing that with him.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I'm feeling the emotions you felt when watching
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: that ABC interview. Just before we move on, Michael, you
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: mentioned the fact that these grants should be determined independently.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: There was a study done that found of just over
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: $ 600 million worth of grants, about 73% went to safe
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: labour or marginal seats, only about 22% to coalition seats.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: So that would seem to argue in favour of your suggestion.
• 13:57
  Speaker 8: Yes, and, you know, if you look at the Coalition's record,
• 14:00
  Speaker 8: it's not much better either. I mean, they're pork barrel
• 14:03
  Speaker 8: as well. So you really do need to take it
• 14:06
  Speaker 8: out of the hands of the police and you need
• 14:08
  Speaker 8: to put it into an independent body that has clear
• 14:11
  Speaker 8: guidelines and under the.
• 14:13
  Speaker 7: Supervision of the Corruption Commission.
• 14:14
  Speaker 8: Because, look, in any other jurisdiction, certainly in New South
• 14:17
  Speaker 8: Wales under ICAC, a lot of those grants would be
• 14:19
  Speaker 8: seen as corrupt.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Indeed. All right, let's talk about Victoria.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: The ombudsman there, Marlo Barraguanath, one of the state's top
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: integrity officials, has delivered a scathing speech warning that, quote,
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: the insidious approach of the Victorian Labor government over the
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: past decade has.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Been dangerous to democracy.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: She wrote that when one of our integrity agencies tables
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: a set of recommendations, this is to the Victorian Labor government,
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: all too often they're attacked personally and or their work
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: is dismissed by the government of the day. This is
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: a dangerous sign because maladministration, corruption and misuse of public funds,
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: taxpayer dollars, breeds resentment, disillusionment and ultimately distrust. Michael, she
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: went on to accuse successive Labor governments of believing, quote,
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: the end justifies the means in just about everything that
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: they do.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: It was a scathing report.
• 15:15
  Speaker 7: It's certainly a justified report too.
• 15:18
  Speaker 8: You know, the big build and everything else that's gone
• 15:20
  Speaker 8: on in Victoria has led to a dreadful situation. And again,
• 15:23
  Speaker 8: it comes back to the fact that their corruption commission
• 15:26
  Speaker 8: has been neutered, you know, deliberately by the pollies down
• 15:30
  Speaker 8: there and deliberately by the Labor government to ensure that
• 15:34
  Speaker 8: these issues aren't transparent and aren't given the scrutiny that
• 15:38
  Speaker 8: they require. So I think that report is a very
• 15:41
  Speaker 8: good report. I'll be surprised if anything happens before the
• 15:44
  Speaker 8: next election.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: It's interesting, you know, the Victorian Labor Premier, Ben Carroll,
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: has been all about integrity and accountability since taking over
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: from Jacinta Allen. There was a vote in the Victorian
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: Parliament today to establish an inquiry into how there was
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: a secret levy put on public transport fares. And so
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: much for, you know, openness and transparency, Labor and the
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: Greens voted not to hold any such levies. Sean, the
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: ombudsman accused the government of cynically using the news cycle
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: to hide their failures, and that has been the story
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: of Victoria, hasn't it?
• 16:27
  Speaker 9: I mean, you hear often from Labor talk of transparency, integrity,
• 16:31
  Speaker 9: but I think the only thing that's transparent about them
• 16:33
  Speaker 9: are their lies. People see straight through them. They are
• 16:36
  Speaker 9: sick and tired of the Labor Party lying, whether it's
• 16:39
  Speaker 9: the federal government or the Victorian state government. They're ready
• 16:43
  Speaker 9: to hold them to account because the time for lies
• 16:45
  Speaker 9: is over. What we need is to end the corruption,
• 16:48
  Speaker 9: end the waste. I mean, like I said, that big build,
• 16:50
  Speaker 9: $ 15 billion of money wasted... And now Ben Carroll comes
• 16:55
  Speaker 9: in and he says, we got to clean things up. Well,
• 16:57
  Speaker 9: he was there from the very beginning. He was there
• 17:00
  Speaker 9: for it all. And he is not the change that
• 17:03
  Speaker 9: Victoria needs.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: You know, speaking of the big build, the ombudsman had
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: a great line in her report. She said when it
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: came to the big build, there was a lot of
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: big and not much build in the speech that she gave,
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: which I thought was very good. Michael, I want to
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: ask you about the land claims that I spoke about
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: at the top of the show.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: What do you make of that?
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: 44,000 land claims piled up. And the reason for the backlog?
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: They take only a one-line email to file, and the
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: government seems fearful that if they start opening these claims,
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: there'll be all sorts of problems because of technical issues.
• 17:43
  Speaker 8: Well, look, I'm not going to defend the interview, but
• 17:45
  Speaker 8: I'll certainly defend the strategy behind it. clearly they want
• 17:49
  Speaker 8: to delay these and they ought to delay them until
• 17:51
  Speaker 8: they get some legislation to clarify. Now, this is not
• 17:54
  Speaker 8: the government's fault, either government or either persuasion. The coalition
• 17:58
  Speaker 8: was there for a long time with these problems as well.
• 18:01
  Speaker 7: The problem has been judicial activism, the interpretation.
• 18:04
  Speaker 10: Of a land claims bill or a land rights bill
• 18:09
  Speaker 10: that was about, you know, unused public land that had
• 18:14
  Speaker 10: traditional laws you know, Aboriginal activities on it, fishing, hunting,
• 18:18
  Speaker 10: all those sorts of things, or had heritage items on it.
• 18:21
  Speaker 8: This has been extended through all these judicial decisions. I mean,
• 18:25
  Speaker 8: up here in Newcastle, for example, we had the post office,
• 18:28
  Speaker 8: the old post office, a heritage building, was subject to
• 18:31
  Speaker 8: a land claim, even though there was a developer that
• 18:33
  Speaker 8: was prepared to fix that building up and build a,
• 18:36
  Speaker 8: you know, intercontinental style hotel on that. What was the
• 18:39
  Speaker 8: end result? The building is derelict because the Aborigines, after
• 18:43
  Speaker 8: they got their claim up, couldn't raise the funds.
• 18:46
  Speaker 7: So it's a disgrace. The government's right, and I hope
• 18:48
  Speaker 7: the Coalition supports the changes.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: And I certainly am not suggesting that the majority of
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: Aboriginal land councils are operating with opportunism, but it certainly
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: does seem like some may be, Sean.
• 19:02
  Speaker 9: I mean, this has been an issue for decades. This
• 19:08
  Speaker 9: process has been abused for decades. And, I mean, the
• 19:12
  Speaker 9: Labor government is now deciding to act. Well, apologies. You
• 19:15
  Speaker 9: don't pat the arsonist on the back for putting out
• 19:18
  Speaker 9: the fire that they lit. I mean, these are decisions
• 19:21
  Speaker 9: made by the Labor government and these are the consequences
• 19:23
  Speaker 9: that we warned them would happen. I mean, this is
• 19:25
  Speaker 9: what happens when you have divisive race-based politics. People will
• 19:29
  Speaker 9: exploit it and abuse it. And you see the same
• 19:31
  Speaker 9: thing happening on a federal level with native title claims.
• 19:34
  Speaker 9: I mean, this is why half the country is dealing
• 19:36
  Speaker 9: with claims. I mean, in New South Wales, especially in
• 19:38
  Speaker 9: rural and regional areas, clubs, caravan parks, communities, councils, they
• 19:44
  Speaker 9: sit there and they feel like there is a loaded
• 19:46
  Speaker 9: gun pointed at their head because at any minute someone
• 19:49
  Speaker 9: could use... one of these claims, abuse them to try
• 19:52
  Speaker 9: and get a benefit for themselves. And, look, I'm not
• 19:56
  Speaker 9: going to sit here and make policy on the run
• 19:57
  Speaker 9: for our state guys, but I can tell you at
• 19:59
  Speaker 9: a federal level we will wipe this stuff out.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: No more.
• 20:04
  Speaker 6: Enough is enough.
• 20:04
  Speaker 7: No, you don't.
• 20:05
  Speaker 9: Just like the voice was defeated for the division. I
• 20:08
  Speaker 9: beg your pardon, what was that?
• 20:10
  Speaker 7: That's nonsense. You were in government for 10 years in
• 20:13
  Speaker 7: New South Wales. You were in government federally and you
• 20:15
  Speaker 7: did nothing.
• 20:16
  Speaker 6: No, I beg your pardon.
• 20:16
  Speaker 9: I'm happy to be bipartisan about this, but I'm not
• 20:19
  Speaker 9: going to sit here and listen.
• 20:20
  Speaker 8: To nonsense about the coalition.
• 20:23
  Speaker 7: They oversaw that. That example I gave happened under a
• 20:26
  Speaker 7: coalition government. So, look, both sides.
• 20:28
  Speaker 9: Are responsible for this.
• 20:30
  Speaker 11: James, both sides are responsible for this and let's fix
• 20:34
  Speaker 11: it up.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: You're kind of right and wrong, Michael. Sean, of course,
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: is One Nation, but you're quite right. The Coalition could
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: have done something about this as well, and they haven't.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: Michael Kosta, Sean Bell, appreciate both of you being on
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: the program. Thanks so much. We're going to go to
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: a break. When we come back, One Nation's satirical cartoon
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: series has branded Andrew Hastie a traitor.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: But can satire go too far?
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: Rowan Dean is going to join me to talk about
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: the escalating war between Pauline Hanson and Andrew Hastie right
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: after this. Well, Federal Liberal MP and former SAS soldier
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Andrew Hastie has launched a scathing attack on Pauline Hanson
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: and Barnaby Joyce after the pair denied calling him a
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: traitor for giving evidence against Ben Robert Smith, who's facing
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: war crimes charges. Here he was on News 24 earlier today.
• 21:24
  Speaker 12: Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce are lying cowards. And I'll
• 21:28
  Speaker 12: say it again so there's no ambiguity. They are lying cowards.
• 21:31
  Speaker 12: Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce are trashing my service record.
• 21:34
  Speaker 12: They've called me a traitor to my own country. But
• 21:37
  Speaker 12: it's not just about me, it's about the other veterans.
• 21:38
  Speaker 12: Are they saying the same thing of the other 20
• 21:41
  Speaker 12: SAS combat veterans who gave evidence under oath in the
• 21:44
  Speaker 12: federal court? Are they also traitors to their country?
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Hastie came out all guns blazing after Pauline Hanson denied
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: the claim, telling the nightly yesterday, I've never called him
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: a traitor. I will call him a... Starts with W
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: and you can imagine the rest. A claim Barnaby Joyce
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: backed her up on this morning.
• 22:03
  Speaker 13: I was speaking to Pauline this morning about this She
• 22:07
  Speaker 13: never called him a traitor.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: OK, so that may be true, but there's true and
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: then there's technically true. I think this may be a
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: case of the latter because the pinned post on Pauline
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Hanson's ex-account is a One Nation cartoon where Hastie is
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: called a traitor no less than eight times.
• 22:27
  Speaker 11: Well, Pauline Hanson insists that just because a cartoon her
• 22:30
  Speaker 11: party released calls Hastie a traitor doesn't mean she thinks
• 22:32
  Speaker 11: Hastie is a traitor.
• 22:33
  Speaker 6: Here she was with my colleague Chris Kenny earlier this evening.
• 22:57
  Speaker 14: The point is that these are One Nation cartoons. They're
• 23:00
  Speaker 14: funded by One Nation. They're publicised for One Nation. To
• 23:04
  Speaker 14: use Andrew Hastie's term, will you own those words and
• 23:08
  Speaker 14: delete the cartoon or do you stand by them?
• 23:11
  Speaker 10: No.
• 23:12
  Speaker 15: I'm not going to delete the cartoon.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: But do you own the words?
• 23:14
  Speaker 6: I'm not going to withdraw.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Will you own the words?
• 23:15
  Speaker 16: I am not going to.
• 23:16
  Speaker 8: Do you own the words, though?
• 23:17
  Speaker 14: Do you own those words?
• 23:18
  Speaker 6: I did not say the words.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: Do you say he's a traitor?
• 23:19
  Speaker 14: Can you say clearly now that you do not believe
• 23:23
  Speaker 14: Andrew Hastie is a traitor, you actually respect him as
• 23:25
  Speaker 14: a veteran?
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Of course I do.
• 23:30
  Speaker 15: Of course I do. I don't think he's a traitor.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: Joining me now is Rowan Dean, host of Outsiders at
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: 9am every Sunday and The World According to Rowan Dean
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: on Fridays at 7pm.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Rowan, great to have you on the program.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: Does Pauline Hanson owe Andrew Hastie an apology for the cartoon?
• 23:49
  Speaker 11: No, of course not. An apology for what? I thought
• 23:53
  Speaker 11: it was a badge of honour to appear in those cartoons.
• 23:56
  Speaker 11: People queue up to, I've never.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Appeared in one.
• 23:59
  Speaker 11: Alas, I've tried my best, James, but not funny enough, obviously.
• 24:04
  Speaker 11: A cartoon is a cartoon and satire is satire. I
• 24:09
  Speaker 11: don't believe an apology is needed at all. For what?
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Is Pauline Hanson being too cute by half, saying she
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: doesn't think and has never insinuated that Tasty is a traitor?
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: And yet that is her political party's cartoon. She's the
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: leader of the political party. She does have it pinned
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: at the top of her Twitter profile.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Like I said, a little cute?
• 24:35
  Speaker 6: No.
• 24:36
  Speaker 11: I think unlike a lot of people who have been
• 24:39
  Speaker 11: commenting on this, I actually watched the cartoon several times
• 24:43
  Speaker 11: as well as watching the with the excellent interview that
• 24:47
  Speaker 11: Andrew Hastie did with Kieran Gilbert on News 24 this morning.
• 24:52
  Speaker 11: And there's classic miscommunication, if you like, from both sides
• 24:58
  Speaker 11: because Andrew Hastie repeatedly says, the cartoon brands me a
• 25:02
  Speaker 11: traitor to Australia. He says it three times in the
• 25:05
  Speaker 11: interview and has repeated that again. In the cartoon, there's
• 25:10
  Speaker 11: no mention of being a traitor to Australia whatsoever.
• 25:13
  Speaker 6: There's being a traitor... to, I guess, the SAS.
• 25:18
  Speaker 11: Or Ben Robert Smith or whatever you like for him
• 25:21
  Speaker 11: for testifying against Ben Robert Smith. Don't want to go
• 25:24
  Speaker 11: into that because it's a whole legal thing, but that's
• 25:27
  Speaker 11: something Andrew Hastie has to live with. Whatever circumstances forced
• 25:31
  Speaker 11: him to do that, he chose to do that, so
• 25:34
  Speaker 11: he has to live with that. It's SAS veterans and others,
• 25:39
  Speaker 11: and there's plenty of them, who do feel that that
• 25:41
  Speaker 11: was treacherous behaviour and they're entitled to that point of view.
• 25:44
  Speaker 11: But the bigger thing is that the cartoon came out straight,
• 25:49
  Speaker 11: as I recall, not long after Andrew Hastie had promised,
• 25:53
  Speaker 11: and this is far more relevant to today, particularly with
• 25:57
  Speaker 11: Annika Wells and the Albo's appalling digital bill, duty of
• 26:03
  Speaker 11: care bill. And there was the first attempt at the
• 26:05
  Speaker 11: hate speech bills earlier in the year. And Andrew Hastie
• 26:09
  Speaker 11: was one of those who said, absolutely, I'm going to
• 26:11
  Speaker 11: fight this. I'm going to fight this. And then the
• 26:13
  Speaker 11: bill went through and he voted for it, which a
• 26:16
  Speaker 11: lot of people online were very, very angry about. And
• 26:18
  Speaker 11: that was basically where the traitor thing really kicked off
• 26:22
  Speaker 11: if you put the Ben Roberts Smith to one side.
• 26:25
  Speaker 11: But nowhere in the cartoon is he labelled a traitor
• 26:26
  Speaker 11: to Australia, which is a very, very different thing.
• 26:29
  Speaker 6: You can be a traitor to your colleagues.
• 26:31
  Speaker 11: In fact, the whole cartoon is based around the, on
• 26:36
  Speaker 11: the coalition side. They're all busily stabbing each other in
• 26:39
  Speaker 11: the back and Jane Hume's got a knife and Dan
• 26:41
  Speaker 11: Tehan's got a knife.
• 26:42
  Speaker 6: Turnbull even turns up at one stage.
• 26:44
  Speaker 11: The cartoon's all about being treacherous to each other and
• 26:48
  Speaker 11: to Angus Taylor. And there's some very funny jokes about
• 26:52
  Speaker 11: Angus Taylor in there. So I just don't buy the
• 26:56
  Speaker 11: idea that Andrew Hastie has gone on television and said
• 27:00
  Speaker 11: she called me a traitor to Australia. A, she didn't. B,
• 27:03
  Speaker 11: the cartoon didn't. And yet he keeps repeating that. So
• 27:06
  Speaker 11: if he's going to go for defamation, he's got to
• 27:08
  Speaker 11: be more accurate in what the defamation is. But more importantly...
• 27:16
  Speaker 11: You know, we call politicians betray the voters.
• 27:18
  Speaker 6: They betray their colleagues. They betray the electorate, et cetera,
• 27:21
  Speaker 6: et cetera. They're traitors to the cause. They're traitors to Labor,
• 27:25
  Speaker 6: traitors to One Nation or whatever it might be. That's
• 27:29
  Speaker 6: common political parlance.
• 27:31
  Speaker 11: And if Andrew Hastie is that thin-skinned that he's upset
• 27:34
  Speaker 11: about that and he reads into it being labelled a
• 27:37
  Speaker 11: traitor to Australia, you know, that says as much about
• 27:42
  Speaker 11: Andrew Hastie as it does about the cartoon's merits.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: Rowan Dean, I always enjoy your take on things and
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: I absolutely agree with you. That cartoon is very, very funny.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: It's worth watching, although Andrew Hastie might not be too
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: happy about us promoting it.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you coming on the program.
• 27:57
  Speaker 8: Thanks, Rowan.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: Coming up after the break, three jurors speak out from
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: the Lindsay Clancy trial that captivated the world, revealing in
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: an extraordinary interview exactly how the case ended in a mistrial.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: My panel is next. Welcome back to the program.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: Jurors in the Lindsay Clancy trial have spoken publicly about
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: the deliberations that ended in a mistrial. Clancy admitted killing
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: her three children, but claimed she was suffering from postpartum psychosis.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: Three female jurors have told the NBC that the panel
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: was prepared to find Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity,
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: but one male juror refused to agree. Here's one of
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: the women explaining the holdout's difficulty.
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: He had the hardest time getting off the fact that
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: Lindsay viciously killed her children.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine why.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: It's fascinating to me that the man who couldn't get
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: his head around a woman killing her three children is
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: in hiding, but the women who supported Clancy were not
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: at all hesitant in showing their faces. In fact, the
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: women explained how excited they'd been to acquit Clancy before
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: the holdout juror ruined their plans.
• 29:09
  Speaker 17: I started filling out the forms.
• 29:11
  Speaker 15: I was so excited.
• 29:13
  Speaker 17: I actually, there were three forms I had to fill out,
• 29:16
  Speaker 17: and I started filling them out. I wrote my signature
• 29:19
  Speaker 17: on each one, and then he said, but I'm still
• 29:23
  Speaker 17: not going to say that she's not guilty by reason
• 29:26
  Speaker 17: of insanity.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: Joining me now are Gemma Tonnini and Caroline de Russo.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Welcome to you both.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: I have no idea which way you're going to go
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: on this one. So Gemma, I'll start with you and
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: hold my breath.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: What did you make of it? of the jurors' comments?
• 29:43
  Speaker 18: There's many layers of disturbing to unpack there and I
• 29:46
  Speaker 18: think it's not a male-female issue.
• 29:47
  Speaker 15: I think it's.
• 29:51
  Speaker 18: A basic acknowledgement of the crime that has been committed
• 29:56
  Speaker 18: here and the crime that Clancy has admitted to. She
• 29:59
  Speaker 18: said she killed her children and she said it was
• 30:01
  Speaker 18: because she was insane. And that's not something I want
• 30:04
  Speaker 18: to offer a view on because I'm not a doctor.
• 30:06
  Speaker 18: But when you have anyone saying, oh, I was so
• 30:10
  Speaker 18: excited to do it. And there's no empathy for the
• 30:14
  Speaker 18: murdered children. Those children were violently, violently murdered by their mother.
• 30:20
  Speaker 18: They were old enough to know that it was their mother.
• 30:22
  Speaker 18: They were old enough to feel terror. They were old
• 30:25
  Speaker 18: enough to be you know, to die an absolutely horrific
• 30:28
  Speaker 18: death at the hands of the woman who was supposed
• 30:31
  Speaker 18: to protect them. And that has not featured in any
• 30:34
  Speaker 18: of these conversations. Whether or not she was criminally insane
• 30:38
  Speaker 18: or not, I have no view on that. But the
• 30:40
  Speaker 18: words of those women jurors who we just saw on
• 30:44
  Speaker 18: the screen, chill me, chill me for their lack of
• 30:48
  Speaker 18: understanding of the crime that was committed. And as for
• 30:52
  Speaker 18: the male juror, I don't think it matters that he's
• 30:54
  Speaker 18: a male or a female. I think it matters that
• 30:56
  Speaker 18: his thoughts certainly echo mine. I would have found it very,
• 30:59
  Speaker 18: very difficult to acquit her.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: Caroline, what did you make of jurors speaking out and
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: speaking out like that?
• 31:08
  Speaker 19: I'm with Gemma in the sense that excited is not
• 31:11
  Speaker 19: the word to use.
• 31:13
  Speaker 15: There are lots of other words there to use.
• 31:15
  Speaker 19: Other words that you could have used, but to use
• 31:17
  Speaker 19: the word excited, I actually find really quite repugnant. There's
• 31:24
  Speaker 19: obviously a lot of similarities between the justice systems in
• 31:27
  Speaker 19: the US and Australia, but there's also a lot of,
• 31:30
  Speaker 19: there's a lot of differences.
• 31:32
  Speaker 15: And that there.
• 31:33
  Speaker 19: Is one of them I would, you know, I can't
• 31:36
  Speaker 19: really remember. And I'm sure there are examples of maybe
• 31:39
  Speaker 19: jurors speaking after trials here in Australia. But, you know,
• 31:44
  Speaker 19: we do do a much better job of separating the
• 31:47
  Speaker 19: justice system and the media. And I think that the
• 31:50
  Speaker 19: justice system should be allowed to do its job. And obviously,
• 31:54
  Speaker 19: their public hearings and that sort of thing. I'm not suggesting, obviously,
• 31:57
  Speaker 19: that they.
• 31:58
  Speaker 15: Not be public hearings. But there are certain things.
• 32:01
  Speaker 19: About the American system, that being one of them, coaching
• 32:04
  Speaker 19: of witnesses, other things which you just don't tend to
• 32:07
  Speaker 19: see within the Australian system. And I think that there
• 32:10
  Speaker 19: is a blessing because it allows our justice system, I suppose,
• 32:14
  Speaker 19: to operate in a way that, you know, I just can't,
• 32:20
  Speaker 19: I'm sorry, I just can't get over those words. Like
• 32:23
  Speaker 19: Gemma said, there were three children that were brutally killed
• 32:26
  Speaker 19: and were excited.
• 32:28
  Speaker 15: And I just think that's disgusting.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: You make a great point about the jury system too,
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: because it was a mistrial. So presumably there will be
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: another trial. I'm not sure how they can get an
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: impartial jury for the next trial, having heard those sort
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: of comments from the first jury.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: So It's messy.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: Do you both remember when Donald Trump changed the name
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: of the Secretary of Defence to the Secretary of War?
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: Progressives got really mad. They accused him of glorifying war.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: They were also furious when Trump changed the Gulf of
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: Mexico to the Gulf of America, claiming he was being.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Nationalistic, which is.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: just about the most unforgivable sin these days. What I
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: find funny, and I want to ask you about this,
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: is the way progressive change the names of things all
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: the time. Sex change is now gender affirmation. A mother
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: is a birthing person. A riot is a mostly peaceful protest.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: An illegal migrant is an undocumented migrant. Or what about
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: this one?
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: I saw this this week.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: Seattle police have found a new term for people who
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: shoot other people in the street. They're calling them trigger pullers.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Have a look.
• 33:34
  Speaker 13: Working with business owners, increasing patrols, bike patrols, working with
• 33:38
  Speaker 13: our community response group and our gun violence reduction unit
• 33:41
  Speaker 13: as well, looking at ways to where we can identify
• 33:44
  Speaker 13: individuals that are known, we call them trigger pullers in
• 33:47
  Speaker 13: our community, identifying them.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: I kind of wonder if the shooter is a trigger puller,
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: what does that make the person who gets shot a
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: bullet catcher? Gemma, what do you think of the term
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: trigger puller to refer to a person shooting other people
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: in the street?
• 34:02
  Speaker 18: Well, it's an IQ failure.
• 34:04
  Speaker 15: Basically.
• 34:05
  Speaker 18: Like someone who uses that sentence and expects to be
• 34:08
  Speaker 18: taken seriously, it's an immediate failure of an IQ test.
• 34:13
  Speaker 15: You know, it.
• 34:15
  Speaker 18: Is worthy of the ridicule we give it, James, but
• 34:19
  Speaker 18: the bigger picture is when do we stop and draw
• 34:21
  Speaker 18: a line? Like I refuse to call anyone a chest
• 34:24
  Speaker 18: feeder or a birthing person.
• 34:25
  Speaker 15: My mother's a mother. She's my mum.
• 34:28
  Speaker 18: My dad was my dad. And I Anyone else wants
• 34:31
  Speaker 18: to do whatever they want and say whatever they want,
• 34:32
  Speaker 18: but I don't have to be party to their lunacy.
• 34:35
  Speaker 18: I don't have to be party and indulge their incoherent twaddle, frankly,
• 34:41
  Speaker 18: that is not worth indulging. And yet we continue to
• 34:44
  Speaker 18: indulge it and we wonder why societally we're on this
• 34:46
  Speaker 18: slippery slope.
• 34:47
  Speaker 15: Down to a.
• 34:48
  Speaker 18: you know, a muddy quagmire that we seem to be
• 34:51
  Speaker 18: trying to drag ourselves out of 24-7.
• 34:53
  Speaker 15: Trigger pullers.
• 34:54
  Speaker 18: Like, is the person a bullet receptacle?
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: Caroline, we've only got one minute left, but I wanted
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: to ask you, how much is language used these days
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: to describe reality as opposed to protect a particular narrative
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: from reality?
• 35:10
  Speaker 15: Ah, very good, very good. And the left do this
• 35:12
  Speaker 15: all the time.
• 35:14
  Speaker 19: My favourite example, which you didn't say, James, is justice-involved individuals.
• 35:21
  Speaker 15: The rest of us know them as criminals.
• 35:23
  Speaker 19: But what the left are trying to do here, they
• 35:26
  Speaker 19: love collective responsibility, right? So we're all guilty of things
• 35:30
  Speaker 19: that we had nothing to do because we belong to
• 35:32
  Speaker 19: a collective group. But this is a great example of
• 35:35
  Speaker 19: how they try and disassociate behaviour from individual responsibility. And
• 35:40
  Speaker 19: so by calling someone a trigger puller rather than a shooter,
• 35:43
  Speaker 19: you're not attaching the individual to the action and the consequence.
• 35:48
  Speaker 19: And they do it in that way too. They use
• 35:51
  Speaker 19: the word destigmatise, but actually what they're doing is they're
• 35:56
  Speaker 19: essentially trying to give people a hall pass for really,
• 35:59
  Speaker 19: really terrible behaviour.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Bingo.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: Great input from both of you tonight. I really appreciate it.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much. We're going to go to a break.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: When we come back, the Albanese government, will they follow
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: the UK's extraordinary move to sanction Israel's West Bank settlement?
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: So I'll speak to Julie and Lisa about that. Plus,
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: a new international study reveals just how badly our school
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: students are performing. Colleen Harkin will join me to unpack
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: that mess. All of that after this. Israel's ambassador to
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: Australia has warned the Albanese government not to follow the
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: lead of their colleagues in Britain who've introduced sanctions against
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Foreign Affairs Minister Penny
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: Wong said today Australia doesn't plan on imposing a blanket-style
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: ban on imports, as the UK has done, but that
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: our Labor government was in the process of preparing sanctions,
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: albeit less extreme. Penny Wong went on to accuse Israel of, quote,
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: extinguishing the possibility.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: of.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: A two-state solution, or at least trying to extinguish such
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: a possibility. Joining me now is Shadow Education and Indigenous
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: Affairs Minister Julian Lisa. Julian, you've been an influential advocate
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: for Australia's Jewish community. What do you make of Penny
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: Wong's claim that Israel is trying to prevent a two-state solution?
• 37:19
  Speaker 20: Well, the government's foreign policy, particularly in relation to the
• 37:22
  Speaker 20: Middle East, is shambolic. They've turned Israel that's been a friend,
• 37:26
  Speaker 20: an ally, a security, a partner of Australia, and they've
• 37:28
  Speaker 20: ruined the relationship with Israel at.
• 37:31
  Speaker 6: Every possible turn.
• 37:32
  Speaker 20: The foreign policy of the Labor Party is dictated to
• 37:35
  Speaker 20: the wing of the Labor Party.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: That is soft on radical Islam.
• 37:38
  Speaker 20: And that's the tragedy of what Penny Wong has done
• 37:41
  Speaker 20: with relation to Israel ever since she's been Foreign Minister.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: It strikes me as odd that she would be contemplating
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: sanctions on Israel while Hamas remain in Gaza. The Palestinian
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Authority has done nothing asked of it by the Albanese
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: government when he went to the United Nations and announced
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: that Australia... would recognise a Palestinian state, and yet it's
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: Israel who is being sanctioned, as if they're the holdouts.
• 38:10
  Speaker 6: Exactly right, James.
• 38:11
  Speaker 20: Nothing that our government has done in relation to foreign
• 38:14
  Speaker 20: policy in Israel is leading to a two-state solution, and
• 38:18
  Speaker 20: none of it is having any effect on the ground
• 38:20
  Speaker 20: in the Middle East. All it is is it's posturing
• 38:23
  Speaker 20: for the radical wing of the Labor Party, and we
• 38:26
  Speaker 20: know how bad Labor is on these issues because... Every
• 38:30
  Speaker 20: Labor conference for the last 40 years, you get resolutions
• 38:34
  Speaker 20: that are more and more anti-Israel, more and more excusatory
• 38:37
  Speaker 20: of terrorist organisations like Hamas, and this year's national conference
• 38:41
  Speaker 20: was no different.
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: The UK government is looking to, they say, completely reset
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: their Middle East policy. Personal view, I think it's largely
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: in response to domestic politics, which seems to me a
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: very dangerous game to play because Israel and the UK
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: cooperate a lot in terms of intelligence, particularly as pertaining
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: to stopping terror threats on UK soil, to muck around
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: with national security to satisfy some domestic threats pressure groups
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: for political gain seems very silly in the case of.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Andy Burnham in the UK.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: Do you think the Australian government is in danger of
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: heading down that same street?
• 39:23
  Speaker 6: Yes, I do.
• 39:24
  Speaker 20: I mean, I think our foreign policy should be based
• 39:27
  Speaker 20: on two key principles. Number one, that you stand for
• 39:30
  Speaker 20: your values. Australia is a Western liberal democracy. Israel is
• 39:34
  Speaker 20: a Western liberal democracy. We should value other Western liberal democracies.
• 39:38
  Speaker 6: Number two, you stand with your friends.
• 39:40
  Speaker 20: Israel has been a great friend to Australia. Their intelligence
• 39:43
  Speaker 20: has prevented terrorist attacks. And if I could just point out,
• 39:48
  Speaker 20: you know, in the context of the Royal Commission, we
• 39:50
  Speaker 20: had 30 of our major security intelligence chiefs saying that
• 39:55
  Speaker 20: we needed to extend the Royal Commission because of the
• 39:57
  Speaker 20: problem of radical Islam here, radical Islam that is attacking Israel,
• 40:01
  Speaker 20: that is attacking Australia and that continues to present a
• 40:04
  Speaker 20: threat to this country.
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: Just before I let you go, Julian, there's a rapper.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: I know you're very much into your rap music. His
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: name's Brother Ali. He's due for a concert tour here
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: next week. This American who converted to Islam as a
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: teenager now lives in Turkey, but he's not someone who
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: should be admitted to Australia in the view of the
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: Australian Jewish Association. They're concerned some of his lyrics might
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: incite violence. I can't imagine a rapper with lyrics that
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: might incite violence. But let me give you some examples.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: It is 2007 track titled Philistine David.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Here's what he sings. And then there's this.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: If I'd been called to meet a martyr's end, I'm
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: standing on heaven's front door with a grin. Or what
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: about this from a song called The Collapse, released after
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: Hamas's October 7 terror attack on Israel. He sings, Call
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: them terrorists when they resist. Their own violence they call defence.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: And he even mocks Jews, singing.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: Their pronouns are pronounced as chosen and victimed. Julian, this
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: should be a pretty easy decision for Tony Burke to
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: say visa cancelled, should it not?
• 41:23
  Speaker 20: You'd hope so. This is a person who is glorifying terrorism.
• 41:27
  Speaker 20: This is a person who says he doesn't judge suicide bombers. Well,
• 41:30
  Speaker 20: I do and Australians do and we don't want anyone
• 41:33
  Speaker 20: who's soft on suicide bombing in this country.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: Do you trust Minister Burke to be tough on that
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: kind of thing?
• 41:40
  Speaker 20: Well, Minister Burke has refused Israelis coming to Australia all
• 41:43
  Speaker 20: the time. It's time that he ensure that people who
• 41:46
  Speaker 20: threaten the security of our country and the social cohesion
• 41:50
  Speaker 20: of our country are not coming to this country.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: Julian, Lisa, appreciate your time tonight. All right, it's official.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: Our education system is failing our kids.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: I suspect you already knew that. But there's an expectation,
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: is there not, that each.
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: Generation is better off than the one before. But according
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: to new research, high school students' maths and reading abilities
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: have plunged to their lowest levels on record.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: Reading and math.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: Scores for 15-year-old students have been steadily dropping for about
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: 20 years. And experts say the decline is the equivalent
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: to our kids missing out on two years of learning.
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: Poor student behaviour has also been escalating, rated amongst the
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: worst globally here in Australia. And that's when students are
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: in class. 44% of Australian kids admitted to skipping school
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: in the two weeks before this test was administered. It's
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: almost twice the OECD average. Joining me now is Colleen Harkin,
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: One Nation upper house candidate for Victoria's southeastern metropolitan region.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: Colleen, thanks for joining me.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: How is it our school system is failing our kids
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: so badly?
• 43:00
  Speaker 15: Look, unfortunately, this.
• 43:02
  Speaker 16: Is not news.
• 43:04
  Speaker 21: For the last 20 years, Australia has had data on
• 43:07
  Speaker 21: the OECD PISA results. For your viewers, PISA stands for
• 43:10
  Speaker 21: the Program for International Student Assessment. And about every three years,
• 43:14
  Speaker 21: 15-year-olds are assessed and there's about 91 OECD countries who participate.
• 43:20
  Speaker 21: And the average 15-year-old in Australia now is about a
• 43:24
  Speaker 21: year and a half behind where the average 15 15-year-old
• 43:27
  Speaker 21: was 20 years ago.
• 43:28
  Speaker 16: And it hasn't happened overnight.
• 43:31
  Speaker 21: Year on year, PISA after PISA, our students have been
• 43:34
  Speaker 21: shown to have been in absolute decline. So this is
• 43:37
  Speaker 21: not information that's come to hand today.
• 43:39
  Speaker 16: And everybody's gone, wow, how did that happen?
• 43:42
  Speaker 21: People have known about it for 20 years, we've been
• 43:45
  Speaker 21: in decline, and little to nothing has been done about it.
• 43:48
  Speaker 21: Our budgets have increased exponentially and our results continue to
• 43:52
  Speaker 21: go backwards.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: So what needs to be done?
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: As you say, we've known for a long time that
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: our kids are not doing well at school.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: There's countless reports.
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: As you said, this is just another one. What does
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: need to be done to turn things around?
• 44:08
  Speaker 16: Well, I mean, there's loads of layers to this.
• 44:12
  Speaker 21: One of the issues that has been long highlighted is
• 44:16
  Speaker 21: this issue of child-centred learning and putting the child at
• 44:20
  Speaker 21: the centre.
• 44:21
  Speaker 16: It's had problems with our discipline. Our Australian classrooms are some.
• 44:23
  Speaker 21: Of the worst in the world in the OECD. Teachers
• 44:27
  Speaker 21: report daily abuse from students and parents, mind you. And
• 44:32
  Speaker 21: so there's the ideology that's in the curriculum. Part of
• 44:35
  Speaker 21: the problem also is the teacher training. Our teachers are
• 44:39
  Speaker 21: not trained how to run a classroom, how.
• 44:41
  Speaker 16: To teach phonics.
• 44:43
  Speaker 21: You know, people talk about the solution to this is
• 44:45
  Speaker 21: we make sure that we teach core skills, but our
• 44:48
  Speaker 21: teacher education, what we call initial teacher training, is littered
• 44:53
  Speaker 21: with ideology. You know, there's research that says that of
• 44:57
  Speaker 21: the 3,713 courses that are available across.
• 44:58
  Speaker 16: The 37 universities in Australia.
• 45:04
  Speaker 16: Only 10% of.
• 45:06
  Speaker 21: That subject offering relates to reading, writing and arithmetic.
• 45:11
  Speaker 16: So our teachers are doing things.
• 45:13
  Speaker 21: Like decolonising the curriculum, you know, the woke content in
• 45:17
  Speaker 21: their teacher training. So when they get into a classroom,
• 45:19
  Speaker 21: they're not ready. They're not ready to run a classroom
• 45:21
  Speaker 21: and teach kids how to read and write.
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: OK, so you make it sound very obvious what should
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: be done. And I can't say I disagree with anything
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: you've just said.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: So what's the problem?
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: Why haven't a government on either side of the spectrum
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: done something about this?
• 45:39
  Speaker 16: There's been an absolute lack of courage, to be honest.
• 45:42
  Speaker 16: The problems are so obvious.
• 45:43
  Speaker 21: The ideology that's in the curriculum through the teacher training,
• 45:47
  Speaker 21: through the national curriculum.
• 45:49
  Speaker 6: Into classrooms... It's.
• 45:52
  Speaker 16: Sitting there in hiding in plain sight, as they say.
• 45:55
  Speaker 21: It's just that no one's had the integrity or the
• 45:58
  Speaker 21: courage to do anything about it. There was a mandate
• 46:02
  Speaker 21: that was made about two years ago to say that
• 46:04
  Speaker 21: students would do compulsory phonics and then the Victorian Education Union.
• 46:10
  Speaker 16: Said, no, we won't.
• 46:10
  Speaker 21: You know, sort of, you know, like arrogantly saying we
• 46:15
  Speaker 21: will not do make sure that children can read.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: You may have answered the question I was about to ask,
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: but you said, you know, this has been a lack
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: of courage. I was going to ask you, courage to
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: take on whom? Is it the teachers' unions that are
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: the major holdouts? And I presume unions tend to be
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: quite left, so that's where the ideological bent comes from?
• 46:36
  Speaker 16: Look, it's a little bit of everything.
• 46:38
  Speaker 21: I'm a big defender of teachers because the average teacher
• 46:41
  Speaker 21: goes into a class and they genuinely want the.
• 46:42
  Speaker 16: Best for their students.
• 46:44
  Speaker 21: The trouble is they don't have the autonomy to decide
• 46:46
  Speaker 21: what's in the curriculum. And we've seen recently just this
• 46:50
  Speaker 21: week where teachers will lose their job if they don't
• 46:52
  Speaker 21: comply with the curriculum that's given to them. So it
• 46:56
  Speaker 21: filters down from ACARA in the national curriculum into the
• 46:59
  Speaker 21: state education systems and the state curriculums.
• 47:02
  Speaker 16: It's backed in by.
• 47:04
  Speaker 21: Education unions and teachers who don't have the autonomy for
• 47:08
  Speaker 21: their professional integrity.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: We already have a productivity crisis in this nation. And,
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: of course, you know, what happens in our education system
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: has massive implications moving forward. Sinking education standards can only
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: mean more trouble for the future of our company, can
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: it not?
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: Company, country, I should say.
• 47:28
  Speaker 21: Yeah, look, I mean, education doesn't often get much oxygen,
• 47:32
  Speaker 21: but it is the foundation of the nation and we
• 47:35
  Speaker 21: have to get it right.
• 47:36
  Speaker 16: When we have give or take about a third.
• 47:38
  Speaker 21: Of all students in Australian schools who are not meeting
• 47:41
  Speaker 21: minimum benchmarks in literacy and numeracy, We have big problems
• 47:45
  Speaker 21: coming our way because regardless of if they get employment,
• 47:50
  Speaker 21: it has an impact on social services, on crime. Every
• 47:55
  Speaker 21: avenue of life will be impacted by having a cohort
• 47:59
  Speaker 21: or a generation of children who are not literate and
• 48:03
  Speaker 21: confident in their ability to do so.
• 48:05
  Speaker 16: It's a massive issue and we have to get it right.
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: And just quickly before we go, one of the statistics
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: out of this new report that really shocked me, only
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: nine out of 91 countries reported less bullying than Australian schools.
• 48:20
  Speaker 21: Yeah, we're about, give or take, 82nd or 83rd out
• 48:24
  Speaker 21: of 91 countries for the worst behaved classrooms. Noise, lack
• 48:30
  Speaker 21: of settling, bullying, that's of students and teachers and principals,
• 48:34
  Speaker 21: by the way. Our behaviour within schools, it's because we've
• 48:37
  Speaker 21: got this sort of child-centred view that a lack of
• 48:43
  Speaker 21: old-fashioned discipline, I guess is what you could easily call it, reconciliation.
• 48:48
  Speaker 16: Programs where when a child does something wrong, the onus actually.
• 48:50
  Speaker 21: Falls back on the teacher to document everything rather than
• 48:55
  Speaker 21: an instantaneous, you're not to do that, you won't have
• 48:57
  Speaker 21: lunchtime or whatever the old mechanism might have been. And
• 49:02
  Speaker 21: so there's this huge burden on teachers to document everything,
• 49:07
  Speaker 21: the red tape, and it just takes them away from
• 49:09
  Speaker 21: their job of teaching.
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was not good reading this latest report.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: And as you say, it's not news.
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: Hopefully we'll have a government at some point that will
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: be brave enough to take.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: it on.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: Colleen Harkin, thanks for joining me tonight. And thanks to
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: you at home for watching. I appreciate your company. Coming
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: up right now, Shari Markson.