Latest / The Kenny Report / The Kenny Report | 8 September

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The Kenny Report | 8 September · The Kenny Report

0:02
Speaker 1: This is The Kenny Report. Thanks, Ed.
0:06
Speaker 2: Tonight, as our housing crisis continues, we know the way
0:10
Speaker 2: to fix it, cut immigration.
0:12
Speaker 1: It's not theory, Canada's done it.
0:14
Speaker 2: We'll cross there and also speak with the Coalition's Andrew Bragg.
0:18
Speaker 2: In Parliament, the Coalition lets Anthony Albanese off the hook
0:21
Speaker 2: over the Bondi Royal Commission.
0:23
Speaker 1: And I wonder why One Nation is surging.
0:26
Speaker 2: And One Nation, well, they're targeting Andrew Hastie for all
0:29
Speaker 2: the wrong reasons.
0:30
Speaker 1: I reckon the country needs Hastie.
0:33
Speaker 2: Also, Kristen Tate in the US on the 9-11 anniversary
0:37
Speaker 2: and Donald Trump's latest antics.
0:39
Speaker 1: And in the panel with Susie and Stephen.
0:41
Speaker 2: Taxpayers funding a Zempik for mushroom killer Aaron Patterson. Also,
0:47
Speaker 2: the stunning confessions of One Nation's Victorian leader, Warren Pickering.
0:51
Speaker 1: Let's get cracking.
0:56
Speaker 2: I've got a bone to pick with each of the
0:58
Speaker 2: major political forces today, the Albanese Labor government, the coalition
1:02
Speaker 2: opposition and the rising force of One Nation.
1:05
Speaker 1: Let's start with Labor.
1:07
Speaker 2: We have a major housing crisis in this country where
1:10
Speaker 2: young people can't get into the market, rents are too
1:13
Speaker 2: high and supply is insufficient. Labor has tackled this the
1:17
Speaker 2: wrong way, of course, by increasing taxes on housing investment
1:21
Speaker 2: and spending more on government housing schemes. So we've got
1:25
Speaker 2: house prices plummeting. ABS figures today showing $ 34 billion in
1:30
Speaker 2: value has been lost over the past quarter. But at
1:33
Speaker 2: the same time, rents are rising and general inflation remains high,
1:38
Speaker 2: eating into people's incomes. There is a clear alternative. Labor
1:42
Speaker 2: could have cut taxes and red tape. That would have
1:46
Speaker 2: produced more houses more quickly. It also should have looked
1:50
Speaker 2: at perhaps the most similar country to ours, Canada. Like us,
1:54
Speaker 2: Canada is a large country with a relatively small and
1:58
Speaker 2: centralised population. Both countries are resources rich with developed and
2:03
Speaker 2: sophisticated economies, and both have been reliant on high immigration
2:08
Speaker 2: for decades. And just like Australia, Canada let immigration run
2:13
Speaker 2: out of control after the pandemic, with similar numbers flooding
2:17
Speaker 2: into Canada as we've seen in Australia.
2:20
Speaker 1: This led to.
2:21
Speaker 2: Infrastructure pressures as well as housing shortages, price rises and
2:26
Speaker 2: a rental crunch, just like our housing crisis.
2:30
Speaker 1: So what did Canada do?
2:31
Speaker 2: Well, even under its centre-left government, their Prime Minister, Mark Carney,
2:37
Speaker 2: who took over from Justin Trudeau, Carney didn't increase taxes
2:41
Speaker 2: on housing, he cut immigration taxes. Canada cut so hard
2:47
Speaker 2: that population growth evaporated. And over the past year, the
2:50
Speaker 2: country's total population has even gone backwards.
2:54
Speaker 3: We've taken back control of immigration. Asylum claims are down
2:59
Speaker 3: by a third. Temporary foreign workers' arrivals down by half.
3:03
Speaker 3: And international student arrivals down by 60%. We can now
3:08
Speaker 3: carefully rebuild a sustainable immigration system consistent with Canadian values.
3:15
Speaker 2: The economic impact of this has been dramatic, as you'd expect,
3:19
Speaker 2: but it most certainly has gone a long way to
3:21
Speaker 2: resolving the housing crisis.
3:23
Speaker 1: The value of existing.
3:24
Speaker 2: Houses has flatlined in Canada, not fallen dramatically like it
3:29
Speaker 2: has over the past few months in Australia, and rental
3:32
Speaker 2: costs there have fallen, unlike here, where they continue to rise.
3:38
Speaker 3: Housing costs and rental affordability are improving, with the rent-to-income
3:42
Speaker 3: ratio falling to its lowest level in over six years.
3:47
Speaker 2: That's the Canadian experience. The economic reality forced a country,
3:52
Speaker 2: even under a centre-left pro-immigration government, to confront its immigration problem,
3:59
Speaker 2: as consultant and commentator Ginny Roth explains.
4:03
Speaker 4: Not so much because there was an anti-immigrant sentiment, but
4:05
Speaker 4: because they were seeing wait times in hospitals were going up,
4:10
Speaker 4: services were less accessible, and primarily, and most importantly, the
4:14
Speaker 4: price of housing, both in terms of rent and if
4:17
Speaker 4: people wanted to buy their own homes, were just skyrocketing.
4:20
Speaker 4: As the housing conversation matured, it became clear that there
4:24
Speaker 4: was both a supply and a demand problem, but we
4:28
Speaker 4: basically got to a point where public opinion forced the
4:30
Speaker 4: hand of government to get that demand problem of immigration
4:34
Speaker 4: at least somewhat under control and to really curtail it.
4:37
Speaker 2: That full interview with Ginny Roth soon, but there you go.
4:41
Speaker 2: Even a centre-left government facing almost identical.
4:44
Speaker 1: Problems to Australia.
4:46
Speaker 2: has seen that increasing taxes is not the solution, but
4:49
Speaker 2: rather reducing demand by cutting immigration while you work on
4:55
Speaker 2: boosting supply, most likely with cutting housing taxes. Now to
5:04
Speaker 2: the Coalition. It's focused on the housing crisis in Parliament
5:08
Speaker 2: this week, and that's fair enough. It's also looked at
5:10
Speaker 2: the black market in tobacco. They're both worthy issues. But
5:15
Speaker 2: I waited expectantly yesterday for the first question to the
5:18
Speaker 2: Prime Minister. Surely the opposition was going to attack Anthony
5:22
Speaker 2: Albanese for his Bondi Royal Commission duck shoving, based on
5:27
Speaker 2: the words and example of John Howard calling on the
5:30
Speaker 2: Prime Minister... to appear at the inquiry, but even more
5:33
Speaker 2: so because of the stunning revelations from the Director-General of ASIO,
5:38
Speaker 2: Mike Burgess. In those stunning revelations from the soon-to-be-released book
5:43
Speaker 2: Bondi Terror by Shari Markson and Alex Rivchin, Burgess spoke
5:47
Speaker 2: about warnings and he lamented inaction.
5:52
Speaker 5: I was concerned, though, about the trajectory of our threat
5:54
Speaker 5: environment and I made that known publicly. Of course, it
5:58
Speaker 5: is a matter of deep regret that... You know, could
6:01
Speaker 5: I have done more? Perhaps, yes, I could have shouted stronger.
6:05
Speaker 5: But in the end, you know, I would suggest security
6:09
Speaker 5: is a shared responsibility in society and others actually had
6:12
Speaker 5: to take up that call, either challenge me for more
6:15
Speaker 5: details or take action.
6:18
Speaker 2: Now, no matter who else you include among those others
6:21
Speaker 2: who should have asked for more detail or taken more action,
6:24
Speaker 2: highest among them must be the Prime Minister and the
6:28
Speaker 2: Home Affairs Minister, Tony Burke. The warnings went to them.
6:32
Speaker 2: The public calls were made to them. The buck stops
6:36
Speaker 2: with them. But they've not been called to front the
6:39
Speaker 2: Royal Commission. They've not offered themselves up. It's shameful. But
6:45
Speaker 2: it's also a disgrace that the opposition hasn't pressed Albanese
6:48
Speaker 2: on this in Parliament. It didn't ask about it as
6:52
Speaker 2: the lead question yesterday. It stuck with housing. And it
6:55
Speaker 2: didn't ask it in subsequent questions either. And likewise today,
6:59
Speaker 2: it simply ignored this crucial issue. This is an issue
7:04
Speaker 2: of paramount importance to the country. It's about our national
7:08
Speaker 2: security and our national cohesion.
7:11
Speaker 1: But even through a political lens.
7:14
Speaker 2: Perhaps the Coalition should remember, as discussed in our documentary,
7:18
Speaker 2: The Fight for the Right, the Bondi terror attack became
7:22
Speaker 2: a turning point in the rise of One Nation.
7:25
Speaker 6: So I became the leader on the 8th of December
7:28
Speaker 6: and Bondi was shortly after. And I think that really
7:31
Speaker 6: was the first event that was the catalyst, I suppose,
7:34
Speaker 6: to really accelerate the surge of One Nation.
7:37
Speaker 1: Is that right?
7:37
Speaker 2: You think the Bondi massacre contributed to the rise of
7:42
Speaker 2: One Nation?
7:42
Speaker 1: In what way?
7:43
Speaker 6: I think that it really put in focus the concern
7:46
Speaker 6: that Australians, including South Australians, had on immigration and I
7:50
Speaker 6: think it really brought that to the fore.
7:52
Speaker 7: That, I think, got people to wake up and say,
7:55
Speaker 7: hang on, where are we?
7:58
Speaker 1: Where are we heading? What are we going with here? Look,
8:01
Speaker 1: I think it was a catalyst.
8:03
Speaker 8: There was a sense that, you know, Establishment Australia had
8:09
Speaker 8: moved away from middle Australia. And so I do think
8:13
Speaker 8: it crystallised a sense of anger and grief. Today, I'm
8:17
Speaker 8: also announcing that the government will establish a national gun
8:20
Speaker 8: buyback scheme to purchase surplus, newly banned and illegal firearms.
8:25
Speaker 1: And I'll tell the Prime Minister.
8:28
Speaker 4: It is not to do with the guns.
8:30
Speaker 9: Look at the people behind the.
8:31
Speaker 10: Guns, the people we've allowed to come into this country,
8:34
Speaker 10: and we need to get rid of those people.
8:36
Speaker 3: Out of our country.
8:38
Speaker 2: Yep, Bondi was a turning point because it showed how
8:43
Speaker 2: badly the Labor government had let us down and it
8:46
Speaker 2: exposed the Coalition for not being strong enough on these issues,
8:50
Speaker 2: whereas Pauline Hanson was blunt. And now the Coalition is
8:55
Speaker 2: letting the issue rest rather than pursuing Albanese in Parliament.
9:00
Speaker 2: That's letting voters down. That's letting the country down. And
9:04
Speaker 2: it's not the smartest move politically. Now to an issue
9:11
Speaker 2: where I believe One Nation are working against the best
9:15
Speaker 2: interests of the nation. Pauline Hanson's party is gunning for
9:19
Speaker 2: Andrew Hastie. They want to turf him out of Parliament
9:22
Speaker 2: by winning his Western Australian seat of Canning. And they
9:25
Speaker 2: got a boost the other weekend when the state by-election
9:29
Speaker 2: in Secret Harbour within Hastie's electorate fell from Labor to
9:33
Speaker 2: One Nation. The Sunday Times headline two days ago made
9:37
Speaker 2: plain Hanson's desire to eject Hastie from Canning. And he
9:42
Speaker 2: reacted to that yesterday on the ABC.
9:45
Speaker 1: Look, I don't worry about that.
9:47
Speaker 11: I've got one job and that is to deliver for
9:49
Speaker 11: my electorate. I love my electorate. I've lived there for
9:52
Speaker 11: 11 years. My kids are born down there. They're at
9:56
Speaker 11: school there. I've delivered a lot of infrastructure and I'm
9:59
Speaker 11: still getting wins, by the way. The Labor state government
10:02
Speaker 11: committed to a new train station, which they now have
10:04
Speaker 11: to build for the people of Secret Harbour. One Nation
10:06
Speaker 11: didn't fight for that. I campaigned for that for the
10:08
Speaker 11: last year and a half. And Labor committed, so it's
10:11
Speaker 11: going to happen. So I stand by my record of delivery.
10:15
Speaker 11: I'm not worried about who's taking potshots at me.
10:18
Speaker 1: I just get on with the job.
10:20
Speaker 2: Now, we live in a democracy and everyone has the
10:23
Speaker 2: right to run for any seat and everyone who holds
10:26
Speaker 2: a seat must be prepared to fight to defend it.
10:30
Speaker 2: But why would one nation want to target Andrew Hastie?
10:36
Speaker 2: He's a strong conservative who stands up for family values,
10:40
Speaker 2: controlled immigration, economic nationalism and a strong and capable defence force.
10:47
Speaker 2: His service to the nation as an elite SAS officer
10:50
Speaker 2: who was deployed to Afghanistan twice is unquestionable.
10:55
Speaker 1: You'd think he's exactly.
10:56
Speaker 2: The sort of person one nation would want to see
10:59
Speaker 2: serving in our parliament. In fact, in this week where
11:03
Speaker 2: we mark the 25th anniversary of 9-11, let me remind
11:06
Speaker 2: you of the moment Andrew Hastie decided to serve his country.
11:11
Speaker 2: It was on that fateful day and he spoke to
11:14
Speaker 2: me about it five years ago.
11:16
Speaker 11: I was a first-year university student, a bit lost, to
11:19
Speaker 11: be frank, not sure what I wanted to do with
11:21
Speaker 11: my life. I was aiming towards journalism at that point.
11:25
Speaker 11: And like the rest of the world, I saw the
11:27
Speaker 11: Twin Towers get hit and then sat up through the
11:30
Speaker 11: night until they finally came down in the early hours
11:33
Speaker 11: of the Sydney morning. And at that point, I felt
11:37
Speaker 11: it was a turning point in history. It was a
11:38
Speaker 11: hinge and war was coming. And I felt like that
11:44
Speaker 11: was the moment where I decided to change track in
11:48
Speaker 11: my thinking. And as the war started and the US
11:52
Speaker 11: and Australia and other allies got involved in Afghanistan, I
11:55
Speaker 11: wanted to be part of it.
11:58
Speaker 2: Eight years later, he was serving in Afghanistan. And for
12:02
Speaker 2: the past decade or so, he's been serving in the
12:04
Speaker 2: federal parliament. But One Nation is targeting Hastie partly because
12:09
Speaker 2: of that service. When Victoria Cross recipient Ben Robert Smith
12:13
Speaker 2: sued for defamation over claims of war crimes in Afghanistan,
12:17
Speaker 2: Hastie was subpoenaed as a witness. He says he simply
12:21
Speaker 2: obeyed the rule of law. When he was called as
12:23
Speaker 2: a witness, he attended and answered questions honestly. But supporters
12:29
Speaker 2: of Robert Smith, including the One Nation leadership, hold this
12:32
Speaker 2: against him.
12:34
Speaker 12: There's one thing One Nation stand by. and that is
12:37
Speaker 12: Ben Roberts-Smith. I'm not sure whether the current member for
12:40
Speaker 12: Canning does. But the truth of the matter is that
12:44
Speaker 12: we stand by all of our Defence Force members, and
12:48
Speaker 12: that is one thing that Andrew.
12:50
Speaker 1: Hastie is forgetting. What I will say to.
12:53
Speaker 12: Andrew Hastie is that we've got 431 nation members in
12:57
Speaker 12: his electorate. I did seek the number from our office
13:01
Speaker 12: before coming on air tonight, so we're a strong 431 registered,
13:06
Speaker 12: paid up members of One Nation in that seat and
13:08
Speaker 12: they expect us to run a very strong candidate.
13:12
Speaker 2: If One Nation stands by all our Defence Force members
13:16
Speaker 2: and veterans, then what do they think Andrew Hastie is?
13:20
Speaker 2: Why would they not support this distinguished veteran? If they
13:25
Speaker 2: believe Ben Robert Smith, who is now facing criminal charges,
13:28
Speaker 2: has been poorly treated by the government and the investigation system, fine.
13:33
Speaker 2: There is a case to be made there. But there's
13:36
Speaker 2: no need to target Hastie over this. He merely answered
13:40
Speaker 2: questions in court the way any law-abiding citizen should. In
13:45
Speaker 2: a newsletter to his electorate, Hastie says he won't take
13:49
Speaker 2: any more slander from One Nation, not after they called
13:52
Speaker 2: me a traitor to my own country. Hastie says he
13:55
Speaker 2: gave evidence along with 20 other combat veterans and the
13:59
Speaker 2: judge called him a straightforward witness. And for that, he's
14:03
Speaker 2: been called a rat and a traitor. He says people
14:06
Speaker 2: he trusted have walked away from him or failed to
14:10
Speaker 2: defend him. He says One Nation are working to unseat
14:13
Speaker 2: him because they don't believe in the rule of law
14:16
Speaker 2: and they don't believe in holding Australian soldiers to high
14:19
Speaker 2: standards on the battlefield. Hastie says he's calling time on
14:24
Speaker 2: cowards who have never served a day in the Defence Forces,
14:27
Speaker 2: attacking his record, integrity and loyalty to Australia. Now, I've
14:33
Speaker 2: not spoken to Andrew Hastie about this. He'll be as
14:36
Speaker 2: surprised to see this editorial.
14:38
Speaker 1: As anyone else.
14:39
Speaker 2: I rang him some weeks ago, actually, to ask him
14:42
Speaker 2: for an interview for my documentary, The Fight for the Right,
14:45
Speaker 2: but he declined.
14:47
Speaker 1: I just want to make the point that.
14:48
Speaker 2: Hastie is exactly the sort of person our Parliament needs.
14:53
Speaker 2: And it's possible to understand that and show him respect,
14:59
Speaker 2: even while you question the way Ben Robert Smith's process
15:02
Speaker 2: has been managed by the government and the legal system.
15:06
Speaker 2: One Nation needs to target Labor seats and Labor MPs.
15:11
Speaker 2: I reckon Australia needs conservatives like Andrew Hastie in Parliament.
15:16
Speaker 2: If One Nation really wanted to do what's best for Australia,
15:20
Speaker 2: rather than run against Hastie or target him, they'd preference him.
15:25
Speaker 2: There are so many politicians in Parliament doing daily damage
15:28
Speaker 2: to our country. Think of Anthony Albanese, Chris Bowen, Annika
15:32
Speaker 2: Wells or Tony Burke.
15:34
Speaker 1: We don't need One Nation taking out one of our finest.
15:41
Speaker 2: Let's go to Canberra and catch up with Shadow Housing
15:43
Speaker 2: Minister Andrew Bragg. Thanks for joining us, Andrew. I want
15:47
Speaker 2: to get on to housing in a moment, but first up,
15:49
Speaker 2: I want to ask you about the news development, the
15:53
Speaker 2: breaking news this afternoon with the One Nation leader in Victoria,
15:57
Speaker 2: Warren Pickering. Reacting to allegations made by a former partner
16:02
Speaker 2: of his about drug taking and all sorts of things
16:05
Speaker 2: and he's made astonishing confessions about his own drug use
16:09
Speaker 2: in the past.
16:10
Speaker 1: Here he is.
16:11
Speaker 7: I had utilised illegal drugs in my 20s. Never would
16:16
Speaker 7: I have ever said that I was somebody that was
16:18
Speaker 7: a drug addict. I did use them as a young
16:23
Speaker 7: man and I'm not proud of that.
16:26
Speaker 13: What drugs are we talking about?
16:27
Speaker 7: We're talking about speed, amphetamines, ecstasy and marijuana.
16:34
Speaker 1: There we go, Andrew Bragg.
16:35
Speaker 2: Do you believe that those admissions disqualify him from leading
16:38
Speaker 2: the political party in Victoria?
16:42
Speaker 13: No, and it's not really a matter for me to
16:44
Speaker 13: comment on about his personal arrangements. I just make the
16:47
Speaker 13: point that I think that the Victorians have had enough
16:50
Speaker 13: of that terrible government down there and I think people
16:53
Speaker 13: will look very favourably upon Jess Wilson, who's a serious
16:57
Speaker 13: and credible person and appears to have a good team
17:01
Speaker 13: behind her. So I think the Liberal Party's just got
17:04
Speaker 13: to focus on being the best party it can be.
17:07
Speaker 2: Look, he made other confessions about his personal arrangements, but
17:10
Speaker 2: those were confessions about illegal drugs. Do they not call
17:16
Speaker 2: into question his suitability for Parliament?
17:20
Speaker 13: Look, I mean, the One Nation vetting system has been
17:23
Speaker 13: well known to not be a particularly strong machine, and
17:27
Speaker 13: they've had these issues in the past. But I just
17:30
Speaker 13: think that the Liberal Party needs to be in a
17:33
Speaker 13: position to present its own policy, its own ideas... rather than,
17:37
Speaker 13: you know, focusing on other people making mistakes.
17:41
Speaker 1: Alright, let's get on to housing and superannuation.
17:44
Speaker 2: Now, the Coalition took a policy to the last election
17:47
Speaker 2: where people could access, under certain circumstances, some of their
17:51
Speaker 2: superannuation to get into the housing market. One nation have
17:54
Speaker 2: gone further with another plan announced in the last few days.
17:58
Speaker 2: Here's what Jim Chalmers has got to say about it all.
18:01
Speaker 14: The Coalition spokesman today has made it really clear... that
18:04
Speaker 14: instead of rejecting One Nation's superannuation madness.
18:09
Speaker 1: They want to photocopy it. It's hard to understand what.
18:12
Speaker 14: The point of the Liberal Party is if it's just
18:14
Speaker 14: to photocopy One Nation's policies. Whether it's One Nation, the
18:18
Speaker 14: Liberals or the Nationals, they are now indistinguishable from each other.
18:23
Speaker 1: Well, that's the Labor strategy, to lump you all in together.
18:26
Speaker 1: But it sounds like.
18:27
Speaker 2: One Nation have done more photocopying of Liberal policies than
18:30
Speaker 2: vice versa. When are we going to hear more detail
18:33
Speaker 2: from your party on these issues?
18:36
Speaker 13: I mean, Jim Chalmers has to be the most desperate
18:38
Speaker 13: politician in Canberra. If he was the CFO of a company,
18:42
Speaker 13: he would have been sacked ages ago. All his tax
18:44
Speaker 13: policies have collapsed on unrealised gains and his latest budget
18:47
Speaker 13: has gone the same way. I mean, he's got no
18:49
Speaker 13: right to really give any credible analysis here. I mean,
18:53
Speaker 13: the One Nation policy is a short-term issue that will
18:58
Speaker 13: help people with cost of living, potentially, but it doesn't
19:01
Speaker 13: deal with a long-term structural problem here that we are
19:05
Speaker 13: going to be a country that's going to have a
19:06
Speaker 13: lot more retired renters. over the next couple of decades.
19:09
Speaker 13: And that's going to change the character of the country.
19:12
Speaker 13: And that's why it's important that we have a debate
19:14
Speaker 13: about the retirement system and the housing system and how
19:16
Speaker 13: they intersect.
19:17
Speaker 1: All right.
19:18
Speaker 2: Well, we'll wait to hear more policy from you on
19:20
Speaker 2: that in the future. I just wonder whether you saw
19:23
Speaker 2: what I had to say about Canada at the top
19:26
Speaker 2: of the program. Their cuts to immigration have certainly slowed
19:30
Speaker 2: down house price growth and they've seen rents reduced dramatically.
19:35
Speaker 1: Is that the approach Australia should be adopting?
19:39
Speaker 13: Definitely, and we've looked closely at the Canadian model and
19:42
Speaker 13: I think reducing migration will help on the demand side,
19:46
Speaker 13: but ultimately we have a very acute supply problem in Australia.
19:50
Speaker 13: where the government has spent billions of dollars to build
19:53
Speaker 13: fewer houses, 30,000 fewer houses a year under this government,
19:56
Speaker 13: while they've massively increased the population. So, I mean, you
19:59
Speaker 13: don't need to be a Rhodes Scholar or a particularly
20:01
Speaker 13: smart person to work out that if you collapse supply
20:04
Speaker 13: and you increase demand, you have a worse housing situation.
20:09
Speaker 13: And that's the pain that people are feeling today. So
20:11
Speaker 13: you need to have a supply-side response and a demand-side response.
20:15
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Andrew. I appreciate it.
20:17
Speaker 2: Senator Andrew Bragg there, who's the Shadow Housing Minister for
20:21
Speaker 2: the Coalition. I want to go to more on this
20:23
Speaker 2: Canadian experience now on immigration.
20:26
Speaker 1: And housing.
20:27
Speaker 2: You saw some of my interview with Ginny Roth, a
20:29
Speaker 2: lobbyist and commentator based in Toronto.
20:31
Speaker 1: And the full interview is fascinating.
20:33
Speaker 2: I asked her to explain this shift to drastically reduce
20:36
Speaker 2: immigration under a centre-left government in a country that's long
20:41
Speaker 2: been reliant on high levels of migration.
20:44
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was a real pro-immigration consensus in Canada for
20:48
Speaker 4: a number of years, but the consensus was around like thoughtful,
20:52
Speaker 4: pretty high immigration, but thoughtful immigration. We had what's called
20:55
Speaker 4: a point system. So people were scored based on their
20:59
Speaker 4: language abilities, their ability to succeed in the job market,
21:02
Speaker 4: their ability to contribute to the economy, et cetera. And
21:05
Speaker 4: Canada sort of pick and chose this immigrants. We chose
21:08
Speaker 4: a lot of them, but we pick and chose them.
21:10
Speaker 4: And then in the last 10 years or so, primarily
21:13
Speaker 4: under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, immigration just skyrocketed, especially in
21:17
Speaker 4: areas that were less beneficial to the economy. The family reunification,
21:21
Speaker 4: people bringing in their family members who maybe weren't able
21:23
Speaker 4: to work, but also students and just, frankly, volume. Like
21:27
Speaker 4: tons and tons of people came into the country and
21:29
Speaker 4: it basically fractured the consensus around immigration and people started
21:33
Speaker 4: to question things. Not so much because there was an
21:36
Speaker 4: anti-immigrant sentiment, but because they were seeing wait times in
21:39
Speaker 4: hospitals were going up, services were less accessible, and primarily
21:45
Speaker 4: and most importantly, the price of housing, both in terms
21:48
Speaker 4: of rent and if people wanted to buy their own homes,
21:50
Speaker 4: were just skyrocketing. As the housing conversation matured, it became
21:55
Speaker 4: clear that there was both a supply and a demand problem.
21:59
Speaker 4: But we basically got to a point where public opinion
22:01
Speaker 4: forced the hand of government to get that demand problem
22:05
Speaker 4: of immigration at least somewhat under control and to really
22:07
Speaker 4: curtail it.
22:08
Speaker 2: That's a very similar story to Australia, where we've got
22:12
Speaker 2: a housing crisis. We can't build the number of houses
22:15
Speaker 2: required to settle the demand here, to satisfy the demand,
22:19
Speaker 2: especially with high levels of immigration. Our government is tackling
22:23
Speaker 2: this largely through adjustments to the taxation rules and arrangements.
22:29
Speaker 2: But immigration cuts can have a highly beneficial effect here,
22:33
Speaker 2: can't they?
22:34
Speaker 6: Absolutely.
22:35
Speaker 4: I mean, you have to do both. And to be clear,
22:37
Speaker 4: in Canada, immigration has come down. And there are some
22:41
Speaker 4: areas where we've seen improvement, primarily rents. So what we
22:44
Speaker 4: call purpose-built rentals, apartment buildings, basically, builders just weren't building
22:48
Speaker 4: them for years in Canada, and now they've taken off.
22:50
Speaker 4: And so the supply of apartments is going up. And
22:54
Speaker 4: at the same time, demand is down because immigration has
22:56
Speaker 4: come back under control. So we're seeing rents really level
22:59
Speaker 4: out and lower in a way that's good and good
23:01
Speaker 4: for people who care about cost of living. We're still
23:03
Speaker 4: not really building single family homes the way we need
23:05
Speaker 4: to be. There's still so much demand for that, even
23:07
Speaker 4: with immigration that's come down. And I think that's largely
23:10
Speaker 4: because we can't do the hard work of fixing the
23:12
Speaker 4: zoning and sort of permit issues that just you get
23:16
Speaker 4: this nimbyism that resists that. Taxation, I think, is still
23:20
Speaker 4: too high. It's still really expensive to build. in this
23:22
Speaker 4: country for all kinds of reasons, labor is expensive, taxes,
23:26
Speaker 4: what we call development charges, et cetera. And demand has
23:29
Speaker 4: come down, but it's still significant. We still do have
23:32
Speaker 4: a fair amount of immigration and a lot of people
23:35
Speaker 4: who immigrate and then a lot of Canadians who come
23:37
Speaker 4: of age, people in their twenties and thirties, want to
23:39
Speaker 4: buy homes because they want to start families. They don't
23:41
Speaker 4: necessarily want to rent and live in an apartment. And
23:43
Speaker 4: we haven't been able to satisfy that yet. So what
23:46
Speaker 4: we've learned, I think, in Canada is you have to
23:48
Speaker 4: fix both. You really do have to tackle both the
23:50
Speaker 4: demand side and the supply side. And I think we've
23:54
Speaker 4: also learned that public opinion, even if it's very pro-immigration,
23:58
Speaker 4: will start to erode if you abuse that by just
24:02
Speaker 4: letting it totally out of control. And if you look
24:04
Speaker 4: at the graphs over the last 10 years in Canada,
24:06
Speaker 4: it was truly off the charts. It was genuinely out
24:09
Speaker 4: of control.
24:09
Speaker 1: Now, we've done something really strange here in Australia.
24:11
Speaker 2: We've increased the taxation on housing, on housing investments, while
24:18
Speaker 2: trying to promote.
24:19
Speaker 1: People to go into new housing.
24:21
Speaker 2: So rents are actually going up while housing prices have
24:24
Speaker 2: come down. Now, this intrigues me that by having such
24:28
Speaker 2: a drastic cut in your immigration in Canada, yes, housing
24:32
Speaker 2: prices have come off, but so have rents.
24:35
Speaker 1: And that must be important for low-income earners.
24:39
Speaker 4: Absolutely. Yeah, rent is, I mean, it's an important step
24:42
Speaker 4: in the ladder. So even if people aspire to be homeowners,
24:44
Speaker 4: oftentimes people start by renting, which is a perfectly reasonable
24:47
Speaker 4: thing to do. It's also what a lot of people
24:49
Speaker 4: do in our cities, where you see a lot of
24:51
Speaker 4: the economic growth needing to come from if you want
24:53
Speaker 4: to improve your economy. So it's good to get rent
24:55
Speaker 4: under control. We've now, as a country, got to tackle
24:58
Speaker 4: this problem of housing and homes, because if you care,
25:01
Speaker 4: as I do, about sort of family formation, that that
25:04
Speaker 4: next step afterwards, you need to have the homes for
25:06
Speaker 4: people to live in. But the rents have really come down.
25:08
Speaker 4: I think it's clearly a demand problem. In fact, you
25:11
Speaker 4: are hearing from the builders of purpose-built rentals on the
25:15
Speaker 4: investment side that they are concerned. There's only whispers of this,
25:20
Speaker 4: and I think it'll start to get louder. They want
25:21
Speaker 4: to see immigration potentially go back up because... They want
25:24
Speaker 4: that market for the rents that they want to be
25:27
Speaker 4: able to collect on their properties. And there is a
25:29
Speaker 4: huge pipeline of that purpose-built rental being built. There were
25:33
Speaker 4: also some elements, there's financing offered by the government that's
25:38
Speaker 4: slightly better than the financing that these builders can get
25:41
Speaker 4: from other loan avenues and financing avenues. So I think
25:44
Speaker 4: that helped as well. But I think there's no doubt
25:46
Speaker 4: that if you asked builders in Canada who are building
25:49
Speaker 4: apartment buildings, that immigration was just such a big change
25:53
Speaker 4: for them. And that's where they're seeing rents come down.
25:55
Speaker 4: And it's to the benefit of renters, although you would
26:00
Speaker 4: never know it because people still will demand, you know,
26:03
Speaker 4: rent freezes and rent control. Of course.
26:05
Speaker 1: Well, just to finish off then, what is the future?
26:09
Speaker 2: Is there a push to increase immigration again? Will it
26:11
Speaker 2: ever go up to the heights we've seen over the
26:14
Speaker 2: past decade? Or has Canada learned the lesson that it
26:16
Speaker 2: needs to be tightly controlled?
26:19
Speaker 6: Well, it's an interesting question.
26:20
Speaker 4: Even if the immigration rates have sort of come back
26:24
Speaker 4: under control, the levels have come down, those people are
26:26
Speaker 4: still here from all those years where those rates were high.
26:29
Speaker 4: So I think there's still going to be many years
26:31
Speaker 4: of people wanting the government to be very sort of
26:33
Speaker 4: small-c conservative about immigration, and that's going to be a
26:36
Speaker 4: challenge for employers in remote communities, but they'll have to
26:39
Speaker 4: figure it out because I don't think the public opinion
26:42
Speaker 4: is going to be there for them.
26:43
Speaker 2: Fascinating stuff, Jenny Roth. Great insights that are relevant to Australia.
26:48
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for joining us.
26:50
Speaker 4: Thank you.
26:52
Speaker 1: There we go.
26:52
Speaker 2: That's how you fix a housing crisis, eh? We'd better
26:55
Speaker 2: get to a break. On the other side, I'm looking
26:56
Speaker 2: forward to catching up with Tim Blair. We'll talk about
26:59
Speaker 2: One Nation's rise, leaving Labor and the Liberals clueless. Also,
27:03
Speaker 2: more on those extraordinary confessions from One Nation's Victoria leader.
27:12
Speaker 2: Let's go to Western Victoria and catch up with The
27:14
Speaker 2: Daily Telegraph's Tim Blair.
27:16
Speaker 1: Good to talk to you again, Tim. Cheers, mate.
27:18
Speaker 2: I don't know whether you were tuned in and you
27:19
Speaker 2: got to see that press conference with Warren Pickering, the
27:23
Speaker 2: One Nation leader of Victoria, and James Ashby. It was
27:25
Speaker 2: one of the most extraordinary press conferences I think I've
27:28
Speaker 2: ever seen in politics for the level of honesty we saw.
27:33
Speaker 15: A fair amount of territory was covered, I think it's
27:36
Speaker 15: fair to say.
27:38
Speaker 6: And.
27:39
Speaker 15: And I look forward, if this is now going to
27:41
Speaker 15: be the template moving forward, as they say, let's hear
27:44
Speaker 15: what all other politicians have to say about their lives
27:47
Speaker 15: 20 or 30 years ago, because that could be very interesting.
27:51
Speaker 15: In the case of Labor's front bench, the most incredibly
27:54
Speaker 15: boring people you've ever met in your life.
27:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, exactly.
27:57
Speaker 2: I thought the interesting thing here was because there have
27:59
Speaker 2: been suggestions that Pickering was going to deny all of
28:02
Speaker 2: these claims about drug use, and I thought that could
28:04
Speaker 2: get him into strife, yeah, because if he was lying
28:06
Speaker 2: about it now, that would do him political damage. But
28:10
Speaker 2: he was instead very upfront about it, said he used
28:12
Speaker 2: a lot of drugs as a young man but wasn't
28:15
Speaker 2: an addict.
28:15
Speaker 1: He listed off a range of drugs. We showed that earlier.
28:18
Speaker 2: But he's a reformed man now. To me, that gives
28:21
Speaker 2: him a clear bill of health. People can't criticise him
28:23
Speaker 2: over that. But strangely enough, some of the stuff that's
28:25
Speaker 2: been put into the public arena actually related to his
28:29
Speaker 2: sexual arrangements with his former partner, because she'd been telling
28:33
Speaker 2: newspapers about that. So have a listen to Pauline Hanson's
28:37
Speaker 2: right-hand man, James Ashby.
28:39
Speaker 1: Dealing with that.
28:40
Speaker 12: Mr Pickering was referring to behaviour that involved the couple's
28:46
Speaker 12: open relationship.
28:49
Speaker 12: They opened that relationship to a third person. And at
28:52
Speaker 12: the same time, Mr Pickering was exploring his own sexuality.
28:57
Speaker 2: Now, again, Tim, this is none of our business. We
28:59
Speaker 2: don't need to have all this in the public arena.
29:02
Speaker 2: It's been put there. But once more, especially the Liberal
29:06
Speaker 2: left can't be attacking a person over their private life,
29:09
Speaker 2: can they?
29:11
Speaker 15: Rules change, depending on.
29:13
Speaker 6: They do.
29:13
Speaker 15: Don't they? Well, I think this shows.
29:17
Speaker 15: Admirable level of confidence on on one nation's part that
29:21
Speaker 15: they've prepared to go with the um go with the
29:24
Speaker 15: facts instead of go with the denials and uh and
29:27
Speaker 15: especially that they've presented the facts in a non-angry non
29:30
Speaker 15: uh non-confrontational way they've just sort of you know dealt
29:34
Speaker 15: with it there's been admissions obviously heartfelt and emotional sort
29:38
Speaker 15: of admissions. The candidate's daughter was there, which was probably,
29:42
Speaker 15: you know, verged on the heartbreaking, I suppose. But if
29:46
Speaker 15: the party is now confident enough to take the honesty
29:50
Speaker 15: first approach, Well, you know, that might be a sign
29:53
Speaker 15: of deeper resilience within the One Nation group.
29:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right.
29:57
Speaker 2: The political management was important because Ashby was there, of course,
30:00
Speaker 2: with Pickering. Other One Nation candidates, our mate Mark Nicholson
30:04
Speaker 2: was there and Mr Pickering's children. So it was an
30:08
Speaker 2: incredible show of support and it was a matter of,
30:11
Speaker 2: let's put all this out there.
30:12
Speaker 1: On the table.
30:14
Speaker 2: It's past history and it's personal issues and, Let's move on.
30:19
Speaker 1: I think it probably has dealt with the matter. We
30:21
Speaker 1: will see, though.
30:22
Speaker 2: But when it comes to honesty, let's stay on that
30:25
Speaker 2: theme and stay with One Nation, because you've written in
30:27
Speaker 2: The Daily Telegraph about the attacks on One Nation, how
30:30
Speaker 2: it sent the other major parties.
30:36
Speaker 1: Skew-iff.
30:37
Speaker 2: And a good example of that is Nikki Savva, former
30:39
Speaker 2: Coalition staffer, sort of left-of-centre writer these days.
30:43
Speaker 1: Here she is on the ABC.
30:44
Speaker 16: Thank you.
30:45
Speaker 17: The brand of One Nation is, which is to increase
30:50
Speaker 17: the level of anger in the community, the level of
30:52
Speaker 17: division and to incite conflicts.
30:57
Speaker 1: Is that really what they're about, Tim?
31:00
Speaker 15: Well, let's say they are. Isn't that how Australian politics works?
31:04
Speaker 15: We've got, it's literally an adversarial system. We literally argue.
31:09
Speaker 15: Is Nikki Savva seriously saying that One Nation should step
31:13
Speaker 15: down Sorry, guys.
31:15
Speaker 1: Sorry for interrupting.
31:16
Speaker 15: You just carry on as normal with your trillion-dollar debt
31:19
Speaker 15: and your ridiculous energy policies and everything going wrong. We
31:22
Speaker 15: won't say anything because we don't want to cause any conflict. No,
31:26
Speaker 15: that's never been.
31:27
Speaker 6: How it worked.
31:27
Speaker 15: Remember, Nikki was part of the Howard Costello government, which
31:33
Speaker 15: was attacked remorselessly from the left over the Iraq war
31:36
Speaker 15: over any number of issues. And talk about, you know,
31:40
Speaker 15: conflict and conflict and all manners of tension, that was
31:46
Speaker 15: the way politics was run then and it's still the
31:48
Speaker 15: way things are run now. This is politics.
31:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, what she means... It's incredibly disingenuous.
31:52
Speaker 15: It's incredibly disingenuous of Nikki Savita to pretend that everything
31:55
Speaker 15: was stable and normal. and now it's changed because One
31:58
Speaker 15: Nation has risen in profile.
31:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, what she means is they create anger and they
32:02
Speaker 2: incite conflict. She means they create anger amongst lefties like
32:06
Speaker 2: her and they incite conflict because they.
32:08
Speaker 1: Reject the lefty policies. It's extraordinary.
32:10
Speaker 2: And Nikki Savin, never forget, is a self-confessed liar. She's
32:14
Speaker 2: written how she's told lies in the past. So that's
32:17
Speaker 2: her version of politics. You don't actually have to tell
32:20
Speaker 2: the truth. It's quite incredible.
32:21
Speaker 1: Be careful, Chris.
32:22
Speaker 15: You're causing me to get angry. LAUGHTER Just a word.
32:26
Speaker 1: Of warning there, Matt. Rising conflict.
32:27
Speaker 2: We're now in conflict with Nicky Savva.
32:30
Speaker 1: Lord help us and the ABC. Hey, I want to
32:33
Speaker 1: go to a shining light.
32:35
Speaker 2: I think, a school principal who has spoken out against
32:38
Speaker 2: the woke agenda and Purple Day at a Canberra public school.
32:42
Speaker 2: She appeared on the Bolt Report last.
32:44
Speaker 1: Night with James McPherson. Here she is, Janelle Rowe.
32:48
Speaker 10: My objection was the content that the teachers would have
32:52
Speaker 10: had to describe to the children. When we as educators
32:57
Speaker 10: spend time extrapolating days such as Anzac Day or NAIDOC Day,
33:01
Speaker 10: we talk to the children about what it's about.
33:04
Speaker 1: We go into.
33:05
Speaker 10: Detail about the history and what the day is about.
33:08
Speaker 10: We provide activities. And that's how I saw that where
33:13
Speaker 10: Purple Day was going to land. And I didn't want
33:15
Speaker 10: my staff to have to talk about what each of
33:18
Speaker 10: the letters meant. We're told in our codes of conduct
33:21
Speaker 10: not to talk about sexual the sexual nature or sexual intimacies.
33:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, Tim, she's a modern-day hero. That's just common sense
33:31
Speaker 2: and decency. We're talking about primary school kids. More people
33:35
Speaker 2: should have the courage to stand.
33:36
Speaker 4: Up like that.
33:39
Speaker 15: Absolutely. I mean, it shows how much primary schools have
33:43
Speaker 15: changed that now you get in trouble for not discussing sexuality,
33:46
Speaker 15: which is exactly this situation. It's beyond perverse. I think
33:50
Speaker 15: as well what we're seeing here is that The whole
33:52
Speaker 15: woke phase is kind of timing out. It's kind of eroding.
33:56
Speaker 15: It's gone the way of flares and sideburns. However, while
34:00
Speaker 15: woke politics and wokeness was in its ascendancy, it did
34:05
Speaker 15: get its claws into laws and regulations and workplace agreements,
34:10
Speaker 15: and that's going to be a lot harder to get
34:11
Speaker 15: rid of, which is what I think we're seeing here.
34:14
Speaker 15: You've got a woke fashion being challenged, but unfortunately, awfully,
34:18
Speaker 15: and potentially tragically for a lot of kids, That's all
34:22
Speaker 15: embedded now in how the education department is working in
34:25
Speaker 15: education and schools. And this is going to require a
34:29
Speaker 15: lot more work to erase than previous dumb fashions, that's
34:33
Speaker 15: for sure.
34:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, well said, Tim. And how did you know I
34:36
Speaker 1: was wearing flares under this desk? Good intuition.
34:41
Speaker 2: Tim Blair, we'll catch up with you Thursday. You can
34:43
Speaker 2: read his stuff in The Daily Telegraph.
34:45
Speaker 1: We'll get to a break. After that, I'm going to
34:46
Speaker 1: cross the US and catch up with Kristen Tate.
34:49
Speaker 2: In the US and talk about the 9-11 25th anniversary
34:53
Speaker 2: this year. There's also a little bit about Donald Trump's
34:55
Speaker 2: latest antics. We heard from John Howard yesterday on this
35:04
Speaker 2: week's 25th anniversary of the 9-11 terror attacks, and today
35:08
Speaker 2: I caught up with regular US analyst Kristen Tate, who
35:11
Speaker 2: shared how her childhood was interrupted by the tragic and
35:14
Speaker 2: epic events of 2001.
35:17
Speaker 16: It had a profound impact on me as a young American,
35:20
Speaker 16: as it did for so many of us. I remember
35:23
Speaker 16: that day very well, even though I was quite young.
35:26
Speaker 16: I was in third or fourth grade. I was actually
35:29
Speaker 16: born in New York City. I lived in Queens with
35:31
Speaker 16: my parents until I was three or.
35:33
Speaker 4: Four years old.
35:34
Speaker 16: And my mother, believe it or not, Chris, worked in
35:37
Speaker 16: the World Trade Centers when I was a young baby.
35:40
Speaker 16: And when we moved up to New England, she still
35:44
Speaker 16: had many friends who worked there. So it was a
35:48
Speaker 16: very sad day for my mother, especially because she knew
35:51
Speaker 16: so many people who worked in the World Trade Centers,
35:54
Speaker 16: but for all Americans. And it breaks my heart to
35:58
Speaker 16: think that. You know, the young children today in this country,
36:01
Speaker 16: they only know 9-11 as history because that means it's
36:04
Speaker 16: up to us, those of us who remember it, to
36:06
Speaker 16: explain not only what happened that day, but what it
36:10
Speaker 16: meant to the country, how we came together as a
36:13
Speaker 16: country after that event. There was such a sense of
36:16
Speaker 16: common purpose. And I remember that feeling, Chris, even though
36:19
Speaker 16: I was a young kid. I remember that so vividly.
36:21
Speaker 16: And we've really lost that in this country.
36:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, it must have been especially tragic for your mother,
36:26
Speaker 2: having worked in that building and knowing people who worked
36:30
Speaker 2: in those twin towers.
36:32
Speaker 1: Tell us about the fear, though.
36:34
Speaker 2: As a child, even, you must have sensed the fear
36:36
Speaker 2: that resonated across America.
36:39
Speaker 16: Of course I did. I remember being sent home on
36:41
Speaker 16: the school bus that day And they didn't tell us
36:44
Speaker 16: in school what had happened, but we all got sent
36:46
Speaker 16: home with this sealed envelope, you know, giving some advice
36:49
Speaker 16: to parents about how to talk to your children. Of course,
36:51
Speaker 16: we all opened the envelope on the school bus and
36:53
Speaker 16: we were reading it. And I just remember even just,
36:56
Speaker 16: you know, as a young kid of that age, just
36:58
Speaker 16: being completely shocked. My father worked as a stockbroker and
37:01
Speaker 16: he said, you know, everything just stopped in the offices.
37:04
Speaker 16: Everyone was just staring with blank faces at the television screens,
37:07
Speaker 16: watching it unfold in horror. And, you know, of course,
37:12
Speaker 16: the horror trickled down to us young children who couldn't
37:15
Speaker 16: fully grasp what it meant, but we all knew it
37:18
Speaker 16: meant something horrible, something significant and profound that would forever
37:24
Speaker 16: reshape the country that we lived in. And it really has.
37:27
Speaker 16: And I really hope young Americans can understand that. You know,
37:32
Speaker 16: what happened that day, what really happened that day, because
37:35
Speaker 16: the facts have been messed up, of course, through through,
37:38
Speaker 16: you know, retellings of it and, you know, the modern spin.
37:42
Speaker 16: But what really happened on that day and again, how
37:45
Speaker 16: it brought people together. We need to get back to
37:48
Speaker 16: that in this country because we're so divided today. It's disgusting.
37:51
Speaker 16: We can't ever really look at anything and and just
37:55
Speaker 16: have unity anymore. It's it's sad.
37:57
Speaker 6: Right.
37:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting you mention that point because unity was
38:01
Speaker 2: important in the wake of 9-11 and the Vice President, J.D. Vance,
38:06
Speaker 2: has focused on unity now, saying people should return to that.
38:10
Speaker 1: Unity to commemorate 9-11.
38:12
Speaker 2: But in that same breath, he's sunk the slipper into
38:15
Speaker 2: Joe Biden.
38:16
Speaker 1: Have a look.
38:17
Speaker 18: Think that sense of commonality and common purpose that we
38:20
Speaker 18: all had on 9-11. That's something that we should really
38:23
Speaker 18: try every single day to get back to. And if
38:25
Speaker 18: even just for a day, even if just for a
38:27
Speaker 18: few hours, I would encourage people to tune in. I'm also,
38:30
Speaker 18: as you guys can probably guess, I'm really looking forward
38:32
Speaker 18: to hanging out with Joe Biden. I'm sure that we'll
38:34
Speaker 18: have many, many intense intellectual conversations. And, you know, it'll
38:40
Speaker 18: be great. We'll have a great time.
38:43
Speaker 1: Was that just a misplaced joke?
38:47
Speaker 16: I don't know. I mean, I do think that JD
38:50
Speaker 16: will be doing most of the heavy lifting in those
38:52
Speaker 16: intense intellectual conversations.
38:55
Speaker 1: But yes, you're right.
38:55
Speaker 16: It may have been a misplaced joke. And of course,
38:58
Speaker 16: what he said before that was most important when he
39:01
Speaker 16: talked about, you know, the extraordinary sense of common purpose
39:05
Speaker 16: that we felt in this country before 9-11. So hopefully
39:07
Speaker 16: that important message did not get overshadowed by the ill-placed joke.
39:13
Speaker 1: Exactly.
39:14
Speaker 2: He didn't cut across his own message of unity by
39:16
Speaker 2: having a gratuitous swipe at Joe Biden. Let's go to
39:20
Speaker 2: some more misplaced jokes because the President himself has been
39:25
Speaker 2: busy on social media across the Labor Day holiday weekend
39:28
Speaker 2: posting images like this one where the US has taken
39:31
Speaker 2: Canada and Mexico.
39:34
Speaker 1: And it's just incredible. This stuff comes.
39:37
Speaker 2: Directly from the President. Another one, mirror, mirror on the wall,
39:40
Speaker 2: who's the greatest President of them all?
39:42
Speaker 1: He's always... so modest.
39:44
Speaker 2: Then he's claimed the moon as well. The moon is
39:48
Speaker 2: our system. And then he's got into an arm wrestle
39:51
Speaker 2: with Hulk Hogan. That's probably more mainstream Donald Trump. I mean,
39:55
Speaker 2: this bloke is hilarious no matter how worrying it is, Kristen.
40:00
Speaker 16: Yeah, I mean, some of these are objectively hilarious, like
40:03
Speaker 16: Trump riding around with George Washington, fighting Hulk Hogan, claiming
40:08
Speaker 16: the moon. I mean, this is just quintessential vintage Trump.
40:11
Speaker 16: He loves trolling people and judging by the reaction, he
40:15
Speaker 16: was very successful at that. And people still don't get it.
40:18
Speaker 16: These liberals don't get it. The worst thing you can
40:21
Speaker 16: do with Donald Trump when he's trolling you is letting
40:24
Speaker 16: him know that you're outraged by the trolling, because that
40:27
Speaker 16: means the trolling's working. You know, New Mexico became outraged
40:30
Speaker 16: because he started calling them New America. So naturally, he
40:34
Speaker 16: spent all day posting memes. of maps of new America. But,
40:39
Speaker 16: you know, I will say this, Chris, as hilarious as
40:41
Speaker 16: this all was, there is a time and a place.
40:43
Speaker 1: We're going through a war with Iran now.
40:45
Speaker 16: We've got two months until the midterms. So if I
40:47
Speaker 16: were advising him, I would say kind of like stay
40:49
Speaker 16: focused on the message. Americans are really concerned about high prices.
40:53
Speaker 16: Keep talking about that and hammering that message.
40:56
Speaker 1: You are right, of course.
40:57
Speaker 2: But I choose to laugh at his jokes and judge
41:00
Speaker 2: him by his actions.
41:02
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us again, Kristen.
41:04
Speaker 16: Thank you as always, Chris.
41:07
Speaker 1: What a president, eh? With the panel after the break,
41:11
Speaker 1: we'll catch up with Susie and Stephen.
41:12
Speaker 2: One of the things we'll talk about is how taxpayers
41:14
Speaker 2: are funding Ozempic for the mushroom killer Aaron Patterson in jail.
41:20
Speaker 1: Don't go away.
41:25
Speaker 2: Let's get into the panel now with Stephen Senatiempo in Canberra.
41:28
Speaker 1: And Susie O'Brien in Melbourne.
41:29
Speaker 2: And, Susie, let's start with you and this news that
41:32
Speaker 2: Erin Patterson, the notorious now mushroom killer in jail, is
41:37
Speaker 2: being injected with Zempik, courtesy of taxpayers, so she can
41:41
Speaker 2: lose weight.
41:42
Speaker 1: Is there much outrage about that in Melbourne today?
41:44
Speaker 9: LAUGHTER Funnily enough, 95% of the Herald Sun readers did
41:49
Speaker 9: not agree with this decision. She's got 30... I mean,
41:53
Speaker 9: most of us have to pay for our own weight
41:54
Speaker 9: loss drugs. Just kidding, I'm not on any.
41:58
Speaker 1: However, look... She's going to be in.
42:00
Speaker 9: Prison for 33 years. And in Victorian prisons, we have
42:05
Speaker 9: to pay, the taxpayers have to pay for, you know,
42:08
Speaker 9: reasonable medical supplies. And in cases where people are thought
42:13
Speaker 9: to be at risk of getting type 2 diabetes, Ozempic
42:16
Speaker 9: and drugs like that are seen as essential medical supplies.
42:21
Speaker 1: Some would say.
42:22
Speaker 9: They're not buying it.
42:24
Speaker 2: I would have thought reasonable medical supplies would be to
42:27
Speaker 2: throw her a yoga mat, but apparently not. Now, Stephen,
42:31
Speaker 2: you come to this debate from an interesting place because
42:34
Speaker 2: you've been an inspiration in.
42:37
Speaker 1: Losing a lot of weight and getting fit the.
42:39
Speaker 2: Old-fashioned way by reducing the intake and increasing your exercise.
42:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm outraged by this, Chris.
42:45
Speaker 19: The government didn't pay for me to lose weight and
42:48
Speaker 19: nobody's ever died from eating my mushroom risotto, which, by
42:50
Speaker 19: the way, is excellent.
42:52
Speaker 1: But, look, what is this about?
42:53
Speaker 19: I mean, if she's got type 2 diabetes, yeah, OK,
42:56
Speaker 19: she needs to be treated in jail. And if the
42:58
Speaker 19: doctors have determined that Ozempic is the only way to
43:00
Speaker 19: do it, fair enough. But if she's doing it to
43:02
Speaker 19: lose weight, I mean, who's she trying to impress?
43:07
Speaker 2: Maybe the bars are a certain width apart in the
43:11
Speaker 2: jail and she's trying to slide out.
43:13
Speaker 1: Anyway, that's what we do to prisoners in this country.
43:17
Speaker 2: Let's go to One Nation and this extraordinary confession today
43:21
Speaker 2: from their Victorian leader, Warren Pickering, remembering that this is
43:24
Speaker 2: the bloke who would lead them should they help form
43:27
Speaker 2: government in Victoria with the elections in November.
43:30
Speaker 1: Here's a key part of what he had to say today.
43:33
Speaker 7: I had legal drugs in my 20s. Never would I
43:38
Speaker 7: have ever said that I was somebody that was a
43:40
Speaker 7: drug addict. I did use them as a young man
43:46
Speaker 7: and I'm not proud of that. What drugs are we
43:48
Speaker 7: talking about? We're talking about speed, amphetamines, ecstasy and marijuana.
43:55
Speaker 2: So, Susie, he's confessing to doing drugs that were illegal
43:59
Speaker 2: at the time, but it's in his past. The key
44:01
Speaker 2: is whether, in the last few weeks, has he actually
44:04
Speaker 2: denied this? Has he denied this in the past, or
44:08
Speaker 2: does he get away with this because he's been honest now?
44:10
Speaker 6: Oh, look.
44:13
Speaker 9: You can't be denying anything if you're running for a
44:17
Speaker 9: state or federal seat. If you think that you're going
44:19
Speaker 9: to get away with lying about anything like that, you
44:23
Speaker 9: an absolute fool who doesn't deserve to be elected. I
44:27
Speaker 9: think a lot of these One Nation candidates quite rightly
44:30
Speaker 9: are coming under a lot of scrutiny. Half of them,
44:33
Speaker 9: we don't even know who they are. But the ones
44:36
Speaker 9: who actually have been named should be and are coming
44:40
Speaker 9: under the kind of scrutiny that we deserve from people
44:43
Speaker 9: who are running in our elections.
44:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are plenty of people in the major parties
44:48
Speaker 2: who have dabbled in illegal drugs before or after going
44:52
Speaker 2: into Parliament, for that matter, not to mention most of
44:55
Speaker 2: the press gallery. But also, Stephen, people always point out
44:58
Speaker 2: that Tanya Plibersek's husband actually did time a long time ago,
45:02
Speaker 2: 20 years ago or more, for dealing in drugs. But
45:07
Speaker 2: that is the point, isn't it? Everybody should be up
45:10
Speaker 2: for scrutiny. And, all right, the dirty linen's out there.
45:12
Speaker 2: The question is... how much political damage it does.
45:17
Speaker 19: Yeah, look, the reality is people can turn their life around, Chris.
45:20
Speaker 19: There's no two ways about that. And most of us
45:22
Speaker 19: have got some sort of skeletons in their closet. But
45:24
Speaker 19: the thing that strikes me about One Nation is their
45:27
Speaker 19: ability to vet candidates, because whether or not this guy... And, sure,
45:31
Speaker 19: he'll come to Parliament with some life experience if he
45:33
Speaker 19: wins a seat.
45:33
Speaker 1: Maybe that's a good thing.
45:34
Speaker 16: But.
45:35
Speaker 19: Their ability to vet candidates seems to be non-existent. And
45:38
Speaker 19: then if you look at the rest of that press conference,
45:40
Speaker 19: with friends like James Ashby, who needs enemies? I mean,
45:43
Speaker 19: bringing up his sexual past and his open relationships, and
45:46
Speaker 19: I'm thinking.
45:47
Speaker 1: Who needs to hear all of this? It was extraordinary.
45:49
Speaker 19: Obviously, they had a very sheltered life and are not
45:52
Speaker 19: fit to be a candidate anymore, apparently.
45:55
Speaker 1: It's his own business.
45:56
Speaker 2: But I suppose his former partner had put some of
45:58
Speaker 2: that into the public domain, so they wanted to.
46:00
Speaker 1: clear the air. But the critical point is your honesty, right?
46:04
Speaker 2: Sure, people have crossed boundaries in the past, but if
46:08
Speaker 2: you've denied them and you're caught out denying them, then
46:10
Speaker 2: that affects your honesty and integrity in the here and now,
46:14
Speaker 2: and that'll be what's pursued in the future.
46:17
Speaker 1: Speaking of honesty... This is the elbow area, though.
46:19
Speaker 19: We are post-truth.
46:20
Speaker 2: Well, there's a lot of post-truth around, there's no doubt
46:23
Speaker 2: about that, which is why I want to go to
46:25
Speaker 2: Albo and the Royal Commission. Now, Stephen, I thought it
46:29
Speaker 2: was a big miss by the Coalition over the last
46:31
Speaker 2: two days not to ask Albo questions about not appearing
46:36
Speaker 2: at the Royal Commission, especially after Mike Burgess has told
46:39
Speaker 2: Shari Markson that he thought others had to take up
46:42
Speaker 2: the slack after he made all the warnings.
46:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, look, the whole Royal Commission thing has been extraordinary.
46:50
Speaker 19: I was against it at the beginning because I always
46:52
Speaker 19: knew that this would be a bit of a masquerade
46:54
Speaker 19: for the government. And, you know, I've got no problem
46:57
Speaker 19: with getting to the bottom of what happened at Bondi and,
46:59
Speaker 19: more importantly, the rise in anti-Semitism, which this government has
47:02
Speaker 19: been complicit in. There's no two ways about it. But
47:05
Speaker 19: the wrong people were appearing before this Royal Commission. The
47:08
Speaker 19: people that needed to take responsibility wouldn't front up. And
47:12
Speaker 19: you're right, the Coalition went out all guns blazing to
47:15
Speaker 19: try and get this Royal Commission across the line, and
47:18
Speaker 19: now they haven't used it as an.
47:22
Speaker 19: They haven't used it as their ability to take on
47:23
Speaker 19: this government for its own failures. And we know that
47:26
Speaker 19: this government does not want to answer questions on this
47:29
Speaker 19: because they've been behind this rise in anti-Semitism.
47:31
Speaker 1: All the way. Yeah, spot on. Now, just quickly, Susie,
47:33
Speaker 1: I'm going to go to you on the Royals.
47:36
Speaker 2: The King, he's made it very clear that Harry and
47:40
Speaker 2: Meghan are just commoners, basically.
47:43
Speaker 9: Oh, this is just fascinating. So Harry and Meghan are
47:47
Speaker 9: back in, they're going to be in Cornwall. And they
47:51
Speaker 9: are basically back in the UK because there is something
47:54
Speaker 9: he's got there that he can't buy. Money and fame
47:56
Speaker 9: can't buy him his birthright.
47:58
Speaker 13: Yes.
47:59
Speaker 9: And so he is back to claim his birthright. He
48:01
Speaker 9: is well-known and famous there in a way that he
48:04
Speaker 9: can't buy in the U.S., However, the King has put
48:09
Speaker 9: a stop to their kind of grand return by basically
48:12
Speaker 9: saying they are kind of royals in name only. They're
48:16
Speaker 9: not working royals. They're not HRH. And anything that they
48:20
Speaker 9: do is their own commercial and charity interests. Back in
48:24
Speaker 9: your box is basically what he said. I can't stop
48:27
Speaker 9: you coming, but you are not on the same, you know,
48:31
Speaker 9: stage as the rest of us.
48:32
Speaker 1: It's fascinating.
48:33
Speaker 2: I can't help but think that Harry hates getting around
48:36
Speaker 2: America where everyone just bumps into him and.
48:38
Speaker 1: Says, didn't you used to be on Happy Days? Yeah.
48:41
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Susie and Stephen. We'll see you
48:44
Speaker 2: next week. Here's Peter Credlin.