Latest / The Bolt Report / The Bolt Report | 29 October

Transcript

The Bolt Report | 29 October · The Bolt Report

0:15
Speaker 1: It's a big show tonight. The Marrickville Golf Club scandal
0:18
Speaker 1: gets even worse. I'm going to meet the head of
0:21
Speaker 1: the golf club that didn't get a handout from Anthony Albanese.
0:26
Speaker 1: The Prime Minister's ridiculous spin on the inflation crisis, a
0:29
Speaker 1: devastating fact check on that, and a question, does anyone
0:33
Speaker 1: in the government... or any government in this country actually
0:37
Speaker 1: understand business. And that includes the embarrassing confession by the
0:42
Speaker 1: tax commissioner and so much more, including Barnaby Joyce. But first,
0:47
Speaker 1: I'm getting a very special new kind of abuse and
0:52
Speaker 1: I find it actually very interesting. And I've got to
0:55
Speaker 1: deal with it before telling you about an amazing report
1:00
Speaker 1: by armed forces into war crimes in Afghanistan. News that's
1:05
Speaker 1: going to make some Ben Roberts Smith supporters think, actually, good.
1:10
Speaker 1: But maybe not. I've been abused for decades by the left,
1:15
Speaker 1: as you probably know, for fighting for conservative values, truth, freedom,
1:20
Speaker 1: rule of law, Western civilisation, and against revolution, tribalism and
1:27
Speaker 1: sheer bull. Now, for that, I've been sued, I've been censored,
1:30
Speaker 1: I've been threatened with beheading, I've had to move my
1:33
Speaker 1: children to safety, I've been attacked in the street and
1:35
Speaker 1: I've been called some terrible names, but I've too rarely
1:39
Speaker 1: been answered with reason. But what's new now is that
1:45
Speaker 1: I'm being abused by the woke right. I'm a traitor,
1:50
Speaker 1: I'm a turncoat, I'm fighting for the enemy, I'm a cretin,
1:55
Speaker 1: a swamp creature, the controlled opposition, Someone's actually compromised me,
2:01
Speaker 1: it said. I'm a fake conservative. Pages of this stuff.
2:04
Speaker 1: Plus dozens of emails from viewers more today warning that
2:08
Speaker 1: after years of watching this show, of being a fan,
2:13
Speaker 1: they are switching off. Now, don't worry, I'm still top
2:18
Speaker 1: of the news 24 pops, guys, so maybe a lot
2:21
Speaker 1: of those viewers warning they'll switch off still secretly prefer
2:25
Speaker 1: truth to tribalism. Tough facts rather than Cheap slogans that
2:31
Speaker 1: feed their prejudices. Because really, no, I haven't changed at all.
2:37
Speaker 1: And like many of these haters, I still do fight
2:39
Speaker 1: for conservative principles and have for decades longer than they have,
2:43
Speaker 1: most of them. So the abuse of the woke right
2:46
Speaker 1: is about as useless against me as the abuse of
2:48
Speaker 1: the woke left has been for all that time. And
2:51
Speaker 1: these frauds, really, think about it, they are so alike.
2:58
Speaker 1: You've got the woke right getting all excited by Donald Trump,
3:00
Speaker 1: watching him lying and abusing and bullying people, just like
3:05
Speaker 1: so many on the woke left. They also see the
3:09
Speaker 1: money and the influence that so-called Christian podcasters now, such
3:13
Speaker 1: as Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, have, feeding their tribes
3:17
Speaker 1: by variously claiming Bridget Macron is a man. Can you
3:20
Speaker 1: believe it? Hitler was no threat, said Tucker Carlson the
3:23
Speaker 1: other day. Charlie Kirk, a senator, was assassinated by his
3:27
Speaker 1: own wife. Did you know that? And Vladimir Putin, he's
3:29
Speaker 1: our friend. Mad stuff like that. And a bit too
3:34
Speaker 1: much Jew hatred as well. These are creeps who appeal,
3:39
Speaker 1: like left ones do to their people, they appeal to
3:43
Speaker 1: barbarians who love feeling part of a tribe, don't really
3:46
Speaker 1: care how they win, people who feel smart by believing
3:49
Speaker 1: in conspiracy theories, the crazier the better. And to bullies
3:55
Speaker 1: and underachievers who love the freedom to be vicious. They
3:59
Speaker 1: can't win in debate, so let's hit something. Again, look
4:03
Speaker 1: at those militant protesters on the street of the left,
4:08
Speaker 1: how violent they like to get. Whatever it takes to win.
4:12
Speaker 1: Even if, by the end of it, you look exactly
4:14
Speaker 1: like the evil you thought you were fighting. How about
4:17
Speaker 1: all those anti-fascist protesters who look exactly like fascists, even
4:20
Speaker 1: dressed in black these days? These, woke left, woke right,
4:25
Speaker 1: they are both sides of the same coin. Murderers of
4:30
Speaker 1: reason and civility. And now our woke right has got
4:35
Speaker 1: some common targets who they attack with little reason and
4:39
Speaker 1: no fairness because the woke right needs monsters just like
4:42
Speaker 1: the woke left needs monsters, needs to invent monsters like
4:46
Speaker 1: me because that makes them feel they're in a holy
4:48
Speaker 1: war and anything goes. Here are some of their targets.
4:52
Speaker 1: You know, woke right targets. This Liberal frontbencher, Andrew Hastie,
4:56
Speaker 1: of course, as a Christian, as a former SAS captain,
5:00
Speaker 1: as a deep believer in Western civilisation. But, of course,
5:03
Speaker 1: you've got to be vilifying him on television and on
5:06
Speaker 1: X and in One Nation cartoons. He's actually a traitor
5:11
Speaker 1: and another fake conservative. Australian Federal Police Commissioner Chrissie Barrett.
5:16
Speaker 1: She's damned by the same kind of people as a
5:18
Speaker 1: woke affirmative action appointment. as Anthony Albany's pet poodle, a
5:23
Speaker 1: useful idiot covering up for radical Islam. And then there
5:29
Speaker 1: are those amazing conspiracy theories. Did you know that Ukrainian
5:36
Speaker 1: President Volodymyr Zelensky, a Jew, himself started this war with
5:41
Speaker 1: Russia and is persecuting devout Christians and getting rich by
5:46
Speaker 1: secretly selling the weapons the stupid West gives him? Here's
5:51
Speaker 1: another favourite. Did you know the Albanian government deliberately changed
5:56
Speaker 1: our war crimes laws retrospectively two years ago to make
6:01
Speaker 1: it easier to convict accused war criminal Ben Robert Smith,
6:05
Speaker 1: to destroy a great war hero because they're traitors or something, globalists,
6:13
Speaker 1: or they're woke. That's what it is. And now, of course,
6:16
Speaker 1: there's me. And that's because I said that Barrett, who
6:19
Speaker 1: I've talked to for hours privately, actually seems an honest
6:22
Speaker 1: woman trying to do things by the book. Because I
6:25
Speaker 1: said that Andrew Hastie is an honourable man and no
6:29
Speaker 1: traitor at all for being one of the 19 SAS
6:32
Speaker 1: soldiers who gave evidence in the war crimes defamation case
6:34
Speaker 1: launched and lost by Robert Smith. And because I said
6:39
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump, for all the good he's done, has
6:41
Speaker 1: also bullied, lied, sucked up to dictator Vladimir Putin, betrayed
6:44
Speaker 1: Ukraine's fight for freedom and bungled the war in Iran.
6:49
Speaker 1: And now I'm attacked for, again, for proving in last
6:53
Speaker 1: Monday's column that the war crimes laws were changed not
6:57
Speaker 1: because of a get Ben conspiracy, but to fix a
7:00
Speaker 1: stupid and obvious mistake in the wording of the law.
7:04
Speaker 1: A mistake so obvious that the change will almost certainly
7:08
Speaker 1: not hurt Ben Robert Smith at trial. In fact, could
7:13
Speaker 1: actually help him, particularly if he gets off, which I've tipped. Now,
7:16
Speaker 1: there may be good arguments against what I say, right?
7:21
Speaker 1: I'm not that arrogant to think I'm always right. But
7:25
Speaker 1: the woke right tells me what the woke left did too.
7:30
Speaker 1: I'm scum, I'm dirt and worse. Now, from some true conservatives,
7:35
Speaker 1: I do get polite arguments against what I say, and
7:38
Speaker 1: that is great. I've written back to quite a number
7:41
Speaker 1: of them. And I may be wrong, and I would
7:44
Speaker 1: appreciate being stopped in any error I've made, before I
7:48
Speaker 1: make a complete fool of myself. But so far, I
7:51
Speaker 1: don't think I have. And the most common reason I
7:55
Speaker 1: am given for deserving the abuse, the most common reason
7:59
Speaker 1: the woke right give, is that same poisonous Trump doctrine,
8:04
Speaker 1: which is the doctrine of the barbarian, really. Attack, attack,
8:07
Speaker 1: attack the enemy, because our side has got to win.
8:11
Speaker 1: Or as Graham Richardson used to say, and I didn't
8:13
Speaker 1: like it from him either, whatever it takes... I think, really? Really? Whatever?
8:19
Speaker 1: I mean, even if the way we win makes us
8:22
Speaker 1: look as vicious or stupid or dishonest or evil or
8:26
Speaker 1: dangerous as the people we beat? By now, people watching
8:34
Speaker 1: who think I'm talking about them, you know, they're Trump worshippers,
8:38
Speaker 1: they're hasty haters, they're Barrett bashers and more. They're going
8:42
Speaker 1: to be angry if they haven't turned off already, and
8:44
Speaker 1: I'm sorry about that, but To worshippers of Ben Robert Smith,
8:49
Speaker 1: I have, given this preamble, so, you know, excuse me,
8:54
Speaker 1: I have what you might actually think is good news
8:59
Speaker 1: for me. Well, not. For the first time, our military
9:04
Speaker 1: has accused officers of contributing to the alleged war crimes
9:09
Speaker 1: committed in Afghanistan. Not just the soldiers at the bottom
9:12
Speaker 1: of the tree, the privates, the corporals and the sergeants.
9:15
Speaker 1: A lot of people are getting very head up about it.
9:17
Speaker 1: It's a cover up. They're scapegoats. The Australian Defence Force
9:21
Speaker 1: has released a summary of a report by its inspector general. Himself,
9:25
Speaker 1: a former officer who served in Iraq, is entitled to judge.
9:30
Speaker 1: And it says the army effectively lost control of the
9:33
Speaker 1: Special Air Service Regiment during the war in Afghanistan, leading
9:38
Speaker 1: to sergeants and corporals to fight the war as they wanted,
9:42
Speaker 1: which for some turned out to involve, this report claims,
9:46
Speaker 1: alleged unlawful acts including planting weapons on the bodies of
9:50
Speaker 1: Afghans to suggest they were killed fighting. They weren't actually unarmed.
9:57
Speaker 1: It says SAS members talked to the regiment, talked to
10:01
Speaker 1: the Inspector General's team, talked to the regiment having a
10:04
Speaker 1: bikey culture. And the report asks, how did officers back
10:08
Speaker 1: at headquarters not pick this up? Which is what I've
10:12
Speaker 1: wondered too. Why were they so incurious when there were rumours,
10:17
Speaker 1: when there was evidence right in front of them suggesting
10:20
Speaker 1: things were going very wrong. And here's the key passage
10:24
Speaker 1: in this report. The inspector general writes, there was tangible
10:28
Speaker 1: data available for higher headquarters through trends in growing numbers
10:33
Speaker 1: of enemy killed in action, as well as features such
10:37
Speaker 1: as a lack of wounded insurgents, only deaths, it said,
10:41
Speaker 1: and the lack of ADF Australian casualties. By historical standards,
10:46
Speaker 1: it says, elements of this data presented as most unusual,
10:51
Speaker 1: and it is extraordinary that no effective action was taken,
10:55
Speaker 1: given the gravity of the matters, the subject of rumours.
10:59
Speaker 1: Have you got it? Suddenly, a lot more dead Afghans
11:05
Speaker 1: turn up, surprisingly few of them wounded, they're dead, and
11:11
Speaker 1: despite all these extra supposed kills in battle, bang, bang, bang, bang, oh,
11:17
Speaker 1: look at all these Afghans be killed, amazingly few Australian
11:21
Speaker 1: soldiers killed or wounded. Now, that should have rung a
11:25
Speaker 1: very loud bell when there were also rumours that something
11:28
Speaker 1: had gone wrong. As the report says, it is extraordinary
11:31
Speaker 1: that opposite headquarters didn't look further, didn't take any effective action.
11:38
Speaker 1: So now this case, of course, got much bigger. It's
11:40
Speaker 1: not just Corporal Ben Robert Smith. the supposed scapegoats for
11:43
Speaker 1: senior officers, the senior officers themselves back at headquarters, are
11:47
Speaker 1: also under question now over alleged war crimes. They could
11:52
Speaker 1: have maybe prevented war crimes that stained the army's honour. So,
12:00
Speaker 1: can we now discuss all this without the abuse and
12:03
Speaker 1: the evasions and the insults of woke right people who'd
12:07
Speaker 1: rather yell, traitor, than discuss facts? You know, it's no
12:15
Speaker 1: wonder that we in this country are getting poorer. No
12:19
Speaker 1: wonder that we face an economic crisis. I mean, you
12:22
Speaker 1: just look, there are signs everywhere now that the people
12:25
Speaker 1: in charge don't actually understand how our economy works. And
12:30
Speaker 1: I'll give you example one, the tax commissioner admitting that
12:34
Speaker 1: when he banned businesses paying their taxes by credit card,
12:38
Speaker 1: he didn't know that Two in the 25,000 or more
12:43
Speaker 1: businesses do that to manage their cash flows.
12:47
Speaker 2: As with the benefit of hindsight, and, you know, one
12:51
Speaker 2: always hopes to live a bit longer to get a
12:52
Speaker 2: bit wiser, I had jumped to the conclusion that managing
12:57
Speaker 2: cash flow related to a situation where a person or
13:01
Speaker 2: a business might be struggling if we'd I guess we
13:05
Speaker 2: had the similar thing happen to us again. I think
13:07
Speaker 2: we'd be more active in trying to engage with people
13:10
Speaker 2: earlier and rather, from the point of view, here's a solution,
13:14
Speaker 2: you have now time to adjust, actually engage in the
13:17
Speaker 2: problem-solving activity itself.
13:19
Speaker 3: We also saw yesterday in estimates the tax commissioner bell
13:24
Speaker 3: the cat. They simply don't understand....
13:29
Speaker 1: He doesn't understand.
13:31
Speaker 4: Bizarre, eh?
13:32
Speaker 1: An example too, Victorian Premier Ben Carroll. He brought his
13:37
Speaker 1: bus campaign to McDonald's, to McDonald's, and ordered food for
13:40
Speaker 1: his staff without even having his own credit card to
13:43
Speaker 1: pay for it. Oh, is this what you have to do?
13:46
Speaker 1: Had to borrow his wife's phone. And example three, and
13:50
Speaker 1: which is the worst, is the Prime Minister unable to
13:52
Speaker 1: believe his government really is making our inflation worse with
13:56
Speaker 1: its massive spending. And again today, he was blaming foreign
13:59
Speaker 1: wars instead.
14:01
Speaker 5: These are pressures that we have.
14:06
Speaker 5: A roll-in in Australia domestically, but some of these pressures
14:12
Speaker 5: are global, which is why we're seeing that global uplift
14:15
Speaker 5: in inflation.
14:18
Speaker 1: But if inflation is just a global problem, not Albanese's fault,
14:24
Speaker 1: why does Australia have the worst inflation among all developed
14:27
Speaker 1: countries except for Iceland? And why has Australia so far
14:31
Speaker 1: hiked rates four times this year, probably a fifth next Tuesday...
14:36
Speaker 1: twice as many as Europe and four times more than
14:40
Speaker 1: the US. Leith van Onselen is an economist, the former
14:43
Speaker 1: Treasury official, now co-founder of the very successful macro business website. Leith,
14:49
Speaker 1: always good to talk to you. Look, Australia's economy seems
14:54
Speaker 1: to be run by a lot of people who are
14:56
Speaker 1: either reckless spendthrifts or don't know how business works. Am
14:59
Speaker 1: I being too harsh? No, no, Andrew, I think it's
15:02
Speaker 1: a fair criticism.
15:03
Speaker 6: We've got total government spending tracking it around the pandemic highs,
15:07
Speaker 6: yet the pandemic finished five years ago. And this reckless
15:10
Speaker 6: spending is driving up demand across a supply-restricted economy, and
15:15
Speaker 6: that's resulting in higher inflation, and that is now amongst
15:18
Speaker 6: the very highest in the advanced world.
15:20
Speaker 1: And as a result, the Reserve Bank.
15:22
Speaker 6: Is being forced to fight against our government's reckless spending
15:25
Speaker 6: by hiking interest rates to a 15-year high with another
15:29
Speaker 6: rate hike likely on Tuesday.
15:31
Speaker 1: It's as simple as that. This way of fighting inflation, Leith,
15:37
Speaker 1: strikes me because the government won't do it by cutting
15:40
Speaker 1: spending and all that waste. It's left to the Reserve
15:43
Speaker 1: Bank that can only do it by raising interest rates,
15:47
Speaker 1: which particularly, of course, hits people buying a home for
15:51
Speaker 1: a mortgage. Doesn't it, people like me, that pay their
15:53
Speaker 1: mortgage off, it hits the young, young families and people
15:58
Speaker 1: prudently trying to build their future. That strikes me as
16:03
Speaker 1: monstrously unfair and against the national interest. Yeah, look, that's
16:07
Speaker 1: a fair assessment.
16:08
Speaker 6: High mortgage rates obviously disproportionately hurt the roughly one third
16:12
Speaker 6: of Australians who carry mortgages, who are often families with children.
16:16
Speaker 6: obviously the worst time in your life to have these
16:19
Speaker 6: sorts of burdens. And also the surge in state and
16:22
Speaker 6: federal government debt is also going to need to be
16:24
Speaker 6: repaid by future generations, which is, I'd say, fundamentally unfair.
16:29
Speaker 6: So younger Australians and future Australians are bearing the cost
16:32
Speaker 6: of the government's waste and mismanagement over their budgets. And
16:36
Speaker 6: I'll also add, Andrew, that high inflation does harm everybody,
16:40
Speaker 6: but it especially harms lower income people and those on
16:43
Speaker 6: fixed incomes. And that's why the Reserve Bank is taking action,
16:46
Speaker 6: obviously hiking interest rates four times this year, probably another
16:49
Speaker 6: one to come on Tuesday. So there's very few winners
16:51
Speaker 6: at the moment. And what we really need is for
16:53
Speaker 6: our governments, both at the state and federal level, to
16:56
Speaker 6: go line by line through their budgets and cut any
16:59
Speaker 6: unnecessary spending, basically anything that isn't core government business. So
17:03
Speaker 6: we basically need a prolonged period of budget austerity to
17:08
Speaker 6: take both the heat off inflation and also to return
17:10
Speaker 6: our debt positions back to sustainable levels.
17:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, except so many people now are on some form
17:17
Speaker 1: of government income or payment that it's almost political suicide
17:22
Speaker 1: to start that. We have created a gimme, gimme, gimme society,
17:27
Speaker 1: I'm afraid. Leith and Onslin, always fantastic to talk to you.
17:30
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
17:31
Speaker 7: Thanks.
17:32
Speaker 1: After the break, Barnaby Joyce on why the Prime Minister
17:35
Speaker 1: does lie and lie and lie. It's pathological. And is
17:39
Speaker 1: One Nation taking orders from Gina Reinhart? Anthony Albanese just
17:47
Speaker 1: stunned me today. Now, I said last night, you know,
17:50
Speaker 1: why is this Prime Minister so scared to simply admit
17:52
Speaker 1: he made a mistake and say sorry? In this case,
17:56
Speaker 1: say sorry for telling us, telling even Parliament a falsehood.
18:00
Speaker 1: that the $ 6 million he gave to a golf club
18:02
Speaker 1: very close to his own house was to fix its sewerage,
18:06
Speaker 1: among other things, when in fact it was more to
18:10
Speaker 1: titify its bar and alfresco dining and so on had
18:13
Speaker 1: nothing to do with sewerage. Now, if he just said
18:16
Speaker 1: straight up, look, I made an honest mistake, that would
18:18
Speaker 1: have been the end of a fairly trivial story, really,
18:21
Speaker 1: you know. but by twisting and fudging and lying day
18:26
Speaker 1: after day about what he really said or didn't say,
18:28
Speaker 1: he turned it into a political disaster. Now, I thought
18:33
Speaker 1: at least he might have learned that lesson. But today, incredibly...
18:39
Speaker 1: He actually kept going with another lie, or at best
18:43
Speaker 1: a deliberate deception. He was asked in Parliament why he
18:46
Speaker 1: had kept saying his grant was for sewerage works when
18:49
Speaker 1: there was no mention of them in the plans or
18:51
Speaker 1: the grant or the council documents or the decision brief. Nothing.
18:55
Speaker 1: Listen carefully to his answer.
18:58
Speaker 5: On the 27th of April 2025, we made an election
19:03
Speaker 5: commitment building and securing the Marrickville Golf Club precinct. that
19:08
Speaker 5: went to a range of activities including today's election commitment
19:13
Speaker 5: will go towards delivering an upgrade of the entire precinct
19:16
Speaker 5: that everyone can share in and ensure this inner west
19:19
Speaker 5: institution can be enjoyed for decades to come. It included
19:25
Speaker 5: as well, it went on about storm water being harvested,
19:29
Speaker 5: irrigating the golf course, the upgrade of better indoor amenities
19:33
Speaker 5: with clubhouse renovations and the provision of community meeting and
19:37
Speaker 5: function rooms. and went into boosting the health of the
19:40
Speaker 5: nearby Cooks River.
19:43
Speaker 1: That is stunning, as I said. Albanese selectively quoted from
19:49
Speaker 1: his announcement last week year to falsely suggest, you just
19:51
Speaker 1: heard it, that that reference he read out to the
19:54
Speaker 1: health of the Cooks River was in fact a reference
19:58
Speaker 1: to sewage works. In fact, it was not. You read
20:03
Speaker 1: his document, still on his website, in full, and it
20:06
Speaker 1: says no such thing. It says sustainability will also be
20:09
Speaker 1: a focus of this grant, with stormwater to be harvested,
20:13
Speaker 1: irrigating the golf course and the local sporting fields like
20:15
Speaker 1: Marnie Reserve and Beeman Park, while boosting the health of
20:20
Speaker 1: the nearby Cooks River. That is talking about stormwater works,
20:26
Speaker 1: not about sewage at all. What on earth was Albanese
20:29
Speaker 1: trying to, what swifty was he trying to pull off
20:32
Speaker 1: in Parliament today? What kind of madness is it to
20:35
Speaker 1: tell such an obvious untruth when he's been caught out
20:38
Speaker 1: again and again on what was, I repeat, a minor issue?
20:42
Speaker 1: It took me 60 seconds of internet searching to catch
20:46
Speaker 1: him out again. Now, the opposition leader was totally justified
20:49
Speaker 1: in saying there's a pattern here. In fact, there's a
20:51
Speaker 1: whole damn chapter from a psychology text on compulsive lying.
20:56
Speaker 3: The Prime Minister promised he wouldn't change CGT and negative
21:00
Speaker 3: gearing before the election.
21:02
Speaker 1: Then he did.
21:03
Speaker 3: He promised a $ 275 cut to power bills that he
21:07
Speaker 3: never delivered. He said he didn't mock the Japanese Prime Minister.
21:11
Speaker 1: When he did. He said he didn't fall off a
21:14
Speaker 1: stage when he did.
21:16
Speaker 3: He said his $ 6 billion grant to the Marrickville Golf
21:18
Speaker 3: Club was to fix sewerage flows.
21:21
Speaker 1: when it wasn't?
21:22
Speaker 3: He said the relevant program wasn't invitation only when it was.
21:26
Speaker 3: Why does this Prime Minister have such a difficult relationship
21:30
Speaker 3: with the truth?
21:31
Speaker 1: It's a good question. It's just too easy now. Albanese
21:35
Speaker 1: has made it too easy to be called out like that.
21:38
Speaker 1: Joining me a short while ago was our Thursday regular commentator,
21:42
Speaker 1: One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce, the former Deputy Prime Minister.
21:47
Speaker 1: Barnaby Joyce, great to see you. I know this will
21:49
Speaker 1: sound like a free kick. But I am really looking
21:52
Speaker 1: for an insight here because it genuinely is puzzling to me.
21:56
Speaker 1: You know, Anthony Albanese, what's with this lying? What's with
22:01
Speaker 1: this pathetic pretending that X is actually Y? Where does
22:07
Speaker 1: that come from?
22:09
Speaker 8: Well, I think when people get elected, they get elected
22:11
Speaker 8: as prime minister and then over time they become sort
22:15
Speaker 8: of like the president. And if you leave them there
22:17
Speaker 8: too long, they become a king and then they become infallible.
22:19
Speaker 8: So there's nothing that they can say that cannot be
22:22
Speaker 8: the truth.
22:23
Speaker 4: It's only.
22:25
Speaker 8: What they say is the truth. It's not facts are irrelevant.
22:27
Speaker 8: It's what they say is all that matters.
22:30
Speaker 4: Now, let's go through.
22:30
Speaker 8: I just don't know where to start because the list
22:32
Speaker 8: is that long. But let's start with the fact that
22:34
Speaker 8: He said he wasn't going to change capital gains tax.
22:36
Speaker 4: He did. He says he wasn't going to change superannuation.
22:38
Speaker 4: He did. He says he wasn't going to change trust laws.
22:41
Speaker 4: He did. He said he didn't fall off the stage.
22:42
Speaker 4: He did. It was on camera.
22:44
Speaker 8: He said he didn't insult the Japanese Prime Minister. He
22:46
Speaker 8: quite obviously did. Everyone saw that.
22:48
Speaker 4: That was also on camera.
22:50
Speaker 8: He said he didn't create the slime sheet on Helen
22:53
Speaker 8: Haynes But when we went through the metadata, it came
22:56
Speaker 8: out of his office. Now he said that he'd bring
23:00
Speaker 8: down the price of power.
23:00
Speaker 1: He didn't.
23:01
Speaker 8: He has a climate change department that can't possibly change
23:04
Speaker 8: the climate and costs us $ 8. 7 billion a year to
23:08
Speaker 8: not do that. And now he's got this insanely... He said,
23:13
Speaker 8: I didn't know about this golf club stuff.
23:15
Speaker 4: He did. I wasn't involved with it. You were. You
23:18
Speaker 4: announced it. It came from a grant for the poo. No,
23:22
Speaker 4: it didn't.
23:23
Speaker 8: It came to upgrade the golf course. The state government
23:25
Speaker 8: paid for the poo. Then it was, oh, it was stormwater.
23:29
Speaker 8: And then he says it wasn't the grant where they
23:31
Speaker 8: had to sort of ring in and say, we've got
23:34
Speaker 8: some money for you. Ring us back and we'll give
23:35
Speaker 8: it to you. He said, oh, no, it wasn't one
23:37
Speaker 8: of them. And then we look it up. It's the, yeah,
23:39
Speaker 8: it's the classic one, like, As I said before, hey, Anthony,
23:43
Speaker 8: send me a letter and I'll send you some money.
23:46
Speaker 4: Oh, by the way, this is Anthony. And then later on, oh, Anthony,
23:49
Speaker 4: it's great to hear from you. Oh, you're going to
23:51
Speaker 4: send me some money. Brilliant choice.
23:53
Speaker 7: Bye.
23:56
Speaker 8: The whole thing is insane. An election will come. Do
23:59
Speaker 8: we start believing him then? It's just, I just don't
24:02
Speaker 8: believe it. You know, I say what you like.
24:05
Speaker 1: It's ridiculous.
24:06
Speaker 4: You're ridiculous. The whole charade's ridiculous. You're a liar.
24:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the thing is, Barnaby, I was trying to
24:16
Speaker 1: puzzle this out earlier this week. You know, if he
24:19
Speaker 1: just said, yes, I did fall off the stage, because
24:22
Speaker 1: we all saw him, he fell off a stage.
24:24
Speaker 4: We saw it.
24:26
Speaker 1: What was the cost? What was the cost? The cost
24:28
Speaker 1: was in lying. I mean, I fell off a stage,
24:31
Speaker 1: make a joke about it, and here too, oh, I
24:33
Speaker 1: made a mistake, I thought it was for this, but
24:35
Speaker 1: I misspoke, it's actually for stormwater and for other little things.
24:39
Speaker 1: What would it have killed him? It would not have
24:42
Speaker 1: hurt him.
24:42
Speaker 4: I don't know.
24:43
Speaker 1: If he had done that last week or last month.
24:46
Speaker 8: It's so weird, Andrew. I just think the fact that,
24:48
Speaker 8: I don't know, maybe what's more important in his upbringing,
24:52
Speaker 8: he was loved so intensely by his mother, I've no
24:54
Speaker 8: doubt she did, that she said to him, Anthony, you
24:57
Speaker 8: can never do anything wrong.
24:59
Speaker 4: And he absolutely believed her.
25:03
Speaker 1: Now, but Bob Hawke had... And he spoke of it himself,
25:08
Speaker 1: a very loving, worshipful almost upbringing from his parents. And
25:13
Speaker 1: I thought that gave him the confidence that just he
25:16
Speaker 1: could shrug off anything. He didn't have to lie about it.
25:18
Speaker 1: He was just too good for any of that to
25:21
Speaker 1: hurt him. That's another way. I keep coming back to
25:24
Speaker 1: the idea, I wonder whether it's got... an inferiority complex
25:28
Speaker 1: or an imposter syndrome where he cannot admit to the
25:31
Speaker 1: slightest imperfection because it is pathological now and worse for him.
25:37
Speaker 7: Yes.
25:38
Speaker 1: Because of the way he deals with it, everybody knows it. Barnaby,
25:43
Speaker 1: I'd better get on to business. A criticism of One
25:45
Speaker 1: Nation is that it is limited in what it can say.
25:49
Speaker 1: I mean, your biggest stoner by far is billionaire Gina Reinhart,
25:52
Speaker 1: friend of mine. although I'm not sure if that's true anymore,
25:55
Speaker 1: I better ask her. She owns more than 17% of
25:58
Speaker 1: Arafura Rare Earth, which says it wants the Albanese government's
26:03
Speaker 1: free trade deal passed. But that trade deal, as you know,
26:08
Speaker 1: includes clauses back in the Paris Agreement on climate change
26:11
Speaker 1: that you oppose. The Coalition is going to reject that deal,
26:16
Speaker 1: but you haven't yet. Why not?
26:18
Speaker 4: No, well, we do not agree with the Paris Agreement.
26:21
Speaker 8: We are pathologically against the Paris Agreement. and we will
26:24
Speaker 8: be not supporting anything that puts legs on the Paris Agreement,
26:30
Speaker 8: which I can't work out why the Coalition does support
26:33
Speaker 8: the Paris Agreement but doesn't want the EU trade agreement
26:35
Speaker 8: because it enforces the Paris Agreement. Why not just get
26:38
Speaker 8: out of the Paris Agreement and save the confusion? I'll
26:41
Speaker 8: tell you why, because the moderates won't let them in
26:42
Speaker 8: their party.
26:43
Speaker 4: But let's go through.
26:44
Speaker 8: I know that within this agreement, as we go along,
26:46
Speaker 8: there'll be nuances within amendments that will either make a
26:51
Speaker 8: really bad idea worse... or could make a bad idea
26:54
Speaker 8: less worse. Not better, but less worse. And I think
26:57
Speaker 8: we've got to keep an open mind about that. And
26:59
Speaker 8: one of the key areas is in beef. And I
27:02
Speaker 8: come from a beef-producing family, to declare my interest, in
27:05
Speaker 8: the protein capital of Australia, which is a city called Tamworth.
27:09
Speaker 4: We produce protein, whether.
27:10
Speaker 8: It's grains, poultry, beans, poultry, eggs, beef, sheep, you name it,
27:17
Speaker 8: per person. We are the protein capital of Australia, when
27:20
Speaker 8: Tammuz is producing, you're eating. And they are very, very,
27:23
Speaker 8: very focused on saying, sure, if you don't agree with
27:26
Speaker 8: the Paris Agreement, that's fine. You won't support it in
27:28
Speaker 8: the whole at the end. We understand that. But on
27:30
Speaker 8: the way through, you better completely focus.
27:33
Speaker 4: On amendments and other sections which.
27:36
Speaker 8: We do not want the Greens to be leading the
27:38
Speaker 8: way on because they will make things worse for us.
27:40
Speaker 8: And I think we have a responsibility to talk to
27:42
Speaker 8: key stakeholders and because we don't have the resources to
27:45
Speaker 8: be absolutely across all this, and it would be ridiculous
27:48
Speaker 8: at the start to say, yep, right across it, yep,
27:51
Speaker 8: us and our six people in Parliament and our four
27:54
Speaker 8: staff all across it, nothing to worry about here, because
27:57
Speaker 8: someone will just turn up and say, well, have you
27:59
Speaker 8: read clause three on page 58?
28:02
Speaker 4: And you say, no.
28:03
Speaker 1: Because you should have. So you could reject the trade
28:07
Speaker 1: deal for that?
28:09
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely.
28:10
Speaker 8: I'd say it's highly unlikely you would support this trade deal.
28:14
Speaker 4: I'm highly unlikely, almost.
28:16
Speaker 8: In fact, I could almost say certainly we're not going
28:18
Speaker 8: to support it. But what I can say is that
28:20
Speaker 8: doesn't mean amendments through it that we aren't open to.
28:24
Speaker 1: Absolutely. We'll be watching them. Of course. Of course. Of course.
28:28
Speaker 4: Yeah.
28:29
Speaker 1: So the knock that Gina Reinhart pays you and then
28:32
Speaker 1: you can't say anything going against what she wants, like
28:36
Speaker 1: she really wants you to savage Andrew Hastie, you've done that.
28:40
Speaker 1: Your party's called him a traitor. I know that you
28:42
Speaker 1: don't like that at all, but that's what it's done.
28:45
Speaker 1: That knock is not true.
28:48
Speaker 4: Well, absolutely. And I'll just go through this, OK? This
28:51
Speaker 4: is the truth.
28:52
Speaker 8: I have not spoken to Gina Reinhart about the European
28:55
Speaker 8: trade agreement. I have not spoken to any of her
28:59
Speaker 8: office bearers or people associated with her about the European
29:02
Speaker 8: trade agreement. I've not spoken to anybody who has been
29:05
Speaker 8: sent by her about the European trade agreement or who
29:09
Speaker 8: is representing her about the European trade agreement.
29:11
Speaker 4: I am not. And nor would it matter if I did,
29:13
Speaker 4: nor would I be embarrassed if I had. I just haven't.
29:16
Speaker 4: This is how we're going about it.
29:21
Speaker 1: She's a highly successful businesswoman and I think her opinion
29:24
Speaker 1: is always worth having, even if you end up not
29:27
Speaker 1: agreeing with her. But absolutely. Barnaby Joyce, thank you so
29:31
Speaker 1: much indeed for your time. Pleasure. Now, two quick things
29:37
Speaker 1: before I go to the break. The latest Essential Poll
29:40
Speaker 1: shows One Nation federally tying with Labor on 28% after
29:44
Speaker 1: a bit of a surge, with the coalition again edging
29:47
Speaker 1: closer to Labor too, now on 23%. The big picture then,
29:52
Speaker 1: with recent polls included, seems to be One Nation still
29:55
Speaker 1: doing extraordinarily well But the Coalition coming back into the contest,
29:59
Speaker 1: and I'd say that Labor now is in big trouble.
30:04
Speaker 1: But the other thing, Victoria's going to go to the
30:07
Speaker 1: polls in just a month. There are now three big
30:09
Speaker 1: parties contesting, same three that I've just mentioned, and News
30:12
Speaker 1: 24 and the Herald Sun are asking each of them
30:16
Speaker 1: to a debate. The Liberals' Jess Wilson, Labor's Premier Ben Carroll,
30:20
Speaker 1: and One Nation's Warren Pickering. We've even got lecterns ready
30:24
Speaker 1: for them. Labor and One Nation have agreed, but the
30:28
Speaker 1: Liberal's Jess Wilson refuses, saying she doesn't want One Nation there.
30:33
Speaker 9: The reality is that there are two people who can
30:35
Speaker 9: be Premier after this election, Ben Carroll or myself.
30:39
Speaker 7: And I've said I'm ready to debate Ben Carroll any day.
30:42
Speaker 3: It says to me that they're dismissing somewhere in the
30:44
Speaker 3: order of 20% to 30% of Victorians' wishes.
30:46
Speaker 1: She's a lawyer by trade.
30:48
Speaker 3: I think she should have no problems at all debating
30:50
Speaker 3: a real bloke from the real world.
30:52
Speaker 10: This is the debate Victorians deserve.
30:56
Speaker 1: I get it that Jess Wilson doesn't want to give
30:58
Speaker 1: One Nation a platform, literally, and she's also very uncomfortable,
31:03
Speaker 1: I have observed, going off script. But I think she
31:08
Speaker 1: does owe the one quarter of Victorians who back One
31:11
Speaker 1: Nation a debate on their future. So go do it.
31:17
Speaker 1: After the break, Anthony Albanese gives his local golf club
31:20
Speaker 1: $ 6 million but wants to sell the golf club that's
31:25
Speaker 1: used by... Soldiers! I'll talk to his president. But to
31:32
Speaker 1: another development, a scoop, that for me highlights one particular
31:37
Speaker 1: grubby aspect of the Prime Minister's grant of $ 6 million
31:40
Speaker 1: to the Marrickville Golf Club, just near his house, in
31:43
Speaker 1: his electorate. It's not just that he falsely claimed this
31:46
Speaker 1: was to fix the sewerage works when it's really for
31:49
Speaker 1: things like getting a nicer bar or a nicer alfresco area.
31:54
Speaker 1: As I said last night, why are we even paying
31:57
Speaker 1: a golf club six million dollars for that? And why
32:02
Speaker 1: just this club of all the golf clubs in Australia?
32:07
Speaker 1: Because let me show you the Fairburn Golf Club in Canberra,
32:10
Speaker 1: which for more than 70 years has been used especially
32:13
Speaker 1: by our servicemen and veterans, and which is now fighting
32:17
Speaker 1: for its life. Because this very same Prime Minister that
32:22
Speaker 1: just gave $ 6 million to his own local golf club
32:25
Speaker 1: is selling off the land of this one. I was
32:29
Speaker 1: joined a short while ago by the club's president, Brian Dupree.
32:32
Speaker 1: Brian Dupree, thank you so much for joining us. Why
32:36
Speaker 1: is your golf club being sold?
32:37
Speaker 10: So we were part of the Defence Estate Review back
32:42
Speaker 10: in February. They announced 68 properties being sold. We were
32:45
Speaker 10: just one of them. And we leased the land from Defence.
32:49
Speaker 10: It's interesting because they were selling it for two reasons,
32:53
Speaker 10: as I saw it. One, to get it off the
32:55
Speaker 10: Defence books because it's no longer required by Defence. And
32:58
Speaker 10: the second, to make some money for the Defence budget.
33:02
Speaker 10: The first one of those is, There are other options
33:05
Speaker 10: than just selling it. There's options to transcript another government department,
33:09
Speaker 10: let the community golf club still run. They could give
33:13
Speaker 10: it to us as a not-for-profit with the caveat that
33:15
Speaker 10: we have to run the golf club. The second one
33:17
Speaker 10: is more important because you only make money if you
33:21
Speaker 10: sell it, but we're right close to an airport. We're
33:24
Speaker 10: close to a live firing range. We're close to air
33:26
Speaker 10: traffic control transmitters. We're classed as broad acres, so effectively farmland.
33:31
Speaker 10: We have contamination on the PFAS contamination on the So
33:35
Speaker 10: all of those things counter the value of the land
33:38
Speaker 10: as well. So who knows what it's worth from that perspective.
33:42
Speaker 1: All right, that's their reasons. You don't think they're very
33:44
Speaker 1: good reasons. But why are you fighting this sale specifically?
33:48
Speaker 1: What are your reasons for wanting to keep the golf club?
33:52
Speaker 10: Well, so we're fighting it because in the last 12 months,
33:54
Speaker 10: 40,000 rounds roughly of golf were played at that golf
33:58
Speaker 10: club and only half that played by members. So we
34:00
Speaker 10: run corporate days, charity days, There's a lot of local
34:04
Speaker 10: social clubs use it. There's a lot of just public
34:08
Speaker 10: members that come and use it. So 20,000 of those
34:10
Speaker 10: rounds are being used by the local Canberra and local region.
34:16
Speaker 10: The important bit there is that we all know the
34:18
Speaker 10: health and wellbeing benefits that you get from sport and
34:21
Speaker 10: grassroots community facilities are really important. And this one, interestingly enough,
34:26
Speaker 10: doesn't cost the government any money to run. So we're self-sufficient,
34:30
Speaker 10: so we're not costing.
34:32
Speaker 1: And, of course, you have a tradition of having servicemen
34:36
Speaker 1: and veterans play there. You do some outreach on that
34:40
Speaker 1: front too, don't you? We do.
34:42
Speaker 10: So the course was developed, started back in 1953, by
34:47
Speaker 10: voluntary veterans. And there's a lot of veterans that have
34:50
Speaker 10: worked on the course through the time. It's close to
34:54
Speaker 10: their heart. Probably about 30% of our members have a
34:58
Speaker 10: link to the veterans or defence community. So it's... Defence
35:04
Speaker 10: veterans are really important and support to them. So this
35:07
Speaker 10: is a community facility that provides that mechanism to get together.
35:14
Speaker 1: And you've, of course, got a petition up to block
35:17
Speaker 1: the sale. It's addressed to Katie Gallagher, the Finance Minister.
35:22
Speaker 1: How many people are backing you?
35:23
Speaker 10: Right now there's over 4,000, but interestingly enough, it's not
35:29
Speaker 10: just the 4,000 people that have signed the petition. So
35:32
Speaker 10: there's 20,000 rounds of golf being played. So they haven't
35:35
Speaker 10: all signed it, obviously. But there's a lot of community support.
35:40
Speaker 10: I've talked to all the local politicians and they're all
35:43
Speaker 10: supportive of the grassroots facilities that a golf club provides
35:48
Speaker 10: and what you get out of it from SA Health
35:50
Speaker 10: and Wellbeing for the wider community as well.
35:52
Speaker 1: So given all that, you have a golf club that
35:56
Speaker 1: services a lot of veterans or people in the Defence
36:01
Speaker 1: Force still. It makes money. It holds charity events. It's needed.
36:08
Speaker 1: There's not that many alternative places around where you are.
36:12
Speaker 1: So when you see the government giving $ 6 million to
36:14
Speaker 1: a golf club near the Prime Minister's home but flogging
36:17
Speaker 1: off your own, what's your reaction?
36:20
Speaker 10: That's interesting because that's three times our annual turnover. So
36:24
Speaker 10: it would be great to get any of that money. But,
36:26
Speaker 10: you know, there's no process that we're aware of to
36:30
Speaker 10: put a hand out and ask for that.
36:32
Speaker 1: We're self-sufficient.
36:33
Speaker 10: We don't ask the government for any money as we
36:35
Speaker 10: run at the moment. But it would be great if
36:39
Speaker 10: the community, grassroots support communities, facilities could get some of that.
36:44
Speaker 10: And I guess the bottom line is where do we apply?
36:47
Speaker 1: Well, I think what you have to do is pick
36:49
Speaker 1: up your golf club and move it to a seat
36:52
Speaker 1: Labor desperately needs to win. You're not in one of
36:56
Speaker 1: those seats, are you?
36:58
Speaker 10: No, we're not. Unfortunately, we're in the ACT, which is
37:01
Speaker 10: a pretty safe labour seat. So it's interesting, though, because
37:07
Speaker 10: as much as it would be great to have that money,
37:11
Speaker 10: we can't control that. And as I said earlier, we
37:15
Speaker 10: cost the government nothing to run this grassroots facility. So
37:19
Speaker 10: anything would be appreciated if there was an avenue to
37:22
Speaker 10: get some of that money.
37:23
Speaker 1: Brian, you're too modest. I think you actually make the
37:25
Speaker 1: government some money because you pay it for the use
37:30
Speaker 1: of the land. So, I mean, you actually are a
37:32
Speaker 1: money maker, aren't you?
37:35
Speaker 10: We do, and we obviously pay our tax and our
37:37
Speaker 10: BAS and all those other things that the government gets
37:39
Speaker 10: out of the $ 2 million we roll over every year.
37:43
Speaker 10: There's a percentage of that. Most of it goes back
37:45
Speaker 10: into the local community. So it's a great community facility.
37:48
Speaker 10: It would be a shame to lose it. And the
37:50
Speaker 10: other point I'd just like to make is, Of those
37:53
Speaker 10: 40,000 rounds, no one's building new golf courses. So if
37:56
Speaker 10: you get rid of one in Canberra, then there's nowhere
38:00
Speaker 10: for all those people to get out and get the
38:01
Speaker 10: exercise and the health and wellbeing things that you would
38:04
Speaker 10: get from that facility.
38:08
Speaker 1: Brian Dupree, thank you so much indeed for your time.
38:12
Speaker 1: Thanks very much.
38:13
Speaker 10: Great to talk to you.
38:14
Speaker 1: After the break, the ugly woke right, the panel after this.
38:23
Speaker 1: They said at the top of the show, I'd noticed
38:24
Speaker 1: something new. The woke right. You know, people who claim
38:28
Speaker 1: to be conservatives, but act like tribalists of the left,
38:32
Speaker 1: abusing and smearing even real conservatives who simply disagree with them. Well,
38:38
Speaker 1: like me. They seem not to realise that for all
38:41
Speaker 1: the abuse, listen, I've gone through the fire so often,
38:44
Speaker 1: I've turned to iron, right? Doesn't make a difference. But
38:47
Speaker 1: look at who they adore. Donald Trump, right? Donald Trump
38:52
Speaker 1: His worst mistakes are treated as acts of genius in
38:56
Speaker 1: a game of 4D chess that mere humans like me
39:00
Speaker 1: couldn't possibly understand. And then again, you look at who
39:03
Speaker 1: they hate. It's Andrew Hayes, the AFP commissioner, Chrissie Barrett,
39:06
Speaker 1: and anyone who says the war crimes charges against Ben
39:09
Speaker 1: Robert Smith are serious and should be decided in court.
39:12
Speaker 1: I should say he says he's innocent. Joining me, News24
39:16
Speaker 1: host James Traverson and communications consultant Chrissie McSweeney. who has
39:20
Speaker 1: worked for coalition prime ministers and premiers. James, in a way,
39:25
Speaker 1: I'm actually glad there is a woke right because they
39:28
Speaker 1: make me look quite reasonable suddenly to some on the left,
39:32
Speaker 1: after all, to their shock, you know. Maybe then they'll
39:35
Speaker 1: listen to me. But am I wrong... Is it me
39:38
Speaker 1: that's changed and not the right?
39:41
Speaker 11: I noticed a change after COVID, Andrew. I mean, we
39:44
Speaker 11: know the left, right? The left see racism everywhere. They
39:48
Speaker 11: see sexism everywhere. After COVID, there are many on the
39:52
Speaker 11: right who now see conspiracy everywhere. And they are just
39:56
Speaker 11: as sure that there's grand conspiracies as the left are
39:59
Speaker 11: sure that racism and sexism is responsible for every societal ill.
40:04
Speaker 11: During COVID, we learned that governments often don't tell the truth.
40:08
Speaker 4: Surprise.
40:09
Speaker 11: But just because officialdom doesn't always tell the truth doesn't
40:12
Speaker 11: therefore mean every conspiracy is true. And whether you're from
40:16
Speaker 11: the left or the right, there's always the temptation toward
40:19
Speaker 11: arrogance where I know something that nobody else knows. And
40:23
Speaker 11: I think for some on the right, that's become their
40:26
Speaker 11: posture rather than a commitment to truth, which, you know,
40:30
Speaker 11: we're committed to truth regardless of whether it's embarrassing for
40:33
Speaker 11: our tribe, regardless of whether it's inconvenient, regardless of whether
40:37
Speaker 11: it destroys a narrative we've personally created. being committed to,
40:41
Speaker 11: and I think true conservatism recognises truth exists and that's
40:45
Speaker 11: what is important, not tribalism, not narratives. And I don't
40:49
Speaker 11: think you have changed. I think since COVID, some on
40:52
Speaker 11: the right have started to fall for that same arrogance
40:56
Speaker 11: that we've been criticising on the left for so long.
40:59
Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely. Christy, what do you make of this? I mean,
41:03
Speaker 1: it might be wrong. Feel free to disagree.
41:04
Speaker 9: No, I'm not disagreeing. I think James is right and
41:11
Speaker 9: there is an element of the community that, particularly here
41:14
Speaker 9: in Melbourne, has woken up quite late to the fact that, well,
41:19
Speaker 9: the government did lie to us about several COVID responses,
41:24
Speaker 9: about several legislation, several pieces of legislation that turned out
41:29
Speaker 9: to not be required. They did lie when they said
41:32
Speaker 9: the police instructed them to put in curfews and radiuses
41:37
Speaker 9: of how far that you could travel. There were a
41:40
Speaker 9: lot of things that were revealed and that has sparked
41:43
Speaker 9: people's awareness, I think, of government control. There's a lot
41:50
Speaker 9: of questioning by people around..... questioning around... artificial intelligence and
41:55
Speaker 9: around privacy and data and big government and how much
42:01
Speaker 9: of my personal information the government is taking from me
42:04
Speaker 9: and using.
42:05
Speaker 7: And a lot of people have taken that to the extreme.
42:08
Speaker 9: But the other thing is there's a certain element of
42:10
Speaker 9: new media, driven by the algorithm on the left and
42:14
Speaker 9: the right, that leans into a lot of these issues
42:18
Speaker 9: in a really short-form way because that's how you gain
42:23
Speaker 9: a following. Some of that new media is fantastic and
42:26
Speaker 9: brings awareness and viewers and attention to the conservative cause.
42:30
Speaker 9: Other parts of it are perhaps a little bit too far,
42:33
Speaker 9: just like they are too.
42:34
Speaker 7: Far on the left.
42:37
Speaker 1: I think you're both right in mentioning the lack of
42:40
Speaker 1: trust in narratives. I mean, I thought the media... How
42:44
Speaker 1: many media outlets went with the Donald Trump colluded with
42:47
Speaker 1: Russia to steal the first election he won? That destroyed
42:51
Speaker 1: so much trust. After that, you know, it takes a
42:54
Speaker 1: lot to believe anything some of the media outlets say.
42:57
Speaker 1: And now we've got the Prime Minister telling one untruth
43:00
Speaker 1: after another. I think that's so desperately corrosive. James, I'm
43:05
Speaker 1: not sure.
43:08
Speaker 1: For the media to start whacking conspiracy theorists, they've got
43:14
Speaker 1: to realise their own contribution to doing that.
43:19
Speaker 11: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, as you said, trust in all institutions.
43:23
Speaker 11: It's not just the government. It's the media.
43:26
Speaker 7: It's the church.
43:27
Speaker 11: There's so many institutions now that people don't trust. But
43:30
Speaker 11: everyone's still grasping for it. There must be some narrative
43:33
Speaker 11: that explains everything. And so, as I said, I think
43:36
Speaker 11: the right just tend towards... conspiracy theories. I've had so
43:39
Speaker 11: many good friends say, oh, but if you really knew
43:41
Speaker 11: what was going on, you know, as you said, like
43:44
Speaker 11: with Trump, you know, every mistake he makes is 4D chess.
43:47
Speaker 11: And I'm a Trump fan. But I also believe Trump,
43:49
Speaker 11: whilst being, I think, quite brilliant, is a deeply flawed individual.
43:53
Speaker 11: I think you can hold those two positions at the
43:55
Speaker 11: same time. And that keeps you sane. But when you
43:58
Speaker 11: go to one extreme or the other, you're going to
44:00
Speaker 11: end up looking like a fool.
44:03
Speaker 1: Now, you hinted at it before. I think conspiracy theories
44:05
Speaker 1: are an easy way for the ill-informed and lazy to
44:09
Speaker 1: feel super smart. I mean, how often have I seen
44:11
Speaker 1: someone with a super silly smile saying, you think that's
44:15
Speaker 1: the story?
44:15
Speaker 3: Yeah.
44:16
Speaker 1: There's a conspiracy. They don't have to research it. They
44:18
Speaker 1: just think that makes them feel that they know something
44:21
Speaker 1: that everyone else doesn't. And, you know, crazy the conspiracy theory,
44:25
Speaker 1: the more farsighted they are. Christy, I'm interested in your
44:28
Speaker 1: professional opinion here because you've been in the communications business
44:32
Speaker 1: for a long time about, you know, advising politicians. And
44:36
Speaker 1: you are seeing a Prime Minister who is just telling
44:42
Speaker 1: one untruth after another, just this golf club scandal. The
44:45
Speaker 1: stakes are extremely low. You just admit that you made
44:48
Speaker 1: a mistake.
44:49
Speaker 4: Easy, done.
44:50
Speaker 1: Yesterday's, you know, fish and chips. I mean, looking at
44:55
Speaker 1: what he's doing, how do you explain it? Or is
44:58
Speaker 1: there actually a cunning political strategy?
45:02
Speaker 7: Look, there's an.
45:03
Speaker 9: Element of the population and the voter base who will say, sure,
45:07
Speaker 9: circumstances change, and when governments make election promises about negative
45:11
Speaker 9: gearing the CGT or $ 275 off your power bill, a
45:16
Speaker 9: certain element of the electorate and the voter base will say, well,
45:19
Speaker 9: we believe that the government had to make those changes, so,
45:23
Speaker 9: you know, that's OK. We're not really holding them to
45:25
Speaker 9: that promise. But it's the other personal instances.
45:31
Speaker 7: that were caught on tape.
45:33
Speaker 9: I didn't fall off the stage and for me the
45:35
Speaker 9: big one was the one about the Japanese Prime Minister
45:37
Speaker 9: and the melons.
45:39
Speaker 7: That is something that we all plainly.
45:41
Speaker 9: Saw and the Prime Minister and the government let it
45:45
Speaker 9: drag on, drag on, drag on, even brought the Japanese
45:48
Speaker 9: government and diplomacy into it by releasing cables so they
45:53
Speaker 9: could prove their point. as if the Japanese are going
45:55
Speaker 9: to say that they were embarrassed and they regarded it as.
45:58
Speaker 7: A complete faux pas. Of course they weren't.
46:01
Speaker 9: So that was the most extreme example for me. And
46:04
Speaker 9: these are two things where the truth is out there
46:07
Speaker 9: because they're on tape and everybody saw them. I'm not
46:10
Speaker 9: sure if this is the Prime Minister's advice. I'd like
46:13
Speaker 9: to think that he's got some pretty good people in
46:14
Speaker 9: his office saying to him, just own up to it.
46:17
Speaker 7: Just apologise.
46:18
Speaker 9: Just don't let it drag on. And I'm sure they
46:20
Speaker 9: do because some of them are pretty good operators. So
46:23
Speaker 9: that leads me to believe it's him himself running this
46:26
Speaker 9: strategy of trying to not apologise for these very simple
46:31
Speaker 9: personal things at all costs. The big things, a lot
46:34
Speaker 9: of people will forgive you for it. I don't agree
46:37
Speaker 9: with it, but people do. But it's the small things
46:40
Speaker 9: in politics that will do you in.
46:44
Speaker 1: I can personally understand, in a way, him lying about,
46:48
Speaker 1: you know, I wasn't making a melons joke about the
46:52
Speaker 1: Japanese Prime Minister. You might think I've got to try
46:54
Speaker 1: and keep sweet with the Japanese. All right. I think
46:58
Speaker 1: it backfired, but I can understand it. But not saying, yeah,
47:01
Speaker 1: I fell off the stage. What a joke, blah, blah.
47:04
Speaker 1: Not saying, you know, look, I got it wrong about
47:07
Speaker 1: the reasons I gave the grant, I just got confused.
47:10
Speaker 1: That's no risk, James, or am I wrong? So that
47:15
Speaker 1: gets me back to the question, which I've been thinking
47:18
Speaker 1: about for days, why does the Prime Minister do it?
47:22
Speaker 11: It's funny, remember former Queensland Premier Peter Beattie? He made
47:25
Speaker 11: an art form of the apology. Anthony Albanese's made an
47:28
Speaker 11: art form of never apologising for anything.
47:32
Speaker 4: And you mentioned falling off the stage.
47:34
Speaker 11: That, to me, was the moment where I decided, I
47:36
Speaker 11: just think Anthony Albanese's got a major character flaw because.
47:40
Speaker 4: We all saw him fall off the stage.
47:43
Speaker 11: He insisted he had not.
47:45
Speaker 4: And for what?
47:46
Speaker 11: I mean, who cares that he stumbled? He could have
47:49
Speaker 11: been funny about it. He could have been lighthearted about it.
47:52
Speaker 11: And we probably would have liked him a little bit
47:54
Speaker 11: more because he could have... you know, used the moment
47:56
Speaker 11: to be a little bit human. We all relate to
47:58
Speaker 11: tripping or stumbling over something. So there was no need
48:02
Speaker 11: for him to lie about something we'd plainly seen with
48:05
Speaker 11: our own eyes.
48:05
Speaker 4: And yet.
48:06
Speaker 1: That's my point... his reflex.
48:08
Speaker 11: Reaction was to lie. So I think it must be
48:11
Speaker 11: something within his own psyche and make-up.
48:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, weird. Christy, we've only got 20 seconds left, but
48:19
Speaker 1: I know you're not going to dis on former clients,
48:21
Speaker 1: but have you seen anything like this before? Ha-ha-ha-ha!
48:26
Speaker 9: Politicians get so caught up in their bubble and they
48:29
Speaker 9: live and breathe being attacked by their colleagues, by the media,
48:33
Speaker 9: by their constituents, and they live in this environment of
48:38
Speaker 9: walking on eggshells that if they do anything wrong.
48:41
Speaker 7: They have to find a way to get out of it.
48:43
Speaker 1: James McPherson, Chris McSweeney, thank you very much to you both.
48:48
Speaker 1: Thank you. Up next is Shari Markson, but from me, goodnight.