Latest / The Bolt Report / The Bolt Report | 24 December

Transcript

The Bolt Report | 24 December · The Bolt Report

0:10
Speaker 1: Gus is the reform it.
0:15
Speaker 2: Well, good evening and welcome to the Bolt Report. I'm
0:17
Speaker 2: James Macpherson coming up on the show tonight. This story
0:20
Speaker 2: will surely make your blood boil. Hundreds of thousands of
0:24
Speaker 2: our taxpayer dollars are being used to pay for cigarettes
0:28
Speaker 2: for immigration detainees, hundreds of thousands of dollars to apparently
0:32
Speaker 2: keep up their quality of life. There's a new push
0:36
Speaker 2: for all public toilets to now be gender neutral. It's
0:39
Speaker 2: to help ease what activists are calling toilet anxiety.
0:43
Speaker 3: The panel will have their say on that topic.
0:46
Speaker 2: And an anti Kiostarma Christmas song has topped the charts
0:49
Speaker 2: in the UK, but the BBC is still refusing to
0:52
Speaker 2: play it despite a warning their decision is hurting pensioners
0:56
Speaker 2: in need. And just what is the meaning of Christmas?
0:59
Speaker 2: Why do we sell celebrate it? Famed theologian Os Guinness
1:02
Speaker 2: will join me for an exclusive interview. Well, it's great
1:06
Speaker 2: to have your company and Merry Christmas, or as so
1:09
Speaker 2: many on the left would prefer me to say, happy Holidays.
1:13
Speaker 2: Doesn't quite have the same ring to it though, does it.
1:16
Speaker 2: As a child had to remind Jull Biden just the
1:19
Speaker 2: other day.
1:20
Speaker 4: Hello, how are you hi?
1:23
Speaker 5: Happy holidays?
1:24
Speaker 2: Hi?
1:26
Speaker 5: Happy business? Yes?
1:29
Speaker 2: I love the look on Joe Biden's face at the
1:31
Speaker 2: end there. She really didn't like being tricked into saying
1:34
Speaker 2: Christmas by that little brat. Hey, little brats like that
1:37
Speaker 2: might just save the world. Right across the West, there's
1:40
Speaker 2: been a concerted effort to remove Christmas well from Christmas.
1:45
Speaker 2: We're continually told it's about being inclusive, you know this spiel.
1:49
Speaker 2: Australia is a diverse country and so we need to
1:51
Speaker 2: respect other people's customs by you know, disrespecting our own.
1:56
Speaker 2: Sometimes wonder why Islamists would even bother to try to
1:59
Speaker 2: destroy the West. We're destroying it ourselves or congratulating each
2:02
Speaker 2: other on how virtuous we are for doing it. What
2:05
Speaker 2: did Douglas Murray call it? The strange suicide of the West.
2:09
Speaker 2: But if you notice this, respect for diversity only ever
2:12
Speaker 2: flows one way. The same corporations that bork at proclaiming
2:16
Speaker 2: Christmas don't hesitate to acknowledge their Hindu celebration of Dwali,
2:20
Speaker 2: and I'm pretty sure they won't lose their heads rebranding
2:23
Speaker 2: Ramadan for local Muslims. It's just Christians, they seem to
2:27
Speaker 2: have a problem with and Christmas in particular, So I'm
2:31
Speaker 2: not buying this diversity argument. In fact, if you pay attention,
2:35
Speaker 2: you realize that diversity is nearly always a smoke screen
2:39
Speaker 2: for something else, and usually it's a grab for power.
2:43
Speaker 2: I found a hint of what I suspect to be
2:45
Speaker 2: the real issue people have with Christmas in this headline
2:48
Speaker 2: from The Guardian. It said Christmas comes with good cheer.
2:53
Speaker 2: The tragedy is the religious baggage. Ah. Yes, celebrating the
2:58
Speaker 2: birth of Jesus would be so much more enjoyable if
3:01
Speaker 2: people didn't keep going on about jesus birth. The Guardian
3:05
Speaker 2: article was penned by the vice president of the Humanist Society,
3:08
Speaker 2: which may have been a clue as to why she
3:10
Speaker 2: hated the christmas Y part of Christmas so much. Humanists
3:14
Speaker 2: don't have much room at the inn for the divine.
3:17
Speaker 2: The author wrote that she liked the star over Bethlehem,
3:20
Speaker 2: tinsel was good, and she liked the wise man and
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Speaker 2: the Shepherd's.
3:24
Speaker 3: All very cute.
3:25
Speaker 2: She especially liked the shout out to the refugees in
3:28
Speaker 2: the Christmas story. Of course that's very progressive. But then
3:32
Speaker 2: she wrote this, and I quote the rest of the
3:34
Speaker 2: story I find loathsome why where the symbol of a
3:38
Speaker 2: barbaric torture martyrdom is a repugnant virtue, so to the
3:43
Speaker 2: imposition of perpetual guilt end quote. In other words, she
3:48
Speaker 2: loves the baby Jesus, she just loathes the savior he.
3:52
Speaker 3: Grew up to be.
3:53
Speaker 2: And now we're getting closer to the real problem so
3:56
Speaker 2: many people have with Christmas. The religious baggage she claims
4:00
Speaker 2: ruins her Christmas is the suggestion that Jesus is God
4:04
Speaker 2: come in human form to die for the sins of
4:07
Speaker 2: the world. If only Jesus was, you know, just a
4:10
Speaker 2: baby turning up to serve as a kind of acutesy metaphor.
4:13
Speaker 2: I've got to admit I kind of sympathize with her thoughts.
4:18
Speaker 2: That God came to die for sinners of whom I
4:20
Speaker 2: am chief is sort of hard to wrap one's well
4:24
Speaker 2: ego around. I think it would be far preferable for
4:27
Speaker 2: God to turn up and simply applaud my efforts while
4:30
Speaker 2: taking on board my expert advice on how he might
4:33
Speaker 2: improve some things around here. Trust me, I've got some suggestions,
4:37
Speaker 2: and don't look at me like that. I know you
4:38
Speaker 2: do too, and therein lies our problem and a big
4:42
Speaker 2: hint as to why we may need a savior. After all,
4:46
Speaker 2: Pride makes fools of people. Just ask Jill Biden remember
4:50
Speaker 2: when she turned the White House into a woke jaguar
4:53
Speaker 2: ad for Christmas. After watching that, I wasn't sure if
5:26
Speaker 2: they needed Christmas lunch or an exorcism. It was a
5:29
Speaker 2: ridiculous ode to nothing, which is pretty much what you're
5:32
Speaker 2: left with when you decide there's nothing beyond the here
5:35
Speaker 2: and now. Last December, a shopping center in the Melbourne
5:38
Speaker 2: suburb of Werriby greeted shoppers with the sign that said
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Speaker 2: Merry Everything. You don't get much more nillists than Merry
5:46
Speaker 2: Everything and happy New whatever. That's pretty much what we've
5:49
Speaker 2: been busy turning the West into, though, isn't it. But
5:53
Speaker 2: I'm pleased to say the shoppers in Werriby weren't the
5:55
Speaker 2: cultural millists that center management hoped they would be. Customers
5:59
Speaker 2: flood social media with complaints, forcing the center's administrators to
6:03
Speaker 2: replace the Mary Everything signs with ones proclaiming Mary Christmas.
6:08
Speaker 2: Were they traditionalists or were they people like you and
6:11
Speaker 2: I who looking around at what we're doing with the
6:14
Speaker 2: world thought maybe we could all do with a bit
6:17
Speaker 2: of saving. We need Christmas because it's the one time
6:20
Speaker 2: of year we all pause and think, maybe we're not
6:23
Speaker 2: the center of the universe, and maybe we don't have
6:26
Speaker 2: all the answers, and maybe we should just occasionally even
6:28
Speaker 2: ask for help. That the next president of the United States,
6:32
Speaker 2: for all his flaws and he has many, seems kind
6:36
Speaker 2: of inclined that way, might just mean twenty twenty five
6:39
Speaker 2: could be an improvement on what's been a pretty rugged
6:42
Speaker 2: last twelve months. Let's hope so. And if you can
6:45
Speaker 2: bring yourself to it, maybe even pray. So here's Donald
6:49
Speaker 2: Trump contemplating just that the other night. Well it might
7:24
Speaker 2: be Christmas Eve, but there's no stopping the news at
7:26
Speaker 2: the moment. Joining me now is Liberal MP Garth. Hamilton Garth,
7:30
Speaker 2: thanks for joining me on Christmas Eve. Want to start
7:33
Speaker 2: with the Reserve Bank some hopefully good news for households.
7:38
Speaker 3: The RBA said.
7:39
Speaker 2: Today it was increasingly optimistic that inflation will fall in
7:43
Speaker 2: coming months, and today's sharper than expected decline in wage
7:46
Speaker 2: growth numbers might mean a rate cut sooner rather than later.
7:50
Speaker 3: This is good Christmas news.
7:53
Speaker 6: Well, look in isolation it's good to see a rate cut.
7:56
Speaker 6: I think we need to see this in the context
7:58
Speaker 6: of the economy. This is the hard Land sad it'd
8:01
Speaker 6: been warning about for a couple of years now, amongst
8:04
Speaker 6: record insolvencies, you know, the biggest drop in productivity we've
8:08
Speaker 6: ever seen, seven quarters.
8:10
Speaker 7: Of GDP per capital growth going backwards. We're in a
8:13
Speaker 7: bad way.
8:14
Speaker 6: This is a sign from the RBA, but they're seeing
8:17
Speaker 6: how bad things are going and that that pain is
8:20
Speaker 6: trickling down to people. The government's plans to prop up
8:22
Speaker 6: the economy with huge immigration numbers, you know, vast amounts
8:26
Speaker 6: of public sector growth, it.
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Speaker 7: Just hasn't cut the mustard. We're hurting and this is
8:33
Speaker 7: not a.
8:33
Speaker 6: Great thing when viewed across the context of the entire economy.
8:39
Speaker 2: Well, this news comes as the International Monetary Fund backs
8:43
Speaker 2: in what the RBA have been doing by keeping rates
8:45
Speaker 2: high and warning against the government going on a spending spree,
8:49
Speaker 2: which of course we know they have been. Now you've
8:52
Speaker 2: called for the government to rain spending in for quite
8:55
Speaker 2: some time, so you would completely agree with the IMF
8:59
Speaker 2: on this one.
8:59
Speaker 3: I'm sure.
9:01
Speaker 6: Look, this is a no brainer. Government spending has driven
9:05
Speaker 6: the inflation that we've seen in Australia. That's been a
9:07
Speaker 6: fact of life across Western democracies for hundreds of years.
9:11
Speaker 6: That's what happens when governments blow all their money. This
9:15
Speaker 6: is what's causing our pain. I've voted against I think
9:18
Speaker 6: over one hundred and ten billion dollars worth of excessive
9:21
Speaker 6: government spending. Their spending has increased by I have it,
9:23
Speaker 6: three hundred billion dollars. If you're to a comparison twenty
9:26
Speaker 6: nineteen to now, we're spending more than one hundred billion
9:30
Speaker 6: dollars per year. So we went through that COVID period
9:33
Speaker 6: with some increased spaniship that we've never come back down.
9:36
Speaker 6: So this is what's causing all of our issues at
9:39
Speaker 6: the moment. I've been on this for a long time.
9:42
Speaker 6: Angus Taylor's done a great job of prosecuting this case.
9:45
Speaker 6: The government has refused to acknowledge that they're spending is
9:49
Speaker 6: causing the pain that Australians are feeling. And look, I
9:52
Speaker 6: think this is one of the worst things this government
9:54
Speaker 6: has done because the inflation they've caused doesn't bear down
9:57
Speaker 6: evenly on the economy, it hurts those most vulnerab Well,
10:00
Speaker 6: first you think about pensioners who are on fixed incomes
10:03
Speaker 6: and renting. You know, they've seen their cost of everything
10:07
Speaker 6: go through the ceiling, but their incomes staying the same,
10:09
Speaker 6: so they're in a lot of pain. On the other side,
10:11
Speaker 6: I think about twenty one to twenty nine year olds
10:13
Speaker 6: trying to get on the property market. They can't save
10:15
Speaker 6: a penny. That dream of home ownership just keeps slipping
10:19
Speaker 6: further and further away.
10:21
Speaker 7: This is what the government spending is doing. It's hurting Australia.
10:26
Speaker 3: Well, it's interesting new issue.
10:28
Speaker 2: You mentioned the issue of home ownership because the other
10:31
Speaker 2: thing that IMF said was that Australian housing is now
10:34
Speaker 2: amongst the most expensive in the world. That's despite a
10:37
Speaker 2: recent slowdown in prices. They say five of our cities
10:42
Speaker 2: are now in the top twenty most expensive in the world. Garth,
10:47
Speaker 2: I don't know whether you've got kids or not. I've
10:48
Speaker 2: got twin nineteen year old sons and as a parent
10:52
Speaker 2: you look at property prices and you just wonder what
10:54
Speaker 2: hope your kids ever have of buying a home in
10:57
Speaker 2: the future.
11:00
Speaker 7: Exactly the same.
11:01
Speaker 6: I've got three kids and that part of me of
11:04
Speaker 6: thinking about what I was like at their age now
11:06
Speaker 6: the first house I bought was actually reasonably quite achievable
11:11
Speaker 6: two hundred thousand in Brisbane.
11:16
Speaker 7: That can't happen now.
11:17
Speaker 6: That just simply is not a possibility for someone to
11:19
Speaker 6: come in at a reasonable level in a major city.
11:23
Speaker 6: And I'm not surprised to hear that report come through.
11:27
Speaker 6: We've brought in a whole extra city, a whole extra
11:30
Speaker 6: Australian city with our high immigration policies over the last
11:34
Speaker 6: couple of years. And we've done that at the time
11:36
Speaker 6: when housing levels, new housing levels have been at record lows.
11:40
Speaker 6: We're seeing the deployment of Green's policies at local councils
11:44
Speaker 6: restrict new builds right across the country. This is hurting
11:48
Speaker 6: us and I think this will take quite some time
11:50
Speaker 6: to resolve itself. This has going to be an issue
11:53
Speaker 6: that we'll look back on in our much later years.
11:57
Speaker 6: And thank goodness me, this was probably the toughest situation
12:00
Speaker 6: put young Australians into increasing immigration by this much at
12:03
Speaker 6: this time. The impacts are going to be felt for
12:06
Speaker 6: our generations.
12:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, I absolutely agree with you on that one. It's
12:12
Speaker 2: hard to see where it turns around, and certainly hard
12:15
Speaker 2: to see it turning around anytime in the near future.
12:18
Speaker 2: I want to turn to another issue, Garth. As you
12:21
Speaker 2: would know, I've been a fierce critic of the government
12:23
Speaker 2: and its handling of the situation in Israel, as have
12:26
Speaker 2: many of my Sky News colleagues. There's no question the
12:29
Speaker 2: Albanzi government has turned its back on our ally in
12:32
Speaker 2: the Middle East and on Jewish Australians.
12:34
Speaker 3: But now there's even more reason for concern.
12:37
Speaker 8: Get this.
12:38
Speaker 2: Greens leader Adam Bant has boasted that Labor is quote
12:42
Speaker 2: slowly moving towards his position on the war in the
12:46
Speaker 2: Middle East.
12:46
Speaker 3: Now, this is pretty.
12:47
Speaker 2: Scary news for the Jewish community, and I think Adam
12:51
Speaker 2: Bant is probably right. The idea of an Albanzy Bant
12:55
Speaker 2: alignment on what's happening in Gaza is pretty concerning for
12:59
Speaker 2: Israel and as I said, for the Jewish community.
13:03
Speaker 6: Look, I don't want to make light of this situation,
13:05
Speaker 6: but I think it's the first I'm going to say it.
13:07
Speaker 7: I agree with Adam band He's one hundred percent right.
13:10
Speaker 6: Labor has moved completely right next to the Greens on
13:14
Speaker 6: this issue and it gives us a great insight, James
13:17
Speaker 6: into what a minority labor Greens Teels government would look
13:21
Speaker 6: like one that's just driven on these ideological issues, on
13:24
Speaker 6: these social ideological issues, driven further and further to the
13:28
Speaker 6: left by the Greens. As a scary thought, I mean,
13:31
Speaker 6: we've abandoned decades of political positioning with our great friends
13:37
Speaker 6: Israel and at the time of their greatest need, their
13:40
Speaker 6: greatest needs since the Second World War, we've abandoned them.
13:44
Speaker 6: We've walked away. I don't think mister Albinize is in control.
13:47
Speaker 6: I think Adam Band is going to be someone who
13:49
Speaker 6: has a lot of power. If we find ourselves in
13:51
Speaker 6: that very very unsatisfactory situation of having a minority government
13:58
Speaker 6: where the Greens have that say, be a terrible situation
14:01
Speaker 6: for Australia and for our allies.
14:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, no doubt.
14:06
Speaker 2: Hey, one more question before I let you go and
14:08
Speaker 2: enjoy the rest of your Christmas.
14:09
Speaker 3: Eve Garth.
14:10
Speaker 2: This next story, I got to say, it totally shocked me.
14:14
Speaker 3: It's been confirmed.
14:15
Speaker 2: Taxpayers are wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars a year
14:18
Speaker 2: providing here we go free cigarettes to immigration detainees. These
14:24
Speaker 2: are people who have come to Australia illegally or have
14:26
Speaker 2: broken the law while they're here, and a source within
14:29
Speaker 2: the Department says the cigarettes are a reward for good
14:32
Speaker 2: behavior and a way of quote improving their quality of life,
14:36
Speaker 2: all supplied by you and I, the Australian taxpayer.
14:39
Speaker 3: What on earth.
14:42
Speaker 7: This is a hard one to get your head around.
14:43
Speaker 6: Look, I gave up the darts a long time ago
14:45
Speaker 6: when I left the mining industry. I can't, for the
14:48
Speaker 6: life me see the good of this. I would point
14:50
Speaker 6: out these people who've who have come here illegally or
14:54
Speaker 6: committed crimes here. Everything they're getting is free. That's not
14:58
Speaker 6: just the cigarettes. Everything they're getting is free. They' not
15:00
Speaker 6: to come through the proper processes, which does bear some costs.
15:04
Speaker 6: They've chose to come here for free and they're living
15:06
Speaker 6: off the largest the Australian people. I would hope that
15:08
Speaker 6: Apartment would be practicing the restraint that the rest of
15:13
Speaker 6: Australia is having to deal with during this very difficult
15:16
Speaker 6: economic times. You'd like to know that our department is
15:20
Speaker 6: recognizing that Australians are hurting when they're making decisions like these.
15:23
Speaker 7: I'm not sure they are.
15:26
Speaker 2: Yeah too right Well, Garth Hamilton, thanks for your time
15:29
Speaker 2: tonight and wishing you and your family at very Merry.
15:31
Speaker 3: Christmas, have a great day tomorrow.
15:34
Speaker 7: Cheers mate.
15:35
Speaker 2: Yesterday that winning elections in twenty twenty five could be
15:38
Speaker 2: as simple as knowing the difference between men and women
15:41
Speaker 2: and being brave enough.
15:42
Speaker 3: To say so.
15:44
Speaker 2: But despite Donald Trump and his common sense approach to gender,
15:47
Speaker 2: it seems the rest of the West has a lot
15:49
Speaker 2: to learn. In New South Wales, there's now a push
15:52
Speaker 2: to make public toilets gender neutral to help ease his
15:56
Speaker 2: a new term for you toilet anxiety. In New South
16:00
Speaker 2: else Parliamentary Inquiry has heard from groups who want what
16:03
Speaker 2: they call harmful gender labeling to be removed from toilets
16:07
Speaker 2: and change rooms. They claim trans and gender diverse people
16:10
Speaker 2: can often feel forced to use toilets that are quote
16:13
Speaker 2: not aligned with their gender identity. Joining me is history
16:17
Speaker 2: lecturer and author Stephen Shivra and skyny is contributor Evelyn Ray.
16:23
Speaker 2: The whole world seems upside down now. Gendered toilets are
16:27
Speaker 2: dangerous and harmful, but unisex change rooms absolutely fine.
16:34
Speaker 8: Yeah.
16:34
Speaker 9: Look, I can tell you from personal experience, recent personal experience,
16:39
Speaker 9: that it is extremely uncomfortable, and I can assure you
16:42
Speaker 9: it wasn't the large bulge slipping out the side of
16:45
Speaker 9: the pants. That wasn't the only reason, you know, it
16:47
Speaker 9: has nothing to do.
16:48
Speaker 5: With bigotry, I'll tell you that much.
16:50
Speaker 9: It was incredibly uncomfortable for myself and the miners that
16:53
Speaker 9: were present.
16:54
Speaker 5: With me at the time. But you know, I don't
16:56
Speaker 5: think that.
16:56
Speaker 9: My uncomfortability is unwarranted, especially when you read reports like
17:01
Speaker 9: the Independent made on data that was obtained through three
17:05
Speaker 9: freedom of information in twenty seventeen twenty eighteen. You know,
17:09
Speaker 9: according to the Independence information that they reported, there was
17:14
Speaker 9: one hundred and thirty four complaints made of sexual harassment
17:19
Speaker 9: or assault in public spaces.
17:22
Speaker 5: Amenities, change rooms, etc.
17:25
Speaker 9: Out of one hundred and thirty four of those, one
17:26
Speaker 9: hundred and twenty of them occurred in gender neutral.
17:30
Speaker 5: Toilets or facilities.
17:31
Speaker 9: To simplify that for people who might not still understand
17:34
Speaker 9: the significance, that's just under ninety percent of all change room,
17:39
Speaker 9: public toilets, and amenity related sexual assaults, cases of harassments
17:44
Speaker 9: and incidents that occurred in gender neutral or unisex facilities.
17:49
Speaker 9: You know, going to the bathroom isn't as minor as
17:52
Speaker 9: just washing your hands in the basin. You literally go
17:56
Speaker 9: in there and you get in your most vulnerable state,
17:58
Speaker 9: you undress, and people want us just to think that
18:01
Speaker 9: we're bigots for suggesting that it's a little bit more serious.
18:05
Speaker 5: Than just washing our hands.
18:07
Speaker 9: You know, the sad part about all of this is
18:09
Speaker 9: that we have to discuss it. The scary part about
18:12
Speaker 9: it is that we now have to defend it to
18:14
Speaker 9: our politicians, who we've elected into power to protect us.
18:18
Speaker 5: Riddle me that one.
18:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry, I can't riddle you that one. I have
18:23
Speaker 2: no clue as to what is going on. But Stephen
18:26
Speaker 2: Evelyn mentioned you know, you're accused of bigotry if you
18:29
Speaker 2: oppose this thing, because we're trying to solve the problem
18:32
Speaker 2: of toilet anxiety, and you and I and Evelyn we're
18:36
Speaker 2: all good people. We don't want others to feel anxious.
18:39
Speaker 2: Talk to me about this use of language, this rhetorical
18:43
Speaker 2: flourish to try to convince people of things they otherwise
18:46
Speaker 2: would disagree with out of a fear of not being
18:49
Speaker 2: seen to be a kind person. Because that seems to
18:52
Speaker 2: me to be a very common ruse these days.
18:56
Speaker 3: Yeah.
18:57
Speaker 10: Well, the key word that they use, James, and this
18:59
Speaker 10: is the word that all Australians need to be listening
19:02
Speaker 10: for is the word harmful. They're accusing those who disagree
19:06
Speaker 10: with trans ideology, who disagree with unisex toilets, as being harmful.
19:11
Speaker 10: Here's the thing, though, these people are not being harmed
19:15
Speaker 10: by the truth of biology. They're not being harmed by
19:19
Speaker 10: people who don't want to live according to the lies
19:21
Speaker 10: of trans ideology. That's not what's harming these people. What's
19:25
Speaker 10: harming these people is trans ideology itself, which encourages people
19:31
Speaker 10: to pursue their delusions rather than to come to grips
19:35
Speaker 10: with who they really are.
19:37
Speaker 1: As determined by their biology.
19:39
Speaker 10: And this has shown quite recently with the closing down
19:42
Speaker 10: of the Tavistock Gender Clinic in England, which was found
19:46
Speaker 10: to be harming children, and also the CAST report that
19:49
Speaker 10: came out recently in England which showed that trans ideology
19:54
Speaker 10: was immensely.
19:54
Speaker 1: Harmful to children.
19:56
Speaker 10: So we've all got to look out for this word
19:58
Speaker 10: harmful because it's a word that is used to shut
20:01
Speaker 10: down debate, to demonize people, and to bully people into
20:05
Speaker 10: complete silence.
20:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, let me move on to a different topic.
20:12
Speaker 2: I don't know if either of you are looking at
20:14
Speaker 2: a change of career in twenty twenty five. But if
20:16
Speaker 2: you are, I might have found something for you. The
20:18
Speaker 2: Australian Navy is offering high school graduates up to one
20:21
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year to become nuclear
20:24
Speaker 2: submarine officers, No experience needed. One hundred and twenty grand
20:29
Speaker 2: straight out of school, Evelyn.
20:32
Speaker 3: How does this work?
20:33
Speaker 2: We create a generation of woke kids and then we
20:36
Speaker 2: put them in a ten cylinder, all cramped together, deep
20:39
Speaker 2: beneath the sea and expect there's not going to be
20:41
Speaker 2: any problems.
20:43
Speaker 9: It sounds like a script from a really bad, b
20:45
Speaker 9: rated Hollywood film, doesn't it.
20:47
Speaker 5: But to be honest, I don't actually see too much.
20:49
Speaker 9: Of a problem with this process if it's done correctly.
20:52
Speaker 9: You know, I'm actually a product of this process. Maybe
20:54
Speaker 9: that's why people have a lot of problems with my
20:56
Speaker 9: opinions on things on the left. But you know, I
20:59
Speaker 9: was eighteen, I joined the police, and I had a
21:01
Speaker 9: very successful, very long career. I was only twenty four
21:04
Speaker 9: and I was a detective senior constable. You know, having
21:08
Speaker 9: personal responsibility works wonders on a person you are forced
21:12
Speaker 9: to grow up, forced to live.
21:14
Speaker 5: In the real world.
21:15
Speaker 9: You know, I think the process of training, working, having
21:18
Speaker 9: a really strict routine will.
21:19
Speaker 5: Actually help these woke kids.
21:21
Speaker 9: You know, once they come out of school, stupidity can't
21:24
Speaker 9: sustain itself. And there's no better way than being hit
21:27
Speaker 9: across the head with a submarine, you know, mission to
21:30
Speaker 9: kind of whip that into.
21:31
Speaker 5: Gear for you.
21:32
Speaker 9: You know, I think that things like this, if done correctly,
21:36
Speaker 9: will be good. And why I say correctly, you know,
21:39
Speaker 9: I think that the recruitment process here will be the
21:42
Speaker 9: biggest tell tale, you know, woke Recruiting the woke could.
21:45
Speaker 5: Be really bad.
21:46
Speaker 9: But if it's recruited properly, and you know, it's all
21:49
Speaker 9: objective and done above board, and they're recruiting kids and
21:53
Speaker 9: given bit of personal responsibility, it could actually be really
21:56
Speaker 9: good for the situation with our kids.
21:57
Speaker 3: At the moment, Evelyn, you are hardcore.
22:01
Speaker 2: I need to get you to come over and whip
22:03
Speaker 2: my kids into shape. Steven one hundred and twenty thousand
22:06
Speaker 2: dollars is not bad money straight out of school.
22:09
Speaker 10: It's certainly a lot more than what I made straight
22:12
Speaker 10: out of school.
22:12
Speaker 1: And on this one I'm with Evelyn as well.
22:14
Speaker 10: I mean, I would actually like to see more career
22:17
Speaker 10: path jobs for top achieving HSC students. I think one
22:23
Speaker 10: of the real sad things about the modern world is
22:25
Speaker 10: that we've lost the possibility of going into career track
22:29
Speaker 10: jobs out of high school, and people have to go
22:31
Speaker 10: to university for three four years to learn things that
22:34
Speaker 10: they could have actually learned on the job.
22:36
Speaker 1: It sort of holds your life up.
22:37
Speaker 10: By three four years, which makes it slower to start
22:40
Speaker 10: a family. It also means you accrue university debt that
22:44
Speaker 10: you don't really need. So the actual fact, I'm in
22:47
Speaker 10: favor of this as long as the students you know,
22:50
Speaker 10: you know, have done really well in the HC. And
22:53
Speaker 10: I actually hope other industries follow suit because right now
22:56
Speaker 10: universities just have a stranglehold on careers and i'd like
22:59
Speaker 10: to say that broken by more of an emphasis on
23:03
Speaker 10: young people coming out of school going into good jobs
23:06
Speaker 10: where they can build a career on the job.
23:09
Speaker 1: So I'm kind of in favor of it. Very good.
23:13
Speaker 2: All right, before I let you go, it's Christmas, eve
23:16
Speaker 2: So just briefly, don't go on and on, but just briefly, Evelyn, Christmas.
23:21
Speaker 3: What's it all about to you?
23:24
Speaker 5: Well?
23:24
Speaker 9: I think the important thing to remember is it's not
23:27
Speaker 9: up to me to define. You know, lots of people
23:29
Speaker 9: can enjoy Christmas for lots of different things. But you know,
23:32
Speaker 9: John one fourteen explains it pretty well. And the word
23:35
Speaker 9: became flesh and dwelt among us, you know, the serpent
23:39
Speaker 9: crush of the God King, the Savior. It's about how
23:41
Speaker 9: Jesus was born once.
23:43
Speaker 5: So that we could be born again.
23:45
Speaker 9: And isn't that the most incredible gift that he has
23:47
Speaker 9: given us this Christmas?
23:51
Speaker 2: And Stephen, what does Christmas mean to you? And how
23:53
Speaker 2: do your family celebrate? What are you doing tomorrow?
23:56
Speaker 10: Well, Christmas is all about Jesus. I will be getting
23:58
Speaker 10: together with my family. I'm really looking forward to that
24:01
Speaker 10: because I love my family. But Christmas is ultimately all
24:03
Speaker 10: about Jesus, and it's summed up in Matthew chapter one
24:06
Speaker 10: where the Angel says to Joseph, you will have a son.
24:09
Speaker 10: You will name the son Jesus, and Jesus means savior.
24:13
Speaker 1: Of his people. Christmas is all about Jesus as our savior.
24:17
Speaker 10: And all of us know that we've done a lot
24:20
Speaker 10: of bad things in our lives. We carry a lot
24:22
Speaker 10: of guilt, but there is hope because Christ is our savior.
24:25
Speaker 10: We call on his name to save us, and there
24:28
Speaker 10: is redemption in Jesus God bless Christmas.
24:31
Speaker 1: It's the best news of the year.
24:35
Speaker 2: Well, Evelyn Ray and Stephen Schever, it's always the light
24:37
Speaker 2: to talk to.
24:38
Speaker 3: You've enjoyed your company this year.
24:39
Speaker 2: Have a wonderful day tomorrow and thanks for your time tonight.
24:43
Speaker 2: Well after the break, the brilliant theologian Oz Guinness will
24:46
Speaker 2: explain why Christmas is so important.
24:49
Speaker 3: Stick around, you'll enjoy it. That's coming up in just
24:51
Speaker 3: a moment.
24:55
Speaker 2: Well, I have to say I love this time of year,
24:58
Speaker 2: even with the hustle and bustle. I know, oh it's
25:00
Speaker 2: too commercial, and I know you can't find a car
25:03
Speaker 2: park at your local shopping center, let alone at the beach.
25:05
Speaker 3: And I know you have to line.
25:06
Speaker 2: Up for hours just to get your prawns unless your
25:10
Speaker 2: son is working part time at the local fish market
25:12
Speaker 2: as mine is strategy. But whatever your complaints about the
25:16
Speaker 2: way we celebrate Christmas, there's nothing else quite like it
25:18
Speaker 2: in the calendar. We often say it's a magical time
25:22
Speaker 2: of year, and maybe there's something to that. Bearing in
25:25
Speaker 2: mind what it's all about. Joining me to discuss is
25:28
Speaker 2: renowned author theologian and commentator Oz Guinness. Oz, thanks for
25:32
Speaker 2: joining me on Christmas Eve. Just explain to me what
25:36
Speaker 2: the Christmas story is all about and riddle me this.
25:40
Speaker 2: How is the birth of a baby in Bethlehem two
25:43
Speaker 2: thousand years ago relevant to James Macpherson sitting in Melbourne today?
25:49
Speaker 8: Well, thank you. What a privilege to be with you.
25:53
Speaker 8: For me, I've was born in China. I can think
25:57
Speaker 8: of very simple Christmas. Is there an equally simple one
26:02
Speaker 8: in Calcutta when I was visiting Mother Teresa's place. Then
26:07
Speaker 8: magical Christmas is in England in the old Christmas style
26:11
Speaker 8: or in Switzerland with wonderful moonlit, snow filled landscapes. So
26:18
Speaker 8: I can't imagine what an Australian Christmas is like on
26:22
Speaker 8: the beach or whatever. But for me, the heart of
26:25
Speaker 8: it is the wonder of God becoming man a human being.
26:33
Speaker 8: So I'm living in Washington now we're looking out in
26:36
Speaker 8: the world the decline of the West, a circle of
26:41
Speaker 8: authoritarian powers, say the fall of Assyria, with three hundred
26:46
Speaker 8: thousand people murdered the Ukraine War was six hundred thousand
26:51
Speaker 8: Russians alone gone. Now it was one of the great
26:55
Speaker 8: questions of our time. What is the value of a
26:58
Speaker 8: human being, human worth, human dignity that can offset the
27:03
Speaker 8: terrible costs and dehumanization in our world. And a Christians
27:10
Speaker 8: a very simple answer, but a profound answer. One we
27:15
Speaker 8: are created in the image of God. But two far
27:19
Speaker 8: beyond that, God came down as one of us. And
27:26
Speaker 8: I love that on Christmas Eve God become a human baby.
27:32
Speaker 8: You know, Instant Churchill is to say, all humans enter
27:37
Speaker 8: the life looking like me, as yet round face and
27:42
Speaker 8: so on. But far more wonderful than that God so
27:46
Speaker 8: cares for us that he became one of us. And
27:50
Speaker 8: from then onwards we know absolutely that while we can
27:53
Speaker 8: give up a humanity on God, the Lord will never
27:58
Speaker 8: give up on us. So that, for me is the
28:01
Speaker 8: heart of it. And I love a particular line from
28:04
Speaker 8: a John Dunn, this seventeenth century English poet, in one
28:08
Speaker 8: of his sonnets. He says twas much that man was
28:13
Speaker 8: made like God before, but that God should be made
28:19
Speaker 8: like man much more, And that's the wonder of Christmas.
28:25
Speaker 8: God cares enough for us to become one of us,
28:29
Speaker 8: to reach us.
28:33
Speaker 1: Well.
28:33
Speaker 2: Typically, our newspapers will wax lyrical about the Christmas story
28:37
Speaker 2: and they'll say it's a metaphor for hope, it's an
28:40
Speaker 2: inspiring story that promotes peace, and it is all of that.
28:44
Speaker 3: But here's what I really want to know. Is it true?
28:50
Speaker 8: Of course, that's the question. So we have human questions.
28:56
Speaker 8: We all long for meaning, belonging purpose. But when you're
29:01
Speaker 8: looking at all the great philosophy's, religion's world views, the
29:05
Speaker 8: question is not just are they illuminating and adequate, And
29:09
Speaker 8: for the reasons I've just said, the Christmas story is
29:12
Speaker 8: all that to the richest degree, But the next question
29:15
Speaker 8: is the crucial one, is it true? And for that
29:19
Speaker 8: there's two ways of checking it out. You either look
29:21
Speaker 8: at the big picture to see that all of the
29:24
Speaker 8: claims made how they fit, or you look at a
29:29
Speaker 8: close up way. That is the way CS. Lewis came
29:33
Speaker 8: looking at the Gospels to see if the claims that
29:36
Speaker 8: Jesus made what was the eliar? Was he a lunatic?
29:42
Speaker 8: Was the a legend concocted by his disciples? Or was
29:46
Speaker 8: he who he said he was? So it was true,
29:50
Speaker 8: and it's that question of truth which brings people to
29:53
Speaker 8: their knees.
29:57
Speaker 2: If if Christmas is true and it's about God entering
30:00
Speaker 2: human history, would that partly explain what we've seen in
30:04
Speaker 2: the West recently, the War on Christmas, why some people
30:07
Speaker 2: would want to dismiss Christmas because they don't.
30:11
Speaker 3: Like the idea of a higher power.
30:13
Speaker 2: I think it was the American philosopher Thomas Nagel who
30:16
Speaker 2: famously said, it isn't just that I don't believe in God.
30:19
Speaker 2: I hope there is no God. I don't want the universe.
30:22
Speaker 3: To be like that.
30:25
Speaker 8: No, you're exactly right. And the most horrific example of
30:28
Speaker 8: all is the treatment of God's people, the Jews. And
30:32
Speaker 8: in an extraordinary book, George Steiner argues that anti Semitism
30:37
Speaker 8: and the world hatred of the Jews is that attempt
30:41
Speaker 8: to stamp out the conscience of God in human beings,
30:46
Speaker 8: which the Jews represent. But of course Christians do too,
30:50
Speaker 8: But a Jew can never get over his ethnicity and
30:55
Speaker 8: so on, whereas Christians can just abandon it. But you're right,
30:58
Speaker 8: I think underneath that is real dislike and an animosity
31:02
Speaker 8: I mean sods and is used to say that the
31:05
Speaker 8: key feature of Marxism is its hostility to God, far
31:11
Speaker 8: deeper than economics and politics and other things. That hostility
31:16
Speaker 8: to conscience and to God.
31:21
Speaker 2: West certainly seeing that around the Western world. You mentioned,
31:24
Speaker 2: of course the irony of Christmas that we need to
31:27
Speaker 2: remark upon, particularly in this climate of rampant, ugly anti Semitism,
31:32
Speaker 2: and that's that tomorrow the whole world will pause to
31:35
Speaker 2: celebrate the birth of a Jew.
31:39
Speaker 8: No, exactly. Once again, what you see you look at
31:41
Speaker 8: the protests, what you're seeing is the convergence of radical Marxism,
31:46
Speaker 8: which is built up for more than fifty years, with
31:49
Speaker 8: radical Islamism, which has come in through immigration. And so
31:54
Speaker 8: they're not only against the Jews and against Israel, they're
31:58
Speaker 8: against America, Europe and the West as a whole. You
32:02
Speaker 8: might even say humanity and civilization. Because the deepest truths
32:08
Speaker 8: we need for a human friendly future, I view of
32:12
Speaker 8: human dignity, strong view of truth, powerful view words and
32:17
Speaker 8: freedom and justice and peace and covenant and things like this,
32:22
Speaker 8: they're all in the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament, and
32:27
Speaker 8: so these things are so valuable. And the attacks on
32:30
Speaker 8: the Jews are attacked on the West and on all
32:34
Speaker 8: of us, certainly on Australia.
32:39
Speaker 2: Well, before I let you go, Os, I have to
32:41
Speaker 2: ask you, how will you be celebrating Christmas tomorrow?
32:44
Speaker 3: What does the day look like for you?
32:47
Speaker 8: Well, wait, my wife and I will be with our
32:49
Speaker 8: son up in Montalk, which is a little fishing village
32:53
Speaker 8: at the eastern end of Long Island with three sides
32:57
Speaker 8: of water, water on three sides running through the streets.
33:01
Speaker 8: So it'll be absolutely magical. And it's a wonderful time
33:05
Speaker 8: to celebrate the birth of Jesus and to celebrate our
33:08
Speaker 8: own families. So I would say a Merry Christmas to
33:12
Speaker 8: all your viewers in Australia.
33:17
Speaker 3: Well, Oskinness, I've long been a big fan.
33:19
Speaker 2: I've read many of your books and it was an
33:20
Speaker 2: absolute pleasure to talk with you this Christmas Eve. Have
33:23
Speaker 2: a wonderful day tomorrow and from all of us to
33:26
Speaker 2: Merry Christmas.
33:28
Speaker 3: Thank you the break.
33:29
Speaker 2: The Prime Minister visits Darwin as the city prepares to
33:32
Speaker 2: mark fifty years since Cyclone Tracy and in the UK,
33:36
Speaker 2: an anti Kiss starmer.
33:37
Speaker 3: Christmas song tops the charts.
33:39
Speaker 2: But why is the BBC still refusing to play it
33:42
Speaker 2: despite a warning their decision is hurting pensioners in need
33:46
Speaker 2: more about that after this, well, welcome back. While most
33:53
Speaker 2: of us will spend tomorrow tucking into Christmas lunch and
33:56
Speaker 2: opening presents for thousands of people in Darwin fifty years
33:59
Speaker 2: ago was the last thing on their minds. Christmas Day
34:03
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy four, Cyclone Tracy made her presence felt. Sixty
34:08
Speaker 2: six people killed and more than seven billion dollars worth
34:12
Speaker 2: of damage in today's money, more than seventy percent of
34:15
Speaker 2: buildings and eighty percent of houses completely destroyed. Sky News
34:20
Speaker 2: Northern Australia correspondent Matt Cunningham has just released an incredible
34:24
Speaker 2: documentary looking at the cyclone fifty years on now. We
34:28
Speaker 2: played it here last night and will air it again
34:30
Speaker 2: tomorrow to mark the official fiftieth anniversary. I'm pleased to
34:34
Speaker 2: say Matt Cunningham joins me now Matt Tomorrow, fifty years
34:37
Speaker 2: since the cyclone struck. The Prime Minister was in Darwin
34:40
Speaker 2: today to mark the anniversary.
34:42
Speaker 3: Here's some of what he had to say.
34:44
Speaker 11: The devastation that was felt during the Christmas time of
34:48
Speaker 11: nineteen seventy four still resonates today for the survivors of
34:53
Speaker 11: Cyclone Tracy. This will be a difficult period where people
34:58
Speaker 11: will remember lost loved ones and remember as well the
35:01
Speaker 11: traumatic experience that they had. And I'm very proud to
35:05
Speaker 11: be visiting here as Prime Minister.
35:08
Speaker 2: Matte I want to find out what's being done to
35:10
Speaker 2: mark the anniversary, but I'm also really keen to hear
35:13
Speaker 2: just how affected are people by this cyclone fifty years
35:16
Speaker 2: after the event.
35:20
Speaker 12: Well, I think many of them, James, are still deeply affected.
35:24
Speaker 12: I mean the people I spoke to as part of
35:27
Speaker 12: this documentary. You know, I was clear that fifty years on,
35:31
Speaker 12: they're still very much affected by it. Some of them
35:33
Speaker 12: said that really this was the first time they'd been
35:35
Speaker 12: able to speak about what happened on Christmas morning nineteen
35:39
Speaker 12: seventy four. Others broke down in tears. You know, this
35:43
Speaker 12: was a truly traumatic event. One of the interesting things
35:48
Speaker 12: that was a common story among many of the Cyclone
35:51
Speaker 12: Tracy survivors, James, was the fact that at the museum
35:55
Speaker 12: here in the Northern Territory where the Prime Minister visited today,
35:57
Speaker 12: there's a sound booth that playser record of Cyclone Tracy,
36:02
Speaker 12: in actual recording of the wind that was taken by
36:05
Speaker 12: Bishop Ted Collins in the early hours of Christmas morning
36:11
Speaker 12: nineteen seventy four, when Cyclone Tracy was devastating Darwin, and
36:15
Speaker 12: almost without exception, the survivors have said that they've never
36:19
Speaker 12: been able to step into that sound booth. It's just
36:21
Speaker 12: too traumatic to have to hear again the noise of
36:25
Speaker 12: cyclone Tracy, the noise that they say they'll never forget.
36:30
Speaker 3: Wow.
36:31
Speaker 2: Your documentary aired last night and as I said, will
36:33
Speaker 2: air at again tomorrow on the actual anniversary. And in
36:36
Speaker 2: the documentary you speak to a number of survivors, including
36:39
Speaker 2: Anthony Bullock. Here he is recounting the moment to cyclone hit.
36:43
Speaker 13: Have a listen, something just picked us up off the
36:46
Speaker 13: floor or the stairs, and before we know it, we're
36:49
Speaker 13: on the lawn five ten meters away from the verandah.
36:52
Speaker 13: I could see my father's eyes, I could see my
36:54
Speaker 13: mother's eyes. I could see we're in really really bad place.
36:59
Speaker 13: Now to start to pray, and I'm sure I don't
37:03
Speaker 13: know what to do. This is the first time of
37:05
Speaker 13: my life I actually thought of what death could look like.
37:10
Speaker 7: This is what it's going to be like.
37:14
Speaker 3: It's just harrowing accounts.
37:16
Speaker 2: I lived for ten years matt in Townsville and went
37:19
Speaker 2: through a number of cyclones. But you know, these days,
37:22
Speaker 2: we received warnings days in advance. We literally track the
37:25
Speaker 2: path of cyclones on our smartphones. So we're not caught
37:29
Speaker 2: by surprise. And then when a cyclone hits, we've got
37:31
Speaker 2: the sees, the army, they're all on hand to help.
37:34
Speaker 2: But that wasn't the case fifty years ago.
37:39
Speaker 12: No, I think, you know, the tracking has obviously improved
37:42
Speaker 12: a great deal. If you go back to nineteen seventy
37:44
Speaker 12: four James, three weeks before Cyclone Tracy hit Darwen, there
37:47
Speaker 12: was another severe tropical cyclone, tropical Selma, that actually passed
37:51
Speaker 12: by Darwin and caused really no damage whatsoever. So you know,
37:55
Speaker 12: a lot of people talk about a sense of complacency
37:58
Speaker 12: that was perhaps around at the time. Cyclone Tracy took
38:02
Speaker 12: an unusual route. It was sort of tracking west, and
38:05
Speaker 12: many believed it was going to continue to track west
38:08
Speaker 12: and out into the Indian Ocean and really caused no
38:11
Speaker 12: damage whatsoever. But instead it sort of curled around the
38:14
Speaker 12: Tiwi Islands and then headed straight forward and made a
38:18
Speaker 12: direct hit on Darwin. And so then in the early
38:21
Speaker 12: hours of Christmas morning, you can imagine, you know, a
38:24
Speaker 12: lot of people would have been out celebrating the night before.
38:27
Speaker 12: You know, Darwin is the sort of place where people
38:29
Speaker 12: like a drink at the best of times, on Christmas
38:31
Speaker 12: Eve in particular, you know a lot of people would
38:33
Speaker 12: have been partying, celebrating with friends, just having a good time.
38:37
Speaker 12: They knew the cyclone was coming, but I don't think
38:39
Speaker 12: it was until really late on Christmas Eve, probably not
38:42
Speaker 12: until about ten pm on Christmas Eve that people thought,
38:45
Speaker 12: oh my god, hold on, something really serious is happening here.
38:48
Speaker 12: And within a few hours, you know, their houses were
38:51
Speaker 12: being blown away. People were huddling downstairs so many elevated
38:55
Speaker 12: houses in Darwin, particularly back in nineteen seventy four, and
38:59
Speaker 12: a common store, including from people like Anthony Bullock of
39:02
Speaker 12: how you know they had to hurry downstairs and huddle
39:05
Speaker 12: in a toilet basically downstairs, while you know, the upstairs
39:09
Speaker 12: of their house was just blown away. And just to
39:12
Speaker 12: think of how many houses were destroyed, as you said
39:15
Speaker 12: in your introduction, about eighty percent of the houses in
39:18
Speaker 12: Darwin completely destroyed in Cyclone Tracy. Twenty five thousand people
39:22
Speaker 12: left homeless of a population of just forty seven thousand people.
39:26
Speaker 12: The destruction, I think is just unimaginable to this day.
39:31
Speaker 3: It's just extraordinary.
39:33
Speaker 2: As part of the documentary, you go through quite a
39:35
Speaker 2: bit of never before seen footage that must have been
39:38
Speaker 2: incredible to find.
39:42
Speaker 3: Look it really was.
39:43
Speaker 12: And to see that footage was taken. It was taken
39:46
Speaker 12: by a man named Ian McLeod. Now his daughter Aileen Scott,
39:51
Speaker 12: who we spoke to as part of this documentary. She
39:53
Speaker 12: was living in Darwin at the time with her family
39:57
Speaker 12: and her father who was sort of a keen cinematalographer.
40:00
Speaker 12: He came to visit and he'd come up for Christmas,
40:02
Speaker 12: so he shot all this vision that I find interesting
40:04
Speaker 12: as well, vision of Darwin before cyclone, tracing in December
40:08
Speaker 12: nineteen seventy four, and then he's on hand to capture
40:11
Speaker 12: the devastation from Christmas morning and in the days that followed,
40:15
Speaker 12: and it's just incredible to see that footage of just
40:18
Speaker 12: houses completely destroyed, people walking around through the ruins, and
40:22
Speaker 12: then also of the evacuation that followed, which in itself
40:27
Speaker 12: was an incredible feat. It was the largest peace time
40:30
Speaker 12: civilian evacuation in Australian history. All but about ten or
40:34
Speaker 12: eleven thousand of the city's residents were flown out, and
40:38
Speaker 12: of course those that were left here were left to
40:40
Speaker 12: take on the huge task of rebuilding Darwin.
40:45
Speaker 8: Yeah.
40:45
Speaker 2: Well, I mean we can see on screen, it would
40:47
Speaker 2: have been a massive task. That damage was just unbelievable.
40:51
Speaker 2: As I mentioned, more than seventy percent of buildings and
40:53
Speaker 2: eighty percent of houses destroyed, seven billion dollars worth of damage.
40:58
Speaker 2: And yet Tracy, I understand it was only a relatively
41:01
Speaker 2: small cyclone. In fact, the second smallest tropical cyclone on record,
41:06
Speaker 2: is that right, That's.
41:10
Speaker 12: Right, the second and at the time it was actually
41:12
Speaker 12: the smallest tropical cyclone on record. It's wind gus really
41:17
Speaker 12: only reached about forty five to fifty kilometers from its core,
41:22
Speaker 12: So you think about it in those terms. I mean,
41:26
Speaker 12: you know, Darwin must have been the unluckiest city in
41:28
Speaker 12: the world because this is at the time the smallest
41:31
Speaker 12: cyclone on record. It's basically made a U turn at
41:34
Speaker 12: the last minute and then it has made an absolute
41:37
Speaker 12: direct hit. You know, if it had to have been
41:39
Speaker 12: fifty kilometers either side, you know, they probably would have
41:42
Speaker 12: been not much damage done to Darwin at all. But
41:44
Speaker 12: the fact it has made a direct hit right on Darwin,
41:47
Speaker 12: you know, with the full impact of that cyclone, small
41:51
Speaker 12: as it was, it was destructive, hugely destructive. There's another
41:56
Speaker 12: interesting story. James, the official strongest recorded wing gus in
42:00
Speaker 12: Cyclone Tracy were two hundred and seventeen kilometers per hour,
42:04
Speaker 12: which sounds pretty high, but maybe not that much. But
42:06
Speaker 12: you've got to remember that it was at that point
42:08
Speaker 12: that the official recording instrument at dah On Airport gave way.
42:11
Speaker 12: So you know, we don't actually know how strong these
42:14
Speaker 12: wind gusts were. You know, it could have been anything
42:16
Speaker 12: up to probably three hundred kilometers per hour, but you know,
42:20
Speaker 12: the recording instruments had given way, and so we'll never
42:23
Speaker 12: know for sure, but we certainly know about the damage
42:26
Speaker 12: that it caused, and you know, really it flattened Darwin.
42:29
Speaker 12: And as you were saying, a remarkable.
42:31
Speaker 3: Story that followed was the.
42:32
Speaker 12: One of rebuilding this city, which is today as places
42:36
Speaker 12: home to more than one hundred and fifty thousand people,
42:38
Speaker 12: are thriving, vibrant tropical city.
42:43
Speaker 2: Well, congratulations on the documentary. It's amazing viewing. Matt Cunningham,
42:47
Speaker 2: Thanks for your time tonight. Thanks James, and Matt's documentary
42:55
Speaker 2: Cyclone Tracy fifty years on will air tomorrow throughout the
42:58
Speaker 2: day here on Sky News. Well to the UK now
43:01
Speaker 2: and I said earlier, winning elections in twenty twenty five
43:04
Speaker 2: could be as simple as knowing the difference between men
43:06
Speaker 2: and women. Well, it seems to people of Northern Ireland
43:09
Speaker 2: might need some help with that one. Over the weekend,
43:12
Speaker 2: a man identifying as a woman and held in custody
43:16
Speaker 2: on suspicion of threatening to kill a neighbor has won
43:19
Speaker 2: a battle to be transferred to a female prison. Joining
43:23
Speaker 2: me from London is writer and commentator Esther Crak who
43:26
Speaker 2: esther the man identifying as a woman became enraged when
43:30
Speaker 2: a neighbor used his male birth name instead of the
43:33
Speaker 2: name Michelle, which he now goes by.
43:36
Speaker 3: Michelle.
43:36
Speaker 2: That's the man identifying as the woman then threatened the
43:39
Speaker 2: neighbor with a knife and was put in a male prison,
43:41
Speaker 2: but has now being transferred to a female prison. Have
43:44
Speaker 2: I got the story right and isn't this the kind
43:47
Speaker 2: of thing that wakes people up to the madness of
43:50
Speaker 2: gender fluidity?
43:52
Speaker 4: Well, you've got the story just about right, and the
43:55
Speaker 4: madness of it is this individual Michelle, who was outraged
44:00
Speaker 4: that his or her neighbor apparently used their dead name,
44:04
Speaker 4: which is apparently what you call someone when you call
44:08
Speaker 4: the transgender person by their formerly known name, and so
44:11
Speaker 4: in a ladylike fashion, this now female threatened to stab
44:15
Speaker 4: this person. And the reason why Michelle won his or
44:19
Speaker 4: her case in court is because Northern Ireland doesn't actually
44:23
Speaker 4: have any provisions for transgender prisoners, so unlike the Scotland case.
44:27
Speaker 4: I know, if you remember Kyler Bryson who was transferred
44:30
Speaker 4: who was a biological male and in the for raping women,
44:35
Speaker 4: who was then transferred to a female prison, which basically
44:37
Speaker 4: served as a catalyst for the defenestration of then.
44:41
Speaker 5: First Minister Nicolas Sturgeon.
44:45
Speaker 4: There was actually the law around that was quite muddy
44:48
Speaker 4: which allowed Ala Bryson to go into a female prison.
44:50
Speaker 4: Northern Ireland doesn't have the law at all. There's there's
44:53
Speaker 4: no provisions for transgender prisoners and so in this instance
44:56
Speaker 4: the transgender prisoner was allowed to be moved to a
44:58
Speaker 4: female prison and then granted bail.
45:01
Speaker 7: But I suspect this is something that.
45:02
Speaker 4: Would be rather rectified quite quickly in Northern Ireland because,
45:04
Speaker 4: unlike Scotland, the power structures in Northern Ireland are completely different.
45:09
Speaker 4: It has a better power sharing political system, unlike Scotland,
45:13
Speaker 4: which allows sort of basically like a rule.
45:16
Speaker 7: Of one party.
45:17
Speaker 4: And this is why you see some of the craziest
45:18
Speaker 4: policies in the UK coming out of Scotland because there's
45:21
Speaker 4: not really a good sort of balance of power there
45:23
Speaker 4: and so there's not really anyone to check what has
45:25
Speaker 4: been the dominance of SMP and SMP madness with regards
45:28
Speaker 4: to this. But it just shows how ludicrous we've become
45:31
Speaker 4: as a country that a male biological male can be
45:35
Speaker 4: transferred to a female prison, even though over forty five
45:38
Speaker 4: percent of transgender identifying prisoners are in prison for sexual assault.
45:45
Speaker 2: And I don't understand how every time it happens there's
45:48
Speaker 2: a huge uproar and then they do it all over again.
45:51
Speaker 3: It just biggers belief.
45:52
Speaker 2: I want to ask you about the situation in Britain
45:54
Speaker 2: at the moment with regards terrorism. We had that awful
45:57
Speaker 2: attack in Germany over the weekend. I think it's now
46:00
Speaker 2: live people confirmed dead, more than two hundred injured after
46:03
Speaker 2: a man plowed through Christmas markets in a car. But
46:07
Speaker 2: I understand the Metropolitan Police in the UK now giving
46:10
Speaker 2: a new terrorism warning for BRIT's ahead of Christmas.
46:14
Speaker 3: Tell me what's happening there.
46:16
Speaker 4: Yeah, So the Metropolitan Police have pleaded to the public
46:19
Speaker 4: to be the eyes and ears of the police and
46:21
Speaker 4: to report any suspected terrorism offenses, because that's really what
46:24
Speaker 4: people want to be concerned about during Christmas when they're
46:27
Speaker 4: taking out their families and having a good time, whether
46:29
Speaker 4: someone fancies a little bit of terrorism on the side,
46:32
Speaker 4: and whether they're going to threaten their lives. And I
46:35
Speaker 4: think people have got to the breaking point because the
46:36
Speaker 4: fact that we're not allowed to ask how we got here,
46:39
Speaker 4: the fact that people just think, oh, this is just normal,
46:42
Speaker 4: we shouldn't blame anyone, this is just you know, a
46:44
Speaker 4: symptom of the times. There's no underlying reason why there
46:46
Speaker 4: are people embedded in our societies in the West that
46:50
Speaker 4: fundamentally hate our societies, hate the values that we stand for,
46:53
Speaker 4: and feel the need to stab children at a Taylor
46:55
Speaker 4: Swift dance class, for example, or drive cars into Christmas markets.
47:00
Speaker 4: The fact that you have in London now basically many
47:03
Speaker 4: roads and bridges have bullets on the side of them
47:05
Speaker 4: in case someone fancies a little bit of murder in
47:08
Speaker 4: the name of some sort of terrorist cause.
47:10
Speaker 7: And so this is where we are.
47:12
Speaker 4: We're in this dystopian nightmare where people are expected to
47:15
Speaker 4: be quiet and not say anything in case it offends
47:17
Speaker 4: the people that want to carry out terrorists and defences
47:19
Speaker 4: in our homes, and unfortunately this is going to bring
47:22
Speaker 4: down many Western governments.
47:23
Speaker 5: I mean, Germany is basically ungovernable.
47:25
Speaker 4: This magic Burg attack is going to dominate the election
47:28
Speaker 4: I suspect when it comes around in just February. France
47:31
Speaker 4: is basically ungovernable for many of the same reasons. And
47:34
Speaker 4: this is why you've seen the resurgence of Marine Lupez Party.
47:37
Speaker 4: In the Netherlands as well, there's a similar trend. And
47:40
Speaker 4: in the UK, you know, reform as well has gained
47:42
Speaker 4: Many gained a lot in the polls, mainly because at
47:45
Speaker 4: least people have a haven where they can speak out
47:47
Speaker 4: and say this is not normal. We should not have
47:49
Speaker 4: to tolerate this in our homes.
47:54
Speaker 2: Just omni attach in Germany, it was pretty confusing as
47:57
Speaker 2: to the motivation of the guy who drove his car
48:00
Speaker 2: through the crowd. Is there any update on that, because
48:03
Speaker 2: it's been very hard to understand why he did that.
48:05
Speaker 3: There's all sorts of rumors flying around.
48:08
Speaker 4: Yeah, so the individual that carried out the attack. The
48:12
Speaker 4: reason why there was confusion is because whenever there's a
48:14
Speaker 4: terrorist attack, one of the things that the authorities and
48:16
Speaker 4: people in general come through as the social media of
48:18
Speaker 4: the person, because we've got to the point where we're
48:21
Speaker 4: used to these lone wolf attackers being quite open and
48:25
Speaker 4: out and about and usually on the radar of the authorities.
48:28
Speaker 4: I think that the reason why there was confusion is
48:29
Speaker 4: because this individual kind of masked himself as an anti
48:33
Speaker 4: Islam pro Germany reformer, which is basically what many people
48:38
Speaker 4: are arguing is how he got asylum in Germany beforehand,
48:41
Speaker 4: before he kind of flipped and had a complete one
48:42
Speaker 4: eighty and decided to be a terrorist.
48:44
Speaker 2: Sorry, sorry, Esther, I'm going to have to cut in
48:46
Speaker 2: on you. Esther, I'm so sorry. We've run out of time.
48:49
Speaker 2: We're watching what's happening in Germany. It's just a real
48:51
Speaker 2: tragedy for everybody. Always enjoy you on the show. They
48:54
Speaker 2: have a wonderful Christmas. Sorry to cut you off there.
48:57
Speaker 2: We just ran out of time. That's all the time
48:59
Speaker 2: I've got for tonight. Have a wonderful Christmas Tomorrow Up
49:02
Speaker 2: now is the Late Debate