Transcript

Sharri | 18 February · Sharri

0:01
Speaker 1: Live on Sky News.
0:04
Speaker 2: This is Shari, Hello and welcome to the program.
0:08
Speaker 3: I'm Daniki di Giorgio, filling in tonight for Shari Marks
0:10
Speaker 3: and coming up on the show. The Abanese government says
0:13
Speaker 3: it's giving no assistance to Australians stuck in an ISIS
0:16
Speaker 3: linked Syrian camp, So how can they explain their Australian passports?
0:21
Speaker 2: Liberal Senator Dave Sharma will join me.
0:23
Speaker 3: Wages go backwards, health premiums go up, and more plans
0:26
Speaker 3: to slug consumers with higher electricity bills. Labour's cost of
0:30
Speaker 3: living crisis continues. Adam Crichton is coming up, and Iran
0:35
Speaker 3: threatens US warships as Trump's team gives Tehran a two
0:38
Speaker 3: week ultimatum, with strikes suddenly on the table. Peter Jennings
0:43
Speaker 3: will break it down for US, but first tonight. Even
0:46
Speaker 3: after the Bondai massacre, the decay in social cohesion, the
0:50
Speaker 3: breakdown in national security.
0:52
Speaker 2: Labor still doesn't get it.
0:55
Speaker 3: It's all at sea when it comes to the so
0:57
Speaker 3: called ISIS brides. Tony Burke was missing action today, no media,
1:01
Speaker 3: no accountability. All the while eleven families, thirty four people
1:06
Speaker 3: in total, are hoping to head here via Damascus in
1:09
Speaker 3: the coming days to live a fulfilled life a world
1:12
Speaker 3: away from the death colt which they wilfully married into.
1:16
Speaker 2: Anthony Abernezi was trying to talk tough.
1:20
Speaker 4: We are doing nothing to repatriate or to assist these people.
1:27
Speaker 3: Technically be repatriating this latest cohort back to Australia.
1:31
Speaker 2: It's not paying for their flights per se.
1:34
Speaker 3: But Anthony Alberinezi wants you to think that he's at
1:36
Speaker 3: arm's length from this. And we have seen this ducking
1:40
Speaker 3: and weaving play out before, and I'll show you that
1:42
Speaker 3: in a moment.
1:43
Speaker 2: Now.
1:43
Speaker 3: My colleague Sharring marks and is reporting that the latest
1:46
Speaker 3: ISIS brides trying to return here have not been interviewed
1:50
Speaker 3: by Australian authorities in more than three years, and three
1:53
Speaker 3: of the group are considered high risk.
1:56
Speaker 2: The last time interviews were.
1:57
Speaker 3: Conducted with this cohort of thirty four individuals was back
2:01
Speaker 3: in two than and twenty two and based on assessments,
2:06
Speaker 3: police and security agencies are highly concerned about three of those. Now,
2:10
Speaker 3: in the last few hours, Labor has slapped a temporary
2:13
Speaker 3: ban on one of the Isis brides, preventing her from
2:17
Speaker 3: returning home.
2:18
Speaker 2: From Syria. But what about the rest of them?
2:21
Speaker 3: And when asked today, what are you going to do
2:24
Speaker 3: to stop these people getting here? This is what the
2:26
Speaker 3: Prime Minister said.
2:28
Speaker 5: So Government considering complementing it temporary exclusive order on the
2:31
Speaker 5: women and children waiting are wanting to return to Syria.
2:35
Speaker 4: We take national security advice and we will do what
2:38
Speaker 4: we can to keep Australian safe within the law.
2:42
Speaker 6: The thirty four.
2:43
Speaker 7: Inn that she have received passport sol Ther Government is helping.
2:46
Speaker 8: In that respect.
2:48
Speaker 4: No people are having an implementation of Australian law, is
2:54
Speaker 4: what is happening. We're providing no assistance to these people
2:58
Speaker 4: and won't provide any assistance to these people, but we
3:02
Speaker 4: won't breach Australian law.
3:04
Speaker 2: Okay.
3:04
Speaker 3: So the Prime Minister has acknowledged that isis brides have
3:07
Speaker 3: been issued passports.
3:08
Speaker 2: I mean they weren't issued out of thin air.
3:10
Speaker 3: Australia has given them passports. The Prime Minister does have
3:14
Speaker 3: the powers here, he says, we can't break the law.
3:16
Speaker 3: The Prime Minister has powers and sure some may indeed
3:19
Speaker 3: be Australian citizens. So why has nothing been done? Why
3:23
Speaker 3: has Labor not learnt from its past mistakes? Do everything
3:27
Speaker 3: in its power to make sure that they can never return.
3:30
Speaker 3: And we've seen this train wreck play out, don't forget.
3:33
Speaker 3: Tony Burke provided assistance to Save the Children charity, which
3:37
Speaker 3: successfully returned last year's.
3:39
Speaker 2: ISIS bride's cohort to Australia.
3:41
Speaker 3: In September last year, The Australian published this report that
3:45
Speaker 3: the isis brides were to be returned home. A spokesperson
3:49
Speaker 3: for Tony Burke at the time denied it, saying the
3:51
Speaker 3: federal government was not directly involved in the mission to
3:54
Speaker 3: bring the cohort home, and the Prime Minister said that
3:57
Speaker 3: there was nothing to see here.
4:00
Speaker 9: Actions has your government taken to guarantee the safety of
4:04
Speaker 9: Australians if these people return?
4:06
Speaker 4: Those reports are not accurate.
4:09
Speaker 3: Now just remember those denials and yet surprise, isis Brides
4:14
Speaker 3: still managed to smuggle themselves out of Syria and returned
4:18
Speaker 3: to Australia soon after. And the performance in Senate estimates
4:22
Speaker 3: was just as woeful.
4:25
Speaker 2: Senator Wong, is the Prime Minister aware of how many
4:28
Speaker 2: isis brides are now in Australia.
4:32
Speaker 10: I will take that on notice.
4:35
Speaker 3: Look, I find it very hard to believe that the
4:37
Speaker 3: Foreign Minister and the Prime Minister would have been unaware
4:40
Speaker 3: of a security risk coming into this country, let alone
4:43
Speaker 3: not knowing how many brides were here. And Pennywong continued
4:48
Speaker 3: to tie herself in knots.
4:50
Speaker 5: The Government has said that they have not provided assistance
4:54
Speaker 5: to returning Isis brides. How does the government define assistance.
5:06
Speaker 11: A repatriation assistance?
5:11
Speaker 5: Does the Prime Minister consider providing citizenship by descent to
5:16
Speaker 5: be assistance.
5:17
Speaker 12: That the government?
5:29
Speaker 13: The Government has been clear that we are not providing assistance.
5:34
Speaker 12: To repatriate.
5:37
Speaker 13: And there is no plan to repatriate these individuals.
5:41
Speaker 5: So it is not assisting someone to return to Australia
5:44
Speaker 5: to provide them with the documents they need to enter Australia.
5:50
Speaker 3: It's all let's say back then and now again today.
6:05
Speaker 4: You make your bed, you line it look.
6:07
Speaker 3: Anthony Aberneze is desperately trying to distance himself from this,
6:11
Speaker 3: handballing over to the Immigration Department so he can avoid accountability.
6:15
Speaker 3: And don't forget that a key Tony Burke backer, Friends
6:18
Speaker 3: of Burke leader and leading Muslim doctor Jamal Reefi is
6:21
Speaker 3: reportedly coordinating the latest repatriation. That's according to The Knightly.
6:25
Speaker 3: Jamal Reefi was in that meeting with Save the Children
6:29
Speaker 3: and Tony Burke last year, and in that same meeting,
6:33
Speaker 3: Burke asked a senior public servant from Home Affairs to
6:36
Speaker 3: leave the room so that he could speak freely. A
6:39
Speaker 3: hand written note from the Home Affairs Secretary Stephanie Foster
6:42
Speaker 3: recorded Burke saying that assistants would be provided to the
6:46
Speaker 3: Isis brides after they returned to Australia.
6:50
Speaker 2: So both Burke and.
6:51
Speaker 3: The PM claim they knew nothing about the return of
6:54
Speaker 3: the Isis brides and played no role. And now here
6:57
Speaker 3: we go again. We have to wait and see if
7:00
Speaker 3: those thirty four people make it out of Syria and
7:03
Speaker 3: onto a plane. Here the opposition's Home Affairs spokesman isn't
7:06
Speaker 3: buying Labour's latest spin.
7:10
Speaker 14: I'm concerned that the government is turning a blind eye.
7:12
Speaker 14: If they were serious about national security, they would have
7:15
Speaker 14: investigated and also put in place these temporary exclusion orders
7:19
Speaker 14: well before now, because the one thing we can't have
7:22
Speaker 14: is these people Isis brides coming back to Australia when
7:26
Speaker 14: they present such a risk to our nation and its security.
7:29
Speaker 3: Shadow Defense Minister James Pattison has also raised concerns, but.
7:33
Speaker 5: I'm very concerned that we appear to have a freelance
7:36
Speaker 5: repatriation operation being run by a private citizen. Meta reports
7:40
Speaker 5: Indic doctor Jamal Ruffie is running this.
7:42
Speaker 1: Now.
7:42
Speaker 5: He's a respected member of the community, but he's a
7:45
Speaker 5: private citizen. He shouldn't be running repatriation operations.
7:49
Speaker 3: And look, they're right in the end, these are not
7:51
Speaker 3: innocent women. They knew exactly what they were doing when
7:53
Speaker 3: they left this country. And sure we can sympathize with
7:57
Speaker 3: their children. It wasn't their fault that they were born
7:59
Speaker 3: into this. But we don't know what these children have seen.
8:03
Speaker 3: We don't know what they've been exposed to and what
8:05
Speaker 3: ideology has been instilled in them.
8:08
Speaker 2: And we certainly.
8:09
Speaker 3: Cannot risk a generation of young Islamic radicals coming in.
8:13
Speaker 3: The director of the camp that the families had been
8:16
Speaker 3: staying in, the Roje camp in Syria, has today confirmed.
8:19
Speaker 2: That the repatriation process has started.
8:23
Speaker 15: Today we at the camp administration handed over eleven families,
8:27
Speaker 15: thirty four people of Australian nationality to their families. This
8:31
Speaker 15: is the first trip in twenty twenty six.
8:35
Speaker 3: And don't forget these women ended up at the camp
8:38
Speaker 3: after their husbands were either captured or killed when ISIS
8:41
Speaker 3: was defeated in twenty nineteen, or their husbands may have
8:44
Speaker 3: even returned here already, we don't know. Among those in
8:48
Speaker 3: roj Is believed to be Shemima Begam, a British born
8:51
Speaker 3: woman who went in Syria to join ISIS in twenty
8:54
Speaker 3: fifteen at just fifteen years old, and she was subsequently
8:58
Speaker 3: stripped of her British citizenship. Now Labor is hoping on
9:01
Speaker 3: a woman of prayer that somehow these women don't make
9:03
Speaker 3: it out of Syria and are no longer indulging in
9:07
Speaker 3: the death cult ideology, which has seen tens of thousands
9:10
Speaker 3: of innocent people murdered, burned, alive, beheaded, all in the
9:15
Speaker 3: name of Allah. But Labor has the powers here. After
9:20
Speaker 3: everything that's happened in this country. The government still doesn't
9:22
Speaker 3: get it. Albo says, they've made their beds. Yeah, they're
9:28
Speaker 3: coming to a bed near you.
9:34
Speaker 2: Well.
9:34
Speaker 3: Labor is presiding over a cost of living crisis. It
9:37
Speaker 3: promised it would get on top of inflation. Instead, inflation
9:40
Speaker 3: has gone up, as have interest rates. It promised to
9:43
Speaker 3: improve standards of living. Instead, a housing crisis remains, and
9:47
Speaker 3: Labor is yet to achieve any of its housing targets.
9:50
Speaker 3: It promised your power bills would go down under the
9:53
Speaker 3: renewables only experiment. Instead they've gone up and they're going
9:58
Speaker 3: up again. New South Wales households and small businesses will
10:02
Speaker 3: pay nearly six hundred million dollars extra next financial year
10:07
Speaker 3: on their electricity bills to cover administration and other costs
10:11
Speaker 3: for renewable energy zones. Now, according to the Daily Telegraph,
10:14
Speaker 3: the Australian Energy Regulator has approved a contribution determination that
10:19
Speaker 3: is the largest levee ever applied to fund five renewable
10:23
Speaker 3: energy zones and it takes a total amount raised by
10:26
Speaker 3: consumer bills to more than one point five billion dollars
10:32
Speaker 3: over the past four years alone. I mean, seriously, labor
10:37
Speaker 3: along with the Greens as well as the tills in
10:39
Speaker 3: that are incomplete and utter denial about the disastrous reality
10:43
Speaker 3: of this experiment of transmission lines, batteries, green hydrogen, solar
10:48
Speaker 3: and wind farms and its impact on your bills and
10:52
Speaker 3: this country. I mean, we were told our bills would
10:55
Speaker 3: go down by two hundred and seventy five dollars.
10:57
Speaker 2: How's that going for?
10:58
Speaker 3: You can also add higher health insurance premiums to your
11:02
Speaker 3: bills Labour just approved a four point four to one
11:05
Speaker 3: percent average increase from April.
11:08
Speaker 2: Yet remember we.
11:08
Speaker 3: Were told before the election that healthcare would be cheaper
11:12
Speaker 3: under labor and it gets worse.
11:15
Speaker 2: Real wages are.
11:16
Speaker 3: Going backwards for the first time since September twenty twenty three.
11:20
Speaker 3: The wage price index rows zero point one percent to
11:23
Speaker 3: three point four percent in the December quarter.
11:26
Speaker 2: This remains below.
11:27
Speaker 3: The rate of inflation, which grew three point eight percent
11:29
Speaker 3: in the twelve months to December. And look, we can
11:32
Speaker 3: hardly be surprised, but it doesn't seem to worry Jim Charmers.
11:36
Speaker 11: Well, I think it's clear from the Reserve Bank's forecasts
11:40
Speaker 11: that the inflation number will be higher than we'd like
11:44
Speaker 11: for a little while. Now this year, they've got inflation
11:47
Speaker 11: peaking around the middle of the year and then coming
11:50
Speaker 11: down after that, and that'll have implications for real wages.
11:54
Speaker 3: Earth to Jim, why is inflation higher because you haven't
11:59
Speaker 3: stopped spending. Government spending levels are at the highest they've
12:03
Speaker 3: been in forty years.
12:04
Speaker 2: Outside of the pandemic.
12:06
Speaker 3: Economist after economists has warned Jim of the consequences.
12:10
Speaker 2: The RBA has warned Jim.
12:11
Speaker 3: Now even former RBA governor Philip Lowe says, I hope
12:14
Speaker 3: the government turns out to be more ambitious than it
12:16
Speaker 3: currently looks like it will be, because if it doesn't
12:20
Speaker 3: and productivity growth remains weak, the supply capacity of the.
12:23
Speaker 2: Economy will remain weak.
12:25
Speaker 3: He went on to say government spending is adding to
12:27
Speaker 3: the demand growth in the economy, and the various subsidies
12:31
Speaker 3: and handouts they give to people to help within the
12:33
Speaker 3: high cost of living get spent. But again the warnings
12:38
Speaker 3: just keep going right over Labour's head.
12:42
Speaker 6: You know, Phil low the footballer, former Manly player or
12:46
Speaker 6: former RBA governor. You know you have people who are
12:52
Speaker 6: exes who get their name in the paper.
12:55
Speaker 11: After he wasn't reappointed by the government, he's become a
12:58
Speaker 11: fairly persistent critic of the Labor government in the pages
13:03
Speaker 11: of the Financial Review and elsewhere.
13:06
Speaker 8: I think to some extent that's just human nature.
13:09
Speaker 2: Well there's more than just one critic, Jim.
13:11
Speaker 1: Now.
13:11
Speaker 3: Subsidies are a great way to trick the Reserve Bank
13:14
Speaker 3: into thinking that Labour's got a handle on the economy.
13:17
Speaker 3: Instead of lowering the cost of electricity, Labor pump tax
13:20
Speaker 3: payer funded money into subsidies and then claimed it.
13:24
Speaker 2: As an inflation win.
13:25
Speaker 3: I mean, we're literally paying for each other's bills and
13:28
Speaker 3: it was always going to be the case that when
13:30
Speaker 3: those subsidies ended, it would have an impact on inflation.
13:34
Speaker 3: A band aid is a band aid. But again we
13:38
Speaker 3: will promise the opposite. And so here we are going
13:42
Speaker 3: broke and backwards under this government.
13:49
Speaker 2: All right, let's get into it now.
13:50
Speaker 3: Joining me is former Victorian Liberal Party president Michael Kroger
13:53
Speaker 3: and Sky News contributor Joe Hilda Brand Good evening. You look,
13:58
Speaker 3: we've got a lot to get through. We've got to
14:00
Speaker 3: start with these isis brides. Michael, what do you make
14:03
Speaker 3: of the government's handling of this? So passports have been issued,
14:07
Speaker 3: Albo says okay, well, you know, on technicality we haven't
14:10
Speaker 3: repatriated them.
14:12
Speaker 2: But is it not right to say that Labour's got
14:15
Speaker 2: all the powers here? What do you make of it? Well?
14:19
Speaker 9: I make this there's a million Muslims in Australia and
14:22
Speaker 9: there's just over one hundred thousand Jews. That tells you
14:26
Speaker 9: everything you need to know about what Labour are doing.
14:28
Speaker 9: They're playing foot seas all day long. You know, all
14:31
Speaker 9: this tricky language. How do you get how do you
14:34
Speaker 9: get thirty four passports from wherever to northern Syria?
14:40
Speaker 1: How does that happen?
14:41
Speaker 9: So look, the government does have certain powers. The problems
14:44
Speaker 9: are these. The Citizenship Act is now out of date.
14:48
Speaker 9: It needs to be amended to make it easy for
14:50
Speaker 9: a minister to cancel a passport in circumstances like this.
14:55
Speaker 9: And if you come up against the problem that the
14:57
Speaker 9: High Court said you cannot take away a pass if
15:00
Speaker 9: it leaves a person stateless, and presumably these people have
15:04
Speaker 9: only got new Australian passports, well Australia could do if
15:09
Speaker 9: the Albanezi government had any guts, you could do what
15:12
Speaker 9: a lot of governments do around the world. You pay
15:14
Speaker 9: other governments to take various citizens, in many cases prisoners.
15:18
Speaker 1: But why wouldn't the.
15:19
Speaker 9: Australian government do a deal with the Syrian government and
15:22
Speaker 9: say these people have lived lived in Syria four years,
15:27
Speaker 9: we will pay you a certain amount of money for
15:28
Speaker 9: you to issue citizenship to them. Because the mothers obviously
15:34
Speaker 9: wanted to live come and live in Syria, so we'll
15:36
Speaker 9: pay you to take them, as we've paid various countries
15:39
Speaker 9: for offshore processing, etc. Now I'll tell you why one
15:43
Speaker 9: wouldn't do that. But I'll tell you why the Syrian
15:46
Speaker 9: government wouldn't do that deal. Because the Syrian government is
15:50
Speaker 9: run by this guy Altira, who is an opponent of ISIS.
15:54
Speaker 9: He spent the last ten years before he came president
15:57
Speaker 9: being an opponent of Islamic State. He wants these people
16:02
Speaker 9: out of his country. He doesn't want anyone in Syria
16:05
Speaker 9: in any way associated with ISIS. And so if you
16:08
Speaker 9: attempted to get him to agree to keep them in Syria,
16:11
Speaker 9: he would say absolutely not better in Australia than in Syria.
16:14
Speaker 9: And that tells you all you need to know. Danika.
16:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, I actually think that's a really really good point.
16:19
Speaker 3: Why couldn't they make a deal. But they never kind
16:21
Speaker 3: of be able to make a deal with Syria, that's
16:23
Speaker 3: for sure. I mean, look, Joe, I don't think anyone
16:26
Speaker 3: can possibly be buying this. We're not helping them excuse
16:29
Speaker 3: any more. But I outline what happened last time in
16:32
Speaker 3: my editorial just then, right, the ducking, the weaving, and Penny.
16:35
Speaker 2: Wong was all at sea in set of estimates. You know,
16:38
Speaker 2: had no idea what was going on.
16:40
Speaker 10: I mean, come on, it was not a particularly forthright performance.
16:43
Speaker 1: But I think Michael said it himself.
16:46
Speaker 10: If an Australian citizen asks an Australian consular official for
16:50
Speaker 10: a passport, it is illegal not to give it to them.
16:53
Speaker 10: You have to give an Australian citizen an Australian passport.
16:57
Speaker 10: And that's what Tony Burke Albanezi are saying when they
17:01
Speaker 10: say we cannot.
17:01
Speaker 1: Break the law.
17:03
Speaker 10: The High Court has said you cannot revoke a citizens passport,
17:05
Speaker 10: you cannot cancel their citizenship if.
17:07
Speaker 1: It renders them stateless.
17:09
Speaker 10: What you can do, and what the Minister has done
17:11
Speaker 10: in at least one case, and there may be more,
17:13
Speaker 10: is is say, okay, I'm going to issue a temporary
17:18
Speaker 10: exclusion order which can only last for two years, and
17:21
Speaker 10: that can be on the basis of advice from the
17:24
Speaker 10: security agencies.
17:25
Speaker 1: So that has been done for in one case.
17:27
Speaker 10: In terms of the Syrian government not wanting them, it's
17:30
Speaker 10: the Syrian government that won't let them leave. They tried
17:33
Speaker 10: to leave their camp to go to the Masks to
17:35
Speaker 10: get to Australia and they got turned around and herded
17:38
Speaker 10: back in. Either that or the Syrian government does not
17:40
Speaker 10: have control of that particular area of the country. And
17:43
Speaker 10: it's the same kind of rebels who until recently were
17:47
Speaker 10: the Syrian government.
17:47
Speaker 1: They only recently took over. But so these people are
17:51
Speaker 1: still in their camp.
17:52
Speaker 10: They haven't been able to get to Damascus because they
17:54
Speaker 10: were stopped and turned around in Syria by armed people
17:58
Speaker 10: of one or another, and that's where they're lying at
18:02
Speaker 10: the moment. So it's a tricky situation. I mean, I'm
18:05
Speaker 10: not saying that these people don't present a risk.
18:07
Speaker 3: I mean, I just think that the government should have
18:08
Speaker 3: had The government's had a lot of time to surely
18:11
Speaker 3: to know that this wasn't going to be on the raid.
18:13
Speaker 2: I mean, that is my argument here.
18:15
Speaker 3: They've had time to prepare for this, right, they could
18:17
Speaker 3: have put exclusion orders in place already, at the swipe.
18:21
Speaker 2: Of a pen, they could have done it. But they
18:23
Speaker 2: haven't done it yet.
18:24
Speaker 10: But that has to be done on the basis of
18:26
Speaker 10: advice from the intelligence agencies.
18:29
Speaker 9: Michael, it's not a question of intelligence. This is a
18:32
Speaker 9: point of principle.
18:34
Speaker 1: Wind back to World War Two.
18:35
Speaker 9: If it was publicized that a group of Australian women
18:39
Speaker 9: had gone to Nazi Germany to marry Hitler, Joseph Mengele,
18:43
Speaker 9: Heinrich Himmler, etc.
18:46
Speaker 2: They'd gone there to marry.
18:47
Speaker 9: Nazi leaders, the Nazis that defeated, and they've said, well,
18:52
Speaker 9: we preferred a Nazi country to live in and be
18:54
Speaker 9: part of that, but now that's clapped. We want to
18:57
Speaker 9: come back to the freedom loving country of Australia. Would
19:00
Speaker 9: we want them in this country? The answer would be no,
19:02
Speaker 9: do we want people? And Phil Thompson was right earlier.
19:05
Speaker 9: These are not brides, these are ISIS supporters. Right, do
19:10
Speaker 9: we want Isis supporters coming to Australia. The answer is no.
19:13
Speaker 9: It's a matter of principle. Do we want Nazis coming
19:16
Speaker 9: to this country?
19:17
Speaker 4: No?
19:17
Speaker 9: Do we want how must supporters coming to this country?
19:19
Speaker 2: No?
19:20
Speaker 8: And when Angus.
19:20
Speaker 9: Taylor talks about shutting the door, they are the people
19:24
Speaker 9: he's talking about the shutting the door to. And he's
19:26
Speaker 9: absolutely right. This is not a country for every man,
19:29
Speaker 9: you know, every single person that wants to come here.
19:32
Speaker 2: No, we.
19:35
Speaker 3: Cannot have every man and their dog in this country.
19:38
Speaker 3: That is the we don't need to protect out. We
19:41
Speaker 3: don't know a way of life. Again, and look, I
19:43
Speaker 3: know it's complex. They you know, they have to be monitored,
19:46
Speaker 3: they have to be scrapped they have to be investigated.
19:48
Speaker 10: But we don't know if some of these women weren't
19:50
Speaker 10: actually coerced or forced by their husband.
19:52
Speaker 2: I don't care. I don't care. I do not care
19:55
Speaker 2: this country, Joey.
19:56
Speaker 1: I don't forced to buy their husbands. You don't leave
19:59
Speaker 1: your country.
20:00
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter. They left this country.
20:04
Speaker 3: What they were doing, they were willfully they went over there.
20:07
Speaker 2: They joined a death clt.
20:08
Speaker 3: Do not tell me that they are innocent participants in this,
20:11
Speaker 3: please that that's I.
20:14
Speaker 9: They didn't have any kids when they went over Joe,
20:16
Speaker 9: they didn't.
20:16
Speaker 1: Have any kids.
20:18
Speaker 9: There were single women that went over there.
20:20
Speaker 1: No, we don't know which of them were coerce.
20:25
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter. They left this it doesn't matter. I've
20:27
Speaker 3: got no sympathy. Again, we're going to move on. But
20:29
Speaker 3: in the end, we don't know what these women were,
20:32
Speaker 3: what they've seen over there. We don't know what they
20:34
Speaker 3: were behind. We don't know what they've done. And I'm sorry,
20:36
Speaker 3: but that goes for the children as well. It's just
20:39
Speaker 3: that's that's that's my view on it. Look, let's move on.
20:41
Speaker 3: The Sydney Writers Festival is standing by a physician to
20:44
Speaker 3: put doctor Randa abdel Fatar in the twenty twenty six program.
20:48
Speaker 3: Despite remember that saga with the Adelaide writers week Now,
20:52
Speaker 3: this is the same author who celebrated the slaughter of
20:54
Speaker 3: Jews on October seven and posted an image of a
20:57
Speaker 3: paraglider with a Palestinian flag, among other things.
21:00
Speaker 2: Michael, here we go again.
21:02
Speaker 3: Why would a publicly funded festival knowingly invite someone this
21:06
Speaker 3: divisive in your view?
21:09
Speaker 9: It just shows you how extreme some of these arts
21:12
Speaker 9: organizations are. It didn't get the memo. The fact that
21:16
Speaker 9: they're still proceeding with her is shocking. I was gobsmack
21:20
Speaker 9: when I read this article. I thought it must be
21:21
Speaker 9: some kind of joke, but it just shows you how
21:23
Speaker 9: extreme some of these organizations are. And okay, if that's
21:28
Speaker 9: what they are, that's what they are, right, Why do
21:30
Speaker 9: they need to get public funding? Why do our tax
21:32
Speaker 9: dollars need to go to funding these organizations or, in
21:35
Speaker 9: the case of this one, the New South Wales the
21:37
Speaker 9: prol New South Wales taxpayer Why should taxpayer dollars go
21:41
Speaker 9: to these to these festivals which are I'm sorry, they
21:45
Speaker 9: are heavily influenced by Jewish hatred and anti Semitism and
21:50
Speaker 9: it's disgusting that a single dollar of taxpayers money goes
21:53
Speaker 9: towards these festivals. It should all be cut off in
21:56
Speaker 9: the same way, Janikia. We need to start a debate
21:58
Speaker 9: in this country about who pays for the police to
22:02
Speaker 9: go to demonstrations. So for example, the Victoria Racing club
22:05
Speaker 9: that runs the Melbourne Cup, the NRL, the AFL that
22:08
Speaker 9: have police, who pays for the police? You know they do,
22:12
Speaker 9: the racing clubs, the football club, they have to pay
22:15
Speaker 9: for the police. Now, if you're running a one off demonstration, fine,
22:19
Speaker 9: if you're running demonstrations every week. The New South Wales
22:22
Speaker 9: and Victorian taxpayers are paying tens of millions of dollars
22:26
Speaker 9: for mister Josh Lees and a lot of anti Semitic
22:30
Speaker 9: Jewish hating racists who attend these functions with hummer signals
22:36
Speaker 9: and terrorist flags. Why does the taxpayer have to pay
22:41
Speaker 9: for those police. It's about time mister Lees and his
22:44
Speaker 9: colleagues were asked to pay.
22:45
Speaker 3: I think I think it's about time, you know, I
22:47
Speaker 3: mean mister Lees in particular as a serial offender and
22:49
Speaker 3: at all these events.
22:51
Speaker 2: I think that's a great point.
22:53
Speaker 9: Someone's paying him.
22:54
Speaker 1: We don't know what his job is, Well, what.
22:59
Speaker 2: Does he does he have a job.
23:00
Speaker 10: Believe he's the only single writer for the socialist termed morning.
23:04
Speaker 2: Star exactly, He's alone writer.
23:10
Speaker 3: Feel about this, Joe the New South Wales Education Department
23:13
Speaker 3: this warning principles to shut down and unsanctioned where a
23:16
Speaker 3: kefeir to school day insisting in the classrooms can't become
23:19
Speaker 3: political battlegrounds. This is a stunt being put on by
23:22
Speaker 3: school students for Palestine. But now teachers and leaders need
23:26
Speaker 3: to be given a memo do not participate.
23:27
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's mind blowing that we've.
23:29
Speaker 3: Got to actually remind teachers please don't participate in this.
23:32
Speaker 3: But this is where we are right now. But what
23:36
Speaker 3: does it say about the system itself?
23:38
Speaker 10: It says that these guys are completely cooked. There's teachers
23:40
Speaker 10: for Palestine. I mean, students for Palestine are or young
23:42
Speaker 10: and dumb ones. But if you're old enough to be
23:44
Speaker 10: a teacher, you should be old enough to know that
23:47
Speaker 10: you don't use the classroom for political activism. And I
23:49
Speaker 10: say that as someone who absolutely loves teachers and the
23:52
Speaker 10: work they do. This is obviously a minority of highly charged,
23:56
Speaker 10: idiotic teachers going along with the latest political trend. Worth
23:59
Speaker 10: noting I know Murat Titsa, the secretary of the Department
24:03
Speaker 10: of Education.
24:04
Speaker 1: He's a Turkish Muslim.
24:06
Speaker 10: He is someone who is a former principle of punch
24:08
Speaker 10: Bowl Boys High and along with Jihadibb, who is another
24:11
Speaker 10: good friend of mine and just did incredible work with
24:14
Speaker 10: the kids there, pretty much all of whom are also Muslims.
24:18
Speaker 10: So the idea that this is in any way sort
24:20
Speaker 10: of anti Palestine or anti Muslim or a part of
24:23
Speaker 10: a Zionist conspiracy, or proof that the Jews are actually
24:27
Speaker 10: controlling the narrative, just by his actions alone, that is
24:32
Speaker 10: proven to be one hundred percent absolute.
24:36
Speaker 1: Yes, I can't stare at this hour of the day. Yeah, yeah, sure.
24:39
Speaker 10: And so it just puts the lie to how idiotic
24:42
Speaker 10: these protesters are, like totally like the.
24:45
Speaker 1: Ones trying to bring activism into the classroom.
24:47
Speaker 10: And it just shows you how completely out of step
24:51
Speaker 10: they are. I mean, I couldn't agree more protesting after
24:53
Speaker 10: Hermas has agreed to a cease fire.
24:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I couldn't agree more.
24:57
Speaker 3: And again my concern is we're indoctrinating childre and it's
25:00
Speaker 3: this next generation of just being indoctrinated. Whatever happened to
25:03
Speaker 3: basic learning, maths, science and English in the classrooms. Now
25:06
Speaker 3: it's got you know, it's a side of ideology as well.
25:09
Speaker 2: We've got to leave it there. Good to have you
25:10
Speaker 2: both on.
25:11
Speaker 3: Michael Kroger, don't hilt the show.
25:14
Speaker 2: Appreciate it well.
25:15
Speaker 3: One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has appeared on Chris Kenny's
25:18
Speaker 3: show earlier tonight to defend her controversial comments about Muslims
25:22
Speaker 3: on Charry Have a look.
25:24
Speaker 2: Put it this way.
25:25
Speaker 12: If there is person out there who is a Muslim
25:28
Speaker 12: and does not support Sharia law, female circumcision, child marriages,
25:34
Speaker 12: who do not support our culture, our way of life,
25:37
Speaker 12: and our laws, then I apologize too. If my comment
25:40
Speaker 12: has offinite you.
25:43
Speaker 3: Johnny now is Liberal Senator Dave Sharma. Dave, good to
25:46
Speaker 3: catch up with you again. Thank you so much for
25:48
Speaker 3: joining me. I look, despite repeated offers by Chris tonight,
25:53
Speaker 3: she fell some way short of a full apology. Now
25:56
Speaker 3: in the end, she's appealing to her base, and I
25:58
Speaker 3: think a lot of what she said on the show
26:00
Speaker 3: tonight resonates with some One Nation supporters.
26:02
Speaker 2: Her point was we don't.
26:03
Speaker 3: Know what extremist thoughts some people who have come to
26:07
Speaker 3: this country might have I'll point out that even her
26:10
Speaker 3: deputy Barnaby Joyce wouldn't go near this today.
26:13
Speaker 2: But the Czechs, by labor, they've been a disaster. Does
26:18
Speaker 2: Pauline have a point?
26:21
Speaker 13: Well, look, I need to be very clear here. I
26:24
Speaker 13: don't agree with what Pauline said. I think it's it's
26:27
Speaker 13: wrong on principle, but it's also misguided in terms of policy.
26:32
Speaker 13: I mean, you know, there's about a million Australia, a
26:35
Speaker 13: million Muslim Australians who live in our country. The idea
26:38
Speaker 13: that we should be tarring them all as bad people
26:42
Speaker 13: it's not only you know, without any sort of principled foundation,
26:47
Speaker 13: but it's also deeply harming. I mean, you know, it'd
26:51
Speaker 13: be like, you know, if you put any other religional
26:54
Speaker 13: race in this example and said there's no such thing as,
26:58
Speaker 13: you know, a good Catholic or a good Christian. I
27:01
Speaker 13: think people would be rightly approlled. We should be no
27:03
Speaker 13: less appalled because it was made about another faith.
27:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, look I agree.
27:08
Speaker 3: I mean in the end, the majority of Muslims in
27:10
Speaker 3: this country live very peacefully, and the debate has to
27:13
Speaker 3: go back to radical Islam because that has been the
27:17
Speaker 3: problem since the very beginning, I want to.
27:20
Speaker 2: Talk to you about these Isis brides.
27:22
Speaker 3: The Prime Minister maintains Labor is not helping with their repatriation,
27:25
Speaker 3: yet has confirmed they've been issued with Australian passports. Michael
27:30
Speaker 3: Kroger just made a good point just now that the
27:32
Speaker 3: Citizenship Act is out of date, it needs updating. What
27:36
Speaker 3: more can Labor do here in your view?
27:40
Speaker 13: Well, look, I do want to take on this canard
27:42
Speaker 13: that Anthony Albernezi is going on about Thetraian government is
27:47
Speaker 13: somehow obliged to give any citizen who asked the passport.
27:50
Speaker 13: If you look at the Passports Act two thousand and five,
27:52
Speaker 13: Section fourteen of that Act makes quite clear that the
27:56
Speaker 13: Minister in this case it's the Foreign Minister Penny Wong,
27:59
Speaker 13: has the discretion and to refuse a passport if the
28:02
Speaker 13: person who's issued that passport might engage in conduct, might
28:05
Speaker 13: engage in conduct that would prejudice the security of Australia. Now,
28:09
Speaker 13: I think there's a very strong prima facing case here
28:12
Speaker 13: that that is that the case with these set of circumstances,
28:16
Speaker 13: and the very least is the government should be examining
28:19
Speaker 13: its ability to exercise his powers under existing laws under
28:23
Speaker 13: existing legislation, the idea that you have to give a
28:25
Speaker 13: passport to anyone who asks because there're a citizen is
28:27
Speaker 13: simply not true and it's not based in law.
28:30
Speaker 1: Right.
28:30
Speaker 3: So basically what you're saying is right now, Anthony Abernezi
28:33
Speaker 3: has the powers. He could signe off on this and
28:35
Speaker 3: stop the ISIS brides from coming into this country, even
28:38
Speaker 3: if they do hold an Australian passport.
28:40
Speaker 2: Is that correct?
28:41
Speaker 13: Well, I'm saying that there was no requirement to issue
28:44
Speaker 13: them with a passport, and it is open to the
28:46
Speaker 13: Minister to cancel that passport or that travel document at
28:49
Speaker 13: any time, including on security grounds, on the advice of
28:52
Speaker 13: a competent agency. So yes, we should be looking at
28:55
Speaker 13: temporary exclusion orders. But the issuing of a passport is
28:59
Speaker 13: itself a discretionary act by the government. It's not something
29:02
Speaker 13: they are obliged to do, and I don't think Labor
29:04
Speaker 13: has examined the power is available to it under existing legislation.
29:08
Speaker 13: And of course without a passport or without a travel document,
29:11
Speaker 13: they are not able to travel and they would not
29:12
Speaker 13: be able to leave Syria.
29:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, look, I mean it's an absolute mess.
29:16
Speaker 3: You can tell though that Anthony Abernezi is trying to
29:18
Speaker 3: keep himself at arm's length from this, but as you
29:21
Speaker 3: very clearly outlined, there's a lot that he can do
29:24
Speaker 3: to stop them from coming into this country. So let's
29:26
Speaker 3: see if they do make it out of Damascus and
29:28
Speaker 3: bought a plane.
29:29
Speaker 2: In the coming days.
29:31
Speaker 3: I want to talk to you about Angus Taylor's new
29:33
Speaker 3: look coalition front bench. You've been appointed as Shadow Assistant
29:36
Speaker 3: Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs.
29:38
Speaker 2: Are you pleased with this position?
29:40
Speaker 13: Yes, I'm very pleased. I'm happy to be serving in
29:43
Speaker 13: the new ministry. I think we have a big task
29:47
Speaker 13: ahead of us to rebuild the trust and faith of
29:50
Speaker 13: the Australian people, not only our supporters, but those people
29:53
Speaker 13: who haven't voted us for us in past election cycles.
29:55
Speaker 13: And I think ket to doing that is to not
29:59
Speaker 13: only point out the quite obvious failings of this Labor government,
30:02
Speaker 13: whether it's on national security, whether it's real Way just
30:05
Speaker 13: going backwards, whether it's electricity and private health premiums and
30:09
Speaker 13: school fees all going up, but to show what we
30:11
Speaker 13: would do differently, and to demonstrate that through policy development
30:15
Speaker 13: and an alternative vision for Australia. And I think Australians
30:18
Speaker 13: are hungry for that, but we have not been giving
30:20
Speaker 13: that to them this last eighteen to twenty four months.
30:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean I think that certainly. It looks
30:27
Speaker 3: like a very stronger coalition now and it's good to
30:31
Speaker 3: see some unity after a very long long time, that's
30:35
Speaker 3: for sure. Dave Sharma, I've got to leave it there.
30:37
Speaker 3: Good to catch up as always, Thank you very much
30:39
Speaker 3: for joining me on the show. Well still to come.
30:41
Speaker 3: Former RBA boss Philip Low slams Labour's cost of living handouts,
30:45
Speaker 3: warning the spending spreeze keeping rates high.
30:47
Speaker 2: Up for longer.
30:49
Speaker 3: Not that Jim Chalmers thinks that Adam Crichton will join
30:51
Speaker 3: me next. Welcome back to the program. Well, former RBA
30:58
Speaker 3: boss Philip Low dropped some home truth today. As I
31:01
Speaker 3: said earlier, he's targeted Labour's cost of living handouts, warning
31:05
Speaker 3: the spending sugar hit is keeping demand too.
31:07
Speaker 2: Hot while supply can't keep up. And I've got to
31:10
Speaker 2: say his message was pretty blunt.
31:12
Speaker 3: Fixed productivity and growth or get used to higher rates,
31:15
Speaker 3: weaker wages and stalled living standards. Joining me now is
31:18
Speaker 3: Institute of Public Affairs Chief economist Adam Crichton Adam, good
31:22
Speaker 3: to catch up, thanks for joining me.
31:24
Speaker 2: Lo is it wrong here?
31:25
Speaker 12: Is he?
31:27
Speaker 1: No, he's certainly not.
31:28
Speaker 8: It's great to see him really come out swinging finally
31:30
Speaker 8: in his new post RBA role. I mean, he's right
31:34
Speaker 8: to be very critical. We've had a declining GDP per
31:38
Speaker 8: capita for nine of the last twelve quarters. I mean,
31:40
Speaker 8: traditionally economists say that a recession is a decline of
31:43
Speaker 8: two successive quarters in GDP growth. But of course we're
31:46
Speaker 8: not going to get that this. We're flooding the country
31:48
Speaker 8: with immigrants, so we should be looking at GDP per capita,
31:51
Speaker 8: and on that score we have a serious recession. I
31:53
Speaker 8: would say in Australia, the biggest fall in living standards
31:56
Speaker 8: probably since the early ninety nineties, since the last made
32:00
Speaker 8: So he's right to be critical, and the government, unfortunately
32:03
Speaker 8: doesn't seem to be responding the right way to what
32:07
Speaker 8: I would say is a living standards crisis in Australia.
32:10
Speaker 2: Well, and you make a good point.
32:11
Speaker 3: I mean, immigration is out of control in this country
32:14
Speaker 3: and it is the only thing that's really propping up
32:16
Speaker 3: what is a Ponzi scheme economy. So you've got labor
32:20
Speaker 3: handing out as well as subsidies. Well, once those energy
32:23
Speaker 3: subsidies started petering out, the effect was it was always
32:26
Speaker 3: going to have a flow on effect when it comes
32:28
Speaker 3: to inflation. You've got Jim Charmers coming out today, denial, denial.
32:34
Speaker 2: I just wonder how many more warnings does Jim Chalmers need.
32:38
Speaker 8: Yeah, look, he was really right to call out those
32:40
Speaker 8: cash handout something like three to five billion dollars the
32:43
Speaker 8: government put on the National credit card simply to hide
32:46
Speaker 8: from consumers, to hide from voters the real cost of
32:48
Speaker 8: their energy policies. And they've changed that now, they have
32:51
Speaker 8: withdrawn that policy, but they realize they can't keep doing
32:53
Speaker 8: it every single quarter. This is I think it's roughly
32:56
Speaker 8: three billion dollars a quarter, but it was extremely reckless policy.
32:59
Speaker 8: They should be honest with voters that this is the
33:01
Speaker 8: cost of their policies and people are seeing it in
33:03
Speaker 8: their bills. And just on the immigration score, look, of course,
33:05
Speaker 8: productivity is going to be weak if you're flooding the
33:07
Speaker 8: economy with low skilled labor. So that's a huge increase
33:11
Speaker 8: in hours worked, but your output is not going to
33:13
Speaker 8: increase by the same amount. So productivity is obviously going
33:16
Speaker 8: to go down. And that's what we are seeing and
33:18
Speaker 8: that's what he called out.
33:19
Speaker 2: Yeah.
33:19
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I think good on Philip Low for dropping some
33:23
Speaker 3: home truths today.
33:25
Speaker 2: Let's talk about energy.
33:26
Speaker 3: New South Wales power bills are about to take yet
33:28
Speaker 3: another hit. Households and small businesses are going to be
33:31
Speaker 3: slugg nearly six hundred million dollars next year to fund
33:35
Speaker 3: the state's renewable energy zones. The energy regulator is calling
33:38
Speaker 3: this a contribution determination. I mean, I've got to say, Adam,
33:42
Speaker 3: you know, here we go again. Our bills were meant
33:44
Speaker 3: to go down by two hundred and seventy five dollars,
33:46
Speaker 3: they keep going up and up, and now on top
33:49
Speaker 3: of that, it's now a contribution to fund five energy
33:54
Speaker 3: zones in New South Wales.
33:55
Speaker 2: How much longer can it go on?
33:58
Speaker 8: Well, look, you know, I think a few is probably
34:00
Speaker 8: is the answer. But then I think people are going
34:02
Speaker 8: to be very very angry because we're not going to
34:03
Speaker 8: meet any of these reductions targets and missions reductions targets,
34:07
Speaker 8: and people are paying a fortune to not meet the targets.
34:10
Speaker 8: The coal Fire power station in New South Wales a
34:12
Speaker 8: rating has already been extended twice to twenty thirty seven
34:15
Speaker 8: and out of twenty twenty nine, So these zones are
34:17
Speaker 8: not even working. And yet, as you say, six hundred
34:19
Speaker 8: million dollars slug just for next year, and extraordinarily one
34:23
Speaker 8: hundred million dollars of that is just administration costs, so
34:26
Speaker 8: just public servants, just bureaucracies. It's really staggering and it
34:30
Speaker 8: really goes to the economic problems of this country. The
34:33
Speaker 8: only jobs growth, the only salaries growth you have is
34:36
Speaker 8: in the public sector, people on very high wages, and
34:38
Speaker 8: it's all basically made up jobs to achieve targets that
34:42
Speaker 8: will never be met.
34:43
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, already there's such a blot of public
34:46
Speaker 3: service under labor and that's one of the biggest problems
34:48
Speaker 3: in this government. And now it's administration, as you said,
34:52
Speaker 3: for made up jobs to fund all these ridiculous projects.
34:56
Speaker 3: But we're never going to meet any of these net
34:57
Speaker 3: zero targets. Let's talk about wages. So today, real wages,
35:02
Speaker 3: they're now going backwards for the first time since September
35:05
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three at the wage price index rows zero
35:09
Speaker 3: point one percent to three point four percent in the
35:12
Speaker 3: December quarter. What does this say about the state of
35:15
Speaker 3: the economy.
35:17
Speaker 8: Well, the state of the state of real wages actually
35:20
Speaker 8: is far worse than that, because of course the CPI
35:23
Speaker 8: that is used to calculate real wages does not include
35:26
Speaker 8: dwelling prices, so it doesn't include the cost of housing
35:28
Speaker 8: that of course most Australians I think would like to engage,
35:31
Speaker 8: it would like to buy. It doesn't include the cost
35:33
Speaker 8: of government. It doesn't include the fact the superinnuation guarantee
35:35
Speaker 8: has gone up to twelve percent, so people are much much,
35:38
Speaker 8: much poorer, I would say than that small decline in
35:41
Speaker 8: official real wages would actually suggest. So you know, the
35:45
Speaker 8: figure is interesting, but I did laugh at the headline
35:47
Speaker 8: first time in two years. I would say, real, you know,
35:50
Speaker 8: real living standins have been falling by a lot more
35:52
Speaker 8: than that for a lot longer, and it's a crisis.
35:56
Speaker 8: The government has to do something. It has to shrink
35:58
Speaker 8: the size of government. So you know, so there's a
36:00
Speaker 8: chance for people to actually use their own wages and
36:02
Speaker 8: to feel a little bit more prosperous.
36:04
Speaker 3: Well, that's it, And I mean the problem is is
36:07
Speaker 3: that our wages are just not keeping up with the
36:10
Speaker 3: pace of inflation.
36:11
Speaker 2: And I mean again, Jim Chalmers was asked about.
36:14
Speaker 8: Polic sector wages are well public.
36:15
Speaker 2: A public well public sector. They're on it.
36:17
Speaker 3: They're on a whole different trajectory, aren't they. But you know,
36:20
Speaker 3: Jim Chalmers was asked about this today and he just
36:23
Speaker 3: kept saying, oh, you know, the reserve banks made these forecasts.
36:27
Speaker 3: Earth to Jim Chalmers, you know, have a look at
36:30
Speaker 3: what you're doing to the economy.
36:33
Speaker 8: Yeah, well, firstly, the forecast of the Reserve Bank I
36:35
Speaker 8: have to say, we have to take with a grain
36:36
Speaker 8: of assualt. I mean, all the major economic changes in
36:39
Speaker 8: the last five years, ten years they've got wrong. And
36:42
Speaker 8: that's not something against the RBA. I think central banks
36:45
Speaker 8: all around the world have just been very bad at
36:47
Speaker 8: forecasting inflation, at forecasting real wages. The best guide in
36:50
Speaker 8: the future is what is happening now, and we you know,
36:52
Speaker 8: we have the data now. Real wages are going backwards
36:55
Speaker 8: and the government needs to do something about that and
36:57
Speaker 8: not you know, cold wave its hand and talk about
37:00
Speaker 8: so called forecast from the Reserve Bank in the future
37:02
Speaker 8: that will obviously show a rosy picture because that's what
37:06
Speaker 8: government agencies do.
37:07
Speaker 2: Yeah.
37:08
Speaker 3: Look, it's extraordinary and we just keep going broken and
37:10
Speaker 3: backwards under this government.
37:12
Speaker 2: Adam Crichton.
37:13
Speaker 3: Nice to see you as always, Thanks very much for
37:14
Speaker 3: joining me on the show.
37:16
Speaker 2: Well still to come.
37:16
Speaker 3: Iran is back at the table with Trump, but the
37:19
Speaker 3: threats are getting louder and the clock is ticking on
37:22
Speaker 3: all out war. Peter Jennings will give us all the
37:24
Speaker 3: details next.
37:30
Speaker 2: Welcome back Will.
37:31
Speaker 3: Iran supreme leader is throwing threats around as nuclear talks
37:34
Speaker 3: with the US resume, but Tehran still won't meet Washington's
37:38
Speaker 3: core demand to stop enriching uranium. Now the White House
37:42
Speaker 3: is giving Iran two weeks to close the gap, but
37:45
Speaker 3: Trump's also ramped up military pressure in the region. Joining
37:48
Speaker 3: me now its former Defense Deputy Secretary for Strategy, Peter Jennings.
37:53
Speaker 2: Peter, good to see you. What's your read on this?
37:56
Speaker 3: Is this diplomacy or just a countdown now to strikes.
38:01
Speaker 16: I think the Trump administration wants to be seen to
38:03
Speaker 16: give Iran the opportunity to negotiate. But I agree with you.
38:08
Speaker 16: I don't think Iran is going to stop wanting to
38:11
Speaker 16: try to build its nuclear weapons program, and I think
38:16
Speaker 16: they will also continue to repress the protesters in the streets,
38:20
Speaker 16: which is something that Trump is also said is unacceptable.
38:23
Speaker 16: So I think we're at a point where a strike
38:26
Speaker 16: is now close I would say forty eight hours seventy
38:30
Speaker 16: two hours away, and that's based on seeing a very
38:34
Speaker 16: significant number of American combat aircraft moving in from Europe
38:39
Speaker 16: into the Middle Eastern theater. And really the last thing
38:43
Speaker 16: to watch for, which is what happened last June, is
38:48
Speaker 16: American air to wear refuelers come into the theater because
38:52
Speaker 16: they're there to keep those fighters in the air. And
38:55
Speaker 16: I think that's the final stage. So you know, by
38:58
Speaker 16: the time we get to the weekend Australian time, I
39:03
Speaker 16: think that's the highest likelihood chance of an American strike
39:07
Speaker 16: at that point.
39:08
Speaker 2: All right, so a couple of days I not as well.
39:11
Speaker 3: The Iranian Supreme Leader is threatening US warships in the Gulf.
39:16
Speaker 3: Is he bluffing or could there also be retaliation on
39:19
Speaker 3: that end too.
39:21
Speaker 16: There's a lot of bluff, that's for sure. But I
39:23
Speaker 16: think if the Americans do strike, it's going to be comprehensive.
39:28
Speaker 16: They won't just be making the rubble bounce higher on
39:31
Speaker 16: the nuclear facilities. They will be doing things like going
39:34
Speaker 16: after the Iranian navy. Those ships will ch have the
39:38
Speaker 16: capacity to lay minds in the straits of Rumers. I
39:44
Speaker 16: think they'll also be going after the leadership of the
39:47
Speaker 16: Iranian Guards force and perhaps even the police and intelligence
39:52
Speaker 16: and internal security command and control system. And so what
39:57
Speaker 16: that means to nechars, It's going to be a broad strike.
40:00
Speaker 16: It's not just going to be against a handful of
40:02
Speaker 16: nuclear facilities. And I think that's why we're seeing the
40:05
Speaker 16: Americans now engaged in a very substantial buildup of military capability.
40:12
Speaker 16: They have for weeks been flying in stocks with heavy
40:15
Speaker 16: transport aircraft, for example. So this is not going to
40:19
Speaker 16: be trivial, and it's going to be quite broad in
40:21
Speaker 16: its focus.
40:22
Speaker 1: I think. Yeah.
40:23
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm surprised that Trump didn't pull the trigger
40:26
Speaker 3: on this earlier. When you've got a regime that is
40:28
Speaker 3: ordered to shoot to kill on protesters, and you mentioned
40:31
Speaker 3: the protesters. I'm surprised, to be honest, that it wasn't
40:35
Speaker 3: carried out, or something wasn't carried out sooner. So anyway,
40:37
Speaker 3: we'll remain to see what happens there. Let's talk about China.
40:40
Speaker 3: The US is also hardening its claim that China carried
40:43
Speaker 3: out a secret low yield nuclear test, pointing to fresh
40:47
Speaker 3: seismic data picked up near one of their old test sites.
40:51
Speaker 3: So Beijing's coming out denying it as always. I guess, Peter,
40:56
Speaker 3: if it was a low yield test, what is the
40:58
Speaker 3: strategic purpose for.
41:02
Speaker 2: So?
41:02
Speaker 16: China is rapidly modernizing and expanding its nuclear weapons, arsenal, air,
41:07
Speaker 16: bland and sea weapons, and in order to be able
41:10
Speaker 16: to do that, and for that arsenal to be credible,
41:13
Speaker 16: they have to test the weapons from time to time
41:17
Speaker 16: to demonstrate the fact that they work. We saw the
41:21
Speaker 16: North Koreans do this. Because of the massive expansion of
41:25
Speaker 16: Chinese nuclear capability, they will have to do low level testing.
41:30
Speaker 16: These are not underground explosions of massive bombs, but they're
41:33
Speaker 16: testing components of those bonds of the bomb architecture, and
41:38
Speaker 16: so I'm not surprised by it. I think the Russians
41:41
Speaker 16: will be doing the same thing. And basically this is
41:44
Speaker 16: a product of both Russia and China are now significantly
41:48
Speaker 16: trying to expand and modernize their nuclear forces.
41:52
Speaker 3: Just on Ukraine Defense, Bitister Richard Miles is warning allies
41:55
Speaker 3: to brace for a war that drags on for years,
41:59
Speaker 3: despite Donald try promised that he'd end it fast, and
42:02
Speaker 3: he's signaling Australia and Europe need to stop the ad
42:04
Speaker 3: hoc approach and make support more regular and predictable. I
42:08
Speaker 3: find this interesting, Peter, because I recall once Donald Trump
42:12
Speaker 3: basically saying we can't possibly give any more aid to Ukraine.
42:16
Speaker 3: We've given them enough and this is now an unwinnable war.
42:21
Speaker 2: Is Miles right?
42:22
Speaker 3: Are we talking years still until this possibly ends?
42:28
Speaker 13: Hard to say.
42:29
Speaker 16: It's difficult to see how hither Russia or Ukraine can
42:32
Speaker 16: really sustain this forever, because this has been so damaging
42:36
Speaker 16: to both their societies. I certainly support Miles in saying
42:40
Speaker 16: that we need to be arming and helping the Ukrainians
42:44
Speaker 16: to defend themselves. I think that's absolutely right. I wish
42:48
Speaker 16: as Defense minister he'd been in a position to get
42:50
Speaker 16: his government to do a lot more a lot sooner.
42:53
Speaker 16: But if he's been to NATO and he's now feeling
42:55
Speaker 16: some zeal, that's a good thing. I'd like to think
42:59
Speaker 16: he'd also be able to persuade his government to spend
43:01
Speaker 16: a bit more money on our own defense policy settings,
43:04
Speaker 16: because that seems to be the last area, indeed the
43:07
Speaker 16: only area of government expenditure. Following from Adam's interview with You,
43:12
Speaker 16: where the government is being cost constrained, and so you know,
43:16
Speaker 16: let's fund our own defense first, but by all means,
43:19
Speaker 16: let's support the Ukrainians. I think that's important for Europe
43:23
Speaker 16: and therefore really important for the security of democracies all
43:27
Speaker 16: around the world.
43:28
Speaker 3: It wouldn't it be good if we were looking after our
43:30
Speaker 3: own backyard for once. Peter Jennings, nice to see you,
43:33
Speaker 3: Thanks very much for your time. This evening still to come.
43:36
Speaker 3: Nigel Farage rolls out a shadow cabinet with eight MPs.
43:40
Speaker 3: Is Reform UK now in a government in waiting. We'll
43:43
Speaker 3: go live to London and catch up with Brendan O'Neill next.
43:49
Speaker 2: Welcome back.
43:49
Speaker 3: Well, Nigel Farage is trying to put Reform UK into
43:52
Speaker 3: government in waiting mode, unveiling a mini shadow cabinet stacked
43:56
Speaker 3: with big defectors and big portfolios. Even though the party
43:59
Speaker 3: is on they got eight MP's Johnavy now is spiked online.
44:02
Speaker 2: Chief political writer Brendan O'Neil.
44:04
Speaker 3: Brendan, thank you for joining me, take us through this
44:07
Speaker 3: announcement and is this good enough to set the party
44:10
Speaker 3: up ahead of the next election.
44:12
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's a really significant development because, as you guys
44:15
Speaker 7: will know from the Australian case, there's usually only one
44:18
Speaker 7: opposition party that has a shadow cabinet, and that will
44:22
Speaker 7: be the official opposition in the UK, which is the
44:24
Speaker 7: Conservative Party. So in naming his own shadow cabinet, Farage
44:28
Speaker 7: is basically laying down the gornlert. He says that we
44:31
Speaker 7: are now the official opposition. We will be the people
44:34
Speaker 7: who could well storm to power in the next general election.
44:37
Speaker 7: I think he's right to be that confident because all
44:40
Speaker 7: the opinion polls continually show that Reform is soaring ahead
44:43
Speaker 7: of all the other parties. It's increasingly the most popular
44:46
Speaker 7: party in the UK, which is a real sign that
44:49
Speaker 7: people want change, they want something different, they want to
44:53
Speaker 7: leave behind the two party system and take a punt
44:55
Speaker 7: on this upstart party that's kind of come from nowhere.
44:58
Speaker 7: So development i think for British politics, and a lot
45:02
Speaker 7: of people will be watching Reform to see how well
45:04
Speaker 7: they can do well.
45:05
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I mean Nigel Faraj has taken this from a
45:08
Speaker 3: protest party into one that could genuinely form government. I
45:12
Speaker 3: mean it's all systems go now for Reform, that's for sure.
45:16
Speaker 3: Look this baffled me when I read another mess for
45:19
Speaker 3: Keir Starmer, one of his close allies, is under investigation
45:23
Speaker 3: over an alleged smear operation targeting journalists who were reporting on.
45:27
Speaker 2: Labor linked funding BREDA. This is a scandal. It just
45:31
Speaker 2: sounds to me like Starma can't take the heat.
45:36
Speaker 7: I mean, this is a huge scandal. I'm amazed that
45:38
Speaker 7: it hasn't made more global headlines. I'm really pleased that
45:41
Speaker 7: you guys are discussing it because there's this thinct tank
45:44
Speaker 7: called Labor Together, which is a really important Labor party
45:48
Speaker 7: think tank, the organization that helped to get Keir Starmer
45:51
Speaker 7: into office. And it turns out that they were investigating
45:55
Speaker 7: journalists who were investigating them, and they were spreading smear
45:59
Speaker 7: stories or about these journalists. I mean, this is really
46:03
Speaker 7: kind of tinpot dictator stuff. This is the kind of
46:05
Speaker 7: thing you'd expect in Soviet Russia, not in twenty first
46:08
Speaker 7: century Britain. You know, Keir Starmer posed as the great
46:12
Speaker 7: warrior against slees. He said he would end the era
46:15
Speaker 7: of Tory sleeves, but in fact he's been beset by
46:18
Speaker 7: one scandal after another. The Lord Manderson scandal of course
46:22
Speaker 7: related to Jeffrey Epstein. Now, this heavy handed tactic in
46:26
Speaker 7: relation to freedom of the press. I don't know how
46:28
Speaker 7: much longer Starmer can stay in Downing Street. He is
46:31
Speaker 7: one of the most scandalous pms we've had in a
46:34
Speaker 7: long time, and I have a feeling his days in
46:37
Speaker 7: power might actually be numbered.
46:38
Speaker 2: Well.
46:39
Speaker 3: I mean, it just also goes to show how dangerous
46:41
Speaker 3: the Left are that they would try and do this.
46:44
Speaker 3: As you said, it's timpop style of diplomacy. It's extraordinary.
46:49
Speaker 3: Let's talk about the Epstein files. It's been another big
46:52
Speaker 3: week for them. Of course, at pen BONDI released all
46:55
Speaker 3: of the Epstein files, all of the names, and now
46:58
Speaker 3: UK polis are said and claims linked at to those files,
47:02
Speaker 3: including allegations that Epstein used his private jet to make
47:06
Speaker 3: dozens of trips to UK airports and that victims.
47:10
Speaker 2: May have been trafficked there.
47:12
Speaker 3: Brendan, Look, it's getting worse and worse, and we're getting
47:15
Speaker 3: more and more information about the inner dealings of Epstein.
47:18
Speaker 2: But of course Andrew is caught up in a lot
47:21
Speaker 2: of these allegations as well.
47:22
Speaker 7: Now, yeah, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor as we must now call him,
47:27
Speaker 7: since his fall from grace, Yes, a lot of questions
47:30
Speaker 7: for him to answer a lot of speculation. He seems
47:33
Speaker 7: to have been up to questionable things, although of course
47:36
Speaker 7: he denies the more serious accusations that have been made
47:38
Speaker 7: against him. But I think he definitely has a case
47:41
Speaker 7: to answer. We need to know what he was up
47:43
Speaker 7: to with Jeffrey Epstein. But there's one other thing in
47:45
Speaker 7: relation to this story that's starting to tick off some
47:48
Speaker 7: British people, which is why there's so much enthusiastic investigation
47:52
Speaker 7: of this scandal in comparison with the rape gang scandal
47:55
Speaker 7: of the past thirty years, when loads of white working
47:58
Speaker 7: class girls were abuse used, and trafficked and raped by
48:01
Speaker 7: largely Muslim gangs. You know, we didn't see the same
48:04
Speaker 7: enthusiasm from members of Parliament to investigate that or to
48:07
Speaker 7: hold inquiries. We didn't see comments from the King, we
48:10
Speaker 7: didn't see comments from Prime ministers. So a bit by
48:13
Speaker 7: bit people are starting to ask why this kind of
48:16
Speaker 7: scandal has been prioritized over that. So there's that question
48:19
Speaker 7: as well that dangles over this whole affair in the
48:22
Speaker 7: United Kingdom.
48:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a really, really good point.
48:24
Speaker 3: It's a story that seems to get on the back burner,
48:26
Speaker 3: and certainly UK libeer wanted to be on the back burner,
48:28
Speaker 3: but it shouldn't be given what occurred here Brendan O'Neil,
48:32
Speaker 3: and we've got to leave it there. Thank you so
48:33
Speaker 3: much for joining me on the show. Appreciate it, Thank
48:35
Speaker 3: you for your company. Sharry will be back tomorrow night,
48:37
Speaker 3: stay with us. Up next is Paul Murray.
48:39
Speaker 2: Good night,