Latest / The Kenny Report / The Kenny Report | 29 October

Transcript

The Kenny Report | 29 October · The Kenny Report

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Lare from the Skying New Center. This is the Kenny Report.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Thanks for joining me tonight. Why won't the Prime Minister
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: answer the critical question about whether he asked to get
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: his Quantus upgrades. I'll reveal a likely reason as we
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: look at Anthony Albanesi's angry reaction today. Also the government's
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: feeble COVID pandemic inquiry. It makes some decent points, but
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: we still need a Royal commission. Labour's response is shameless
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: and I'll get a verdict from Professor Peter Kolognong. Also
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: the terrific Tuesday Panel Tim Blair, and a big day
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: in the US election campaign. Let's get into it. The
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Prime Minister is in deep strife over this Quantus scandal.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Anthony Alberesi might have been in breach of ministerial guidelines.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: The labor leader, the leader of the.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Workers Party, is now exposed as an enthusiastic indulger in
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: the comforts of Quantus business class, first class and its
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: chairman's lounges, right in the middle of a cost of
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: living crisis. This comes just after Albanizi fell behind in
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: the polls for the first time, and after it was
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: revealed he'd added to his real estate portfolio by perching
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: a four point three million dollar beach house. The Quantus
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: revelations have come from a much anticipated book by former
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Liberal Party advisor, Quantus PR staffer and Australian Financial Review
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: journalist Joe Aston.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: The books called The Chairman's Lounge.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: What we have now is a ripping story about the
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: Prime Minister, the Quantus CEO, his upgrades and their troubles.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: The Quantus boss, Alan Joyce is.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Gone now taking his multi million dollar payout, having damaged
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: the national carrier's brand in recent years, but Alberanzi's relationship
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: with him was cozy and it goes back to when
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Alberanzi was Transport Minister in the Rudd and Gillard governments.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: The claim now, the claim now is that alberan Easy
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: not only granted upgrades from Quantus that's you, that is
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: when you're put into business or first class even though
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: you only paid for an economy ticket. And not only
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: did he accept upgrades for personal travel, family holidays and
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: the like, but crucially that alban Easy actually asked for
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: the upgrades while he was Transport Minister and even going
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: directly to the CEO Joyce over his personal travel. That
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: makes the question you're about to hear the most important one.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: And note how the Prime Minister simply does not answer it.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: In fact, I'll let it run and you'll see how
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: he wanders off onto all sorts of irrelevant nonsense to
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: avoid the real issue.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: Did you call Alan always personally for these upgrades?
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: But the idea quanas have a number in terms of
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: bookings that are private bookings and in terms of the
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: only discussions that I can recall with Alan Joyce, certainly
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: we discussed not through calls. We discussed the first flight
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: from Australia to Dubai on an A three eighty. I
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: might note as well that the Today show Sunrise was
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: full of media. These were not commercial flights. They are
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: all recording and doing interviews on the way. Kerry Ane
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: Kenney was there in Dubai along with other people from
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: the Project and for all of these TV shows.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Oh, dear Kerry Ane Kennelly, the Project whatever. He just
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: doesn't want to talk about the issue. Look, many of
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: our politicians get these upgrades.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Is that a problem? Maybe? Is it overdone? Maybe? But
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: it's not against the rules.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: It is allowed as long as they're declared, So that's not.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: The issue here.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: The issue is whether alban Is he went a step
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: further than accepting an upgrade when it came his way,
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: whether he asked for them, and actually whether he then
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: knew that he'd be granted them. Now, if that were true,
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: for instance, you could book an economy flight to London
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: and you'd know you're going to end up in the
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: luxury of first class, a gift worth ten thousand dollars
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: in more, and this sort of procurement is exactly what
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Aston has alleged.
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: Well, I don't think it's appropriate behavior, whether it's declared
• 4:49
  Speaker 5: or not. I mean to solicit upgrades when you are
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: on private travel and you are the Minister for Transport
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: regulating the airline industry, to approach the seat of the
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: national airline to ask to have your economy ticket magically
• 5:03
  Speaker 5: turned into a point en ticket, it's just inappropriate conduct,
• 5:07
  Speaker 5: whether or not it's declared or not. And I think
• 5:08
  Speaker 5: if Anthony Albanese had to have been Financial Services Minister
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: and had called the CEO of a bank and said,
• 5:14
  Speaker 5: would you please put fifty thousand dollars in my bank
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: account and then disclose it on the Pecuniary Interest Register.
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: I certainly don't think anyone would be sitting around saying, oh, well,
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: he declared it, that's fine.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: The trouble is that even when he was pressed on
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: whether he'd made personal requests, Anthony Albanese simply refused to
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: answer the central allegation.
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: I'm far from being the most frequent person of being up.
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: Go to Paul Fletcher's been up great at least sixty
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: nine times that he's declared sixty nine. He's been in
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: Parliament for less time than I've been in And you know,
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: if people I think you know, what you need to
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: do is to make sure you stick to the rules.
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: I've done that at all times.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: But there is a clear reason the Prime Minister might
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: not want to answer that crucial question. You see, depending
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: on whether or not these claims are true. Depending on
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: the answer, should Albaneze ever give one, he could be
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: in breach of the rules. That is, the Ministerial Code
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: of Conduct on gifts.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: The current code.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: Is exactly the same as it was when Anthony Albanese
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: was Transport Minister, and it says ministers may accept official gifts, hospitality,
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: tokens of appreciation and similar formal gestures in accordance with
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: the relevant guidelines, but must not seek or encourage any
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: form of gift in their personal capacity.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: There you go.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: You cannot seek gifts for obvious reasons. No wonder the
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: Prime Minister is so testy today, lashing out at Aston.
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: The person who is trying to sell a book.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Enough.
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: I don't see decorations. He's a former Liberal Party staffer
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: for a number of senior members of the Liberal Party,
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: including Joe Hockey and Bruce Baird. I don't see decorations.
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: He's a former Quanas employee. I don't see decorations. In June,
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: just a few months ago, he was a guest him
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: and John Howard, a Liberal Party fundraiser in the electorate
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: of Wentworth well.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Aston has always been open about all of that. Everyone
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: in politics knows it, and in fact, his time as
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: a Liberal staffer is declared in the very first line
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: of the book's introduction. The Prime Minister seems to be
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: flailing around desperately, and he's lashing out of the opposition
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: leader too.
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: Peter Dutton seems to be determined to just be arrogant
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: and nasty every day.
• 7:55
  Speaker 6: That's up to him.
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: But I'll continue to do my job.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: But still the question about seeking upgrades goes unanswered.
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: There's no accusation being made with any specifics at all
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: about any of this. None, none, none. People are Peter
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: Dutton is making this statement. If there is a suggestion
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: to be made, let it be made specifically and I'll
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: answer it. But I have said, I have said, I
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: have said very clearly that I recall direct discussions with
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: Alan Joyce over over the flights the Emirates or Quanus
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: flight to Dubai and of course the first flight to Perth.
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: They're the only times that I was on a plane
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: with Alan Joyce.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Again, that's not the question.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: We don't care he's talking about anything except the question.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: This issue is now likely to be probed in Parliament
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: next week, of course, and could even be referred to
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: the new Federal Anti Corruption Commission. But it's important also
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: to note what the man who broke this story says
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: is not being alleged.
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: I'm not trying to say that there is established causality
• 9:17
  Speaker 5: between Anthony Albanesi asking foreign receiving a benefit and Anthony
• 9:22
  Speaker 5: Albanesi making some decision or not making some decision. I'm
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: not saying that, and I don't think you can say that.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: Still, Albanizi has decided attack is his best form of defense. Extraordinarily,
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: rather than give a clear denial to the critical question,
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: the Prime Minister has sought to smear Darton and other
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: unnamed MPs.
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: I don't have a trust, I don't have a family trust.
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: I don't have any shares. I've never had any shares
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: in any company. I have always acted in an open
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: and transparent way, and it's up to others to say
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: why it is that they have trusts, Why it is
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: that we don't know what they own, what they invest in,
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: what income they have all hidden away. I have not
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: done that, And in my time in public life, I
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: have acted with integrity. I have acted in a way
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: that is entirely appropriate, and I have declared in accordance
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: with the rules, even though I read today. I declared
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: a cookbook today, because I declare things even when there's
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: no obligation to do so. I have always erred on
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: the side of caution. Thanks very much.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: This issue could go anywhere.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: But just as the Cortas brand has suffered in recent years,
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: Albanezi is now in deep strife with the electorate. The
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: self styled working class man is now seen as the
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: champagne sipping Chairman's club member with his hand out of
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: first class holiday flights on the cheap, while he's got
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: a multi million dollar beach house as a backup for
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: lazy weekends. But he tells us he's focused on the
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: cost of living crisis. Good luck selling that. You'll have
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: to hope now that the caucus colleagues is caucus colleagues
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: in camera, don't start to think that they need an
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: upgrade in their leadership. Joining me now is Liberal MP
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: as Zoey Menzies, joining us live from Melbourne. Zoey, do
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: you believe that Anthony Albanezi has breached the Ministerial code
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: of conduct?
• 11:38
  Speaker 7: Look, it's quite an extraordinary story that we're seeing today, Chris,
• 11:42
  Speaker 7: the way the Prime Minister's trying to present it as
• 11:44
  Speaker 7: though this happens all the time. I've been a member
• 11:47
  Speaker 7: of the Chairman's Land on and off for fifteen years
• 11:49
  Speaker 7: just because of the jobs I've had. The roles I've
• 11:51
  Speaker 7: had are never never have I been offered an upgrade
• 11:55
  Speaker 7: as a result of that membership. It looks like these
• 11:58
  Speaker 7: upgrades have come through direct personal intervention of Alan Joyce.
• 12:02
  Speaker 7: Yet to be proven whether it was after a call
• 12:04
  Speaker 7: from the Prime Minister himself. Extraordinary experience that upgrades to
• 12:09
  Speaker 7: Honolulu to London one first class from economy to first
• 12:14
  Speaker 7: class going to London. These are extraordinary gifts, yes, recorded,
• 12:21
  Speaker 7: but the question is how on earth they came about.
• 12:24
  Speaker 7: And at the end of the day, the question of
• 12:26
  Speaker 7: Australians are justified in asking was did this in any
• 12:29
  Speaker 7: way influence the decision about Qatar Airways last year because
• 12:33
  Speaker 7: Australians frankly deserve cheaper travel. We're now in a position
• 12:36
  Speaker 7: where we can go back and see friends and family.
• 12:38
  Speaker 7: Thirty percent of Australians were born overseas and they're paying
• 12:42
  Speaker 7: more than they need to because this government decided not
• 12:44
  Speaker 7: to let Qatar Airways have extra landing rights. You have
• 12:48
  Speaker 7: to ask yourself what's going on between this government and Quantus,
• 12:51
  Speaker 7: and particularly given the extraordinary largess the Prime Minister has
• 12:55
  Speaker 7: benefited from in the last thirty odd years.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Now, there's been a lot of focus on that Kata
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: Area Lines decision knocking them back to have for flights
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: into Australia that was advantageous to Quantus of course, and
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: you'll continue to probe that their allegations the Prime Minister's
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: office was involved in that. But on what he's done
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: here and the ministerial guidelines, Anthony Albany, Anthony Aberanez, he
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: has not denied flat out that he's asked personally for upgrades.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: Now if he hasn't done it, he should clearly deny it. Instead,
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: he's talked about a phone number, a phone line that's available.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: It's not available to everyone. It's obviously only available to
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: people in the Chairman's Club, and he hasn't said whether
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: he or his staff I've used that to get upgrades
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: for his personal travel.
• 13:39
  Speaker 7: Chris, I don't know what that number is, As I said,
• 13:41
  Speaker 7: I've been a member of it for about fifteen years
• 13:44
  Speaker 7: on and off. So there's no magic number for backbenches
• 13:47
  Speaker 7: I suppose, although Albo seem to have had one when
• 13:50
  Speaker 7: he was a bagbitcher, because many of these trips are
• 13:52
  Speaker 7: actually ninety nine two thousand first class trip was certainly
• 13:55
  Speaker 7: in that period, so something special going on. I don't
• 13:58
  Speaker 7: know what magic number he has that the rest of
• 13:59
  Speaker 7: us have never heard of. But my main point is
• 14:03
  Speaker 7: Australians are being done it. Australians could be traveling to
• 14:06
  Speaker 7: see friends and family at a better rate, and they're
• 14:09
  Speaker 7: not because Catherine King decided to protect quantuses market.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: That's a critical point, and you're trying to link those
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: issues in Parliament. But when it comes to the Prime
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: Minister standing and why and the Code of Conduct and
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: why he won't answer these questions. The critical point is
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: about asking for upgrades. Now, we all know that all
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: members of Parliament get these Chairman's Club memberships. We all
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: know that some people indulge in the in the I
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: suppose the hospitality on offer more than others, and they
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: all have to declare any gifts.
• 14:43
  Speaker 8: And the like.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: But the critical so that it doesn't matter.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: He's just trying to deflect everybody by referring to all
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: of that. We're not saying everybody else is behaving with
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: the hair and sackcloth here. But the critical point is
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: I've never heard of this of politicians asking for an
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: upgrade their personal travel. Now, if that's not true, he
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: needs to flood out deny it, surely, otherwise there's going
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: to be hell to pay with those the Ministerial Code
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: of Conduct.
• 15:09
  Speaker 7: Absolutely, I mean you showed the code. The relevant provision
• 15:12
  Speaker 7: in the code am I going to go, but must
• 15:14
  Speaker 7: not seek or encourage any form of gift in their
• 15:17
  Speaker 7: personal capacity. Many of these fights were private holidays for him,
• 15:22
  Speaker 7: his wife, his partner and son. It just defies the
• 15:27
  Speaker 7: pub test, it really does. And I think the point
• 15:30
  Speaker 7: that you had the comment from Aston before. You know,
• 15:33
  Speaker 7: the bloke from the Hard Knocks life who loves the
• 15:36
  Speaker 7: champagne at the porny end.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, incredible stuff. We can't wait to see. These questions
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: will need to be probed. We'll watch and wait and
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: ask them ourselves.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Sorry McKenzie. They're the member for Flinders down in Melbourne.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: Now what I follow up on a story we talked
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: about yesterday, and the desert mining city of Broken Hill
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: in far western New South Wales was plagued by blackouts
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: and power shortages for more than ten days after storm
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: took out transmission lines. But what too few people are
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: asking is why this happened when the silver city is
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: supposed to be a renewable energy hub, complete with a
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: big battery to help out in emergencies. Residents of Broken
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: Hill are angry and that's putting it lightly. For more,
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: I'm joined by the mayor of Broken Hill Tom Kennedy,
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Sir Tom. Now I understand you've
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: got regular power supplies up and running now.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: I know they were on and off.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: A few days, blacked out completely for a while, but
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: on and off of late.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: But now you're up and running. Yeah.
• 17:00
  Speaker 9: Look, the last couple of days we've had no power
• 17:03
  Speaker 9: outages though the surrounding areas of Volcnyum and Indie White Cliffs,
• 17:08
  Speaker 9: Tip of Borough, so some of those really remote communities.
• 17:11
  Speaker 9: They went off for about another ninety minutes last night.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: But how did you go black at all?
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: Given they've got this big battery, a massive solar farm,
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: and a massive wind turbine arrangement and all backed up
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: by this big battery. When they announced it, AGL said
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: that this battery would look after Broken Hill if there
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: was any line outage where you had your line outage
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: and you weren't looked after.
• 17:37
  Speaker 9: Yeah, look, there's no way that the renewables at this
• 17:41
  Speaker 9: time are.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: Capable of support.
• 17:47
  Speaker 10: Hill.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: We had those.
• 17:49
  Speaker 9: Renew energy that Broken Hill would need at any one time.
• 17:52
  Speaker 9: But the reality is you only get power from solo
• 17:55
  Speaker 9: when the sunshine and win when it's blowing, and the
• 17:58
  Speaker 9: reality is that it's not consistent power, so you don't
• 18:01
  Speaker 9: have that both based load power, so for Broken Ill
• 18:04
  Speaker 9: it's almost useless. So it connects directly into the grid
• 18:07
  Speaker 9: rather than our network. And the rooftop solar that connects
• 18:12
  Speaker 9: into our network, which is also capable of supplying all
• 18:15
  Speaker 9: the power to Broken Hill, is also not reliable enough
• 18:18
  Speaker 9: and spikes, so it's too too uneven to use for
• 18:22
  Speaker 9: a permanent supply of power.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: So this was the problem because they're trying to get
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: the system up and running again. They needed baseload power
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: to do that, and the wind power and the solar power,
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: even the solar panels on people's roofs in town weren't
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: any good. They wanted people not to use those to
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: pump energy into the system.
• 18:42
  Speaker 9: Yeah, because you need a constant source of power. You
• 18:45
  Speaker 9: can't have too much and you can't have too little.
• 18:47
  Speaker 9: And the problem with some of the solar rooftop solar,
• 18:50
  Speaker 9: particularly into the network at times, it produces too much power.
• 18:58
  Speaker 11: So some of our.
• 18:59
  Speaker 9: Big industrial area were actually asked to run machinery for
• 19:03
  Speaker 9: no purpose other than take some of the power out
• 19:06
  Speaker 9: of their network to make sure that it did not
• 19:08
  Speaker 9: click out.
• 19:08
  Speaker 8: The generators.
• 19:10
  Speaker 9: The diesel and petrol generators we have that is supplying
• 19:13
  Speaker 9: the city with power.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: What a shambles, What an absolute shambles. Thanks so much
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: for joining us time. I appreciate it. Tom Kennedy there,
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: who's the mayor of Broken Hill. They've recovered from this disaster,
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: but they'll want a better system next time. And those
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: renewables don't do the job. You know, we had Dick
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: Smith talking about this last night, using it to push
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: the case for nuclear energy.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: We'll keep on the case. Got to get to a breakdown.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: On the other side, I'll catch up with Susio brien
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: and Stephen Senna Tiempo.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: We'll talk more.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: About Albo's perks and whether he called the Quanta's boss.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Plus climate alarmism hits Halloween.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: Let's go to our terrific Tuesday panel now with Susio
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: O'Brien joining us from the Herald Son in Melbourne and
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: Radio two Double See Breakfast host Stephen Senna Tiempo, who
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: it was good to catch up with in the flesh
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: on the weekend in camera.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Stephen. Now, let's get on to sailing. It was a
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: beautiful day sailing.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: Indeed, I'm becoming a sailing expert now Susie tell us
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: about our bow and quantas how bad is this going
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: to get for him?
• 20:14
  Speaker 11: Well, it depends. I mean he's saying he's maintaining he's
• 20:17
  Speaker 11: done nothing wrong, then maybe he needs to agree to
• 20:19
  Speaker 11: an inquiry so if he has done nothing wrong, he
• 20:22
  Speaker 11: will be clear. I think we need to remember that
• 20:24
  Speaker 11: there's a lot of federal politicians who regularly get upgrades.
• 20:28
  Speaker 11: They're members of the Chairman's land. It kind of comes
• 20:30
  Speaker 11: with the territory. But we still don't really know at
• 20:34
  Speaker 11: what cost did these particular upgrades have. And also, you
• 20:39
  Speaker 11: know it's not normal for members of Parliament to be
• 20:42
  Speaker 11: on to have Alan Joyce on speed dial. So what's
• 20:46
  Speaker 11: happening behind the scenes, What with the direct links between
• 20:49
  Speaker 11: this and decisions like refusing expansion of Qatar Airlines. There's
• 20:55
  Speaker 11: a lot we still don't know about this. I've got
• 20:57
  Speaker 11: the feelings has got a long way to run.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: I reckon it's got a long way to run, because
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: it goes like this, Stephen, if nothing has happened here
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Albaniz He looks down the barrel of the camera and
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: he says, I have never asked for an upgrade to
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: a personal flight, and neither have my staff asked for
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: an upgrade on my behalf. If he can say that, fine,
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: it's all over. But he won't say that. If this
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: has happened, well, then.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: He's clearly in breach of those ministerial guidelines.
• 21:25
  Speaker 8: Absolutely.
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: And the reality is he's had a couple of opportunities
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: to do that now and hasn't said that straight down
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: the barrel of the camera. But look, at the end
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: of the day, Chris, perception is reality in politics, and
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: the perception here is this is a bloke that is
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: out of touch with everyday Australians. He likes to portray
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: himself as the bloke who grew up in public housing
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: and did it tough. But for over twenty years now,
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: well actually a little bit more than that, he's been
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: a member of Parliament on very very good money and
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: taking the perks of the job. He now just looks
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: like a bloke who's on the gravy train, and on
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: the gravy train for life. Four point three million dollar
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: beachside mansion upgrades, the first class for your flights. I mean,
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: it's just absolutely out of touch with it, particularly in
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: the context of a cost of living crisis. Now, I
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: know a lot of this stuff is historical, but you
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: got to remember this went back to when he was
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: a backbencher too from nineteen ninety nine and then as
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: Transport Minister having this kind of cozy relationship with a
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: transport operator.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Let's be fair ink about this.
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: And I think Joe asked and put it beautifully when
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: he said, it'd be like the Financial Services Minister ringing
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: your bank and saying, can I have a couple of
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: points off me infestrating?
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you what I want to go through some
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: critical points here. One is that critical question to Anthony Albaneze.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: He was asked it clearly today. Here's the question and
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: the response.
• 22:40
  Speaker 7: Did you call Alan Joyce personally for these upgrades?
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: Look, the idea kanas have a number in terms of
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: bookings that are private bookings and in terms of the
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: only discussions that I can recall with Alan Joyce, certainly
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: we discussed not through calls. We discussed the first flight
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: from Australia to Dubai on an a three eighty.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Well, boy, SUSI that sounds like a bloke who has
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: used that number.
• 23:22
  Speaker 11: Well, you know what if my kids gave me an answer,
• 23:24
  Speaker 11: like if my kids gave me an answer like that,
• 23:28
  Speaker 11: you know, to to a straight question, I would pretty
• 23:31
  Speaker 11: much think.
• 23:31
  Speaker 6: They were lying.
• 23:32
  Speaker 11: I mean, really, he does have to answer.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: I had to try and cancel and cancel a flight
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: because I had COVID. They don't want you on their
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: flight when you got COVID, so I did the right
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: thing and pulled out. It took me forever. You couldn't
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: get anyone on the phone. Us mugs, we mugs. We
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: just have to go online. And then they just kept
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: my money anyway, Robert Barons. But just to Stevens point,
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: let's have a look at something that Joe Askedon has
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: said in a in an interview he's recorded this afternoon
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: with Sharry Markson.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: It'll be on in full on Sky News at eight o'clock.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Have a look.
• 24:07
  Speaker 5: The ones who bang on the most about their origin story,
• 24:11
  Speaker 5: you know, about how they grew up in a brown
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: paper bag, or they floated to an Australia on a
• 24:15
  Speaker 5: stick of spaghetti. They're always the ones who are most
• 24:19
  Speaker 5: are most susceptible to the high life. And I think
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: it's certainly true that for someone who came from so
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: little Albaneze has an insatiable appetite for VIP travel and hospitality.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and as Stephen said, the perception is reality in politics.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: And just to underscore that point, I want you to
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: listen to what Chris.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: Bowen said, the Climate Change and Energy Energy Minister, when
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: he was asked about this on ABC this Morning.
• 24:46
  Speaker 8: Well, look, I think he has answered these questions.
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: And look, the Opposition can focus on the cost of
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: quantus flights all they like.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: The Labor Party in the Prime Minister has focused on
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: cost of living for ordinary Australians. For ordinary Australia, it's
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: the ordinary Australians. They're they're special people with the champagne
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: and the chairman's lounge that he's worried about those ordinary Australians.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: Doesn't that phrase give a lot away?
• 25:14
  Speaker 6: Well?
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, I mean we're talking about the average Australian who
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: can barely afford a flight to Melbourne on Jet Star,
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: let alone be in the chairman's lounge or get first
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: grade first quats to London faired InCom unbelievable stuff.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Just very quickly, Susie, I've got to get you to
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: talk about this story as you've written about it.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: There's a couple of other stories.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: Around about teachers and childcare workers and the like dealing
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: with sexualized young boys, I suppose, dealing with all sorts of.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Misbehavior, even threats.
• 25:48
  Speaker 11: Oh, this is a really alarming story. It was a
• 25:50
  Speaker 11: survey of one thousand teachers nationally by Collective Shout and
• 25:54
  Speaker 11: assisted by Maggie Denton, who's a well known parenting author,
• 25:58
  Speaker 11: And what are basically found was kids as young three
• 26:02
  Speaker 11: acting out highly disturbing sexualized behavior in the classroom, and
• 26:06
  Speaker 11: it's mostly been directed at female teachers. So kids as
• 26:10
  Speaker 11: young as three moaning when the teacher walks in the room.
• 26:13
  Speaker 11: We've got kids in grade two who are sharing pornographic images,
• 26:17
  Speaker 11: girls in grade four and five and six who have
• 26:21
  Speaker 11: been coerced by their male peers into sharing sexualized images
• 26:26
  Speaker 11: of themselves. And the majority of the perpetrators these teachers, say,
• 26:31
  Speaker 11: are year nine and ten boys, and their main target
• 26:35
  Speaker 11: are their female teachers. And some of the stuff is
• 26:38
  Speaker 11: just absolutely disgusting, and whatever we are doing in schools
• 26:42
  Speaker 11: at the moment, we need to do more to address
• 26:45
  Speaker 11: this kind of behave.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, look, we all know young boys at that age
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: group it's a particularly precocious time and especially around those issues.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: But there seems to be no doubt that social media
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: ready access to pornography and all these sorts of things
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: are making it worse.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Is that that's the outtake, isn't it, SUSI.
• 27:05
  Speaker 11: Yeah, absolutely, And they're saying that, you know, kids by eight,
• 27:08
  Speaker 11: you know, eighty percent of kids have got access to
• 27:11
  Speaker 11: a mobile phone or have their own mobile phones, and
• 27:14
  Speaker 11: a lot of parents don't know what their kids are doing.
• 27:17
  Speaker 6: And there's all.
• 27:18
  Speaker 11: Sorts of access that they have through video apps where
• 27:22
  Speaker 11: they could get you know, where they can have direct
• 27:24
  Speaker 11: conversations with strangers, they can access pornography, and most parents
• 27:29
  Speaker 11: would have absolutely no idea what is going on.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, big issue. Will keep on that as well.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: I want to get finished off with something that's kind
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: of amusing, bloody, frightening. It relates to Halloween.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: I want to show you a clip from CNN highlighting
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: out some numb skulls worried about how Halloween is, I
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: don't know, wrecking the planet or something like a.
• 27:49
  Speaker 11: Look, pumpkins are about ninety percent water, and then that
• 27:54
  Speaker 11: water gets trapped in the landfill and we never get
• 27:57
  Speaker 11: it back there.
• 27:58
  Speaker 12: They'll decompose and produce methane, a greenhouse gas that compared
• 28:03
  Speaker 12: to carbon dioxide warms the atmosphere to the same extent
• 28:07
  Speaker 12: in a shorter amount of time, which means it's a
• 28:10
  Speaker 12: big cause of climate change.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Stephen, Halloween is wrecking the planet.
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: Now, look, as a good Catholic boy, I'm offended that
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: a Catholic festival like Halloween's being maligned like this.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: But what are they What do you go out and
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: get a plastic pumpkin? Is that better? Please? You've written
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: about this too, Susie. Yeah, what's the solution and get
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: the hydrog chemicals out and make a plastic pumpkin.
• 28:37
  Speaker 11: Oh well, you're not allowed to have a plastic pumpkin either, Stephen,
• 28:39
  Speaker 11: because you know that would be a single use plastic
• 28:41
  Speaker 11: and you know they'd have you for that as well.
• 28:43
  Speaker 11: You know it used to be the worst thing about
• 28:45
  Speaker 11: Halloween was the amount of sugar kids eat, or the
• 28:48
  Speaker 11: willingness of adults to wear, you know, sexy pirate costumes
• 28:50
  Speaker 11: in public. But no, now the scariest thing about Halloween
• 28:54
  Speaker 11: is climate change and pumpkin's emitting methane gases. They say,
• 28:59
  Speaker 11: break down councils are saying, let's have a competition for Halloween.
• 29:04
  Speaker 11: Who has got the most zero waste Halloween decorations.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: My almost eleven year old this morning suggested that he
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: should get a T shirt that says the Greens and
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: wear that on Halloween.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: I think he was just trying to suck up to me.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: I said, no costume. Not everyone will get the joke,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: so we talked him out of that one. Thanks so
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: much for joining us, Stephen and Susie. I appreciate it.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: You listened to Stephen at.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: T double C in the Canberra or online around the
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: country and he reads Susi's stuff in the Herald Sun.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Now still to come after the break, I want to
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: get back to this COVID pandemic response and Professor Peter
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: collin Jong's trying to join me to talk about today's findings. Also,
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: Barbara Heindiback on the presidential race in the US as
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: it enters the final stretch and the Democrats are banging
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: on about.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Trump being a fascist.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: Aside from the Prime Minister and quantus upgrades, the other
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: big story today was the release of the government's report
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: into the COVID pandemic response. By the way, I don't
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: think it was an accident this was released today because
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: I think the government's looking for anything to distract from
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: the Prime Minister's Cortis fiasco. Now, I've been critical of
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: this COVID inquiry from the start. We deserve we need
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: a full Royal commission to properly examine what we got
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: right and what we got wrong, But instead the government
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: handpicked three experts to.
• 30:31
  Speaker 8: Have a look at it.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: Releasing the report today, the government announced that establish a
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: Center for Disease Control. Otherwise, the report on first glance,
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: looks like a politically convenient document. The left, we'll use
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: it to bash the Coalition, saying the vaccine rollout was
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: too slow. We've heard all of that before, of course,
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: But what I want answers on is why we had to.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Wait for that.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: Really, most of us didn't need a vaccine. The problem
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: was focusing so heavily on vaccines and the way they
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: imposed terrible vaccine mandates. Already, Labour's response to this report
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: is dripping in hypocrisy. For instance, listen to Treasurer Jim Charmers,
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: the man who's delivered record government spending and therefore is
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: having trouble getting on top of inflation. Listen to him
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: on the COVID response and the economy.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Big decisions were taken and big mistakes were made.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: Those mistakes were costly and they were inflationary.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: Well, of course, the COVID spending was inflationary. Some of
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: us said that that right at the time, and we
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: warned that we were spending too much money.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: But labor wasn't doing that. Charmers wasn't doing that.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: Charmers was demanding the government spend more money for longer
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: on job keeper. If the Morrison government had listened to Charmers,
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: there would have been more spending and higher inflation. But
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: when it comes to the draconian measures, the report seems
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: pretty soft. It does criticize the states for implementing very
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: different measures when it came to lockdown's borders, school closures
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: and the like. Some differences were not easily explained, it said,
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: and no rationale was provided. This included the operation of
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: state border closures that states enacted unilaterally and that lacked
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: consistency and compassion in implementation. Lacked compassion, you can say
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: that again, but I guess my main criticism of the
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: response was that it was way too tough. It treated
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: the disease as if it was deadly to everyone, and
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: it simply wasn't, and it treated the vaccines as if
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: they stopped infection spreading, and they simply didn't. And these
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: facts were very clear early, and the evidence only mounted
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: as we went along.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: This report accepts this is.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: The reality now, but it does so in pretty mild
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: and forgiving language. Once more was understood, once more was
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: understood about the virus threat, and our healthcare system's resilience
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: had increased, the pandemic response should have shifted from a
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: reliance on the better safe than start sorry precautionary principle,
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: the report says, where fast actions not necessarily informed by
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: evidence are required to a risk based approach grounded in evidence.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's an admission.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: They brought in measures without any medical evidence early on,
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: as many of us could see and argued at the time.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: But governments shut down descent and much of the population
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: was gripped in.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Fear and went along with it all.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: Remember how they always cited medical advice but they never
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: shared it. They were scandalous st The report goes on
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: to say that governments should have toned it down. However,
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: aspects of the response continued to rely on the precautionary principle,
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: maintaining a low risk tolerance for COVID case numbers with
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: inadequate consideration of the broader health, economic, and societal impacts. Yeah,
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: keep infections down at all costs. Never mind people's mental health,
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: never mind their ability to earn a living, never mind
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: kids schooling and socialization, and never mind the inflation would
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: all be wearing years later. You didn't need hindsight for
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: any of this. Yet the Health Minister now talks about
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: trust apprucially.
• 34:15
  Speaker 10: This report says that a number of the points I've
• 34:18
  Speaker 10: already made about the lack of real time, evidence based
• 34:21
  Speaker 10: policy and the lack of transparency has driven a large
• 34:26
  Speaker 10: decline in trust, which the panel members say, and these
• 34:30
  Speaker 10: are their words, means that many of the measures taken
• 34:33
  Speaker 10: during COVID nineteen are unlikely to be accepted by the population.
• 34:38
  Speaker 8: Again.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I sure hope. So I really hope.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: We would demand more information, would force more accountability onto
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: governments and bureaucrats, and we demand that the media are
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: more skeptical and honest.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: But I worry that's not the case. We haven't done.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: Enough to expose the mistakes forensically, and I reckon they
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: could easily do this to us all over again.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: It's a huge worry.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: Let's bring in Professor Peter Collinjong Infectious Diseases physician, live
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: from Canberra.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Good to talk to you again, Peter.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: We spoke to you so often throughout the pandemic and
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: this idea that we should have dropped to the sort
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: of a knee jerk response and gone to a more
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: evidence based response taking into accounts those other social issues
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: and society issues.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: That echoes what you were saying.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: But you were saying that from very early on, from
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: perhaps two or three months into this pandemic.
• 35:34
  Speaker 13: Well, I think that's true. I mean I think a
• 35:36
  Speaker 13: lot of other people or a number of other people
• 35:38
  Speaker 13: were saying as well. What the report shows, I think
• 35:41
  Speaker 13: said is, look, we didn't take into account the social
• 35:44
  Speaker 13: and economic costs, the cost on children of not having education,
• 35:48
  Speaker 13: the cost of young people being kept away from work.
• 35:51
  Speaker 13: All of that has long term you know, social and
• 35:53
  Speaker 13: economic costs. But if you actually make people poorer, their
• 35:57
  Speaker 13: health expectancy often goes down their life expecting So we
• 36:01
  Speaker 13: never got the risk analysis right. In my view, people
• 36:04
  Speaker 13: over the age of eighty were at high risk of dying,
• 36:07
  Speaker 13: but if you were a teenager, your risk was very low.
• 36:10
  Speaker 13: Yet we kept the same restrictions on everyone. And even
• 36:13
  Speaker 13: at the time, a lot of the restrictions that we had,
• 36:16
  Speaker 13: like you couldn't play golf, you couldn't go out fishing,
• 36:18
  Speaker 13: you couldn't be outside for more than hour, That was
• 36:21
  Speaker 13: never sensible.
• 36:22
  Speaker 8: And I think one of the problems was we were.
• 36:24
  Speaker 13: Very successful in Australia compared to a lot of other
• 36:26
  Speaker 13: places early on in twenty twenty, so successful we got
• 36:30
  Speaker 13: zero COVID, and then we had a whole lot of
• 36:32
  Speaker 13: people who believe, oh, we can do that forever. Look
• 36:34
  Speaker 13: how good China is, Look how good New Zealand is.
• 36:37
  Speaker 6: Well.
• 36:37
  Speaker 13: Was always a false illusion, but that meant that restrictions
• 36:41
  Speaker 13: were longer harder than they needed to be. And again
• 36:45
  Speaker 13: your comment about the vaccine. We did have a vaccine
• 36:48
  Speaker 13: available in Australia, the Astrazenika one, and we could have
• 36:51
  Speaker 13: vaccinated everybody at high risk, you know, those over the
• 36:54
  Speaker 13: age of sixty five before it ever spread in any way.
• 36:58
  Speaker 13: Yet we had a scare camp by some of the
• 37:00
  Speaker 13: zero COVID people saying, oh, wait forvisor.
• 37:03
  Speaker 8: America was not letting it out of the country.
• 37:06
  Speaker 13: So we had a vaccine that we weren't available because
• 37:10
  Speaker 13: people wanted zero risk, which is never available, and we
• 37:14
  Speaker 13: didn't take a proper balance of risk versus benefit, and
• 37:17
  Speaker 13: that actually stopped a whole lot of people getting a
• 37:19
  Speaker 13: vaccine even when it was available.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, this is such a problem of vaccines now
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: focused big on the roll out. But my point is this,
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: and you and I discussed this at various stages right throughout,
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: and that is early on. Yes, those vulnerable people in
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: the community needed to get vaccinated and needed to have
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: the opportunity to get vaccinated. But once everybody in nursing
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: homes or over seventy or suffering other health conditions had
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: been able to get vaccinated, they had that opportunity.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: We should have been opening up for the rest of the.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: Country, but we were waiting to sort of well vaccinate
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: eighty percent of the country and more before opening up.
• 37:54
  Speaker 8: Well, I agree.
• 37:55
  Speaker 13: I think in fact, the vaccines did decrease transmission because
• 37:59
  Speaker 13: they stopped people getting infection, but nowhere near as much
• 38:02
  Speaker 13: as people were promoting, and that got worse with time
• 38:05
  Speaker 13: when amachron came along. So I think the issue about
• 38:09
  Speaker 13: being more open and transparent with data and having it
• 38:11
  Speaker 13: in real time, which means you change what you do
• 38:15
  Speaker 13: was not evidence during COVID, and we need to have
• 38:18
  Speaker 13: that more evident. And I think that actually means any
• 38:20
  Speaker 13: pandemic plan we have to have well out before another
• 38:24
  Speaker 13: pandemic with clear levels of what you do at various things.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know, and we don't do that.
• 38:32
  Speaker 13: And one of the real problems this inquiry didn't really
• 38:34
  Speaker 13: look at state interventions, which were the most restrictive, because
• 38:38
  Speaker 13: it was a federal inquiry that I don't think the
• 38:40
  Speaker 13: state were going to come on boards. I think we
• 38:43
  Speaker 13: do need a royal commission that involves all the states
• 38:45
  Speaker 13: and territories as well as the federal government, because we
• 38:48
  Speaker 13: are likely to have pandemics again in the future and
• 38:51
  Speaker 13: if we don't learn what we did well, but what
• 38:53
  Speaker 13: we didn't do well will be in the same situation
• 38:56
  Speaker 13: or worse next time.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: Great, we'll come back to you again, Peter and talking
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: this and more detail, because we need to talk about
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: that pandemic plan and what this new CDC should do
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: and all the rest of it. Thanks so much for
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: joining us today, Professor Peter Collinjong on.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: That report handed down today.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: This afternoon, in fact, while everybody was busy with other stuff,
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: but it's a very important report, and we'll keep coming
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: back to that. Speaking of important issues. The US election,
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: of course, is only eight days away.
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: Now.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: I want to cross a catch up with the former
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: White House staffer, Barbara Heineback, who's joining us from bris
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: a former Democratic White House staff are good to talk
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: to you.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: Barbara, just give me.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: First up your assessment of the desperation in the Democrat camp.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: It seems so clear now that they're really ramping up
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: the attack on Donald Trump, calling him the fascist and
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: all the rest of it. The polls keep trending in
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: the favor of Donald Trump, and the behavior of the
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: Democrats seems to betray a bit of desperation.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: To me, your thoughts.
• 39:55
  Speaker 6: Yeah, hi, Chris, good to see you. I see Carmela
• 39:59
  Speaker 6: beginning to come a little unglued, her party along with her.
• 40:03
  Speaker 6: If we recall she started off a few months ago.
• 40:06
  Speaker 6: It was going to be joy and happiness, and then
• 40:09
  Speaker 6: she went to, you know, we're all in this together. Well,
• 40:13
  Speaker 6: I don't believe you can do a one to eighty
• 40:16
  Speaker 6: when it is her Democrat party that has been talking
• 40:20
  Speaker 6: for three and a half years about racism and the divisiveness,
• 40:25
  Speaker 6: and we're two very separate parties. And remember that she
• 40:29
  Speaker 6: got in because of THEI and the two states that
• 40:33
  Speaker 6: I'm paying a lot of attention to right now, it's
• 40:36
  Speaker 6: both Georgia and Pennsylvania. Now, when you look at Pennsylvania,
• 40:41
  Speaker 6: she could have gone along with Shapiro. When she was
• 40:44
  Speaker 6: selecting her running mate, she was choosing between Walls and Shapiro.
• 40:49
  Speaker 6: Governor Shapiro from Pennsylvania carries nineteen Electoral College votes our votes,
• 40:56
  Speaker 6: and then Walsh does get sixteen from Minneapolis. But she
• 41:00
  Speaker 6: was afraid of Shapiro, not just because he was Jewish
• 41:05
  Speaker 6: and she wanted to walk softly on that one. But
• 41:09
  Speaker 6: more to the point, Kamala is very insecure. Shapiro is
• 41:14
  Speaker 6: an extremely intelligent man versed on national policies, foreign policy, diplomacy,
• 41:21
  Speaker 6: knows a lot about she and Sputin and Kem Jong Ung.
• 41:25
  Speaker 6: So when we see her spending all of her eggs
• 41:29
  Speaker 6: in the basket back in Pennsylvania, she's very nervous. And
• 41:33
  Speaker 6: she's changing up now to the Hitler speech. And they
• 41:37
  Speaker 6: tried to turn the whole Democrat Party and a lot
• 41:41
  Speaker 6: of the what I call their third party, which is
• 41:44
  Speaker 6: mainstream media. Yesterday when we saw Trump at Madison Square Garden.
• 41:50
  Speaker 6: He was home free, and that was a homecoming and
• 41:53
  Speaker 6: everyone was really having a good time. You had some
• 41:56
  Speaker 6: great speakers there. You had one idiot, a comedian.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to go to that. Let me interrupt
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: you there, Barbara, because I want to go to that.
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: The comedian's name was Tony Hingecliff, and he might have
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: a joke in very poor taste.
• 42:09
  Speaker 5: They said, a look, but there's literally a floating island
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's called Puerto Rico. Yeah, it's just racist.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: I heard it called on the ABC. I think they're right.
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: Obviously, he's just bagging Puerto Rico or Puerto Ricans as well,
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: a big voting cohort in the US.
• 42:30
  Speaker 6: JD.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: Vance, though, hit back at all the outrage about that joke.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen it. I'm not going to comment on
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: the specifics of the joke, but I think that we
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: have to stop getting so offended at every little thing
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: in the United States of America. I'm just I'm so
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: over it.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: You're talking about vice presidents who are running mate choices.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: JD. E.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: Vans has just grown and grown throughout this campaign hasn't.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: He's just so calm and measured and positive, even dealing
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: with a difficult.
• 42:57
  Speaker 6: Issue like that, even with some thing like that, because
• 43:01
  Speaker 6: he really has his hand around the issues. Whereas Kamala,
• 43:06
  Speaker 6: you know, she has fumbled the ball at every interview.
• 43:09
  Speaker 6: They tried to keep her away from any interviews. Remember
• 43:13
  Speaker 6: how she got there. First of all, we had Biden
• 43:16
  Speaker 6: who was shot down from when he was running in
• 43:19
  Speaker 6: the primaries for president. He was out after the second
• 43:22
  Speaker 6: debate and he said, or really pretty much the first one,
• 43:26
  Speaker 6: and he finally said that if and then Kamala was
• 43:29
  Speaker 6: out after the second debate because Tulseu gagin Ga Gabbett
• 43:34
  Speaker 6: took her out. So when Biden came back and said,
• 43:38
  Speaker 6: if you select me as a Democrat candidate, I will
• 43:41
  Speaker 6: bring a woman and a black American woman as my candidate.
• 43:45
  Speaker 6: So he went they both won on false premises because
• 43:49
  Speaker 6: she won under she didn't win anything. But she came
• 43:52
  Speaker 6: in anointed and appointed because of DEI you know, the diversity,
• 43:56
  Speaker 6: the equity and inclusion. So that's the only reason she's there.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: We will see, we will see whether or not she's
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: the right choice. But the Democrats may be wishing they've
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: done something else now.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us.
• 44:10
  Speaker 6: To come back.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: I think Biden's hoping for that on a good day.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us. Barbara Hindi back there all over
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: the US election.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: We'll keep on the coming days and it'll be big
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: next week, of course, but for now we're going to
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: have a break.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: On the other side of that, going to catch up
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: with Tim Blair.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: We're going to talk about kids suffering climate trauma as
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: alarmism spreads through our schools. So much to get through
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: with Tim Blair from the Daily Telegraph. Thanks for joining us, mate.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: I want to get to Robert de Niro and the
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: joy of the Kamala.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: Campaign in a moment.
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: But first up, we've spoken a lot about electric devices
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: and vehicles and lithium batteries and the death traps they've become.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: You have to look here, I think there we've got to.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: A garbage truck in the western suburbs of Sydney, driving
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: along with a fire on board through the streets. You
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: feel the love for the planet there, feel the emissions
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: free lithium energy.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: This is becoming a big problem.
• 45:08
  Speaker 8: Right, It's terrible. Can I mean that that vision? You
• 45:12
  Speaker 8: can almost smell that. But we've had previous multiple incidents
• 45:16
  Speaker 8: of garbage and basic disposal facilities catching fire weekly. So
• 45:20
  Speaker 8: you know, as always in the great class war that
• 45:24
  Speaker 8: is environmentalism in modern Australia, it's always the people at
• 45:28
  Speaker 8: the bottom end of the labor chain who are suffering
• 45:30
  Speaker 8: and whose lives are very much obviously at risk. Now
• 45:34
  Speaker 8: another thing to be alarmed about, and it's a lot
• 45:37
  Speaker 8: less than a larmed obviously than the health risks faced
• 45:40
  Speaker 8: by garbage workers, is are we really going to have
• 45:44
  Speaker 8: another garbage bin? I mean I've got I think four
• 45:46
  Speaker 8: I think most people have got four or five if
• 45:48
  Speaker 8: they live in cities. We can have another little garbage
• 45:51
  Speaker 8: bin with like lead lining and asbestos to protect us
• 45:54
  Speaker 8: from the lithium batteries that we're going to have to
• 45:56
  Speaker 8: throw out. Is that the endgame here?
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, apart from our four bits, will have to have
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: a tank of water and we put out our batteries
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: into the water tank because have a look at this
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: is another example at the Central Coast of New South Wales.
• 46:10
  Speaker 14: A Central Coast garbage truck driver had to dump his
• 46:13
  Speaker 14: load onto the appropriately named Sparks Road on Wednesday after
• 46:17
  Speaker 14: it burst into flames. Firefighters put out the blaze, later
• 46:21
  Speaker 14: discovering a robot, vacuum cleaner, mobile phone, and children's toys
• 46:25
  Speaker 14: all containing lithium batteries.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: Oh there we go.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: Now we're deliberately alarming people about this.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: People need to know about it because.
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: Houses are catching fire, bins, rubbish trucks that the rest
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: of its people have got to realize that these batteries
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: are dangerous. But I want to get back to the
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: climate alarmism, the unnecessary alarmism. And you've written about that
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: in the Daily Telegraph. We're you're talking about the horrible
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: impact that's having on kids. I mean, surprise, surprise, all
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: we tell all these kids the world's about to end,
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: and they get kind of traumatized by it.
• 46:57
  Speaker 8: Absolutely, And it's so shameless of the sort of the
• 47:01
  Speaker 8: climate alarmism lobby, the massively wealthy, by the way climate
• 47:05
  Speaker 8: alarmism lobby they go around terrifying children, and then when
• 47:09
  Speaker 8: the children are terrified, they say, look, the children are terrified,
• 47:12
  Speaker 8: we're going to do something out the climate. But of course,
• 47:14
  Speaker 8: as most even children realize, climate change is very different
• 47:18
  Speaker 8: from being frightened by something called climate change. The fear
• 47:23
  Speaker 8: of it doesn't prove it, So it's like being scared,
• 47:26
  Speaker 8: being scared of a horror movie creation or something like that.
• 47:29
  Speaker 8: But they use it to kind of build their case.
• 47:32
  Speaker 8: They say, oh, well, look at this. All these children
• 47:33
  Speaker 8: are having nightmares and they're terrified of the world ending tomorrow. Well,
• 47:39
  Speaker 8: that's just cruel and that's exploiting the cruelty as well.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: It is.
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, as I said yesterday, you got Prince Charles,
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: when all these predictions about losing the polar ice cap
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: and the like don't come true, he just cites the
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: latest natural disasters and as if we've never had them before.
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, there'll always be natural disasters to sight, but
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: we're telling kids that these are worse and we've never had.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: Them before, and kids are understandably very frightened. And look
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: at this.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: He is a tweet from Joe Biden. A bloker now
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: is the leader of the free world, and he said
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: back in twenty nineteen that science tells us that how
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: we act will fail to act in the next twelve years,
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: will determine the very livability of our planet. So that's
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: the sort of fear they're pushing down our kids throats
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: just before we go they want to get back to
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: the US politics, and you focus on how Kamala always
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: said she was going.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: To bring joy. The Democratic campaign is all about joy.
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: Well that's encapsulated beautifully by a chief Democrat campaigner and cheerleader,
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: the actor Robert de Niro.
• 48:36
  Speaker 6: Have a look, it makes me so.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: We're here talking about a piece like Donald stuff. Yeah,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: and they say Trump is divisive.
• 48:58
  Speaker 8: And you can just move a few more or one
• 49:00
  Speaker 8: hundred thousand Americans into the voting for Trump column there.
• 49:02
  Speaker 8: I mean, we saw a garbage dump fire before and
• 49:05
  Speaker 8: we just saw another.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: One there, another one, a campaign garbage bin fire for sure.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Tim, I appreciate it, Robert Dennero.
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: They're all the hatred and visceral loathing for Trump, and
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: to verbalize it.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: They don't even have to understand, do they that that
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: hurts their campaign? Thanks for joining me. I'll be back
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: tonight rw night, five o'clock