Transcript

Sharri | 16 July · Sharri

0:00
Speaker 1: Live on Sky News.
0:02
Speaker 2: This is Shari.
0:06
Speaker 1: Good evening.
0:06
Speaker 3: I hope Andrew Bolt is not disappointed. It's not Sharry,
0:09
Speaker 3: it's James Macpherson filling in for Shary tonight.
0:11
Speaker 1: Great to have your company. Here's what's coming up.
0:14
Speaker 3: How trans ideology is overruling science and making the world
0:18
Speaker 3: a more dangerous place. A medical journal apologizes for a
0:21
Speaker 3: published study.
0:22
Speaker 1: Because it was correct.
0:24
Speaker 3: Plus data shows a spike in young people taking up
0:27
Speaker 3: nicotine despite billions of taxpayer dollars spent trying to deter them.
0:31
Speaker 3: Former New South Wales police minister David Elliott will join
0:34
Speaker 3: me to explain why. And a shocking new report shows
0:37
Speaker 3: more people have slipped into poverty over the past few years,
0:40
Speaker 3: with middle income earners increasingly relying on charity.
0:44
Speaker 1: We'll to get to all of that shortly. At first.
0:47
Speaker 3: The Liberal Party have come up with a way to
0:49
Speaker 3: improve their electoral fortunes.
0:51
Speaker 1: You ready for it. Here's their great plan, gender quotas.
0:56
Speaker 1: That's right.
0:56
Speaker 3: A discussion paper circulated to Liberal members yesterday proposes to
1:01
Speaker 3: ease up on the whole meritocracy thing in order to
1:04
Speaker 3: make room for some good old fashioned DEI.
1:07
Speaker 1: But that's not all.
1:08
Speaker 3: They're also proposing to go harder on climate change. It's
1:12
Speaker 3: what the young people want, apparently. So to summarize the
1:17
Speaker 3: Liberal plan is to become more like labor, which just
1:19
Speaker 3: means they'll be chasing their tales, sorry, chasing their teals
1:22
Speaker 3: tales teals same thing. The Australian reported today that an
1:26
Speaker 3: internal discussion paper had recommended the moves as a way
1:30
Speaker 3: of turning the Liberal Party into and I quote, a
1:33
Speaker 3: fit for purpose political machine. Well, if your purpose is
1:38
Speaker 3: to continually bleed voters to one nation while reassuring the
1:41
Speaker 3: ABC you're not frightening anymore, I'd say quotas and climate
1:45
Speaker 3: change are wonderful ideas. Queensland Senator James McGrath shared a
1:50
Speaker 3: special commission that came up with this strategy. He's reportedly
1:54
Speaker 3: told Liberal members and I quote, our question must be
1:57
Speaker 3: what would menzies do. Well, I think we all know
2:01
Speaker 3: the answer to that. Mensi's would probably vote for one nation.
2:05
Speaker 3: Mensi's built a Conservative party around ideas. Mcgrawan co proposed
2:10
Speaker 3: to rebuild the Conservative Party around demographics. Mensis believed people
2:15
Speaker 3: should be persuaded. The modern Liberal Party seems convinced they
2:19
Speaker 3: should simply be categorized so as to be more easily
2:22
Speaker 3: pandered to Let me take you through the key findings
2:26
Speaker 3: in this Liberal Party review. According to today's report in
2:29
Speaker 3: The Australian, the People warned its party room was no
2:33
Speaker 3: longer representative of the average Australian, which it identified as
2:38
Speaker 3: a thirty eight year old woman who was either born
2:40
Speaker 3: overseas or has at least one parent.
2:43
Speaker 1: That was to which I would reply, and I mean.
2:48
Speaker 3: The Liberal Party can fill their party room with thirty
2:51
Speaker 3: eight year old female immigrants and they'd still be completely
2:54
Speaker 3: unelectable if they don't work out what they actually stand for.
2:58
Speaker 3: People don't vote for a consensus, they vote for a cause.
3:03
Speaker 1: The report says.
3:04
Speaker 3: The party's stance on climate change is a turn off,
3:07
Speaker 3: apparently for younger voters. It found, and I quote climate
3:11
Speaker 3: change remains a top tier issue for under thirty five's
3:15
Speaker 3: who perceive the party as resistant to climate action relative
3:19
Speaker 3: to our opponents, to which I would reply, and I mean,
3:24
Speaker 3: win the argument if the Liberals are correct that the
3:28
Speaker 3: pursuit of net zero is sending US broke while making
3:31
Speaker 3: no meaningful difference to global temperatures, will then make the argument,
3:35
Speaker 3: and keep making the argument.
3:36
Speaker 1: Until you win.
3:38
Speaker 3: The argument leadership isn't following the opinion polls, it's changing
3:42
Speaker 3: them instead. The Internal Liberal Review hints that it might
3:47
Speaker 3: be time for yet another climate conversation. My advice to
3:50
Speaker 3: the Liberals would be to quick telling us what the
3:52
Speaker 3: polls say and start telling us what you believe, or
3:56
Speaker 3: they could flip flop again. Ironic enough, this is the
4:00
Speaker 3: exact thing Liberal leader Angus Taylor warned about after the
4:04
Speaker 3: Liberals were trounced in the Pharaoh by election.
4:08
Speaker 4: That's what I think Australians want to see from a
4:10
Speaker 4: Liberal party, getting back to our core values, focusing on
4:14
Speaker 4: the politics of conviction, not just convenience.
4:17
Speaker 3: Well, that warning looks to have had the shelf life
4:19
Speaker 3: of supermarket sushi. The Internal Liberal Party report worried that
4:24
Speaker 3: just twenty one percent of Liberal members are women, with
4:27
Speaker 3: men outnumbering women four to one on the floor of
4:30
Speaker 3: the Lower House, meaning just thirty three percent of Liberal
4:33
Speaker 3: parliamentarians across the country are women compared to Labour's fifty
4:37
Speaker 3: three percent, to which I would reply, and so fifty
4:42
Speaker 3: three percent of Labor MPs are female, okay, And how's
4:47
Speaker 3: the country going? Has the cost of living fallen? Because
4:50
Speaker 3: Labour has more female MPs. Did electricity prices collapse because
4:55
Speaker 3: Parliament reached a gender equilibrium? The Housing minister, she's a woman.
5:00
Speaker 3: Has the housing crisis disappeared? No funny that I think
5:04
Speaker 3: the Liberal Party will discover, hopefully not to their detriment,
5:08
Speaker 3: that voters tend to care far more about paying the
5:11
Speaker 3: mortgage than balancing the chromosomes in question time? What's more
5:15
Speaker 3: important correctly gendered politicians with incorrect policies or politicians with
5:21
Speaker 3: sensible policies, irrespective of whether or not they're wearing sensible shoes?
5:27
Speaker 3: The Internal Liberal Review warns, and I quote, it is
5:30
Speaker 3: increasingly clear that if serious progress is to be made
5:34
Speaker 3: in delivering greater gender balance in our parliamentary team, additional
5:38
Speaker 3: member measures will be required. Delivering greater gender balance, how
5:44
Speaker 3: about serious progress delivering cheap.
5:46
Speaker 1: Reliable power. How about serious.
5:49
Speaker 3: Progress delivering a sustainable immigration program that serves the country
5:53
Speaker 3: rather than upends it. How about serious progress delivering I
5:57
Speaker 3: don't know a budget surplus appears to have convinced itself
6:02
Speaker 3: that Conservative voters abandon it because well, there weren't enough
6:05
Speaker 3: women dressed in blue ties.
6:08
Speaker 1: They didn't.
6:09
Speaker 3: They left because the Liberals increasingly looked like a pale
6:12
Speaker 3: imitation of Labor, only less confident, less courageous, and usually
6:17
Speaker 3: about twelve months behind. That's why I find this internal
6:21
Speaker 3: review paper so astonishing. It reads to me less like
6:25
Speaker 3: a paper on rebuilding the party and more like an
6:28
Speaker 3: exit interview. And so Angus Taylor, as if he didn't
6:31
Speaker 3: have enough to do, was today forced to explain that
6:35
Speaker 3: he wasn't a supporter of gender quoteras.
6:38
Speaker 2: I've never supported any quotas at all.
6:44
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, his deputy Jane Hume, she didn't seem quite so sure.
6:49
Speaker 5: It's up for discussion right now, and we'll consider all
6:51
Speaker 5: of the options that are put out there.
6:54
Speaker 3: And as for Robert Menzies, well he'd be rolling in
6:57
Speaker 3: his grave whilevoting one nation.
7:01
Speaker 1: Hey, the US Democrats do it.
7:06
Speaker 3: Broken promises aren't a bug in the Albenese government.
7:09
Speaker 1: They're a feature.
7:11
Speaker 3: And so another broken promise from the Prime Minister today,
7:13
Speaker 3: Well it's hardly news, is it.
7:16
Speaker 1: But what's interesting is.
7:18
Speaker 3: Elbow's latest justification for his latest lie. Because if broken
7:22
Speaker 3: promises are becoming routine, well the explanations they're becoming performance art.
7:28
Speaker 3: Now I'll get to the excuse in a moment, and
7:30
Speaker 3: trust me, it's a doozy. But first today's porky. Just
7:34
Speaker 3: eleven months ago, standing before indigenous leaders at the Gama
7:37
Speaker 3: Festival in the Northern Territory, Anti Albenese made what sounded
7:42
Speaker 3: like an iron clad commitment.
7:45
Speaker 6: And I commit here that every single year, as that
7:49
Speaker 6: I have the great honor to the Australia's Prime Minister,
7:54
Speaker 6: I will be here and engaged with you.
7:58
Speaker 3: Not I'll try not subject to my diary, not unless
8:02
Speaker 3: something else comes up.
8:03
Speaker 1: Every single year, I'll be here a promise.
8:08
Speaker 3: So it's understandable that the organizers of this year's Garma Festival,
8:12
Speaker 3: beginning in about a fortnight, assumed the Prime Minister would
8:15
Speaker 3: be there.
8:16
Speaker 1: I mean he said he would suckers instead.
8:20
Speaker 3: Today they discovered the commitment had quietly joined the growing
8:23
Speaker 3: museum of Albanezy promises. And why well, As he explained
8:28
Speaker 3: on ABC Radio today, he's tired.
8:32
Speaker 2: I haven't had a day off all year.
8:35
Speaker 1: All year, Hey, I get it.
8:39
Speaker 3: Breaking promises is hard work and he hasn't had a
8:41
Speaker 3: break from lying all year. It takes real stamina to
8:45
Speaker 3: remember which pledge you're currently abandoning. Even Pinocchio occasionally needed
8:49
Speaker 3: to put his feet up. So sure, we get it,
8:53
Speaker 3: but seriously, after promising to be at Garma every year
8:57
Speaker 3: the very next year, too tired, The Prime Minister could
9:02
Speaker 3: have taken a day off earlier this month rather than
9:05
Speaker 3: sitting down for a game of shag marry.
9:07
Speaker 1: Or date with who was at deep Bush.
9:10
Speaker 3: We chose to keep that commitment and instead blow off
9:13
Speaker 3: the indigenous elders at the Garma Festival. Still, Albanese insisted
9:17
Speaker 3: nobody should interpret his absence as a lack of interest
9:21
Speaker 3: in indigenous affairs.
9:23
Speaker 6: And this weekend, in a few days, I'll be in
9:27
Speaker 6: another remote part of the Northern Territory, but I will
9:30
Speaker 6: be at another festival in the Northern Territory in coming days.
9:37
Speaker 1: Translation.
9:38
Speaker 3: I know I said i'd be at the Garma Festival,
9:40
Speaker 3: but hey, if you've been to one, you've been to
9:42
Speaker 3: them all. What's the difference. Then came perhaps the most
9:46
Speaker 3: remarkable defense of all.
9:48
Speaker 6: And I've been to Garma every year that it's been
9:52
Speaker 6: held since I've been Labor leader in twenty nineteen, and
9:55
Speaker 6: indeed going back further and further.
9:59
Speaker 3: Cool, but rather beside the point, nobody accused Elbow of
10:02
Speaker 3: skipping Garma before he promised to attend every year, so
10:07
Speaker 3: there'll be no acknowledgment of country from the PM at
10:10
Speaker 3: this year's Garma Festival, and there's no acknowledgment of lies either.
10:16
Speaker 1: Country.
10:21
Speaker 3: The ABC has once again deployed its most reliable investigative tool,
10:26
Speaker 3: the Racism Detector.
10:28
Speaker 1: It's a remarkable device.
10:30
Speaker 3: Give it enough taxpayer funding and it can locate systemic
10:33
Speaker 3: racism anywhere in workplaces, sporting clubs, universities, and I assume,
10:38
Speaker 3: with just a little more funding inside ham sandwiches. This week,
10:42
Speaker 3: the ABC announced a troubling discovery. Indigenous AFLW players rate
10:47
Speaker 3: their workplace culture lower than their teammates.
10:51
Speaker 1: So the headline, well, it practically rights itself.
10:55
Speaker 3: Racism remains a key issue for afl players, while Indigenous
10:59
Speaker 3: afl DOUBLE players rate workplace culture low. Fine, but there's
11:05
Speaker 3: a small problem the numbers. According to the report, indigenous
11:09
Speaker 3: afl W players rated their workplace culture at six point
11:13
Speaker 3: ninety five out of ten. The average rating among all
11:17
Speaker 3: AFLW players was seven point two eight out of ten.
11:21
Speaker 3: So that's a difference between indigenous and non indigenous female
11:25
Speaker 3: players of zero point three to three out of ten.
11:29
Speaker 3: Now to ordinary human beings without access to an ABC
11:33
Speaker 3: grade racism detector. This might appear to be a fairly
11:36
Speaker 3: modest difference, but that's because you don't have an ABC
11:40
Speaker 3: racism detector.
11:41
Speaker 1: If you did, you'd know.
11:42
Speaker 3: There's no such thing as a statistical anomaly, and there's
11:46
Speaker 3: certainly no such thing as just a number zero point
11:49
Speaker 3: three to three out of ten is more than enough
11:52
Speaker 3: for the ABC to fire up the racism emergency siren.
11:56
Speaker 3: By this standard, every office in Australia is just one
11:59
Speaker 3: awkward coffee order away from a royal commission. Now, no
12:03
Speaker 3: one would dismiss anyone's personal experience. If a player feels unsupported,
12:08
Speaker 3: well that matters, and there are genuine instances of racism
12:11
Speaker 3: and they should be confronted. But when you splash a
12:14
Speaker 3: headline suggesting a cultural crisis, the evidence ideally should look
12:20
Speaker 3: like a crisis. What's interesting to me is not that
12:23
Speaker 3: the ABC reported the figures.
12:25
Speaker 1: The figures are the figures.
12:27
Speaker 3: What fascinates me is this relentless search for the darkest
12:31
Speaker 3: possible interpretation of ordinary human variation. A survey of AFL
12:36
Speaker 3: players becomes a treasure hunt where the prize, Well, it's always.
12:40
Speaker 1: The same, isn't it.
12:41
Speaker 3: Another reason to announce Australia has failed a morality test. Now,
12:46
Speaker 3: of course, the article does mention other concerns, including reports
12:49
Speaker 3: of racism, abuse online and dissatisfaction with responses to such incidents.
12:54
Speaker 3: Those issues deserve attention, but there's a difference between identifying
12:59
Speaker 3: a problem and inflating every statistical wrinkle into a national indictment.
13:04
Speaker 3: Sometimes a number is evidence of injustice. Sometimes a number
13:09
Speaker 3: it's just, well, you know, a number, unless, of course,
13:12
Speaker 3: the ABC's racism detector is nearby, in which case even
13:16
Speaker 3: a decimal point can become a national emergency.
13:23
Speaker 1: All right, let's get back.
13:24
Speaker 3: To that bizarre internal Liberal Party report. Joining me to
13:28
Speaker 3: discuss is Menzies Research Center, executive director at Nick Cata
13:32
Speaker 3: and Skyne Is contributor Joe Hildebrand.
13:35
Speaker 1: Welcome to you both.
13:36
Speaker 3: Now, I put it to you, the only thing standing
13:38
Speaker 3: between the Libs and government is gender quotas for women.
13:43
Speaker 1: Nick Audio reckon.
13:46
Speaker 7: I don't think so, James. You knew I was going
13:48
Speaker 7: to say no to that, don't you. I mean, that
13:50
Speaker 7: is not their problem right now, and I don't think
13:54
Speaker 7: that that's the reason that they did so badly at
13:56
Speaker 7: the last election. I think, in fact, it's got nothing
13:59
Speaker 7: to do with it, to be quite frank. I mean,
14:01
Speaker 7: what lost them the last election so badly and what
14:04
Speaker 7: is putting them behind in the polls now is they're
14:06
Speaker 7: just not seen as being a party that's talking to
14:10
Speaker 7: ordinary voters outside a camera like here, you know. I mean,
14:14
Speaker 7: they are so self absorbed and they need to get
14:18
Speaker 7: out more basically and talk to ordinary people in the
14:22
Speaker 7: front bar, in the streets, just wherever and realize that
14:25
Speaker 7: this is really not an issue. And in the end,
14:29
Speaker 7: I think Angus Taylor was dead right. If there is
14:31
Speaker 7: an issue with women in the party, it's because not
14:34
Speaker 7: enough of joining twenty five percent women as the membership. Well,
14:38
Speaker 7: if you've only got twenty five percent as members, you're
14:40
Speaker 7: going to have a slow pipeline coming up to be
14:44
Speaker 7: pre selected for an elected candidate. It's just a fact.
14:48
Speaker 7: But I think they just need a lot more members,
14:50
Speaker 7: full stop, and that should be the focus.
14:54
Speaker 1: Joe.
14:54
Speaker 3: This report, spearheaded by James McGraw, is not terribly helpful
14:59
Speaker 3: for Taylor right at this point. I mean, the Liberals
15:02
Speaker 3: are now talking about themselves, which is a problem under
15:05
Speaker 3: Susan that's right.
15:06
Speaker 8: Yeah, Look, there's pretty much no direction that the Liberals
15:09
Speaker 8: can step in at the moment without running into an
15:11
Speaker 8: existential crisis. The problem is that, you know, typically you'd
15:16
Speaker 8: think in a two party preferred compulsory preferential system, the
15:20
Speaker 8: answer to winning elections is to move to the center.
15:23
Speaker 8: But of course that only works in a two party system.
15:26
Speaker 8: If moving to the CeNSE is going to lose them
15:28
Speaker 8: all these votes to one nation that doesn't get a government,
15:31
Speaker 8: and likewise the Teals have cannibalized it from the other end,
15:35
Speaker 8: and so they could end up adopting all these policies
15:38
Speaker 8: like quotas, like climate change for absolutely nothing, because all
15:42
Speaker 8: the people who really care about that stuff have already
15:45
Speaker 8: got their little darling candidates in the Teal So I
15:49
Speaker 8: think you're right they need to develop. I mean, by
15:52
Speaker 8: the time you're talking about whether or not you need
15:54
Speaker 8: gender quotas, it's kind of already too late. If you
15:56
Speaker 8: need a quota to get enough women to your parliamentary party,
16:02
Speaker 8: then you've got a problem that no quite a console.
16:04
Speaker 8: Quite ironically, and Nick's right, it means that you're not
16:07
Speaker 8: attractive enough to women. That means your policy offerings are
16:10
Speaker 8: not attractive enough, or you're positioning your style whatever it
16:14
Speaker 8: may be, so they need to.
16:15
Speaker 3: I can't understand Nick, why the Liberal Party are so
16:19
Speaker 3: unattractive to women and why the Liberal Party have a
16:21
Speaker 3: women problem. I mean, after Albanese's podcast the other week,
16:25
Speaker 3: the fact that the Albanezi won't go and fix Julie
16:28
Speaker 3: Gillard's mistake in the Sex Discrimination Act to define a
16:32
Speaker 3: woman according to biology. Do you think the Liberal Party
16:35
Speaker 3: are jumping at shadows when it comes to the woman problem.
16:40
Speaker 1: I think they are.
16:41
Speaker 7: I don't think there is a woman problem as such.
16:43
Speaker 7: You can look at opinion polls and see trends where
16:46
Speaker 7: more women wrote for one party or another, and for
16:49
Speaker 7: a long time, you know, the women have been shunning
16:51
Speaker 7: the Liberal Party apparently, whereas there was a period under
16:55
Speaker 7: John Howe where were they were ahead on women. These
16:58
Speaker 7: things come and go. I think in the end it's
17:00
Speaker 7: paturalizing to say you've got appeal to women. You just
17:02
Speaker 7: have to appeal to voters. And what matters there is
17:05
Speaker 7: cost of living, its tax, it's immigration, all the things
17:10
Speaker 7: we talk about every day here on Sky News, James.
17:13
Speaker 7: They're the things that matter to women as they matter
17:16
Speaker 7: the blokes and they if the Liberal Party is addressing
17:20
Speaker 7: those issues, then it's on the right chart. You don't
17:23
Speaker 7: have to have special policies for women, or special policies
17:27
Speaker 7: for Indians, or special policies of Muslims. Just a cost
17:31
Speaker 7: of living number one, immigration number two right now.
17:34
Speaker 3: All right, I want to get your thoughts on one Nation.
17:37
Speaker 3: Senator Malcolm Roberts. He shared a social media post of
17:40
Speaker 3: a notorious anti Semitic mural that depicts a group of
17:43
Speaker 3: businessmen and bankers with exaggerated features around the monopoly board
17:48
Speaker 3: counting money and in the background there's a pyramid with
17:50
Speaker 3: an eyeball in it. Malcolm Roberts described it as the
17:53
Speaker 3: most powerful pick I've ever seen. Joe, is this bad
17:59
Speaker 3: judgment from Malcolm Roberts?
18:00
Speaker 1: What's going on?
18:01
Speaker 8: If possibly just doesn't know what he's talking about, but
18:03
Speaker 8: far more likely, given his history of expounding the most
18:07
Speaker 8: ridiculous conspiracy theories, including that the US Air Force is
18:11
Speaker 8: using chemtrails to subdue and control its population, this is
18:15
Speaker 8: the sort of stuff that is going to completely derail
18:18
Speaker 8: one nation and make it impossible for it to become
18:22
Speaker 8: a major party, or let alone a party with a
18:25
Speaker 8: chance of winning government.
18:26
Speaker 1: In Australia, Andrew.
18:27
Speaker 8: Bolt has been really good this week calling out this
18:30
Speaker 8: sort of craziness, and he's absolutely right. I think any
18:33
Speaker 8: rational conservative who sees the damage that one nation is
18:37
Speaker 8: doing to the Liberal Party and the National Party, as
18:39
Speaker 8: we were just talking about before, but then also only
18:43
Speaker 8: to not even be able to present a credible alternative
18:46
Speaker 8: and just looking like a bunch of crazies, it's a
18:49
Speaker 8: real you know, if this is the solution, I think
18:53
Speaker 8: we need to rethink what the question is.
18:55
Speaker 1: Nick.
18:55
Speaker 3: I've always thought Malcolm Roberts has done a pretty good
18:58
Speaker 3: job in the Senate. But I remember some time back
19:00
Speaker 3: in April he was asked on a Instagram clip that
19:04
Speaker 3: I watched whether or not the Bondai terror attack was
19:08
Speaker 3: actually a false flag, and he said it probably wasn't,
19:12
Speaker 3: but he couldn't be sure, and I sort of thought,
19:15
Speaker 3: what on earth is he talking about. I sort of
19:17
Speaker 3: dismissed it, as you know, everyone's entitled to a bad
19:20
Speaker 3: hair day. But now this is this a problem for
19:23
Speaker 3: Pauline Hanson.
19:26
Speaker 7: I think it's a problem Malcolm Roberts. I don't think
19:28
Speaker 7: he's the kind of person you want to get stuck
19:30
Speaker 7: in the corner at a barbecue.
19:32
Speaker 1: With, right, you don't be listening to this.
19:34
Speaker 4: Stuff all night.
19:35
Speaker 7: Look, it is a worry and all One Nation candidates,
19:38
Speaker 7: but particularly people like Malcolm Roberts, who's been in there
19:41
Speaker 7: long time. He has been a stalwart behind Pauline Hanson,
19:44
Speaker 7: they're going to get a lot more scrutiny, and quite frankly,
19:48
Speaker 7: if these are his views, if he's leaning towards these
19:51
Speaker 7: views on Jewish people and on anti Semitism, then I'm sorry,
19:56
Speaker 7: I don't want a bar of it. Honestly, if these
19:58
Speaker 7: are his views, that's one reason not to vote for
20:01
Speaker 7: One Nation. In fact, it's a solid reason not to
20:03
Speaker 7: vote for one nation. We want people that are not
20:06
Speaker 7: going off in conspiracy theories about the Holocaust and everything
20:09
Speaker 7: else right now. We want people that are solidly behind
20:12
Speaker 7: Israel and the Jewish people.
20:14
Speaker 3: And of course every political party's got their crazy uncle
20:18
Speaker 3: that you wouldn't want to get stuck with at the barbecue, nick,
20:20
Speaker 3: but One Nation obviously, they're polling so well, so they're
20:23
Speaker 3: going to get scrutiny that is comparable with the polling.
20:27
Speaker 1: So they should expect the fair bit more.
20:29
Speaker 3: I would suggest, all right, a local community group is
20:32
Speaker 3: threatening to involve the United Nations in their fight to
20:35
Speaker 3: protect a Blue Mountain's Heritage site from sixty seven wind turbines.
20:39
Speaker 3: The group says there's a massive danger that UNESCO will
20:43
Speaker 3: remove the area's World Heritage classification because of what they
20:47
Speaker 3: call irreversible visual impacts if the wind farm project goes
20:51
Speaker 3: ahead in its current form. I'm curious, Joe. The locals
20:58
Speaker 3: sure understand why they're not happy about this, but.
21:01
Speaker 1: Where are all the Green Party members protesting this wind
21:04
Speaker 1: turber development.
21:05
Speaker 8: Well, this is a great catch twenty two. At the
21:07
Speaker 8: heart of the climate debate, isn't it the people who
21:09
Speaker 8: actually live in the areas that are going to be
21:12
Speaker 8: most heavily impacted, Whether it's the people whose properties are
21:15
Speaker 8: going to get wind farms on them, or whose local
21:18
Speaker 8: communities or local national parks are going to have wind
21:22
Speaker 8: farms within sight of You know, they're not the ones
21:26
Speaker 8: who are driving it. When we know that whenever the
21:29
Speaker 8: rubber hits the road on these things, even climate activists themselves,
21:34
Speaker 8: the loudest voices, can suddenly say I'm not in my backyard.
21:36
Speaker 8: We know that trmps have objected to having a large
21:40
Speaker 8: batteries in some of their local community facilities. Bob Brown,
21:43
Speaker 8: when it comes to his beloved Tasmanian Wilderness has raised
21:47
Speaker 8: concerned about the impact of wind turbines on the local area.
21:51
Speaker 1: So you know, I.
21:52
Speaker 8: Would just say everyone needs to put their money where
21:56
Speaker 8: their mouth is. And if you are going to call
21:58
Speaker 8: for wind turbines and say that we need them, you
22:01
Speaker 8: have to be prepared to have them in your own backyard,
22:04
Speaker 8: in your own line of sight. And if you don't,
22:07
Speaker 8: if you can't, then climate change can't possibly be that
22:10
Speaker 8: important to you.
22:11
Speaker 3: What Joe says is quite correct because most of the
22:14
Speaker 3: objections have come from outside of the area. So you've
22:19
Speaker 3: got this city dwellers calling for renewables and country and
22:25
Speaker 3: rural folk bearing the brunt of it.
22:28
Speaker 7: Yeah, the Greens are turning a blind eye. As Joe said,
22:31
Speaker 7: this is absolutely scandalous thing to me. We saw the
22:35
Speaker 7: same up here in Queensland. We saw the same up
22:38
Speaker 7: in finals Queensland where there was one plan development that
22:44
Speaker 7: we managed to stop because of the environmental damage. That's Schlumbon,
22:49
Speaker 7: but very few others. I mean, we're fighting an uphill
22:52
Speaker 7: battle all the time against this. They have a tremendous footprint, James,
22:56
Speaker 7: as you probably know, and you see one of these things.
22:59
Speaker 7: You know, you've got kilometer after kilometer access track ten
23:03
Speaker 7: meters wide in order to get the trucks in there,
23:06
Speaker 7: and those truck those access checks stay in position. You've
23:10
Speaker 7: got hundreds of thousands of tons of concrete going in
23:13
Speaker 7: as the base, and of course these things were bigger
23:15
Speaker 7: than Sidney Tower. It's totally inappropriate. I can't actually think
23:19
Speaker 7: of anywhere in Australia I put one, not even in
23:23
Speaker 7: vor Clues. To be honest, you know, the people of
23:25
Speaker 7: bor Clues don't deserve one of those.
23:27
Speaker 8: I can't have done that that I'd give it a crack.
23:29
Speaker 3: They must be bad then, Nick, Nick Cata, Joe Hildebrand
23:33
Speaker 3: always enjoy talking about you very much.
23:35
Speaker 1: Thanks for your company.
23:36
Speaker 3: All right to Canada now, where a gay couple is
23:38
Speaker 3: suing the surrogate mother of their two year old son.
23:42
Speaker 3: Why are they suing because the surrogate mother refused to
23:45
Speaker 3: abort the baby when it was discovered at twenty two
23:48
Speaker 3: weeks that he had a minor birth defect and a
23:51
Speaker 3: cleft lip. The couple's now seeking six hundred thousand dollars
23:55
Speaker 3: in damages from the single mother. Joining me to discuss
23:58
Speaker 3: is CEO of Women's former Australia Rachel Wong, Rachel, this
24:02
Speaker 3: is an incredible case.
24:06
Speaker 1: Your thoughts when you read about.
24:07
Speaker 9: This, James, this is a horrible story. If there was
24:11
Speaker 9: ever a story to show the commodification of children and
24:14
Speaker 9: women through saragcy, I think this is probably it. A
24:17
Speaker 9: couple ordered a baby from a surrogate. The baby didn't
24:21
Speaker 9: turn out the way they wanted, they tried to discard
24:23
Speaker 9: the baby and end its life. And not only that,
24:25
Speaker 9: they also discarded the woman and now sued her for
24:29
Speaker 9: I think it's six hundred thousand Canadian dollars, which is
24:32
Speaker 9: just crazy. And this is a child that was twenty
24:35
Speaker 9: two weeks, had a cleft palate, something that could be
24:38
Speaker 9: easily fixed, not that that should determine its life or
24:41
Speaker 9: it's worth. And the parents in this pace, the couple
24:45
Speaker 9: that commissioned the baby, have actually said that the woman
24:47
Speaker 9: put the child's life at risk when they were the
24:49
Speaker 9: ones that wanted to have it abought it.
24:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely incredible case. And this is one of my
24:55
Speaker 3: problems with the whole surrogacy thing. And hey, we adopted children,
24:59
Speaker 3: so I I get that some couples who can't have
25:02
Speaker 3: children are desperate to have kids I totally understand that.
25:05
Speaker 3: But the problem with surrogacy is you do get to
25:08
Speaker 3: a position for some people, and maybe it's a very
25:11
Speaker 3: small group, but for whom the baby seems to be
25:15
Speaker 3: a product rather than a human being who's just a
25:18
Speaker 3: gift the way they come.
25:22
Speaker 9: That's right, And I guess what I'm really concerned about
25:26
Speaker 9: is the fact that this sort of industry is potentially
25:29
Speaker 9: going to be opened up in Australia. And when we
25:31
Speaker 9: already saw the case of Baby Gammy several years ago,
25:34
Speaker 9: where Australians tried to commission a baby from Thailand. The
25:38
Speaker 9: baby also had a defect, they left it behind in
25:41
Speaker 9: the end. But that's the case of Australian authorities ignoring
25:45
Speaker 9: couples going overseas when it's actually illegal to have commercial
25:48
Speaker 9: surrogacy here. But now with the Australian Law Reform Commission
25:51
Speaker 9: coming out of the end of this month, it looks
25:53
Speaker 9: to be paving the way for commercialrogacy in Australia, and
25:56
Speaker 9: so these kinds of cases are potentially going to be
26:00
Speaker 9: common within our own country. And these kinds of cases
26:03
Speaker 9: are only the type of the iceberg when it comes
26:05
Speaker 9: to surrogacy. There are plenty of examples of women and
26:08
Speaker 9: children being trafficked of psychological abuse. And we know that
26:11
Speaker 9: sarrogacy itself involves the inherent separation of a child from
26:15
Speaker 9: its mother. You know, you mentioned adoption, and that's a
26:18
Speaker 9: very very different situation in my opinion, because what you
26:20
Speaker 9: were doing there is you are trying to find a
26:22
Speaker 9: child a home for a child that doesn't have one.
26:26
Speaker 9: In this case, you are intentionally creating a child to
26:29
Speaker 9: be separated from the only mother it's ever known at birth,
26:31
Speaker 9: and then giving it to another person, another couple. And
26:35
Speaker 9: I think that's an inherent, inherent distinction between adoption sarrogacy.
26:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're quite right.
26:40
Speaker 3: I want to ask you about the Australian Nursing and
26:43
Speaker 3: Midwifree Association. They've pulled a scientific article from their own
26:47
Speaker 3: online journal, not because it's incorrect, but because it might
26:51
Speaker 3: upset trans people. The article, written by a nurse, challenged
26:55
Speaker 3: the narrative that the risk of suicide increases dramatically if
26:58
Speaker 3: trans kids and teenagers don't get so called gender affirming
27:02
Speaker 3: medical treatment, but apparently cold hard facts were too distressing
27:06
Speaker 3: for the union's lgbt Q reference group, who complained the
27:10
Speaker 3: paper was offensive. Is trans ideology now sending science down
27:15
Speaker 3: the toilet effectively?
27:18
Speaker 9: Look, James, I think it's been doing it for years,
27:20
Speaker 9: and this is something that we've really come to expect
27:22
Speaker 9: from transactivists, silencing the truth, foregoing the evidence, trying to
27:29
Speaker 9: ignore important studies like the Cash views and other studies
27:33
Speaker 9: that this particular authors cited. And you know, in this case,
27:36
Speaker 9: the union said that they didn't want to be responsible
27:39
Speaker 9: for disseminating harmful and damaging opinions and that they didn't
27:44
Speaker 9: want any negative negativity or hatred in their movement. Well,
27:48
Speaker 9: this author wasn't expressing an opinion. He was merely summarizing
27:51
Speaker 9: the studies that were out there that said that the
27:53
Speaker 9: suicide narrative was not borne out by the evidence. And
27:56
Speaker 9: he's basically been shut down for that, and they haven't
27:59
Speaker 9: given a proper reason why, apart from to say that
28:02
Speaker 9: you know, he's spreading damaging opinions, which again was an opinion.
28:05
Speaker 9: It was just the facts, as he stated. And I mean,
28:08
Speaker 9: you know, just this year we had the big finished
28:10
Speaker 9: say come out which I believe he cited as well,
28:12
Speaker 9: which is the mental health was not improved by gender
28:15
Speaker 9: affirming interventions. It was actually worsened, and so I think
28:18
Speaker 9: this author is right on the money. I think it's
28:20
Speaker 9: disgraceful that the union has pulled his peace. And it
28:23
Speaker 9: also makes you question, how is this union meant to
28:25
Speaker 9: represent its members when it is ideologically captured. I mean,
28:29
Speaker 9: if they have any workplace grudences around gender ideology, are
28:32
Speaker 9: they going to be standing up for them?
28:34
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
28:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, And how do the public have confidence in the
28:37
Speaker 3: medical system when you've got groups representing medicos who prefer
28:41
Speaker 3: ideology over medical truth. In fact, speaking of transgender issues,
28:47
Speaker 3: there's a chef found guilty transgender chef found guilty of
28:51
Speaker 3: sexual assault in Melbourne who's escaped a lengthy jail term
28:55
Speaker 3: after the judge said he needed to consider the fact
28:57
Speaker 3: that I quote, prison is more onerous for transgender prisoners
29:02
Speaker 3: in determining the appropriate sentence, and so this offender was
29:06
Speaker 3: given two hundred and fifty hours of unpaid community work
29:10
Speaker 3: instead of prison. I'm just curious what sort of precedent
29:14
Speaker 3: this sets. Is this like a get out of jail
29:17
Speaker 3: free card for people who are transgendered? It it sort
29:20
Speaker 3: of seems that way a little bit.
29:22
Speaker 9: I think that's exactly what it is. I think it
29:24
Speaker 9: sets a very dangerous precedent, basically says that if you
29:28
Speaker 9: claim a gender identity then you can get off scott free,
29:31
Speaker 9: and you know, there's nothing to stop other male sex
29:35
Speaker 9: offenders doing the same. And in fact with this is
29:37
Speaker 9: not the first case in Australia we've seen of men
29:40
Speaker 9: who are sex offenders who claim to be women, who
29:43
Speaker 9: have basically been rewarded for that fact. We've seen multiple
29:46
Speaker 9: cases now of male sex offenders either being sent to
29:49
Speaker 9: women's prisons having their sentences reduced, and I mean the
29:53
Speaker 9: judge saying, oh well, it's going to be onerous. I mean,
29:55
Speaker 9: prisoners not meant to be a holiday prison has meant
29:57
Speaker 9: to be a punishment. It's also meant to be keeping
29:59
Speaker 9: the commun safe, which the judge is clearly disregarded in
30:02
Speaker 9: this instance, not to mention it being a huge lap
30:05
Speaker 9: in the face to the victim. I just think it's
30:07
Speaker 9: a disgrace and I think it s it's a very
30:09
Speaker 9: very dangerous.
30:10
Speaker 3: President Rachel Wong, the light chatting with you, Thanks for
30:13
Speaker 3: joining me. All right, stick around because after the break
30:15
Speaker 3: more young people are taking up smoking. I thought we
30:19
Speaker 3: spent billions of dollars to stop this forming New South
30:22
Speaker 3: Wales Police Minister David Elliott will join me next. Well,
30:32
Speaker 3: welcome back to the program. Now, remember when Anthony Albanezi said.
30:35
Speaker 6: This reducing power prices by two hundred and seventy five
30:39
Speaker 6: dollars two hundred and seventy five dollars.
30:42
Speaker 2: Two hundred and seventy five dollars a.
30:43
Speaker 6: Year, two hundred and seventy five dollars two hundred and
30:47
Speaker 6: seventy five dollars a year.
30:50
Speaker 3: Well, a damning new report shows more than one in
30:52
Speaker 3: five households are skipping vital medical care, rent and mortgage
30:56
Speaker 3: payments just to keep the lights on. Joining me now
30:59
Speaker 3: to discuss this is affordable Energy Australia spokesperson Zoe Hilton, Zoe,
31:03
Speaker 3: people are really struggling with the price of power.
31:06
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's been really, really awful for a lot of people.
31:09
Speaker 5: We have one in five people skeeping meals due to
31:11
Speaker 5: financial strain and a lot of that is to do
31:13
Speaker 5: with energy prices. Because if you think about groceries, you
31:16
Speaker 5: have all of the inputs. You've got the refrigeration costs,
31:19
Speaker 5: you've got the diesel costs for transport, you've got agriculture
31:22
Speaker 5: that runs on diesel and so energy. It really is
31:24
Speaker 5: an input to everything. The cost of energy is the
31:26
Speaker 5: cost of everything. People are struggling, pensioners cannot pay the
31:30
Speaker 5: energy bills. We have forty one percent of Australian seniors
31:33
Speaker 5: rationing heating and cooling just to get by, and I
31:36
Speaker 5: just think that is unacceptable. And that is why we
31:39
Speaker 5: are calling on Australians everywhere to say to our government,
31:42
Speaker 5: we need to stand up for affordable, reliable energy. We
31:45
Speaker 5: need affordable energy to be at the center of policy discussions,
31:49
Speaker 5: not as a side quest. It needs to be absolute center.
31:52
Speaker 5: And so that is why we have started this Affordable
31:54
Speaker 5: Energy Australia campaign.
31:56
Speaker 1: I want to talk about that petition.
31:57
Speaker 3: In a moment you mentioned pensioners for going heating or
32:01
Speaker 3: cooling because they simply can't afford it. I think I
32:05
Speaker 3: read today thirteen percent of Australians have hit up the
32:08
Speaker 3: government for financial assistance in order to pay power bills.
32:12
Speaker 3: The term power poverty or energy poverty is something I'd
32:17
Speaker 3: not heard of until recently.
32:20
Speaker 1: This is a new phenomena, isn't it. But it's a
32:22
Speaker 1: very real one. It is.
32:24
Speaker 5: I mean, this is the crazy thing because Australia is
32:27
Speaker 5: an energy rich country. There is no reason for anyone
32:30
Speaker 5: to be going without power because they can't afford it.
32:33
Speaker 5: We should be able to give people cheap power. We
32:36
Speaker 5: have so many natural resources. We have basically every energy
32:39
Speaker 5: resource you could possibly hope for, and yet we can't
32:41
Speaker 5: give people cheap power, and people are feeling that in
32:44
Speaker 5: their hip pocket, and I just think it's unacceptable.
32:46
Speaker 3: So Zoe helped explain this to me, right, because I
32:49
Speaker 3: thought the more renewables we had in the mix, the
32:52
Speaker 3: cheaper energy would become. But it feels like the more
32:54
Speaker 3: renewables we have, the higher the price goes. So what
32:58
Speaker 3: am I missing here? Believed everything Chris Bowen said.
33:02
Speaker 5: Yes, so the wind is free, the sun is free,
33:05
Speaker 5: but that doesn't mean that capturing that energy and delivering
33:08
Speaker 5: that as a service is cheap. And that's really where
33:10
Speaker 5: the robbie hits the road because when you look at
33:12
Speaker 5: network costs, that's you know, roughly forty percent of our bill.
33:16
Speaker 5: And the more wind and solar, the more intermittent renewables
33:19
Speaker 5: you have in the grid, the more network you need,
33:22
Speaker 5: and the more storage you need, the more batteries you need,
33:25
Speaker 5: the more pumped hydro and all of those additional costs.
33:28
Speaker 5: They add up, and so even though it might be
33:31
Speaker 5: cheap to build more generation, well you're only getting you know,
33:35
Speaker 5: twenty percent maybe twenty nine percent for solar and wind
33:38
Speaker 5: respectively out of them every day, and so and it's unpredictable,
33:42
Speaker 5: and so you need more and more firming costs, and
33:44
Speaker 5: that it just it adds up. And I think what
33:46
Speaker 5: we really need to go back to is thinking, Okay,
33:49
Speaker 5: we need reliable, affordable power, and I think the evidence
33:53
Speaker 5: shows that baseload is something we really need to reconsider
33:57
Speaker 5: as the central part of our energy system.
33:58
Speaker 1: Let me put this to you.
34:00
Speaker 3: I agree that it's the cost of capturing all that
34:02
Speaker 3: renewable energy that is so incredibly expensive. So our generation
34:07
Speaker 3: is going to be dirt poor, but our kids will
34:09
Speaker 3: be set up, won't they.
34:11
Speaker 5: People say, look, if we just keep going a little
34:13
Speaker 5: bit further, a little bit further, it's going to get cheaper.
34:16
Speaker 5: And I just think the evidence does not show that.
34:19
Speaker 5: It shows the opposite. When you look across the world
34:22
Speaker 5: at countries that have tried to do high proportions win
34:25
Speaker 5: and solid in their grid, no one has managed to
34:28
Speaker 5: get cheap energy. None that there are no high intermittent
34:32
Speaker 5: renewables low cost countries, they don't exist, and so I
34:35
Speaker 5: think we need to look at the international evidence and
34:37
Speaker 5: we needed to go Okay, other people are further ahead
34:39
Speaker 5: than we are and they haven't managed to get cheap power.
34:41
Speaker 5: I don't think we can do that any better. Just
34:43
Speaker 5: because Australia is a sunny country, we still have something
34:46
Speaker 5: called night time. Those costs are still going to be very,
34:49
Speaker 5: very high. And the renewable energy honeymoon is over. It's
34:53
Speaker 5: easy to build a little bit, but once you start
34:55
Speaker 5: building above you know, around twenty percent, thirty percent, depending
34:58
Speaker 5: on the situation, it's a never going to get really
35:01
Speaker 5: really expensive.
35:01
Speaker 3: Can I just say, Zoe, it's one of the shortest
35:03
Speaker 3: honeymoons in the history of honeymoons. I would have thought
35:06
Speaker 3: you mentioned your plan to petition the government for lower
35:10
Speaker 3: energy prices. How is that campaign going to work and
35:15
Speaker 3: how can viewers be involved?
35:17
Speaker 5: So first up, we really need people to get onto
35:20
Speaker 5: Affordable Energy dot org dot au and sign the petition
35:23
Speaker 5: calling for Australia's leaders to prioritize affordable reliable energy. If
35:28
Speaker 5: you're able to, we would love if you can give
35:30
Speaker 5: us so donation to help support our efforts. We just
35:32
Speaker 5: need to show that this is what Australians really want.
35:36
Speaker 5: We need to show that Australians don't want ideology running
35:39
Speaker 5: their energy policy. They want engineering, they want economics, They
35:43
Speaker 5: want an affordable energy plan and that has to be
35:45
Speaker 5: number one. And the more numbers we have, the more
35:48
Speaker 5: we can tell the Australian Government and the state governments
35:50
Speaker 5: that that is what we need.
35:52
Speaker 3: Very good, Zoe. I appreciate you joining me on the
35:54
Speaker 3: show tonight. Thanks so much for your time, Thank you
35:56
Speaker 3: so much. All right, coming up after the break, are
35:59
Speaker 3: we headed for another oil shock? And why are so
36:01
Speaker 3: many middle income earners now seeking help from charities? One
36:05
Speaker 3: of Australia's highest profile economists will join me after the break.
36:08
Speaker 1: Stick Around.
36:15
Speaker 3: Experts are warning oil prices could surge to over one
36:18
Speaker 3: hundred US dollars a barrel very soon. It comes as
36:22
Speaker 3: US strikes on a run resume and Trump implements a
36:25
Speaker 3: fresh blockade across the Strait of Hormuz. Joining me is
36:28
Speaker 3: head of Investment Strategy and Chief Economists at AMP, Shane Oliver. Shane,
36:33
Speaker 3: I am so glad you're on the program tonight because
36:35
Speaker 3: I need advice do I fill up my.
36:37
Speaker 1: Car on the way home after the show.
36:40
Speaker 4: Well, there is an argument to keep it reasonably topped up.
36:43
Speaker 4: To be honest with you, I don't think we go
36:45
Speaker 4: to run out of fuel anytime soon.
36:47
Speaker 2: We've shown an ability to get fuel.
36:50
Speaker 4: Because we are a well off nation in a global set,
36:53
Speaker 4: so we can pay a little bit more for it,
36:55
Speaker 4: as we did over the last few months. But there
36:57
Speaker 4: is a risk that the price will go higher. We
37:00
Speaker 4: have seen oil prices already go up ten to fifteen
37:02
Speaker 4: dollars from their lows recently. That hasn't shown up fully
37:07
Speaker 4: in petrol prices yet. The main reason petrol prices have
37:10
Speaker 4: gone up so far is because of the harving of
37:12
Speaker 4: the fuel tax cut that we saw back in April,
37:15
Speaker 4: so I suspect there is more upside ahead. The big
37:18
Speaker 4: question is whether we go through one hundred dollars or
37:20
Speaker 4: maybe go to one hundred and fifty dollars a barrel globally,
37:23
Speaker 4: which was the big fear once that war got underwagh
37:26
Speaker 4: a few months back. We didn't get there, but of
37:29
Speaker 4: course if we don't see a peace deal soon in
37:32
Speaker 4: the straight reopened, there is a risk that that could happen.
37:35
Speaker 3: What overall impact is the war in Iran having more
37:39
Speaker 3: broadly on the economy.
37:40
Speaker 1: I mean, how big is the effect?
37:43
Speaker 2: Well, so far, I think it's relatively modest.
37:46
Speaker 4: The main effect has been that surge in petrol prices
37:49
Speaker 4: we saw earlier this year, that of course contributed to
37:52
Speaker 4: sharp falls in business.
37:54
Speaker 2: Confidence, consumer confidence.
37:56
Speaker 4: Some of those falls have been recovered slightly as petrol
37:59
Speaker 4: prices and fuel prices came back down, But of course
38:02
Speaker 4: all of that led to or contributed to the Reserve
38:05
Speaker 4: Bank's nervousness about inflation, which is already too high. And
38:09
Speaker 4: maybe if we didn't have the surgeon fuel prices we
38:13
Speaker 4: may not have had that last.
38:15
Speaker 2: Rate hit back in August.
38:17
Speaker 4: But in terms of economic growth, you know, our economy
38:20
Speaker 4: is still growing modestly, not fantastically, but it's still growing.
38:24
Speaker 4: I think it's hard to say that it's had a
38:26
Speaker 4: huge negative impact so far, but it has been a
38:29
Speaker 4: bit of a damp nut just very quickly.
38:31
Speaker 1: I think I know the answer to this question.
38:33
Speaker 3: But you've got the war in Ukraine and you've got
38:35
Speaker 3: the war in the Middle East, which one has the
38:38
Speaker 3: greatest impact on prices in the economy here in Australia.
38:43
Speaker 4: Well to be honest, I think it's the war in
38:45
Speaker 4: Iran because they have the ability to block the straight
38:48
Speaker 4: upon merge, which is what they've been doing. Normally, twenty
38:51
Speaker 4: per cent of fuel flows through that strait. Obviously there's
38:55
Speaker 4: been some diversions. We've been able to rely on running
38:58
Speaker 4: down global stockpiles of fuel. But the potential impact of
39:02
Speaker 4: this conflict, particularly if the strait remains closed, is much
39:06
Speaker 4: higher than the impact coming out of Ukraine.
39:09
Speaker 3: All Right, cost of living is taking a toll on everyone,
39:12
Speaker 3: and the biggest concern for voters heading into the Victorian
39:14
Speaker 3: election is cost of living. New research commissioned by advocacy
39:18
Speaker 3: group Greater Southeast Melbourne has founded in that electorate Whopping
39:23
Speaker 3: sixty seven percent of locals said cost of living was
39:26
Speaker 3: their biggest concern. Forty five percent had accessed financial support
39:31
Speaker 3: in the past twelve months. That's above the statewide figure
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Speaker 3: of forty one percent, which is alarmingly high. Seven out
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Speaker 3: of ten said they were turning to family and friends
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Speaker 3: for money to make ends meet. I wanted to ask
39:44
Speaker 3: you about this because the Victorian government loves to spook
39:47
Speaker 3: all their big projects. Are they misreading the public mood?
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Speaker 3: People just want to be able to put food on
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Speaker 3: the table. They're not that concerned perhaps about tunnels and
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Speaker 3: new railway lines and so forth and so on that
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Speaker 3: the government loved to boast about.
40:00
Speaker 4: Well, I think they've gotten carried away with those big projects.
40:03
Speaker 4: That's the problem here, and of course that's led to
40:05
Speaker 4: massive debt levels in Victoria. It's nice to have great infrastructure,
40:09
Speaker 4: we all want that. It helps the economy move, but
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Speaker 4: you can overdo it, and of course there's been those
40:14
Speaker 4: huge cost over runs which are bounded to the problem.
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Speaker 2: But the issue in Victoria, and I.
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Speaker 4: Think more broadly around Australia, is the cost of living.
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Speaker 4: That is what all voters, all Australians, are concerned about.
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Speaker 4: Over the last five years, since twenty twenty one, prices
40:29
Speaker 4: on average in Australia this is measured by the CPI
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Speaker 4: are up something like twenty five percent, whereas wages are
40:34
Speaker 4: only up something like nineteen percent. So real wages have
40:38
Speaker 4: fallen about six percent, Whereas if you go back to
40:41
Speaker 4: the pre pandemic years, in most years real wages rose,
40:44
Speaker 4: wages went up ahead of inflation. So I think that's
40:47
Speaker 4: at the core of the problem. That problem is impacting
40:50
Speaker 4: some more than others. If you've got a mortgage, if
40:53
Speaker 4: you're a renter, you probably feel the pain more intently
40:56
Speaker 4: than someone who has the mortgage paid.
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Speaker 2: Off and owns their own house.
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Speaker 4: There's different degrees of this stress around the country, but
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Speaker 4: I think all people in Australia are feeling that, and
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Speaker 4: of course at this stage it's hard to see the
41:09
Speaker 4: end of that because I think at the core of
41:12
Speaker 4: the problem is a lack of productivity growth. The economy
41:15
Speaker 4: doesn't work as smoothly as it used to, and so
41:19
Speaker 4: that's generating inflation pressures, higher interest rates and cost of
41:21
Speaker 4: living issues, which of course is what you're seeing in Victoria.
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Speaker 1: So you mentioned the pre pandemic years.
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Speaker 3: That seems like a lifetime ago and an absolute dream land.
41:32
Speaker 3: We've only got one minute left, but very quickly there's
41:36
Speaker 3: been a new report that's found one in three previously
41:39
Speaker 3: middle class or middle income New South welshmen and women
41:43
Speaker 3: are now seeking out charity to help for the first
41:46
Speaker 3: time in their lives. I only got about thirty seconds left.
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Speaker 3: But what's driving this and what needs to be done
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Speaker 3: real quick?
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Speaker 4: I think it's the same problem basically cost of living issues,
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Speaker 4: rising mortgage reactions, so on people have had to take
41:58
Speaker 4: on more debt. What needs to be done, I think
42:01
Speaker 4: is to reduce the size of the government sector, free
42:04
Speaker 4: up the private sector to produce more goods and services,
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Speaker 4: and help get our inflation rate down.
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Speaker 2: That would be the big solution to all of this.
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Speaker 4: And we had that, then we could have decent wages
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Speaker 4: growth in excess of the rise in the cost of living.
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Speaker 3: Shane Oliver, if you ever decided to not be an
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Speaker 3: economist and run for parliament, I will vote for you.
42:22
Speaker 1: Good advice. Thanks for joining me tonight.
42:25
Speaker 3: I appreciate your time and thanks for joining me on
42:27
Speaker 3: the program. I'll be back at ten pm with Denika
42:31
Speaker 3: de Giorgio and Joe Hildeban for the late debate. But
42:34
Speaker 3: right now here is Paul Murray.