Latest / The Bolt Report / The Bolt Report | 15 September

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The Bolt Report | 15 September · The Bolt Report

0:10
Speaker 1: Kids. Is the Bolt reform it.
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Speaker 2: Well?
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Speaker 1: Good evening and welcome to the Bolt Report. I'm James
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Speaker 1: Macpherson coming up tonight. The Liberal Party's worst newspoll result
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Speaker 1: in forty years. Can Susan Lee survive? Can the Liberal Party?
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Speaker 1: Michael Kroger and Stephen Conroy will join me shortly. Australia
0:29
Speaker 1: to spend billions arming the PMNG military. Is it money
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Speaker 1: well spent? What about our own defense forces? I'll talk
0:35
Speaker 1: to Greg Sheridan. And while the world mourns the death
0:38
Speaker 1: of Charlie Kirk's, some are still celebrating. This is much
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Speaker 1: deeper than political differences. I'll ask my panel what is
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Speaker 1: this sickness in Western culture? And UK Prime Minister Keir
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Speaker 1: Starmer slams the use of British flags at a huge
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Speaker 1: protest against immigration in London. He says the Union Jack
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Speaker 1: represents diversity. That's shorter. Calm people down. I'll go live
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Speaker 1: to London shortly, but first. The Albanzy government Special Envoy
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Speaker 1: on combating Islamophobia dropped his report late Friday afternoon, the
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Speaker 1: traditional time for governments to release things that prefer no
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Speaker 1: one actually noticed. Fifty four recommendations. That's right, fifty four.
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Speaker 1: I'll get to some of those shortly, but alarm bells
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Speaker 1: should have been ringing right from the start with this
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Speaker 1: assertion at the beginning of the report, and I quote
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Speaker 1: Islamophobia or any hate and prejudice has no place in
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Speaker 1: our society. Well it sounds noble. I mean, you could
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Speaker 1: print that on a teatowel. But hang on a second,
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Speaker 1: why can't someone be prejudiced against Islam. I'm not talking
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Speaker 1: about hating on Muslims. Muslims are people deserving love and respect.
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Speaker 1: But Islam is not a person or a race or
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Speaker 1: a culture. Islam is an idea, a view of the
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Speaker 1: world that Mohammad claims to have received from an angel
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Speaker 1: in a cave around the year six hundred and ten AD.
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Speaker 1: And here's the thing about ideas. You're allowed to dislike them.
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Speaker 1: You're even allowed to think they're dangerous. Western progress was
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Speaker 1: built on the right to call bad ideas well bad ideas.
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Speaker 1: Take away our right to be prejudiced against bad ideas,
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Speaker 1: and you don't have tolerance, you have tyranny wrapped in
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Speaker 1: diversity brochures. The forward to the Report on Islamophobias, written
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Speaker 1: by none other than Australian cricketing great Usman Kouwaja wonderful player,
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Speaker 1: sweet cover drive, but less reliable on history and theology
2:34
Speaker 1: than the Australian batting order. On Day five in Bangalore,
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Speaker 1: Usman Kowaja opens by writing this and I quote, since
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Speaker 1: the tragedy that occurred on eleventh of September two thousand
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Speaker 1: and one, the world has had its eyes not only
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Speaker 1: on the Islamic world, but on Muslims living in their
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Speaker 1: countries too well. I got to say. He lost me
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Speaker 1: when he referred to nine to eleven as a quote tragedy. Sorry,
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Speaker 1: a tragedy is when your team is bowled out for
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Speaker 1: less than two hundred on a flat wicket at the
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Speaker 1: Adelaide Oval. What happened on September eleven wasn't a tragedy.
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Speaker 1: It was the coordinated slaughter of three thousand innocents by
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Speaker 1: Islamists who shouted Koranic verses as they turned aeroplanes into
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Speaker 1: Cruz missiles. And Kuwaja claims to be bamboozed as to
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Speaker 1: why many in the West might have looked suspiciously at Islam. Well,
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Speaker 1: maybe because it was an Anglican celebrating around the world
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Speaker 1: on that day. Usman then ventures into theology. Always dangerous
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Speaker 1: for a batsman charging down the wicket wearing no pads
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Speaker 1: and no helmet and evidently not even carrying a bat,
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Speaker 1: he writes, and I quote. Throughout history, Judaism, Christianity, and
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Speaker 1: Islam have been intertwined and linked through Abraham other than Christianity,
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Speaker 1: no other major religion, but Islam holds Jesus and Mary
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Speaker 1: in such high regard. Jesus is mentioned more times in
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Speaker 1: the Qoran than Mohammad himself. Well, sure, the Quran does
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Speaker 1: mention Jesus, but so too does every trade I've ever met,
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Speaker 1: usually when they hit their thumb with a hammer. Mentioning
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Speaker 1: someone isn't the same as honoring them. Islam mentions Jesus repeatedly,
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Speaker 1: but also insists Jesus didn't die on a cross, didn't
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Speaker 1: rise again, and is not the Savior. According to Islam,
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Speaker 1: worshiping Jesus is blasphemy. So that's not holding Jesus in
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Speaker 1: high regard. That's politely calling two billion Christians heretics. And
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Speaker 1: as for Islam being intertwined with Judaism and Christianity, well
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Speaker 1: not quite. Islam turned up six hundred years after Jesus
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Speaker 1: to declare that both Judaism and Christianity had gotten everything
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Speaker 1: hopelessly wrong. That's not intertwining, that's hijacking the story and
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Speaker 1: rewriting the ending. Usman Kuwaja, to be fair, is a
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Speaker 1: fantastic batsman, beautiful to watch, but he's about as reliable
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Speaker 1: on theology as the Australian batting lineup facing murally in Colombo.
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Speaker 1: There I was at the weekend reading the Special Envoy
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Speaker 1: to Combat Islamophobia's report, and I'm already dubious before the
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Speaker 1: recommendations have begun. The fifty four recommendations, well, they read
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Speaker 1: like a Christmas shopping list. The Australian government is asked
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Speaker 1: to formally recognize an International Day to combat Islamophobia. Government
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Speaker 1: departments are asked to hold workshops addressing unconscious bias against Islam.
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Speaker 1: The Home Affairs Department is instructed to review how anti
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Speaker 1: terror laws might have unintended consequences for Muslim communities. If
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Speaker 1: the Envoy gets his way, school teachers will undergo training
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Speaker 1: on Islamophobia as well as on Islamic theology, and all
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Speaker 1: parliamentarians and their advisors would be made to go compulsory
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Speaker 1: training on Islamophobia. Every single year. There's obviously a lot more.
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Speaker 1: Those are just a few of the highlights, but there
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Speaker 1: was one recommendation I found particularly curious and to me
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Speaker 1: it demonstrated how perfectly unserious this entire report was. The
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Speaker 1: Obinnezi Governments Islamophobia Envoy wants an inquiry into anti Palestinian
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Speaker 1: racism because, of course, when Australians get cranky about their
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Speaker 1: CBD being shut down every weekend by marchers chanting from
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Speaker 1: the river to the sea, it couldn't possibly be about
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Speaker 1: the Hammas flags, the Interfarda slogans, or calls to wipe
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Speaker 1: out the world's only Jewish state. No. No, Australians just
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Speaker 1: woke up one morning and thought, you know what we
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Speaker 1: need today, a new minority to irrationally hate. Aftab Malik
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Speaker 1: says Palestinians feel unsafe in this country expressing their identity.
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Speaker 1: That's possibly because their public identity has, for the past
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Speaker 1: two years almost exclusively been about blocking traffic, shouting for
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Speaker 1: the death of Jewish soldiers and waving banners that would
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Speaker 1: make azo twitch. Ordinary Australians aren't racist, They're just sick
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Speaker 1: of having their weekend shopping trips hijacked by thousands of
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Speaker 1: people cheering for a region governed by terrorists holding hostages.
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Speaker 1: So you know, I think it's a bit unfair to
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Speaker 1: launch an inquiry into why we're racist. Australians just prefer
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Speaker 1: their hummus without a side of from the River to
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Speaker 1: the Sea. But instead of telling activists to tone it down,
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Speaker 1: aftab Malk wants taxpayers to fund a commission of inquiry
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Speaker 1: into why Australians aren't applauding. It's the progressive playbook in
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Speaker 1: a nutshell. Don't change the behavior, criminalize the criticism. So sure,
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Speaker 1: let's have a national investigation into why Australians aren't thrilled
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Speaker 1: about weekly traffic jams and chances to the destruction of Israel.
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Speaker 1: And well we're at it, let's also commission studies into
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Speaker 1: why water is wet and why gravity makes things fall down.
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Speaker 1: It's a special envoy to combat Islamophobia really wants to
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Speaker 1: find out why people are anti Palestinian. He doesn't need
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Speaker 1: a taxpayer funded inquiry. You could just look out his
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Speaker 1: window any weekend in Sydney or in Melbourne. The recommendation
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Speaker 1: of an inquiry into anti Palestinian attitudes summarizes the entire
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Speaker 1: report on Islamophobia. Most of it is an exercise in
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Speaker 1: victimhood and the Australian government should not entertain it, except
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Speaker 1: you know they will. There are way too many votes
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Speaker 1: in Western Sydney to ignore it well. The Elbanezi government
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Speaker 1: has unveiled its inaugural Climate Risk Assessment, and according to
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Speaker 1: the document, Brisbane will soon be the lost city of
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Speaker 1: Atlantis and Townsville a mass grave. The modeling claims that
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Speaker 1: if we don't take drastic action, Brisbane could flood three
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Speaker 1: hundred and fourteen days a year. As for Townsville, heat
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Speaker 1: related deaths would increase by three hundred and fifty percent
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Speaker 1: by the end of the century. The report, dripping with
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Speaker 1: adjectives like landmark and confronting, tells us that by twenty
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Speaker 1: to fifty more than one point five million Australians will
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Speaker 1: be at risk of rising sea levels. Now, if that
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Speaker 1: sounds for me, it's because we've heard it all before.
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Speaker 1: Al Gore said the Arctic would be ice free by
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Speaker 1: twenty thirteen. Spoiler alert, it's not. A senior UN environmental
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Speaker 1: official warned US in nineteen eighty nine that entire nations
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Speaker 1: would be swallowed up by rising seas by the year
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Speaker 1: two thousand. Yep, here we are two decades past the
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Speaker 1: deadline and real estate prices in beachfront sburbers haven't exactly collapsed.
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Speaker 1: If beachfront property is really doomed, then I have to
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Speaker 1: ask why does every climate crusader from Barack Obama to
9:33
Speaker 1: Kevin Rudd keep buying It. Didn't Elbow buy a beachfront
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Speaker 1: home not that long ago. Speaking of which, here's the
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Speaker 1: Prime Minister today.
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Speaker 3: Climate change is going to have an impact with more
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Speaker 3: extreme weather events, more intensity, more economic cost. Every time
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Speaker 3: there is a flood or a cyclone of a bushfire,
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Speaker 3: there's a massive cost to Australia.
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Speaker 1: Sure, except every time there's a flood it's not necessarily
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Speaker 1: due to climate change, nor is every bushfire. And the
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Speaker 1: PM mentioned cyclones. Well, according to the Climate Council, the
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Speaker 1: frequency of cyclones is decreasing. But that's the thing about fear.
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Speaker 1: It doesn't have to bear any resemblance to facts. Alliteration helps, though,
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Speaker 1: the Government's Comprehensive Assessment concludes climate risks will be cascading,
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Speaker 1: compounding and concurrent. Well, I'll tell you what. When the
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Speaker 1: Government uses that much alliteration, you know things are serious.
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Speaker 1: The Government insists Australians are already experiencing the impacts of
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Speaker 1: climate change, though curiously those impacts always sound like things
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Speaker 1: that have been happening since the dawn of time floods, bushfires, cyclones,
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Speaker 1: heat waves. Apparently weather only became a problem after the
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Speaker 1: Industrial resolution. Of course, the dire modeling lands just in
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Speaker 1: time for Labour to unveil its twenty thirty five missions
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Speaker 1: reduction target, which I suspect is the point. The report
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Speaker 1: seems to me less science, more sales picture, glossy brochure
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Speaker 1: designed to scare us into accepting higher power builds, fewer jobs,
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Speaker 1: and more government government control over every aspect of our lives.
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Speaker 1: The problem for the doomsdays is history. As I said,
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Speaker 1: We've endured decades of these prophecies and they never seem
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Speaker 1: to eventuate. Remember Tim Flannery's assurance that back in two
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Speaker 1: thousand and seven that dams would never ever fill again.
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Speaker 4: Even the rain of falls isn't actually going to fill
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Speaker 4: our dams and our river system.
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Speaker 1: And of course, within a few years of that prediction,
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Speaker 1: our dams were overflowing. The predictions are always wrong, but
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Speaker 1: never in a way that undermines the narrative. And instead
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Speaker 1: of saying sorry, we were wrong, the experts simply move
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Speaker 1: the goal posts further down the field, confident by the
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Speaker 1: time the deadline passes, no one will remember. And even
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Speaker 1: if the predictions were true, there's that small matter of arithmetic.
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Speaker 1: Contributes just one percent of global carbon emissions. One percent,
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Speaker 1: So if we shut down every coal plant, every factory,
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Speaker 1: every farm, every ute, and all move back into caves,
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Speaker 1: the difference to global temperatures would be precisely nil. Meanwhile,
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Speaker 1: China builds a new coal fired power plant every other week,
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Speaker 1: but where the ones told to shiver in the dark
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Speaker 1: to save the planet. The report warns natural disasters will
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Speaker 1: cost the economy forty billion dollars annually by twenty fifty,
12:28
Speaker 1: while property values will collapse by more than half a
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Speaker 1: trillion dollars by the twenty sixties. Climate change will allegedly
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Speaker 1: rob us of two point seven million workdays a year.
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Speaker 1: But here's the thing. Governments can't even project next year's
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Speaker 1: budget deficit. They can't even keep track of immigration numbers.
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Speaker 1: They can't tell you whether a major project will be
12:49
Speaker 1: finished on time or on budget. Heck, they can't even
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Speaker 1: take a measly two hundred and seventy five dollars off
12:55
Speaker 1: your power bill.
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Speaker 3: Reducing power prices by two hundred and seventy five five dollars.
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Speaker 5: Reducing power prices by two hunred and seventy five dollars.
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Speaker 6: By twenty twenty five two hundred and seventy five dollars
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Speaker 6: a year.
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Speaker 1: So they can't manage that. Yet we're supposed to believe
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Speaker 1: they can model the climate, the economy, and human behavior
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Speaker 1: forty years from now with decimal point precision. What we're
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Speaker 1: witnessing is not science but storytelling apocalypse as political theater.
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Speaker 1: The urban eezy government's climate risk assessment is less about
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Speaker 1: rising seas than it is about rising taxes and regulations.
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Speaker 1: The climate scare is the perfect crisis, always urgent, never verifiable,
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Speaker 1: and conveniently unsolvable, ensuring a permanent excuse for government expansion.
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Speaker 1: So you'll forgive me if I don't lose sleep over
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Speaker 1: predictions of Brisbane becoming water World and Townsville turning into
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Speaker 1: Death Valley. The experts have cried wolf too many times
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Speaker 1: until the beachfront homes of climate activists start washing away
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Speaker 1: or keep assuming they're modeling is about as reliable as
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Speaker 1: their policy delivery. Well joining me now to discuss the
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Speaker 1: news of the day as my panel former Victorian Liberal
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Speaker 1: Party president Michael Kroger and former Labor Senator Stephen Conroy.
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Speaker 1: Welcome to you both. As you heard earlier, Chris Bowen
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Speaker 1: delivered Labour's Climb Doomsday report, which he's using to justify
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Speaker 1: ramping up our country's green action. Here he was amid
14:28
Speaker 1: the climate hysteria, trying to rationalize the cost to household budgets.
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Speaker 7: For this financial burden of climate change, of the renewables transition.
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Speaker 2: Is it going to all enough on the mandly budget.
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Speaker 5: There's a remarkable opportunity as well for households at the
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Speaker 5: center of this journey in a way which puts them
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Speaker 5: more in control of their assets, not less, and more
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Speaker 5: in control of their decisions, not less, and maximizing the
14:55
Speaker 5: savings at their disposal. In the old days, we alwa
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Speaker 5: used to get an energy bill and that was our
15:00
Speaker 5: entire say. In the manner you just had to pay
15:02
Speaker 5: the energy bill, you had no further say. That changed,
15:04
Speaker 5: that is changing and will change now Australians have a
15:08
Speaker 5: power station on their roof and in their garage and
15:11
Speaker 5: in their driveway with their batteries yes, we have challenges.
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Speaker 5: Of course, international energy prices continue to provide pressures, but
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Speaker 5: we also have remarkable opportunities in our country.
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Speaker 1: Michael Kroger, if you believe Chris Bowen, we're all better
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Speaker 1: off than we've ever been. We've all got power stations
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Speaker 1: on our roofs. He's referring to solar panels. But this
15:31
Speaker 1: is cold comfort to Australians struggling with their energy bills,
15:34
Speaker 1: is it not?
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Speaker 8: Well exactly, I mean, I don't think there's been a
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Speaker 8: minister in my lifetime with a longer record of failure
15:42
Speaker 8: as a minister than Chris bow and his previous portfolios.
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Speaker 8: I mean, he's been one of the worst performed ministers
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Speaker 8: we've seen in the Commonwealth in my lifetime, as I said,
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Speaker 8: and now he's been given this enormous portfolio. Well, look,
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Speaker 8: I look at it this way. Of course, we love
15:55
Speaker 8: net zero as a target. We want to get to zero,
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Speaker 8: we want to reduce emissions, we want to keep temperature
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Speaker 8: rises to as low as possible. But I look at
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Speaker 8: it this way, we're one percent of the missions. As
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Speaker 8: you said, Bowen has never been able and no one's
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Speaker 8: ever been able to answer the Andrew Bolt question, which is,
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Speaker 8: if we do all this, how much does it reduce
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Speaker 8: the world's temperatures by? And the answer is zero. So
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Speaker 8: we're going through all of this pain for effectively nothing.
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Speaker 8: Sixty percent of the world emissions come from China, the US, Russia,
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Speaker 8: and India. It's almost sixty percent. None of them have
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Speaker 8: serious zero policies, and so we're going to this target
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Speaker 8: under Chris Bowen's leadership with a blank check that he's got.
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Speaker 8: Our power prices are going through, power bills are going
16:40
Speaker 8: through the roof. What we do is going to make
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Speaker 8: no difference to the world's temperatures. And Bowen's never been
16:46
Speaker 8: able to answer Bolt's question, we do all this, how
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Speaker 8: do we by? How much do we lower the world's temperatures?
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Speaker 8: The answer is the answer is none. But he can't
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Speaker 8: say that this is just a terror chaotic miss by
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Speaker 8: Chris Bowen, who's nothing short of a modern day fantasist.
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Speaker 1: Stephen, these catastrophic predictions Brisbane flooding three hundred and fourteen
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Speaker 1: days a year if we don't do something. Now, do
17:16
Speaker 1: you think people take any of these predictions seriously? We've
17:19
Speaker 1: heard all of these wild claims before.
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Speaker 6: Well, look, I think Chris Byan put it well, there
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Speaker 6: are challenges for Australia. How we choose to respond to them,
17:32
Speaker 6: both in terms of policy and the politics is a
17:36
Speaker 6: choice AUS training public have made. They've overwhelming rejected your
17:40
Speaker 6: point of view, overwhelmingly rejected it. And Michael very conveniently
17:46
Speaker 6: talks about the US well, just over twelve months ago,
17:49
Speaker 6: the US had a very significant climate policy target. Europe
17:54
Speaker 6: it still has climate policy targets and Australia does, and
17:59
Speaker 6: one one recent period in the past, so did the
18:03
Speaker 6: Liberal Party. It's only the flat Earth brigade in the
18:07
Speaker 6: Liberal Party or trying to take control of it then,
18:09
Speaker 6: who actually don't accept that there is a need for
18:12
Speaker 6: a zero by twenty fifty. But the Prime Minister today,
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Speaker 6: if you listen to the Prime Minister day, he offered
18:19
Speaker 6: an opportunity for the Liberal Party to engage in the debate,
18:24
Speaker 6: be taken seriously by sixty seventy percent of Australians and
18:29
Speaker 6: work to try and ensure that this transition is as
18:32
Speaker 6: smooth and seamless as possible. That's not to say that
18:35
Speaker 6: aren't going to be bumps along the way, but the
18:38
Speaker 6: Prime Minister said, we want to make sure we've got
18:40
Speaker 6: to go slower than some people would want because we've
18:44
Speaker 6: got to make sure the lights don't go. Oh, this
18:46
Speaker 6: is the Prime Minister today. He offered the Liberals and
18:49
Speaker 6: opportunity to be part of this debate, or they can
18:51
Speaker 6: be the flat earthers over in the corner who don't
18:54
Speaker 6: want to ever win government and don't want to engage
18:56
Speaker 6: in a serious policy debate.
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Speaker 1: Well, we'll see what the flat earth has come up with.
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Speaker 1: They're currently spending the better part of a year trying
19:06
Speaker 1: to work out what their energy policy is. But I
19:09
Speaker 1: reckon they would improve in the polls if they actually
19:11
Speaker 1: came out with opposition to net zero. Speaking of which
19:15
Speaker 1: the Coalition has slumped to its worst primary vote in
19:18
Speaker 1: news poll history. This comes after some rough couple of
19:22
Speaker 1: weeks which saw Senator Jacinta nampajimper Price sacked from the
19:26
Speaker 1: front bench amid internal party fighting. The coalition primary vote
19:30
Speaker 1: now just twenty seven percent, leaving questions over Susan Lee's future.
19:34
Speaker 1: He was Simon Benson from The Australian on that polling.
19:39
Speaker 4: Considering most of what it's done is talk about itself
19:43
Speaker 4: rather than offer a credible alternative as an opposition, and
19:47
Speaker 4: I think there would be a feeling that the party
19:51
Speaker 4: is once again ignoring the base, and we saw that
19:55
Speaker 4: with the actions against just Enter Price last week. That
20:00
Speaker 4: will have annoyed a lot of people in the party.
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Speaker 1: Michael Kroger, How has it gotten this bad for the
20:05
Speaker 1: Liberal Party? Their worst news poll results since nineteen eighty
20:08
Speaker 1: five when Newspoll was instituted.
20:13
Speaker 8: Yeah, well, this is what happens when you have too
20:15
Speaker 8: much internal fighting. It's one of the problems, and you know,
20:18
Speaker 8: we've seen the results. The main problem is that if
20:21
Speaker 8: you have a policy vacuum, how do you inspire people
20:24
Speaker 8: to vote for you if you don't if you're not
20:26
Speaker 8: standing for something, why people are going to vote against
20:28
Speaker 8: aalbox and vote for you if you don't represent a
20:30
Speaker 8: policy alternative. So I don't think this review of policies
20:34
Speaker 8: can go on for a year. That would be that
20:36
Speaker 8: would that that that is a recipe for a even
20:40
Speaker 8: bigger problem and a lower vote. I think what they
20:43
Speaker 8: should do, And if I were Susan Leaa advising Susan,
20:45
Speaker 8: I would I'd probably give five or six Headland speeches
20:48
Speaker 8: in the next few months leading up to Christmas setting
20:51
Speaker 8: down the main policy principles that underpin her leadership. And
20:57
Speaker 8: you know, I think she's a very good person. I
20:58
Speaker 8: think she could be a very very good leader.
21:00
Speaker 1: But whilst you.
21:01
Speaker 8: Have this vacuum, it makes it hard for her. And
21:03
Speaker 8: of course you've always got people sniping at the leader,
21:06
Speaker 8: whoever it is Susan Lee or Robert Menzie, so that's
21:09
Speaker 8: always going to happen. But I think some policy principles
21:12
Speaker 8: set down the next few months is what they should
21:15
Speaker 8: be doing to give people the sense of direction. Where
21:18
Speaker 8: are we going on immigration? Where are we going on
21:21
Speaker 8: the tax system, and ultimately get back this whole debate
21:24
Speaker 8: onto the tax system and the Australian economy which is
21:27
Speaker 8: drowning in debt. Another twelve billion the other day on defense.
21:32
Speaker 8: Where's that coming from? No one even bothers to ask.
21:35
Speaker 8: It just goes on the credit card and no one
21:37
Speaker 8: seems to care. So ultimately you'll be hit by the
21:40
Speaker 8: economic reality stick and in new course Australia be whacked
21:43
Speaker 8: because of his massive debt. But that's one of the
21:46
Speaker 8: issues that the Colors should be taking on.
21:50
Speaker 1: Well, Stephen Conry, I'm going to let you speculate on
21:53
Speaker 1: the future of Susan Lee. I noticed Andrew Hasty on
21:56
Speaker 1: Quedlin before I went to air talking about Charlie Kirk.
22:00
Speaker 1: Lee hasn't said a word that I'm aware of about
22:02
Speaker 1: Charlie Kirk's assassination. Do you think she holds on Laura?
22:05
Speaker 1: Is Andrew Hasty destined to lead the Liberal Party to
22:08
Speaker 1: the next election.
22:12
Speaker 6: We'll come in first out. I'm sure certain is absolutely
22:15
Speaker 6: appalled and shocked and horrified by the assassination in the US.
22:21
Speaker 6: I mean, it is. It's just a terrible set of
22:24
Speaker 6: circumstances in America right now that causes great distress to
22:29
Speaker 6: those of who believe in free speech, to those of
22:31
Speaker 6: who believe in the ability to make an argument in
22:35
Speaker 6: public and not be assassinate for it, whether you agree
22:38
Speaker 6: with those arguments or not. I mean, Susan Lay is
22:42
Speaker 6: being undermined by a range of individuals who can't accept
22:47
Speaker 6: that she isn't prepared to toss zero by twenty fifty
22:53
Speaker 6: overboard instantly. So those flat earth are in the Liberal Party,
22:58
Speaker 6: and let's just break that twenty seven percent down, then
23:01
Speaker 6: that's are about four or five percent of that The
23:03
Speaker 6: Liberal Party's core vote is down on about twenty three
23:06
Speaker 6: to twenty two percent. So that explains why they don't
23:10
Speaker 6: have virtually a single seat in metropolitan Australia, Perth, Adelaide, Tasmania, Victoria,
23:21
Speaker 6: New South Wales are struggling to hold the ones they've
23:24
Speaker 6: got and in Queensland's the only place where they've got
23:27
Speaker 6: more than a handful. So those who are trying to
23:30
Speaker 6: wage war on her are going to further destabilize the
23:35
Speaker 6: Liberal Party core vote. I mean, let's just this story
23:38
Speaker 6: about oh, the base, the base of the base, I'm sick
23:40
Speaker 6: of hearing about it. With it comes of Liberals, the
23:42
Speaker 6: base is less than one percent of the Australian population.
23:44
Speaker 6: It's probably not even a half a percent of the
23:47
Speaker 6: Australian population. Who cares what they think? Who cares what
23:52
Speaker 6: a tiny, tiny fraction of people think. You have to
23:56
Speaker 6: win fifty one percent of the Australian public twenty seven
24:00
Speaker 6: million voters. You've got to get thirteen million, not thirty thousand,
24:05
Speaker 6: So the sooner people stop.
24:06
Speaker 1: Fantasize a confusing member. But we've got to.
24:09
Speaker 8: Appease members with voters made.
24:11
Speaker 6: Now I'm very much I'm very much making a point
24:15
Speaker 6: about the party. Okay, the party, which is what people
24:20
Speaker 6: keep out o the members of the branches, less than
24:23
Speaker 6: half a percent, thirty thousand. That's been generous. Michael, we're
24:27
Speaker 6: out of thirteen million that you need to win an election.
24:31
Speaker 1: Ultimately, we're going to have to leave it there, gentlemen,
24:35
Speaker 1: because we've run out of time. Michael Kroger, Steven Conroy,
24:38
Speaker 1: appreciate you both coming on the program. Well, we're going
24:40
Speaker 1: to go to a break, but stick around. More pathetic
24:43
Speaker 1: obfuscation on defense from the alben Ezy government. Richard Males
24:47
Speaker 1: skirts around giving a GDP figure on defense spending. Rig
24:50
Speaker 1: Sheridan will join me in just a moment. Welcome back.
24:56
Speaker 1: Called defensive Minister Richard Marles has refused to say what
24:59
Speaker 1: percent dig of GDP labor will spend on defense. This
25:03
Speaker 1: is ahead of the PM's long awaited visit to the
25:05
Speaker 1: United States. Richard Miles announced an additional twelve billion dollars
25:10
Speaker 1: in funding for a submarine base, but he wouldn't say
25:13
Speaker 1: how this affects defense spending percentages. Take a look.
25:17
Speaker 7: We've not really been focused on that as a measure,
25:20
Speaker 7: and partly because in fact there are different measures around
25:23
Speaker 7: the world of percentages of GDP. I mean, if you
25:26
Speaker 7: look at the way in which NATO accounts for its
25:29
Speaker 7: own spending in terms of percentage of GDP. Based on
25:33
Speaker 7: that metric, outspending on GDP today in terms of defense
25:36
Speaker 7: is around two point eight percent, and so precisely because
25:39
Speaker 7: there are differences around the place, we actually are focused
25:42
Speaker 7: on the process that the Prime Minister has articulated to
25:45
Speaker 7: think about what is the need that we have and
25:48
Speaker 7: then to resource it.
25:51
Speaker 1: Okay, so that clears that up. The irony is it
25:54
Speaker 1: was actually the ob and easy government itself which introduced
25:57
Speaker 1: the GDP measure in last year's National Defense Strategy, promising
26:00
Speaker 1: a jump in investment by twenty thirty three. This has
26:04
Speaker 1: certainly raised some eyebrows among critics.
26:06
Speaker 9: Today, the French submarine is the Japanese. Once we've got
26:10
Speaker 9: something done with the UK, we've got a lot of
26:12
Speaker 9: waste and people want to know where their money. People
26:14
Speaker 9: don't mind spending money on defense for the nation. What
26:17
Speaker 9: they care about is that it's been wasted and there's
26:20
Speaker 9: too much waste.
26:23
Speaker 1: Joining me now is Foreign editor at The Australian Greg Sheridan. Greg,
26:27
Speaker 1: what is going on with Richard Marles's refusal to talk
26:31
Speaker 1: about GDP as it relates to defense spending. What happened
26:35
Speaker 1: to transparent government?
26:39
Speaker 10: Well, James, there's never been anything transparent about this government
26:43
Speaker 10: and defense. Firstly, Richard Males says, the government doesn't think
26:46
Speaker 10: about defense as a percent of GDP. Every defense document
26:50
Speaker 10: is absolutely riddled with defense as a percent of GDP,
26:54
Speaker 10: and it's been that way forever and ever and ever,
26:57
Speaker 10: because it's one limited but useful way of measuring a
27:01
Speaker 10: nation's commitment to defense. And what he doesn't want to
27:05
Speaker 10: admit is that defense spending was two percent of GDP
27:09
Speaker 10: when Albanezi was elected, which I think indicates gross dereliction
27:12
Speaker 10: on the part of the previous coalition government. And after
27:16
Speaker 10: three and a half years of the worst strategic circumstances
27:18
Speaker 10: since World War II, according to the government, it's still
27:21
Speaker 10: two percent of GDP. And I can tell you what
27:23
Speaker 10: effect that twelve billion dollars over ten years makes on
27:26
Speaker 10: a percentage of GDP, No effect at all. It's about
27:29
Speaker 10: one billion dollars a year.
27:31
Speaker 6: Now.
27:31
Speaker 10: Who knows, between inflation and the rest of it, how
27:34
Speaker 10: our nominal GDP is going to go up over ten years,
27:38
Speaker 10: But one billion dollars in ten years time will be
27:43
Speaker 10: and it is already much less than point zero one
27:48
Speaker 10: percent of GDP, and in any event, even more than that. James, Wait,
27:52
Speaker 10: there's more. It's all flim flam anyway, because what they announced,
27:57
Speaker 10: they're going to spend it on the Henderson Defense Precinct.
28:00
Speaker 10: I won't even finish the planning and scoping process for
28:03
Speaker 10: that until twenty twenty seven. So this allegedly new money
28:07
Speaker 10: probably won't start going out the door until twenty twenty eight.
28:11
Speaker 10: And that's if everything goes well. So the deep, tremendous,
28:14
Speaker 10: straining urgency of this government to get things done means
28:18
Speaker 10: that sometime in its third term it may actually begin
28:22
Speaker 10: to spend this notional twelve billion dollars which it can
28:27
Speaker 10: announce without having to actually do anything about. It'll be
28:31
Speaker 10: interesting to see if it even appears in the forward estimates.
28:36
Speaker 1: Indeed, all right, I want to move on to Europe.
28:38
Speaker 1: Romania has confirmed a Russian drone has breached its airspace.
28:43
Speaker 1: This comes after Poland last week reported twenty Russian drones
28:46
Speaker 1: crossed their border, some of which were shot down by
28:49
Speaker 1: NATO warplanes. Romanian pilots were given permission to shoot the
28:53
Speaker 1: drone down, but decided not to, and it eventually crossed
28:56
Speaker 1: into Ukraine. But I wanted to ask you, Greg, this
28:59
Speaker 1: is the second NATO country in a week where Russian
29:03
Speaker 1: drones have incurred. Is this just a coincidence? Or is
29:06
Speaker 1: Putin poking the bear here to see what NATO's response
29:11
Speaker 1: will be.
29:14
Speaker 10: Well, James, one reflection back to our first topic. This
29:17
Speaker 10: demonstrates the utter irresponsibility I write about this at length
29:22
Speaker 10: tomorrow of us not having our own defense capabilities. You know,
29:26
Speaker 10: I believe we can rely on the Americans, but the
29:29
Speaker 10: absolute irresponsibility, the abdication of basic duties of government in
29:34
Speaker 10: not having our own serious defense capability. I think this
29:38
Speaker 10: move by Russia into Romania is very sinister, very sinister indeed,
29:42
Speaker 10: and it's not a word I normally use. They didn't
29:45
Speaker 10: send drones into Polish airspace by accident. They didn't send
29:48
Speaker 10: them into Romanian airspace by accident. The pattern we've seen
29:52
Speaker 10: with the Russians is that they take what seemed to
29:56
Speaker 10: be precedent, breaking precedent, making strange, very very provocative moves,
30:05
Speaker 10: and see what kind of reaction they get. Now we're
30:07
Speaker 10: getting tremendous strategic confusion out of Trump. Remember the Trump
30:11
Speaker 10: Putin summit a few weeks back, he said there was
30:15
Speaker 10: going to be peace in Ukraine, there would be a
30:17
Speaker 10: meeting between Putin and Zelensky. Trump has been threatening extra
30:22
Speaker 10: sanctions on Russia for months, nothing ever happens, and Putin,
30:26
Speaker 10: i think, is confident that he's getting no reaction out
30:28
Speaker 10: of the United States. The Europeans are better than we
30:32
Speaker 10: are on defense, but they're not that good, and they
30:36
Speaker 10: are scrambling to know what this means by Putin. Is
30:43
Speaker 10: he getting ready for some new provocation? Is he playing
30:47
Speaker 10: with their heads? I can't pretend that I know what
30:50
Speaker 10: Putin is doing, but I'd be very confident that it's deliberate,
30:53
Speaker 10: not accidental.
30:56
Speaker 1: We've only got a couple of minutes before we need
30:58
Speaker 1: to go to a break, but wanted to ask you
31:01
Speaker 1: about Australia's decision to spend billions of dollars on new
31:03
Speaker 1: weapons and military equipment for Parpua New Guinea as part
31:07
Speaker 1: of a treaty with our countries working together. Just two questions,
31:12
Speaker 1: Is this a good idea for Australia And do we
31:15
Speaker 1: right to be spending billions equipping the p ANDNG military when,
31:19
Speaker 1: as you've already pointed out, our own is underfunded.
31:25
Speaker 10: Well, Jane you want to have a good look at
31:26
Speaker 10: what we've really promised. If we're as good with the
31:28
Speaker 10: P and G promises as we are with our own promises,
31:31
Speaker 10: it'll be kind of one hundred years of solitude before
31:34
Speaker 10: they see a dollar of it. But Papua New Guinea
31:38
Speaker 10: is immensely important to us, immensely important. The Melanesian world
31:42
Speaker 10: has maybe ten million people or more in it now,
31:44
Speaker 10: and we pay it very little attention. Every now and
31:48
Speaker 10: again an Australian government falls in love with Papua New
31:50
Speaker 10: Guinea all over again. I think this is a good thing.
31:54
Speaker 10: I'd rather the Albanese government were spending its time on
31:56
Speaker 10: papal and New Guinea than trying to solve the problems
31:59
Speaker 10: of Palestine. And given how much money the Albaneza government
32:03
Speaker 10: spends on absolute junk, if it's willing to spend a
32:06
Speaker 10: couple of billion dollars to help the P and G
32:08
Speaker 10: defense for us, I think that's a good thing too.
32:13
Speaker 1: I think you're absolutely right. Greg. It's always a joy
32:15
Speaker 1: to have you on the program. I appreciate you coming
32:17
Speaker 1: on tonight. Thanks again. Well, we're going to go to
32:20
Speaker 1: a break coming up in just a moment. The disgusting
32:22
Speaker 1: celebration of Charlie Kirk's assassination reveals a very dark side
32:27
Speaker 1: of our culture. My panel are going to weigh in
32:29
Speaker 1: on that next.
32:35
Speaker 2: Well.
32:35
Speaker 1: Reaction to the murder of Charlie Kirk has revealed just
32:37
Speaker 1: how dark our society has become. So many people have
32:41
Speaker 1: celebrated the assassination of Charlie Kirk. We could fill an
32:44
Speaker 1: entire program with examples and still not come close to
32:48
Speaker 1: exhausting them all. And these people aren't just crazies with
32:51
Speaker 1: no influence. Chalie Stegel liked a social media post expressing
32:55
Speaker 1: happiness that Charlie Kirk would no longer be able to
32:58
Speaker 1: spread his extremist message and insisting political violence was sometimes necessary.
33:04
Speaker 1: Now the Worringer MP has since unliked that post and
33:07
Speaker 1: condemned the shooting. And then there's this individual who, according
33:11
Speaker 1: to her own LinkedIn profile, was a mental health advocate
33:14
Speaker 1: for the Victorian Mental Illness Awareness Counsel.
33:18
Speaker 11: Let's never forget that Charlie Kirk used his whole head
33:21
Speaker 11: to defend your Second Amendment right to own guns. That
33:25
Speaker 11: Charlie Kirk incited violence, That's what he did. And then
33:29
Speaker 11: that came back to haunt him. That was his decision.
33:33
Speaker 11: So it's got nothing to do with the people who
33:35
Speaker 11: are laughing and joking about him becoming a human water fountain.
33:40
Speaker 11: Pretending that you don't enjoy a terrible person's death is
33:44
Speaker 11: not dignified. It's cowardly.
33:47
Speaker 1: His head as a water fountain. And take a look
33:50
Speaker 1: at this incident in the US. A young man runs
33:53
Speaker 1: through a memorial for Charlie Kirk, trampling over bouquets of flowers,
33:57
Speaker 1: stopping on American flags, just unbelievable. Joining me now is
34:02
Speaker 1: history lecturer and author Stephen Shaverra and freyer Leitch Sky News' host. Guys,
34:08
Speaker 1: thanks for coming on the program. Frey, let me start
34:10
Speaker 1: with you. Have you been surprised by the celebrations of
34:15
Speaker 1: Charlie Kirk's death?
34:17
Speaker 2: In some ways, yes, in others no, I've been surprised
34:21
Speaker 2: by the volume the number of people that have been
34:24
Speaker 2: celebrating in But at the same time we've heard chance
34:28
Speaker 2: like by any means necessary, globalizing into FATA resistance is justified.
34:34
Speaker 2: Those are chants that have come from the left since
34:36
Speaker 2: October seven, which basically say violence is okay. In fact,
34:41
Speaker 2: violence is necessary if you feel like you're being oppressed,
34:45
Speaker 2: and then we have a left wing ideology that says
34:49
Speaker 2: words are actually violence, words are oppressive. Ideas are hateful
34:56
Speaker 2: and oppressive. So the logical conclusion from that is but
35:00
Speaker 2: at some point people will go, oh, well, resistance is
35:03
Speaker 2: justify I'm feeling oppressed by your conservative ideas, so I'm
35:08
Speaker 2: going to use violence to stop you. And that has
35:12
Speaker 2: unfortunately become quite a mainstream left wing viewpoint. To see
35:17
Speaker 2: people like Zally Segel, a member of Australian Parliament, liking
35:22
Speaker 2: a post that says violence is sometimes necessary just shows
35:27
Speaker 2: you how infected the left has become with this deranged
35:32
Speaker 2: Marxist ideology that will ultimately wash Western civilization away in
35:37
Speaker 2: a wave of political violence and bloodshed. This is bad
35:41
Speaker 2: news for our society.
35:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really isn't, Steve, And I want to get
35:47
Speaker 1: your view on is this a difference of politics? Is
35:50
Speaker 1: this a left and right thing or is there something
35:53
Speaker 1: more rotten the heart of Western civilization right now?
35:58
Speaker 12: Well, it's both of those. It's definitely a left and
36:01
Speaker 12: right issue. I mean, there are those who say the
36:04
Speaker 12: notions of left and right don't mean anything anymore. I
36:06
Speaker 12: think they actually do. And here's a classic sort of
36:11
Speaker 12: case of it where you have a guy who was
36:13
Speaker 12: essentially an advocate of family, faith and freedom, sort of
36:18
Speaker 12: pretty classic conservative values gunned down by someone who had
36:22
Speaker 12: clearly been indoctrinated in our modern Marxists indoctrination camps a university.
36:29
Speaker 12: And so the left and right issue is important, but
36:31
Speaker 12: there is another issue here, and that is just this
36:34
Speaker 12: spiritual void at the heart of Western civilization at the moment,
36:39
Speaker 12: where we have a whole generation of young people, a
36:41
Speaker 12: whole generation of youth who are often disconnected from their families.
36:45
Speaker 12: Their families might be broken, or they're not in any
36:48
Speaker 12: great relationship with their parents, so they're disconnected from family,
36:51
Speaker 12: they're disconnected from real communities other than social media, and
36:55
Speaker 12: they're disconnected from churches. And all they've got feeding into
36:59
Speaker 12: them is social media, what they're left wing teachers are
37:03
Speaker 12: teaching them, what their left wing university lectures are teaching them.
37:07
Speaker 6: And so this.
37:07
Speaker 12: Spiritual void is actually now issuing, and the very hate
37:13
Speaker 12: that fuels the ideologies that seems to be the only
37:15
Speaker 12: input into the youth in our sort of now sort
37:19
Speaker 12: of spiritually deracinated West. And the good news is that
37:23
Speaker 12: there is a return. People are waking up to this
37:26
Speaker 12: and they're going back to church, they're reading the Bible again,
37:30
Speaker 12: they're reconnecting with prayer, they're reconnecting with God. For every action,
37:34
Speaker 12: there's an equal and opposite reaction, but it does indicate
37:36
Speaker 12: a spiritual void.
37:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right, we are seeing that opposite reaction. It's
37:44
Speaker 1: quite heartening to see rallies right around the world and
37:48
Speaker 1: a renewed curiosity in spirituality as a result of, ironically,
37:53
Speaker 1: Charlie Kirk's death. I want to ask you both about
37:56
Speaker 1: Australia's e Safety Commissioner who's desperate to have thick footage
38:00
Speaker 1: of Charlie Kirk's murder removed from the internet. Now, there's
38:05
Speaker 1: various footage you can see online. Some of it, as
38:07
Speaker 1: I said, is quite graphic. Is she right Freyer to
38:11
Speaker 1: want this scrub from the internet or should people be
38:14
Speaker 1: allowed to see it? And if so, why, Well.
38:18
Speaker 2: I think they should definitely be allowed to see it,
38:21
Speaker 2: especially given the amount of people that are saying this
38:24
Speaker 2: is justified, that are celebrating it. Well, if you want
38:27
Speaker 2: to celebrate this, then you should know exactly what you're celebrating,
38:31
Speaker 2: and the average member of the public should know exactly
38:35
Speaker 2: what the left is celebrating.
38:36
Speaker 1: It is gruesome, it is horrible.
38:39
Speaker 2: It is a display of pure evil and people should
38:43
Speaker 2: be able to see it. If this is my view
38:45
Speaker 2: on the October seven footage as well, let it all
38:48
Speaker 2: out there, let people see what evil really is. I
38:52
Speaker 2: don't think kids should be on social media in the
38:54
Speaker 2: first place, so keep your kids off social media. Then
38:57
Speaker 2: they don't need to see this video because it is horrible,
39:00
Speaker 2: but everyone else should watch it to see what we're
39:04
Speaker 2: truly up against.
39:08
Speaker 1: And Stephen the e Safety Commissioner, do you think her
39:11
Speaker 1: motivation is simply she doesn't want people to be upset
39:15
Speaker 1: by seeing graphic footage. I know she once tried to
39:18
Speaker 1: get rid of a priest in Sydney being stabbed as well.
39:22
Speaker 1: She didn't want that footage online either. Is she just
39:25
Speaker 1: looking out for our welfare or is there something else
39:28
Speaker 1: going on here? What's your take?
39:30
Speaker 12: No, I think there is something else going on. She
39:33
Speaker 12: seems to have a sort of ponchant for trying to
39:35
Speaker 12: edit things that might actually indicate the just the wickedness
39:41
Speaker 12: of the left and the wickedness also of say militant
39:44
Speaker 12: Islam as well. And so this isn't just about sort
39:47
Speaker 12: of neutraally trying to protect Australians from images that might
39:51
Speaker 12: be harmful, although she's all about that as well, and
39:54
Speaker 12: the Safety Commissioner essentially sees Australia as a big childcare
39:59
Speaker 12: sense that needs to be managed just like a childcare center.
40:03
Speaker 12: And Freyer is exactly right. These images need to stay
40:06
Speaker 12: up so people can see.
40:08
Speaker 1: Exactly what it is.
40:10
Speaker 12: The sort of the covenous haters, people like Abby Chatfield,
40:16
Speaker 12: people like Hannah Ferguson, people like Clementine Ford are saying
40:23
Speaker 12: is something that is either funny or something that they have,
40:28
Speaker 12: or saying that there's something that they need not have
40:31
Speaker 12: any empathy for whatsoever, or something that Charlie even sort
40:34
Speaker 12: of brought upon himself. People need to see exactly what
40:37
Speaker 12: they're referring to, because the Left is unveiling itself for
40:41
Speaker 12: the very demonic entity that it has become.
40:46
Speaker 1: Yep, I absolutely agree with both of you. We should
40:49
Speaker 1: be allowed to see this. In fact, I think it's
40:50
Speaker 1: important that we do because without seeing what actually happened,
40:54
Speaker 1: context for the reaction is completely lost. Freyer, Stephen always
40:58
Speaker 1: auld light to talk to you, thanks for on the program.
41:01
Speaker 1: We're going to go to a break. But coming up,
41:03
Speaker 1: Prince Harry has met with the King and says his
41:06
Speaker 1: conscience is clear. I don't quite get his rationalization for
41:10
Speaker 1: that one. Plus A Kiir Starmer slams the Unite the
41:14
Speaker 1: Kingdom march that attracted huge crowds over the weekend. Ester Crack,
41:17
Speaker 1: who joins US Life from the UK after this joining
41:24
Speaker 1: me now from London, is writer and broadcast to Esther
41:26
Speaker 1: Crak whu esther, good evening to you. The Unite the
41:29
Speaker 1: Kingdom march in London at the weekend was massive, Depending
41:33
Speaker 1: on who you listened to, there were between one hundred
41:35
Speaker 1: thousand and a million people on the streets. I know
41:38
Speaker 1: that's quite a divergent number, but somewhere around there. What
41:43
Speaker 1: were they protesting about and how has Prime Minister Kiir
41:47
Speaker 1: Starmer responded?
41:49
Speaker 13: Well, they we're basically process seeing against what they see
41:52
Speaker 13: as an assault on their own country, pride and Britain
41:55
Speaker 13: and British values, British history, pride and our institutions and
42:00
Speaker 13: what it feels like an attack on free speech. A
42:03
Speaker 13: lot of them were also in sense by mass levels
42:05
Speaker 13: of immigration, both legal and illegal, which nobody asked for really,
42:10
Speaker 13: uh and it was it was quite a spectacle. I
42:12
Speaker 13: mean I saw it over the weekend and it was
42:14
Speaker 13: it was It was very very, very very intense. You
42:18
Speaker 13: saw many people of all different sort of creates and
42:21
Speaker 13: creeds gathering together. There was a little bit of a
42:23
Speaker 13: scuffle between the police and some of the protesters, which
42:28
Speaker 13: ended up in a couple of dozen arrests. But kids Starmer,
42:31
Speaker 13: who obviously had to fall on this one side or another,
42:33
Speaker 13: decided to fall on the left side of things and say,
42:35
Speaker 13: you know, he will not allow the British flag to
42:38
Speaker 13: be hijacked by far right activists, which is an interesting, uh,
42:42
Speaker 13: quite comment, because if they're that many far right activists
42:44
Speaker 13: in the UK, that we have a much bigger problem
42:46
Speaker 13: than we know of. And they were also parallels being
42:49
Speaker 13: drawn with you know, why was their facial recognition technology
42:53
Speaker 13: at this year's Carnival at festival in London, which is
42:55
Speaker 13: the largest street festival in Europe, which attracts over a
42:58
Speaker 13: million people, But this protest didn't have have facial recognition
43:01
Speaker 13: for police. But the reality is Carnival has a longer
43:05
Speaker 13: track record of just existing. Over the last few years,
43:08
Speaker 13: we've seen an escalation of violence, hundreds of arrests, the
43:10
Speaker 13: last Carnival a few weeks ago had over five hundred arrests.
43:14
Speaker 13: Last year, a mother was brutally stabbed in front of
43:17
Speaker 13: her own child at Carnival. So to compare that with
43:20
Speaker 13: this kind of new, upstart public movement for what many
43:24
Speaker 13: people see is, you know, to take back their country
43:28
Speaker 13: is quite I think un.
43:29
Speaker 1: Why I wanted to show you these comments from Elon Musk.
43:35
Speaker 1: He addressed the crowd via video link. Hev listen, balance
43:39
Speaker 1: is going to come to you.
43:42
Speaker 11: You will have no choice. This is a This is
43:45
Speaker 11: You're in a fundamental situation here, whether you where, whether
43:51
Speaker 11: you choose balance or not, balance is coming to you.
43:55
Speaker 1: You either fight back, whether you die. Are you the
44:00
Speaker 1: fight there or that's the truth. As to those comments
44:08
Speaker 1: have been going around online, they sound quite in scendiary.
44:11
Speaker 1: Give us some context. What was Elon Musk talking about.
44:16
Speaker 13: Well, you were talking about sort of the rise or
44:18
Speaker 13: the overreach of the British state, particularly when it comes
44:20
Speaker 13: to free speech, which Britain has basically become a laughing
44:23
Speaker 13: store for the rest of the world. And he's basically
44:26
Speaker 13: arguing that you need to fight back against these institutions
44:28
Speaker 13: that are trying to take away a fundamental right. It's
44:30
Speaker 13: a bit interesting to look at it because we had
44:31
Speaker 13: Peter Kyle, who's the busy new Business Secretary on Sky
44:35
Speaker 13: News here in the UK talking about how incedury and
44:39
Speaker 13: a bit odd his comments were now elon Musk of
44:41
Speaker 13: yesterday when he was still backing Donald Trump and seemed
44:45
Speaker 13: to be a significant part of the US administration, which
44:47
Speaker 13: we can draw many parallels here with you. Reform UK
44:51
Speaker 13: would have that know would have hit differently to now
44:54
Speaker 13: that he's a strained from the US government, which seems
44:57
Speaker 13: to many people to be the only bulwark to stand
45:00
Speaker 13: against kind of the work and promote freedom of speech.
45:04
Speaker 13: So those kind of two versions of Musques are strange
45:07
Speaker 13: because on the one hand he doesn't have the same
45:10
Speaker 13: kind of sway not being part of the US administration
45:12
Speaker 13: anymore under Donald Trump. But in the hand we know
45:14
Speaker 13: that he's very passionate about British political issues because he
45:17
Speaker 13: had a British grandmother. But I think the sentiment that
45:21
Speaker 13: free speech in this country is really under threat and
45:23
Speaker 13: that Britain has gone too far and we basically risked
45:26
Speaker 13: our standing as one of the first countries to actually
45:30
Speaker 13: guarantee free speech and a free speech tradition is completely
45:33
Speaker 13: spot on, all.
45:36
Speaker 1: Right, before we go, Prince Harry has told journalists his
45:39
Speaker 1: conscience is clear over the way he has publicly discussed
45:43
Speaker 1: his family's troubles. So I got to ask you the
45:46
Speaker 1: might there be something defective with Prince Harry's conscience?
45:51
Speaker 2: I think so.
45:52
Speaker 13: I think that there's a massive gap or gaping crevice
45:56
Speaker 13: whereas conscience are supposed to be, which is the only
45:58
Speaker 13: thing that can explain why.
45:59
Speaker 1: It's clear. He seems to.
46:01
Speaker 13: Have decided to stay storm on his meeting with the King,
46:05
Speaker 13: which is indicating that he's understanding the royal family's need
46:08
Speaker 13: for privacy. By the fact that he doesn't think he's
46:10
Speaker 13: done anything wrong just shows that he's kind of too
46:12
Speaker 13: far gone for salvation really, and it's no wonder Prince
46:15
Speaker 13: William wants nothing to do with him.
46:18
Speaker 1: Indeed, I tell you what, I was surprised to hear
46:20
Speaker 1: those comments. After everything that's happened. My conscience is clear.
46:24
Speaker 1: You're kidding me. That's just a big red flag. I
46:27
Speaker 1: would have thought we've got just a minute and a
46:30
Speaker 1: bit left. But last question I wanted to ask you
46:33
Speaker 1: was about guns for police officers in the UK. I
46:37
Speaker 1: think Only five percent of UK police are armed with guns,
46:39
Speaker 1: but a new report from Scotland Yard recommends all police
46:43
Speaker 1: carry weapons. This is after a number of police officers
46:46
Speaker 1: were attacked with knives. On the one hand, estra it
46:49
Speaker 1: makes sense to me that police would carry guns they
46:51
Speaker 1: do here in Australia, but it begs the question what's
46:54
Speaker 1: changed in the UK that they suddenly need to.
46:58
Speaker 13: Well, the risk file of police officers has just gone up.
47:02
Speaker 13: You know, you're seeing more and more incidents of police
47:04
Speaker 13: officers being attacked, and actually, funnily enough, the number of
47:07
Speaker 13: police carrying gun carrying police officers has gone down. Many
47:12
Speaker 13: of them feel like the police forces isn't actually protecting
47:15
Speaker 13: them or defending their officers. We're seeing increasing numbers of
47:18
Speaker 13: officers being prosecuted for actually using their guns lawfully, in
47:21
Speaker 13: which case the card carrying officers which is what we
47:24
Speaker 13: call officers here, that carrying guns has just dropped. So
47:27
Speaker 13: actually trying to recruit officers to even be trained to
47:30
Speaker 13: carry firearms and to use them when they need is
47:33
Speaker 13: going down. So it's kind of a double whammy. Unfortunately,
47:36
Speaker 13: the police feel less and less safe, but also they
47:39
Speaker 13: don't want to bother carrying guns basically because they feel
47:42
Speaker 13: like they're not being defended by their employers.
47:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's all about, you know, policing by consent.
47:49
Speaker 1: Therefore they shouldn't have to carry weapons. I just think
47:52
Speaker 1: the public would have a lot more confidence in police
47:55
Speaker 1: if they were armed to deal with criminals. On the
47:57
Speaker 1: other hand, when police are arresting people for tweets, you
48:00
Speaker 1: can understand why others might be a little reticent to
48:03
Speaker 1: have the police armed. Estcrack who always enjoyed to speak
48:06
Speaker 1: with you, Thanks for joining me. Well that's it from me.
48:09
Speaker 1: Stick around. Coming up in just a moment is Sharry Markson.
48:12
Speaker 1: I'll see you tomorrow night.
48:13
Speaker 6: Good night,