Transcript

Sharri | 20 April · Sharri

0:01
Speaker 1: Why on Sky News. This is Sharry.
0:07
Speaker 2: Good evening and thanks Andrew. Yes, it's great to be
0:09
Speaker 2: back with you. And a huge thank you to Steve
0:11
Speaker 2: Price and Carolyn Marcus for holding down the fort while
0:14
Speaker 2: I was away.
0:15
Speaker 3: I've been writing our book.
0:16
Speaker 2: On the Bondai massacre, spending some time with the kids
0:19
Speaker 2: in the school holidays as well.
0:20
Speaker 3: There's a lot going on. It's a big show tonight.
0:23
Speaker 2: Union leader turned business executive Paul Howe warns we need
0:28
Speaker 2: poor Howe sorry, Wanes, we need ninety days of fuel supply.
0:32
Speaker 2: It's a message he delivered to the Labor government some
0:35
Speaker 2: fourteen years ago. And he'll join me tonight live for
0:39
Speaker 2: his first TV interview in a decade. Serious concerns tonight,
0:43
Speaker 2: Australia could be staring down stagflation, even recession.
0:48
Speaker 3: We'll get reactions from.
0:49
Speaker 2: James Patterson and a longtime Treasury insider, Plus Ben Robert
0:54
Speaker 2: Smith considers a dramatic bid to stop the war crimes
0:57
Speaker 2: trial in its tracks. We'll get the latest from the
1:00
Speaker 2: ones who broke the story and shocking vision of a
1:03
Speaker 2: little boy dragged along by a bus. How this all unfolded.
1:08
Speaker 2: That's all coming up for first tonight there was great
1:13
Speaker 2: hope that petrol prices would begin to ease. When President
1:16
Speaker 2: Trump struck a deal with a run they both announced
1:20
Speaker 2: the Strait of her Moves was open. That barely lasted
1:24
Speaker 2: a day. There's now a major splintering between Iran's political
1:28
Speaker 2: leadership and its hardline military. The Iranian Foreign Minister Ragacci
1:34
Speaker 2: was unequivocal when he said that the strait was open
1:37
Speaker 2: for international shipping, and Trump also declared on social media
1:42
Speaker 2: that the strait was fully open.
1:46
Speaker 4: Brand has just announced that the Strait of Hormones is
1:50
Speaker 4: fully open and ready for business and full passes.
1:55
Speaker 1: And this process we're getting along well.
1:57
Speaker 5: But who knows, who knows, with anyone who knows whether Iran,
2:01
Speaker 5: in particular.
2:02
Speaker 1: This Brazi should go very quickly.
2:05
Speaker 2: And in another interview, Trump said that Iran had agreed
2:09
Speaker 2: to remove all minds from the strait and pledged never
2:12
Speaker 2: to close it again. He even claimed Iran had promised
2:16
Speaker 2: to stop financing proxies like Harmus and Hesbela. Yet a
2:21
Speaker 2: little over a day later, Tehran fired upon commercial ships
2:26
Speaker 2: passing through the Strait of Hormus.
2:29
Speaker 6: A tanker about twenty miles off the coast of o'marn
2:34
Speaker 6: that puts it pretty much close to straight up from
2:36
Speaker 6: US hit. When two IIGC gunboats pulled up alongside the tanker,
2:41
Speaker 6: the captain saying, you try to speak to those gunboats
2:44
Speaker 6: on the radio. They didn't respond and they just opened.
2:47
Speaker 2: Fan America has now also fired upon and seized an
2:52
Speaker 2: Iranian ship that tried to evade its blockade of Iranian pots.
2:59
Speaker 7: A lot of US tells, vacate your engineer, vacate your engineer.
3:04
Speaker 8: We're prepared to subject you to disabling fire.
3:14
Speaker 2: Now, this US blockade simply can't be an excuse for
3:18
Speaker 2: Iran's broken promise overhaul moves. Trump never agreed to stop
3:23
Speaker 2: the US blockade of Iranian ports. He always said that
3:26
Speaker 2: would continue until a permanent deal was reached. So what
3:32
Speaker 2: happened in the space of just twenty four hours. Well,
3:35
Speaker 2: The Wall Street Journal reports there's a major split between
3:38
Speaker 2: Iran's political leaders and its military hardliners, who've deepened their
3:43
Speaker 2: hold on the government since the war began, and the
3:47
Speaker 2: journal obtained recordings of a Navy broadcast saying that the
3:50
Speaker 2: strait remained closed and that any attempt to cross it
3:54
Speaker 2: would be met with a severe response, and that ships
3:58
Speaker 2: would be destroyed. Now, the message reportedly said, we will
4:03
Speaker 2: open it by the order of our leader Imam Khamenei,
4:06
Speaker 2: not by the tweets of some idiot. Now, other Iranian
4:11
Speaker 2: politicians like Morteza Mahmudi have reportedly called for Aragachi's sacking
4:18
Speaker 2: because his statement, they claimed that the strait was open,
4:22
Speaker 2: had lowered oil prices, handing a win to America. So
4:27
Speaker 2: at the very same time as Aragachi insisted the strait
4:31
Speaker 2: was completely open, the military showed his words were effectively worthless.
4:38
Speaker 3: It indicates that the military.
4:39
Speaker 2: Hardliners are for all intents and purposes, in control. They
4:45
Speaker 2: don't want to cease fire. They don't want peace, they
4:49
Speaker 2: want revenge. They can't be negotiated with. Only military action
4:54
Speaker 2: against them will succeed.
4:57
Speaker 1: Now.
4:57
Speaker 2: Trump may be desperate to end the war. He never
5:01
Speaker 2: wanted it to last longer than four to six weeks.
5:04
Speaker 2: He said that repeatedly he wants the straight open. He
5:08
Speaker 2: wants oil prices to subside and the markets to settle.
5:13
Speaker 2: But for someone who prides himself on being an excellent negotiator,
5:18
Speaker 2: critics worry that his eagerness to end the war has
5:22
Speaker 2: been too obvious and it's detracted from America having the
5:26
Speaker 2: upper hand, and it should have the upper hand after
5:30
Speaker 2: its incredible military success with Israel. So, however much Trump
5:35
Speaker 2: wants the war to end, the fact is he's dealing
5:38
Speaker 2: with hardliners who are hell bent on total US destruction.
5:44
Speaker 2: More military action is unfortunately required until there is an unequivocal,
5:51
Speaker 2: crushing defeat and a less hardline regime that is willing
5:55
Speaker 2: to negotiate is in place.
5:59
Speaker 3: This war is complicated.
6:02
Speaker 2: It's not ending as quickly as Trump expected or hoped,
6:06
Speaker 2: but it doesn't mean it was the wrong course of action.
6:10
Speaker 2: Even now, with much of its military destroyed, its leaders dead,
6:15
Speaker 2: and its new aotola in hiding and seriously disfigured, Iran
6:21
Speaker 2: still won't agree to give up its nuclear ambitions. Yet
6:26
Speaker 2: the information you're mostly getting about the war is warped.
6:31
Speaker 2: The narrative is tainted by the media and the political
6:35
Speaker 2: establishments disdain for President Trump and Benjamin Netanyahoo.
6:40
Speaker 3: Since the start of the war.
6:42
Speaker 2: I've been speaking about the media's relentless cheerleading for a run,
6:47
Speaker 2: and both former Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downa and columnist
6:52
Speaker 2: Chris Mitchell write beautifully about this today. Alexander Downa writes
6:57
Speaker 2: that when the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp massacred forty thousand
7:01
Speaker 2: people at the end of last year and early this
7:05
Speaker 2: the progressive left didn't care, just as it doesn't care
7:09
Speaker 2: about the estimated one hundred and fifty thousand people who've
7:13
Speaker 2: been killed in the Sudan Civil War and the twelve
7:16
Speaker 2: million displaced. It doesn't care about rockets being fired on
7:20
Speaker 2: behalf of Iran into Israel daily. All that cares about
7:24
Speaker 2: is the horror of Israel defending itself, as is said
7:29
Speaker 2: of the ABC's international reporting.
7:31
Speaker 3: No News, No News.
7:34
Speaker 2: Spot on and Alexander Downer also derides the Albanese government
7:39
Speaker 2: for urging de escalation instead of imploring Iran to stop
7:44
Speaker 2: its weapons program, and he ridicules the billians spent in
7:50
Speaker 2: Australia on renewable energy when this oil crisis has shown
7:55
Speaker 2: our undeniable reliance.
7:57
Speaker 3: On fossil fuels on oil, he.
8:00
Speaker 2: Says, So for the past four years we've had a
8:03
Speaker 2: federal government opposed to fossil fuels, and suddenly it's crying
8:07
Speaker 2: crocodile tears about a shortage of oil supplies because of
8:11
Speaker 2: the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. He writes, the
8:14
Speaker 2: Prime Minister is burning up fossil fuels, flying to Singapore,
8:17
Speaker 2: Brunei and Malaysia, begging them not to withdraw their supply
8:21
Speaker 2: of fossil fuels to Australia. And Chris Mitchell points out
8:26
Speaker 2: that even those who support Israel and America in principle
8:31
Speaker 2: don't want Trump or ned and Yahoo to come out
8:33
Speaker 2: of this war victorious, Like the New York Times columnist
8:38
Speaker 2: Thomas Friedman.
8:40
Speaker 8: Yeah, I find myself, Michael, in a situation where I
8:44
Speaker 8: really want to see Ron defeated militarily because this regime
8:49
Speaker 8: is a terrible regime for its people in the region.
8:51
Speaker 8: The problem is, I really don't want to see Bibi
8:54
Speaker 8: Netsa Nyahu are Donald Trump politically strengthened by this war,
8:57
Speaker 8: because they are two awful human beings.
9:00
Speaker 2: It's an unprecedented scenario. Imagine the Brits gunning for Churchill
9:06
Speaker 2: to lose against the Nazis, or Americans hoping Barack Obama
9:11
Speaker 2: wouldn't succeed when he was pursuing Asama bin Laden. Those
9:16
Speaker 2: barracking for Iran failed to understand both the threat the
9:20
Speaker 2: Islamic regimem poses to us all in the West. As
9:24
Speaker 2: you know, we've had fire bombings in Australia orchestrated by Iran.
9:29
Speaker 2: But also the fact that our freedoms, our way of
9:32
Speaker 2: life are under threat from the rising axis of evil,
9:36
Speaker 2: the alliance between China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. Now
9:41
Speaker 2: Chris Mitchell writes about this in his excellent column today,
9:44
Speaker 2: and he says that the US blockade, yes has its risks,
9:49
Speaker 2: but it.
9:49
Speaker 3: Is the right course of action.
9:51
Speaker 2: He writes that Trump is correct that the world cannot
9:54
Speaker 2: afford to allow a bunch of medieval fanatics to control
9:58
Speaker 2: a major global sea lane and hold the world economy
10:02
Speaker 2: to ransom. And right now, that's precisely what's happening. So
10:08
Speaker 2: called allies, including Australia, need to stand up to these
10:13
Speaker 2: extremist thugs and not allow them to get their way
10:17
Speaker 2: or worse, develop nuclear weapons, because if they're prepared to
10:22
Speaker 2: cause a global oil shock, imagine what this regime we
10:28
Speaker 2: would do with a nuclear bomb. Now, Ben Robert Smith
10:35
Speaker 2: has declared he'll fight the war crimes charges he's facing,
10:39
Speaker 2: and he was released on bail on Friday and held
10:42
Speaker 2: a press conference yesterday, more of a press statement, and
10:45
Speaker 2: he said he intends to clear his name.
10:49
Speaker 9: I categorically deny all of these allegations, and while I
10:53
Speaker 9: would have preferred these charges not be brought, I will
10:57
Speaker 9: be taking this opportunity to finally clear my name. I'm
11:02
Speaker 9: proud of my service in Afghanistan. While I was there,
11:06
Speaker 9: I always acted within my values, within my training, and
11:10
Speaker 9: within the rules of engagement.
11:13
Speaker 2: He also spoke about how he was arrested in front
11:16
Speaker 2: of his children at Sydney Airport. Now, he had offered
11:21
Speaker 2: to cooperate and turn himself in, but instead it seems
11:25
Speaker 2: that AFP Commissioner Christy Barrett wanted a public spectacle. Well
11:30
Speaker 2: here's what the Victoria Cross recipient had to say about that.
11:35
Speaker 1: I would ask.
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Speaker 9: That the media please allow my family their privacy at
11:41
Speaker 9: this time, particularly my children, who have already unfortunately suffered
11:49
Speaker 9: through a deliberate, sensational arrest that was made last week
11:53
Speaker 9: an unnecessary spectacle.
11:57
Speaker 2: Now there's a lot of public anger about this, and
12:00
Speaker 2: most Australians are pretty angry at how he's been treated
12:04
Speaker 2: by the media and authorities after serving repeatedly in Afghanistan
12:10
Speaker 2: and receiving the Victoria Cross Medal for his courage. Author
12:14
Speaker 2: Aaron Patrick is on the show a bit later. He'll
12:17
Speaker 2: talk more about precisely what Ben Robert Smith did to
12:21
Speaker 2: receive that honor. Yet he is facing charges of war
12:25
Speaker 2: crimes for either killing or ordering the killing of five
12:29
Speaker 2: so called civilians. Now, former Labor Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon
12:34
Speaker 2: has made the point that this is an environment where
12:37
Speaker 2: the terrorists were not in uniform and appeared the same
12:41
Speaker 2: as civilians. Also where there was a catch and release
12:44
Speaker 2: protocol where the soldiers would find themselves capturing the same.
12:48
Speaker 3: People over and over again.
12:52
Speaker 2: There's also the fact that Ben Robert Smith is the
12:54
Speaker 2: high profile scapegoat. His superiors aren't being held to account.
12:59
Speaker 3: It's all aimed at Heim.
13:01
Speaker 2: Some of those who were culpable for the killings are
13:05
Speaker 2: said to have been given immunity in return for testifying
13:09
Speaker 2: against Ben Robert Smith.
13:11
Speaker 3: Now.
13:12
Speaker 2: Brown Bishop the other day pointed out to me the
13:15
Speaker 2: contrast between how President Trump treats his soldiers goes to
13:20
Speaker 2: extraordinary lengths to rescue them as we saw in Iran,
13:25
Speaker 2: compared to how Australia treats its soldiers arrests.
13:30
Speaker 3: Them in front of their children.
13:33
Speaker 2: Yet the Cinny Morning Herald is furious that New South
13:36
Speaker 2: Wales Corrective Services dared to try and allow Ben Robert
13:40
Speaker 2: Smith a dignified exit from prison when he was granted bail.
13:45
Speaker 2: They claim this is special treatment and should be investigated well.
13:50
Speaker 3: In the eyes of.
13:51
Speaker 2: Many Australians, even if guilty of the allegations, they still
13:56
Speaker 2: see Ben Robert Smith as a war hero through an
14:00
Speaker 2: through Those taking delight in prosecuting our soldiers who ran
14:06
Speaker 2: into ferocious battles to fight for us against bloodthirsty terrorists
14:12
Speaker 2: are the very worst of modern Australia. And we'll come
14:20
Speaker 2: back to that a bit later with Aaron Patrick. But
14:23
Speaker 2: now Australia is right at the bottom of the list
14:25
Speaker 2: when it comes to fuel security. The international benchmark, as
14:30
Speaker 2: you know, is ninety days of fuel supply. We Australia
14:35
Speaker 2: has barely a third of that. As the boss of
14:38
Speaker 2: the Australian Workers Union, Paul Howse warned the Gillard government
14:43
Speaker 2: about the dangers of sacrificing fuel refining capacity. That was
14:47
Speaker 2: fourteen years ago and no one listened. Now Paul used
14:51
Speaker 2: to be a daily figure on our television screens, is
14:54
Speaker 2: now the chief executive of Tenant Advisory and he joins
14:58
Speaker 2: me now for his first interview in a very long time.
15:01
Speaker 3: Pole, Great to see you.
15:02
Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
15:03
Speaker 3: So what were you.
15:04
Speaker 2: Warning back then about the need for our fuel refining capacity.
15:08
Speaker 10: Well, this happened around the time that then Caltech now
15:12
Speaker 10: Ampole announced the curtailment of the Kernel Refinery to turn
15:17
Speaker 10: Kernel from a refining a facility that refined crude oil
15:22
Speaker 10: into jet fuel into fuel that we use in our cars,
15:26
Speaker 10: into simply an off take facility and a storage facility
15:29
Speaker 10: as it is today. At the time, we had just
15:32
Speaker 10: seen the closure of the Clyde refinery in Western Sydney.
15:35
Speaker 1: There was fears there was.
15:36
Speaker 10: About six refineries left at the time. There was fears
15:39
Speaker 10: that this would start a domino effect of other refineries
15:43
Speaker 10: closing across the country, and I and others were warning
15:48
Speaker 10: that if we lost the ability to refine crude oil
15:52
Speaker 10: into fuel, that our energy security would be placed at risk. Unfortunately,
15:58
Speaker 10: many politicians at the time, on both sides of politics,
16:01
Speaker 10: disagreed with that. In fact, I remember Michael's being derided
16:05
Speaker 10: as being alarmist and being told by the then Energy Minister,
16:10
Speaker 10: Martin Ferguson that you couldn't tie refining to the security
16:15
Speaker 10: of our energy supplies and what we saw happen over
16:20
Speaker 10: so short sighted and unfortunately both sides of politics let
16:24
Speaker 10: us down on this. In fact, you would have read
16:26
Speaker 10: in The Australia Today Tony Abbott himself talking about how
16:30
Speaker 10: he was wrong as Prime Minister to move away from
16:33
Speaker 10: the ninety days of our national fuel security national fuel reserves.
16:38
Speaker 10: Now mister Abbott in today's OZ has said that we
16:42
Speaker 10: need to return to a policy around that number, around
16:46
Speaker 10: that ninety days of supply. But unfortunately, with the loss
16:51
Speaker 10: of our refineries, particularly along the East Coast of Australia,
16:55
Speaker 10: we have lost our ability to ever really return to
16:59
Speaker 10: the secure that we had around fifteen years ago in
17:02
Speaker 10: terms of energy supply.
17:03
Speaker 2: It has national security implications but also.
17:06
Speaker 10: Economic well, you can't separate energy security from national security,
17:12
Speaker 10: and you can't separate energy security from economic security. And
17:16
Speaker 10: without our ability to plan long term and for businesses
17:21
Speaker 10: to know that there is a level of security and
17:24
Speaker 10: certainty around supply of fuel, we'll see investment decisions being
17:30
Speaker 10: delayed as we are seeing right now. We'll see capital
17:33
Speaker 10: expenditure decisions being deferred and that will lead to an
17:37
Speaker 10: ongoing increase in the productivity challenges.
17:40
Speaker 1: We have as a society.
17:42
Speaker 10: I mean, I'm speaking to clients on a daily basis
17:46
Speaker 10: who are talking about the fact that they are kicking
17:48
Speaker 10: the can down the road around really important decisions in
17:52
Speaker 10: terms of capital outlays that would help make Australia a
17:56
Speaker 10: more productive and prosperous country because they can't be certain
18:00
Speaker 10: around the security of our energy supply. That's so important
18:03
Speaker 10: for their decisions that they're making.
18:05
Speaker 2: So now that we're in this position because of decisions
18:09
Speaker 2: that were made fourteen years ago, ten years ago, you know,
18:12
Speaker 2: over that time period and even before, what needs to
18:15
Speaker 2: be done now? I mean, is it too late to
18:18
Speaker 2: open up new refineries?
18:20
Speaker 10: Well, it's very difficult to envisage a scenario where any
18:25
Speaker 10: major oil producer would invest or make the capital outlayers
18:30
Speaker 10: that are required right now to build a refinery from scratch,
18:34
Speaker 10: and that's what's required. So at the moment, of course,
18:37
Speaker 10: we have one of our two refineries under severe limited
18:41
Speaker 10: production in Geelong. I think it is important that government
18:45
Speaker 10: continues to provide the right incentives for those refineries to
18:50
Speaker 10: remain opening, open and operating. These are old facilities, they
18:54
Speaker 10: are hazardous facilities, They require constant upgrade and I can't
19:00
Speaker 10: seeing a scenario where major multinational oil companies will be
19:04
Speaker 10: making that style of investment here domestically. But we can
19:07
Speaker 10: return to a ninety day supply guarantee that should become
19:13
Speaker 10: enshrined as government policy. It should become bipartisan policy from
19:18
Speaker 10: both sides of politics. We can continue to ensure that
19:21
Speaker 10: we are removing the impediments to the exploration and extraction
19:27
Speaker 10: of fossil fuels like crude oil across Australia, and we
19:31
Speaker 10: can ensure that we are signing long term supply agreements
19:35
Speaker 10: with other nations, not just in the region, but in
19:38
Speaker 10: other parts of the world. So then we see disruption
19:41
Speaker 10: like we have seen in the Middle East occurring in
19:43
Speaker 10: other parts of the world that were not so vulnerable
19:46
Speaker 10: to those global shocks.
19:48
Speaker 2: And that has been such a wake up call just
19:50
Speaker 2: how vulnerable we have been, even though we saw it
19:53
Speaker 2: when it comes to fuel, but other areas during the
19:56
Speaker 2: COVID pandemic. Just returning to you mentioned product before you know,
20:00
Speaker 2: we've seen the warnings about stagflation. Today, sluggish productivity and
20:05
Speaker 2: high inflation and rising inflation are key factors here. How
20:10
Speaker 2: concerned are you about the Australian economy.
20:13
Speaker 10: Look, I think that in many ways the Australian economy
20:17
Speaker 10: is incredibly strong, but that is on the basis of
20:20
Speaker 10: comparisons to other nations that are far behind us, and
20:24
Speaker 10: then where we're seeing a greater impact from the effects
20:29
Speaker 10: of the destabilization we've had in the Middle East for
20:32
Speaker 10: well over two years now, and from many other geopolitical
20:37
Speaker 10: events that aren't not necessarily that easy to predict. The
20:43
Speaker 10: reality of where our economy is going is that unless
20:47
Speaker 10: we do see a substantial lift in our productivity rate,
20:51
Speaker 10: we are going to continue to experience the byproducts of
20:56
Speaker 10: us sluggishness and of a downward pressure on those growth
21:00
Speaker 10: rates that we need to see return if we are
21:03
Speaker 10: going to balance a budget, return to having the level
21:06
Speaker 10: of investment we need to see an evolving, transformative, vibrant economy.
21:13
Speaker 10: The austral economy right now is sluggish. I do not
21:17
Speaker 10: feel positive about the outlook for the next six to
21:20
Speaker 10: twelve months.
21:21
Speaker 3: In families and businesses, well.
21:24
Speaker 1: You can't separate one from the other.
21:25
Speaker 10: If business is feeling bad, if business is feeling our
21:29
Speaker 10: negative impacts, families are going to feel the same. And
21:33
Speaker 10: the cost of living continues to plague many aspects of
21:38
Speaker 10: our economy as a whole. We're seeing that downward pressure
21:41
Speaker 10: in many different sectors. But unless we see a strong
21:46
Speaker 10: return to growth in all elements of productivity, we're not
21:51
Speaker 10: going to see our economy move from what HSBC was
21:54
Speaker 10: calling stagflation today exactly.
21:56
Speaker 2: Paul, how so good to have you on. I hope
21:58
Speaker 2: it won't be another ten years.
22:00
Speaker 3: I'm back.
22:00
Speaker 10: We'll see, we'll see, so thank thank you.
22:04
Speaker 2: All right, let's get someone now, and the worsening tensions
22:07
Speaker 2: in the Middle East now, Foreign Affairs Minister Pennywong today
22:11
Speaker 2: called for de escalation in a runt, her favorite word,
22:15
Speaker 2: but she couldn't express confidence in the US president.
22:19
Speaker 3: Have a look, I.
22:20
Speaker 7: Have confidence in the actions of the US president.
22:25
Speaker 11: If you're talking about the blockade, I think I've answered that.
22:28
Speaker 11: I mean the US is blocking.
22:29
Speaker 7: I'm talking about the decent at Bang Penny Wong, everything
22:33
Speaker 7: the posts, the various actions, the statements. Do you have
22:39
Speaker 7: confidence in the way he's going about this? Donald Trump?
22:42
Speaker 11: I think I've been very upfront with Australians that, including
22:46
Speaker 11: from Will before this crisis, that that the United States
22:51
Speaker 11: under President Trump will be a very different America. We
22:54
Speaker 11: know that, how President Trump envisages the role of America
22:59
Speaker 11: in the world. It differs very greatly from many past administrations.
23:04
Speaker 11: And I've also said one of the things that President
23:07
Speaker 11: Trump himself has said is one of his characteristics and
23:12
Speaker 11: one of his tactics his unpredictability. And we've certainly seen unpredictability.
23:18
Speaker 2: But all right, let's bring in now Shadow Defense Minister
23:21
Speaker 2: James Patterson. James, thank you so much for your time. Look,
23:25
Speaker 2: what did you make of Pennywong's failure to endorse American
23:29
Speaker 2: action against the oppressive regime in Iran.
23:34
Speaker 12: Well, the government's been crab walking away from their initial
23:37
Speaker 12: positive statements immediately after the strikes on Iran, they quite
23:40
Speaker 12: rightly and appropriately welcomed it because, in really simple terms, Shari,
23:45
Speaker 12: when your friends are bombing your enemies, the least you
23:48
Speaker 12: can do is provide them with moral and rhetorical support,
23:51
Speaker 12: and initially the albun Azy government did that. Let's not
23:53
Speaker 12: forget the Islamic Republic of Iran is responsible for at
23:56
Speaker 12: least two terrorist attacks on Australian soil, among them other
24:00
Speaker 12: any many crimes. So I think we should be in
24:02
Speaker 12: favor of the United States and Israel succeeding in this conflict,
24:06
Speaker 12: because a failure of the United States and Israel would
24:09
Speaker 12: be a disaster for the world, for the region, and
24:12
Speaker 12: for Australia, because it would probably mean that the Iranian
24:15
Speaker 12: regime remains intact, that it retains control over the Strait
24:18
Speaker 12: of Hormals, that the IRGC can use it as a
24:21
Speaker 12: toll booth to raise revenue to fund their terror proxies
24:24
Speaker 12: around the Middle East, and that they can continue to
24:26
Speaker 12: proceed with not just a drone program and a ballistic
24:29
Speaker 12: missiles program, but a nuclear enrichment program. So Australia should
24:33
Speaker 12: be unambiguous, we want the United States and Israel to
24:35
Speaker 12: succeed in this conflict.
24:37
Speaker 2: I mean, she could have given an answer exactly like
24:40
Speaker 2: that to Andrew Klanew and instead she described the president
24:43
Speaker 2: as unpredictable, utterly bizarre. Now, Iran, as you know, James
24:48
Speaker 2: pledged to open the Strait of Home moves on Friday,
24:51
Speaker 2: then renegged on that do you think we are seeing
24:55
Speaker 2: a split between the military and the political leadership.
25:00
Speaker 12: That would be understandable if that was the case, Shari,
25:03
Speaker 12: because obviously there's been a decimation of the Iranian civilian
25:06
Speaker 12: and military leadership. There are much more junior people now
25:09
Speaker 12: calling the shots, and they're in an environment where it's
25:12
Speaker 12: very difficult for them to communicate and meet safely given
25:15
Speaker 12: the Israeli and US strikes on them. So it's highly
25:18
Speaker 12: likely there are splits in the regime, and we've known
25:20
Speaker 12: even in more peaceful times, there've been disputes between the
25:22
Speaker 12: military and between religious leaders in the regime over other issues.
25:27
Speaker 12: It is very undesirable to have Iran again closing the
25:32
Speaker 12: Strait of Honors and extorting the world through that critical
25:36
Speaker 12: shipping channel. And I do understand while the United States
25:39
Speaker 12: has taken the action it has of using the Gulf
25:42
Speaker 12: of Maman to effectively have a blockade on the Iranian
25:45
Speaker 12: ships passing through, because if US and other allied ships
25:50
Speaker 12: can't pass through, then no one should be able to
25:52
Speaker 12: pass through until this is settled.
25:55
Speaker 3: I spoke about this a bit earlier.
25:57
Speaker 2: What do you make of the absurdity of the far
26:00
Speaker 2: left and also some on the right in the MAGA
26:04
Speaker 2: movement effectively cheerleading for the IIGC because of their personal
26:09
Speaker 2: disdain for Trump and israel.
26:13
Speaker 12: I think it's unhinged and I find it very difficult
26:15
Speaker 12: to understand for any sane person would want to line
26:18
Speaker 12: up on the side of the Aatolas and the Islamic Republic,
26:21
Speaker 12: even if you didn't care about the havoc that they've
26:24
Speaker 12: wreaked over the Middle East for many years, their terrorist
26:27
Speaker 12: proxies that have targeted Israel and others, even if you
26:30
Speaker 12: didn't care that they persecuted their own people in their
26:33
Speaker 12: tens of thousands murdered them just this year alone in
26:37
Speaker 12: response to domestic protests. This is a regime which is responsible,
26:42
Speaker 12: according to our intelligence agencies, for the fire bombing of
26:45
Speaker 12: the Addas Israel Synagogue in Melbourne and Lewis's Continental Kitchen
26:48
Speaker 12: in Sydney. These are terror attacks finance sponsored and orchestrated
26:53
Speaker 12: by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of the Islamic Republic
26:57
Speaker 12: of Iran, and so it should be an easy choice
26:59
Speaker 12: for Australian. Whatever you think of the United States under
27:01
Speaker 12: President Trump, whatever you think of Israel under Prime Minister
27:04
Speaker 12: Benjamin and Yahu, you should not sign with it side
27:07
Speaker 12: with an Islamist regime that has perpetrated terror against our
27:10
Speaker 12: own soil.
27:12
Speaker 2: Just a couple of extra topics before you go. The
27:15
Speaker 2: economy today, as I was speaking about with Paul Howe's
27:18
Speaker 2: HSBC has warned that Australia does now face stagflation now.
27:23
Speaker 2: Jim Chalmers held a press conference today. He admitted Treasury
27:26
Speaker 2: is examining worst case scenarios, presumably that includes a recession.
27:32
Speaker 2: But how much of this is owing to global factors, James?
27:36
Speaker 2: And how much is because of the Albaneser government.
27:40
Speaker 12: Well, so, stagflation is economic misery. It is when prices
27:43
Speaker 12: rise and unemployment rises at the same time. It was
27:46
Speaker 12: a feature of the nineteen seventies and it's rearing its
27:49
Speaker 12: ugly head again. And it's not a coincidence that just
27:52
Speaker 12: as the Albanezer government induls indulges in nineteen seventy style
27:55
Speaker 12: economic policy, we've got nineteen to seventy style economic problems.
27:59
Speaker 12: Of the core drivers of this is the excessive spending
28:02
Speaker 12: that the Albanezer government has engaged in the lead up
28:04
Speaker 12: to this crisis. And yes, we now have a war
28:06
Speaker 12: in Iran and that is driving up global commodity prices,
28:09
Speaker 12: including oil. But let's remember that inflation and interest rates
28:13
Speaker 12: were already on the rise prior to the outbreak of
28:16
Speaker 12: conflict in Iran, and so Australia has entered this conflict
28:19
Speaker 12: in perhaps the weakest position of any country in the
28:22
Speaker 12: developed world, where they had their inflation falling and they
28:25
Speaker 12: had interest rates coming down.
28:28
Speaker 2: Look, just finally, the Defense Minister, Richard Marles, your opposite number,
28:32
Speaker 2: has said that he's going to move towards This isn't
28:35
Speaker 2: a precise commitment, but move towards spending three percent of
28:39
Speaker 2: GDP on defense, also having investing in missiles and drones.
28:44
Speaker 3: Is this what you've been calling for.
28:47
Speaker 12: If it was a real investment of actually three percent
28:50
Speaker 12: of GDP, i'd be doing cart wheels in the studio
28:52
Speaker 12: right now, show, But unfortunately that's not the case. We'll
28:55
Speaker 12: only get to three percent potentially in the early to
28:58
Speaker 12: mid twenty thirties by counting things like military pensions, which
29:02
Speaker 12: we've never previously counted towards that figure. We did a
29:05
Speaker 12: real increase in defense spending that delivers military capability, not
29:09
Speaker 12: an accounting trick which doesn't put a weapon in the
29:12
Speaker 12: hand of a war fighter or make us any cipher
29:14
Speaker 12: as a country.
29:16
Speaker 2: James, really great to have you back on the show.
29:18
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Right still to come, we'll find out.
29:22
Speaker 2: Ben Roberts Smith's plan to have his war crimes case
29:25
Speaker 2: thrown out and that shocking footage of a little boy
29:29
Speaker 2: dragged along by a bus. Ray Hadley would join me.
29:32
Speaker 3: Next welcome back.
29:36
Speaker 12: Well.
29:37
Speaker 2: Two polls today are showing that One Nation support is falling.
29:40
Speaker 2: In News poll, it fell from twenty seven to twenty
29:43
Speaker 2: four percent, even as Labour stays on thirty one and
29:46
Speaker 2: the Coalition on twenty one. Now Barnaby Joyce has blamed
29:50
Speaker 2: the Sean Black saga and One Nation's decision to rehire
29:54
Speaker 2: a convicted rapist. Joining me now to discuss is radio
29:58
Speaker 2: legend Ray Hadley Ray Look. Two poles show one Nation falling,
30:03
Speaker 2: but it is still ahead of the lips.
30:05
Speaker 1: Well, I think that's it.
30:07
Speaker 5: Anyone that thought that one nation wouldn't drop somewhat from
30:10
Speaker 5: their heights was in another, I guess, parallel universe. But
30:15
Speaker 5: I think Barnaby might be grasping at straws in relation
30:18
Speaker 5: to the reasons.
30:19
Speaker 1: But I would say that I don't know what.
30:21
Speaker 5: Pauline was thinking about when she hired this blake to
30:25
Speaker 5: a senior position, and now she's parroting on about everyone
30:29
Speaker 5: deserves a second chance.
30:30
Speaker 1: Well, we had a blake from Somalia.
30:33
Speaker 5: Escape from the tension via a hospital break who was
30:37
Speaker 5: a rapist and.
30:38
Speaker 1: Is a rapist.
30:39
Speaker 5: He's been in Australia since twenty six doing. I bet
30:42
Speaker 5: Pauline doesn't want to give him a second chance, nor
30:44
Speaker 5: do I. He should be out of the country. But
30:47
Speaker 5: it was just it was dumb, dumb and dumber to
30:50
Speaker 5: give this blake that position. I don't think it had
30:53
Speaker 5: a big impact on the Poles. It was a bit
30:54
Speaker 5: of a you know, a blip along the way. But
30:59
Speaker 5: you question Pauline, and I guess James Ashby was involved
31:02
Speaker 5: as well.
31:03
Speaker 1: You question their judgment about you know.
31:05
Speaker 5: And then Pauline, who you know, basically is a person
31:09
Speaker 5: that thinks our judiciary are too weak, our sentencing laws
31:12
Speaker 5: are too weak. And then she hires a blake to
31:15
Speaker 5: a senior position who apparently, apart from spending time in
31:19
Speaker 5: jail for rape, also apparently after the event, she had
31:25
Speaker 5: no compassion or ability to understand his victim at the time.
31:30
Speaker 5: So it's a strange position Pauline finds herself in. Because
31:35
Speaker 5: since I've known them, and that dates back of course
31:37
Speaker 5: to the nineteen ninetyes, she's been very hard on law
31:39
Speaker 5: and order and now it doesn't suit her to be
31:42
Speaker 5: heard on Law and order because she's given this black
31:44
Speaker 5: a job, or she did give him a job.
31:45
Speaker 1: He's gone now.
31:46
Speaker 2: I mean, throughout your radio career, this was one of
31:49
Speaker 2: the areas you were strongest in, you know, without questions.
31:53
Speaker 5: And I still remember I was connected to Brave Hearts
31:56
Speaker 5: and Eddie Johnson for a long time and in relations
32:00
Speaker 5: into child Secular.
32:00
Speaker 1: So I just think we get it wrong more often
32:02
Speaker 1: than we get it right, and we still get it wrong.
32:05
Speaker 5: But Pauline's lack of judgment, this one is really puzzling
32:10
Speaker 5: to me.
32:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, Now, the Prime ministers, you know, he has been
32:13
Speaker 2: flying around Asia, you know, using.
32:16
Speaker 1: We should stay there? Was it going to come back exactly?
32:21
Speaker 3: Look using up diesel supplies that we need.
32:25
Speaker 5: Well if you'l I mean, look, he's been around Peter
32:29
Speaker 5: fro Lingos, the late Peter for Lingos to say, he's
32:31
Speaker 5: been around the planet more times than Ury Gagarin, who
32:35
Speaker 5: was a Russian astronaut. And I think he's going to
32:37
Speaker 5: use I'll use that one now, but I don't know
32:40
Speaker 5: how much good he's doing. You See, I'm old enough
32:44
Speaker 5: to remember when we had eight, nine or ten refineries
32:48
Speaker 5: and one that I know well was opposite Roseall racecourse,
32:51
Speaker 5: the Shell refinery. We've now got two and one's half
32:55
Speaker 5: burnt down. But the reason that we close them down,
32:59
Speaker 5: not all lay fall that successive governments, was because we
33:02
Speaker 5: could get it cheaper in Southeast Asia. How wonderful are
33:06
Speaker 5: to be now if we could actually refine our own
33:09
Speaker 5: oil into diesel and petroleum here in Australia.
33:12
Speaker 1: But we don't have that capacity anymore. So he's got to.
33:14
Speaker 5: Go cap in hand of those other nations and make
33:16
Speaker 5: all sorts of promises to get the fuel here, while
33:20
Speaker 5: he's running up a very significant bill himself.
33:24
Speaker 1: In air fuel to get to those places.
33:27
Speaker 5: So I mean we were in this position because we
33:29
Speaker 5: put ourselves in this position. We weren't thinking of a
33:33
Speaker 5: crisis in twenty twenty six about the supply of oil
33:36
Speaker 5: and fuel.
33:36
Speaker 2: I thought what Alexander Danna had to say about this
33:39
Speaker 2: today in his column was excellent.
33:41
Speaker 3: He talks about the folly.
33:42
Speaker 2: Of the billions and the billions invested and in renewable
33:46
Speaker 2: energy when it doesn't help us when we're in this
33:49
Speaker 2: sort of situation.
33:50
Speaker 5: Well, if I see the Minister for Energy with that
33:53
Speaker 5: smami look in his face again saying aren't I wonderful
33:57
Speaker 5: O go an electric car? I mean even the poor
34:00
Speaker 5: uggers with electric cars are lining up everywhere over the
34:02
Speaker 5: easter break to try and recharge their vehicles in long
34:05
Speaker 5: queues and the rest of it because they get what.
34:07
Speaker 1: Two hundred and fifty three hundred k's out of them.
34:10
Speaker 1: And then the parent nonsense.
34:12
Speaker 5: About b doubles, triple doubles and road trains being run
34:16
Speaker 5: on electricity. Anyone that thinks that's going to happen in
34:20
Speaker 5: the next one hundred years is stark raving mad. I
34:23
Speaker 5: mean they need fossil fuel to run, and eager as
34:28
Speaker 5: many electric cars as he wants the Energy Ministry or Casanova.
34:32
Speaker 5: But I mean it's not solving the problem for road transport,
34:35
Speaker 5: which we rely on heavily here in Australia.
34:38
Speaker 2: I was really disappointed when I was off writing the
34:41
Speaker 2: book to see that the protests laws that Premier Chris
34:45
Speaker 2: Means introduced after the Bondaid terror attack to stop insensitive protests,
34:50
Speaker 2: that they were then overturned in the new southeld Supreme
34:54
Speaker 2: Court apparently unconstitutional. Now the activists should have just been
34:58
Speaker 2: respectful after Bondie.
35:01
Speaker 3: They weren't.
35:01
Speaker 2: And now the New South I was police are in
35:03
Speaker 2: a very difficult situation ray and there's investigations into them
35:07
Speaker 2: for LC investigation.
35:08
Speaker 3: It makes me feel sick for these poor officers.
35:10
Speaker 1: Well, he'd be a copper in New South Wales at
35:12
Speaker 1: the moment. His shocking job. And look.
35:16
Speaker 5: When they formulize new laws and the Attorney General plays
35:21
Speaker 5: a role along with the Solicitor General, and you know
35:24
Speaker 5: you can't blame Chris Meant and he's not the Attorney General,
35:26
Speaker 5: but he's a premier. And the Chief Justice, Anthony Bell
35:31
Speaker 5: struck it down and you know, you don't get much
35:34
Speaker 5: more important than him. He's a rage scholar and he's
35:37
Speaker 5: a highly intelligent jurist. So you would have thought when
35:41
Speaker 5: they're constructing these laws. The Attorney General, he's not as
35:44
Speaker 5: smart as he's on a justice bill, may have just
35:47
Speaker 5: thought a little outside the square and come up with
35:50
Speaker 5: a solution that couldn't be struck down in court because
35:54
Speaker 5: it's I mean that can appeal. But he's on the
35:56
Speaker 5: appeals panel anyway, and he is the Chief Justice, probably
36:00
Speaker 5: one of the smartest men anywhere on the bench in
36:03
Speaker 5: this country. And he decided it's unconstitutional and say the
36:06
Speaker 5: folly is that we go back to the labor government
36:08
Speaker 5: and Chris means of the boss. So he's got to
36:10
Speaker 5: take responsibility. But he's got an attorney general. If he
36:14
Speaker 5: told me it was reigning the Attorney General Michael Dailey,
36:18
Speaker 5: I'll have to go outside and check.
36:20
Speaker 3: Look. I don't know about much about Michael Daily, but
36:22
Speaker 3: I think I do. You can be as smart.
36:24
Speaker 2: As you like as the chief justice, but you also
36:27
Speaker 2: need emotional intelligence and moral responsibility to ensure that there
36:32
Speaker 2: is social cohesion in a city after a terror attack.
36:35
Speaker 5: Well, he looks at the law, That's what he looks at,
36:38
Speaker 5: and he removes all the motion from it. And now
36:40
Speaker 5: I would prefer that he didn't strike them down, but
36:44
Speaker 5: he has and that's what we've got. And now they're
36:46
Speaker 5: running backwards and forwards, trying to come up with some
36:49
Speaker 5: sort of law that won't be struck down. In the meantime,
36:52
Speaker 5: the New South Wales Police, you know, confront these people
36:56
Speaker 5: who are mboldened by it. I mean they think, well
37:00
Speaker 5: about a victory. Look, we will ride all the way along.
37:02
Speaker 5: We can do what we like. We can take over
37:03
Speaker 5: the streets. We can line George Street down to the opera.
37:06
Speaker 3: House's trouble for our city.
37:07
Speaker 1: Terrible when they're going to and then the.
37:09
Speaker 3: Poor police are being investigate over it.
37:10
Speaker 2: It makes me so angry honestly, if that LEC investigation
37:14
Speaker 2: finds that the police have done anything wrong, I mean
37:18
Speaker 2: terrible will now well, the.
37:20
Speaker 1: Law Enforcement Commission.
37:23
Speaker 5: Is an organization I think generally that does more harmed
37:27
Speaker 5: to the New South Wales police and good. I mean,
37:29
Speaker 5: I know there's a role for an oversight body, but
37:32
Speaker 5: I mean some of the things that I've seen over
37:34
Speaker 5: the past few years in relation to New South Wales
37:37
Speaker 5: police being answerable because of left decisions makes me made
37:41
Speaker 5: as well.
37:42
Speaker 2: This case, the ministers need to stand up for the police.
37:44
Speaker 2: They did the right thing.
37:46
Speaker 3: Just very quickly.
37:47
Speaker 2: Before we go, I want to show you this terrible
37:49
Speaker 2: footage of the Melbourne schoolboy who has dragged two hundred
37:53
Speaker 2: and fifty meters. You can see him, he's at the
37:56
Speaker 2: back bus door. Have a look see just then is
38:00
Speaker 2: he got caught. Half of him was inside and he
38:03
Speaker 2: got caught you know, in between the door. Look at
38:06
Speaker 2: that he managed he had. He was so clever, he
38:08
Speaker 2: knew to lift his legs up and he got dragged
38:12
Speaker 2: along two hundred and fifty meters ray until the bus driver.
38:15
Speaker 3: Realized what about you?
38:16
Speaker 2: But my mum always said to me, never get in
38:18
Speaker 2: the back door of a bus because the driver.
38:21
Speaker 3: Can't see you.
38:21
Speaker 1: Well, the driver didn't realize.
38:24
Speaker 5: He went to the next stop, the next stop with
38:26
Speaker 5: three hundred and fifty meters down the road. The little feller,
38:28
Speaker 5: by the way, from that vision you're watching, apart from
38:31
Speaker 5: being so so smart to lift these legs, his arm
38:35
Speaker 5: is actually holding on to a handrail inside the bus
38:39
Speaker 5: at the same showing unbelievable strength as well.
38:42
Speaker 1: The poor little.
38:42
Speaker 5: Fellow now remarkably he suffered no major injuries, remarkably, but
38:47
Speaker 5: emotional truck. Well, his mum said he's suffering with anxiety,
38:50
Speaker 5: and who wouldn't suffer with anxiety.
38:51
Speaker 1: But now they're saying in.
38:53
Speaker 5: Victoria that they need to actually have some mirrors on
38:56
Speaker 5: the side the traffic. And see, I would have thought
38:58
Speaker 5: that any bus carrying few children should be fully equippment mirrors, front, back,
39:03
Speaker 5: sideways and even cameras to make sure that people have got.
39:06
Speaker 1: Off the bus.
39:07
Speaker 5: But so lucky touch wood, the little fellow's ak which
39:10
Speaker 5: is fantastic.
39:10
Speaker 2: Lucky it wasn't you know, anything serious, No, exactly, Ray,
39:14
Speaker 2: always love having you here in a Monday, Thank you
39:16
Speaker 2: so much. Next week all right, still to come. Jim
39:20
Speaker 2: Charmers under pressure as stagflation fears grow and a big
39:23
Speaker 2: tax hit on investors.
39:25
Speaker 3: Edges closer plus.
39:26
Speaker 2: Ben Robert Smith's his lawyer's way whether he can even
39:30
Speaker 2: get a fair trial? Aaron Patrick would join me after
39:33
Speaker 2: the break, Welcome back well, Ben Robert Smith's barrister, Slade Howell.
39:40
Speaker 2: May I argue that it's impossible for him to receive
39:43
Speaker 2: a fair trial.
39:45
Speaker 3: He told The Nightly on Friday.
39:47
Speaker 2: It is very likely in due course that a superior
39:49
Speaker 2: court or courts may need to consider whether the extraordinary
39:53
Speaker 2: pre trial publicity surrounding this matter, which has persisted for
39:56
Speaker 2: many years, might mean a fair trial of the allegation
40:00
Speaker 2: is simply not possible. And joining me now is the
40:04
Speaker 2: journalist who wrote that story, The night These chief writer,
40:06
Speaker 2: Aaron Patrick.
40:07
Speaker 3: Aaron, great to see you. Now you also broke the story.
40:12
Speaker 2: We'll start with that one because there a couple of
40:14
Speaker 2: parts to the story you had on Friday. So do
40:17
Speaker 2: you think there is a case there that it would
40:20
Speaker 2: be impossible for him to have a fair trial?
40:22
Speaker 4: Look, that's the argument they're going to made make, and
40:25
Speaker 4: his barriss have said that in.
40:26
Speaker 13: Court on Friday.
40:28
Speaker 4: It's a tough argument to make because if you buy it,
40:33
Speaker 4: it means that any really high profile case probably can't
40:37
Speaker 4: ever make it a trial. Now, and we're talking good Dawson,
40:40
Speaker 4: Lindy Chamberla, and you know what about the SAJ Bondyke.
40:47
Speaker 13: Right, So it's a really hard argument to make.
40:51
Speaker 2: And also a lot of those people, not those people,
40:53
Speaker 2: but in some circumstances, like Lindy and like Ben Robert Smith,
40:57
Speaker 2: they want the chance to clear.
40:59
Speaker 13: Their Now, well, that's right.
41:02
Speaker 4: You saw Ben Robert Smith come out on Sunday in
41:06
Speaker 4: a very and clearly articulated defense of himself, and he's
41:12
Speaker 4: out there to fight clear his name.
41:14
Speaker 13: He's going to fight hard.
41:15
Speaker 2: Now, you've also written on Friday and that story that
41:18
Speaker 2: four SAS soldiers who admitted to killing detainees in Afghanistan
41:23
Speaker 2: were granted immunity in exchange for giving evidence of Ben
41:26
Speaker 2: Roberts against Robert Smith. Now, some view this as unfair.
41:32
Speaker 4: This is one of the most fascinating parts of the
41:35
Speaker 4: whole prosecution case because you have four men who are
41:40
Speaker 4: inside the sas working extremely close with Ben Robert Smith
41:45
Speaker 4: in some cases over three years, who have now been
41:50
Speaker 4: granted immunity. And I've got a story in the works,
41:53
Speaker 4: hopefully coming out tomorrow, which will go deep into the
41:56
Speaker 4: background into the primary accuser again against him.
42:01
Speaker 2: Just so that you know, people don't lose that point.
42:04
Speaker 2: So you've got a big story out tomorrow about the
42:05
Speaker 2: main accuser against Ben Robert Smith and what he's done
42:09
Speaker 2: or accused of doing in the past.
42:11
Speaker 13: That's right.
42:12
Speaker 4: This man was an ex SA soldier who work extremely
42:16
Speaker 4: closely with Ben Robert Smith over a number of years.
42:20
Speaker 4: He's been a very central figure behind the scenes. We're
42:25
Speaker 4: told we're not allowed to identify him. We know who
42:27
Speaker 4: he is, We've got photographs of him, and I think.
42:31
Speaker 2: It's sorry to interrupt, but even that is extraordinary. Who
42:34
Speaker 2: decides which of these figures gets identified and who doesn't,
42:38
Speaker 2: Who decides who gets immunity and who goes to jail.
42:42
Speaker 4: Well, I went to the federal court today and I said, well, listen,
42:44
Speaker 4: can I identify this guy?
42:47
Speaker 13: He's been accused of.
42:48
Speaker 2: Murder and don't give me a don't give away your
42:52
Speaker 2: scoop on Sky News Aaron, Well, you can well, you're just.
42:54
Speaker 4: You know, you're just a compelling interviewer, so it's hard
42:57
Speaker 4: to resist you. But that you know, he has been
43:00
Speaker 4: accused of murder. And I went to the Federal court
43:02
Speaker 4: and I said.
43:03
Speaker 1: Well.
43:05
Speaker 13: Can I name him? Have you got a suppression order
43:09
Speaker 13: on his name? And they said, look, we'll get back
43:11
Speaker 13: to you. We'll get back to you.
43:12
Speaker 4: And then then I found out through other sources that
43:15
Speaker 4: they've gone to all the parties to the defamation case
43:18
Speaker 4: and said, well, what do you think shall we let
43:20
Speaker 4: the Nightly publish this guy's name? So they've gone to
43:22
Speaker 4: nine her, a media company, They've gone to this person's
43:26
Speaker 4: Nine had.
43:26
Speaker 3: A saying whether you can publish the name of an accuser.
43:29
Speaker 4: Yes, So my competing media organization, unbelievable, gets to say
43:34
Speaker 4: as to what our editorial coverage can be. As to
43:37
Speaker 4: telling Australians, Wow, who the key person is who may
43:43
Speaker 4: send away Ben Robert Smith for life?
43:46
Speaker 2: I think they need to be huge questions asked of
43:50
Speaker 2: the AFP and other government bodies.
43:52
Speaker 3: Why did they decide to give.
43:54
Speaker 2: These people immunity to focus on Ben Robert Smith?
43:58
Speaker 3: Who makes that decision?
44:00
Speaker 4: Well, I think that's a question that we should all
44:01
Speaker 4: be asking, and I'm going to explore it more to detail.
44:04
Speaker 3: Really really interesting.
44:05
Speaker 2: Now, you wrote a book about the battle that won
44:07
Speaker 2: Ben Robert Smith the Victoria Cross.
44:09
Speaker 3: Remind me what your book's called.
44:11
Speaker 13: It's called The Last Battle.
44:12
Speaker 3: The Last Battle.
44:13
Speaker 2: Now, a lot of people know that Ben Robert Smith
44:16
Speaker 2: did something heroic, they don't know exactly what can you
44:19
Speaker 2: tell us?
44:21
Speaker 4: What he did was that there was a group of
44:23
Speaker 4: Essays soldiers in the Taliban haven and they were cut off.
44:28
Speaker 4: They were out numbered three to one. They were all
44:30
Speaker 4: at risk of dying. They were pinned down and Ben
44:35
Speaker 4: Robert Smith's team team of six decided to try and
44:39
Speaker 4: save them all, and they did a frontal assault on
44:43
Speaker 4: an emplaced machine gun nest. This had three big machine
44:46
Speaker 4: guns plus a variety of other smaller weapons.
44:49
Speaker 13: The SAA soldiers say, normally.
44:50
Speaker 4: You'd need a force of one hundred soldiers regular infantry
44:54
Speaker 4: to attack the division. They did it with three and
44:58
Speaker 4: Ben Robert Smith and two others Sentiing end up doing
45:01
Speaker 4: a frontal assault on this and they killed everyone and
45:07
Speaker 4: they save the whole troop.
45:08
Speaker 3: That's incredible.
45:10
Speaker 13: It was an unbelievable story.
45:12
Speaker 4: Now, whether you like or dislike Ben Robert Smith, and
45:15
Speaker 4: he's got fans and detractors. It's still an incredible story
45:20
Speaker 4: of heroism from him and the other guys in that unit.
45:23
Speaker 3: There's a whole campaign.
45:24
Speaker 2: We've got to get to a break, but there's a
45:26
Speaker 2: whole campaign to have the war memorial no longer on him,
45:29
Speaker 2: to take away his Victoria Cross medal. But really fascinating
45:34
Speaker 2: question here, should someone still be recognized for their heroic
45:37
Speaker 2: actions just because there are there you know, or not
45:40
Speaker 2: because there are now allegations against them?
45:42
Speaker 4: Well, look, it's a really difficult and an important question.
45:47
Speaker 4: It's also st of hard to answer at this point,
45:49
Speaker 4: right because his guilt hasn't been determined yet or not,
45:53
Speaker 4: he isn't proven guilty. But even if you, even if
45:57
Speaker 4: you really hate the guy, some people do, I do
46:02
Speaker 4: think it's.
46:03
Speaker 13: Hard to challenge his bravery in the ballot.
46:05
Speaker 2: Tazach, your book's called The Last Okay, Aaron can't wait
46:09
Speaker 2: to read your story tomorrow on his main accuser.
46:12
Speaker 3: We'll cover it on the show tomorrow night as well.
46:14
Speaker 13: Thanks Charch all.
46:16
Speaker 2: Right, still to come, the plan for more taxes disguised
46:19
Speaker 2: as reform, plus just how severe is the economic downturn
46:23
Speaker 2: we're facing former Treasury Assistant Secretary David Pearl, would join
46:27
Speaker 2: me next?
46:31
Speaker 3: Welcome back.
46:31
Speaker 2: Well, we've been speaking tonight about the warnings on stagflation. Well,
46:35
Speaker 2: here's exactly what HSBC Chief Economist Paul Bloxham said today.
46:40
Speaker 2: He said that Australia faces a stagflationary shock and we
46:43
Speaker 2: expect that outright. Stagflation is a rising risk. Supply side
46:48
Speaker 2: reform is clearly needed to lift Australia's economic growth speed limit.
46:53
Speaker 2: What joining me now is former Treasury Assistant Secretary David Pearl.
46:57
Speaker 3: David, thank you. Now do you agree with Paul? Is
47:01
Speaker 3: this a real risk that we face?
47:06
Speaker 14: Good to be with this, Sharry, Well, I think we've
47:09
Speaker 14: been suffering from a form of stagflation for a number
47:13
Speaker 14: of years now. You might recall that we've come out
47:15
Speaker 14: of a pandemic with a low growth economy, with productivity flatlining,
47:21
Speaker 14: and we've had persistently high inflation. I think what Paul
47:24
Speaker 14: Bloxham's talking about is the possibility of one or two
47:30
Speaker 14: quarters of negative growth later this year. But we've been
47:34
Speaker 14: a second rate economy for some time now. People bandy
47:38
Speaker 14: the term stagflation around, but the stagflation we had in
47:42
Speaker 14: the seventies was a combination of double digit inflation and
47:47
Speaker 14: unemployment for up to a decade. So we're not talking
47:51
Speaker 14: about that yet. If we get a policy response wrong
47:55
Speaker 14: to the oil crisis, and if that oil crisis persists
47:59
Speaker 14: for longer than most of us expect, then we could
48:03
Speaker 14: be back in seventies territory. But we're a long way
48:05
Speaker 14: short of that.
48:07
Speaker 3: Well, let's move on to the policy response.
48:10
Speaker 13: Now.
48:10
Speaker 2: We're seeing the government looking ahead to the budget next month.
48:14
Speaker 2: We're seeing the capital gains tax discount does look like
48:17
Speaker 2: that is going to be wound back. Let's have a
48:20
Speaker 2: look at Charmer's response when he was asked about this today.
48:23
Speaker 15: We're obviously considering a whole range of changes in the
48:27
Speaker 15: tax system, but we haven't changed those policies. We haven't
48:31
Speaker 15: taken any decisions on those policies, whether the specific ones
48:35
Speaker 15: you mentioned. There's more work to do on our options
48:40
Speaker 15: for tax reform in this budget.
48:43
Speaker 2: I mean, it's pitched as tax reform, but isn't it
48:46
Speaker 2: just increasing taxes?
48:47
Speaker 3: How is that reform?
48:50
Speaker 14: It's not reform at all. So many of our listeners
48:53
Speaker 14: would remember the two big tax reform episodes we've had
48:56
Speaker 14: in Australia. The first was under Hawk and Keating in
48:59
Speaker 14: nineteen to eighty five when they cut the top marginal
49:04
Speaker 14: personal rate from sixty to forty nine, they cut the
49:06
Speaker 14: corporate rate, and they broaden the income tax base by
49:09
Speaker 14: introducing capital gains tax and fringe benefit, and then we
49:13
Speaker 14: had the big two thousand GST tax mix switch by
49:18
Speaker 14: Howard and Costello. So Jim Chalmers doesn't know the meaning
49:21
Speaker 14: of tax reform and I don't think as the courage
49:24
Speaker 14: to ever contemplate it. He's just talking about, in my view,
49:28
Speaker 14: a pretty second rate hike in taxes on investors. And
49:33
Speaker 14: while he's targeting older Australians and those who have saved,
49:37
Speaker 14: if the capital tax rate increases, it affects hundreds and
49:42
Speaker 14: thousands of nurses and tradees and other low income people
49:46
Speaker 14: who buy investment properties to try and climb.
49:50
Speaker 1: The ladder of wealth.
49:51
Speaker 14: He's really going to hurt them, not the people that
49:53
Speaker 14: have already accumulated assets. So as always, he's engaging in
49:57
Speaker 14: undergraduate class war. It's quite beside the point. We're facing
50:01
Speaker 14: an inflation stagflationary crisis. We could have much lower house
50:06
Speaker 14: prices if unemployment hits ten percent, but he's still fiddling
50:10
Speaker 14: around with university class war politics.
50:13
Speaker 2: And it is retrospective from the sense that people have
50:16
Speaker 2: made decisions about investment properties on the basis of the
50:19
Speaker 2: discount being in place.
50:24
Speaker 1: Well, that's right.
50:24
Speaker 14: Chris Bowen, who wanted to introduce some of these tax
50:27
Speaker 14: hikes in nineteen in twenty nineteen, was going to make
50:31
Speaker 14: them prospective, so I wouldn't have raised the money and
50:33
Speaker 14: it wouldn't have hurt people. But high house prices in
50:37
Speaker 14: Australia have nothing to do with very little to do
50:40
Speaker 14: with tax setting because it's immigration, it's lacks monetary policy
50:43
Speaker 14: at supply constraints.
50:45
Speaker 2: David, thank you so much for your insights. Really appreciate it.
50:48
Speaker 2: All right, I'll see you tomorrow at eight and Now.
50:50
Speaker 2: Paul Murray hosted by James McPherson