Latest / The Bolt Report / The Bolt Report | 2 September

Transcript

The Bolt Report | 2 September · The Bolt Report

• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining me on The Bolt Report. I'm James McPherson.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Here's what's coming up tonight. Jim Chalmers says we should
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: be happy about the economy, not because rates are coming
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: down or because productivity has increased. No, he says we
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: should be excited that more people are buying electric cars. Seriously.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I'll see if economist Leith Van Onselen is as excited shortly.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Pauline Hanson says parents should confront school principals if their
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: kids are being taught woke ideology. The Education Union accuses
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: her of inciting violence. I can't wait to talk to
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Rowan Dean about that one. And why is the ABC
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: so obsessed with reporting race, even when race has nothing
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: to do with the story? We'll get to that one shortly.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: But first, there's a lot of ways to waste $ 20 million.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: You could lose it down the back of the couch.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: You could set it on fire. Or, if you're the
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Albanese government, you could spend it trying to convince the
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: world that Chris Bowen is a global statesman. The government
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: has spent an extraordinary amount of money preparing its climate
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: events in the Pacific... supposedly to demonstrate Australian leadership ahead
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: of COP 31. There's just one small problem. No-one appears
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: to care, a fact Chris Bowen reluctantly confirmed today.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: Pre-COP is not normally a leader-level event. We are having
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: a small leader-level component to help lift the focus.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: In other words, after inviting leaders from around the world
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: to his special climate change summit, just five leaders outside
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: the Indo-Pacific have said they'll attend. Five. You can fit
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: more world leaders than that into a Kia carnival, though
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: with Chris Bowen behind the wheel, you might not even
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: get that. Five RSVPs for the Albanese government's pre-cop gathering
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: is not exactly a roll call of the International Climate Establishment.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: It's more like the guest list for a particularly awkward
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: dinner party where everyone else has discovered they already have plans.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Chris Bowen, or as he prefers to be known these days,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: the COP31 president of negotiations, has spent months telling Australians
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: that this, it's all about leadership.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: This year, Australia is stepping up to play a broader
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: role as president of negotiations for COP31, enabling us to
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: guide and steer the conversation around 90% of the world's emissions.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: They look to Australia for leadership. And under this government,
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: we will reciprocate with action.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Now, leadership is a fairly simple concept. Let me explain
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: it to you. The leader walks in front. Other people follow.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: That's how you know you're a leader, because you look
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: behind you and there's people following you. But if you
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: call yourself a leader and no one is following, well,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: you're not a leader. You're just a bloke going for
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: a very expensive taxpayer-funded stroll around a Fiji resort, aren't you?
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: And that's precisely what makes this whole exercise so embarrassing.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: The government reportedly expects the pre-cop events to showcase Australia's
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: diplomatic influence and demonstrate we can lead the world on
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: climate change. But if the world is so impressed by
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: our leadership, why is the world staying away? So who
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: is coming? Well, so far there's the leaders of Antigua
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: and Babuda, Cape Verde, Thailand, the Maldives and East Timor.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: We know those are the people coming because Fiji's foreign
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: minister accidentally blabbed it During a press conference, the Albanese
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: government was trying to keep the guest list secret. I
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: can't imagine why. And by the way, calling it a
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: list is kind of generous. But I mean, free drinks,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: free food, free accommodation. Why wouldn't economic powerhouses like Cape
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Verde and the Maldives attend? Thank you very much, Australian taxpayers.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: But let's not be too hasty in condemning the event
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: as a total failure, because while there's still time, others
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: might get RSVP.
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: There are people who are saying they'd like to come,
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: but they're finding it difficult.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: There's others who say they're likely to come, but can't
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: yet completely confirm.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Oh, the climate extravaganza is only 32 days away, so
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: there's still time. Who knows? Maybe the leader of Andorra
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: might attend. Then Bowen could boast that Europeans have shown interest.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Chris Bowen is so desperate to give the appearance of
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: leadership that it was reported today union members have been
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: invited to the pre-cop summit to help fill the seats.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Public Services International, that's a global union for public sector workers,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: they said today they'd been personally invited by Mr Bowen
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: to attend the climate change shindig. If it wasn't costing
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: us millions of dollars, all of this would actually be
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: pretty funny. There's something rather absurd about a government spending
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: millions of dollars staging an international climate summit because it
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: wants to demonstrate its global leadership credentials and then apparently
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: having to recruit people to sit in the audience. Remember,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: this summit is supposed to be about reducing emissions, right?
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: So you'd think the fewer people getting on planes to
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: fly to Fiji, the better, but apparently not. In order
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: to avoid the embarrassment of a sparsely attended summit about
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: the urgent need to slash emissions, Chris Bowen is flying
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: people internationally just to take up the seats, which raises
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: the question, what's more urgent, reducing emissions or reducing Chris
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Bowen's embarrassment? Because no matter what the PM said today,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: I think we all know the answer to that question.
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: Climate change is real. The science is real. The action
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: that is required is real as well. And the economic
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: cost of inaction is real. The economic cost of dealing
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: with increased natural disasters, with natural disasters that when they
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: occur are more intense as well.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: I say again, if action on climate change is so urgent,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: why the need to fly everyone to the very area
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: supposedly most at risk and mostly Just to fill seats?
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Why the need for union leaders to fly unless it's
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: to cover for this government's greatest and most intense natural disaster,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: which of course is Chris Bowen? When journalists today dared
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: to suggest that Bowen's pre-cop was looking suspiciously like a
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: flop before it had even started, well that's when Anthony
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Albanese got a little bit testy.
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: You are being so disrespectful to the Pacific leaders who
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: are here. We need to actually have some respect for
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: the process and respect for our Pacific leaders.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: To which I would say, what about having some respect
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: for the Australian taxpayer who's footing the bill for all
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: of this nonsense? Because that's the part that seems to
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: have been forgotten. This isn't Bowen's money. It isn't Albanese's money.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: It's not even the Labor Party's money. It's your money.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Money that could have been spent on hospitals, roads, schools, defence.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Or what about this? Simply left in the pockets of
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Australians who earned it. Instead, it's being spent on an
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: international climate spectacular... whose principal achievement so far appears to
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: be demonstrating how difficult it is to get international leaders
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: to turn up. And unable to boast that any international
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: leaders of note were attending, the Energy Minister actually started
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: exulting about the number of journalists who'd signed up for
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: the summit.
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: 120 international journalists are coming.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: You're welcome.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Whoa, more than 100 journos have signed up for a
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: week of free booze at a tropical resort in the Pacific. Whoa,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: that's influence. Maybe this is what Chris Bowen means by
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: global leadership. Nobody important wants to follow you, so you
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: invite the media. And if that doesn't work, well, there's
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: always the union movement. At this rate, the only thing
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: missing from Bowen's climate summit is a cardboard cutout of
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: a world leader. Actually, give it another few weeks because
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: the probably gay Ayatollah might get RSVP. All right, joining
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: me now is former New South Wales Treasurer Michael Kosta
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: and former Chief of Staff to Labor leader Bill Shorten
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: and now Director of GXO Strategies Cameron Milner. Welcome to
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: you both. Michael, I'll start with you. Is this actually
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: about climate diplomacy or is the Albanese government spent millions
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: staging the event designed primarily to enhance Chris Bowen's international profile?
• 8:47
  Speaker 6: Well, I don't know if.
• 8:48
  Speaker 7: It's about international profile for Chris Proen, but it's certainly
• 8:51
  Speaker 7: a farcical situation. Look, the bottom line with climate change is,
• 8:55
  Speaker 7: let's be real with this, since the AI boom and
• 8:58
  Speaker 7: the need for data centres, the wind's gone out of it.
• 9:01
  Speaker 7: It's no longer the fashionable issue. People have jumped on
• 9:04
  Speaker 7: another bandwagon and that's where the money is. But let's
• 9:08
  Speaker 7: be clear, we're seeing global hypocrisy at its greatest level.
• 9:13
  Speaker 7: This is just a parasitical institution now, this global change
• 9:17
  Speaker 7: climate circus. And you can see the consequence of that.
• 9:21
  Speaker 7: Bowen looks like a fool, but he looked like a
• 9:22
  Speaker 7: fool before that. I don't think this makes any difference.
• 9:26
  Speaker 7: And Albanese, they're trying to defend, you know, the summit
• 9:30
  Speaker 7: by talking about respect when.
• 9:32
  Speaker 6: He spent last weekend bagging out.
• 9:34
  Speaker 7: 30 percent of the electorate for having the hide not
• 9:37
  Speaker 7: to support his crazy policies on climate change.
• 9:40
  Speaker 6: So you can see where we're heading on this hypocrisy
• 9:43
  Speaker 6: and hubris.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Well, the Pacific Islands, Cameron, are supposed to be one
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: of the worst affected areas in the world for climate change.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: What does it say that barely anybody is turning up?
• 9:55
  Speaker 8: Well, isn't this the world's problem? I mean, you know,
• 9:58
  Speaker 8: on our doorstep, James, we've actually got Pacific Islands that
• 10:00
  Speaker 8: have got about a metre and a half of free
• 10:02
  Speaker 8: border in terms of where the high tide comes to.
• 10:04
  Speaker 8: So they're actually living with real impacts of climate change.
• 10:06
  Speaker 8: I mean, there's nowhere else to go for many of
• 10:08
  Speaker 8: these Pacific Islands. So the reality is that we actually
• 10:10
  Speaker 8: do need to bring global attention to what's actually happening
• 10:13
  Speaker 8: in this part of the world on our doorstep. So
• 10:15
  Speaker 8: I don't know what the means is to do that,
• 10:17
  Speaker 8: and maybe it's not this conference, but certainly if we're
• 10:19
  Speaker 8: actually going to properly engage with our Pacific neighbours and
• 10:22
  Speaker 8: Climate change is the number one lived issue for these people.
• 10:25
  Speaker 8: And we can't just give it up to China in
• 10:27
  Speaker 8: this region of the world. We've got to stand up
• 10:28
  Speaker 8: for our Pacific neighbours and climate change is real for them.
• 10:31
  Speaker 8: And we're going to do something, maybe not this conference,
• 10:33
  Speaker 8: but we do something to bring global attention to their plight.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Well, there's going to be 129 journalists there enjoying a
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: free time at a resort. So I guess that might
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: help somewhat. Assistant Defence Minister Peter Carlyle was asked today
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: about China trying to bully host nation Palau into ejecting
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: China from the Pacific Island Forum. Have a listen to
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: what he said. I'm curious to get your thoughts.
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: Do you admire Palau standing firm?
• 11:04
  Speaker 9: Well, I admire the fact that the Pacific Islands, as
• 11:06
  Speaker 9: the Prime Minister said, have a real agency around their future.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Real agency. They're literally being threatened by China. But it
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: was this bit that really got me angry. Have a
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: listen to this.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: They're sovereign states.
• 11:21
  Speaker 9: And one thing that we don't do, unlike the previous government,
• 11:25
  Speaker 9: is that kind of, you know, trying to make decisions
• 11:30
  Speaker 9: or be patronising to our Pacific Island neighbours and states.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: So according to the Defence Minister, it's not the Chinese
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: who are a danger to the national sovereignty of Pacific
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Island nations. He went on to say, unlike Scott Morrison,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: who used to, you know, threaten the sovereignty of other
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: nations by telling them what to do. Michael, it's the
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: most gutless government, isn't it, when it comes to China?
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: They'd rather criticise Scott Morrison than the Chinese Communist Party.
• 11:57
  Speaker 6: Gutless is not the word I'd use. It's reckless.
• 11:59
  Speaker 7: I mean, you know, they're putting our national interest at
• 12:03
  Speaker 7: risk here and Let's be clear, we get involved in
• 12:06
  Speaker 7: relations around the Pacific because it suits our national interests.
• 12:11
  Speaker 7: And if they don't understand that's the reason we're doing it,
• 12:14
  Speaker 7: they've got a major problem.
• 12:15
  Speaker 6: So I think it's reckless behaviour.
• 12:18
  Speaker 7: The bottom line here is that China doesn't share our values.
• 12:22
  Speaker 7: We are facing a threat. And what is this government doing?
• 12:26
  Speaker 7: It's cutting defence spending. It is not supplying the means
• 12:30
  Speaker 7: to repel that threat. And, you know, our allies can
• 12:33
  Speaker 7: see that, and that's why they're heading towards China.
• 12:36
  Speaker 6: And that's the big problem here.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Cameron, whether it's the Assistant Defence Minister or the Prime
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Minister himself, they've all been asked about this situation where
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: China is trying to have Taiwan kicked out of the summit.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Taiwan is a democratic nation. What does it say about
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: our government that not a single member of the government
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: ministry will raise a voice in defence of Taiwan? Instead,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: they all say to a man, well, that's a matter
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: for the Pacific Islanders.
• 13:06
  Speaker 8: Well, it's not, James.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: It's a matter for Australia.
• 13:08
  Speaker 8: And to your point, Michael, it's about our national interests,
• 13:10
  Speaker 8: about our national security. For goodness sake, China's breathing down
• 13:13
  Speaker 8: our neck in our region. You know, China would love
• 13:16
  Speaker 8: nothing more than to bully and buy their way through
• 13:18
  Speaker 8: the Pacific. I mean, that's their foreign policy on our doorstep.
• 13:22
  Speaker 8: They're encircling our country with warships, doing all manner of
• 13:25
  Speaker 8: sorts of things, being very aggressive. And yet we've got,
• 13:28
  Speaker 8: to your point, Michael, one of the most reckless foreign
• 13:30
  Speaker 8: policies in terms of our national interests and also one
• 13:33
  Speaker 8: of the weakest prime ministers in living memory. You know,
• 13:35
  Speaker 8: kowtowing his way to Beijing.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: And that's the problem, James.
• 13:38
  Speaker 8: I mean, you know, when we're seeing Pacific neighbours being
• 13:41
  Speaker 8: bullied and threatened out of going to Pacific Island for them,
• 13:43
  Speaker 8: that Taiwan's been there since 1992 in. So every year
• 13:46
  Speaker 8: they've attended for the last 40 plus years. No, this
• 13:49
  Speaker 8: is a real problem in terms of on our doorstep,
• 13:52
  Speaker 8: while Albo's lying and denying his way around Australia, China's
• 13:55
  Speaker 8: bullying and buying their way around the Pacific.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Alright, to another one of Chris Bowen's big-brain climate schemes,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: carbon credits. The Climate Change Authority has told Labor to
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: cut back on the program, which allows companies to buy
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: themselves lower emissions on paper without actually lowering them.
• 14:12
  Speaker 10: Instead.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: The Climate Change Authority says companies should be converting farmland
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: into carbon offset programs by revegetating farmland with trees. Now,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: if you're wondering how much farmland, well, up to 18
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: million hectares of it if we're going to reach net
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: zero by 2050, which raises the question, Michael, what happens
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: to Australian food production when farmland is increasingly worth more
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: as a carbon asset than as farmland?
• 14:41
  Speaker 6: They've got rocks in their head.
• 14:42
  Speaker 7: That's really one policy I do support One Nation on,
• 14:45
  Speaker 7: and that's abolishing all of these departments.
• 14:48
  Speaker 6: Anybody that comes up with a policy.
• 14:50
  Speaker 7: that says that you don't use a market mechanism, albeit
• 14:53
  Speaker 7: a flawed one in terms of the carbon credits, rather
• 14:56
  Speaker 7: you go out and you buy farmland and you put,
• 15:00
  Speaker 7: you know, turbines on it, has got no idea of
• 15:03
  Speaker 7: what our economic future requires.
• 15:05
  Speaker 6: You know, we're suffering from an economic malaise and these
• 15:09
  Speaker 6: people are making it worse and worse with these sort of,
• 15:12
  Speaker 6: you know, harebrained schemes that are just reckless. And again,
• 15:15
  Speaker 6: I'll use the word reckless.
• 15:17
  Speaker 7: Everything this government does and its authorities is reckless, destroying
• 15:21
  Speaker 7: our economy.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: And Cameron, what happens when farmers decide, you know what,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: growing food is actually a whole lot of work for
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: not a huge return. I'd be better off selling my
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: property so they can put trees on it to get
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: their carbon credits. I mean, the government loves to talk
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: about national security. This is a major security issue, is
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: it not? It involves food. Oh, absolutely.
• 15:44
  Speaker 8: It's all about our food security. But this situation is
• 15:46
  Speaker 8: a national scandal, a national scandal. We have a farm
• 15:50
  Speaker 8: in Tasmania that's been producing for years that's been sold
• 15:54
  Speaker 8: for $ 140 million, $ 70 million worth of taxpayers' money went
• 15:57
  Speaker 8: into that deal to stack it up for a US-based
• 16:00
  Speaker 8: hedge fund.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's the disgrace.
• 16:02
  Speaker 8: And not only that, they're going to plant trees on
• 16:04
  Speaker 8: it where cattle used to be and where sheep used
• 16:06
  Speaker 8: to be. And they didn't have to pay for the
• 16:08
  Speaker 8: trees because Bowen gave them $ 8.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: 8 million to.
• 16:10
  Speaker 8: Plant the trees for free. I mean, it's a scandal,
• 16:13
  Speaker 8: an absolute scandal, James. And I commend the Tasmanian Premier
• 16:16
  Speaker 8: for actually calling an inquiry and a stop to this crazy,
• 16:20
  Speaker 8: crazy climate actions.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: All right. I want to ask you about Penny Wong,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: who's been called indulgent after it was revealed a quiet
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: change to government payrolls could mean that Penny Wong will
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: receive the Prime Minister's salary while he's away in the
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Pacific Islands. It amounts to about an extra $ 1, 900 for
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: four days, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. Michael, is
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: that fair enough that she should get that while she's
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: filling in for the PM as he's overseas?
• 16:47
  Speaker 7: Well, I'm not a fan of Penny Wong, as you know,
• 16:50
  Speaker 7: but I wouldn't blame her for this. I think that
• 16:52
  Speaker 7: this is a policy that's more generalised than that. And
• 16:55
  Speaker 7: I think the Prime Minister's got to step up and
• 16:57
  Speaker 7: show some leadership and and put a stop to it.
• 17:00
  Speaker 6: You know, the fact is that cost of living pressures
• 17:03
  Speaker 6: are real.
• 17:04
  Speaker 7: It's all very well for him to get up at
• 17:05
  Speaker 7: a Labor Party conference and talk about how he's, you know,
• 17:08
  Speaker 7: trying to solve all of these problems and all the
• 17:10
  Speaker 7: great actions. But symbolism is important too in this environment
• 17:13
  Speaker 7: and the symbolism of this is appalling.
• 17:16
  Speaker 6: He needs to take action immediately to stop it.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: And that's the problem, isn't it, Cameron? It's very hard
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: to argue on the one hand, you know, I hear you,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: I get your struggles, as he said to people in
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: rural communities at the Bush Summit the other day, I
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: get it, he said, and yet you've got this going
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: on at the same time.
• 17:34
  Speaker 8: Well, actions speak louder than words, don't they, James? I mean,
• 17:38
  Speaker 8: that's the reality. I mean, this is a situation where
• 17:40
  Speaker 8: no wonder One Nation's doing so well when Penny Wong,
• 17:43
  Speaker 8: like every other politician in Canberra, has got a snout
• 17:45
  Speaker 8: in the trough. Snout in the trough for more for her.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: I mean, this is appalling.
• 17:49
  Speaker 8: To your point, Michael, it's an honour to step up
• 17:51
  Speaker 8: to be Acting Prime Minister. You shouldn't need more money
• 17:53
  Speaker 8: to do it. You should actually take the honour and
• 17:54
  Speaker 8: do it properly. But, no, that's the problem with the
• 17:56
  Speaker 8: politicians in Canberra and that's why One Nation's doing so
• 17:58
  Speaker 8: well because voters out there under pressure are disgusted with
• 18:02
  Speaker 8: politicians with their snout in the trough.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Now, I'll have much more on this later in the
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: show with Leith Van Onselen, but Jim Chalmers today, he
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: talked about Australia's GDP growing by 0.4% in the June quarter,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: which was higher than expected, though only slightly. Inflation is
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: still a big problem. The RBA is still tipped to
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: hike interest rates again at its next meeting. But Jim Chalmers, well,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: he wants you to believe it's sunshine and lollipops.
• 18:27
  Speaker 10: This is a robust result in really challenging international circumstances.
• 18:32
  Speaker 10: The Australian economy is robust.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Michael, are you feeling robust and resilient right now?
• 18:38
  Speaker 7: Well, you know why I call him Baghdad Bob Chalmers.
• 18:42
  Speaker 6: He's done it again. I mean, you know, things are burning,
• 18:45
  Speaker 6: you know, but he's out there spinning it.
• 18:47
  Speaker 7: Look, he's economically illiterate and financially an ignoramus. There's no
• 18:52
  Speaker 7: question about that. And every time he gets up, especially
• 18:55
  Speaker 7: in recent times and says things like that, You know,
• 18:58
  Speaker 7: anybody that knows anything about the area knows that he
• 19:01
  Speaker 7: doesn't know what he's talking about. Those figures today... were
• 19:04
  Speaker 7: appalling in terms of the inflation fight. I mean, the
• 19:07
  Speaker 7: RBA looks silly as well. You know, it looks like
• 19:09
  Speaker 7: it's trying to stop a runaway train with a handbrake.
• 19:12
  Speaker 7: It needs to put the air brakes on and stop
• 19:14
  Speaker 7: the train. I mean, the productivity figures were a disgrace.
• 19:18
  Speaker 7: You know, we've got negative productivity. Real labour costs have
• 19:22
  Speaker 7: gone up. So, you know, you can see the combination
• 19:25
  Speaker 7: of that means that we're tremendously uncompetitive in a competitive world.
• 19:29
  Speaker 6: And on top of that, business investments collapsed. I mean,
• 19:32
  Speaker 6: those figures were disastrous. He can spin all he likes,
• 19:35
  Speaker 6: but he's going nowhere.
• 19:37
  Speaker 7: He's doing a sort of burnout that nobody is interested
• 19:40
  Speaker 7: in watching the proceeds of.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Indeed. Michael and Cameron, I appreciate you joining me tonight.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much. We're going to go to a break,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: but stick around. I'll fact check the teachers. who've claimed
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: kids are not being indoctrinated with woke ideology in our classrooms. Plus,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: Australia's Race Discrimination Commissioner blames the rise of parties like
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: One Nation for racist social media posts. Don't go anywhere.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: Rowan Dean is up next. Well, teachers and their unions
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: have denied Pauline Hanson's claims that they're indoctrinating our kids.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: So I guess that settles it then. We can all
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: relax while little Johnny goes off to indoctrination camp. Sorry,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: I mean school. Because radicalising kids for the pro-Palestinian cause
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: definitely isn't indoctrinating them. No, no, that's just geography class
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: with a little mayonnaise added. And scaring the wits out
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: of children with apocalyptic predictions about climate change? Well, that's
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: not indoctrinating kids either. That's just emotional enrichment. What about
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: teaching five-year-olds that they might have been born in the
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: wrong body? Hey, it happens. And explaining it to the
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: kiddies isn't indoctrination. No, no. Think of it as kindergarten
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: with a side of metaphysics. Now, some people might argue
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: that teaching the kids to be ashamed of their Australian
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: heritage is a step too far. But is it? Teaching
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: the kids to feel guilty for things they never did
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: to people they never met could just as easily be
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: seen as a way of expanding their horizons. And as
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: for the existence of government-funded organisations like Our Watch, which
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: has encouraged teachers in one of its guides to, quote,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: provide opportunities for men and boys to explore and reflect
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: upon their personal male privilege and power, well, that's just
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: boys being boys. Joining me now is Rowan Dean, host
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: of Outsiders at 9am every Sunday and The World According
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: to Rowan Dean on Fridays at 7pm. Rowan, the Australian
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Education Union says there's nothing at all to see here.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Are they right?
• 21:39
  Speaker 5: It's hilarious, James, and well done for running through all
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: those things that every parent and grandparent.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: Would have been sitting there listening to you going.
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: Yep, and that's exactly what's happening to my kids or
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: grandkids everywhere.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: At school. And the real tragedy, of course, the teachers.
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: Union are going to say there's no indoctrination going on
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: because the teachers union themselves are so thoroughly indoctrinated that
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: if you're indoctrinated, it doesn't look like indoctrination. So there's
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: not much light to be shed there. But the proof
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: of the pudding is in the eating, of course. And
• 22:15
  Speaker 5: our If the kids aren't being indoctrinated in school, then
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: what are they learning?
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: Because it certainly ain't the three R's. It certainly ain't history.
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: It certainly ain't geography or geology or important sciences. So
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: you only have to look at the results from around
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: the world. Australia used to have one of the top
• 22:36
  Speaker 5: results performing education results for kids and for young kids
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: and high school kids. In the world, we were right
• 22:44
  Speaker 5: at the top of the leagues going back to the
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: 70s and 80s.
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: Now we're right down the bottom of.
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: The leagues, famously well below Uzbekistan and places like that. Meanwhile, Singapore,
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: you know, sails way past us and other Asian nations
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: right at the top because they value.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: A sound education. So our kids aren't getting a sound education.
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: That's clear.
• 23:05
  Speaker 5: They're being taught something. And we know what it is
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: because we hear it from the mouths of babes. We
• 23:09
  Speaker 5: hear about climate change. We hear about racism. We hear
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: about white supremacy, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Um,
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: but what is, um, uh, you, you showed a clip,
• 23:19
  Speaker 5: a little, a headline there from Bella Debrera, who was
• 23:22
  Speaker 5: a great researcher into this whole subject. And she wrote
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: a book recently called mindless. And it is precisely about
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: this topic. Uh, She couldn't get it into public libraries.
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: They didn't want to know. And so maybe we could
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: ask the teachers union if they could take Bella de
• 23:40
  Speaker 5: Brera's book and put it into all the school libraries
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: And the school kids can then all read Bella Debrera's
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: book about indoctrination and then they can decide for themselves
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: whether or not they're being indoctrinated.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: How about we try that, teachers union?
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Ever the optimist, Rowan Dean. I love it. Pauline Hanson
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: has encouraged parents to confront the principal of the school
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: and drag their kids out of the school if they're
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: teaching left-wing ideology. What I found curious was the union
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: said that Pauline Hanson is inciting violence.
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: Well, this is ridiculous. I mean, absolutely ridiculous.
• 24:17
  Speaker 5: Pauline Hanson is quite right to say that parents who
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: are disgruntled with little Johnny coming or little Mary coming
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: home from school, believing they're in the wrong body or
• 24:27
  Speaker 5: whatever else it is, to confront the teachers. Now, of course,
• 24:32
  Speaker 5: the reason in the leftist mindset, this is very revealing, James,
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: in the leftist mindset or in a normal mindset to
• 24:39
  Speaker 5: confront means to stand in front of and have a
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: conversation with someone and talk to them and exchange ideas
• 24:45
  Speaker 5: and reach an agreement. That's the normal meaning of confront.
• 24:49
  Speaker 5: But in the leftist mindset, confront means you don't agree
• 24:52
  Speaker 5: with me, I'm going to punch you in the face
• 24:54
  Speaker 5: and I'm going to hit you and I'm going to
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: trample all over you and scream abuse at you and
• 24:58
  Speaker 5: trample all over you and grind you into dust. That's
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: how the left confronts. The left confronts with violence, with
• 25:04
  Speaker 5: name calling, with smearing, and we've seen that repeatedly. So
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: for the unions to think, well, Pauline Hanson saying confront teachers,
• 25:13
  Speaker 5: that must be a violent thing. That's their mindset. That's
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: in their mindset. But to normal people, and most Australians
• 25:19
  Speaker 5: are normal people, and that's why more and more of
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: them are, in the opinion polls, turning towards One Nation,
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: is because we should have the autonomy as parents and
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: grandparents to to be.
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: Able to say to the schools that we.
• 25:33
  Speaker 5: Fund and the teachers whose salaries we pay are actually
• 25:37
  Speaker 5: not really happy with the way we're convincing our kids
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: that the planet's about to explode in some fiery ball
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: because of the farting cows down the road.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: Or because we've.
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: Got a car in the garage. So we should be
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: able to confront our education teachers. We shouldn't be leaving
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: it to the left-wing unions. We should be standing up
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: and saying, this is not good enough. I want my
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: kid to learn the history of Australia.
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: And be proud of that history.
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: I want my kids to be absolutely, you know, fluent
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: in a couple of languages. I want my kids to
• 26:08
  Speaker 5: understand maths and geology and and geography and proper science,
• 26:13
  Speaker 5: not voodoo science where the Fijian waters are lapping at
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: the legs of Chris Bowen.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: I would have thought if you're a parent, you have
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: a responsibility to confront the school administration if your child
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: is being taught, you know, radical gender theory or whatever.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: I want to ask you about Australia's Race Discrimination Commissioner.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: He's become the latest government figure to link the conservative
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: right to racism. He was reacting to racist comments posted
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: about Australians missing in Nepal because of the flood disaster,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: some of which suggested that missing citizens aren't Australians because
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: they aren't white. Here's what he told The Guardian. He said,''
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: They' re saying you don't deserve to be seen as Australian
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: and that's amplified by the rhetoric of far-right populist parties.''
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: We should be very concerned because it's indicative of a
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: real rise in white supremacy ideology. Now, Rowan, some of
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: the comments that people have made have been pretty disgraceful.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: But is the race commissioner right to seemingly link that
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: to One Nation?
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: No, this bloke is a repeat offender. This guy is
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: a kind of truffle hound for racism. He sniffs around
• 27:24
  Speaker 5: looking for it wherever he can find it. And of course, yeah, newsflash,
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: the internet's pretty ugly. People say some pretty nasty things.
• 27:32
  Speaker 5: I know you know that, James, and I know I
• 27:34
  Speaker 5: know that, and many people do know that. Not because
• 27:37
  Speaker 5: we're writing it, but because we're on the receiving end
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: of it repeatedly every single day. So, yes, newsflash, the
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: internet is pretty ugly, particularly when you drill down into
• 27:47
  Speaker 5: comments on this or that.
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: That's irrelevant. That's up to the person.
• 27:52
  Speaker 5: That has nothing to do with the broader issue of Australia,
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: which is the least racist country I've certainly ever lived in,
• 28:01
  Speaker 5: A country that is so willing to accept people and
• 28:05
  Speaker 5: creeds and people from all over the planet and absorb
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: them into.
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: The Australian monoculture. There, I said it. That is the
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: real Australia.
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: So this guy and others like him who wander around
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: desperately looking for racism wherever they can find it, here's
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: a little bit of a clue for you.
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: Why wasn't the.
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: Race Discrimination Commissioner at the Royal Commission into Anti-Semitism and
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: Social Cohesion, why wasn't he there talking about the racism
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: that is absolutely inherent in many of the teachings that
• 28:36
  Speaker 5: go on in Islamic, radical Islamic places or even Islamic places,
• 28:41
  Speaker 5: where the teachings are clearly racist because they are aimed
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: at denigrating Jews and other people of other religions and races.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: So where was he then?
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: Nowhere to be seen that I'm aware of. This is
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: why we have... There's no point having things like a
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: race discrimination commissioner or a sex discrimination commissioner who thinks
• 29:00
  Speaker 5: that men can get pregnant if all they are doing
• 29:02
  Speaker 5: is spouting left-wing ideology. If these institutions are to have
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: any use, they must be there in a non-ideological way
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: and be able to actually look at things realistically. If
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: you want to look at the real issue of race
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: in Australia, sure, there are questions to be asked. and
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: many of them are in areas that the left refuses
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: to touch.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're absolutely spot on again, Rowan Dean. That's why
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: I love you. Thanks so much for coming on the program.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: All right, stick around. We're going to go to a break,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: but when we come back, more on Jim Chalmers. Rosie
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Reid of The Economy will bring you what the latest
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: fiscal figures actually say about the state of the nation.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: with economist Leith Van Onselen. That's next. Now, you might
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: not have been, but Treasurer Jim Chalmers was upbeat today.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: While you were either struggling to find rent money or
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: wondering where all the value in your home had disappeared to,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: he was filming selfie videos about how great everything is.
• 29:59
  Speaker 10: Hi everyone, the national accounts just came out. The national
• 30:02
  Speaker 10: accounts show that our economy is quite resilient and robust
• 30:06
  Speaker 10: in the face of everything that's coming at us from
• 30:08
  Speaker 10: around the world. In fact, growth is as strong if
• 30:12
  Speaker 10: not stronger than every major advanced economy. The private sector
• 30:15
  Speaker 10: is leading that growth, not public spending. Dwelling investment is up.
• 30:20
  Speaker 10: Spending on EVs is up because of what's happening in
• 30:22
  Speaker 10: the Middle East. The wages numbers are up again as well.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Robust and resilient. Is that how you're feeling? I love
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: how he's excited that spending on electric vehicles is up.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: How does that help average Joe trying to pay for
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: his groceries? But my favourite part was this last bit.
• 30:40
  Speaker 10: Now, we know there's much more work to do. We
• 30:42
  Speaker 10: know that people are still under pressure. We also know
• 30:45
  Speaker 10: that some will go to any lengths to talk down
• 30:47
  Speaker 10: the Australian economy and Australia more broadly.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: In other words, anyone who says anything negative about how
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: negative everything is, in spite of all his positivity, is
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: just being negative. Joining me now is Macro Business Chief Economist,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Leith Van Onselen. Leith, the Treasurer pains to use the
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: term robust and resilient. He used it several times in
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: his press conference today to describe the economy. Is that
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: an accurate description of where things stand?
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: Absolutely not.
• 31:13
  Speaker 11: Spin Jim also said, as we just heard, that Australia's
• 31:16
  Speaker 11: growth is stronger than every major advanced economy, and that's
• 31:19
  Speaker 11: highly misleading. Australia's growth is only stronger because we have
• 31:22
  Speaker 11: by far the strongest population growth in the advanced world.
• 31:25
  Speaker 11: And the measure that matters most to us as Australians
• 31:28
  Speaker 11: is per capita GDP, and that's fallen by 0.3% since
• 31:32
  Speaker 11: the Albanese government came to office in mid-2022. And here's
• 31:35
  Speaker 11: the thing, Australia's per capita GDP growth since Labor came
• 31:39
  Speaker 11: to office has also underperformed pretty much every other advanced economy.
• 31:43
  Speaker 11: It's coming below the US, the Eurozone, Japan, Canada, the
• 31:47
  Speaker 11: United Kingdom and even New Zealand. So it is not robust.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: The other thing that was shown today is that productivity
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: has pretty much stagnated in this country.
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely.
• 31:58
  Speaker 11: So that's been a major problem for Australia for a
• 32:01
  Speaker 11: long time. Over the past decade, Australia's had amongst the
• 32:05
  Speaker 11: lowest productivity growth in the advanced world. And that's the
• 32:08
  Speaker 11: fundamental reason why our per capita GDP growth is also
• 32:12
  Speaker 11: amongst the poorest in the advanced world. Ultimately, productivity growth
• 32:16
  Speaker 11: is what grows per capita GDP. It's also what grows
• 32:18
  Speaker 11: living standards. And unfortunately, without productivity growth, we aren't going
• 32:22
  Speaker 11: to grow.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: You mentioned immigration just a moment ago. Where would we
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: be if it weren't for the population growth we've seen
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: primarily through immigration?
• 32:31
  Speaker 11: Well, yeah, so without immigration, Australia's overall GDP growth would
• 32:35
  Speaker 11: match its per capita growth, which is, as I've just said,
• 32:37
  Speaker 11: ranks amongst the poorest in the OECD. And the reality
• 32:41
  Speaker 11: is that high immigrations is what's growing the overall economic pie,
• 32:45
  Speaker 11: but everyone's slice of the pie has actually shrunk. And
• 32:48
  Speaker 11: I think this is partly why Aussies are feeling so
• 32:50
  Speaker 11: angry at the moment, because their living standards are declining.
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: It's as simple as that.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: So how do we turn this around? The government's got themselves...
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: into a kind of a death spiral. How do they
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: get out of this?
• 33:03
  Speaker 11: Yeah, look, the only way you can turn this around
• 33:05
  Speaker 11: is to boost productivity growth. And so without higher productivity growth,
• 33:11
  Speaker 11: you can't get higher growth in per capita GDP, living standards,
• 33:15
  Speaker 11: real wages, all that sort of thing. And what the
• 33:18
  Speaker 11: federal government really needs to do is run a sensible
• 33:20
  Speaker 11: energy policy that prioritise cost and reliability over net zero
• 33:24
  Speaker 11: and those sorts of things. We need to run a
• 33:25
  Speaker 11: smaller and better targeted migration system We need to run
• 33:29
  Speaker 11: a significantly tighter federal budget that minimises waste. And we
• 33:33
  Speaker 11: also need to reform the tax system along the lines
• 33:35
  Speaker 11: of the Henry Tax Review. If you do those four things,
• 33:38
  Speaker 11: we will get higher productivity growth and we'll get higher
• 33:40
  Speaker 11: living standards.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: One of the problems I see with what you've just said,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, you mentioned immigration. That's an ideological... position for
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: this Labor government. You mentioned energy. Again, that's an ideological
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: position that they've got. So what hope that we turn
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: the economy around when you've got the government running the
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: economy through ideological glasses?
• 34:01
  Speaker 11: Yeah, look, to be honest with you, I'm not very hopeful.
• 34:03
  Speaker 11: I think that Australia is going to be stuck in
• 34:05
  Speaker 11: a stagflationary mess for a long time, whereby we have
• 34:08
  Speaker 11: chronically low GDP growth and very poor per capita growth.
• 34:12
  Speaker 11: and also higher inflation. So, you know, the fact of
• 34:15
  Speaker 11: the matter is, if we don't boost our productivity, our
• 34:19
  Speaker 11: productivity growth, we are going to stagnate like we have
• 34:22
  Speaker 11: really over the last decade.
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: It's as simple as that.
• 34:24
  Speaker 11: And unfortunately, I think most of the government's policies are
• 34:26
  Speaker 11: actually counterproductive in this area.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about property because the
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: property market is getting worse. Prices across our five largest
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: cities are down 3.8% in the last quarter, with Sydney
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: and Melbourne bearing most of the brunt of that fall.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: The decline from the property market's most recent peak is
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: now 4.8%. That's the decline, with Sydney's total losses sitting
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: at more than 7%. How much of the national property
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: price slump would you blame on Labor's budget tax reforms?
• 34:56
  Speaker 11: Yeah, so far, I'd probably blame about half of it.
• 34:58
  Speaker 11: So the market was already turning down following the Reserve
• 35:01
  Speaker 11: Bank of Australia's three rate hikes. But the federal budget's
• 35:04
  Speaker 11: changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax certainly have
• 35:07
  Speaker 11: exacerbated the fall.
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: So I'd say probably about half so far.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: And talk to me about how the housing crisis created
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: by Canberra is likely to have direct effects on state
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: government budgets. Can you explain that to me? Because I
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: don't think state premiers are going to be particularly happy
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: about the way things are going either.
• 35:25
  Speaker 11: Absolutely not. So state budgets are highly reliant on stamp
• 35:27
  Speaker 11: duty receipts. So for example, 17% of Victoria's revenues come
• 35:30
  Speaker 11: from stamp duties. The number's about 16% in New South Wales,
• 35:33
  Speaker 11: about 15% in Queensland. So what we've seen is we've
• 35:37
  Speaker 11: obviously got lower prices, but the bigger impact is actually
• 35:39
  Speaker 11: sales volumes. So sales volumes have fallen by about one third.
• 35:43
  Speaker 11: And this means that state budgets are going to lose
• 35:45
  Speaker 11: billions of dollars in stamp duty at the same time
• 35:47
  Speaker 11: as their debt levels are surging. And as a result,
• 35:49
  Speaker 11: some state governments are going to face credit rating downgrades
• 35:51
  Speaker 11: and they're going to face higher interest on their debt.
• 35:54
  Speaker 11: So really, this is the funny thing about it. The
• 35:57
  Speaker 11: federal budget did these changes in negative guarantee capital gains
• 35:59
  Speaker 11: tax to basically boost federal revenues. But at the same time,
• 36:03
  Speaker 11: they've actually, that's going to reduce state government revenues. So
• 36:07
  Speaker 11: I think the states are going to be pretty unhappy
• 36:08
  Speaker 11: about the situation.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: I was hoping you'd give me some good news, Leith.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: Have you got anything that could cheer me up and
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: make me feel a little bit better? Yeah, not really.
• 36:18
  Speaker 11: Unfortunately, you know, I've got to say, unfortunately, we are
• 36:21
  Speaker 11: ruled by clowns in this country across a whole bunch
• 36:25
  Speaker 11: of levels of government. I live in Victoria, which is,
• 36:27
  Speaker 11: you know, let's be honest, it's almost a failed state
• 36:30
  Speaker 11: at this point. And then obviously we have the clowns
• 36:32
  Speaker 11: in Canberra. So the bottom line here is if we
• 36:35
  Speaker 11: don't boost our productivity growth, if we don't run tighter budgets,
• 36:38
  Speaker 11: if we don't fix the energy policy mess, if we
• 36:40
  Speaker 11: don't run a more sustainable and better targeted immigration system
• 36:44
  Speaker 11: and all these sorts of things, Our living standards are
• 36:46
  Speaker 11: not going to improve. And if we continue like this
• 36:49
  Speaker 11: for another couple of decades, we're going to be Argentina.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: It's as simple as that.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: Well, let's hope we don't end up there, although they've
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: now got a decent conservative government who are starting to
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: turn things around. So you always hold on to hope. Leith,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: appreciate you joining me. Thanks so much. Stick around after
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: the break. Victorian Premier Ben Carroll denies he's planning to
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: raise the age of criminal responsibility from 12 to 14.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: But do we really believe him? Plus the ABC accused
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: of bias again, this time appearing to racialise a strip
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: search lawsuit. That's next with my panel. Welcome back to
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: the program. Now, I'm tempted to say that a plan
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: by Victorian Premier Ben Carroll to raise the age of
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: criminal responsibility would be just another nail in his government's coffin.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: But I can't say that because there are now more
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: nails than coffin surface area when it comes to the
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: Victorian Labor Government. According to a document published and then
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: hastily removed from the internet, Labor would lift the age
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: of criminal responsibility from 12 to 14 if re-elected in November. Now,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: why would they do that? Well, I can think of
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: two reasons, one ideological and one practical. Ideologically, the left
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: don't believe a 12 or a 13-year-old has the maturity.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: or cognitive ability to be criminally responsible. In other words,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: they're smart enough to know they're the wrong gender, but
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: not smart enough to know that hacking at someone with
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: a machete is problematic. Practically speaking, raising the age of
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: criminal responsibility would help clean up crime in the crime-riddled state.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: According to police figures for the year to March, young
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: people were responsible for 60% of all robberies, 55% of carjackings, 49%
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: of home invasions and 48% of aggravated burglaries. So how
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: do you clean up all that crime? Well, if you
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: can't be a criminal until the age of 14... a
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: lot of that crime disappears. And here's the best part.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: Labor wouldn't need to employ even one extra copper to
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: get those crime stats down, which means they'd have more
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: money for the CFMEU. Joining me now is the panel,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: Gemma Tongnyini of GT Communications and News24 contributor Caroline de Russo. Ladies,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: when Ben Carroll was questioned about this today, he said,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: that's just Labor state policy. And just because he'd written
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: a glowing endorsement of the Labor state policy doesn't mean
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: he's actually going to do it. Caroline, you're very au
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: fait with politicians. Do you believe anything this guy says?
• 39:23
  Speaker 12: No, and you used the word nailing coffin. I would
• 39:26
  Speaker 12: have gone with shooting your proverbial off because in Victoria...
• 39:30
  Speaker 12: you have got absolutely rampant crime and particularly youth crime
• 39:35
  Speaker 12: when you have got such a significant issue that is central,
• 39:41
  Speaker 12: you know, to the politics of the day and to
• 39:43
  Speaker 12: an election campaign. something like that, and you've explained the
• 39:46
  Speaker 12: ideological and the practical perfectly, that is going to set Victorians.
• 39:54
  Speaker 12: They're going to just... They're going to go bonkers because
• 39:57
  Speaker 12: people know that they are not safe in their own homes.
• 40:00
  Speaker 12: People are having to hire private security. And if you're
• 40:03
  Speaker 12: just going to say, oh, well, look... it's actually just
• 40:06
  Speaker 12: not a crime anymore, it's a whoopsie-daisy and it improves
• 40:11
  Speaker 12: our figures and we just dolly up the numbers. But
• 40:14
  Speaker 12: everyone knows that no one is getting safer. That is
• 40:18
  Speaker 12: going to cause a real problem electorally. For the Labor Party,
• 40:22
  Speaker 12: it does cause a problem because unlike the Liberal Party,
• 40:24
  Speaker 12: the organisation of the Labor Party binds the parliamentary team.
• 40:29
  Speaker 12: So it's a lot more difficult for the parliamentary team
• 40:33
  Speaker 12: to develop policy of their own that isn't necessarily, you know,
• 40:38
  Speaker 12: rubber stamped by the organisation. So they've got a structural
• 40:41
  Speaker 12: issue there as well, James.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: But he can say that, oh, it's just this, it's
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: just that.
• 40:46
  Speaker 12: But if anyone knows it's on the books, chances are
• 40:50
  Speaker 12: if they get back in, they'll be telling everyone they
• 40:52
  Speaker 12: got a mandate to do it.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: Well, Gemma, progressives are soft on crime ultimately because they
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: operate from a different worldview, right? It's the system, not
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: the individual. We need to rehabilitate, not punish. It's just
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: not in their DNA, no matter what they say, to
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: be tough on crime.
• 41:09
  Speaker 13: I think that's objectively true, but if I might just...
• 41:13
  Speaker 13: position myself as a contrarian for a moment, just for
• 41:16
  Speaker 13: the sake of keeping it real and a little bit
• 41:19
  Speaker 13: spicy on our panel tonight, James. I do wonder what
• 41:26
  Speaker 13: we are doing to fail so consistently, generations, and there
• 41:30
  Speaker 13: are a myriad of reasons for that. One of them
• 41:32
  Speaker 13: is absolutely the the way the court system and the
• 41:36
  Speaker 13: justice system responds to serious crime, i.e. too softly. There's
• 41:42
  Speaker 13: no doubt that they're responding too softly to crime. You
• 41:45
  Speaker 13: can do whatever in Victoria and walk away on bail,
• 41:48
  Speaker 13: it would seem, from all of the evidence. But in
• 41:50
  Speaker 13: addition to that, As a society, we're judged by how
• 41:55
  Speaker 13: we raise our children collectively. And again, there are individual circumstances.
• 42:00
  Speaker 13: I don't believe that you should be raising the age
• 42:03
  Speaker 13: of criminality by any stretch. But I also believe it's
• 42:06
  Speaker 13: more complicated and more complex a problem to truly get
• 42:11
  Speaker 13: to the bottom of than just saying lock a bunch
• 42:14
  Speaker 13: of kids up for longer so that they can be
• 42:16
  Speaker 13: in the system and further corrupted, for want of a
• 42:20
  Speaker 13: better word. There has to be broad change. There has
• 42:24
  Speaker 13: to be a range of issues. And it has to
• 42:26
  Speaker 13: start with there being... real consequences for the things that
• 42:30
  Speaker 13: these kids are doing because otherwise how will they learn
• 42:33
  Speaker 13: if there are no consequences there's no change that's the
• 42:36
  Speaker 13: first thing all of those other things get treated as
• 42:39
  Speaker 13: cosmetics they're not cosmetics they're actually mission critical to having
• 42:43
  Speaker 13: a society where a kid doesn't come up and go
• 42:45
  Speaker 13: you know what i might just take a machete and
• 42:47
  Speaker 13: go stab at that person because whatever reasons are going
• 42:51
  Speaker 13: on in this on the sidelines I think it's a
• 42:53
  Speaker 13: variety of things too complex to tease out in the
• 42:55
  Speaker 13: next six minutes before the program ends. But I just
• 42:58
  Speaker 13: want to say from my perspective, at least, it's not
• 43:01
  Speaker 13: as simple as going we need to be tougher on crime.
• 43:03
  Speaker 13: That is one prong to this wheel.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're absolutely right. And if we had six months
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: to unpack all the other stuff, we could probably fix it.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: I want to ask you both about this ABC headline.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: It said, Aboriginal woman suing ACT government over illegal strip
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: search that breached her human rights. I read that and
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: I just wondered why the ABC felt it necessary to
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: tell us the woman at the centre of this story
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: is Aboriginal. A court found the woman had been strip
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: searched illegally. Now she's suing for compo. But there's no
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: suggestion anywhere in the story. And I read it three
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: times that her race had anything to do with what
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: had happened. So why put Aboriginal front and centre? Caroline?
• 43:48
  Speaker 12: Because, again, people are obsessed with talking about the way
• 43:52
  Speaker 12: that we treat Indigenous people in custody. And the fact
• 43:55
  Speaker 12: of the matter is it doesn't matter what her race was.
• 43:59
  Speaker 12: If how she was dealt with within the system was
• 44:02
  Speaker 12: a breach of her human rights, it actually doesn't matter.
• 44:05
  Speaker 12: You know, and again... I know that we have to
• 44:09
  Speaker 12: have things set up a certain way in custody so
• 44:12
  Speaker 12: that everything can function. But if it's not good enough
• 44:15
  Speaker 12: to treat an Indigenous woman that way, it's not good
• 44:18
  Speaker 12: enough to treat a woman of any other race that way. Unfortunately,
• 44:22
  Speaker 12: places like the ABC, they love those concepts, those inherent concepts,
• 44:29
  Speaker 12: whether it's gender, whether it's race, whether it's whatever it is,
• 44:33
  Speaker 12: that there is the prism through which they see the world,
• 44:36
  Speaker 12: those subjective things, rather than objectively, do you treat a
• 44:38
  Speaker 12: human this way, yes or no?
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you raise a really good point because, you know,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: Aboriginal woman illegally strip searched, if that had happened to
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: any woman, regardless of the colour of her skin, her
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: ethnic background, it would have been wrong. She would deserve compensation. Gemma,
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: is it an insult to all women when they make
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: it about the race of a particular woman, as if
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: that's the central crime here?
• 45:04
  Speaker 13: Personally, I don't think so. But I will give you
• 45:07
  Speaker 13: a great example that reiterates what you're saying. So I've
• 45:10
  Speaker 13: worked in newsrooms, as you both know, over many years,
• 45:12
  Speaker 13: not for a long time, but over many years. And
• 45:14
  Speaker 13: I can tell you that when a person is charged
• 45:17
  Speaker 13: with a crime, for example, I mean, I last worked
• 45:20
  Speaker 13: in news 20 years ago, but people, it was very
• 45:22
  Speaker 13: discouraged and various newsrooms have editorial direction on various things.
• 45:27
  Speaker 13: And You won't find the ABC, for example, saying an
• 45:32
  Speaker 13: African or a Somalian child in Melbourne was caught with
• 45:36
  Speaker 13: a machete. They will say a teenager or a 20
• 45:39
  Speaker 13: year old. They won't talk about race in that context,
• 45:41
  Speaker 13: but they will talk about race and ethnicity in this context.
• 45:44
  Speaker 13: So for me, the bigger dilemma for the ABC, amongst
• 45:47
  Speaker 13: many others that we could talk about for six months,
• 45:49
  Speaker 13: is this double standard. It's pick a horse and ride it.
• 45:52
  Speaker 13: Either ethnicity and race matters or it doesn't at all.
• 45:56
  Speaker 13: And that's where I'm coming from in this.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you raise a really, really good point. All right,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: in the time we've got left, do you guys remember
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: the Victorian Labor politician who said a lot of Victorians
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: love potholes? Here's a reminder.
• 46:10
  Speaker 13: It's the residents who don't want it resealed because they
• 46:12
  Speaker 13: don't like traffic going down it, so they're quite happy
• 46:14
  Speaker 13: to have it.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: Full of potholes. Well, Sonia Terpstra has just posted this
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: message on X. She wrote, Someone said to me once
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: that being an MP isn't a real job. Dunno, but
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: it looks pretty real to me. And here's the video
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: she posted to prove her point. Caroline does the video
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: make the argument?
• 46:50
  Speaker 12: No, the video argues the complete opposite.
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: Look, it is a.
• 46:56
  Speaker 12: Actually, it's a service to community. I think that's the
• 46:59
  Speaker 12: most important thing. It should be seen as a vocation
• 47:02
  Speaker 12: and as a privilege and as a service to the
• 47:04
  Speaker 12: community rather than necessarily just a job. But when you're
• 47:09
  Speaker 12: going to put that sort of carry-on attached to try
• 47:14
  Speaker 12: and make your argument, you are going to fail as
• 47:16
  Speaker 12: dismally as suggesting that people like potholes.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: Gemma, she seems to be her own worst enemy, this MP.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: Everything she does just becomes fodder for comedy.
• 47:29
  Speaker 13: Well, even if it was funny, maybe you could forgive
• 47:32
  Speaker 13: a little bit of it, but it's so insulting. It's
• 47:34
  Speaker 13: so insulting to everyday Australians who are looking at their bills,
• 47:39
  Speaker 13: who are seeing members of governments, which are predominantly Labor
• 47:43
  Speaker 13: in this country, squandering taxes and doing whatever.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: That twaddle was.
• 47:47
  Speaker 13: I mean, that's up there with Annika Wells and those
• 47:49
  Speaker 13: ridiculous plastic smushy things or whatever they are from Woolworths.
• 47:52
  Speaker 13: I mean, we're governed by clowns and simpletons, it would seem.
• 47:57
  Speaker 13: And I feel like that is one of the most,
• 47:59
  Speaker 13: I would like to thank that minister or that member
• 48:02
  Speaker 13: of parliament for her unintended validation. We all know what
• 48:05
  Speaker 13: you're doing and it's not very much. And even that
• 48:08
  Speaker 13: you're not doing well. So I can't wait to see
• 48:10
  Speaker 13: her lose her seat.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: I hope she does.
• 48:12
  Speaker 13: She doesn't deserve to serve the people of Victoria.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: Indeed. Gemma and Caroline, thanks for joining me. And, Caroline,
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: shout-out to you for getting whoopsie-daisy two weeks in a row.
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: Flash of hands.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: I look forward to next Wednesday. If you can do
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: it three in a row, special prize for you. Thanks
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: to you both. Excellent.
• 48:28
  Speaker 6: I'll do my best.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Thanks to all of you at home for
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: tuning in. I'll see you again tomorrow night. Don't go anywhere.
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: Right now, here is Shari Markson.