Latest / The Rita Panahi Show / The Rita Panahi Show | 15 October

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The Rita Panahi Show | 15 October · The Rita Panahi Show

0:02
Speaker 1: Starting right now, The Reto Panahy Show.
0:08
Speaker 2: Good evening and welcome to the Rita Panahy Show. I'm
0:11
Speaker 2: James Morrow sitting in for Rita. Here's what we've got
0:13
Speaker 2: coming up for you tonight. Morale within the Labour Party
0:17
Speaker 2: drops as MPs are forced to defend policy backflips and blunders.
0:23
Speaker 2: My panel will have a lot more on that and
0:25
Speaker 2: all the day's top headlines shortly. Plus, Australia's unemployment jumps
0:29
Speaker 2: to 4.7%. Shocking economists. How unexpected is that? Dimitri Burstein
0:36
Speaker 2: will have more on that and all our productivity woes. Plus,
0:40
Speaker 2: Amy Horowitz will be here with all the latest from
0:43
Speaker 2: the U.S., including J.D. Vance turning it up against the Democrats.
0:47
Speaker 2: Will he be the next nominee? We'll see. And in
0:50
Speaker 2: the U.K.? Russell Brand is in court facing serious sexual
0:55
Speaker 2: offence charges in the UK. My good friend Chloe Walker
0:58
Speaker 2: will be here with all the details on that and
1:01
Speaker 2: all your entertainment news. And don't worry, we haven't forgotten
1:05
Speaker 2: Lefty's Losing It, featuring our favourites on The View and
1:09
Speaker 2: their obsession with You Know What?
1:13
Speaker 3: He is throwing racist red meat at his base. I'm
1:17
Speaker 3: not saying that his entire base is racist, but I'm
1:19
Speaker 3: saying that all the racists are part of his base.
1:22
Speaker 2: We'll find out just what makes you racist a little
1:24
Speaker 2: bit later on in the program. But first, Labour has
1:28
Speaker 2: proved once again that they cannot be trusted with your money,
1:32
Speaker 2: with taxpayer money. The latest minister in the frame, Small
1:36
Speaker 2: Business Minister Anne Ali, who has been reported by the
1:39
Speaker 2: Daily Telegraph as... that she billed taxpayers more than $ 150, 000
1:44
Speaker 2: to visit nine countries over the last 17 months as
1:51
Speaker 2: small business minister, all while thousands of small businesses went
1:55
Speaker 2: to the wall due to soaring rents, power costs and
1:58
Speaker 2: insurance and everything else that's making life tough for them.
2:03
Speaker 2: ASIC estimates that around 30 businesses are now entering insolvency
2:08
Speaker 2: every day. So do the math. And while she was
2:11
Speaker 2: out of the country on those days, 810 Australian businesses
2:17
Speaker 2: shuttered their doors. But it's not just her. The coalition
2:21
Speaker 2: has also called for Annika Wells to be sacked. after
2:25
Speaker 2: a request to release documents justifying her taxpayer-funded Adelaide trip.
2:31
Speaker 2: You remember that one. That's the birthday party, Jolly. Well,
2:34
Speaker 2: requests to release documents on that were refused. Trade Minister
2:39
Speaker 2: Don Farrell's office has refused to comply with freedom of
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Speaker 2: information laws requesting details about the trip, minutes and diary
2:47
Speaker 2: notes and all sorts of other things to confirm a
2:49
Speaker 2: meeting between Wells and Farrell's chief of staff, Ben Pike.
2:54
Speaker 2: The trip cost taxpayers, that trip cost taxpayers close to $ 4, 000. Well,
3:01
Speaker 2: joining me to discuss this now is former Liberal MP
3:04
Speaker 2: Nicole Flint and Herald Sun senior reporter Seb Costello. Nicole,
3:08
Speaker 2: let's start with you. You used to be a parliamentarian.
3:12
Speaker 2: I reckon that when you were... In Parliament, I suspect
3:15
Speaker 2: you probably had a bit more respect for the taxpayers'
3:18
Speaker 2: money than some of this mob, but how can you
3:20
Speaker 2: get away with not releasing documents about these trips? I mean,
3:25
Speaker 2: this government came into the office saying, oh, we're going
3:27
Speaker 2: to be so much more transparent than Scott Morrison and
3:30
Speaker 2: the Liberals. Well, now they've just shut the door on
3:34
Speaker 2: any investigation.
3:36
Speaker 4: Haven't they just? And we know that... Anne Arleigh, Anthony Albanese,
3:42
Speaker 4: Annika M. Miles-Wells have something, a couple of things in common, actually.
3:47
Speaker 4: First of all, their names all start with A.
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Speaker 5: That's the denominator.
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Speaker 4: But also they're incredibly arrogant.
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Speaker 6: It is arrogant.
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Speaker 4: It's unbelievable that these records won't be released. It's even
3:59
Speaker 4: more unbelievable that they are charging taxpayers to fly around
4:04
Speaker 4: Australia for meetings that can't be confirmed, but also around
4:09
Speaker 4: the world, as the Daily Telegraph revealed today with Anne
4:11
Speaker 4: Arleigh's travel records. At a time when Australians, all Australians
4:17
Speaker 4: are doing it so tough and at a time when
4:19
Speaker 4: the Albanese Labor government has introduced rules to make it
4:23
Speaker 4: harder for all of us, particularly small businesses, to use
4:27
Speaker 4: their credit cards, they are essentially living off Australian taxpayers'
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Speaker 4: credit cards because we are in $ 1 trillion worth of debt,
4:36
Speaker 4: which means something like a $ 40 billion debt annual charge
4:43
Speaker 4: on our interest. So they are living off Australian taxpayers'
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Speaker 4: credit card at a time when they're making it even
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Speaker 4: harder for us to use our credit cards, particularly if
4:52
Speaker 4: you're a small business.
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Speaker 5: This is disgraceful.
4:55
Speaker 4: Albanese needs to sack Annika Wells. I've been calling for
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Speaker 4: him to do that for months. And if he won't,
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Speaker 4: and let's assume he won't, then we need the Liberals,
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Speaker 4: the Nationals and One Nation to all make sure she
5:08
Speaker 4: gets voted out of her seat at the next federal election.
5:12
Speaker 2: Hear, hear. Hey, Seb Costello, though, this is really quite
5:15
Speaker 2: an interesting thing here because, you know, Anne Ali, she's
5:18
Speaker 2: just the latest minister to be causing an embarrassment either
5:22
Speaker 2: for policy reasons. You know, you can think of Tanya
5:24
Speaker 2: Plibersek and... the decision in that goldmine case that came
5:28
Speaker 2: down yesterday, or because of embarrassments around travel warts. And
5:31
Speaker 2: we all know how Labour treated people like Bronwyn Bishop,
5:34
Speaker 2: you know, when they got caught in similar problems. But, Seb,
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Speaker 2: the question for me is, has the Albanese government reached
5:41
Speaker 2: this sort of end point now, where because of the
5:44
Speaker 2: Prime Minister's love of stability, that he won't discipline anybody,
5:49
Speaker 2: so now he's got an entire frontbench that is increasingly compromised,
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Speaker 2: full of dead wood, and is just causing them more
5:56
Speaker 2: troubles than they're worth.
5:59
Speaker 1: I think that's the point, James. It looks to me
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Speaker 1: like Annika Wells and Anne Arleigh think that being a
6:05
Speaker 1: minister is like an episode of the travel show Getaway.
6:09
Speaker 1: And right now, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is letting them
6:13
Speaker 1: get away with it. You know, this $ 2, 700 cost for
6:19
Speaker 1: Annika Wells to fly from Brisbane... to Adelaide for almost
6:24
Speaker 1: $ 3, 000 return is an extraordinary cost. You know, that in
6:27
Speaker 1: itself doesn't pass the chatting over the pub test, doesn't
6:32
Speaker 1: pass the parents' school pickup test. It doesn't even pass
6:36
Speaker 1: the post-Pilates powwow test, in my opinion. This is a
6:39
Speaker 1: government that is right out of control. And you look
6:41
Speaker 1: at Anne Ali, you mentioned she's the small business minister.
6:44
Speaker 1: Part of these trips taking in countries like Indonesia. What
6:47
Speaker 1: does the Australian small business minister learn in Indonesia that's
6:52
Speaker 1: going to be better for people trying to start a
6:54
Speaker 1: business in Australia today? Doesn't make sense to me.
6:56
Speaker 2: Doesn't make any sense at all. She spent weeks in places,
7:00
Speaker 2: full weeks in places where she was going to sign
7:02
Speaker 2: one agreement. It's just... You know, it really feels it
7:05
Speaker 2: feels like they're taking the proverbial. But, guys, I want
7:07
Speaker 2: to move on because, you know, this brings us to
7:09
Speaker 2: another story. The Australian today said that Labour MPs are
7:14
Speaker 2: privately complaining. Who would have imagined this, that their internal
7:17
Speaker 2: morale is at its lowest level since they came into government?
7:21
Speaker 2: And this comes as Labour had another defeat. with their
7:25
Speaker 2: proposed $ 3 billion rebate scheme on private health insurance for
7:29
Speaker 2: the over-65s. Well, that was thankfully defeated in Parliament because
7:34
Speaker 2: that was a real attack on our senior citizens. But
7:38
Speaker 2: Labour-backed voters are complaining about all sorts of things they've
7:41
Speaker 2: had to clean up, defending policy backflips and blunders. Seb,
7:45
Speaker 2: let's start with you on this one here. Government figures
7:48
Speaker 2: are saying also that Anthony Albanese himself is now showing real...
7:53
Speaker 2: Signs of frustration. What have you heard?
7:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think you picked out the bit of
7:59
Speaker 1: that report that stands out to me, and that is
8:01
Speaker 1: that currently the Labor ministers are leaking from Cabinet.
8:05
Speaker 2: And that's a big deal.
8:06
Speaker 1: Cabinet leaks in a government, to me, show unhappy members
8:10
Speaker 1: of that Cabinet They show that they're worried about an
8:13
Speaker 1: increasingly unhappy electorate and a country that's feeling more and
8:17
Speaker 1: more less lucky in light of what's happening. I mean,
8:20
Speaker 1: you only have to look at the economic figures to
8:22
Speaker 1: see that we are in tough times at the moment.
8:25
Speaker 1: We have an inflation rate that's far outside of its band.
8:28
Speaker 1: It's raging out of control. Interest rates going up, as
8:31
Speaker 1: we know. You look at unemployment that's only gone up since...
8:34
Speaker 1: Anthony Albanese, he became Prime Minister. So this is the supposed,
8:37
Speaker 1: you know, champion of the battler, the howzo working-class Prime Minister. Well,
8:42
Speaker 1: he's putting fewer and fewer Australians in work.
8:45
Speaker 2: And, Nicole, you know, having been there yourself, you know,
8:49
Speaker 2: in Parliament when the Liberals were in power, does this
8:54
Speaker 2: sort of feel like something that you would have sort
8:56
Speaker 2: of seen within the Morrison government kind of towards the
9:00
Speaker 2: end of their days and... I know everybody says that
9:03
Speaker 2: the Albanese government, that Labour is going to win re-election,
9:06
Speaker 2: and that's probably because of all the chaos on the right.
9:08
Speaker 2: But there is this feeling like they have lost all
9:12
Speaker 2: the wind in their sails now, and every news cycle
9:15
Speaker 2: for them now is a bad one. And this feels
9:18
Speaker 2: like previous end-of-days governments we've seen, either with Morrison or
9:22
Speaker 2: with Rudd, way back when in 2013. Do you see
9:25
Speaker 2: any parallels here?
9:27
Speaker 4: Well, James, I think you've just touched on the key
9:30
Speaker 4: issue here. We need to see a liberal nationals coalition
9:35
Speaker 4: that is united and focusing on not talking about themselves,
9:39
Speaker 4: but talking about the Labor Party and how the Labor
9:41
Speaker 4: Party is failing Australian voters every single day. And we
9:45
Speaker 4: haven't seen that, unfortunately, the entire time since the 2025 election.
9:50
Speaker 4: We're seeing One Nation holding Labor to account pretty well.
9:53
Speaker 4: But if we saw the coalition and One Nation focusing
9:56
Speaker 4: on Labor, I think we'd be seeing Labor in real strife.
10:00
Speaker 4: The other thing I would say, though, is that the
10:02
Speaker 4: backbench is very powerful. Labor have an historic majority with
10:07
Speaker 4: 94 seats in the lower house. What are all of
10:10
Speaker 4: those backbenchers doing? Because if they were.
10:12
Speaker 2: Great question.
10:15
Speaker 4: A coordinated group going and knocking on the Prime Minister's door,
10:18
Speaker 4: standing up in the party room or the caucus, whatever
10:21
Speaker 4: they call it, every week and knocking on the doors
10:24
Speaker 4: of these ministers and saying enough is enough. You're doing
10:26
Speaker 4: real damage out here to our local residents and particularly
10:29
Speaker 4: to our small businesses. We've got to fix the policy
10:32
Speaker 4: mess that you've made and you need to start with
10:35
Speaker 4: these appalling tax changes. and properly kill off the change
10:39
Speaker 4: to the seniors' private health care rebate, which has only
10:43
Speaker 4: died because the Coalition One Nation and the Greens voted
10:47
Speaker 4: it down in the Senate. Labor are still clinging to this.
10:49
Speaker 4: They are just not listening, which says to me their
10:52
Speaker 4: backbench are lazy and probably shutting up because they actually
10:56
Speaker 4: want to be promoted so that they can become the
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Speaker 4: next Anne Arley or Anneka M.R.
11:01
Speaker 5: Wells.
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Speaker 4: And have the largesse of ministry and know that they
11:05
Speaker 4: won't get sacked even when they've stuffed up.
11:07
Speaker 2: Well, you know, Nicole, I can tell you now for
11:10
Speaker 2: free that there are some backbenchers in Western Sydney that
11:14
Speaker 2: are starting to have some of those conversations and they
11:16
Speaker 2: are starting to knock on doors because they see there's
11:19
Speaker 2: their seats, which are very heavily invested with small businesses
11:22
Speaker 2: and an awful lot of migrants coming who came here
11:25
Speaker 2: because they wanted to do very well economically, are all
11:28
Speaker 2: saying this is not what we signed up for. And
11:30
Speaker 2: New South Wales is a really interesting case here because
11:33
Speaker 2: here in New South Wales, and this is a New
11:35
Speaker 2: South Wales story, but it's got a big component here
11:38
Speaker 2: for the prime minister because Premier Chris Minns, he's facing
11:42
Speaker 2: an election in March and he has ruled out charging
11:47
Speaker 2: stamp duty on New South Wales citizens who have to
11:51
Speaker 2: change and move around their assets because of the Albanese
11:55
Speaker 2: government's trust changes. And the New South Wales treasurer, Danny Mookie,
11:59
Speaker 2: has just announced that this is going to be formal
12:01
Speaker 2: policy here. Nicole, I'll stick with you on this here.
12:04
Speaker 2: This really just suggests here that Albanese is becoming more
12:09
Speaker 2: and more friendless, if not even the premier, the Labour
12:13
Speaker 2: premier of his own home state, wants to be associated
12:17
Speaker 2: with him.
12:18
Speaker 4: So this is a really good announcement by Premier Chris
12:21
Speaker 4: Minns and his New South Wales Labor government. And it's
12:25
Speaker 4: sending a clear message that they are trying to support
12:28
Speaker 4: small businesses during what is an unprecedented crisis for small
12:32
Speaker 4: business who are being attacked on every single front thanks
12:35
Speaker 4: to Labor's appalling policy decisions and also the cost of
12:39
Speaker 4: living crisis. But what is, I think, worst for small
12:44
Speaker 4: business and business generally is just the uncertainty. So Chris
12:47
Speaker 4: Minns can kind of try to clean up a little
12:49
Speaker 4: bit of Labor's mess. It doesn't change the fact that
12:52
Speaker 4: they're going to really cop it in terms of having
12:54
Speaker 4: to restructure their business operations because of the changes that
12:58
Speaker 4: federal Labor won't abandon in terms of trusts and negative
13:03
Speaker 4: gearing and CGT and all of these tax changes they're making.
13:05
Speaker 4: But it's the uncertainty on top of everything else that
13:09
Speaker 4: federal Labor is causing which has seen business confidence crash
13:14
Speaker 4: to levels that haven't been witnessed since the global financial
13:18
Speaker 4: crisis and COVID. So that is the real damage here.
13:22
Speaker 4: It's not just the interest rates. It's not just out-of-control inflation.
13:25
Speaker 4: It is federal Labor's appalling policy decisions that have destroyed
13:29
Speaker 4: business confidence, which makes it even harder for small businesses
13:33
Speaker 4: to operate. So great to see Chris Minns making this announcement,
13:37
Speaker 4: but also I would say to Mr Minns and his
13:41
Speaker 4: fellow Labor premiers, What are you doing to shift federal
13:46
Speaker 4: Labor's decisions? Because you actually have the power to do that.
13:49
Speaker 4: And I come back to the backbench example again. Labor's
13:53
Speaker 4: federal backbench also have the power. So hurry up and
13:56
Speaker 4: put the pressure on Jim Chalmers and Anthony Albanese to
13:59
Speaker 4: reverse these appalling policy decisions that are crippling the nation,
14:02
Speaker 4: particularly small business.
14:04
Speaker 2: And you know, Nicole, we all saw the last five
14:06
Speaker 2: years during COVID certainly how state premieres can flex their
14:09
Speaker 2: muscle when they feel like it. But, Seb, before we go,
14:12
Speaker 2: I want to talk to you about something that you've
14:14
Speaker 2: written in The Herald Sun this morning about the Victorian
14:19
Speaker 2: Liberal Party. I'm fascinated by this rebranding as, quote, Jess
14:23
Speaker 2: Wilson's Liberal Victoria. Tell us about this new branding. Are
14:29
Speaker 2: we getting into cult of personality territory here?
14:32
Speaker 1: I think we are. Yeah, I find this really interesting.
14:34
Speaker 1: You know, the Liberal Party usually doesn't go down this path.
14:37
Speaker 1: We see it with Pauline Hanson's One Nation. The Liberal
14:40
Speaker 1: Party was anyone's. It's probably Robert Menzies, I would have thought.
14:43
Speaker 1: But in Victoria, they have decided that, you know, that
14:47
Speaker 1: the Liberal brand has struggled so much over the last
14:49
Speaker 1: three election cycles that it is, I guess, less appealing
14:53
Speaker 1: than Jess Wilson's personal brand. And that's certainly what Wilson's
14:56
Speaker 1: team and various Liberals were telling me yesterday when I
14:59
Speaker 1: first reported this story, that, you know, her personal appeal
15:02
Speaker 1: is a lot stronger than the party's and to sort
15:04
Speaker 1: of circle the wagons around her is the best way
15:08
Speaker 1: for the Liberals to be re-elected. I actually thought there'd
15:11
Speaker 1: be more people who had a problem with this, you know,
15:14
Speaker 1: given the history of the Liberal Party as to be
15:16
Speaker 1: that broad church, you know, that accommodates people from all
15:20
Speaker 1: sorts of different interests. But, you know, actually talking to
15:23
Speaker 1: Liberals in Victoria yesterday, it just seems like the priority
15:26
Speaker 1: for them has become so deeply... to get rid of
15:29
Speaker 1: this Labor government. Dan Andrews, Jacinda Allen, now Ben Carroll,
15:33
Speaker 1: that they're willing to try this, which is to really
15:36
Speaker 1: promote a presidential-style campaign in Victoria.
15:39
Speaker 2: And, Seb, just very quickly here, with that election coming
15:42
Speaker 2: right up, is that focusing of the mind on getting
15:44
Speaker 2: rid of that government, is that starting to see the
15:47
Speaker 2: polls turn more towards people just saying we're going to
15:49
Speaker 2: vote Liberal rather than the protest vote going to One Nation?
15:52
Speaker 2: Is it focusing things at all?
15:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, look, I think Jess is popular to parts of
15:58
Speaker 1: the electorate that the Liberals have struggled with, you know,
16:00
Speaker 1: professional women, young mothers. So I think that's certainly coming in. But,
16:04
Speaker 1: you know, James, to have lived under this government over
16:07
Speaker 1: the past 12 years, you know, their legacy, I think,
16:11
Speaker 1: is far more affecting for the Victorian voter than anything
16:14
Speaker 1: the Liberals could possibly pitch.
16:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's right, Seb. I've been to Melbourne recently.
16:18
Speaker 2: It is a horror show what has been done there.
16:20
Speaker 2: To that beautiful city and state. Well, good luck with
16:23
Speaker 2: that election, Seb Costello and Nicole Flint. Thank you so
16:26
Speaker 2: much for your time this evening. Well, let's stick with
16:31
Speaker 2: Australian news here. We've had four years of a Labour
16:34
Speaker 2: government and absolutely no improvement in Australian living standards or productivity.
16:39
Speaker 2: In fact, these things are really effectively going backwards. So
16:44
Speaker 2: what's happening? Where is the reform? What is going to
16:46
Speaker 2: come next? And how are we going to get out
16:49
Speaker 2: of this mess? Well, joining me now to discuss this
16:51
Speaker 2: and a whole lot more economic news is from eminence
16:54
Speaker 2: advisory economist Dimitri Burstein. Dimitri, thank you so much for
16:59
Speaker 2: joining me here. The AFR today has highlighted this productivity gap,
17:04
Speaker 2: the problem with Australia's productivity, the fact that it basically
17:08
Speaker 2: is non-existent at the moment. What does this government need
17:13
Speaker 2: to do to start to regain any semblance of credibility
17:18
Speaker 2: on this topic?
17:19
Speaker 7: Well, it's very simple, James, and thank you for having
17:22
Speaker 7: me on the show. I've got to get the hell
17:23
Speaker 7: out of They've got to regulate less.
17:26
Speaker 5: They've got to tax less. They've got to spend less.
17:28
Speaker 5: That's the problem.
17:29
Speaker 7: They're distorting and suppressing the private market that is the
17:33
Speaker 7: key driver of productivity in this economy.
17:38
Speaker 2: And, Dimitri, one of the things that has struck me
17:40
Speaker 2: very much about the language of Jim Chalmers and Anthony Albanese, where...
17:44
Speaker 2: you know, all of this policy ultimately flows from, is
17:47
Speaker 2: this idea about making things more equitable. Has the Labour
17:51
Speaker 2: government really just given up on any sort of idea
17:53
Speaker 2: that we are going to make the country more productive
17:56
Speaker 2: and richer and instead just squabble over the size of
17:59
Speaker 2: the piece of the pie while the government clips the ticket?
18:03
Speaker 5: Well, it's actually shrinking fire, James, as you probably well know.
18:07
Speaker 7: No, because they have given up on any semblance of
18:10
Speaker 7: attempting to get growth. It's all about redistribution, redistribution, redistribution.
18:15
Speaker 7: That's what their entire program is about. It's very sad.
18:18
Speaker 5: It's very depressing.
18:19
Speaker 7: I mean, Jim Chalmers' mentor, for want of a better title,
18:24
Speaker 7: Paul Keating, was all about growth, yet this Labor government
18:28
Speaker 7: is all about redistribution. And that comes down to a
18:32
Speaker 7: belief that somebody else's prosperity is at somebody else's expense.
18:36
Speaker 7: That's not the way an economy works.
18:39
Speaker 2: And we've heard more and more reports about tensions between
18:42
Speaker 2: Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers. Do you think Anthony Albanese
18:46
Speaker 2: is trying to set the narrative so that he winds
18:49
Speaker 2: up avoiding the blame and now it's just all Chalmers' baby,
18:53
Speaker 2: that this is just turning into a big crisis on
18:55
Speaker 2: their watch?
18:57
Speaker 5: No doubt.
18:58
Speaker 7: I mean, I'm sure that the Prime Minister is quite
19:01
Speaker 7: comfortable in the lodge, in the jet, and.
19:06
Speaker 5: In the big chair.
19:07
Speaker 7: Of course, he's going to try to blame, take the
19:09
Speaker 7: credit for everything and blame all the faults to Chalmers.
19:12
Speaker 7: But it's a team effort. And it's not just the
19:15
Speaker 7: two of them. It's the whole team, from Katie Gallagher
19:18
Speaker 7: to Chris Bowen. to the entire cabinet. It's, you know,
19:23
Speaker 7: 10 responsibility for the debacle the Australian economy is in
19:26
Speaker 7: at the moment.
19:27
Speaker 2: Well, indeed, and you look at that front bench and
19:29
Speaker 2: it's just like an episode of The Muppet Show. So
19:31
Speaker 2: were you surprised at all, Dimitri, to see unemployment today jump,
19:35
Speaker 2: the word unexpectedly, but, you know, who expected that, up
19:39
Speaker 2: to 4.7% today? And does that 4.7%, does that mask
19:45
Speaker 2: a bigger problem with underemployment in this economy?
19:49
Speaker 7: Well, I mean, not surprised, given that the entire stated
19:51
Speaker 7: objective of the RBA in raising interest rates is to
19:55
Speaker 7: raise the level of unemployment.
19:58
Speaker 5: Does it mask underemployment?
20:02
Speaker 7: Possibly, but the greater concern is that there's all these
20:05
Speaker 7: fake jobs that are out there because of Government spending, NDIS,
20:12
Speaker 7: some of the construction projects, the inefficient construction projects, as
20:16
Speaker 7: you may have seen, during the term of the Albanese government,
20:21
Speaker 7: there's been an average of 28 public servants hired every
20:24
Speaker 7: single day.
20:26
Speaker 5: So there's a lot of fake jobs out there.
20:28
Speaker 7: What productivity or what product they're delivering is another matter.
20:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, indeed. And I mean, one of the things we
20:34
Speaker 2: saw when this government came in was the introduction of
20:36
Speaker 2: IR laws, which have made it that much harder for
20:40
Speaker 2: businesses to have that flexibility. Does this mean with all
20:44
Speaker 2: these fake jobs that are around that there's also a
20:47
Speaker 2: lot of fake businesses, too? For sure.
20:50
Speaker 7: I mean, you know, the government's policy is to increase taxes,
20:53
Speaker 7: increase energy costs, increase the cost of doing business.
20:57
Speaker 5: And when businesses go broke, they.
21:00
Speaker 7: Then selectively subsidize them, as they have with Tomago and
21:04
Speaker 7: a number of other industrial companies.
21:08
Speaker 5: By happenstance, highly unionised businesses. It is quite concerning, not.
21:15
Speaker 7: Only the size of the government, but the extent that
21:16
Speaker 7: they wish to reach and centrally plan the Australian economy.
21:20
Speaker 2: And it's shocking, too, because you look at what's happening
21:22
Speaker 2: with trusts here. What is the impact of these changes
21:25
Speaker 2: to trusts? Because not all of our viewers might understand it,
21:28
Speaker 2: but it's going to be another huge regulatory and tax
21:31
Speaker 2: burden on the business world, isn't it?
21:34
Speaker 5: Very much so. It may even be inflationary because all
21:37
Speaker 5: these businesses who.
21:39
Speaker 7: Have to restructure, they're going to need accountants and lawyers
21:43
Speaker 7: and there isn't an increase in accountants and lawyers who
21:47
Speaker 7: can do this, so they'll be charging higher. Then there'll
21:50
Speaker 7: be a tax imposter, a state state and territory tax
21:54
Speaker 7: stem duty impost. Now, at the moment, the New South
21:57
Speaker 7: Wales government has indicated that they.
21:59
Speaker 5: Will waive those kinds of restructures. However, let's see the
22:03
Speaker 5: legislation and let's see what comments there are.
22:05
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
22:06
Speaker 7: Because the New South Wales government is also a minority.
22:08
Speaker 7: They require the support of others.
22:10
Speaker 2: Of course.
22:11
Speaker 5: To pass their legislation. So we'll see what happens.
22:13
Speaker 2: Dimitri Verstee, we're going to have to leave it there.
22:15
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for my evidence advisory. Really appreciate
22:17
Speaker 2: your time. Still to come, lefties losing it, J.D. Vance
22:21
Speaker 2: is turning it up against the Democrats, and Amy Horowitz
22:24
Speaker 2: will join me with more next. Well, now it's time
22:37
Speaker 2: for a bit of Lefties Losing It, and we're going
22:40
Speaker 2: to get to all sorts of glories from the ongoing U.S.
22:44
Speaker 2: midterm campaign soon. But first, let's go for some good
22:47
Speaker 2: old celebrity nuttiness, shall we? And here is someone I
22:51
Speaker 2: think has probably been a repeat offender here on Lefties
22:55
Speaker 2: Losing It, Ben Affleck, this time explaining why being opposed
23:00
Speaker 2: to mass migration is, wait for it, racist!
23:06
Speaker 8: Can't look at this movie without confronting the fact that
23:10
Speaker 8: and this is not a new phenomenon but like and
23:13
Speaker 8: times of economic difficulty or with politicians who are seeking
23:18
Speaker 8: to curry favor with voters it's a lot easier to
23:20
Speaker 8: say to scapegoat and point fingers and you know xenophobia
23:24
Speaker 8: and anti-immigration policies have been a part of the history
23:27
Speaker 8: of the united states for a very long time where
23:29
Speaker 8: i grew up in boston i remember you know this
23:32
Speaker 8: is called to sort of slam the door immigrants like
23:34
Speaker 8: the The Irish come in and we don't want the Italians.
23:36
Speaker 8: The Italians come in and we don't want the Portuguese.
23:39
Speaker 8: And it's why it is a complicated issue.
23:41
Speaker 2: Ah, gee, xenophobia, that's a pretty big word for a celebrity. And,
23:45
Speaker 2: of course, we wouldn't be without The View, who's a
23:49
Speaker 2: very feminist day... a very feminist daytime chat ladies who,
23:54
Speaker 2: of course, get all sorts of worked up when Shane
23:57
Speaker 2: Gillis does a monologue on SNL. But when it comes
24:00
Speaker 2: to someone making fun of new White House press secretary
24:04
Speaker 2: Katie Zachariah, well, they're perfectly happy for her to be
24:07
Speaker 2: called a broad.
24:09
Speaker 9: And how about the press secretary?
24:11
Speaker 5: How about her?
24:13
Speaker 9: All the black women got fired and they kept this
24:15
Speaker 9: bride right here. Let's talk about the EI. This dude
24:23
Speaker 9: depicted himself as Jesus.
24:25
Speaker 6: He did a meme.
24:26
Speaker 9: And that's weird because Jesus was persecuted for our sins
24:28
Speaker 9: and he ain't even been prosecuted for his.
24:29
Speaker 2: That's crazy.
24:30
Speaker 3: Ain't that something?
24:31
Speaker 4: It is.
24:32
Speaker 9: This is the best time to be a comedian.
24:34
Speaker 5: I swear to God.
24:35
Speaker 2: I got nothing there. But hey, you know what? Let's
24:36
Speaker 2: stick with the view. And of course, you know where
24:39
Speaker 2: this is going with the raids on Ilhan Omar. If
24:45
Speaker 2: you think it's a good idea for the law to
24:48
Speaker 2: be enforced, well, again... You know what that makes you?
24:52
Speaker 3: He is throwing racist red meat at his base. I'm
24:56
Speaker 3: not saying that his entire base is racist, but I'm
24:58
Speaker 3: saying that all the.
24:59
Speaker 10: Racists are part of his base.
25:02
Speaker 3: And so what I what I will say is that
25:04
Speaker 3: this is xenophobic. I think it's racist. He called Somalia
25:09
Speaker 3: a non country, which has 20 plus million people. It's
25:15
Speaker 3: an African country. So this is par for the course
25:19
Speaker 3: for this president.
25:21
Speaker 2: Ah, racist red meat. Do you get that at the supermarket? Anyway,
25:25
Speaker 2: it's almost as if they've used the word so much
25:28
Speaker 2: that it ceased to have any impact. Meanwhile, let's go
25:32
Speaker 2: back to my old hometown, or rather home state, of
25:34
Speaker 2: New York and see how Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul has
25:38
Speaker 2: gotten an absolute workover on the debate stage here on
25:42
Speaker 2: the subject of energy prices.
25:44
Speaker 6: Donald Trump didn't raise utility rates 48 times, you did.
25:48
Speaker 6: Donald Trump didn't increase our utility bills by 50% since
25:54
Speaker 6: you become governor. You gave $ 150 back to people in
25:59
Speaker 6: a rebate in an election year, right before the election,
26:03
Speaker 6: when you've raised the average bill $ 4, 000 a year, and
26:07
Speaker 6: your own energy research department says your policies will raise
26:11
Speaker 6: it another $ 4, 000 in the next five years. It's out
26:16
Speaker 6: of control, and it's because of you, Kathy.
26:18
Speaker 2: Sorry, were we talking about New York State? It sounded
26:20
Speaker 2: an awful lot like they were talking about Anthony Albanese's
26:23
Speaker 2: Australia there. But she also, Kathy Ockel, also had an
26:27
Speaker 2: absolute Biden-style brain freeze here, even during her opening statement. Now,
26:33
Speaker 2: we're not done yet.
26:35
Speaker 10: And you're going to hear a lot of, well, a
26:38
Speaker 10: lot of.
26:40
Speaker 11: Different opinions here this evening.
26:44
Speaker 2: Speaking of debates, this was a little bit awkward at
26:47
Speaker 2: a debate in Texas.
26:48
Speaker 12: Herrera now wants to call suicide, veteran suicide, an epidemic. Though, yes,
26:53
Speaker 12: that's after he made millions of dollars after making jokes online,
26:57
Speaker 12: making fun of Nazis and making fun of veteran suicide,
27:03
Speaker 12: making fun of all of these things that we know
27:07
Speaker 12: he does not need to be doing.
27:10
Speaker 1: You have a minute for a rebuttal.
27:12
Speaker 2: And here I thought making fun of Nazis was a
27:13
Speaker 2: good thing. Yeah, there you go. Meanwhile, over in Mississippi,
27:18
Speaker 2: check out this ad for a fellow called Scott Collum,
27:21
Speaker 2: who is running for Senate. I love this.
27:23
Speaker 8: The price of beef continuing to go up.
27:26
Speaker 13: You know, you have so many proteins to choose from.
27:28
Speaker 2: Pick another protein? I'd rather pick another senator instead. Pick
27:34
Speaker 2: another protein?
27:36
Speaker 10: She done lost her damn mind.
27:38
Speaker 5: I'd rather pick another senator.
27:41
Speaker 4: Pick another protein? What the.
27:45
Speaker 12: Pick another senator instead.
27:47
Speaker 2: What a great ad. And guess what? He's the Democrat. Anyway,
27:51
Speaker 2: sticking with Democrats, have a listen to Florida Democrat Angie
27:55
Speaker 2: Nixon here saying that she will lock up her opponent
27:59
Speaker 2: if she's elected to the Senate.
28:02
Speaker 13: I want her locked up and punished in jail for
28:06
Speaker 13: what she has done. And so, you know, we are
28:09
Speaker 13: going to continue to stump on this campaign trail all
28:12
Speaker 13: across the state from the panhandle to the keys. And
28:15
Speaker 13: we're looking forward to them calling me senator on November 3rd.
28:18
Speaker 5: You want your Republican opponent locked up?
28:22
Speaker 13: You know, she, yeah.
28:25
Speaker 2: Sorry, I thought that was what they were all mad
28:26
Speaker 2: at Trump for saying. Anyway, finally, let's check in with
28:30
Speaker 2: the tolerant left here. And what happens when a lady's
28:35
Speaker 2: family finds out that their relation's feelings are all about
28:40
Speaker 2: the murder of Charlie Kirk?
28:43
Speaker 5: Support the assassination of Charlie Kirk, right?
28:46
Speaker 13: I don't think it was a bad thing.
28:47
Speaker 2: What?
28:48
Speaker 7: Did you know she felt that way?
28:49
Speaker 14: No, I didn't.
28:50
Speaker 3: I didn't know.
28:52
Speaker 6: I didn't know that.
28:52
Speaker 5: What makes you on the line of maybe you would
28:55
Speaker 5: support assassination?
28:58
Speaker 10: If it would help.
28:59
Speaker 2: I just don't see how, I don't think it would help. Okay.
29:03
Speaker 12: So if it would help, you would support an assassination
29:06
Speaker 12: of the president and vice president?
29:12
Speaker 2: Well, I bet that's going to be a fun Thanksgiving
29:15
Speaker 2: dinner at that household this year. As the U.S. edges
29:20
Speaker 2: closer to the midterm elections just three short weeks away,
29:24
Speaker 2: the temperature between Republicans and Democrats is really being dialed up.
29:28
Speaker 2: Democrats seem increasingly convinced that they can turn the political
29:32
Speaker 2: tide in their favor, but you know what? I'm not
29:35
Speaker 2: so sure. Meanwhile, Vice President J.D. Vance certainly isn't confident
29:39
Speaker 2: in their abilities either. He has gone on the offensive,
29:43
Speaker 2: targeting what he sees as the party's biggest weakness, its
29:47
Speaker 2: approach to law and order. His message to voters, the
29:51
Speaker 2: Democrats aren't the solution to America's problems. They are waiting.
29:55
Speaker 2: They are going to be making things a lot worse.
29:58
Speaker 2: He has said, quote, If you elect Democrats, you're fundamentally
30:03
Speaker 2: electing people who will invite criminals into your state, into
30:08
Speaker 2: your communities, and make your communities less safe. Well, yeah,
30:14
Speaker 2: I think history would prove that he's correct. And joining
30:17
Speaker 2: me with more to talk about this is documentary filmmaker
30:21
Speaker 2: Ami Horowitz from New York. Ami, you're already in the
30:24
Speaker 2: hotbed of violent crime in New York. Could things get
30:27
Speaker 2: any worse?
30:30
Speaker 10: Oh no, things can get much, much worse, James. No
30:34
Speaker 10: question about it. Yeah, you know, it's so funny how
30:37
Speaker 10: they kind of like try to massage the stats. While
30:40
Speaker 10: crime really, crime is stable to up a bit during
30:44
Speaker 10: Mamdani because they've really exploded over the last 15 years, right?
30:48
Speaker 10: So there isn't a whole lot more to go up,
30:50
Speaker 10: but they could get worse because we've seen it get worse, right?
30:53
Speaker 10: We've seen this movie before in the 70s and the 80s,
30:58
Speaker 10: and we're repeating this all over again. You know, the
31:00
Speaker 10: most telling stat, I think what I call a forward-looking stat,
31:04
Speaker 10: is that over the last year, harassment is up 50%,
31:08
Speaker 10: which means if you go into a bodega or you
31:13
Speaker 10: go onto the subway, you feel more unsafe. But look,
31:18
Speaker 10: the problem is with this midterm election vis-a-vis crime is
31:23
Speaker 10: that Crime is not a major issue. It's, in fact,
31:28
Speaker 10: barely a top 10 issue. It's a little bit tone deaf,
31:32
Speaker 10: to be honest, to be going after crime for a
31:34
Speaker 10: whole bunch of reasons. First of all, the issue with
31:37
Speaker 10: crime is really just in blue cities, right? Dark blue cities.
31:41
Speaker 10: Those are not cities which are up for grabs. Those
31:43
Speaker 10: are not cities which the Republicans are competing in. So
31:45
Speaker 10: it doesn't make any sense to talk about that, right?
31:48
Speaker 10: And nationwide, like I said, it's not a major issue.
31:50
Speaker 10: What is a major issue? Prices and the economy. Prices
31:56
Speaker 10: and the economy.
31:57
Speaker 2: That's it.
31:58
Speaker 10: That's the ballgame. And that's not the issue they're dealing with. Look,
32:02
Speaker 10: the president put himself in a box when he said
32:06
Speaker 10: during the election, I'm going to lower your prices.
32:09
Speaker 5: He misspoke, okay?
32:10
Speaker 10: He needed to speak more accurately. You can't really lower
32:14
Speaker 10: prices unless you're in like a downturn in the economy.
32:17
Speaker 10: What he should have said was, I'm going to arrest
32:20
Speaker 10: the increase in the prices. That he's done, OK? But
32:24
Speaker 10: he didn't couch it that way. So everybody looked at
32:26
Speaker 10: him and said, well, why are prices not down?
32:29
Speaker 6: He can't do that.
32:32
Speaker 10: And the worst part of this is that, you know,
32:35
Speaker 10: he seems kind of tone deaf when it comes to
32:37
Speaker 10: what people want and where he's polling.
32:39
Speaker 1: In these things.
32:40
Speaker 10: When it comes to the economy, he's at a 26%
32:44
Speaker 10: approval on the economy.
32:46
Speaker 2: 26%.
32:48
Speaker 10: And even worse, on cost of living, he's at 17%.
32:51
Speaker 10: These are issues that propel, that and immigration propelled him
32:55
Speaker 10: to the presidency. He's completely failed in the eyes of
32:59
Speaker 10: the electorate. to deliver on those things, and that's going
33:02
Speaker 10: to be a problem for the Republicans in the midterm.
33:05
Speaker 2: Well, Ami, I want to put it to you here
33:07
Speaker 2: that could it be that, just to spitball with this
33:10
Speaker 2: idea here, he was very successful in shutting the border.
33:14
Speaker 2: He was very successful in getting a lot of people
33:17
Speaker 2: who shouldn't be in the country and a lot of
33:19
Speaker 2: criminals out of the country either forcibly or scaring them
33:22
Speaker 2: into self-deporting. Is there a sense that, in a way,
33:27
Speaker 2: going after law and order is not an issue now because,
33:31
Speaker 2: in a sense, he's sort of almost a victim of
33:33
Speaker 2: his own success here. Communities have gotten safer. They had
33:36
Speaker 2: the big 20% murder drop because of the success in
33:40
Speaker 2: migration enforcement. So, therefore, this is not a top-tier issue,
33:44
Speaker 2: and that's where they're making a mistake.
33:47
Speaker 10: I mean, one could say that. Look, I'm not going
33:48
Speaker 10: to argue that the entire increase in crime was because
33:51
Speaker 10: of illegal immigration. It was a contributing factor of that question.
33:55
Speaker 10: But I don't think it was. It was more of, hey...
33:58
Speaker 10: we are going to create a sense of law and order, right?
34:02
Speaker 10: Look at what the president did with Washington, D.C., a
34:04
Speaker 10: place that was out of control, which crime dropped precipitously
34:08
Speaker 10: because of his use.
34:10
Speaker 5: Of troops.
34:12
Speaker 10: So, yeah, look, it wouldn't be unfair, but I don't think.
34:15
Speaker 2: It's the entire story. Sure, sure, sure.
34:16
Speaker 10: I think he's just dropping the ball on what the
34:20
Speaker 10: people care about in this particular cycle.
34:23
Speaker 2: Yeah.
34:23
Speaker 4: No, no, no.
34:24
Speaker 2: Look, that's absolutely fair. And I hear what you're saying
34:25
Speaker 2: there about the economy, because the pocketbook always is always
34:29
Speaker 2: the big driver for an awful lot of voters. But
34:32
Speaker 2: let's just throw forward here, too, because, you know, you've
34:35
Speaker 2: got 2028 coming and looming around, hanging around, you know,
34:38
Speaker 2: like a bad smells Kamala Harris. She's back during an
34:42
Speaker 2: appearance on something called The Baby. This is Kate podcast.
34:46
Speaker 2: I know I listen to that every week. She talked
34:50
Speaker 2: about her plan for a radical reform campaign. of the
34:54
Speaker 2: Supreme Court. Have a listen to this.
34:57
Speaker 14: I believe that we need to expand the Supreme Court.
35:00
Speaker 14: We need more justices on the Supreme Court so that
35:03
Speaker 14: we can have a court that actually reinforces the spirit
35:07
Speaker 14: and principles behind the Constitution of the United States. I
35:11
Speaker 14: believe that we should be pushing for what is possible
35:14
Speaker 14: around changing the Electoral College.
35:18
Speaker 2: Right?
35:18
Speaker 10: Because what's going on?
35:21
Speaker 14: Well, it's about, you know, the popular vote. has to matter.
35:26
Speaker 2: Well, yeah. So, I mean, I guess, Ami, let's just
35:28
Speaker 2: tear up, you know, the Federalist Papers and the Constitution
35:31
Speaker 2: and everything else. But there's a salutary reminder in all
35:35
Speaker 2: of this, Ami, that we talk about Trump and we
35:37
Speaker 2: talk about the midterms, but the crucial thing for the
35:40
Speaker 2: future of America is what happens in 28. And the
35:44
Speaker 2: Democrats seem to me to be determined to, if they
35:47
Speaker 2: come back into power, change the rules so they can
35:50
Speaker 2: never get evicted again.
35:53
Speaker 10: The Democratic Party, the party of democracy, right?
35:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they don't care. James, they don't.
35:59
Speaker 10: Care about democracy unless it suits them, okay? If they're
36:04
Speaker 10: losing the game, we'll just change the rules. Now, look,
36:07
Speaker 10: she's been saying this stuff actually for a very long time.
36:09
Speaker 2: This is nothing new.
36:10
Speaker 10: Let's just change 150 years of precedent where we have
36:14
Speaker 10: nine justices in the Supreme Court. Let's just dump the
36:17
Speaker 10: Electoral College, which, by the way, is in the Constitution
36:21
Speaker 10: of the United States. Let's not let a little thing
36:23
Speaker 10: like the Constitution get in the way of winning an election. Or,
36:27
Speaker 10: as she's also been pushing, the Democrats have been pushing,
36:29
Speaker 10: and so has she, let's lower the age to 16
36:32
Speaker 10: years old. James, teenagers are.
36:35
Speaker 5: Stupid, okay?
36:36
Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
36:37
Speaker 10: I've had teenage kids.
36:38
Speaker 2: I was a teenager. I know what we're like.
36:41
Speaker 10: But then again, stupid people are the core constituency of
36:44
Speaker 10: the Democratic Party. So maybe that actually does make sense. Look, James,
36:49
Speaker 10: let's be frank about what's happening here. I know people,
36:51
Speaker 10: the Democrats don't want to admit this. But Kamala Harris
36:56
Speaker 10: is the leader in the clubhouse. Now, she was leading
36:59
Speaker 10: from the jump, but we kind of all said, well,
37:02
Speaker 10: that's kind of the residue of the elections because of
37:05
Speaker 10: name recognition. She was just the nominee. But she's not
37:08
Speaker 10: only still winning, she's consolidating her power. She has won
37:14
Speaker 10: seven of seven of.
37:15
Speaker 2: The last polls.
37:16
Speaker 10: Not just winning, she has doubled, doubled the numbers of
37:20
Speaker 10: the number two, Gavin Newsom, behind her. So she's not
37:24
Speaker 10: just winning, she's consolidating her grip on the Democratic Party.
37:29
Speaker 10: But watching her over and over again, the word salad
37:32
Speaker 10: has not changed.
37:33
Speaker 2: No.
37:34
Speaker 10: She is doubling down on courage. She's just not good
37:37
Speaker 10: at this, and she hasn't gotten any better. So, hey, Democrats,
37:41
Speaker 10: I'm begging you, please nominate her again.
37:45
Speaker 2: I don't know. Well, yeah, I mean, the word salad,
37:47
Speaker 2: I'll have my dressing on the side with that one. But,
37:50
Speaker 2: you know, there are other issues for the Democrats this week, too.
37:53
Speaker 2: It's certainly been a hell of a week for Congresswoman
37:57
Speaker 2: Ilhan Omar. Now, she is being investigated for a whole
38:03
Speaker 2: raft of things. Some of the investigations seem to be
38:05
Speaker 2: about financing. Others seem to be about citizenship and whether
38:10
Speaker 2: or not she... was accurate in her declarations about herself
38:16
Speaker 2: when she acquired U.S. citizenship. Ami, I've been hearing an
38:20
Speaker 2: awful lot of cope from Democrats saying, oh, this is
38:23
Speaker 2: just a big witch hunt by the Department of Justice.
38:26
Speaker 2: But I'd say two things. The Biden administration actually opened
38:30
Speaker 2: up the investigation into her finances. And like for a
38:35
Speaker 2: magistrate to sign off on a search warrant, there has
38:37
Speaker 2: to be some sort of probable cause. So Do you
38:40
Speaker 2: think the Democrats ought to be worried about this one?
38:44
Speaker 10: Yeah, first of all, let me touch on the magistrate
38:48
Speaker 10: signing off on it. Not just a magistrate, it is
38:51
Speaker 10: the D.C. Federal District Court. That is one of the
38:55
Speaker 10: most liberal courts in the country. 75% of those people
38:58
Speaker 10: were elected by Democrats, and they're the ones who choose
39:01
Speaker 10: the magistrates who decide on whether or not they give
39:03
Speaker 10: authorization for this kind of thing. So this wasn't just
39:05
Speaker 10: like they went to some Trump lackey. They can't do that.
39:07
Speaker 10: It's not the way this thing works. It's a random
39:10
Speaker 10: choice on who's the magistrate at the time when they
39:12
Speaker 10: go there.
39:14
Speaker 2: So, yes, they should worry.
39:15
Speaker 10: Look, Congressman Omar is a congresswoman of kleptomaniacs.
39:19
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. There's a problem with her constituency.
39:22
Speaker 10: So it makes sense, right, that she would behave in
39:25
Speaker 10: the way she does.
39:26
Speaker 2: You know, a couple of.
39:27
Speaker 10: Quick things that we've talked about in the past. You know,
39:30
Speaker 10: autism is up nearly 700% in Minnesota over the last
39:35
Speaker 10: five years. Yeah, no Democratic Party, the Democrats in charge
39:39
Speaker 10: never like, hmm, why is that? Let's look into maybe
39:42
Speaker 10: the fraud that's involved in that. There has been, since 2018...
39:46
Speaker 10: $ 9 billion. $ 9 billion. What's a billion dollars here and
39:52
Speaker 10: there between friends? In Minnesota alone on Medicaid fraud, okay?
39:57
Speaker 10: So just understand where she's coming from and her constituency. Look,
40:02
Speaker 10: what's going to happen to her?
40:03
Speaker 2: We don't know. I'll say this.
40:05
Speaker 10: Criminal denaturalization is something that happens all the time, right?
40:10
Speaker 10: If you commit fraud on how you got in this country,
40:14
Speaker 10: you're gonna have a problem. And by the way, if
40:16
Speaker 10: you had to do marriage fraud, which there's a lot
40:20
Speaker 10: of smoke, but her marrying her brother, how icky as
40:23
Speaker 10: that is, that's five years in prison, brah, if that's
40:27
Speaker 10: what you did.
40:29
Speaker 2: So look, she.
40:31
Speaker 10: Has had also, that's the immigration side. On the fraud side,
40:35
Speaker 10: I mean, we all talked about how she initially had
40:38
Speaker 10: $ 30 million in assets. She got a lot of smoke
40:41
Speaker 10: for that and all of a sudden went down to
40:42
Speaker 10: under $ 20, 000 in total assets. She and her husband have
40:47
Speaker 10: a lot of problems. They had this winery.
40:50
Speaker 2: That is full of lawsuits, right?
40:53
Speaker 10: Because of misrepresentation. Now, I love a bold Garnache as
40:57
Speaker 10: much as anybody else does, but yeah, that's a problem.
41:01
Speaker 10: That's an albatross for her. By the way, one of
41:04
Speaker 10: their most popular wines was called the Devil's Lie.
41:07
Speaker 5: I don't know.
41:08
Speaker 2: Make of that what you will. I don't know.
41:10
Speaker 10: And there's multiple fraud suits against her and her husband
41:14
Speaker 10: across a number of different businesses. So, yeah, there's a
41:16
Speaker 10: lot of problems there. And the Democrats need to worry.
41:19
Speaker 10: And she, most importantly, has to worry.
41:21
Speaker 2: I don't know. You know what I think Ilhan Omar's
41:23
Speaker 2: favorite wine is? Donald Trump is being mean to me.
41:27
Speaker 2: That's her favorite wine. Anyway, Ami Horowitz, we're going to
41:30
Speaker 2: have to leave it there. Thank you so much for
41:32
Speaker 2: your time, as always. Chat again soon.
41:34
Speaker 10: Always a pleasure.
41:36
Speaker 2: Stick around, a lot more to come here. It's the
41:37
Speaker 2: first day of Russell Brand's trial in London, where the
41:41
Speaker 2: comedian faces really serious sexual assault allegations. Chloe Walker joins
41:45
Speaker 2: me to walk us through it all. MUSIC Welcome back
41:56
Speaker 2: to The Rita Panahy Show. I'm James Morrow filling in
41:58
Speaker 2: for Rita. Let's go to the world of celebrity news.
42:01
Speaker 2: And all eyes are on the trial of British comedian
42:05
Speaker 2: Russell Brand, who is facing serious sexual offense charges in
42:10
Speaker 2: the UK. The 51-year-old faces seven different charges, including alleged
42:16
Speaker 2: rape and alleged sexual assault involving sex. six women between
42:20
Speaker 2: 1999 and 2009. As his trial got underway, prosecutors told
42:26
Speaker 2: the court of a ruthless, calculated, and manipulative sexual predator. Now,
42:33
Speaker 2: he denies all the allegations against him, and here he
42:36
Speaker 2: was outside the court today, seemingly blasé.
42:40
Speaker 9: Of course.
42:42
Speaker 7: I'm concerned and hopeful that this process will lead to
42:47
Speaker 7: good outcomes for everybody involved.
42:49
Speaker 3: That's my hope.
42:50
Speaker 2: Joining me now at the desk, as she does every week,
42:53
Speaker 2: is News 24 lifestyle reporter Chloe Walker. Chloe, welcome back.
42:57
Speaker 2: Great to have you here on the program. This was
43:00
Speaker 2: a very interesting appearance there from Russell Brand, let's just say.
43:04
Speaker 2: These are very serious charges against him. And I was
43:08
Speaker 2: struck by the weird, as I said in my introduction,
43:10
Speaker 2: almost blasé way in which he was approaching this when
43:14
Speaker 2: you've got some very serious charges, some victims who claim
43:18
Speaker 2: that they were allegedly very badly hurt by him, and
43:21
Speaker 2: he's facing potentially very serious punishment.
43:25
Speaker 11: James, I completely agree. I thought that his appearance before
43:28
Speaker 11: court today was very interesting, very bizarre. He appeared before
43:31
Speaker 11: court with his wife, and we should say as well
43:34
Speaker 11: that he has denied all of the claims against him
43:37
Speaker 11: and is pleading not guilty.
43:38
Speaker 4: Sure.
43:39
Speaker 11: But as his rape trial kicked off today, it was pretty...
43:42
Speaker 11: Some of these stories were so graphic, I won't even
43:44
Speaker 11: go into repeating them, but there are six different women,
43:47
Speaker 11: and they didn't know each other before this trial kicked off.
43:49
Speaker 11: The reason why it all came out was because of
43:52
Speaker 11: an interesting documentary that was put out against Brandt, and
43:55
Speaker 11: there were women that had spoken about their experiences with him. Now,
43:59
Speaker 11: these six women, who are the alleged victims, they did
44:02
Speaker 11: not know each other before this, and they viewed the
44:04
Speaker 11: documentary and then all thought, well, I've had... allegedly had
44:08
Speaker 11: something like this happen to me, and that's how this
44:10
Speaker 11: has all come about. Again, Brand's response to the media
44:14
Speaker 11: this morning was bizarre.
44:15
Speaker 2: I just thought it was bizarre.
44:16
Speaker 11: But again, he is claiming to be not guilty. The
44:19
Speaker 11: trial should be about six to eight weeks, so I
44:21
Speaker 11: suppose we'll see what happens there.
44:22
Speaker 2: Well, we may be talking about this in six to
44:25
Speaker 2: eight weeks' time to find out what just happened there,
44:27
Speaker 2: but it is very bizarre, and I just thought that
44:29
Speaker 2: reaction there, that did not look like a man who
44:31
Speaker 2: was facing serious trials and reputation-destroying allegations. And, of course,
44:35
Speaker 2: we do say that they're allegations.
44:36
Speaker 12: Yes.
44:37
Speaker 2: But let's stay in the UK here. And again, I'm
44:40
Speaker 2: sorry to have another bit of a depressing story, but
44:43
Speaker 2: King Charles and Queen Camilla and Prince William are set
44:46
Speaker 2: to visit the Welsh town of Aberfan later this month
44:50
Speaker 2: to mark the 60th anniversary of a terrible disaster that
44:54
Speaker 2: happened there. Tell us, why is this so significant? Tell
44:57
Speaker 2: us about what happened there, but why is it so significant,
45:00
Speaker 2: particularly that the King and William are attending the commemorations
45:06
Speaker 2: at this site?
45:07
Speaker 11: Yes, so it's to mark the 60th anniversary of that
45:10
Speaker 11: awful disaster that happened in Aberfan when there was a
45:13
Speaker 11: school and houses around the school, a coal mine tipped
45:16
Speaker 11: over and 116 children were killed and 28 adults were
45:20
Speaker 11: killed as well. It was a terrible tragedy. And, yes,
45:22
Speaker 11: as you mentioned, it is very poignant that they're doing this...
45:26
Speaker 11: commemoration and tribute to those people, the lives lost in
45:29
Speaker 11: the community and also the survivors of that awful, awful tragedy.
45:33
Speaker 11: But William and his father have not been seen together
45:36
Speaker 11: in public for some months now. It was July when
45:39
Speaker 11: they were last seen together. And arguably a lot has
45:42
Speaker 11: changed since then. Meghan and Harry have come back to
45:45
Speaker 11: the UK. We've had the unfolding drama with ex-Prince Andrew.
45:49
Speaker 11: And whilst those two are definitely putting on a united
45:52
Speaker 11: public front, we've heard that behind the scenes they're on,
45:55
Speaker 11: you know, barely speaking terms and they're not very happy. Well,
45:59
Speaker 11: William is not very happy with his father.
46:01
Speaker 2: Right. Gosh, it's just so fascinating and complicated, isn't it?
46:04
Speaker 2: It is. Like all families, right? Like all families. Maybe
46:07
Speaker 2: that's why people are so... invested in it. But it's
46:09
Speaker 2: interesting that you mention Prince Andrew because there are reports
46:13
Speaker 2: here now coming out. Tell me about this. I think
46:15
Speaker 2: this is very, well, interesting that Queen Camilla and Prince
46:20
Speaker 2: Andrew have started to become kind of buddy-buddy. What's this
46:24
Speaker 2: all about? Yes.
46:26
Speaker 11: So there was a source that told Heat World that
46:28
Speaker 11: Camilla is having a bit more softening towards Andrew. I
46:32
Speaker 11: have to say I personally don't believe this. Camilla, as
46:35
Speaker 11: we know, is a very outspoken activist of sexual violence
46:39
Speaker 11: and assault. And I don't think that she is warming
46:43
Speaker 11: to Andrew, although the source said that they have a
46:45
Speaker 11: shared love of horses and they both have an aristocratic
46:48
Speaker 11: background that they can relate to. I think, if anything,
46:53
Speaker 11: Camilla is very strategic. She's very protective of her husband.
46:57
Speaker 11: And they do not want Andrew to go in court
47:00
Speaker 11: and spill all the dirty secrets. They also don't want
47:02
Speaker 11: any tell-all or anything like that. So I think, if anything,
47:06
Speaker 11: she's strategically probably keeping him at bay at best.
47:10
Speaker 2: I think you're right. I think that's the correct read
47:12
Speaker 2: on this. This is a strategic move by, I guess,
47:15
Speaker 2: what you'd call the firm to keep Prince Andrew in line.
47:19
Speaker 2: And anything they can do to help that cause, you know...
47:23
Speaker 2: Whatever it takes, as they say. But also, let's move
47:25
Speaker 2: back to the United States here, because I am fascinated by,
47:28
Speaker 2: this is such a weird case, this whole Kelly Anderson thing,
47:31
Speaker 2: where she went to this, Kelly Clarkson thing the other day,
47:35
Speaker 2: where she was said to have gone into some shop
47:37
Speaker 2: in New York, in I think it was Brooklyn or Queens,
47:40
Speaker 2: but said that she wanted to buy some huge fixture
47:43
Speaker 2: in the store and they wouldn't sell it to her.
47:45
Speaker 2: And it was an animatronic singing bird. Why you'd want
47:49
Speaker 2: that in your house, I don't know. But we have
47:51
Speaker 2: some CCTV footage here. I think we've got some overlay
47:54
Speaker 2: of this incident. Does this, Chloe, give us any more
47:59
Speaker 2: clarity on this? I don't know if you can see
48:02
Speaker 2: the singing bird there. But again, I mean, like, aren't
48:06
Speaker 2: you content with the singing bird? Billy Big Mouth Bass,
48:09
Speaker 2: do you need a big bird too? Do we know
48:11
Speaker 2: anything more about this? Does this clarify things?
48:14
Speaker 1: We do.
48:15
Speaker 11: So last time we spoke, this sort of saga had
48:17
Speaker 11: just unfolded. And I have to say, this is one
48:19
Speaker 11: of the wildest celebrity stories I've seen in a little while.
48:23
Speaker 11: So the bird actually has a name. Its name is Molly.
48:25
Speaker 11: And the price has now gone up because.
48:27
Speaker 7: Of course.
48:29
Speaker 11: It's now valued at $ 15 million, according to the store's owner.
48:33
Speaker 11: The store's owner, he's a bit of a character. He
48:35
Speaker 11: faced the media yesterday and spoke all about the scene
48:38
Speaker 11: and doubled down on the store's non-apology, I suppose, to
48:42
Speaker 11: Clarkson and said that, you know, the store is now being...
48:45
Speaker 11: It's under threat because of Kelly Clarkson and all of
48:47
Speaker 11: Kelly Clarkson's mega fans are now... harassing the store and
48:51
Speaker 11: the store's staff are in danger.
48:53
Speaker 2: No, I don't buy it. I reckon this is going
48:56
Speaker 2: to be the best thing for their business ever. Chloe Walker,
48:59
Speaker 2: we're going to have to leave it there. Thank you
49:01
Speaker 2: so much. Now stick around because Late Edition is next.