Latest / The Bolt Report / The Bolt Report | 9 January

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The Bolt Report | 9 January · The Bolt Report

0:10
Speaker 1: This is the report.
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Speaker 2: Good evening and welcome to the Bolt Report. I'm James
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Speaker 2: macpherson filling in for Andrew Bolt. Here's what's coming up tonight.
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Speaker 2: Outrage after the Adelaide Writers' Festival dumps one of its
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Speaker 2: guests because of her anti Israel social media posts. Is
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Speaker 2: it a good move or is it censorship? I'll get
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Speaker 2: my panel to weigh in on that one. Donald Trump's
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Speaker 2: unpredictable nature is keeping the whole world off balance, but
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Speaker 2: is that necessarily a bad thing? Former Foreign Minister Alexander
0:40
Speaker 2: Downa will join me to discuss Trump's latest moves.
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Speaker 1: The United States is.
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Speaker 2: A tinderbox after a woman was fatally shot when driving
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Speaker 2: her vehicle at Immigration and Customs officials. Tim Waltz is
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Speaker 2: threatening to use Minnesota troops against Trump's National Guard.
0:56
Speaker 1: And what's going on.
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Speaker 2: With people who drive forward Rangershcam footage that's gone viral
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Speaker 2: shows they seem to feature in an unusually high number
1:04
Speaker 2: of motoring mishaps. I'll show you shocking footage later in
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Speaker 2: the program, but first, as backflips go, The PM's decision
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Speaker 2: to call a Royal commission into anti Semitism is an
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Speaker 2: absolute Olympic standard dismount ten out of ten from the judges,
1:21
Speaker 2: stuck the landing, smiled for the cameras. But not if
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Speaker 2: you listen to him. If you listened to Anthony Albanesi
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Speaker 2: this morning, he hasn't backflipped at all.
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Speaker 1: No, No, he was always.
1:34
Speaker 2: Going to call a royal commission. The only thing surer
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Speaker 2: than a royal commission into anti Semitism was your power
1:40
Speaker 2: bill going up. As for the delay in calling a
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Speaker 2: royal commission, well what delay. Far from deserving criticism for
1:47
Speaker 2: not calling a royal commission sooner, the PM this morning
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Speaker 2: claimed he deserved a gold star for having called.
1:54
Speaker 1: A royal commission so fast.
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Speaker 2: He was speedy Gonzales on sunrise this morning.
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Speaker 3: So we've had Jewish leaders on summrise just this morning
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Speaker 3: saying for this delay has forced families to emerge from
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Speaker 3: their grief to actually become advocates for this royal commission.
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Speaker 4: Now, is that something you regret.
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Speaker 5: Look, I've sat down in the homes of families who
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Speaker 5: are grieving.
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Speaker 1: I've listened to them.
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Speaker 5: We've also made sure that we've got this right in
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Speaker 5: an orderly way. This is actually a record time for
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Speaker 5: the calling of a royal commission.
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Speaker 2: Well, how stupid must all those Jewish leaders feel now?
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Speaker 2: For the past month they've been organizing, advocating, pleading for
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Speaker 2: a royal commission, when Albanezi was going to call a
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Speaker 2: royal commission the whole time. How foolish those members of
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Speaker 2: the community who were raising money to fund a national
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Speaker 2: advertising campaign to pressure Elbow into calling a Commonwealth inquiry?
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Speaker 2: What were they thinking? What a waste of time and money?
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Speaker 2: Didn't they realize the Prime Minister was already working at
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Speaker 2: warp speed, just quietly, invisibly and in a way that
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Speaker 2: looked exactly like doing nothing. His government was never against
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Speaker 2: a Royal commission, not at all.
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Speaker 1: Your ears were lying.
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Speaker 2: When you heard Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke say a
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Speaker 2: Royal commission should not be held. Kind of like your
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Speaker 2: ears were lying when you heard Albaneze say power prices
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Speaker 2: would fall by two hundred and seventy five dollars. You
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Speaker 2: never heard Tony Burke warn the Royal Commission was a
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Speaker 2: bad idea because it would and I quote, provide a
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Speaker 2: public platform for some of the worst statements and worst voices,
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Speaker 2: effectively relive some of the worst examples of anti Semitism
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Speaker 2: over the past two years. Well, okay, he might have
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Speaker 2: said that, but he didn't mean it. What he meant
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Speaker 2: was the government was already preparing the Royal Commission. They
3:44
Speaker 2: were never opposed to, while also being opposed to it,
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Speaker 2: while also not being opposed to it, while also not
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Speaker 2: calling it.
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Speaker 1: Now, it's subtle. You have to follow the nuance. And
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Speaker 1: the PM.
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Speaker 2: Himself now assures us that those earlier concerns about social
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Speaker 2: cohesion weren't really objections at all. They were just pre
4:02
Speaker 2: objections that were already being post managed.
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Speaker 3: Proming to see you and your ministers initially argue that
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Speaker 3: a Royal Commission would expose very deep divisions in our
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Speaker 3: society and clause big harm and that was a big
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Speaker 3: enough of a reason not to hold one. Do you
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Speaker 3: still hold those same concerns?
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Speaker 5: Well, what we've done is look at ways in which
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Speaker 5: we could alleviate those concerns and on social cohesion. One
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Speaker 5: of the things that the conduct of the Royal Commission
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Speaker 5: will take place under Commissioner A Bell is that they
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Speaker 5: will have to do it in a way that takes
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Speaker 5: into account the need to build and protect social cohesion.
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Speaker 2: So, to summarize, the Royal Commission was too dangerous to
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Speaker 2: hold until they worked out how to hold it, which
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Speaker 2: they were apparently already doing while explaining why they weren't
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Speaker 2: doing it. And if you thought you heard the PM
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Speaker 2: and his ministers say that a royal commission would take
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Speaker 2: too long, well you must have imagine that too.
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Speaker 5: My priority has been dealing with all of those issues
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Speaker 5: while working through making sure that we got any decision
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Speaker 5: around a cow royal commission got right now.
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Speaker 2: In case you didn't catch that, the translation is we
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Speaker 2: were busy not doing it while carefully preparing to do it,
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Speaker 2: which proves just how fast we did it.
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Speaker 1: Here's the PM explaining how.
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Speaker 2: He set a worldland speed record by applying the brakes.
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Speaker 5: What I have attempted to do in an orderly way.
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Speaker 5: The way that my government functions is orderly considered, get
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Speaker 5: to the right decision, do it in the right order,
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Speaker 5: and that is what we have sought to do here.
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Speaker 2: Okay, so he did it fast, and he did it slow,
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Speaker 2: but not so slowly that it wasn't world breakingly fast,
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Speaker 2: just slow enough to be orderly and considered, which is
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Speaker 2: how this government always operates when it's moving at unprecedented
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Speaker 2: speed while standing still.
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Speaker 1: Oh and for all you cidics.
6:03
Speaker 2: Who suspect Anthony Albaneze has played politics with this issue.
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Speaker 2: You know, the suspicion that he was against the royal
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Speaker 2: commission because he didn't want to upset Muslim voters or
6:13
Speaker 2: have lights shone on his government's shoddy performance. And now
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Speaker 2: the suspicion that it's only because everyone wants a royal
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Speaker 2: commission that suddenly Elbow has always been in favor of
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Speaker 2: a royal commission. Come on this labor government playing politics.
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Speaker 2: Shame on you for thinking such things. Watch our Prime
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Speaker 2: minister put butter in his own mouth and observe how
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Speaker 2: it doesn't melt at all.
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Speaker 5: They shouldn't be any politics in this. This is a
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Speaker 5: moment for the nation to come together. That is something
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Speaker 5: that I have done. I haven't responded to some of
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Speaker 5: the political comments that have been made, including by mister Freedenberg.
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Speaker 5: I have engaged respectfully, seeking to lower the temperature of
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Speaker 5: this debate.
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Speaker 1: No politics here.
7:00
Speaker 2: Weeks of refusing to act, followed by sudden action, followed
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Speaker 2: by rewriting history, followed by telling everyone they're imagining things.
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Speaker 2: Albanese is right. It's not politics with Elbow, It's way
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Speaker 2: beyond politics.
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Speaker 1: It's performance art Well.
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Speaker 2: Joining me now is Australia Israel and Jewish Affairs Council
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Speaker 2: Executive Manager Joel Bernie. Joel always great to speak with you.
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Speaker 2: The Jewish community have had twenty four hours now to
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Speaker 2: digest news of the Royal Commission.
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Speaker 1: What's the general feeling amongst the community.
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Speaker 4: Well, thank you for having me as always, and the
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Speaker 4: general feeling is look, obviously, fatigue is one thing. The
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Speaker 4: fatigue is that for the past three and a half
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Speaker 4: weeks we have been campaigning, we have been praying, we
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Speaker 4: have been begging for the Prime Minister and his government
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Speaker 4: to do the right thing and call a Royal Commission
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Speaker 4: to investigate exactly what happened in what is the largest
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Speaker 4: terror attack in Australia's history. In the context of what
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Speaker 4: was announced yesterday, the Jewish community, as good Australians, is
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Speaker 4: going to put its weight behind doing whatever it can
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Speaker 4: to support Justice Bell and Commissioner Bell, and also anything
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Speaker 4: that the Royal Commission requires, whether that be with the
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Speaker 4: being giving evidence for the godsk Education Review or indeed
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Speaker 4: assisting Dennis richardson his review which is part of the
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Speaker 4: Royal Commission. We as an organized Jewish community as disappointed
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Speaker 4: as we are with how long it took and what
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Speaker 4: lengths and effort that it took to get here, and
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Speaker 4: the politics that was definitely a part of the past
8:39
Speaker 4: three and a half weeks, we are certainly grateful that
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Speaker 4: finally we believe that we have what was required in
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Speaker 4: the first instance, and that is a Commonwealth Royal Commission
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Speaker 4: to do what needs to do to find out exactly
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Speaker 4: what has gone wrong here and make decent recommendations as
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Speaker 4: to how to fix it.
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Speaker 2: You just mentioned the last three or four weeks of politics.
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Speaker 2: You heard Anthony Albanese say earlier I showed him saying
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Speaker 2: that he's never played politics with this issue of a
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Speaker 2: royal commission. How did you feel when you heard him
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Speaker 2: say that this morning.
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Speaker 4: Well, not only is it disappointing to the Jewish community,
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Speaker 4: it's sort of like a continuation of the gas lighting
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Speaker 4: that the government has done to the Jewish community over
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Speaker 4: the past three and a half years. But now, as
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Speaker 4: I've keep kept reiterating on shows on Sky and elsewhere
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Speaker 4: since the horrific attack in VONDI that this was an
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Speaker 4: attack on Australia, it was attack on our identity, it
9:32
Speaker 4: was an attack on our principles. So this is not
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Speaker 4: a Jewish Australian problem. This is deeply an Australian problem.
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Speaker 4: So that politics was clearly evident to the public. Hence
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Speaker 4: why they reacted the way that they did. All of
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Speaker 4: these campaigns that we've seen over the past week, These
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Speaker 4: amazing courageous Australians that came out from corporate Australia to
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Speaker 4: sporting heroes, to intelligence chief and former army chiefs. These
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Speaker 4: were all good, non Jewish Australians leading the charge names.
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Speaker 4: They were so upset with the position of the federal government,
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Speaker 4: who can now retrospectively claims that have always wanted a
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Speaker 4: Royal Commission, when it used every excuse in the book
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Speaker 4: to say that the Royal Commission wasn't required. So they
10:13
Speaker 4: smelt it. They understood that it didn't pass the sniff test,
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Speaker 4: and they also understood that for the greater good of
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Speaker 4: this nation, it was time for courageous people like all
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Speaker 4: the people that came out over the past week and
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Speaker 4: a half to call out the Prime Minister and to
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Speaker 4: demand a Royal Commission, which is exactly what we need.
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Speaker 2: One of the things the PM said yesterday when he
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Speaker 2: announced the Royal Commission was that a Commonwealth inquiry was
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Speaker 2: incredibly important because Jewish Australians needed to be able to
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Speaker 2: tell their stories. Now, I wanted to ask you about
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Speaker 2: this because I don't know if my reaction was right
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Speaker 2: or maybe I've gotten it wrong.
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Speaker 1: But when he said that we.
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Speaker 2: Need a royal commission Jews need to be able to
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Speaker 2: tell their stories, I felt like we've heard the stories
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Speaker 2: of Jewish Australians, not just since the Bondi attack. We've
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Speaker 2: been hearing stories from Jewish Australians for the last two
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Speaker 2: years about how they have suffered all sorts of discrimination
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Speaker 2: and persecution in this country. The Raw Commission, to me,
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Speaker 2: is not about an opportunity for people to tell their stories.
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Speaker 2: It's about an opportunity for us to get to the
11:17
Speaker 2: nub of the issue in this country and why anti
11:20
Speaker 2: Semitism has been allowed to flourish. Did I get that
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Speaker 2: right or is my reaction to that slightly off?
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Speaker 4: Now you're I think you're right and wrong, Well, not wrong,
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Speaker 4: but right on on some parts and need to be
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Speaker 4: directed on the others. The first is that obviously there
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Speaker 4: has been an incredible, incredible amount of public testimony already
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Speaker 4: in the public domain of individuals and groups of Jews
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Speaker 4: that have faced incredible amounts of anti Semitism, jew hatred,
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Speaker 4: and racial discrimination over the past two years. But for
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Speaker 4: every Jewish person that has come that has gone public
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Speaker 4: with the issues that they've faced in the workplace, they're
11:58
Speaker 4: faced in their industry of choice, or they face in
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Speaker 4: social settings or on soccer fields and other sporting grounds,
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Speaker 4: or kids targeted on school excursions. For every Jew that
12:10
Speaker 4: has faced a deep level of antisemitism that has come
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Speaker 4: public with it, there are at least two to three
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Speaker 4: Jews that have kept it quiet. They've kept it quiet
12:17
Speaker 4: because they feel as though that not only doesn't fall
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Speaker 4: on deaf ears, but unfortunately it makes in some cases,
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Speaker 4: it makes them a target over the past two years
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Speaker 4: to complain about issues of systemic antisemitism that they face.
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Speaker 4: So there are a number more victims out there that
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Speaker 4: need to provide their testimony to the Royal Commission, and
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Speaker 4: I'm happy that the Commission will hear them. However, that's
12:39
Speaker 4: not enough. There are some really really tough questions that
12:43
Speaker 4: need to be raised in the context of this Royal Commission,
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Speaker 4: not just as to how bad the situation to Australian
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Speaker 4: Jews has become and the issues that they're faced. But
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Speaker 4: how was it that an Australian was radicalized domestically and
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Speaker 4: took that radicalization and took out on fifteen innocent Australians
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Speaker 4: by killing them and murdering them in cold blood. It
13:04
Speaker 4: is not enough just to hear of the abundance testimony
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Speaker 4: of Jewish victims of systemic due hatred and anti semitism
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Speaker 4: in this country. But we need to ask and have
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Speaker 4: those tough questions and conversations in the context of the
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Speaker 4: Royal Commission to actually find out what the root causes
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Speaker 4: of this tops and this problem is in this great
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Speaker 4: country of ours, and we need to get this nation
13:25
Speaker 4: back on track.
13:26
Speaker 2: So what do you want to see from a Royal
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Speaker 2: Commission ultimately? And do you believe the terms of reference
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Speaker 2: announced by the Prime Minister yesterday and the time frame
13:35
Speaker 2: because it's a pretty quick and short time frame, do
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Speaker 2: you believe those things will make it possible to get
13:41
Speaker 2: the results that the Jewish community would like to see
13:43
Speaker 2: from this.
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Speaker 4: Well, what I would like to see is I would
13:47
Speaker 4: like to see that there was a level scrutiny on
13:51
Speaker 4: certain division makers both in the intelligence policing agencies as
13:54
Speaker 4: well as government into what exactly went wrong in Bundai.
14:00
Speaker 4: Did intelligence agencies ask for more resources? Did they flag
14:03
Speaker 4: that there were issues with the lack of resources of
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Speaker 4: Arabic speakers or placing assets in certain areas into Australia.
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Speaker 4: If there were requests and those requests were not heeded
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Speaker 4: by government, that needs to be a level of scrutiny
14:15
Speaker 4: through the Role Commission to be able to compel evidence
14:18
Speaker 4: and to be able to compel the testimony that is
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Speaker 4: required to actually find out not what just happened on
14:23
Speaker 4: the day itself, but what happened to create the atmosphere
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Speaker 4: where somebody who was on the ASIO on an AZIO
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Speaker 4: watch list was able to live in a dwelling with
14:35
Speaker 4: someone who had five license or six licensed weapons. These
14:39
Speaker 4: are legitimate questions that the Role Commission needs to get
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Speaker 4: to the bottom up. I do have a concern, as
14:44
Speaker 4: you note, James.
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Speaker 1: Of the length.
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Speaker 4: So the Prime Minister claimed when he was using his
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Speaker 4: excuses as to why a Role Commission would not be required,
14:51
Speaker 4: he said that it would take too long and lo
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Speaker 4: and behold, he's put a twelve month limit on this
14:56
Speaker 4: Role Commission. Now that is a very short period of time,
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Speaker 4: given how long rud commissions usually take. I had great
15:02
Speaker 4: concerns that it's not enough time, but I do hope
15:05
Speaker 4: and we will see clarity on this that if Commissioner
15:07
Speaker 4: Bell requests the Prime Minister more time, that he will
15:10
Speaker 4: give it. My assessment is the reason why the Prime
15:13
Speaker 4: Minister wants this wrapped up quickly is not, as he
15:16
Speaker 4: would say, just because of the importance of getting to
15:18
Speaker 4: a resolution, but more so to keep it out of
15:21
Speaker 4: the next election cycle. If that's the case, My hope
15:24
Speaker 4: is and I pray, and I'm not too sure that
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Speaker 4: this will eventuate, but if Commissioner Bell indeed requests more time,
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Speaker 4: she obviously should be granted that by the Prime Minister.
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Speaker 1: One more question for you, Joel.
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Speaker 2: I was struck yesterday by how many times both the
15:37
Speaker 2: Prime Minister and Tony Burke talked about the importance of
15:42
Speaker 2: social cohesion and maintaining unity through the process of this
15:48
Speaker 2: Royal Commission. I would have thought the point of a
15:50
Speaker 2: Royal commission is to get to the truth, no matter
15:52
Speaker 2: how ugly, not to try to coddle Australians and keep
15:56
Speaker 2: us all feeling good about what we're hearing from the Commission.
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Speaker 2: Were you concerned by the emphasis on the importance of
16:05
Speaker 2: maintaining social and let me say, we all want social cohesion,
16:10
Speaker 2: but were you concerned about how prominent that was in
16:12
Speaker 2: the language yesterday as opposed to certain things that weren't said,
16:16
Speaker 2: like radical Islamism that was never said outright? How did
16:22
Speaker 2: you feel about that language from the PM and the
16:25
Speaker 2: Home Affairs Minister.
16:26
Speaker 4: So only time will tell, and our journey with this
16:29
Speaker 4: government is a long and winding one. So they will
16:32
Speaker 4: use tactics at play to maintain certain controls that they have,
16:35
Speaker 4: such as the nomination of the Commissioner herself, the length
16:39
Speaker 4: of time for the Royal Commission and whatnot. So to
16:45
Speaker 4: see the point four of the Royal Commission's terms of
16:48
Speaker 4: reference to point to social cohesion. I recognize the importance
16:52
Speaker 4: of it, but I do hope and time will tell
16:55
Speaker 4: that the Commission and the Government doesn't use this in
16:58
Speaker 4: a way to either tempt or dilute the recommendations from
17:03
Speaker 4: the Royal Commission. That needs to stamp out due hatred
17:06
Speaker 4: because there might be a segment of Australia that might
17:08
Speaker 4: disagree with it. Again, some tough conversations are going to
17:12
Speaker 4: have to be had as to how the radicalization was
17:15
Speaker 4: able to happen domestically here in Australia. We need to
17:18
Speaker 4: analyze the schools, the education systems, where these people are
17:21
Speaker 4: getting their information, where they're getting their ideology, and where
17:24
Speaker 4: they're getting their radicalization. That is how you tackle the
17:28
Speaker 4: social cohesion problem. Not saying we understand we have a
17:32
Speaker 4: Jewish problem. However, if we do a B and C,
17:35
Speaker 4: then we might annoy another segment of society, so maybe
17:38
Speaker 4: we shouldn't do so. Only time will tell if that happens,
17:41
Speaker 4: and I dare say, and I do hope and pray
17:43
Speaker 4: that that indeed does not happen. But we will certainly
17:45
Speaker 4: be watching and hoping that the Royal Commission stays on point.
17:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, very well, said job Bernie. The like to talk
17:51
Speaker 2: with you. Have a wonderful weekend. We're going to go
17:54
Speaker 2: to a break. But coming up in a moment, A
17:56
Speaker 2: writer's festival drops a controversial author and a boycott, but
18:01
Speaker 2: organizers say it's not about silencing views. Plus, a viral
18:05
Speaker 2: dashcam compilation of Ford Ranger drivers behaving badly is sparking
18:10
Speaker 2: all sorts of debate about who drives these vehicles, all
18:13
Speaker 2: of that with my panel in a moment, welcome back
18:21
Speaker 2: to the program. High profile Australian authors are boycotting Adelaide
18:25
Speaker 2: writers week after organizers dropped pro Palestine writer Randa abdel
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Speaker 2: Fatar from the program. Now critics are accusing the festival
18:34
Speaker 2: of censoring her.
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Speaker 1: But is it censorship?
18:36
Speaker 2: Maybe organizers just don't want to platform the kind of
18:39
Speaker 2: person who changed her Facebook profile the day after the
18:43
Speaker 2: October seven Hamas attack on Israel to a picture of
18:46
Speaker 2: a paratrooper in Palestinian colors. Maybe they just don't want
18:50
Speaker 2: to be associated with someone who, on Boxing Day twenty
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Speaker 2: twenty four, wrote on her social media account, may twenty
18:57
Speaker 2: twenty five be the end of Israel. She also declared,
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Speaker 2: if you're a Zionist, you have no claim or right
19:04
Speaker 2: to cultural safety. Joining me now a Sky News contributor
19:08
Speaker 2: and Daily Telegraph columnist Joe Hildebrand and former Labor advisor
19:12
Speaker 2: Darren Barnette.
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Speaker 1: Welcome to you both, Darren. I'll start with you.
19:16
Speaker 2: People like Jane Carrow, Peter fitz Simon's both of them
19:20
Speaker 2: are boycotting the event. Are they right to be outraged
19:23
Speaker 2: that this person has been ditched?
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Speaker 6: Look the principle of censoring those who appear at a
19:30
Speaker 6: festival is a slippery slope and a dangerous precedent. So
19:34
Speaker 6: I can understand why they would follow suit and not
19:38
Speaker 6: want to appear. But the bigger question to me is
19:41
Speaker 6: why was she invited in the first place. I don't
19:44
Speaker 6: understand why if you ran a respectable festival, that you
19:48
Speaker 6: would want her there and even have to ask the
19:51
Speaker 6: question as to whether she's censored. I have no time
19:54
Speaker 6: for the writer, but I do have some sympathy for
19:58
Speaker 6: that idea that once you start, who polices the police,
20:03
Speaker 6: who makes the decision what's in, what's out? And at
20:06
Speaker 6: a later point in if politics changes, if society changes,
20:10
Speaker 6: if government changes, who then decides who's in and who's out.
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Speaker 6: That troubles me as a concept. But she shouldn't have
20:17
Speaker 6: been there in the first place.
20:19
Speaker 2: Joe Hildebrand, is she being censored or is this just
20:22
Speaker 2: good policy from the festival organizers?
20:24
Speaker 7: I think it's a bit of ass covering from the
20:26
Speaker 7: festival organizers and perhaps even some you know, maybe the
20:30
Speaker 7: great Peter Malanowskas said sorry, you're inviting who now to speak?
20:34
Speaker 7: Less than a month after the worst ever anti Semitic
20:38
Speaker 7: terror attack on Australian soil. You've got someone who basically
20:43
Speaker 7: said that she wanted to see Israel white from the
20:45
Speaker 7: flat face of the map headlining your festival. Absolutely not
20:49
Speaker 7: so that I can imagine that conversation taking place. I'm
20:52
Speaker 7: not sure exactly what the machinations were, but I think
20:55
Speaker 7: it was good old fashioned ask covering. They realized that
20:58
Speaker 7: there was every chance that she could say something incredibly
21:02
Speaker 7: inflammatory that would suddenly drag the Writer's Festival into the
21:06
Speaker 7: quagmire of a debate about Israel or ZIONUS. And she's
21:12
Speaker 7: famously said, of course that you have no right to
21:15
Speaker 7: safety as zionis, you should be made to feel uncomfortable.
21:18
Speaker 7: That is something that has been echoed by other activists
21:21
Speaker 7: and academics. And then, of course we saw a whole
21:24
Speaker 7: bunch of Jews get shot dead on Bondi Beach and
21:27
Speaker 7: obviously they didn't feel particularly safe either. So you wonder
21:31
Speaker 7: how she might be reflecting on the long term impact
21:34
Speaker 7: of comments like that. So I think at the festival
21:38
Speaker 7: organizers saw a risk. I don't think it was anything
21:41
Speaker 7: to do with principle, I think, and again, if they
21:44
Speaker 7: if it had been anything to do with principle or
21:47
Speaker 7: them having concerns with the extremity or the radicalism of
21:51
Speaker 7: her views, then they would have been fools to invite
21:54
Speaker 7: her in the first place. But I agree with Darren,
21:57
Speaker 7: the question is why she was actually invited on the
22:00
Speaker 7: ticket in the first place. This was obviously she was
22:03
Speaker 7: obviously someone who was considered part of the you know,
22:06
Speaker 7: the lefty lovey set, part of the you know, the
22:09
Speaker 7: nice little, you know, African drumming circle of people who
22:13
Speaker 7: all agree with each other about Palestine and didn't see
22:17
Speaker 7: anything wrong with anything she said until suddenly there was
22:21
Speaker 7: the worst terror attack on Australian soil and they went,
22:26
Speaker 7: this could be a bit tricky. And again they're running
22:28
Speaker 7: around trying to cover their asses, and of course trying
22:31
Speaker 7: to do so, they have only made the matter worse
22:33
Speaker 7: because they've now made someone who should never be or
22:37
Speaker 7: never have been, a martyr for free speech a mart
22:40
Speaker 7: for free speech. And they've possibly sabotaged their own festival
22:45
Speaker 7: lineup because the likes of Jade Carrow and Peter fitz
22:48
Speaker 7: Simon's won't be able to regale the audience.
22:52
Speaker 1: Show.
22:53
Speaker 2: What do you mean they've sabotaged the festival. They may
22:55
Speaker 2: have improved it because of that, I reckon. I think
22:58
Speaker 2: you've both absolutely ailed the key issues there.
23:02
Speaker 1: Help me with this.
23:03
Speaker 2: What do you make of news today that labor MPs
23:05
Speaker 2: were given no notice that a Royal commission would be
23:09
Speaker 2: called into anti Semitism.
23:10
Speaker 1: Many backbenchers apparently heard about.
23:13
Speaker 2: It on the news, Darren, can you understand why there
23:16
Speaker 2: was apparently some upset that MPs at a special Labor
23:19
Speaker 2: Caucus meeting today were complaining we didn't even know this
23:23
Speaker 2: was going to happen.
23:24
Speaker 6: Well, I can tell you. I'll tell you a little
23:26
Speaker 6: anecdote that I worked in Julia Gillard's office when we
23:29
Speaker 6: announced the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse, and we
23:35
Speaker 6: were under strong orders to not tell anybody because it
23:39
Speaker 6: might leak. That was the Prime Minister's story, to be
23:41
Speaker 6: told in the Prime Minister's way, at the Prime minister's time.
23:45
Speaker 6: That's how you announced royal commissions.
23:48
Speaker 1: You have to.
23:49
Speaker 6: Trust that you have as a leader, that you have
23:52
Speaker 6: the confidence of your colleagues, and they got told in
23:55
Speaker 6: an appropriate time, so they might be annoyed, but in
23:59
Speaker 6: the end, it's the PM show and the PM gets
24:01
Speaker 6: to call the timing.
24:03
Speaker 2: That's a great anecdote, and I totally understand what you're saying.
24:07
Speaker 2: I would just wonder about this part of it, Joe,
24:10
Speaker 2: that most MPs were under the impression, as the rest
24:12
Speaker 2: of the country was there would be no royal commission.
24:15
Speaker 2: So it wasn't just that as Darren said that Alberanezy
24:19
Speaker 2: was announcing his royal commission, he pretty much announced to
24:22
Speaker 2: the country there would not be one. Then there was
24:25
Speaker 2: this backflip that the PM now says was not a backflip.
24:28
Speaker 2: Maybe that's why MPs were upset that they were caught
24:31
Speaker 2: on the hop.
24:32
Speaker 1: Yeah.
24:32
Speaker 7: Well, I mean one or two of those MPs had
24:34
Speaker 7: come out and criticized the PM for not calling a
24:37
Speaker 7: royal commission, and so obviously they are not necessarily your
24:43
Speaker 7: best friends. If you're going to quickly reverse course because
24:46
Speaker 7: the temptation might be too great to say I told
24:48
Speaker 7: you so, I told you so, and get ahead of
24:50
Speaker 7: it again, you would not want this to leak. It
24:54
Speaker 7: was obviously floated.
24:56
Speaker 1: For a while.
24:57
Speaker 7: My sense, and the sense from other figures in the
24:59
Speaker 7: party that I was speaking to you this week, was
25:03
Speaker 7: that there did seem to be a bit of a
25:05
Speaker 7: change in the air. There was a bit of a
25:08
Speaker 7: change in the rhetoric. It soon leaked that Virginia Bell
25:10
Speaker 7: was being floated. And this is what Anthony Albaneze. He does,
25:14
Speaker 7: and I can cause everyone around him a heart attack
25:17
Speaker 7: and blood pressure through the roof, but he's prepared to
25:20
Speaker 7: let these really white hot issues float around in the
25:25
Speaker 7: ether without a clear position from the government for weeks
25:29
Speaker 7: and weeks and weeks before he eventually makes the call.
25:32
Speaker 7: It's exactly what he did with the Stage three tax cuts,
25:35
Speaker 7: it's exactly what he did with the superannuation tax changes
25:39
Speaker 7: on unrealized gains, and it's exactly what he did, I
25:43
Speaker 7: think with more impact than ever and wearing more pain
25:48
Speaker 7: than either of those things. Combined with the Royal Commission.
25:51
Speaker 7: I've never seen such a sustained campaign from so many
25:55
Speaker 7: people in Australia against a government position, including so many
25:59
Speaker 7: people who should be the government's friends, like Mike Kelly,
26:04
Speaker 7: who I really respect, like Novi Paris. You know people
26:07
Speaker 7: you know not to mention, you know Eric Rusendhal, of course,
26:10
Speaker 7: and who with Mike is the co convenor of the
26:12
Speaker 7: Labour Friends of Israel that were very very quiet for
26:15
Speaker 7: a very very long time and had to basically be reconstituted.
26:18
Speaker 7: So I think this is probably an announcement that Albo
26:21
Speaker 7: should have made, you know, two weeks ago, if not three.
26:25
Speaker 7: But I'm not at all surprised that he wasn't telling
26:28
Speaker 7: all and Sundry that he was about to reverse course,
26:31
Speaker 7: because if you are going to do that, you have
26:34
Speaker 7: to be very careful about how you message it so
26:36
Speaker 7: it doesn't just look like an abject backflip. I actually
26:39
Speaker 7: think he was pretty good at doing that. Yesterday.
26:41
Speaker 2: I thought, well, the messaging has been very clearly well
26:45
Speaker 2: thought out, and I mean, you want to talk politics.
26:47
Speaker 2: I think Anthony Albanezi, if you give him credit for politics,
26:50
Speaker 2: which I think he's not bad at, he certainly stuck
26:54
Speaker 2: to message. I want to move on quickly because Joe,
26:56
Speaker 2: I know for a fact you driver forward.
26:59
Speaker 1: I do now.
26:59
Speaker 2: I'm not saw what model it is, but I hope
27:01
Speaker 2: it's not a Ranger. I've got nothing against people who
27:04
Speaker 2: drive forward Rangers, but after seeing a video that's gone
27:06
Speaker 2: viral online, I don't know, maybe there's a conversation to
27:10
Speaker 2: be had. Check out this compilation of dashboard footage showing
27:14
Speaker 2: Ford Ranger drivers performing all sorts of outrageous maneuvers.
27:19
Speaker 4: Have a look them back then as well.
27:44
Speaker 2: Now I wish we had longer because this video goes
27:46
Speaker 2: on for about ten minutes, on and on, with example
27:49
Speaker 2: after example of angry driving Darren, have you ever owned
27:53
Speaker 2: a Ford Ranger?
27:54
Speaker 6: No, I haven't. I've actually I owned a Ford Laser,
27:57
Speaker 6: and I now have a Ford Focus just to prove
28:00
Speaker 6: what a manly man I really am. But look, I
28:03
Speaker 6: think you could create a video like that for any
28:06
Speaker 6: make of car if you had enough footage. So some
28:10
Speaker 6: dashboard company have put all this together. It's entertaining. I
28:14
Speaker 6: don't think it tells us a great deal, but the
28:17
Speaker 6: people driving badly it makes for good TV. And I
28:21
Speaker 6: enjoyed watching all of it, except for the one with
28:23
Speaker 6: the motorbike. I found that a little terrifying.
28:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, Joe, you do drive forward? What do you
28:28
Speaker 2: think forward Rangers? I mean people driving these big, hulking vehicles,
28:32
Speaker 2: and there is a lot of footage of these guys
28:34
Speaker 2: doing all sorts of crazy things.
28:36
Speaker 1: Yeah.
28:36
Speaker 7: I actually drive a two thousand and eight Ford Falcon, James,
28:39
Speaker 7: And to say that I drive it is probably a
28:42
Speaker 7: slight exaggeration, given that it's dead half the time, and
28:46
Speaker 7: even driving it here at cutout I think twice at
28:50
Speaker 7: the middle of a set of traffic lights just outside
28:53
Speaker 7: central station. So if you are going to own a
28:55
Speaker 7: forward it is really a labor of love. You have
28:58
Speaker 7: to be committed. This is not a relationship of convenience.
29:02
Speaker 7: And all I ever ever wanted was to be able
29:06
Speaker 7: to afford and drive a Forward Ranger, because you would
29:10
Speaker 7: do I would do what those guys do. I would
29:11
Speaker 7: just feel like I was king of the world. I
29:13
Speaker 7: feel like nothing could touch me. But I don't actually
29:16
Speaker 7: have a trade. I don't actually have any reason, any
29:20
Speaker 7: justification for driving one.
29:22
Speaker 1: And I think that if.
29:23
Speaker 7: You're not a trade and you're driving a Forward Ranger,
29:26
Speaker 7: I think that's maybe when you see the sort of
29:28
Speaker 7: behavior we're seeing in those videos, because you're compensating for something.
29:32
Speaker 2: Well, you stick with your falcon down, you stick with
29:34
Speaker 2: your a laser.
29:35
Speaker 6: Focus focused these days downgraded.
29:38
Speaker 2: Great to talk to both of you, Thanks so much.
29:40
Speaker 2: Enjoy your weekends generally.
29:42
Speaker 1: Well.
29:43
Speaker 2: Three people are missing in Victoria as bushfires rage amidst
29:46
Speaker 2: catastrophic weather conditions. So let's get an update on the
29:50
Speaker 2: extreme weather we're seeing from sky News meteorologist Tessman Green Tasman.
29:55
Speaker 2: What's the latest from Victoria and what comes next? The
29:58
Speaker 2: conditions going to ease or God forbid, might they worsen.
30:02
Speaker 8: Well, we're already seeing several emergency bush fire warnings across
30:06
Speaker 8: Victoria which have continued throughout the course of the day,
30:09
Speaker 8: and a life to continue over the next few hours
30:12
Speaker 8: there as well. This is where the two major fires
30:15
Speaker 8: have been, the while Word fire and the Longwood Fire,
30:17
Speaker 8: but several emergency bushfire warnings still exist, with varying levels
30:21
Speaker 8: of advice to either take shelter immediately or to leave immediately,
30:25
Speaker 8: depending on where exactly you are. And many of these
30:27
Speaker 8: fires have been traveling in a southeasterly direction thanks to
30:31
Speaker 8: that north northwesterly wind that has been pulling in. However,
30:34
Speaker 8: the winds are expected to shift, so not only have
30:37
Speaker 8: we had a lot of hot weather, they're Melbourne getting
30:39
Speaker 8: close to forty three degrees and several spots in excess
30:43
Speaker 8: or around forty five degrees. But that shift in wind
30:45
Speaker 8: direction over the next few hours will also create renewed risks.
30:49
Speaker 8: So we've already seen winds gusting eighty to one hundred
30:51
Speaker 8: kilometers an hour across the states. These are the maximum
30:55
Speaker 8: wind gusts that we've seen through today one hundred kilometers
30:57
Speaker 8: an hour there for Mount William Melbourne getting close to
31:00
Speaker 8: sixty to sixty seven kilometers an hour there. And we
31:03
Speaker 8: will see those winds continue over the next few hours
31:06
Speaker 8: and they will start to shift in direction and we
31:09
Speaker 8: could see some southerly winds briefly move in before becoming westerly,
31:12
Speaker 8: and so that will allow the fires to possibly travel
31:15
Speaker 8: in a new direction over the next few hours. Now
31:18
Speaker 8: we will see a cool change moved through, but it
31:20
Speaker 8: won't be providing immediate relief to those fires. We've also
31:23
Speaker 8: seen thunderstorms across the state as well, and so that's
31:26
Speaker 8: where it brought a risk of lightning, dry lightning for
31:29
Speaker 8: those areas, igniting further flames as well. Now, those winds
31:33
Speaker 8: will continue to ramp up, particularly further south into this evening.
31:36
Speaker 8: There will then start to ease back across inland areas
31:40
Speaker 8: generally around nine pm or so, but that shift in
31:42
Speaker 8: wind direction is expected from around now over the next
31:45
Speaker 8: few hours, and so we will see the potential for
31:48
Speaker 8: these fires becoming more erratic in direction, especially with any
31:51
Speaker 8: of those thunderstorms developing that as well, and there is
31:54
Speaker 8: still there severe weather warning across the board for damaging
31:57
Speaker 8: wind gusts which will continue through tonight and grad ease
32:00
Speaker 8: off through the early hours of tomorrow morning, depending on
32:03
Speaker 8: where exactly you are. Now, we do have that cold
32:06
Speaker 8: from pushing in through tonight, so that will provide that
32:09
Speaker 8: relief from the extreme heat, but as mentioned before, as
32:12
Speaker 8: that brings strong winds still along that cold from we're
32:15
Speaker 8: still expected to see that risk of those fires continue
32:18
Speaker 8: and those emergency bush fires unfortunately may still continue over
32:21
Speaker 8: the next few hours and.
32:22
Speaker 1: Into tomorrow there as well.
32:24
Speaker 8: Now looking ahead into tomorrow, that heats will become focused
32:27
Speaker 8: across New South Wales. That heat will start to funnel
32:30
Speaker 8: in there across New South Wales, including Sydney where we'll
32:32
Speaker 8: be seeing extreme heats build. In Sydney could be seeing
32:35
Speaker 8: its hottest day in eight years. They're expecting to see
32:38
Speaker 8: a higher forty three degrees. Western Sydney might get closer
32:42
Speaker 8: to forty five degrees there, so extreme heats pilely and
32:45
Speaker 8: we do also have extreme fire danger expected across New
32:48
Speaker 8: South Wales, including the Sydney metro area thanks to that hot,
32:51
Speaker 8: dry and also gusty weather expected through tomorrow.
32:54
Speaker 2: There Tams and thinks for that update. Our thoughts certainly
32:58
Speaker 2: with that. Viewers in Victoria and Sydney side is getting
33:01
Speaker 2: ready for a very hot day tomorrow. Thank you for
33:04
Speaker 2: that update. All right, We're going to go to a
33:06
Speaker 2: break when we come back. Donald Trump's unpredictable nature has
33:09
Speaker 2: the world on edge, but is that necessarily a bad thing?
33:13
Speaker 2: Former Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Downer will join me next.
33:20
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the program.
33:22
Speaker 2: Donald Trump has unveiled a hardline approach to foreign policy,
33:25
Speaker 2: though after Joe Biden just being awake, I guess could
33:28
Speaker 2: be classified as hardline. Trump claims the US now effectively
33:32
Speaker 2: controls Venezuela after the dramatic seizure of its leader Nicholas Maduro.
33:37
Speaker 2: You can make good arguments for Trump's intervention in Venezuela,
33:41
Speaker 2: but critics warn Trump's strategy could embolden China and Russia
33:45
Speaker 2: to expand their influence in Europe and Asia. To discuss
33:48
Speaker 2: this and more, I'm joined now by former Foreign Affairs
33:51
Speaker 2: Minister Alexander Downer. Alexander, thanks so much for coming on
33:54
Speaker 2: the program. What have you made of Trump's actions in
33:58
Speaker 2: Venezuela and what do you make of those who say
34:01
Speaker 2: he's single handedly destroyed the rules based order that had
34:04
Speaker 2: kept our world safe for the last sixty seventy years.
34:09
Speaker 9: Well, I think what he's done in Venezuela is very bold,
34:12
Speaker 9: and hopefully it will succeed. Overthrowing a socialist dictator who
34:20
Speaker 9: stole the last presidential election where seventy percent of people
34:24
Speaker 9: voted against him, who's reduced the GDP of Venezuela over
34:31
Speaker 9: ten years by between seventy and eighty percent, and has
34:36
Speaker 9: caused something like eight million people, that's twenty percent of
34:41
Speaker 9: the population of Venezuela to leave the country, overthrowing him
34:46
Speaker 9: is no bad thing. I mean, there was a time
34:50
Speaker 9: when liberal democracies and freedom loving people saw the world
34:56
Speaker 9: in terms of, well, we've got to fight authoritarian re
35:00
Speaker 9: regimes and fight for democracy and for freedom. And the
35:04
Speaker 9: fact is, over the last two decades, we've stopped doing that.
35:08
Speaker 9: We've got into this sort of world of moral equivalence.
35:11
Speaker 9: It doesn't matter what sort of regime they have Venezuela
35:15
Speaker 9: or in Iran, or in Russia or China. That's all
35:20
Speaker 9: fined by us, and that's no better or no worse
35:23
Speaker 9: than ours. We used to have faith in our liberal
35:27
Speaker 9: democratic system.
35:29
Speaker 10: We used to believe in the struggle for.
35:32
Speaker 9: Freedom, and if I may say so, Donald Trump has
35:37
Speaker 9: returned to those ideas. I mean, he says out to
35:43
Speaker 9: left field things from time to time, There's no doubt
35:46
Speaker 9: about that. But there is also no doubt that he
35:50
Speaker 9: is absolutely determined that the side of freedom is going
35:54
Speaker 9: to start to prevail because under the old rules based
35:59
Speaker 9: system you describe it, well, Iran, Russia, China, North Korea,
36:06
Speaker 9: they've totally disregarded it.
36:08
Speaker 10: They've disregarded it.
36:10
Speaker 9: We've applied it, and they've disregarded it, and they've made
36:14
Speaker 9: a mockery of us over the last twenty years.
36:18
Speaker 2: That's what I've not understood about all these people complaining
36:21
Speaker 2: that Trump's destroyed the rules based order. I'm thinking, who's
36:24
Speaker 2: been obeying the rules we have? But not China, not Russia,
36:28
Speaker 2: not Iran, and we've been made fools of So I
36:32
Speaker 2: like you, I like your analysis. Let's go from Venezuela
36:36
Speaker 2: to Greenland. Because Trump doesn't seem to be slowing down
36:40
Speaker 2: in terms of his ambitions. Is ambition the right word
36:43
Speaker 2: or is it national security that really is motivating him?
36:47
Speaker 2: He's now pretty determined to really make a pitch for Greenland,
36:53
Speaker 2: even suggesting that perhaps residents of Greenland could be paid money,
36:57
Speaker 2: presumably to vote to join the United States. How serious
37:01
Speaker 2: do you think he really is and how far do
37:03
Speaker 2: you think he would go? If Greenland is that vital
37:07
Speaker 2: to America's national security?
37:09
Speaker 9: Well, it is vital to America's national security. By the way,
37:14
Speaker 9: I've been to Greenland. I don't know many many of
37:18
Speaker 9: your viewers could boast that, But seriously, the United States has,
37:25
Speaker 9: at least in area, its largest military base outside of
37:31
Speaker 9: the United States, actually in Greenland, at a place called Tule,
37:35
Speaker 9: which is in the north of Greenland.
37:38
Speaker 10: And what it does is it communicates.
37:40
Speaker 9: It's fundamental to the American military's communication with their satellite system.
37:48
Speaker 9: And it's also the early warning system for missiles.
37:53
Speaker 10: Can you hear me?
37:54
Speaker 1: Yes? Yes, please continue the.
37:56
Speaker 9: Early warning system for missiles that my in the event
38:01
Speaker 9: of a terrible war come to the United States from Russia.
38:06
Speaker 9: So this, too, lay base is absolutely critical to the
38:09
Speaker 9: security of the United States. So when you look at
38:14
Speaker 9: it from America's point of view, Greenland is a Danish colony.
38:20
Speaker 9: Wouldn't it be better if the Americans rather than the
38:24
Speaker 9: European Union had control of Greenland in terms of American security. Look,
38:33
Speaker 9: I mean, I think it's very debatable and it's probably
38:37
Speaker 9: not worth the trouble to try to buy Greenland from
38:41
Speaker 9: Denmark because the Greenlanders themselves seem to want independence.
38:45
Speaker 10: That was the message I got when I was in Greenland.
38:49
Speaker 9: They don't want to be a Danish colony, but they
38:52
Speaker 9: don't particularly want to be.
38:53
Speaker 10: An American colony.
38:55
Speaker 9: So there are only fifty thousand of them though, so
38:58
Speaker 9: there are not many.
39:00
Speaker 2: Well, let's go from Greenland to Iran, where obviously there's
39:05
Speaker 2: huge turmoil. The country's now being plunged into what effectively
39:09
Speaker 2: is an internet blackout after the largest anti regime protests
39:13
Speaker 2: in over a decade have swept through cities right across
39:16
Speaker 2: the nation. The shutdown raisers fears the authorities are moving
39:20
Speaker 2: to crush unrest behind the digital curtain. Echoing the crackdown
39:24
Speaker 2: in twenty nineteen, Trump says that if the regime starts
39:28
Speaker 2: killing citizens that the US could well intervene.
39:34
Speaker 1: Should the world.
39:34
Speaker 2: Sit back and cheer for the uprising without assisting, or
39:38
Speaker 2: is this an opportunity for the West to see something
39:40
Speaker 2: good happen and get involved where do you sit on
39:44
Speaker 2: that question?
39:45
Speaker 9: Well, we should do everything we can short of military
39:49
Speaker 9: and to bention. And I suppose to support the protesters.
39:53
Speaker 9: I would imagine that it's the Islamic Republican Guard which
39:59
Speaker 9: props up the theocracy, the regime there in Iran, which
40:06
Speaker 9: is by the way, hugely unpopular with the Iranian people anyway,
40:12
Speaker 9: the Islamic Republican Guard props them up. And it's the
40:16
Speaker 9: Islamic Republican Guard, the hardliners in support of the regime
40:21
Speaker 9: who are doing the shooting of civilians and protesters, and
40:24
Speaker 9: they have all sorts of tricks they play to do that.
40:28
Speaker 9: President Trump makes the point, if they keep shooting people will.
40:32
Speaker 10: Do something about it. What would he do well? It
40:35
Speaker 10: means to be seen. You never know if President Trump.
40:39
Speaker 9: But one of the things they could do is they
40:42
Speaker 9: could attack Islamic Republican Guard bases and destroy some of
40:47
Speaker 9: their bases. That might be quite an effective way of
40:52
Speaker 9: supporting the protesters. But it was two thousand and nine
40:57
Speaker 9: when Obama first became the president, there was what's called
41:01
Speaker 9: the Green Revolution in Iran. The Obama administration turned their
41:07
Speaker 9: backs on the Iranian protesters and the Iranian people because
41:12
Speaker 9: they wanted to negotiate the ridiculous nuclear agreement with Iran,
41:20
Speaker 9: which you know they did negotiate. But President Trump fund
41:25
Speaker 9: a better way of fixing the nuclear program by destroying it.
41:30
Speaker 9: So this time, I think the West needs to do
41:33
Speaker 9: what it can. We're supposed to support freedom and human rights.
41:39
Speaker 9: So let's be true to our work, not just be
41:42
Speaker 9: like the Europeans malving platitudes.
41:45
Speaker 10: Let's do something to try to help these people.
41:48
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I'm absolutely with you, Alexander Down.
41:51
Speaker 2: I think when the West is confident in its own
41:53
Speaker 2: principles and convictions, the whole world is better off. I
41:56
Speaker 2: appreciate your analysis. Tonight, have a wonderful weekend. Well we're
41:59
Speaker 2: going to go to the break. But after the break,
42:01
Speaker 2: the United Arab Emirates is limiting the number of students
42:05
Speaker 2: allowed to visit England because they're worried they'll be radicalized
42:09
Speaker 2: by Islamists.
42:10
Speaker 1: In the UK.
42:11
Speaker 2: Or talk to Brendan O'Neil after this, all right, how
42:18
Speaker 2: is this for a story? The United Arab Emirates has
42:21
Speaker 2: cut funding for students to study in Britain because they're
42:25
Speaker 2: afraid Arab kids will be radicalized by Islamists in UK
42:29
Speaker 2: universities joining me now as Spike chief political writer Brendan O'Neil. Brendan,
42:33
Speaker 2: let me just say that again slowly to make sure
42:36
Speaker 2: I've got it right. An Arab Muslim nation in the
42:39
Speaker 2: Middle East is afraid to let its kids study in
42:42
Speaker 2: the UK for fear they'll be radicalized by Islamists.
42:46
Speaker 1: Surely not.
42:48
Speaker 11: Yeah, absolutely, what a story of our times. And you
42:51
Speaker 11: know what, the UA is right to be worried about that.
42:54
Speaker 11: That's the really shocking thing, because the Muslim Brotherhood, which
42:58
Speaker 11: is what they're really concerned about, has a huge influence
43:01
Speaker 11: in the UK. You know, London is recognized as one
43:03
Speaker 11: of the global hubs of the Muslim Brotherhood through various
43:07
Speaker 11: charities and front organizations and think tanks. The Muslim Brotherhood
43:11
Speaker 11: has extraordinary intellectual influence in Britain, including of course, on
43:15
Speaker 11: many many young Muslims, and our university campuses are overrun
43:19
Speaker 11: with radical Islamist thinking. I've seen it with my own eyes.
43:23
Speaker 11: I've spoken on university campuses. I've been confronted by these people.
43:27
Speaker 11: I've been shouted at because I'm pro Israel and I'm
43:30
Speaker 11: skeptical of the Iranian regime and so on. So it's extraordinary.
43:35
Speaker 11: The level of radical Islamist thinking on university campuses here
43:39
Speaker 11: is mad. You know, the Muslim Brotherhood is banned in
43:42
Speaker 11: the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, but it has free
43:46
Speaker 11: reign all across Britain. It is so weird and so disjointed.
43:50
Speaker 11: I think we've got to do something about it.
43:51
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, it is weird. I'm wondering. Can you
43:54
Speaker 1: explain it to me?
43:55
Speaker 2: Why is it that in Muslim nations the Muslim Brotherhood
43:58
Speaker 2: is banned and in the UK carry on, I don't
44:02
Speaker 2: understand it.
44:02
Speaker 1: Can you make sense of that?
44:04
Speaker 11: Well, it's partly because the Muslim Brotherhood in some of
44:07
Speaker 11: those foreign countries takes physical action, you know, it organizes itself,
44:12
Speaker 11: it kind of threatens the government, it sometimes takes armed
44:15
Speaker 11: action and so on and so forth, whereas in the
44:18
Speaker 11: UK it's much more ideas based and it is much
44:21
Speaker 11: more about spreading certain propagandistic ways of thinking. So that's
44:25
Speaker 11: the argument that the British government makes. They say that
44:27
Speaker 11: it hasn't quite crossed the line into being a threat
44:30
Speaker 11: to national security, but we're.
44:31
Speaker 1: Keeping an eye on it.
44:32
Speaker 11: But the problem is that we have a serious issue
44:35
Speaker 11: in the UK, which is that we are just unwilling
44:38
Speaker 11: to confront the problem of Islamism. You're not even really
44:41
Speaker 11: allowed to talk about it. You know, you will be
44:43
Speaker 11: very swiftly be called islamophobic if you talk too much
44:47
Speaker 11: about the problem of radical Islam, the problem of Islamist
44:50
Speaker 11: propaganda amongst certain in mosques and amongst certain young Muslim people.
44:55
Speaker 11: That's seen as an Islamophobic thing to do. So one
44:58
Speaker 11: of the reasons is that we us don't have that fresh, open, honest,
45:03
Speaker 11: frank discussion that we need in order to confront these
45:06
Speaker 11: difficult ideas.
45:08
Speaker 2: Honestly saying that the Muslim brotherhood in the UK haven't
45:10
Speaker 2: crossed the line to violence yet, so we're keeping an eye.
45:13
Speaker 2: It's like saying, I know I've got a crocodile in
45:15
Speaker 2: the backyard, but it hasn't eaten any of the kids yet,
45:18
Speaker 2: so we're keeping an eye on it.
45:19
Speaker 1: Just madness, all right.
45:22
Speaker 2: We all know diversity is our strength, right Brendan or
45:26
Speaker 2: maybe not. The Metropolitan Police decided they didn't have enough
45:29
Speaker 2: officers and staff from ethnic minorities, and so they decided
45:33
Speaker 2: to relax.
45:34
Speaker 1: Their recruitment processes.
45:36
Speaker 2: In fact, they decided to hire more than one hundred
45:38
Speaker 2: people who'd been previously denied employment in the police force,
45:42
Speaker 2: and as a result, they inadvertently hired at least two
45:46
Speaker 2: serial rapists and twenty five people who were given jobs
45:49
Speaker 2: in the police force after previously being rejected, who went
45:53
Speaker 2: on to commit criminal offenses, including sex assaults and murder.
45:58
Speaker 2: This really is the d gone absolutely bonkers.
46:03
Speaker 11: This is the logical conclusion to DEI absolutely and this
46:08
Speaker 11: is another story for our times. It really sums up
46:11
Speaker 11: the weirdness that the Western world is going through right now. So,
46:14
Speaker 11: as you very well described it, what happened is that
46:17
Speaker 11: the Metropolitan Police in London and other police forces around
46:20
Speaker 11: the country as well. I'm sure they decided that they
46:22
Speaker 11: needed to up their diversity, They needed more people from
46:25
Speaker 11: minority groups, so they relaxed the rules for certain constituencies
46:29
Speaker 11: and as a consequence, they let people through who had
46:32
Speaker 11: failed vetting tests, who were known to have committed crimes,
46:35
Speaker 11: and then who went on to commit more crimes while
46:37
Speaker 11: they were members of the police force. It's extraordinary. If
46:41
Speaker 11: an ordinary workplace behaves like this, you would think they
46:44
Speaker 11: were nuts. But for the actual police to do this,
46:47
Speaker 11: for the police to turn a blind eye to criminal
46:49
Speaker 11: behavior because they're so desperate to be politically correct, they're
46:53
Speaker 11: so desperate to be diverse. I mean, that really is
46:55
Speaker 11: a staggering state of affairs. I think it demonstrates how
46:59
Speaker 11: powerful all the cult of diversity is now. Everything can
47:03
Speaker 11: be sacrificed at the altar of so called diversity, even
47:06
Speaker 11: common sense, even the right of people to be protected
47:09
Speaker 11: from crime, all of that goes out the window when
47:12
Speaker 11: it comes to worshiping the cult of diversity. I find
47:14
Speaker 11: it quite chilling actually.
47:16
Speaker 2: Well, speaking of mad the Starma government wants to rewrite
47:20
Speaker 2: laws governing the use of mobility scooters used by disabled
47:24
Speaker 2: people because in the law books written in the seventies
47:26
Speaker 2: they're referred to as invalid carriages and no one calls
47:29
Speaker 2: them that now, but in the law statutes they're still
47:32
Speaker 2: called invalid carriages and apparently that's very offensive. So the
47:36
Speaker 2: government wants to rewrite all these laws to change the language. Now,
47:40
Speaker 2: Brendan just quickly. When I read that story, I thought
47:43
Speaker 2: it was fantastic because obviously it means the UK government
47:46
Speaker 2: has solved every other issue.
47:48
Speaker 11: Yeah, they must have, you know, they must have a
47:50
Speaker 11: lot of time on their hands if they can worry
47:52
Speaker 11: about erasing offended words from the nineteen seventies. As you say,
47:56
Speaker 11: no one uses the term invalid carriages anymore. They say
47:59
Speaker 11: mobility scooters, they say wheelchairs. Language has changed over the decades,
48:03
Speaker 11: but there's absolutely no reason to go back over old
48:06
Speaker 11: laws and change the wording. And we're going to go
48:08
Speaker 11: back to laws from the eighteen hundreds and the seventeen
48:11
Speaker 11: hundreds and scrub away anything that might be offensive to
48:13
Speaker 11: our twenty first century. Is this is indicative of a
48:17
Speaker 11: government that doesn't know how to run the country, has
48:19
Speaker 11: no vision for the future of Britain, and so it
48:21
Speaker 11: busies itself with all this nonsense of going back and
48:24
Speaker 11: changing words from the past. It's ridiculous.
48:27
Speaker 2: We see it all around the West, with the very
48:28
Speaker 2: things governments should be doing they don't seem interested in doing,
48:31
Speaker 2: and the things that no one cares about they're very
48:34
Speaker 2: passionate about. Brendan O'Neil, it's always a joy to speak
48:36
Speaker 2: with you. Thanks so much for joining me. That's all
48:39
Speaker 2: I've got time for tonight. Thanks for your company this week.
48:42
Speaker 2: Coming up right now is the late debate with Frail Leach,
48:44
Speaker 2: kel Richard's and Jamie Rodgers good night,