Latest / Steve Price / Steve Price | 12 December

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Steve Price | 12 December · Steve Price

0:00
Speaker 1: If this is Steve Price, good evening, great to have
0:05
Speaker 1: you with us this Friday, and with Christmas under two
0:07
Speaker 1: weeks away. The politics continues at pace, with yet another
0:11
Speaker 1: taxpayer financial bailout to a stressed heavy metal industry, or
0:15
Speaker 1: here from the Prime Minister shortly, and this camera bubble
0:19
Speaker 1: of cush gushy travel deals for politicians and their families.
0:23
Speaker 1: It continues to anger ordinary Australians. Here's what's coming up
0:27
Speaker 1: on Friday nights. As I said, the politics of energy
0:30
Speaker 1: takes a break for no one. And here we have
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Speaker 1: the Prime Minister in the Hunter Valley today using your
0:35
Speaker 1: taxes to keep open the Tomago aluminum plant beyond twenty
0:39
Speaker 1: twenty eight by subsidizing the mining giant Rio Tinto's energy costs.
0:45
Speaker 1: And he announces this in a week when that same
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Speaker 1: government told you your power bill subsidies are going to vanish.
0:52
Speaker 1: Also a circus in Victoria with my newspaper, the Herald
0:55
Speaker 1: Sun running a six page Transurban sponsored wrap around today
0:59
Speaker 1: announcing a Sunday opening for the multi million dollar Westgate
1:03
Speaker 1: Tunnel project, late and over budget by the way, this Sunday.
1:07
Speaker 1: But guess what the government refused to say when it
1:10
Speaker 1: will actually open until late today when they were forced
1:13
Speaker 1: to hold a media conference and typical spin doctor performance
1:17
Speaker 1: from the Premier Sinder Alim will show you that, plus
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Speaker 1: new developments on the scandalous travel entitlements for families that
1:24
Speaker 1: has skewered Minister Anika Wells and threatens other senior ministers
1:29
Speaker 1: and the Greens. What hypocrites they are, with Opposition leader
1:32
Speaker 1: Susan Lee demanding a face to face meeting with the
1:35
Speaker 1: Prime Minister and a bipartisan solution to fixing what average
1:38
Speaker 1: assi see as an absolute rought, and talking about big
1:42
Speaker 1: build transport projects on the desk with me tonight. A
1:45
Speaker 1: mother whose family is caught up in an unacceptable noise
1:49
Speaker 1: levels from the suburban railroof construction in southeast Melbourne. You
1:53
Speaker 1: will not believe the compensation package that her family has
1:58
Speaker 1: been offered should be here shortly. First, though financially broke
2:02
Speaker 1: state governments in New South Wales and Victoria discovered a
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Speaker 1: long time ago that they could not afford to fund
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Speaker 1: desperately needed motorway and freeway upgrades and new projects. So
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Speaker 1: what they did they did a deal with private enterprise
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Speaker 1: to build what they needed in exchange for back ended
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Speaker 1: contracts that allowed companies like Transurban to toll the roads
2:22
Speaker 1: that they actually built. Now in Sydney, that public private
2:26
Speaker 1: tie up included building Sydney's rail connection to Sydney Airport,
2:30
Speaker 1: now a greatly needed transport link, but users realized quickly
2:33
Speaker 1: that it was a very expensive way to get to
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Speaker 1: your flights. Private enterprise also built the Sydney Cross City
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Speaker 1: Tunnel to connect the eastern suburbs in the Inner West,
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Speaker 1: that was so expensive to use that for years it
2:45
Speaker 1: was simply basically empty. Sydney now has the dubious title
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Speaker 1: announced today of being the most tolled city in the world,
2:54
Speaker 1: and just yesterday New South Wales Premier Chris Menswell he
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Speaker 1: announced he was introducing two way tolling on the iconic
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Speaker 1: Sydney Harbor Bridge and Harbor Tunnel in twenty twenty eight.
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Speaker 1: Now this is despite the bridge tolling ceasing decades ago
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Speaker 1: after being paid off, so the taxpayers have paid for
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Speaker 1: it through tolls. This is the same Premier Chris Means,
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Speaker 1: by the way, who before being elected made a rash
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Speaker 1: of promises about tolls and toll capping at sixty dollars
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Speaker 1: a week, who now will limit toll rebates for the
3:23
Speaker 1: biggest toll users told customers to five thousand dollars a year.
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Speaker 1: The announcement yesterday tried to run some vague argument about fairness,
3:32
Speaker 1: accusing residents of Sydney's Lower Noll Shore and the Northern
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Speaker 1: Beaches of quote having an easy ride. Men's election promise
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Speaker 1: was course pretty simple. He promised, quote no new tolls
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Speaker 1: on existing roads. Well, what does he think the bridge
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Speaker 1: and the Harbor Tunnel are? And on tunnels that brings
3:49
Speaker 1: me to Melbourne and Labour's long overdue and over budget
3:54
Speaker 1: new link between the western suburbs and the city. It's called, imaginatively,
3:59
Speaker 1: wait for it, the Westgate Tunnel, after the congested bridge Westgate.
4:03
Speaker 1: That's what it's named after. Now, bizarrely, there has been
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Speaker 1: a late afternoon media conference by the state government after
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Speaker 1: the biggest selling newspaper in Melbourne, the Herald Sun that
4:13
Speaker 1: I worked for, By the way, ran a six page
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Speaker 1: wrap around this morning. It's a guide announcing that the
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Speaker 1: tunnel will open on Sunday that tells you how much
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Speaker 1: you're paying tolls for hours today. The state government refused
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Speaker 1: to confirm if that date was actually accurate. The newspaper
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Speaker 1: guide being sponsored by the toll company Transurban, that will
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Speaker 1: collect the tolls on all vehicles using exits from the
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Speaker 1: new road complex. Now late today, Premier Allen as I said,
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Speaker 1: wheeled out the usual nodding heads and confirmed what was
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Speaker 1: announced by the paper earlier this morning.
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Speaker 2: I'm particularly excited to be able to announce today to
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Speaker 2: Victorians that the Westgate Tunnel will be open to motorists
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Speaker 2: from this Sunday, the fourteenth of December. And this is
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Speaker 2: a big moment for the future of our great city
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Speaker 2: and state because it's going to transform the way people
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Speaker 2: move around our city and state.
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Speaker 1: How embarrassing is that? And thanks Premier. We read about
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Speaker 1: it in the paper. We knew it was going to
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Speaker 1: open on Sunday, and surprise, surprise, one of the two tunnels,
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Speaker 1: one outbound and there's one inbound, carries an indigenous name.
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Speaker 1: The Premiere explained four.
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Speaker 2: Kilometer outbound tunnel will be known as Eureka, and this
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Speaker 2: is in recognition of the workers and the workforce. It's
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Speaker 2: also appropriated it since you head through the tunnel and
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Speaker 2: if you keep going you'll end up in Ballarat, which
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Speaker 2: of course is the home of that great history that
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Speaker 2: great history of democracy in our state, the home of
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Speaker 2: the Eureka Stockade, and how that lay the foundations for
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Speaker 2: our city and state and the demo democracy and the
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Speaker 2: rights of workers that were fought for at the Eureka Stockade.
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Speaker 2: For the two and a half kilometer inbound tunnel, it
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Speaker 2: will be given a one funnel. They wrong names, never
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Speaker 2: will be known as Bundawa.
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Speaker 1: Well, I guess when you sign a treaty with Indigenous Victorians,
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Speaker 1: you have to use Indigenous place names via projects. Incredibly,
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Speaker 1: and this shows the amazing lack of knowledge and the
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Speaker 1: hysterical ignorance of the people running Victoria. The outbound tunnel,
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Speaker 1: as you saw there with the Premier, is to be
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Speaker 1: called the Eureka Tunnel, as we just heard from Matt
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Speaker 1: grab with Premier Allan. Now, Eureka is named after the
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Speaker 1: Eureka Stockade on the Ballarat goldfields. And what exactly were
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Speaker 1: the miners that Eureka protesting about. Well, they were protesting
6:36
Speaker 1: about a gold mining license tax, a government tax that
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Speaker 1: none of the miners wanted, and so they set up
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Speaker 1: the Eureka Stockade. And the Premier, who has introduced widely
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Speaker 1: unpopular taxes like the emergency services levy and land tax
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Speaker 1: thinks it's cute to name her expensive tunnel Eureka. If
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Speaker 1: it weren't so depressingly sad, it would be laughable. Now.
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Speaker 1: What piqued my interest in this new link to and
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Speaker 1: from the west of Melbourne, where hundreds of thousands of
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Speaker 1: new homes have been built and where many migrant families
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Speaker 1: have settled, is the imposition, for the first time that
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Speaker 1: I can work out in any major capital in Australia
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Speaker 1: a congestion tax or a congestion charge. Now, as Today's
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Speaker 1: guide points out, and I wrote about this come weeks
7:23
Speaker 1: back in there Itzan, if you use the city exit
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Speaker 1: in the am peak Monday to Friday between seven am
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Speaker 1: and nine am, you pay a toll, a higher toll
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Speaker 1: than if you use it later in the day. Even
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Speaker 1: motorcycles pay the toll, and scooters two wheelers pay three
7:39
Speaker 1: dollars twenty seven. Cars will be told six dollars fifty
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Speaker 1: four and wait for it. Light commercial vehicles so your
7:47
Speaker 1: very popular dual cab utes used by every trade in
7:51
Speaker 1: the country, and food delivery vans well they will pay
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Speaker 1: a whopping ten dollars forty seven one way. Once if
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Speaker 1: they go between seven and nine am at that exit.
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Speaker 1: Now congestion tax in anyone's language. Now, a couple of
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Speaker 1: things about that, and the existing Westgate Bridge and its
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Speaker 1: existing exit into the city that remains toll free. So
8:15
Speaker 1: what do the bright sparks in Parliament think will happen? Well,
8:18
Speaker 1: of course, after being slugged a couple of times, when
8:21
Speaker 1: you take you through the new toll booth, the tradees
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Speaker 1: will go back to the bridge and the traffic will
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Speaker 1: go back to where it was. The delivery firms will
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Speaker 1: add the tolls to the price of goods they're delivering,
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Speaker 1: which is your food, and the exit will end up
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Speaker 1: a ghost down. Now I'll talk to a transport expert shortly,
8:37
Speaker 1: but it doesn't end there. No wonder the government didn't
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Speaker 1: want this information out there in the paper in a
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Speaker 1: panel that everyone can read. Listen to the chargers that
8:48
Speaker 1: this new piece of road infrastructure will charge heavy vehicles,
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Speaker 1: including buses and heavy trucks that use the new link
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Speaker 1: nineteen dollars seventy eight during the day for a walk
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Speaker 1: one trip, one way toll thirteen dollars nineteen at night.
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Speaker 1: A twenty four hour user pass will cost a note
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Speaker 1: this is listed as Westgate, so I'm presuming and I
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Speaker 1: have confirmed this now it will presume to go on
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Speaker 1: the existing bridge forty nine dollars forty five and if
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Speaker 1: you use City Link as well once it'll cost you
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Speaker 1: ninety five dollars ten to go over the West Gate Bridge,
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Speaker 1: which currently is free, and onto City Link. I mean,
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Speaker 1: the government says this heavy vehicle toll on an existing road,
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Speaker 1: the West Gate Bridge is to avoid big trucks using
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Speaker 1: rat runs or suburban streets to go west east. But
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Speaker 1: won't that cause a search for free road access instead
9:42
Speaker 1: of a toll? They call them rat runs. Now, Melbourne
9:45
Speaker 1: might be set to overtake Sydney as the road toll
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Speaker 1: capital of the world. But at least with the Sydney
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Speaker 1: toll road network, it's finished, it's open and it works.
9:55
Speaker 1: Melbourne is years behind on its Northwest Link, which has
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Speaker 1: dropped to on the Eastern Freeway from one hundred kilometers
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Speaker 1: an hour, four lanes wide, down to eighty and it
10:05
Speaker 1: looks like that eighty k speed limit will stay there.
10:08
Speaker 1: While a heavily used daily commute and holiday period road
10:11
Speaker 1: Peninsula Link started, a resurface project mysteriously ran out of
10:16
Speaker 1: time or money to finish it, and so now has
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Speaker 1: that road speed limited at eighty kilometers an hour in
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Speaker 1: both directions. What a mess, and welcome to your expensive
10:27
Speaker 1: time limited congestion tax and more expensive grocery bills and
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Speaker 1: truck companies passing on expensive tolls to consumers in Australia's
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Speaker 1: biggest cities. Here's a fun fact to finish on Adelaide,
10:39
Speaker 1: My old hometown has no road tolls on any roads yet.
10:48
Speaker 1: So Premier Isle, it seems to me at least, was
10:50
Speaker 1: forced to schedule that media brief and late this afternoon
10:53
Speaker 1: after the Herald Sun broke that news today that new
10:55
Speaker 1: west Gate Tunnel open on Sunday. It's a ten point
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Speaker 1: two billion dollar proach. A huge wrap around in today's
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Speaker 1: Herald Sun signaled it would open on Sunday, but the
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Speaker 1: government today was strangely not committing to a weekend opening
11:09
Speaker 1: when pressed on that this morning.
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Speaker 3: This is a big and complex project that has been
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Speaker 3: worked on for many years. We're going through the final
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Speaker 3: final touches at the moment. But I'm not here to
11:21
Speaker 3: give you a date right now. As I said, I'm
11:25
Speaker 3: not here to announce the date here. I'm here to
11:28
Speaker 3: celebrate the opening of the Frankston Hospital on the twentieth
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Speaker 3: of January.
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Speaker 1: What a joke and that's plainly bizarre. Finally, the Premier
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Speaker 1: bobbed up with this announcement late this afternoon.
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Speaker 2: For the local residents in this area too, it means
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Speaker 2: getting trucks off local roads, getting nine thousand trucks off
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Speaker 2: local roads, and for a big and vibrant freight and
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Speaker 2: logistics industry, it provides that direct access into the Port
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Speaker 2: of Melbourne, such a big part of Victoria's economy. Here
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Speaker 2: we are delivering that long talked about but it's taken
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Speaker 2: a labor government to deliver the alternative to the West
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Speaker 2: Gate Bridge.
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Speaker 1: Notice all the nodding heads in the background here to
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Speaker 1: explain what this new project will actually do with somebody
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Speaker 1: who was part of the government's peer review of the
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Speaker 1: traffic modeling that was done and the cost analysis, transport
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Speaker 1: planning consultant, William McDougall. Good to talk to you again, William.
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Speaker 1: How does charging a truck ninety five dollars to travel
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Speaker 1: on the West Gate Bridge, which is currently free and
12:27
Speaker 1: onto a city link get them off suburban streets. I
12:30
Speaker 1: would have thought it would have driven the mayor and drove.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, well, you're right, I think it's very difficult to
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Speaker 4: If there's enough of a benefit to use the road,
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Speaker 4: then it will attract the trucks. But only then, and
12:50
Speaker 4: only if you also make sure you've got curfews and
12:55
Speaker 4: other measures on the roads you want to get the
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Speaker 4: trucks off. At the same time time, you.
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Speaker 1: Were deeply critical of this project from the beginning. You
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Speaker 1: said that the figures justifying the expense on this project
13:09
Speaker 1: were flawed. It's not you know, it's due to open Sunday.
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Speaker 1: What are your initial thoughts here? Now that this thing
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Speaker 1: is open, is it going to do what the government
13:20
Speaker 1: claims it's going to do?
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Speaker 4: Well, It's going to be very interesting to see it was.
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Speaker 4: It was the justification for it was based on what
13:31
Speaker 4: we term optimism bias in the in the planning industry,
13:38
Speaker 4: because because the work is done by people that want
13:42
Speaker 4: the project to go ahead, the proponents of the project.
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Speaker 4: But in this case that wasn't the case. It was
13:50
Speaker 4: the government assessing a private sector proposal by Transurban. So
13:56
Speaker 4: why it was termed a business case and why it
13:58
Speaker 4: was done with such and bias completely escaped me. As
14:02
Speaker 4: I was supposed to be. They're reviewing the whole process
14:06
Speaker 4: and they were deep flows in I contend in both
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Speaker 4: the traffic forecasting and the economic appraisal, which works out
14:17
Speaker 4: how much of a return to the economy this project
14:21
Speaker 4: is going to provide. And these two things combined to
14:27
Speaker 4: paint a very rosy picture for the purposes of the
14:32
Speaker 4: government going ahead with it. They had already decided to
14:37
Speaker 4: go ahead with it even before they were elected. They
14:39
Speaker 4: were promising Transurbent in secret that they were going to
14:44
Speaker 4: give it a green light. So why they bothered to
14:50
Speaker 4: do a sham business case, I really don't know.
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Speaker 1: I mean, this was all organized and planned and promised
15:01
Speaker 1: pre COVID and then post COVID. Obviously, we've had the
15:04
Speaker 1: situation where working from home has become much more, much
15:08
Speaker 1: more of a common practice, and indeed the Premiere is
15:11
Speaker 1: going to legislate to demand that employers give people who
15:16
Speaker 1: work in the city the option to take at least
15:19
Speaker 1: two days work from home, so the traffic predictions would
15:23
Speaker 1: be much less surely, I know, I know the population
15:25
Speaker 1: has grown out, but the need for a pub a
15:29
Speaker 1: road project to take you into the CBD must be
15:33
Speaker 1: smaller now than when this was considered in the first place.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, I would thought so as well, and as well
15:42
Speaker 4: as the fact that you know, it's Mondays and Fridays,
15:45
Speaker 4: I think, which are the least busy days of the
15:47
Speaker 4: week nowadays. So obviously the average weekday as is much lower,
15:52
Speaker 4: and the models always forecast on the basis of an
15:55
Speaker 4: average weekday. So it's very you know, again, it's very
16:01
Speaker 4: a skewed I think the work that was done, although
16:07
Speaker 4: obviously and we weren't expecting to have a pandemic, but
16:10
Speaker 4: it was, there was very little quality sensitivity is testing
16:17
Speaker 4: done on how robust the answer was even in those days,
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Speaker 4: Usually you do plenty of tests to make sure that
16:26
Speaker 4: your project would still stack up under a range of
16:31
Speaker 4: possible you know, things unexpected and otherwise.
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Speaker 1: But yeah, incredibly incredibly it came in six thousand million
16:41
Speaker 1: dollars over budget, right, quite extraordinary. Thanks very much for
16:44
Speaker 1: your time. I appreciate it very much. We'll see how
16:46
Speaker 1: that happens when it opens, William on Sunday. Appreciate your time.
16:50
Speaker 1: It's going out of this ongoing fall out from revelations
16:52
Speaker 1: around anaka Well's lavish taxtpayer funded travel life with her
16:56
Speaker 1: husband in so much the time. I mean, he's got
16:59
Speaker 1: the best job in the world. The expense claims of
17:01
Speaker 1: more than dozens of her colleagues from both sides now
17:05
Speaker 1: of the Chamber are under the microscope, as they should be,
17:08
Speaker 1: with increasing calls for those guidelines to be changed. In fact,
17:12
Speaker 1: Susan Lee today wrote to the Prime Minister wants a
17:15
Speaker 1: face to face meeting with him and to sit down
17:17
Speaker 1: and try and rewrite the rules. The PM doesn't seem
17:21
Speaker 1: to be any mood to do that. There was a
17:23
Speaker 1: fabulous piece in the Daily Telegraph today outlining just how
17:27
Speaker 1: there is this massive, growing disconnect between our political elite
17:31
Speaker 1: and every day Australians who are struggling to make ends meet.
17:34
Speaker 1: Lucy Zelik wrote that piece. That column. Talk to Lucy
17:37
Speaker 1: a number of times on this program, She joins us. Now,
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Speaker 1: thanks for your time, great column. I'll tell you what
17:43
Speaker 1: I sat and watched all this unfold over the last
17:46
Speaker 1: few days, and you know, the airfares aside, and the
17:50
Speaker 1: husband getting to go to the tennis and the football
17:53
Speaker 1: and all that. The one thing that stood out to
17:55
Speaker 1: me which would make average Australians really angry was when
17:59
Speaker 1: this minister, Aneka Wells made a com car driver sit
18:03
Speaker 1: in his car outside the Australian Open tennis or she
18:06
Speaker 1: attended the women's final for seven hours, and she repeated
18:10
Speaker 1: this dose with another driver in Sydney and made him
18:13
Speaker 1: sit in the car for ten hours. Lucy, that alone
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Speaker 1: should have this whole scheme blown up and trashed.
18:20
Speaker 5: I don't know, Steve Percy, thanks for having me on
18:22
Speaker 5: the program. Great to be in your company, But I
18:24
Speaker 5: don't know who's got the better gig here. Is it
18:26
Speaker 5: Minister Wells or is it the driver that's just sitting
18:28
Speaker 5: there scrolling through on his phone looking at what the
18:31
Speaker 5: latest thing on eBay is that he can pick up.
18:33
Speaker 5: I mean, this is just disgraceful, and I think that
18:37
Speaker 5: it speaks more broadly to the point about how great
18:40
Speaker 5: the chasm is between the political and the working class
18:44
Speaker 5: here in this country. I heard earlier in the week
18:46
Speaker 5: one of the regional ministers say that we want Australians
18:50
Speaker 5: expect Parliament to reflect society. And if you're going to
18:54
Speaker 5: use that as the means test for just how badly
18:57
Speaker 5: this has gone, then guess what our politicians are fail
19:00
Speaker 5: ailing spectacularly. One of the real sticking points for me,
19:03
Speaker 5: Steve has been about the so called family reunion entitlements
19:07
Speaker 5: as well. Now I know that there are so many
19:09
Speaker 5: people who have differing views. I really got into this
19:12
Speaker 5: particular subject with Stephen Conroy, former Labor Senator, earlier this week,
19:16
Speaker 5: where I just pose the question, why is your time
19:19
Speaker 5: with your family more important than those who say, for example,
19:24
Speaker 5: are fly and fly out mining workers, our ADF personnel,
19:27
Speaker 5: any servicemen and women across the country who are forced
19:30
Speaker 5: to be in scenarios where they're deployed for potentially six
19:34
Speaker 5: months at a time and have limited to no contact
19:37
Speaker 5: with family. Other shift workers like nurses, police officers, small
19:41
Speaker 5: business owners, many of whom are working seven days a
19:44
Speaker 5: week and doing everything that they can just to make
19:47
Speaker 5: ends meet. It's just a massive slap in the face
19:50
Speaker 5: and deeply insulting to think that their time with their
19:53
Speaker 5: families are far more important than ours, particularly those who
19:56
Speaker 5: are having children who are effectively being raised by in
20:00
Speaker 5: childcare centers. So there's a lot of work that needs
20:03
Speaker 5: to go into this, and I would suggest quite firmly.
20:06
Speaker 5: I know that Susan Lee has made moves today by
20:09
Speaker 5: writing to Prime Minister Anthony Albanesi to seek bipartisan reform.
20:13
Speaker 5: But they have been given a rare political gift from
20:16
Speaker 5: their opponents in that if they chose to stand up
20:19
Speaker 5: and say we would like to take this to the
20:21
Speaker 5: next election and abolish family reunion entitlements, we talk about
20:25
Speaker 5: broadening the church. This is something that would appeal to
20:29
Speaker 5: every Australian voter who is genuinely doing it tough out
20:32
Speaker 5: there in this current cost of living crisis.
20:36
Speaker 1: I'll go one step further. What Susan Lisha do is
20:38
Speaker 1: have a media conference on Saturday so that it ends
20:41
Speaker 1: up in the Sunday papers, and she says that none
20:44
Speaker 1: of her colleagues, none of them, will accept any family
20:49
Speaker 1: reunion costs on airfares from today. No more, We're not
20:54
Speaker 1: going to do it. If we want our spouses to
20:57
Speaker 1: come to visit us or see us in Canbell when
21:00
Speaker 1: we're working in Sydney or Melbourne, they can pay to come.
21:02
Speaker 1: If she did that, she would go a long way
21:05
Speaker 1: to getting the public on her side. Why not do that?
21:09
Speaker 5: But imagine the impact and how powerful that would be.
21:12
Speaker 5: But I think you and I and most of our
21:14
Speaker 5: viewers and every hard working Australian tax payer out there
21:17
Speaker 5: know the answer to that Steve, and that is that
21:19
Speaker 5: this is a racket that both sides of politics, and
21:22
Speaker 5: indeed our Independence and Green members of we've seen the
21:25
Speaker 5: revelations unfold over the last week that they enjoy. So
21:29
Speaker 5: this is like getting the Turkeys to vote for Christmas, right,
21:32
Speaker 5: And I think it's going to take someone with real
21:35
Speaker 5: courage of conviction and spine to admit firstly that reform
21:39
Speaker 5: needs to accurse. I'm glad to see that Susan Lee
21:41
Speaker 5: has taken that step, but I note that when she
21:43
Speaker 5: spoke to my colleague over at to GB yesterday, Mark Levy,
21:47
Speaker 5: she really shied away from being able to firmly put
21:50
Speaker 5: her name and the coalition's name to an attempt at
21:53
Speaker 5: the very least to say that we would look at
21:55
Speaker 5: abolishing this. So she hasn't committed to that just yet.
21:57
Speaker 5: I think this may be the first step towards that,
22:00
Speaker 5: And it's cornering the Prime Minister right, Let's be clear.
22:03
Speaker 6: It's putting him in.
22:04
Speaker 5: A scenario where he either has to completely say no
22:07
Speaker 5: to this or he has to go down the path
22:10
Speaker 5: of reform. I know that he's distanced himself very much
22:12
Speaker 5: from even being able to say right that this is
22:15
Speaker 5: something that needs looking at. But all he's done is
22:19
Speaker 5: pass the football on and put all of the blame
22:21
Speaker 5: on IPIA, the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority, when what we
22:25
Speaker 5: do know is that IPIA are the body, the so
22:28
Speaker 5: called independent body that are enforcing the rules. Right, the
22:33
Speaker 5: government create these guidelines. So if the Prime Minister is
22:36
Speaker 5: sitting there and arrogantly saying firstly that well, this is
22:39
Speaker 5: within the guidelines and secondly that you know this is
22:42
Speaker 5: something that we keep at arm's length because it's handled
22:45
Speaker 5: by IPIA and has been since twenty seventeen, we've got
22:48
Speaker 5: two problems. Your guidelines are an issue, and you too,
22:51
Speaker 5: is the Prime Minister acting pretty spinelessly if you can't
22:54
Speaker 5: admit that this is a problem, And why should Anakael's
22:57
Speaker 5: survive this? Right, we've seen what's occur historically with both
23:01
Speaker 5: Bromwin Bishop and the Opposition leader now back then when
23:05
Speaker 5: she was in her role under the Turnbull government had
23:08
Speaker 5: to resign after her own debarcle. Neither of those women
23:11
Speaker 5: were found guilty of any wrongdoing, and in fact both
23:14
Speaker 5: apologized and Bromwin Bishop also.
23:16
Speaker 6: Paid that money back.
23:17
Speaker 5: So why should this be any different for Arnika Wells
23:20
Speaker 5: because this has been a public relations disaster for not
23:24
Speaker 5: just her but for the Labor Party and also more
23:26
Speaker 5: broadly politicians as well. The racket has.
23:29
Speaker 1: To be up. Yeah, just finally, Lucia. And at the
23:33
Speaker 1: end of the day, if you put your hand up
23:36
Speaker 1: to become a federal politician, you know what that means.
23:40
Speaker 1: It means that you're going to spend some of your
23:42
Speaker 1: time every year in Canberra. Now increasingly less and less
23:46
Speaker 1: sitting weeks are actually done, so it's less and less
23:49
Speaker 1: time than what used to be the case, and you're
23:52
Speaker 1: being paid. If you're a backbencher somewhere north of two
23:55
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty thousand dollars. You fly their business class,
23:59
Speaker 1: You spend your time I'm in lounges at airports. You
24:01
Speaker 1: get a car to pick you up when you arrive
24:03
Speaker 1: and one to take you back home when you get back,
24:06
Speaker 1: no matter where you live. So you've got it pretty good.
24:09
Speaker 1: And you've put your hand up and said I want
24:10
Speaker 1: to do that job. So you know, bad luck if
24:13
Speaker 1: you don't see your family. You made the choice.
24:16
Speaker 6: Thank you, Steve.
24:18
Speaker 5: And it's the point that I've also made consistently, not
24:20
Speaker 5: just in the article, but to anyone that will listen
24:23
Speaker 5: on this subject that I've spoken to. Parenting is also
24:26
Speaker 5: a choice, So when we choose to bring children into
24:29
Speaker 5: the world. For example, in my own circumstances, I chose
24:32
Speaker 5: to step away from my career. I mean, my kids
24:34
Speaker 5: are hiding in the bedroom over there. I'm waiting for
24:36
Speaker 5: them to burst out and for me to go viral
24:38
Speaker 5: in a minute, like so many others have for their
24:40
Speaker 5: kids interrupting. We know the challenges of having to try
24:43
Speaker 5: and work with children, and also for those that have
24:46
Speaker 5: been in the political game, they know the demands of
24:49
Speaker 5: politics right and parenting comes as a first time parent,
24:52
Speaker 5: a real shock to the system. But if you are
24:54
Speaker 5: finding that it's increasingly challenging to manage both, then you
24:58
Speaker 5: need to acknowledge that this is not something potentially that's
25:01
Speaker 5: for you. The counter argument to that is, well, we
25:03
Speaker 5: want to see more diversity in politics and in parliament
25:06
Speaker 5: and be able to allow these women to bring their
25:08
Speaker 5: children along. How much time are your children actually quality
25:12
Speaker 5: time are your children spending with you? If you're out
25:14
Speaker 5: the door at five point thirty in the morning, right
25:16
Speaker 5: on these sitting weeks, during these sitting weeks, and coming.
25:19
Speaker 6: Back at nine point thirty at night.
25:20
Speaker 5: Your kids actually should be in bed and if they're not,
25:22
Speaker 5: then we need to start asking questions about your parenting.
25:25
Speaker 6: Right.
25:26
Speaker 1: So I'm this.
25:27
Speaker 5: Whole concept as well that you know, oh well, as
25:30
Speaker 5: well said I work really hard, so does every other
25:32
Speaker 5: Australian that is facing increasing well takends meet exactly, So
25:37
Speaker 5: spare us all the boohooing. It's time for change and
25:40
Speaker 5: I want every voter to remember this the next time
25:42
Speaker 5: they go to the.
25:43
Speaker 1: Ballot right Colum today, Lucy, thank you for helping us
25:47
Speaker 1: out Tonight. This is Elek there now. Coming up, we'll
25:49
Speaker 1: find out why Queensland on they hit this for environmentalists
25:52
Speaker 1: and one guess it relates to the government scrapping its
25:55
Speaker 1: renewable targets. Plus we'll find out how the Victorian government
25:59
Speaker 1: has been trying to silence families who have complained about
26:02
Speaker 1: the noise from that major infrastructure project no one wants,
26:06
Speaker 1: the suburban Railroad. Welcome back to the price with it now.
26:13
Speaker 1: A quick bit of breaking news tonight as we go
26:16
Speaker 1: to where crocodile wrangler Matt Wright has been sentenced to
26:19
Speaker 1: five months jail and find five thousand dollars for attempting
26:22
Speaker 1: to pervert the course of justice over a chopper crash
26:26
Speaker 1: that resulted in the death of his friend Chris Wilson
26:30
Speaker 1: and seriously injured the pilot of that chopper. The star
26:33
Speaker 1: of Outback Wrangler and Wild Croc Territory was sentenced in
26:37
Speaker 1: Darwin today over his actions following that fatal twenty twenty
26:40
Speaker 1: two helicopter crash in arnhem Land. He was found guilty
26:44
Speaker 1: of lying to police and pressuring a witness. He was
26:48
Speaker 1: sentenced to ten months jail, but with five months of
26:51
Speaker 1: that suspended. Lawyers have been signaled Right's intention will be
26:54
Speaker 1: to appeal. But now to the families impacted by the
26:58
Speaker 1: groundbreaking work use that term loosely. In Melbourne Southeast. Now,
27:02
Speaker 1: I drove past this. I drove past this project all
27:04
Speaker 1: the time. Trust me, it is massive. Now this is
27:08
Speaker 1: the twenty four hour suburban rail loop construction site. That's
27:12
Speaker 1: the expensive rail loop no one really asks for and
27:15
Speaker 1: no one seems to know why you would want to
27:18
Speaker 1: build chiltenhamt Box Hill. But the noise and vibration from
27:21
Speaker 1: this work, as you'd expect that it goes on twenty four
27:24
Speaker 1: hours a day, is affecting local residents who live near
27:27
Speaker 1: the project. But in a astonishing and dumb move, the
27:33
Speaker 1: state government you won't believe this, through the contractors has
27:37
Speaker 1: offered anybody who complains about the news of the noise
27:40
Speaker 1: a sleep heeadband, headphones and even would you believe it,
27:45
Speaker 1: tea bags. Robin Davies is the mother of three and
27:48
Speaker 1: one of the recipients of these so called care packages
27:51
Speaker 1: and joins me, now, this is unbelievableelievd tea bags and
27:56
Speaker 1: a headband. So how bad is the noise?
28:00
Speaker 6: The noise has been unbearable at times.
28:04
Speaker 7: They've been doing work recently till ten pm at night,
28:06
Speaker 7: so that has been a lot for residents. It's the noise,
28:10
Speaker 7: it's the light it you know, it comes right to
28:13
Speaker 7: our houses. Earlier in the year we had a lot
28:15
Speaker 7: of issues with vibrations. There was some vibration roller machines
28:19
Speaker 7: running up and down the site and our whole houses
28:21
Speaker 7: were shaking. You know, you could be sitting in your
28:24
Speaker 7: kitchen and fuel your kitchen bench moving.
28:27
Speaker 6: That caused a lot of health issues for people.
28:29
Speaker 1: We had people with tension cracking of your house.
28:31
Speaker 7: Absolutely, but everything we'd report to them is within safe
28:36
Speaker 7: and reasonable levels.
28:37
Speaker 6: And acceptable levels.
28:38
Speaker 1: So when you're talking about the general noise, is that
28:40
Speaker 1: like jackhammering or is it?
28:43
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's rumbling of trucks, it's reversing beacons, it's civil
28:46
Speaker 7: construction right next to it.
28:48
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's NonStop all day.
28:51
Speaker 1: How far from your kitchen window.
28:52
Speaker 7: It's about one hundred meters maybe one hundred and thirty
28:54
Speaker 7: meters from our kitchen window. So it's the first thing
28:56
Speaker 7: we see every morning when we're up making breakfast.
28:59
Speaker 6: Is it's right now, there's no escaping it.
29:01
Speaker 1: How long has that been going on for the construction.
29:04
Speaker 7: That close has probably been about eight to ten months,
29:08
Speaker 7: But we're just at the start. We've got another ten
29:09
Speaker 7: years of this to go before the construction finishes. And
29:12
Speaker 7: then it becomes a twenty four hour stabling.
29:14
Speaker 1: Because they're using that site to begin the tunneling or
29:18
Speaker 1: they're using that site to it's a site to house
29:21
Speaker 1: the trains that run on the suburban. It's both.
29:25
Speaker 7: So the tunnel boring machines will launch right there, and
29:28
Speaker 7: some of our neighbors have been told the tunnels will
29:31
Speaker 7: be approximately eight meters only eight meters under their house.
29:35
Speaker 6: And then when the.
29:35
Speaker 7: Ten years construction's finished, it will be a twenty four
29:38
Speaker 7: hour maintenance yard.
29:39
Speaker 1: How would you go if you had to sell your
29:41
Speaker 1: house now?
29:41
Speaker 6: We wouldn't be able to.
29:43
Speaker 1: That's cost you a fortune.
29:44
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's our home's you know, we've got a family
29:46
Speaker 7: that's like everyone else. You save hard to get your
29:49
Speaker 7: home and it's your space, your safe space.
29:51
Speaker 1: And for our national audience, Heatherton, which is a suburb
29:53
Speaker 1: you're live in, is a great suburb. I mean prior
29:56
Speaker 1: to this unwanted project, I mean you had Kingston Heath
30:00
Speaker 1: golf Course just across the road. I mean you didn't
30:02
Speaker 1: have a map. I mean you've got the Dingley Bypass now,
30:05
Speaker 1: which brought a bit more traffic, But once you get
30:07
Speaker 1: off that road, it's a quiet, suburban, green subbit.
30:10
Speaker 7: And the land that this has all been built on
30:12
Speaker 7: for thirty five years had been promised to be parklands,
30:15
Speaker 7: the Green Wedge, it was meant to be parklands. We
30:19
Speaker 7: bought there knowing our family would be growing up with
30:21
Speaker 7: sporting facilities and parkorns.
30:23
Speaker 1: How insulted were you about the package that we see
30:26
Speaker 1: sit in front of us, which I mean, what is that?
30:29
Speaker 7: That's a imasking headphones my ten year old is meant
30:32
Speaker 7: to wear a bed at night when a noise is
30:34
Speaker 7: too loud. It's got bluetooth speakers in it. And he's
30:37
Speaker 7: meant to sleep with that.
30:39
Speaker 1: On yep, And how does he feel about that?
30:41
Speaker 6: He doesn't like it.
30:42
Speaker 7: He tried it one night and it doesn't work very
30:44
Speaker 7: well and it hurts his ears.
30:45
Speaker 6: And yeah, it's just crazy.
30:47
Speaker 1: And so they knocked on your door and they gave
30:49
Speaker 1: you a tin of chocolate whatever they are, wafers, wafers, tooth,
30:56
Speaker 1: packets of tea bags and what's this.
30:59
Speaker 7: Oh, so there's some community crews that can come out
31:01
Speaker 7: and help clean up the dust, wash our cars, clean
31:04
Speaker 7: our windows because they recognize the amount of dust they're
31:09
Speaker 7: producing and it's just covering our houses.
31:11
Speaker 1: Robin, what would you say if cinder Allen was sitting
31:13
Speaker 1: here not be I.
31:15
Speaker 7: Would say, from a holistic viewpoint, this project's ridiculous. It's
31:19
Speaker 7: so much money. It's not providing what the state needs.
31:24
Speaker 7: You know, there's areas that needs so much more public
31:25
Speaker 7: transport than.
31:26
Speaker 6: Where we are. We've got a lot already.
31:28
Speaker 7: From a personal point of view, I'd say stop treating
31:31
Speaker 7: us as collateral damage. These are our family homes, our futures,
31:34
Speaker 7: and we're just being disregarded.
31:36
Speaker 1: And ironically we're you're living, there's not even going to
31:39
Speaker 1: be a station there.
31:40
Speaker 6: No, so there'll be no station.
31:42
Speaker 7: Our closest station will still be Cheltenham, which is approximately
31:45
Speaker 7: three kilometers from where we live, so the new SrAl
31:49
Speaker 7: station will also be next to that station, and then
31:52
Speaker 7: there'll be no station between Cheltenham and Clayton, so we're
31:55
Speaker 7: no closer to any public transplant.
31:57
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry for you, thanks for coming in, Thanks
32:00
Speaker 1: very much. Good luck with it, rom and there can
32:02
Speaker 1: you believe that this government is just it's coming up
32:05
Speaker 1: more on their blearning costs, weighing down the federal budget,
32:08
Speaker 1: what it means for the midyear review. Plus the critics
32:10
Speaker 1: are out to get Nigel Faraj in the UK, calling
32:13
Speaker 1: him out over a reported racist remarks he made at
32:16
Speaker 1: school thirty nine years ago. Welcome back, coming up across
32:24
Speaker 1: the UK shortly and find out the latest on the
32:26
Speaker 1: growing tensions over Channel migration. Really the UK is in
32:29
Speaker 1: huge trouble with that, I would have to say first.
32:32
Speaker 1: So the Prime Minister today went out and unveiled our
32:35
Speaker 1: long term deal with Rio Tinto to keep open the
32:39
Speaker 1: troubled home Ago Aluminum spelter, which is going to provide
32:42
Speaker 1: billions of dollars. It's going to be provided with billions
32:46
Speaker 1: of dollars in subsidized power. Now Here, he gives his
32:48
Speaker 1: take on what apparently now means taxpayers are investing in
32:53
Speaker 1: organizations like Rio Tinto form my Queensland Premier Campbell Newman,
32:57
Speaker 1: glad to see you now. Forever we've had government subsidizing
33:01
Speaker 1: big industry, particularly when it involves if it shuts down,
33:05
Speaker 1: the loss of in this case a thousand jobs. But
33:08
Speaker 1: it seems that the alban Easy government is doing this
33:12
Speaker 1: week after week after week because it's renewable. Push has
33:16
Speaker 1: been too rushed.
33:18
Speaker 8: Look, the actual headlong rush into net zero, Steve is
33:22
Speaker 8: driving the pressures on all these businesses, these traditional businesses
33:26
Speaker 8: of blue colt large blue collar workforces, and we'll see
33:29
Speaker 8: so much more of it. We can't subsidize everything. Ultimately,
33:33
Speaker 8: we're going to run out of money. And you know,
33:35
Speaker 8: Rare Tinto is a big global organization, and yet to
33:39
Speaker 8: keep this thing going they need a big handout from
33:42
Speaker 8: the federal government. Look, it's just not sustainable. If tomorrow
33:47
Speaker 8: we dropped all the net zero clap trap, the whole
33:50
Speaker 8: push to renewables and let the free market prevail. You
33:53
Speaker 8: know what these businesses would stand on their own two.
33:55
Speaker 1: Feet DPM was there today. How does this play for
34:01
Speaker 1: him politically? Obviously in that seat well, but how does
34:04
Speaker 1: it play for him in other parts of Australia that
34:08
Speaker 1: one organization and retend should be able to afford to
34:12
Speaker 1: pay their electricity bills. How does it play in the
34:15
Speaker 1: rest of the country.
34:18
Speaker 8: Well, I guess the rest of the country also has
34:20
Speaker 8: businesses that are toppling over all the time. Up here
34:25
Speaker 8: in Queensland we've had, for example, a caravan nobile home
34:31
Speaker 8: sort of the manufacturer that's just toppled over in recent
34:34
Speaker 8: weeks and owing supposedly over forty million dollars.
34:37
Speaker 9: It's going on everywhere. You know, bad.
34:40
Speaker 8: Industrialation laws, restrictive regulations of red tape everywhere and high
34:46
Speaker 8: energy costs are really hurting business. Steve, and you know,
34:50
Speaker 8: in terms of the Hunter, by the way, the opportunity
34:53
Speaker 8: for the Coalition is to actually say to people the
34:55
Speaker 8: only reason these jobs are still here is because the
34:59
Speaker 8: government's propping it up. But the only reason they need
35:01
Speaker 8: to prop it up is because of their silly agenda
35:04
Speaker 8: on climate change.
35:07
Speaker 1: One of your fellow Queensland is Jim Charmers. He's in
35:10
Speaker 1: charge of obviously the Treasury. He had a midgear fiscal
35:13
Speaker 1: review he's going to have. He's revealed a twelve point
35:16
Speaker 1: four billion dollar budget blowout. That's pensions, veterans services, disaster relief.
35:23
Speaker 1: The budget's not in good shape. And I'm not sure
35:26
Speaker 1: that Jim Charmers was all that convincing today about where
35:29
Speaker 1: this is all going to go. I think it's going
35:32
Speaker 1: downhill at a rapid rate.
35:35
Speaker 8: I think it is, Steve, because really what we've also
35:38
Speaker 8: seen is because we've got record high government spending outside
35:43
Speaker 8: of course World War Two, we are putting pressure on
35:47
Speaker 8: the economy which has required higher interest rates. So my
35:51
Speaker 8: message this evening is high government spending is causing inflationary pressures,
35:57
Speaker 8: which means the RBA are then having to continue with
35:59
Speaker 8: high intrastrates. We thought the rates were going down, oh contrere.
36:04
Speaker 8: Next year we'll probably see them going up and the
36:06
Speaker 8: market's already moving. I'll make one point twelve point four
36:09
Speaker 8: billion dollars figure you just quoted on those various worthy causes.
36:14
Speaker 8: We'll try this eleven point eight billion dollars deficit or
36:18
Speaker 8: down in terms of the take on tobacco xcize because
36:22
Speaker 8: again it's stupid policy. They've created a black market. Guess
36:25
Speaker 8: who's getting eleven point eight billion dollars That almost matches
36:28
Speaker 8: the twelve point four you just said, the organized criminal gangs.
36:34
Speaker 1: Absolutely, that's the most stupid thing in the world. Good
36:36
Speaker 1: on your camel, I'll see you next week. Cambell Newman. There,
36:39
Speaker 1: let's go to the UK now Making News our Friday
36:41
Speaker 1: night regular Sky News contributor Adrian Hayes. Adrian, great to
36:44
Speaker 1: see you again. I mean I don't really know where
36:46
Speaker 1: to start on this whole anger over migration. I mean,
36:50
Speaker 1: we'll get to that puling vision of that fifteen year
36:52
Speaker 1: old girl shortly. But you've now got British far right
36:56
Speaker 1: activists traveling across the Channel to Northern Answer to confront
37:01
Speaker 1: migrants and destroy small boats. Is it really come to that.
37:07
Speaker 9: Well, I think it's a bigger picture on the Steve.
37:08
Speaker 10: It's when when there's a shambolic operation to try and
37:12
Speaker 10: stop it, citizens will step in, whether it's crime in
37:14
Speaker 10: cities or in this case of legal immigration. They are
37:18
Speaker 10: I would question where they far right activisties are ex
37:21
Speaker 10: military veterans largely some are very Christian conscious or Christian believers,
37:27
Speaker 10: and they have gone over to France filming what is
37:30
Speaker 10: actually going on in France, and the footage is astonishing.
37:35
Speaker 9: They really proved that if there.
37:37
Speaker 10: Was a will, there's courage, and there's a way you
37:39
Speaker 10: could stop these boats because they are they are destroying engines,
37:42
Speaker 10: they're stripping the boats. But they're showing that the French
37:44
Speaker 10: police are just completely aiding this illegal operation, which is
37:50
Speaker 10: and it is pretty shamboic.
37:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, the French are just issuing them with a free
37:56
Speaker 1: pass way you go to go to the UK. Don't
37:58
Speaker 1: be our problem. I did mentioned this other big story
38:01
Speaker 1: during the week. This was that shocking vision footage show
38:04
Speaker 1: in the moment that Afghan asylum seekers, two of them
38:07
Speaker 1: drag a fifteen year old girl into bushes in a
38:11
Speaker 1: park before then raping her. They've now been jailed. The
38:15
Speaker 1: public response to this Adrian I suspect is white hot anger.
38:22
Speaker 10: Yeah, it resembles the Southport murders of last summer or
38:27
Speaker 10: the summer before last. There is widespread anger and of
38:30
Speaker 10: course it's it's just because it's not just an isolated incident. See,
38:34
Speaker 10: it's happening all too regularly in fact, within forty eight dollars,
38:38
Speaker 10: there was three other cases, two other cases, three in
38:40
Speaker 10: total of Afghanese unfortunately rap raping women, so distinct anger.
38:47
Speaker 10: And of course what's even more raised the tempers is
38:50
Speaker 10: that the jury or the actually not the jury, actually
38:54
Speaker 10: what the defense ort to try to keep this hidden,
38:56
Speaker 10: And there's only due to one newspaper that got it
38:58
Speaker 10: released that it was indeed Afghani Afghani.
39:02
Speaker 1: Culprits Nigri Feraji's former's college. I mean, I can't believe
39:06
Speaker 1: it's just briefly Adrian. I mean decades old allegations that
39:10
Speaker 1: he made some racist and andy semitic remarks. It was
39:14
Speaker 1: something like thirty years ago. I mean, he's a big target.
39:17
Speaker 1: He's pulling is through the roof. They'll stop at nothing
39:20
Speaker 1: to try and drag him down, will they.
39:22
Speaker 10: Yeah, there's a campaign that led by that Batsian of
39:25
Speaker 10: great journalism, The Guardian, to discredit him because they're.
39:28
Speaker 9: Frightened, they're very worried about it.
39:31
Speaker 10: We're talking actually fifty years ago, and that you'll know
39:34
Speaker 10: that what we said and what we did fifty years
39:36
Speaker 10: ago is far different than today's world.
39:38
Speaker 9: I think what we're fin perhaps played it wrong. He
39:40
Speaker 9: should have just admitted it.
39:41
Speaker 10: Said, Look, I was a bit of a bully, a
39:43
Speaker 10: bit of an idiot, and I said some pretty inappropriate
39:46
Speaker 10: things that may have gone away. But unfortunately there they've
39:48
Speaker 10: got the bit between their teeth and they're fighting this all,
39:51
Speaker 10: you know, to try and discredit him.
39:53
Speaker 9: That's the whole purpose of this operation.
39:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't imagine what would happen to me if
39:58
Speaker 1: someone wheeled out things I said fifty years ago, Adrian.
40:01
Speaker 1: Great to catch up with you, mate. You have a
40:02
Speaker 1: good weekend. We took to you in a couple of weeks.
40:05
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't even remember what I said fifty
40:07
Speaker 1: years ago. Now, coming up more on the west Coat
40:09
Speaker 1: Tunnel opening, lauded as a win for workers and families,
40:12
Speaker 1: but at what cost to their back pocket? Bus reports
40:15
Speaker 1: thousands of elderly are stuck in hospital beds of waiting care.
40:19
Speaker 1: This is a national disgrace while the government stalls on funding.
40:23
Speaker 1: Our Friday night panel up next, Welcome back on this
40:29
Speaker 1: Friday night Roudine coming up at the top of the hour.
40:31
Speaker 1: Let's get straight into our Friday night panel. Research fellow
40:34
Speaker 1: the Institute of Public Affairs and our regular panelists mess
40:37
Speaker 1: Slit and Sky News contributed Joe, hi'd around guys. Great
40:40
Speaker 1: to see you both. I want to go to this
40:43
Speaker 1: big tunnel project. I mean, I'll get to you in
40:45
Speaker 1: a minute, Joe, because Sydney is just covered in these
40:48
Speaker 1: tunnels that you have to pay tolls on, but meare
40:51
Speaker 1: first to you. I mean, this thing is going to
40:53
Speaker 1: open on Sunday. The Herald Sun had a six page
40:55
Speaker 1: wrap around today and the government got surprised by that
40:59
Speaker 1: and didn't want to really confirm that it was going
41:00
Speaker 1: to open on Sunday. But when you go through the
41:03
Speaker 1: actual details and the Herald Sun had this panel today,
41:07
Speaker 1: what they've actually built is a toll road that has
41:11
Speaker 1: a congestion tax taxed on it tacked onto it at
41:14
Speaker 1: the end. So we've got Australia's first as far as
41:18
Speaker 1: I can work out, capital city congestion tax.
41:23
Speaker 6: Yeah.
41:24
Speaker 11: It's just really unbelievable, isn't it. I mean, only in
41:26
Speaker 11: Victoria would we be so lucky that we get to
41:28
Speaker 11: pay for these things twice? How lucky are we here? Look,
41:32
Speaker 11: they'd be nice enough, and they've said that in January
41:35
Speaker 11: we can all use the road for free, which is
41:36
Speaker 11: just fantastic news given that that brings down the debt
41:39
Speaker 11: that will only be paying off. I don't know for
41:40
Speaker 11: the rest of our lives, but it's great that we'll
41:43
Speaker 11: be about to use it for free during January alone.
41:45
Speaker 11: But really, I mean to center, Allen's out there doing
41:48
Speaker 11: her victory luck at the moment, just trying to pull
41:50
Speaker 11: the wall over the eyes of Victorians to pretend that
41:52
Speaker 11: she has this state somewhat in order before the state
41:55
Speaker 11: election next year. But Victorians aren't mugs. They can see
41:59
Speaker 11: just how mismanaged this project has been from the very beginning.
42:03
Speaker 11: Its cost blew out to almost double. This tunnel now
42:06
Speaker 11: it costs about ten billion dollars, it running extremely over time,
42:10
Speaker 11: and the only person who seemed to benefit from it
42:13
Speaker 11: are her union mets.
42:16
Speaker 1: I mean, Joe went through the tunneling was done underneath
42:19
Speaker 1: the suburbs like Footscray Yarraville on the edge of the
42:22
Speaker 1: Marrabanonge River, and anyone like you and me who lived
42:25
Speaker 1: in Melbourne back in the past. Why would anyone be
42:28
Speaker 1: surprised that they found contaminated soil under there given what.
42:32
Speaker 12: Was on the top. Yeah, that's exactly right. It's very interesting,
42:35
Speaker 12: isn't it. I remember when the Westgate Bridge was first
42:38
Speaker 12: built and you might too pricey, and they had a
42:40
Speaker 12: toll there just to cover the cost of construction. That
42:43
Speaker 12: was then eliminated. I think you had to drive past
42:46
Speaker 12: and throw your twenty cents. I think it was a
42:48
Speaker 12: forty cents in the little toll booth. And then I
42:52
Speaker 12: remember also when Jeff Kennett introduced CityLink, which was the
42:57
Speaker 12: first major toll road that Melbourne had ever had, first permanent,
43:01
Speaker 12: privately operated toll road, and Victoria's just went into meltdown.
43:05
Speaker 1: There was people were.
43:05
Speaker 12: Saying bring back the Southeastern Arterial that would go about
43:09
Speaker 12: three kilometers a day if you were lucky. So I
43:13
Speaker 12: think it's not surprising for anyone in New South Wales
43:16
Speaker 12: to get a new tunnel or a new road with
43:19
Speaker 12: a giant, horrible, unrealistic, brutal toll on it. But I
43:24
Speaker 12: think for Victorians that's still causing a bit of PTSD.
43:28
Speaker 1: And me are the West Gate Bridge at the moment
43:31
Speaker 1: and always has been since that old toll fell away
43:34
Speaker 1: about forty years ago. The trucks are going to now
43:37
Speaker 1: have to pay a toll. They put a new toll
43:39
Speaker 1: gantry on the bridge. Big trucks, heavy trucks are going
43:42
Speaker 1: to have to pay a toll to go over the
43:43
Speaker 1: West Gate Bridge, which until today or Sunday is free.
43:50
Speaker 11: Yeah, it's just unbelievable, isn't it. And on top of that,
43:52
Speaker 11: there's also charges in the tunnel about you know, certain
43:56
Speaker 11: utes they have to pay a bit extra than everyone
43:57
Speaker 11: else to drive through the tunnels. So los Allan and
44:00
Speaker 11: her lovely oph ed and the herald song that she
44:02
Speaker 11: was given today was going on about how great this
44:04
Speaker 11: will be for trades and how they'll be celebrating on
44:07
Speaker 11: their way home. I'm not sure how long tradies will
44:09
Speaker 11: be celebrating for when they come home to the mountains
44:12
Speaker 11: of bills, they have to be paying their sitting there
44:14
Speaker 11: knowing their children are going to have to pay off
44:16
Speaker 11: this debt for years and years to come. I think
44:18
Speaker 11: that celebration will be pretty short lived.
44:22
Speaker 1: Joe Anthony Albanezi was out spreaking another government handout to
44:27
Speaker 1: Riotindo today. But I think they've got a big problem
44:30
Speaker 1: in age care. Three thousand elderly and disabled Australian stuck
44:34
Speaker 1: in public hospitals. I think that's a national disgrace. They'll
44:37
Speaker 1: be at home or they can't get into homes or
44:40
Speaker 1: residential care. I've got a mother in her early nineties.
44:43
Speaker 1: I'm going to have to confront this at some point,
44:44
Speaker 1: not far away. They talk about a looming crisis. The
44:48
Speaker 1: crisis is here right now.
44:50
Speaker 12: Yeah, not just here right now, but has been here
44:52
Speaker 12: for years.
44:53
Speaker 1: Again.
44:54
Speaker 12: I remember in twenty years ago or more when I
44:58
Speaker 12: was in the State Press Gallery, New South Wales Parliament
45:01
Speaker 12: and the state government here was blaming the fact that
45:04
Speaker 12: it had so many hospital beds backed up with people
45:08
Speaker 12: who should be in aged care. It just goes on
45:11
Speaker 12: and on on. It's a real structural problem in age care.
45:14
Speaker 12: You've got it's hugely expensive, it's very difficult for this
45:19
Speaker 12: is going to sound calous, but it's very difficult for
45:21
Speaker 12: companies to make a buck out of it, which means
45:23
Speaker 12: that there's no incentive for you know, businesses to go
45:27
Speaker 12: into that sector. Government's often need to prop it up
45:30
Speaker 12: or they have to basically tell people that to go
45:33
Speaker 12: into them, you know, they're going to have to you know,
45:35
Speaker 12: re mortgage their family home. And also of course, and
45:40
Speaker 12: again this is where things get more and more complex.
45:41
Speaker 12: But there's a worker shortage. There's a massive shortage of
45:45
Speaker 12: age care workers. Which is why we need to bring
45:48
Speaker 12: people in from overseas, and then that can raise issues
45:52
Speaker 12: sometimes with language barriers as well and people getting the
45:56
Speaker 12: care that they need when often the client you know
45:58
Speaker 12: that you know your mum or your grandma or granddad
46:02
Speaker 12: might not be the best communicator in their condition in
46:05
Speaker 12: the first place, and then you've got that additional language barrier.
46:08
Speaker 12: You've got to make sure, of course the qualifications match up.
46:11
Speaker 12: But again that's one reason why we need this skilled
46:13
Speaker 12: migration program. But then of course that then causes its
46:16
Speaker 12: own flow on effects in terms of housing. So it
46:19
Speaker 12: is basically a big hot mess, but it is something
46:22
Speaker 12: we do need to do because hospital beds, to paraphrase
46:25
Speaker 12: Anastasia palicheise infamous comment during COVID hospital beds should be
46:31
Speaker 12: for hospital patients, not for people who should be somewhere
46:33
Speaker 12: else me.
46:35
Speaker 1: We had a royal commission was supposed to sort this
46:37
Speaker 1: all out.
46:41
Speaker 11: Well yeah, and nothing's been sorted out because I know
46:43
Speaker 11: Labour can't spend their way out of this one, because
46:45
Speaker 11: quite frankly, they've run out of money. I mean they're
46:47
Speaker 11: throwing billions and billions of dollars at this We've got
46:49
Speaker 11: state departments we've got federal departments, we have an ever
46:52
Speaker 11: growing NDIS. Yet despite all of the money being thrown
46:57
Speaker 11: at this there seems to be no solution. The fact
46:59
Speaker 11: that we have three thousand Australians not receiving the care
47:02
Speaker 11: they need is absolutely appalling, and it's time to start
47:05
Speaker 11: looking at where all this money is going. But of course,
47:07
Speaker 11: anytime we start opening conversations about what we're doing with
47:10
Speaker 11: the NDAs and all the reckless spending that's been spent there,
47:13
Speaker 11: people shut it down. But we've got to start talking
47:16
Speaker 11: about these things because we need better outcomes.
47:20
Speaker 1: I think I'm watching an episode of Utopia when it
47:23
Speaker 1: comes to this tobacco trade. We decided we'd make legal
47:27
Speaker 1: cigarettes so expensive that the Biky gangs, an organized crime,
47:31
Speaker 1: could import them all from China and make millions. I mean,
47:35
Speaker 1: surely we have to sort that miss out.
47:37
Speaker 12: Yeah, I'm very fond of quoting the Roman emperor Tiberius
47:41
Speaker 12: in this one prices. I'm sure you are as well.
47:43
Speaker 12: Which is that a good shepherd sheares his sheep, he
47:46
Speaker 12: doesn't skin them. And this is what the government has done.
47:49
Speaker 12: It's gone from having a nice, sort of tidy little
47:52
Speaker 12: earner with a tobacco xcize that actually brought in more
47:56
Speaker 12: money than cigarette smokers cost the economy. So one of
48:01
Speaker 12: the original rationales for bringing in the tobacco excizes was
48:04
Speaker 12: not just to make cigarettes more prohibitively expensive and hopefully
48:07
Speaker 12: encourage people to quit, but to say, right, well, smokers
48:10
Speaker 12: are costing the economy, you know, billions of dollars a
48:13
Speaker 12: year in terms of the government, sorry, the taxpayer, in
48:16
Speaker 12: terms of increased health care costs, and also economic costs
48:19
Speaker 12: because they're sick more often, they're not as productive, so
48:21
Speaker 12: we need to recoup that that tipping point has actually
48:25
Speaker 12: gone over the top.
48:26
Speaker 1: As we go back to the point, well, Joe, we
48:29
Speaker 1: have to have a debate about whether we knock off
48:32
Speaker 1: some of the excise. Yeah. Absolutely, Joe, have a great weekend,
48:35
Speaker 1: both of you. Enjoy yourselves. I might go and drive
48:38
Speaker 1: through the new Westgate Tunnel at the weekend just to
48:41
Speaker 1: make myself feel angry. See you next week.