Latest / The Late Debate / The Late Debate | 26 February

Transcript

The Late Debate | 26 February · The Late Debate

0:00
Speaker 1: Lately. Welcome to the Late Debase.
0:06
Speaker 2: Great to have your company on the Late Debate. I'm
0:08
Speaker 2: James Macpherson with Liz Storer and Caleb Bond. Coming up
0:12
Speaker 2: one of the most unusual drug busts you'll ever see.
0:15
Speaker 2: You won't believe where the smuggler hid his cocaine. We'll
0:18
Speaker 2: show you that a little later. Plus, when we look
0:20
Speaker 2: at the papers speaking of drugs, Victoria's safe drug injecting rooms.
0:25
Speaker 2: Is there such a thing? Having problems? What a surprise.
0:28
Speaker 2: Plus story in tomorrow's Australian newspaper about a very unusual
0:32
Speaker 2: court case in New South Wales where the prosecutor began
0:36
Speaker 2: by admitting he wouldn't win the case, which of course
0:38
Speaker 2: begged the question why were they there. We'll talk to
0:40
Speaker 2: you about that when we get to what's making news tomorrow,
0:44
Speaker 2: But first, you know, we've done a lot of nanny
0:46
Speaker 2: state shows over the past couple of years, but this,
0:49
Speaker 2: this would have to be the silliest example of government
0:52
Speaker 2: over each I have heard in a long time. For
0:55
Speaker 2: the last nine years people have been able to go
0:58
Speaker 2: down to North Bondi Beach go for a surf on
1:01
Speaker 2: a surfboard provided for free by the Shared Board initiative
1:05
Speaker 2: Now it's a group of locals who provide refurbished surfboards
1:09
Speaker 2: for anyone to use free of charge. They just leave
1:12
Speaker 2: them on the foreshore of the beach in a particular
1:14
Speaker 2: spot and the only condition is when you've finished having
1:17
Speaker 2: a surf just bring it back and put it where
1:19
Speaker 2: you found it. And it's a great idea. I mean
1:22
Speaker 2: for people who get to the beach and think, you know,
1:24
Speaker 2: I got my son's screen, I got my hat, I
1:27
Speaker 2: got my boards, I forgot my board, doesn't matter. There's
1:30
Speaker 2: a board that you can borrow for free. Or if
1:33
Speaker 2: you live at Penrith, for instance, and you don't want
1:35
Speaker 2: to lug your board on public transport, you don't have to.
1:37
Speaker 2: You can leave your surfboard in Penrith Rock up at
1:40
Speaker 2: North Bondai and just borrowed one of these shared boards.
1:43
Speaker 2: Or if you like Caleb and you've never been on
1:45
Speaker 2: a surfboard in your life, but you think never been
1:47
Speaker 2: on a beach, that is a bit unfair.
1:52
Speaker 3: I will say I have started going to the beach, Yes,
1:56
Speaker 3: I started this year.
1:59
Speaker 1: Does this happen just this year?
2:00
Speaker 4: I've started going to the Who are you and what
2:02
Speaker 4: have you?
2:03
Speaker 5: Done with Caleb bon Have you ever serfed?
2:05
Speaker 3: No?
2:05
Speaker 1: I haven't.
2:06
Speaker 2: Okay, so you could rock up at North BONDI and think,
2:08
Speaker 2: you know what, I wouldn't mind trying this out, but
2:10
Speaker 2: I don't want to put out the coin to buy
2:12
Speaker 2: a board. I might not enjoy it or be any
2:14
Speaker 2: good at it, which is highly likely to be the case.
2:16
Speaker 2: But Caleb could just borrow one of these shared boards,
2:19
Speaker 2: have a try, and if you don't like it, you
2:21
Speaker 2: just put the board back. No harm done. It's a
2:24
Speaker 2: great initiative, or at least it was until the kill
2:27
Speaker 2: Joys at Waverley Council shut it down of concerns from
2:31
Speaker 2: surf life savers about safety and public liability. Local Cam
2:36
Speaker 2: Scott said the program's been so popular with locals and
2:39
Speaker 2: visitors and we've never had any issues in the past.
2:43
Speaker 2: Other forms of surfing are still allowed, including private board hire,
2:47
Speaker 2: so I'm not sure why shared boards are being singled
2:50
Speaker 2: out as a safety risk. I understand lifeguards want to
2:53
Speaker 2: reduce the risk and that not everyone is an experienced surfer,
2:56
Speaker 2: but I've tried to minimize rescue as much as possible,
3:00
Speaker 2: including reducing the number of boards that can be used
3:02
Speaker 2: and making sure all the boards have leg ropes now.
3:06
Speaker 2: Waverley Mayor Will Nemesh said that he is committed to
3:10
Speaker 2: working out a process to address concerns regarding safety. I'm
3:15
Speaker 2: not sure what the concerns are. If someone rocks up
3:17
Speaker 2: with their own board, there's no concerns. If someone hires
3:20
Speaker 2: a board, there's no concerns. So why are there concerns
3:24
Speaker 2: over the situation where someone shares a board? Lizit that
3:28
Speaker 2: makes no sense whatsoever?
3:30
Speaker 5: Do you wanna be safe or do you wanna be free?
3:33
Speaker 4: It's the same old chestnut every single time.
3:36
Speaker 5: It doesn't matter what we're talking about.
3:39
Speaker 4: It boils down to that when you've got government intervention
3:42
Speaker 4: saying we're doing something utterly ridiculous, which we are telling
3:46
Speaker 4: you is completely necessary in order to keep you safe.
3:50
Speaker 4: We're back at that exaet same square on the chess board.
3:55
Speaker 4: And to be honest, this is one of those ones
3:58
Speaker 4: where you're like, Okay, we follow your reasoning to its
4:02
Speaker 4: logical conclusion. Going into the surf alone is a safety
4:06
Speaker 4: risk and a public liability.
4:08
Speaker 1: So what on it?
4:09
Speaker 5: Because you can't.
4:10
Speaker 4: Guarantee that every single person who enters the surf knows
4:13
Speaker 4: how to swim. Indeed, that's the vast majority of the
4:16
Speaker 4: cases of drowning that we see here in Australia, or
4:18
Speaker 4: people getting caught in rips, et cetera, and so on.
4:21
Speaker 4: They're not seasoned beach goers. They don't know what they're doing.
4:25
Speaker 4: So this is nonsense reasoning. It's for the same reason
4:29
Speaker 4: that we're like, oh, okay, well everybody's got to wear
4:32
Speaker 4: a helmet the second you leave your house then because
4:35
Speaker 4: anything can happen. And then of course there's the broader
4:38
Speaker 4: question of okay, let's say that the government is responsible
4:43
Speaker 4: for your safety to what degree and at what cost,
4:47
Speaker 4: because that's how we end up with.
4:49
Speaker 5: Stuff like this.
4:50
Speaker 4: How much does it boil down to personal responsibility? If
4:53
Speaker 4: you grab a board and go into the surf, let's
4:55
Speaker 4: say that's on you.
4:57
Speaker 3: I mean, has the Waverly Council got nothing else to do?
5:01
Speaker 3: You know, you've got councils running around Sydney at the
5:03
Speaker 3: moment saying that he just jack up the rates by
5:05
Speaker 3: ninety percent because they can't get their hands on enough money.
5:09
Speaker 3: Like I think councils have got a fair bit going
5:12
Speaker 3: on at the moment. But no, the Waverley Council is
5:15
Speaker 3: going after people who want to go for a surf
5:19
Speaker 3: on a shared surfboard.
5:20
Speaker 1: I mean, why would.
5:21
Speaker 3: You try to do any nice things in this country anymore?
5:25
Speaker 1: A bloke says, you know what I think would be
5:27
Speaker 1: a good thing to.
5:28
Speaker 3: Do to restore surfboards so people who can't afford a
5:32
Speaker 3: surfboard I don't want to lag it across the city
5:35
Speaker 3: can come and have a surf at the beach. He's
5:38
Speaker 3: trying to do a good turn for people and in
5:40
Speaker 3: comes the party purpose at the council. Oh, you can't
5:44
Speaker 3: do that because there's public liability problems here.
5:46
Speaker 6: Now.
5:46
Speaker 3: The only public liability problems I can think of are
5:49
Speaker 3: that the board I don't know snaps in the middle
5:52
Speaker 3: of the ocean or something. And then they try to
5:54
Speaker 3: soothe the bloke and say, well, you gave me an
5:56
Speaker 3: unsafe surfboard.
5:57
Speaker 1: You can get.
5:58
Speaker 3: Public liability insurance of that kind of thing. I'm sure
6:01
Speaker 3: the council, if they actually decided they would be helpful
6:05
Speaker 3: instead of inhibiting things, could go and say, look, we'll
6:09
Speaker 3: work it out.
6:09
Speaker 1: We'll sort all of this out here.
6:11
Speaker 3: Maybe the council will even sponsor it so you can
6:14
Speaker 3: have a local shed to do some work in Who
6:16
Speaker 3: knows we.
6:17
Speaker 1: Can make it a community project. No, we couldn't have that.
6:20
Speaker 3: This is the most UnAustralian example of government overreach I
6:25
Speaker 3: have seen in a long time. If you cannot go
6:28
Speaker 3: to the beach and have a surf in Australia without
6:32
Speaker 3: being interfered with by the government or a council, we
6:36
Speaker 3: have lost the plot.
6:38
Speaker 1: Seriously, what is going on.
6:40
Speaker 3: We like to think that we are a country of
6:43
Speaker 3: you know, free spirited Alaricans, and we've still got that
6:46
Speaker 3: convict culture in US. You know, we're sticking it up
6:49
Speaker 3: the pommies because we're free and we're not stuffy like them.
6:53
Speaker 3: But we are We love rules, We love being told
6:57
Speaker 3: what to do. COVID crew exactly, we were all happy.
7:02
Speaker 1: To line up. We are more.
7:03
Speaker 5: Brid We weren't and I did.
7:05
Speaker 1: Not the vast majority of people.
7:07
Speaker 3: But we are more British than the British in the
7:11
Speaker 3: way that we are happy to follow rules and want
7:14
Speaker 3: to be governed. I mean, when you have a premier
7:16
Speaker 3: like Mark mcgow and in WA who had like dictator
7:20
Speaker 3: like approval ratings of ninety one percent or something because
7:24
Speaker 3: he shut the borders, I think it proves the point
7:26
Speaker 3: we just want to be governed hard.
7:28
Speaker 2: And there's a time when we're talking about social cohesion
7:30
Speaker 2: and we've got so many problems in society. He as
7:33
Speaker 2: you said, You've got someone trying to do a nice
7:35
Speaker 2: thing to just help people enjoy themselves. It's free, it's
7:39
Speaker 2: a nice thing to do, but no council can't allow it.
7:42
Speaker 2: And when the mayor says we're committed to implementing a process,
7:45
Speaker 2: God help us. Have you ever come across a government
7:48
Speaker 2: process that made anything better?
7:50
Speaker 3: Can you imagine if someone decided they wanted to have
7:52
Speaker 3: a surf on one of these shared boards and then
7:55
Speaker 3: when they get back on the beach, light up a
7:57
Speaker 3: dart and have a beer like.
7:59
Speaker 1: That would be all the crime, all the law all.
8:03
Speaker 3: You can't have a drink on the beach, you can't
8:06
Speaker 3: have a darry on the beach, you can't have yourselvelopment.
8:09
Speaker 4: You'd of course, it just could be a simple matter
8:12
Speaker 4: of few counselors being really good mates with the people
8:15
Speaker 4: who are heading up the hiring board businesses down at Bondi.
8:20
Speaker 4: That was also a thought I had. But to the
8:22
Speaker 4: UK now, where Prime Minister Kistarma has announced that he
8:25
Speaker 4: is increasing defense spending to two point five percent of
8:29
Speaker 4: GDP by at twenty twenty seven. Now, I reckon Brits
8:36
Speaker 4: have Donald Dre Trump to thank for this little announcement,
8:40
Speaker 4: and I'll.
8:41
Speaker 5: Explain why in a bit.
8:42
Speaker 4: But certainly watching Kirs Starmer today you wouldn't have guessed it.
8:49
Speaker 6: I have long argued that in the face of ongoing
8:52
Speaker 6: and generational challenges, European countries must do more for their
8:57
Speaker 6: own defense. That is in con travertible a completely reasonable point.
9:04
Speaker 6: It is a generational challenge, of course it is, but
9:08
Speaker 6: one we must now take on.
9:11
Speaker 4: I suppose it's just a coincidence that he is echoing
9:15
Speaker 4: very much the sentiments of Trump, which Trump has shouted
9:19
Speaker 4: from the mountaintops since he ran in twoenty and sixteen.
9:24
Speaker 5: He's always considered.
9:25
Speaker 4: NATO these leech countries sucking on the tee to the
9:29
Speaker 4: United States, and he's always said, you flogs have to
9:33
Speaker 4: pull your socks up.
9:35
Speaker 5: I'm not funding this by myself.
9:37
Speaker 4: You guys have to spend more on your own defense
9:40
Speaker 4: spending if you want us to come to your aid
9:43
Speaker 4: when you're in trouble.
9:45
Speaker 5: Here.
9:45
Speaker 4: He was just last February reminding everyone he still stands
9:50
Speaker 4: exactly the same position on the exact same issue second
9:54
Speaker 4: time round.
9:55
Speaker 7: It it was busted until I came along. I said,
9:58
Speaker 7: everybody's going to pay. They said, well, if we don't pay,
10:01
Speaker 7: are you still going to protect us? I said absolutely not.
10:04
Speaker 7: They couldn't believe the answer, and everybody you never saw
10:08
Speaker 7: more money pour in.
10:11
Speaker 4: Trump's actually demanded that NATO countries increase their defense spending
10:16
Speaker 4: to five percent of their economic output. So kirs Dama's
10:20
Speaker 4: basically just announced he's inching closer by twenty twenty seven,
10:25
Speaker 4: but still.
10:25
Speaker 5: Falling quite short.
10:28
Speaker 4: But here he is addressing the nation once again saying
10:31
Speaker 4: this is how I'm keeping Britain safe. Now.
10:36
Speaker 8: Our national security faces a critical moment. That is why
10:41
Speaker 8: we are increasing defense spending to two point five percent
10:45
Speaker 8: of GDP from April twenty to twenty seven, the biggest
10:50
Speaker 8: sustained increase since the Cold War. With my government, Britain
10:56
Speaker 8: will be secure at home and strong abroad.
11:02
Speaker 4: Secure at home, mate, you had over thirty five thousand
11:05
Speaker 4: illegals cross the channel and make their way into your
11:08
Speaker 4: country last year alone, where they've been living high on
11:12
Speaker 4: the hog on the British taxpayer pound. But what I
11:16
Speaker 4: do love about what he's doing here is he's taking
11:19
Speaker 4: the funds from foreign aid to fit the bill for
11:23
Speaker 4: this increase. And I think that is something that all
11:27
Speaker 4: Western countries should do. I think foreign aid is completely
11:31
Speaker 4: and utterly blown out and rarely does it ever actually
11:35
Speaker 4: achieve what the giving country has given it for.
11:39
Speaker 2: What do you think about the foreign aid argument, Well, well,
11:42
Speaker 2: they're spending three billion dollars a year housing illegal asylunce
11:46
Speaker 2: again through their foreign foreign aid is very low.
11:51
Speaker 3: There's an argument to be made that you have to
11:53
Speaker 3: pay a certain level of foreign aid to try and
11:55
Speaker 3: back off countries like China that spend shed loads around
11:58
Speaker 3: the Pacific nations, the Australian example. There's an argument that
12:02
Speaker 3: you have to do that to try and repel them,
12:04
Speaker 3: but then you kind of end up in a bidding
12:06
Speaker 3: war because China has infinite money. Basically we're doing in
12:09
Speaker 3: the Pacific exactly, so they say, well, we'll give them
12:12
Speaker 3: more money. So we say we've got to give them
12:13
Speaker 3: more money. I mean, you could go on and on
12:15
Speaker 3: and on and on forever when it comes to that circumstance,
12:17
Speaker 3: and perhaps when we come to those circumstances, we should
12:20
Speaker 3: be calling in the favors.
12:21
Speaker 1: Of some of our allies.
12:22
Speaker 3: But our foreign aid spend in Australia is about five
12:26
Speaker 3: billion dollars, right, I think that's what it was in.
12:29
Speaker 5: The last this financial year.
12:31
Speaker 1: But five billion dollars.
12:32
Speaker 3: Our military spending last financial year was fifty three point
12:36
Speaker 3: three billion dollars, which was two percent of GDP. So
12:39
Speaker 3: if you took that five billion away from foreign aid
12:42
Speaker 3: and added it to the defense budget, you know, that's
12:45
Speaker 3: ten percent you're adding on top, which is not an
12:47
Speaker 3: insignificant sum of money to add to it. Now, it's
12:51
Speaker 3: already forecast that we will reach two point four percent
12:54
Speaker 3: of GDP by twenty twenty seven, twenty eight, So we're
12:57
Speaker 3: all sort of heading in the same direction. But we
13:00
Speaker 3: have to be heading in that direction. I mean, we
13:03
Speaker 3: have never been in a more precara will say never
13:06
Speaker 3: is not wrong. In the last forty fifty years, we
13:09
Speaker 3: have not been in a more precarious position GOEO politically,
13:13
Speaker 3: and all the predictions from the US are that we
13:16
Speaker 3: could end up in some sort of conflict with China
13:19
Speaker 3: next decade.
13:20
Speaker 1: Right, that's not far away.
13:22
Speaker 3: We're in twenty twenty five now, twenty thirty is in
13:25
Speaker 3: five years time. Meanwhile, we're talking about having submarines and
13:30
Speaker 3: defense capability ready to go by twenty forty, which will
13:33
Speaker 3: be extremely useful. Like we should have been doing this
13:37
Speaker 3: teen years ago. It's all good and will to say, yes,
13:39
Speaker 3: we're picking up the pace now, and good, we need
13:42
Speaker 3: to do it, but let's be real, this should have
13:44
Speaker 3: happened a long time ago.
13:46
Speaker 2: And that's my criticism of Starmer's announcement. He says, you know,
13:49
Speaker 2: this is a generational challenge and we must act. So
13:52
Speaker 2: we're going to increase defense spending by two percent. Not
13:56
Speaker 2: this year, not next year, but in twenty twenty seven.
13:59
Speaker 2: It's an absolute Russia are spending five percent of their
14:02
Speaker 2: GDP on defense. Middle Eastern countries are spending five percent.
14:06
Speaker 2: We don't know what China are spending, but it's probably
14:08
Speaker 2: a lot more than five percent. And as for foreign aid,
14:12
Speaker 2: one of the best things that Western liberal democracies can
14:16
Speaker 2: do for the entire planet is to be strong so
14:19
Speaker 2: they can repel authoritarian to talitarian regimes and keep the
14:23
Speaker 2: flag of freedom flying. But the other thing I would
14:26
Speaker 2: ask Kirstama when he speaks about you know, we're going
14:29
Speaker 2: to defend Britain, tell us what is Britain these days.
14:33
Speaker 2: I mean, you're making such a mess of it, and
14:35
Speaker 2: with the amount of people you're allowing into the country
14:38
Speaker 2: and then all of the ghettoization. Is that a word, Caleb,
14:42
Speaker 2: the segregation that they are promoting through their multicultural policies.
14:47
Speaker 2: I'd just love to know what he says. We're going
14:48
Speaker 2: to defend Britain. How do you define Britain.
14:51
Speaker 3: Well, well, it's the country where the top baby name
14:54
Speaker 3: for boys now is Muhammad. I think that's probably how
14:56
Speaker 3: we define Britain.
14:57
Speaker 2: Incidentally, one more thing before we move on, said it's
15:00
Speaker 2: about two point one percent of GDP and Australia.
15:03
Speaker 3: To two percent at the moment two point four. We're
15:05
Speaker 3: heading two in twenty seven twenty.
15:06
Speaker 2: Eight, which is about what the NDIS will be worth
15:08
Speaker 2: in a couple of years. So, I mean, this is
15:11
Speaker 2: the most geopolitically, you know, risky time we've had since
15:15
Speaker 2: World War Two. And we're committed to spending more money
15:19
Speaker 2: on you know, disabilities, some of which are a little
15:24
Speaker 2: questionable and that argument has been going for some time
15:27
Speaker 2: than we are on defending our borders.
15:29
Speaker 4: So that's more valuable than foreign aid because we've got
15:32
Speaker 4: genuine Aussies in genuine need.
15:34
Speaker 5: What really gets my goat is the.
15:36
Speaker 4: Amount of money that Western countries splurge on foreign aid.
15:40
Speaker 4: In our case, as we continually laugh about, it's a
15:43
Speaker 4: lost cause because China always has deeper pockets. So in comparison,
15:47
Speaker 4: Australia is handing out like five bucks in a snag
15:51
Speaker 4: to all these countries in the Indo Pacific, being like, hey,
15:54
Speaker 4: if something bad happens, please be on our side. Also,
15:58
Speaker 4: hot take news flash. If I have to pay you
16:01
Speaker 4: to be my friend, if I have to pay you
16:04
Speaker 4: to be.
16:04
Speaker 5: My ally, you're not my ally.
16:07
Speaker 4: The entire concept of foreign aid, because we know it's
16:11
Speaker 4: never given out of the goodness of anyone's hearts.
16:13
Speaker 5: It is the form of a bribe.
16:15
Speaker 4: I am buying your loyalty, which again isn't real loyalty,
16:20
Speaker 4: is it.
16:21
Speaker 5: It's such a.
16:22
Speaker 4: Flawed concept and it cannot continue.
16:25
Speaker 5: If I could be.
16:27
Speaker 4: Ruler for a day, I would pull all foreign aid
16:31
Speaker 4: because if your country exists due to the forced donations
16:35
Speaker 4: of my country's tax payers, then maybe you shouldn't. Maybe
16:41
Speaker 4: you shouldn't if you just keep on existing at the
16:43
Speaker 4: behest of the wealthier Western countries who are in fact,
16:47
Speaker 4: weakening themselves, like you said, mac by keeping up this system.
16:52
Speaker 4: It's very strange. Pull it all and let the chips
16:56
Speaker 4: fall where they may.
16:56
Speaker 2: The only thing it's a worry is the reluctance of
16:58
Speaker 2: Western countries to sect refice in order to defend themselves.
17:02
Speaker 2: And Trumps pointed this out in Europe, right. I was
17:05
Speaker 2: really in twenty twenty three, Denmark decided to cancel one
17:08
Speaker 2: public holiday so that the poor Danes were only left
17:11
Speaker 2: with eleven public holidays instead of twelve. But they canceled
17:14
Speaker 2: one public holiday so that they could make an extra
17:17
Speaker 2: six hundred and seventy five million dollars to go towards defense.
17:20
Speaker 2: And there was uproar, you can't take away one of
17:22
Speaker 2: our public holidays.
17:23
Speaker 1: Well what do you want?
17:24
Speaker 2: Do you want a public holiday or do you want
17:26
Speaker 2: your freedom? And in the West that's up for debate
17:29
Speaker 2: right now.
17:29
Speaker 3: They may take on a laaves, but they will never
17:31
Speaker 3: picked out of public holidays. And I think you actually
17:34
Speaker 3: hit on a good point though, Liz, I reckon the
17:36
Speaker 3: best form of diplomacy we could have is to build
17:39
Speaker 3: bunning stores overseas so they can get the snags and
17:42
Speaker 3: then they've got a real taste of Australian culture.
17:45
Speaker 1: A while we're.
17:46
Speaker 3: Talking about defense, the plot thickens on this business of
17:49
Speaker 3: these Chinese warships have been floating down the east coast
17:52
Speaker 3: of Australia. Now we know, we talked about last night
17:55
Speaker 3: that last Friday they were doing live fire drills off
17:59
Speaker 3: the of Australia and we found out about that because
18:03
Speaker 3: a Virgin pilot was flying overhead and he alerted Air
18:07
Speaker 3: Services Australia will today the military has been up at
18:11
Speaker 3: senate estimates and they've corroborated that turn of events. But
18:15
Speaker 3: there's another little tidbit that has been included. That's that
18:18
Speaker 3: the New Zealand military picked up on it before our
18:21
Speaker 3: military picked up on it, even though it took them
18:24
Speaker 3: quite some time to do it. I'll give you the timeline.
18:27
Speaker 3: It was nine to fifty eight am that a Virgin
18:30
Speaker 3: pilot on Friday realized that these warships were firing about.
18:34
Speaker 3: It was at ten eighteen am that an Emirates pilot
18:38
Speaker 3: realized they were firing. It wasn't until eleven oh one
18:43
Speaker 3: that the New Zealand Army realized that they were firing
18:46
Speaker 3: and then in turn let us know. But of course
18:48
Speaker 3: we already knew because not because our military had worked
18:51
Speaker 3: it out, but because a Virgin pilot had worked it out.
18:55
Speaker 3: The other thing is that the Prime Minister last week
18:57
Speaker 3: was saying we had received noticeification that this was going
19:02
Speaker 3: to happen. Then the story became, oh well, the notification,
19:05
Speaker 3: you know, didn't come fast enough.
19:07
Speaker 1: We didn't know in time that it was going to happen.
19:10
Speaker 3: But now we keep hearing more and more this week
19:13
Speaker 3: from different outfits, the military and Air Services Australia and
19:18
Speaker 3: the New Zealand military that they were the ones who
19:22
Speaker 3: let us know.
19:23
Speaker 1: Is the Prime Minister.
19:26
Speaker 9: There were two areas of notification. One was from the
19:32
Speaker 9: New Zealand vessels that were tailing.
19:35
Speaker 2: We're cooperating.
19:36
Speaker 9: We've been monitoring the vessels in the area by both
19:40
Speaker 9: sea and by air, so that occurred and at the
19:44
Speaker 9: same time, through the channels that occur when something like
19:49
Speaker 9: this is occurring, air services got notified as well.
19:54
Speaker 3: When the occurrences are occurring, the people who see occurrences
19:57
Speaker 3: occur to tell us that it's occurred.
19:59
Speaker 1: What the hell was is he talking about there? But
20:01
Speaker 1: he's lied.
20:02
Speaker 3: He said that at the same time as the New
20:05
Speaker 3: Zealand military was telling us it was going on Air
20:08
Speaker 3: Service as Australia told us it was going on.
20:11
Speaker 1: I don't know. Nine to fifty eight am was.
20:14
Speaker 3: When Virgin phoned it through to Air Services Australia, who
20:17
Speaker 3: then told our military. It was more than an hour
20:20
Speaker 3: later at eleven oh one that the New Zealand military
20:23
Speaker 3: told us that they had seen it. It didn't happen
20:26
Speaker 3: at the same time at all. He's petered up and
20:28
Speaker 3: saying there's questions to be answered.
20:31
Speaker 10: There are really significant questions that need to be answered here.
20:34
Speaker 10: If there was an incursion across into our warders and
20:41
Speaker 10: Defense didn't know about it, or the Defense Minister didn't
20:44
Speaker 10: know about it, we need to ask those questions and
20:46
Speaker 10: they should be answered, and frankly, the Prime Minister should
20:49
Speaker 10: stand up and explain what is a very significant event
20:53
Speaker 10: and for.
20:53
Speaker 1: What it's worth.
20:54
Speaker 3: New Zealand's Defense Minister, due to the Collins it doesn't
20:57
Speaker 3: seem to be terribly perturbed by any of this.
21:01
Speaker 11: I've talked to the Chief of Defense Force this morning
21:04
Speaker 11: because I've heard that there was some report that there
21:06
Speaker 11: was some delay and we're just going to find out
21:10
Speaker 11: quite what that wash.
21:12
Speaker 3: Some reporter there might have been at Oh look, I've
21:15
Speaker 3: asked a maybe we'll find out what was going on.
21:18
Speaker 3: I mean, we talk about the fact that we need
21:21
Speaker 3: to boost our defense spending. We just don't seem to
21:24
Speaker 3: take these things with any seriousness. The Prime Minister can't
21:28
Speaker 3: get his story straight. One minute, it was you know,
21:31
Speaker 3: we had warning, Then we find out there was no warning.
21:33
Speaker 3: Then we're told that our allies warned us at the
21:36
Speaker 3: same time as the commercial pilots, which is not true.
21:39
Speaker 3: The commercial pilot's warned us at least an hour in advance.
21:42
Speaker 1: Can we not get this stuff right?
21:45
Speaker 2: I'm not quite sure what's happening here. There seem to
21:47
Speaker 2: be two possibilities. A. Anthony Albanezi is just not across
21:51
Speaker 2: the detail, and he's quite famous for that. The other
21:54
Speaker 2: possibility is Anthony Albanezi is desperate to avoid any sort
21:58
Speaker 2: of confrontation with China at all. He's desperate to avoid
22:03
Speaker 2: any circumstance in which he might have to step up
22:05
Speaker 2: and actually do what Remember Tony Abbott once said he
22:08
Speaker 2: was going to shirt frontront Vladimir Putin. Can you imagine
22:10
Speaker 2: Anthony Oldenezy's shirt fronting anybody. He's desperate to avoid that
22:14
Speaker 2: and so he just lies. And the problem with that
22:17
Speaker 2: is when you get the prime minister of the country
22:20
Speaker 2: lying to the populace about issues of national security, that's
22:24
Speaker 2: a pretty major breach of trust. And second, it signals
22:28
Speaker 2: to the Chinese keep doing this stuff because no one
22:32
Speaker 2: other than the Prime Minister of Australia itself will run
22:36
Speaker 2: cover for you.
22:37
Speaker 4: Well, I think China already knows that it can keep
22:40
Speaker 4: doing this stuff.
22:41
Speaker 5: It has occurred quite regularly.
22:46
Speaker 4: We have one of these stories at least, let's say,
22:48
Speaker 4: once every three months, and yet they get slapped on
22:52
Speaker 4: the risk for it because our politicians have to do
22:55
Speaker 4: the obligatory.
22:56
Speaker 5: Please don't do that. That wasn't very nice. And then
23:00
Speaker 5: last time.
23:01
Speaker 4: We show the Chinese spokesperson giving their version of the
23:05
Speaker 4: story to their people saying no, Australia was the aggressor
23:09
Speaker 4: in international waters.
23:11
Speaker 5: They fired flairs at us and.
23:13
Speaker 4: We were just trying to It was utter nonsense, But
23:17
Speaker 4: that is what they do, and if you read their
23:19
Speaker 4: state run media, that is all they do.
23:23
Speaker 5: And think of it.
23:24
Speaker 4: If this is the motley crew that we've got now,
23:26
Speaker 4: while China is flexing but not doing anything overtly aggressive,
23:33
Speaker 4: can you imagine if we were actually under attack, even
23:35
Speaker 4: a small attack.
23:37
Speaker 5: This would be the.
23:37
Speaker 4: Same motley crew at the helm. Goodness knows what we'd
23:42
Speaker 4: be commentating on. Then we certainly wouldn't be laughing about it,
23:46
Speaker 4: because we wouldn't have the luxury.
23:48
Speaker 3: We probably wouldn't know that the Chinese had landed in
23:51
Speaker 3: Australia until either the Aboriginal people over in wa worked
23:55
Speaker 3: out whether it be there for four days with their
23:58
Speaker 3: drones or a virgin pilot flying overhead, or maybe the
24:01
Speaker 3: New Zealand military would realize sharing.
24:04
Speaker 5: It all over X That is how we'd learn.
24:06
Speaker 4: They'd be filming it on their iPhones and we'd be
24:08
Speaker 4: like all things.
24:10
Speaker 2: Forget Anthony Albanezi, forget the New Zealand Defense Minister. Someone
24:14
Speaker 2: who's actually making a tiny bit of sense on this
24:16
Speaker 2: is Jackie Lamby.
24:20
Speaker 5: They're staying their distance.
24:21
Speaker 12: They're very scared of Tasmanian's mate.
24:23
Speaker 11: I'll tell you.
24:23
Speaker 12: Now where we have our own secrecy thing going on
24:27
Speaker 12: down here. They don't want to come anywhere, and as
24:28
Speaker 12: sure as hell doesn't want to come anywhere any of
24:30
Speaker 12: the top one. Jackie Lamby's here. I want to keep
24:32
Speaker 12: everything really calm here. This is nothing new I just
24:34
Speaker 12: want these time of people to know. The Chinese always
24:36
Speaker 12: trying to stick out their chest.
24:38
Speaker 5: You know, they're like the little boy the co wolf.
24:41
Speaker 12: They never do the right thing. So if you're going
24:43
Speaker 12: to expect to tell they're doing live firing, you know
24:46
Speaker 12: they're not mates of ours.
24:48
Speaker 2: This is what they do there, you go. They won't
24:51
Speaker 2: go near Tasmania because they wouldn't want to mess with
24:54
Speaker 2: Jackie Lamby. We just need a few more Jackie Lamby's
24:56
Speaker 2: spread across the top end in Australia. We say Calor
24:59
Speaker 2: was just you're telling.
25:00
Speaker 3: Me was the first leader of China to actually visit Tasmania.
25:05
Speaker 1: I think it was not too.
25:06
Speaker 3: Long ago, so the story might not be correct. Maybe
25:10
Speaker 3: Jackie wasn't in town.
25:12
Speaker 4: How she talks about it though, like this is nothing new,
25:15
Speaker 4: Like don't worry about it happens all the time. You know,
25:19
Speaker 4: another day and I'm a little something something from China.
25:22
Speaker 4: She said that several times, pretty.
25:25
Speaker 2: Much the safety of Tasmanians because she is there and
25:29
Speaker 2: on the job.
25:30
Speaker 1: Could just give him tazzy. It happens all the time.
25:34
Speaker 2: Let's turn our attention to more serious matters. We talked
25:37
Speaker 2: last week about a documentary aired on the BBC called
25:41
Speaker 2: Gaza How to Survive a War Zone. Now, the documentary
25:45
Speaker 2: was purportedly about how ordinary Palestinians were coping with the
25:50
Speaker 2: conflict in Gaza, and it was told through the eyes
25:53
Speaker 2: of a fourteen year old boy. Well, it was later
25:56
Speaker 2: revealed that fourteen year old boy was not just any boy,
26:00
Speaker 2: is the son of a senior Hamas government official. Remember,
26:04
Speaker 2: Hamas is a terrorist organization. So it was very difficult
26:08
Speaker 2: for the BBC to claim that this was impartial or
26:12
Speaker 2: this was a fair and balanced look at the lives
26:14
Speaker 2: of Palestinians. As I said, it was the son of
26:17
Speaker 2: a Hamas official. Well, since that revelation, there's been more
26:22
Speaker 2: controversy about this documentary put together by the BBC. It's
26:26
Speaker 2: now been revealed they deliberately and repeatedly edited interviews from
26:31
Speaker 2: Palestinians to make those Palestinians seem I don't know less,
26:35
Speaker 2: jew Haiti. Let me read to you from an investigation
26:39
Speaker 2: by the Telegraph in the UK. They write, the Telegraph
26:42
Speaker 2: can reveal that on at least five occasions when they
26:46
Speaker 2: were interviewing local Palestinians the words Yahad and Jahadi. I
26:50
Speaker 2: guess that's how you pronounce it. They're Arabic words for
26:52
Speaker 2: Jew or Jews were changed to Israel or Israeli forces,
26:57
Speaker 2: or were removed from the subtitles all together. So when
27:01
Speaker 2: Palestinians interviewed talked about the Jews, BBC changed it to
27:06
Speaker 2: read Israelis or they just removed references to Jews completely.
27:10
Speaker 2: The article goes on to say an interviewee praising Yahya Sinwa,
27:14
Speaker 2: the Hamas leader for quote jihad against the Jews, was
27:19
Speaker 2: also mistranslated as saying he was fighting Israeli forces. Now
27:25
Speaker 2: a little lesson on the nuances of Hamas speak. There's
27:28
Speaker 2: a massive difference between waging ghard against Jews and fighting
27:32
Speaker 2: Israeli forces. When you're waging g hard against Jews, it's
27:37
Speaker 2: a holy war to destroy and eradicate the Jews everywhere.
27:42
Speaker 2: So when the BBC make this little editorial decision, they're
27:46
Speaker 2: not just mistranslating somebody. They are deliberately misrepresenting the ideology
27:53
Speaker 2: of Palestinians. Palestinians, they claim, are everyday people. Here's just
27:58
Speaker 2: a little example of how the documentary was manipulated.
28:02
Speaker 5: We have a simulatum or kenje. Well, have a simulatum
28:10
Speaker 5: or Jehad.
28:16
Speaker 2: The leader of the Conservative Party, Kemy Badenoch, is now
28:20
Speaker 2: saying that this BBC documentary needs to be fully investigated
28:24
Speaker 2: to find out if any money went to Hamas. Remember
28:28
Speaker 2: BBC as the public broadcaster. Hamas is a terrorist organization.
28:32
Speaker 2: When you've got the son of a senior leader and
28:35
Speaker 2: you've got such obvious edits to misrepresent what is actually
28:38
Speaker 2: going on, it makes you wonder. And she's saying the
28:42
Speaker 2: Anti Terrorism Task Force should probably have a good look
28:44
Speaker 2: at this.
28:45
Speaker 1: And it wasn't even a good job.
28:46
Speaker 3: Like that clip we showed there where in the written
28:49
Speaker 3: translation that sees.
28:50
Speaker 1: Battle instead of g had, you could hear the woman
28:53
Speaker 1: saying she had.
28:54
Speaker 3: Now, I don't know how many people don't know what
28:57
Speaker 3: the word g had means, but like it is the
28:59
Speaker 3: word example of China run interference for a terrorist organization
29:03
Speaker 3: that I've ever seen, like we saw right through that
29:06
Speaker 3: one BBC. But of course what they're trying to do
29:09
Speaker 3: is remove the religious element of the war and simply say, oh, well,
29:13
Speaker 3: you know, these are two groups of people fighting over
29:15
Speaker 3: a piece of land for no particular reason, and there
29:18
Speaker 3: have been more deaths on one side and therefore that's
29:20
Speaker 3: a bad thing. It is in so many ways a
29:23
Speaker 3: religious war. That's why they're talking about jihad. It is
29:26
Speaker 3: an ethno religious war. It is in some ways over
29:30
Speaker 3: the land. But you don't just want the land to
29:33
Speaker 3: expand your country for the hell of making your country bigger.
29:36
Speaker 3: It's because there are ancient disagreements over who has the
29:40
Speaker 3: right to that land. That is the point of why
29:43
Speaker 3: this war is going on, and that is what the
29:46
Speaker 3: BBC doesn't want to answer.
29:47
Speaker 1: I mean, the fact that they had the son of
29:50
Speaker 1: a hamas.
29:50
Speaker 3: Leader is the Hammas administr I should say, as the
29:54
Speaker 3: narrator of the thing. And they supposedly didn't know that,
29:58
Speaker 3: and then they've gone and fiddled with the translations and
30:01
Speaker 3: I don't know, no one knew that that was happening.
30:04
Speaker 3: I mean, what are we paying a public broadcast for.
30:07
Speaker 3: If I'm watching a doco on the BBC and the
30:10
Speaker 3: BBC has a history of producing excellent documentaries Louis throu etc.
30:16
Speaker 3: This is well below what you would expect of the BBC.
30:19
Speaker 3: But it would seem clear they had an agenda to
30:21
Speaker 3: run here. And Badnock has a very good point. Was
30:25
Speaker 3: there any money that changed hands? In the production of
30:28
Speaker 3: this documentary. How did you manage to get that sort
30:32
Speaker 3: of access?
30:32
Speaker 1: How did you manage to end up with the son
30:35
Speaker 1: of a hamas.
30:36
Speaker 3: Minister fronting the thing without there being some kind of Lincoln.
30:40
Speaker 2: Just one little thing to what you said. You're right,
30:42
Speaker 2: it's very religious in nature, and you said it's also
30:45
Speaker 2: about land, but the land is actually a religious issue
30:48
Speaker 2: as well. Exactly, you've got the what is it the mosque,
30:52
Speaker 2: what do they call it, the Dome of the whatever,
30:54
Speaker 2: the Dome of the Rock mosque built on top of
30:56
Speaker 2: where the ancient Jewish temple was. The whole thing is
31:00
Speaker 2: religious and as you said, they've tried to whitewash that.
31:03
Speaker 2: Denny Cohen, the BBC's former television chief, said to the
31:07
Speaker 2: Telegraph that there's clearly deep rooted prejudice within the BBC,
31:11
Speaker 2: and he accuses the BBC of seeding antisemitism in the
31:16
Speaker 2: UK with this kind of rubbish, that they're actually making
31:19
Speaker 2: things even worse and they're promoting antisemitism for a public
31:22
Speaker 2: broadcast and to be doing this is just quite outrageous.
31:25
Speaker 4: Well, when you look at the makeup of the UK
31:28
Speaker 4: now you do wander. We always bash on about how
31:31
Speaker 4: our politicians are shilling for the Muslim vote. Here in Australia,
31:35
Speaker 4: you can bet your bottom dollar they're doing the same
31:37
Speaker 4: over there.
31:38
Speaker 5: There are a massive.
31:40
Speaker 4: Muslim contingent in the UK right now and it's only growing.
31:45
Speaker 5: So you do wonder how many of those now work.
31:47
Speaker 4: For the BBC, Because when we're talking about a documentary
31:51
Speaker 4: like this, you know that this has gone through level
31:54
Speaker 4: after level of editing. How many people were involved in
31:57
Speaker 4: the production of this, How many people would have been
32:00
Speaker 4: aware of these edits, How many people would have been
32:03
Speaker 4: aware that this was the son of a, like you said,
32:06
Speaker 4: a Hamas minister, not just your average Palestinian boy running around.
32:11
Speaker 4: But I got to say, these stories, when they make
32:14
Speaker 4: it into the media and it's pretty rare, are some
32:17
Speaker 4: of my favorites because I hope that it serves to
32:21
Speaker 4: remind people that this is what the media does.
32:25
Speaker 5: This isn't a once off.
32:27
Speaker 4: This is the tip of the tip of the tip
32:29
Speaker 4: of the iceberg, Beryl. I mean it was just last
32:32
Speaker 4: year we found out our own national broadcaster had literally
32:37
Speaker 4: deliberately edited footage that they put to air in order
32:42
Speaker 4: to make it look like our soldiers had committed war
32:46
Speaker 4: crimes overseas.
32:48
Speaker 5: Wrap your head around that.
32:50
Speaker 4: I find that incredibly offensive and you should too. And
32:55
Speaker 4: do you think that's just oh, two examples plucked out
32:58
Speaker 4: of the ethor these are just the ones that we
33:00
Speaker 4: end up finding out about. Can you imagine how much
33:03
Speaker 4: of this goes on.
33:05
Speaker 5: It was just a few weeks.
33:06
Speaker 4: Ago we were talking about the fact that USAID had
33:11
Speaker 4: been busted for funding over six two hundred journals across
33:15
Speaker 4: seven hundred and seven media outlets, seven of which are
33:19
Speaker 4: they eight media outlets in Ukraine.
33:23
Speaker 5: These guys have.
33:24
Speaker 4: Fingers in so many pies and they are stewing information.
33:29
Speaker 5: All over the world like this.
33:31
Speaker 4: This happens so regularly and people are just kept in
33:35
Speaker 4: the dark. The amount of power the media has is incredible.
33:40
Speaker 2: The misrepresentation of what's happening in Gaza by the BBC
33:43
Speaker 2: is becoming almost a joke. It's that frequent. I mean
33:47
Speaker 2: recently I heard them describe the you know that you've
33:50
Speaker 2: got the exchange right, so Hamasa giving up the hostages
33:54
Speaker 2: and in exchange, there's hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, most of
33:57
Speaker 2: whom have been convicted of terrorism offenses, being released. And
34:00
Speaker 2: yet the BBC described the Palestinian prisoners as hostages, and
34:04
Speaker 2: so this just goes on and on and on, to
34:07
Speaker 2: the point that you just would not trust the BBC
34:10
Speaker 2: on anything regarding the Gazan paper, and it.
34:12
Speaker 3: Seems to be a lot of the British media in
34:14
Speaker 3: general at the moment. I think it was Channel four
34:16
Speaker 3: Good Morning Britain recently had a special on, you know,
34:21
Speaker 3: the liberation of Alschwitz, the eightieth anniversary of and they
34:26
Speaker 3: failed in the story to mention that any Jews were
34:29
Speaker 3: at our Schwitz. I mean, how on earth do you
34:32
Speaker 3: manage to do that. Some good news though, back in
34:35
Speaker 3: the US, Donald Trump has somehow managed to take a
34:38
Speaker 3: lot more questions in his first month as president then
34:42
Speaker 3: Joe Biden.
34:43
Speaker 1: Did I know you've.
34:44
Speaker 3: Fallen off your seat, you dropped your cup of tea?
34:46
Speaker 3: You can't believe it's real, but it is a sorry
34:50
Speaker 3: one thousand and nine questions to be precise, Trump has
34:53
Speaker 3: asked from journals since he came to the top job,
34:56
Speaker 3: compared to one hundred and forty one from Joe Biden.
35:01
Speaker 3: We remember how those Biden press conferences used to go.
35:05
Speaker 3: It was something like this, Just when you thought it
35:41
Speaker 3: would end, it didn't. In fact, I think that one
35:44
Speaker 3: went on forever because Joe Biden forgot what was actually
35:47
Speaker 3: going on in that circumstance. But now we have Donald
35:49
Speaker 3: Trump just riffing with report as, having fun, answering their questions,
35:53
Speaker 3: no holds bard because he knows how to talk to
35:56
Speaker 3: an audience, in this instance, talking about some hats a
36:00
Speaker 3: fan had seen.
36:00
Speaker 11: You give me all of them.
36:03
Speaker 9: Look see that.
36:08
Speaker 7: Trump was right about everything.
36:10
Speaker 11: Just came in.
36:11
Speaker 7: Somebody said, I said, this was sent in by a fan.
36:15
Speaker 1: I said, I think we should make.
36:16
Speaker 7: Some of them right, but we were pretty much.
36:19
Speaker 3: You want one?
36:20
Speaker 1: Are you allowed to take away?
36:21
Speaker 7: Because he'll consider And I know him well, I'm a
36:24
Speaker 7: sort of a stiff, I said, Brian, you're not a
36:27
Speaker 7: sy He'll take other things, but not a pretty hand.
36:32
Speaker 3: All making jokes about the Gulf of Mexico being renamed
36:35
Speaker 3: the Gulf of America.
36:37
Speaker 7: I'm just admiring it. As I look at it, I'm
36:42
Speaker 7: getting terry. But I don't want you to say. Trump
36:44
Speaker 7: broke down.
36:44
Speaker 1: And started cry, how beautiful is that? Look at the shoreline,
36:49
Speaker 1: Look at that.
36:51
Speaker 3: So for all the talk of Donald Trump is an
36:53
Speaker 3: enemy of democracy. Donald Trump hates the media. Donald Trump
36:57
Speaker 3: hates journalists.
36:59
Speaker 1: He clearly has.
37:00
Speaker 3: A lot more respect and time for journalists than the
37:02
Speaker 3: previous president did because he can actually answer the questions
37:07
Speaker 3: that they have to usk.
37:08
Speaker 1: He said.
37:08
Speaker 2: Joe Biden only answered one hundred and forty one questions
37:11
Speaker 2: in his first month. That surprises me. I thought that
37:14
Speaker 2: was for his entire term. But you've got to understand
37:17
Speaker 2: one hundred and forty one questions in a month for
37:19
Speaker 2: Joe Biden, one hundred and eleven of those questions were
37:22
Speaker 2: regarding what flavored ice cream he was eating at the time.
37:25
Speaker 5: Very easy.
37:26
Speaker 4: I've always said about politicians facing the press is not
37:29
Speaker 4: hard if you are the genuine article, and Trump is
37:32
Speaker 4: someone who knows himself to be the genuine article.
37:35
Speaker 5: Whether you like him or not is irrelevant. He's standing there,
37:38
Speaker 5: it's like, ask me anything. He's fearless.
37:40
Speaker 4: He just he'll come up with something or he knows
37:43
Speaker 4: the answer. So it makes sense that he's blown previous presidents,
37:48
Speaker 4: including Obama, who only took one hundred and sixty one
37:51
Speaker 4: in their inquiries over his first month in office.
37:56
Speaker 5: So it's not just the ailing.
37:58
Speaker 4: Biden that he blew out of the water. Even the
38:01
Speaker 4: great orator of Obama has also just been dwarfed in
38:05
Speaker 4: Trump shadow.
38:06
Speaker 2: The other interesting part of this is there's been a
38:08
Speaker 2: lot less White House press briefings under Trump in the
38:12
Speaker 2: first month, I think four compared to about sixteen under Biden,
38:15
Speaker 2: which just demonstrates the fact that Trump is incredibly capable
38:19
Speaker 2: and considers himself to be the best spokesperson for his administration. Biden,
38:23
Speaker 2: of course, they just tried to keep him hidden. So
38:27
Speaker 2: there you go. The enemy of democracy turns out to
38:29
Speaker 2: be the most transparent, open president that we've had in
38:33
Speaker 2: quite some time. We're going to go to a break.
38:34
Speaker 2: When we come back, we'll look at what's making news tomorrow,
38:37
Speaker 2: including a very unusual court case in the District Court
38:40
Speaker 2: of New South Wales where the prosecution begins by adminning
38:43
Speaker 2: they can't win. All of that in a moment, Welcome back.
38:48
Speaker 2: Let's take a look at what's making headlines tomorrow. We'll
38:50
Speaker 2: start with Victoria's Herald Sun newspaper, where the headline reads
38:55
Speaker 2: three sorry, violent drug addicts force government agency to move. Now,
39:00
Speaker 2: the Dan Andrews government opened a drug clinic in North
39:05
Speaker 2: Richmond back in twenty eighteen, and they had a four
39:09
Speaker 2: year trial, after which they decided to make it permanent.
39:12
Speaker 2: The problem, of course, was it was right next to
39:14
Speaker 2: a primary school. Well, get a look at what's happened,
39:19
Speaker 2: it says, in a major embarrassment for the Allen government,
39:21
Speaker 2: a state agency is moving out of its Richmond office
39:24
Speaker 2: after repeated cases of staff being subjected to physical assaults
39:27
Speaker 2: and verbal abuse from users of the nearby drug injecting room. So,
39:31
Speaker 2: of course parents at the local school, which is just
39:34
Speaker 2: thirty meters from the drug injecting room, are saying, we've
39:38
Speaker 2: been banging on about this since twenty eighteen. Why would
39:42
Speaker 2: you put this near a school? Here, you've got government
39:44
Speaker 2: workers saying they can't put up with the drug addicts
39:47
Speaker 2: and the rubbish that's going on nearby. Back in twenty
39:50
Speaker 2: twenty one, there was a dead body found near the
39:52
Speaker 2: school after somebody overdosed. There's constant drug paraphernalia left all
39:58
Speaker 2: over the place. This would seem to confirm everything that
40:02
Speaker 2: those Richmond residents were worried about. If it's not good
40:05
Speaker 2: enough for government workers, how on earth is it good
40:07
Speaker 2: enough for primary school kids.
40:09
Speaker 3: Well, and you know it's all good for the public
40:10
Speaker 3: servants who can just up and go somewhere else. Through
40:13
Speaker 3: In a bit of trouble if you're the school right
40:15
Speaker 3: and to think that it wasn't Allen, it was Daniel Andrews.
40:19
Speaker 3: But this government wanted to put another injecting room on
40:22
Speaker 3: Flinders Street in the city, opposite Flinders Street Station. What
40:27
Speaker 3: do they think would have happened then? I mean that
40:30
Speaker 3: end of Elizabeth Street. That the intersection of Elizabeth Street
40:33
Speaker 3: and Flinders Street is bad enough as it is, with
40:36
Speaker 3: drunkards and dragged up people and whatever, homeless people hanging around,
40:40
Speaker 3: walking around, shouting, abusing people.
40:43
Speaker 1: And carrying on.
40:44
Speaker 3: That is bad enough as it is without saying, oh,
40:46
Speaker 3: We're going to put another injecting room up the road.
40:49
Speaker 3: If these public servants can't hack it in Richmond, how
40:52
Speaker 3: do you reckon? The workers of the Melbourne CBD.
40:54
Speaker 1: Would have been able to hack it if the government
40:56
Speaker 1: got their way.
40:57
Speaker 3: Indeed, seriously, let's go to the St Alien tomorrow where
41:01
Speaker 3: it doesn't get much better.
41:02
Speaker 1: This is a bizarre story. Why are we here, judge
41:06
Speaker 1: asked prosecutor.
41:07
Speaker 3: Who admits he can't win a new South Wales Crown
41:10
Speaker 3: Prosecutor told the District Court in an opening address that
41:13
Speaker 3: the case had no prospect of success. In an extraordinary
41:17
Speaker 3: admission that prompted the judge to offer the prosecutor the
41:21
Speaker 3: chance to seek advice from the private bar before proceeding.
41:25
Speaker 3: In a devastating blow to the state's prosecution office, the
41:28
Speaker 3: prosecutor said the prosecution could not exclude the possibility.
41:32
Speaker 1: That there was a reasonable excuse for the.
41:34
Speaker 3: Alleged crime, and therefore there was no hope for a conviction.
41:39
Speaker 3: Asked by District Court Judge Andrew Golfax, how do you
41:43
Speaker 3: win the matter.
41:44
Speaker 1: The prosecutor replied, we don't.
41:47
Speaker 3: Judge went on to ask, then why are we here?
41:51
Speaker 3: I mean, there is enough real crime going on in
41:56
Speaker 3: the world without the DPP off to court to run
42:01
Speaker 3: cases where the prosecutor can see they don't have.
42:06
Speaker 1: A chance of conviction.
42:08
Speaker 3: This is public money being spent running cases that will
42:13
Speaker 3: come to nought.
42:15
Speaker 1: Why are we doing this?
42:16
Speaker 2: Is there almost a case for the defendant to then
42:19
Speaker 2: sue the DPP or so, I don't know, harassment through
42:26
Speaker 2: all of this trouble and landing him in court when
42:28
Speaker 2: they acknowledge they haven't got a hope in hell of winning.
42:32
Speaker 2: Although the punishment maybe exactly, I reckon the defendant will
42:35
Speaker 2: be a little upset if you wouldn't want to have
42:37
Speaker 2: paid your defense lawyer a whole lot of money only
42:39
Speaker 2: to find the prosecution are going to defend me. I
42:42
Speaker 2: should never have engaged the defense.
42:44
Speaker 3: But the prosecutor opened by saying that the defendant was
42:46
Speaker 3: a man of good character.
42:49
Speaker 1: I mean, this is not the way to start a cases.
42:52
Speaker 4: It's money well spent by the taxpayer.
42:56
Speaker 5: If more money well spent, it.
42:58
Speaker 2: Could have just been the prosecutors con used thought for
43:01
Speaker 2: a second he was the defense.
43:02
Speaker 3: Because I've been doing a review into all this stuff.
43:04
Speaker 3: They found eleven cases where prosecution guidelines had not been
43:08
Speaker 3: adhere to.
43:09
Speaker 1: Seriously, it is an absolute joke.
43:11
Speaker 3: They call it a justice system. It's not a justice system.
43:16
Speaker 3: If this is the way they are behaving, speaking of justice,
43:19
Speaker 3: someone wants some sacrificial LAMB said to le Sue law firm.
43:23
Speaker 3: We talked about this last night, but there's been an
43:25
Speaker 3: update over at Slater and Gordon. The executive who says
43:28
Speaker 3: she was falsely accused of sending a malicious quote unquote
43:31
Speaker 3: email to Slater and Gordon's staff is expected to take
43:34
Speaker 3: legal action against the top tier law firm after it
43:37
Speaker 3: allowed the crisis to escalate despite clear early indications the
43:42
Speaker 3: email had been manipulated. This was the former interim Chief
43:46
Speaker 3: People Officer, Mari Ruitz Matheson, who was implicated in having
43:52
Speaker 3: sent out this email that included everyone's review details and pays,
43:58
Speaker 3: so that went out over the weekends to everyone at
43:59
Speaker 3: Slade and Gordon could look at everyone else's pay.
44:02
Speaker 1: She says she didn't do it.
44:04
Speaker 3: Now she's thinking of suing a law firm because it's
44:08
Speaker 3: all gone to crap.
44:09
Speaker 1: I mean, this just gets better and better.
44:11
Speaker 3: Who would have thought that the goings on of a
44:14
Speaker 3: law firm in Sydney could beat almost any other story
44:17
Speaker 3: going around at the moment for entertainment.
44:19
Speaker 1: This is true entertainment.
44:20
Speaker 2: It sounds like it's got a few more twists and
44:22
Speaker 2: turns to go before that story runs out of gas.
44:24
Speaker 2: It's going to be interesting to watch it.
44:26
Speaker 4: They need to make an episode of Suits where this happens.
44:29
Speaker 5: There's some swanky law firm.
44:31
Speaker 4: Then everyone gets an email and finds out what everyone's
44:34
Speaker 4: learning before we go to a break to the Voice
44:37
Speaker 4: of Tasmania. The Mercury plug in two fifty thousand dollars.
44:42
Speaker 4: Grants of up to fifty thousand are now available to businesses,
44:46
Speaker 4: community groups and local government agencies for the installation of
44:51
Speaker 4: public electric vehicle charging infrastructure as the Tasmanian government seeks
44:55
Speaker 4: to accommodate growing demand for evs. Really, really, is the
45:00
Speaker 4: demand really growing for evs? Can you show us the
45:03
Speaker 4: numbers on that, because they're not getting back to us.
45:07
Speaker 5: But how do you like this? Fifty grand?
45:10
Speaker 4: So they would still have to fork out for the
45:12
Speaker 4: actual charger, but the installation, one assumes would be.
45:17
Speaker 5: Covered off by this. I looked up how much it.
45:20
Speaker 4: Is to install a public EV charger in Australia and
45:26
Speaker 4: the interweb says somewhere between forty thousand and one hundred
45:30
Speaker 4: thousand dollars.
45:31
Speaker 5: And that's just the installation.
45:33
Speaker 1: That is extraordinary.
45:35
Speaker 3: To put in a charger for an electric car cost
45:37
Speaker 3: that amount of money. We wonder why people aren't buying
45:40
Speaker 3: these things. Oh, it's the panacea, it'll save the planet,
45:43
Speaker 3: but it'll seem you broke in the meantime. I just
45:45
Speaker 3: cannot get over that it would cost that much money
45:48
Speaker 3: to put a plug in the ground, and.
45:50
Speaker 2: When you consider how inefficient they are. I mean, you
45:52
Speaker 2: can charge one car for what does it take to
45:54
Speaker 2: charge a vehicle twenty minutes twenty thirty minutes. Yeah, it's
45:58
Speaker 2: not a good use of money. We're going to go
45:59
Speaker 2: to break. When we come back. The most unusual drug
46:02
Speaker 2: bust that we've come across for quite a while, we'll
46:05
Speaker 2: show you out went down in just a moment. Okay,
46:10
Speaker 2: I think we've found the most unusual drug bust of
46:13
Speaker 2: the year already. It's only February, but I'm calling it, Caleb.
46:16
Speaker 1: This is it might be the most unusual in a
46:17
Speaker 1: long time. Remember cocaine.
46:19
Speaker 3: Cassie, another great Adelaidian who tried to smuggle all that
46:23
Speaker 3: cocaine out of Columbia stuffed into headphones. She said, we're
46:26
Speaker 3: going to be gifts at her wedding party. Well, this
46:29
Speaker 3: bloke has given her a serious run for her money.
46:33
Speaker 1: Take a look.
46:33
Speaker 3: He was caught by Columbian authorities with cocaine. You can
46:37
Speaker 3: see they're packed up into small bags in a two
46:39
Speaker 3: pay attached to his head.
46:41
Speaker 1: Quite clearly.
46:42
Speaker 3: He has walked through the scanner and they've gone, hmmm,
46:45
Speaker 3: something strange going on here, and they found that the
46:47
Speaker 3: forty year old man had two hundred and twenty grams
46:50
Speaker 3: of cocaine stuffed into his hair. That would be worth
46:54
Speaker 3: upwards of fifty five thousand dollars here in Australia. But
46:58
Speaker 3: the authorities have actually deemed that this is a specific
47:02
Speaker 3: kind of device. They described it as a Naco wig,
47:06
Speaker 3: So it is.
47:07
Speaker 2: Now a thing.
47:09
Speaker 3: There is now a thing stuffing cocaine in your hair
47:12
Speaker 3: and putting it on. And I would have thought, James,
47:14
Speaker 3: you would be a prime candidate for that kind of
47:16
Speaker 3: job with your hairline.
47:18
Speaker 2: I thought that comment might come kind of interestingly watching
47:21
Speaker 2: that vision, I reckon he was more concerned about being
47:25
Speaker 2: exposed a hairline on the drugs, because the moment they
47:29
Speaker 2: took the wig off and got the drugs, he mediately
47:31
Speaker 2: put his cap back on. That was the thing he
47:33
Speaker 2: was worried about.
47:34
Speaker 1: To cover my shame.
47:36
Speaker 4: Before we leave you tonight, if you're a fan of
47:39
Speaker 4: fantasy weddings, have we got one for the history books.
47:43
Speaker 4: This couple decided that they would have a Lord of
47:46
Speaker 4: the Rings wedding, but it got the groom off to
47:48
Speaker 4: a terrible start with his in laws.
47:52
Speaker 5: Oh direct directly quote him.
47:55
Speaker 4: He said, I decided that as the groom, I would
47:58
Speaker 4: fully commit to the role of a midie for Lord
48:01
Speaker 4: Shakespearean style Old English for the entire day. Her mom
48:05
Speaker 4: pulled me aside mid reception, her mom being the mother
48:09
Speaker 4: of the bride, and asked me to just talk normal.
48:13
Speaker 4: He recounted, I told her verily, I know not of
48:17
Speaker 4: what thou doth speak. At the end of the night,
48:20
Speaker 4: my new father in law came up to me, said
48:22
Speaker 4: I had embarrassed the family and made a.
48:24
Speaker 5: Joke out of the wedding.
48:28
Speaker 4: Right after the guy though, if you're gonna pick a
48:30
Speaker 4: themed wedding, you've got to commit to it. This guy
48:34
Speaker 4: just wasn't letting a letting up.
48:35
Speaker 2: Absolutely, that's all we've got time for, but stick around.
48:38
Speaker 2: Coming up is the Reader Penney Show. Good Night,