Transcript

Sharri | 24 July · Sharri

0:01
Speaker 1: Live on Sky News. This is Shari. Good on you, James,
0:08
Speaker 1: thanks for that. Welcome to the shows. Steep Price with
0:10
Speaker 1: you in for Shari. Plenty to debate tonight, including the
0:13
Speaker 1: embarrassing failure of a plan to allow non Australian residents
0:17
Speaker 1: to join our military during a recruiting crisis.
0:21
Speaker 2: I have more on that shortly.
0:23
Speaker 1: Also coming up tonight, Good time to have Nationals Backbencher
0:27
Speaker 1: Matt Canavan on with the up first tonight with the
0:30
Speaker 1: odd decision I think odd to allow American beef into
0:33
Speaker 1: Australia regardless of where in the Americas it was actually raised,
0:37
Speaker 1: potentially raising our strict biochemistry regime, and despite there being
0:43
Speaker 1: no consumer demand for it anyway, So why are we
0:46
Speaker 1: letting it in? Except to perhaps keep Donald Trump happy.
0:49
Speaker 1: Also tonight, Peter Jennings will look for answers on why
0:52
Speaker 1: it's so hard to find those recruits young Australians and
0:55
Speaker 1: get them into the ADF and why even our key
0:57
Speaker 1: we friends are reluctant to go into the Australian uniform. Plus,
1:02
Speaker 1: it's come to this, a local council in Melbourne is
1:05
Speaker 1: going to spend a six figure sum hiring private security
1:09
Speaker 1: in the middle of a crime crisis, Victoria police can't
1:12
Speaker 1: handle it, so the council is going to hire their
1:14
Speaker 1: own security. I'll took to the mayor of that council later.
1:18
Speaker 1: First up, though, tonight, speaking of a youth crime crisis
1:22
Speaker 1: right around Australia, why is no one talking about a
1:25
Speaker 1: modern day version of compulsory military service to bolster our
1:29
Speaker 1: great diminished, greatly diminished ADF. Now, look, I'm not talking
1:34
Speaker 1: about conscription often that's where this argument goes. That's not
1:38
Speaker 1: what I'm suggesting, because without a regional war threatening our sovereignty,
1:42
Speaker 1: I don't believe the either side of politics would be
1:45
Speaker 1: gain to try it. Australia hasn't forcefully conscripted their own
1:49
Speaker 1: citizens into uniform and sent them into war since the
1:53
Speaker 1: Vietnam War. Now, I was lucky enough to miss out
1:56
Speaker 1: by a couple of years of having my birthday date
1:59
Speaker 1: marble pulled out of a barrel. Yes, that's how they
2:01
Speaker 1: did it, as conscription ended when GoF Whitlam came to
2:05
Speaker 1: power in nineteen seventy two, so I was too young. Today, though,
2:09
Speaker 1: we have a double problem. The Australian Defense Force, as
2:12
Speaker 1: we keep reading, is in a recruiting crisis. And today
2:15
Speaker 1: we learn that a federal government plan which was announced
2:19
Speaker 1: with great fanfare to allow non Australians who are from
2:23
Speaker 1: our five Eyes intelligence countries that means New Zealand, the US,
2:27
Speaker 1: the UK plus Canada. Well it's been a complete and
2:30
Speaker 1: utter dismal failure. Twelve months in a year in how
2:35
Speaker 1: many people do you think of put their hands up
2:36
Speaker 1: from any of those five countries, Well just three.
2:40
Speaker 2: Those three were Kiwis.
2:41
Speaker 1: They're the only people to put their hands up to
2:43
Speaker 1: serve the ADF, and none of them from the other
2:46
Speaker 1: Five Eyes nations. Now, at the same time, we have
2:50
Speaker 1: the worst youth crime crisis in Australian history. Teenagers, some
2:55
Speaker 1: of them as young as twelve and thirteen, are stealing
2:57
Speaker 1: cars every night, playing deadly chicken with police, invading private
3:01
Speaker 1: homes in the middle of the night and arming themselves
3:05
Speaker 1: with knives and machetes. Leftist state governments who have appointed
3:09
Speaker 1: like minded magistrates have no answer to this crisis, just
3:14
Speaker 1: like the ADF have. It seems, no answers to a
3:17
Speaker 1: lack of willingness of young Australians to put up their
3:20
Speaker 1: hands to volunteer to serve in the Army, of the.
3:22
Speaker 2: Navy, of the Air force.
3:23
Speaker 1: Would any political party, and this is a genuine inquiry
3:27
Speaker 1: from me, have the courage to go to an election
3:30
Speaker 1: with a policy of compulsory military service of one two
3:35
Speaker 1: years for anyone eighteen and over or maybe even seventeen
3:38
Speaker 1: and over. Now, of course there would have to be
3:41
Speaker 1: exemptions to be worked out those people studying, say medicine,
3:45
Speaker 1: or at university at an engineering degree, or perhaps working
3:49
Speaker 1: already in emergency services like being a police officer or
3:53
Speaker 1: a paramedic. But sixty countries, sixty countries around the world
3:57
Speaker 1: still have compulsory time. Doing military training doesn't mean you
4:02
Speaker 1: go to war. You're just training to be a soldier
4:04
Speaker 1: or a sailor or in the air force. Now, many
4:07
Speaker 1: of those nations, think Israeli or Ukraine obviously need numbers
4:11
Speaker 1: for national security. But what I am talking about, though,
4:15
Speaker 1: is using the assets we have in our military to
4:19
Speaker 1: straighten up young Australians in danger of losing their way.
4:22
Speaker 1: We've got huge resources that could train these people into
4:25
Speaker 1: a trade.
4:26
Speaker 2: For example.
4:27
Speaker 1: This could be done by training advantages sold to youngsters
4:30
Speaker 1: unable to say get an apprenticeship. It could be done
4:34
Speaker 1: by court order it could be part of our education system.
4:37
Speaker 1: Even you get enough young men and women into a
4:40
Speaker 1: scheme like this, and guess what a percentage of them,
4:43
Speaker 1: Maybe only a few will stick with it, and that
4:46
Speaker 1: could solve some of our recruiting issues. It will also
4:49
Speaker 1: get some of the repeat offenders, those who get bailed
4:52
Speaker 1: dozens of times, and we've seen examples in Victoria of
4:55
Speaker 1: people bailed forty or fifty times only to complete go
4:59
Speaker 1: out again and repeat their offending on the streets. Look,
5:04
Speaker 1: it's a bold call, and I'm not naive enough to
5:06
Speaker 1: think it'll happen anytime soon. But why can we not
5:09
Speaker 1: have a national, sensible, rational debate about this, at least
5:13
Speaker 1: as an example of how this could work, have a
5:15
Speaker 1: look at Greece.
5:16
Speaker 2: Why do I mention Greece. Well, Greece is not at war.
5:19
Speaker 1: Greece is a sophisticated country with a magnificent tourism industry.
5:24
Speaker 1: All Greek men, and I had to look this up today,
5:26
Speaker 1: I had no idea all Greek men aged between nineteen
5:30
Speaker 1: and forty five must serve between nine and twelve months
5:34
Speaker 1: in the military. Greece, as I said, is a modern
5:36
Speaker 1: nation like Australia, but it's good enough for them, why
5:39
Speaker 1: wouldn't it be good enough for us? Let's bring in
5:45
Speaker 1: our Thursday Night panel please to say West Australian Liberal
5:48
Speaker 1: leader I'd made of my Basil's semplus and National Senator
5:52
Speaker 1: Matt Canavan, gentlemen, welcome, great to see you both now. Basil,
5:56
Speaker 1: I know Perth doesn't have the crime problem that we
5:59
Speaker 1: have on the ear coast, but what do you think
6:02
Speaker 1: a bit of time in the military to straighten up
6:04
Speaker 1: some of the youngsters who are not doing too well.
6:08
Speaker 3: Certainly not the stupidest idea.
6:10
Speaker 4: My family, my sister still lives in Greece and has
6:13
Speaker 4: adult family, my nephew who's in his forties now, but
6:16
Speaker 4: he did the nine to twelve months that everyone was
6:18
Speaker 4: required to do over there, and everyone in Greece I've
6:21
Speaker 4: just returned actually a short time ago.
6:23
Speaker 3: Everyone in Greece considers it very beneficial.
6:26
Speaker 4: It's something that they look forward to, and it is
6:29
Speaker 4: something that they sign up to willingly and they know
6:32
Speaker 4: that it will be over inside a year.
6:34
Speaker 3: So it's a part of a rite of passage.
6:35
Speaker 4: I guess here there's full employment or close to full employment.
6:39
Speaker 4: Once upon a time, you joined the navy or join
6:41
Speaker 4: the army to go and see the world.
6:42
Speaker 3: Lots of people are able to travel now because the
6:45
Speaker 3: costs of traveling have come down.
6:47
Speaker 4: But I think for that youth area, those kids between
6:51
Speaker 4: sixteen and twenty four twenty five, who are struggling to
6:54
Speaker 4: find their way in life, it might.
6:57
Speaker 3: Be hugely beneficial for them.
7:00
Speaker 4: And it is not the stupidest idea and is worthy
7:03
Speaker 4: of sensible and strong consideration.
7:05
Speaker 3: It wouldn't be forever, but it might.
7:07
Speaker 4: Be something that will help make a huge difference to
7:09
Speaker 4: those young kids' lives.
7:10
Speaker 3: I like it.
7:13
Speaker 2: Well, let's see what a sensible politician thinks of it. Matt.
7:15
Speaker 1: I'm probably whistling in the wind. But you know how
7:19
Speaker 1: else are we going to bolster the numbers in the ADF.
7:24
Speaker 5: Well, look, I don't support conscription. I think we proudly
7:27
Speaker 5: have largely had a volunteer army in this country, including
7:30
Speaker 5: during two World Wars. It was a limited form of
7:32
Speaker 5: conscription world War Two, but only to protect the home front,
7:36
Speaker 5: and that served us well. I don't want to load
7:38
Speaker 5: up the military with the problems of society which are
7:41
Speaker 5: legiand keep in mind in terms of youth crime. Look,
7:44
Speaker 5: it's a very small number of juveniles that commit the crimes.
7:48
Speaker 5: Usually the police know them by name. The solution is
7:51
Speaker 5: right in front of us. It's about locking up those kids,
7:54
Speaker 5: not trying to encapture the whole of our youth in
7:57
Speaker 5: a broader scheme. Look in terms of recruitment to the military, well,
8:03
Speaker 5: I think over there in the US we could take
8:05
Speaker 5: a leaf out of Pete Hegseth's book. I mean, they've
8:08
Speaker 5: got recruitment numbers surging because they've reinstilled, reinstalled pride in
8:12
Speaker 5: the military. They've marked it as a sense of duty,
8:16
Speaker 5: Whereas when you see our recruitment ads lately in Australia,
8:19
Speaker 5: it's as if joining the army is sort of a
8:21
Speaker 5: lifestyle choice where you get to party and meet friends
8:24
Speaker 5: and network and think about career opportunities.
8:27
Speaker 3: I think we'll be much.
8:28
Speaker 5: Better selling it to young people are saying this is
8:31
Speaker 5: something you do for your nation, something you sacrifice. It's hard,
8:33
Speaker 5: it's tough, it's difficult, but that will attract the right
8:36
Speaker 5: people and more people to to boot. As we can
8:38
Speaker 5: see from the US.
8:41
Speaker 1: Well, you talk about national pride there, but I mean
8:43
Speaker 1: many of the youngsters in schools are told to not
8:47
Speaker 1: be proud of Australia. I mean they're told that, you know,
8:51
Speaker 1: we're a nation that's been invaded and we shouldn't just
8:54
Speaker 1: fly our flag but have three and I mean the
8:57
Speaker 1: pride's gone, Matt, that's the problem.
9:01
Speaker 5: Well, look, the death's definitely had an impact. But in
9:04
Speaker 5: terms of how many people do you want us to
9:06
Speaker 5: want to join the Australian military any one year, we
9:08
Speaker 5: only have an armed defense course of less than one
9:12
Speaker 5: hundred thousand people. So there are still plenty of young
9:14
Speaker 5: Australians with pride in their nation. They just need to
9:16
Speaker 5: be given the hope that joining the military will allow
9:18
Speaker 5: them to exercise and show that pride. And keep in
9:22
Speaker 5: mind too, I do think there's massive issues in their
9:24
Speaker 5: education system. That's a separate issue of how to deal
9:28
Speaker 5: with that. But I also have great faith in young Australians.
9:31
Speaker 5: You can see and you're renewed flourishing occurring in traditional values,
9:35
Speaker 5: in pride in our nation, partly because guess what, a
9:38
Speaker 5: lot of young kids tend to do the opposite of
9:41
Speaker 5: what their teachers tell them. I was one like that,
9:44
Speaker 5: and I'm proud to be breeding others that have the
9:47
Speaker 5: appropriate degree of cynicism about authority as any good Australian should, I.
9:53
Speaker 4: Think just the one other thing worth considering prices, you know, perhaps,
9:57
Speaker 4: and these young men that cohort, they might not be
10:00
Speaker 4: joining the regular army per se.
10:01
Speaker 3: They might be doing a year of national service.
10:04
Speaker 4: It wouldn't be the full blown military life for them,
10:07
Speaker 4: but what it could be is a gateway.
10:10
Speaker 3: Some of them would be exposed to it for the
10:11
Speaker 3: very first time.
10:12
Speaker 4: I would say, you know what, this is something I
10:14
Speaker 4: want to do now with the rest of my life,
10:15
Speaker 4: for at least the next ten or fifteen years. And
10:18
Speaker 4: so if you consider it a bit of a gap
10:21
Speaker 4: year after you would finish school, something that lots of
10:23
Speaker 4: people were able to do or were asked to do.
10:27
Speaker 4: If you think of it in those terms, it is
10:29
Speaker 4: not the craziest idea. And as you've said, it works
10:31
Speaker 4: in other countries and it works fight successfully, so it
10:35
Speaker 4: is worthy of consideration. But it wouldn't main necessarily a
10:38
Speaker 4: full blown military career, and those young people are off
10:41
Speaker 4: to fight in parts of the world anywhere. I think
10:45
Speaker 4: that's the differentiation.
10:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a great way to frame it.
10:50
Speaker 1: Let's talk about beef this decision today, and it's great
10:52
Speaker 1: to have Matt with US confirmation today that Australia will
10:56
Speaker 1: now remove the ban on American beef that originates outside
11:03
Speaker 1: of the US, so it might be grazed and raised
11:06
Speaker 1: in somewhere like Canada and Mexico. We've also always had
11:09
Speaker 1: a biosecurity issue with that. The government's now just dropped
11:12
Speaker 1: this quickly. In the media this morning, they say it's
11:15
Speaker 1: not a sweetener for any tariff talks. Well, I don't
11:17
Speaker 1: believe that for a second. I would ask Matt who comes.
11:21
Speaker 1: I often see him at the cattleman's an you're gathering
11:25
Speaker 1: in Queensland, or he's wolfing down stakes every night. Is
11:29
Speaker 1: there any appetite here, Matt for American beef.
11:34
Speaker 5: Look, we're not going to be inundated with American beef,
11:39
Speaker 5: primarily because we have enough of it here and it's
11:43
Speaker 5: already much more expensive in the US. They've had a
11:45
Speaker 5: terrible draft in the US in recent years, so they've
11:48
Speaker 5: got a rapacious appetite for imported beef. They're not going
11:51
Speaker 5: to be exporting large amounts of it. But the concern
11:54
Speaker 5: that myself and other Nationals colleagues have about this decision
11:57
Speaker 5: is not an economic one. There's no economic threat here
12:00
Speaker 5: to liveblihoods of Australian cattle grays is. There is, however,
12:04
Speaker 5: a safety risk to all Australians, including the farming east industry,
12:07
Speaker 5: because even if there's not going to be a large
12:09
Speaker 5: number or amounts of US beef coming in to Australia,
12:12
Speaker 5: it only takes one box, it only takes one stake
12:15
Speaker 5: to be contaminated with something like mad cow disease, and
12:18
Speaker 5: we could see tens of billions of dollars of damage
12:20
Speaker 5: to Australian farming industry and massive impacts on everyday Australian life.
12:24
Speaker 5: I think the government's botched this announcement. I look, these
12:28
Speaker 5: decisions have always and should be based on the science,
12:32
Speaker 5: on the risks to the Australian people we have. It's
12:36
Speaker 5: very important to make the point that we have allowed
12:38
Speaker 5: of US beef and that we've had some misconceptions put
12:41
Speaker 5: out there by the US administration. US beef is allowed
12:43
Speaker 5: in Australia today. It just has to prove that it
12:45
Speaker 5: is US beef. There are still there are still mad
12:48
Speaker 5: cow diseases in Mexico. So I want to know from
12:50
Speaker 5: the government how they're going to prevent those coming in
12:52
Speaker 5: next week, I will be reconvening the Senate Rural Affairs Committee.
12:56
Speaker 3: Was the chair of that committee. I hope to be
12:57
Speaker 3: re elected chair next week.
12:59
Speaker 5: I'll be pushing for us to hear from the actual
13:03
Speaker 5: departmental experts here that have made this decision, because all
13:07
Speaker 5: we've heard from is the politicians right now. I want
13:09
Speaker 5: to see the evidence of the data that should be
13:12
Speaker 5: given to the strange beef industry.
13:16
Speaker 1: Let's talk to Basil about Andrew Twiggy Forest. Now, he's
13:19
Speaker 1: had a big day to day. He's had a few
13:22
Speaker 1: issues to contend with us that ford Eskew's abandoned I
13:25
Speaker 1: think now two of its most hype green hydrogen projects
13:29
Speaker 1: they're in the US. Fordeskew says it it's not given
13:32
Speaker 1: up on becoming a major force in renewable energy. But
13:36
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's no fan of the green energy movement, so
13:39
Speaker 1: he slashed the substitution. Apparently that's why Woodside and Fordeskeuw
13:43
Speaker 1: walked away. Basil, you know twigging Forest, Well, when you
13:47
Speaker 1: read what he says about green energy and the fact
13:51
Speaker 1: that he makes most of his income of exporting iron ore,
13:56
Speaker 1: how do you put those two things together.
13:59
Speaker 3: And can be difficult the reconcile that times can't.
14:01
Speaker 4: He's clearly had an ambitious green agenda and has been
14:04
Speaker 4: very keen to push that. Yet at the same time,
14:07
Speaker 4: the bulk of the income and the bulk of his
14:09
Speaker 4: work has been in the resources industry and certainly centered
14:13
Speaker 4: around iron ore. I think, partly with Andrew Forrest, it's
14:17
Speaker 4: about really pushing the envelope, being out there and seeing.
14:21
Speaker 3: What might be achieved. Aim for the stars.
14:23
Speaker 4: You never know you might get to the moon, and
14:25
Speaker 4: it's a simple way I think of looking at his
14:28
Speaker 4: philosophy in this space. However, there's no doubt the language today,
14:32
Speaker 4: some of those announcements and just more generally, some of
14:36
Speaker 4: the projects that he was particularly bullish about over the
14:39
Speaker 4: last couple of years, even twelve months ago, he is
14:42
Speaker 4: not anywhere near as bullish about now. And that tells
14:45
Speaker 4: you a lot of what you need to know about
14:48
Speaker 4: the push to these types and forms of renewable energy.
14:52
Speaker 4: The take up and the ability for it to do
14:55
Speaker 4: what we thought it might be going to do just
14:57
Speaker 4: hasn't been there.
14:58
Speaker 1: There's still a lot of work to be done, Matt.
15:02
Speaker 1: The cost of renewables continue to stack up. How long
15:06
Speaker 1: is the Albanize government going to continue to plow down
15:09
Speaker 1: this road? And we've had offshore wind collapsing, we've had
15:13
Speaker 1: major projects canceled. It would seem to me that we're
15:17
Speaker 1: so far down the road. I describe Chris Bowen as
15:21
Speaker 1: a mad uncle last night. He just won't hear any
15:24
Speaker 1: criticism of where he's taking us. Where do you think
15:28
Speaker 1: we're at with this now? I mean net zero obviously
15:31
Speaker 1: has been a big issue this week. I think a
15:33
Speaker 1: lot of Australians are starting to query whether we ought
15:36
Speaker 1: to be going as far.
15:37
Speaker 2: As we are.
15:39
Speaker 3: Yeah.
15:40
Speaker 5: Look, I mean we're in the state right now of
15:43
Speaker 5: being hungover if you like hungover on the green kool aid.
15:46
Speaker 5: We've drunk as a nation for the last few years.
15:49
Speaker 5: And it seems like Chris Bowen and the Government's solution
15:52
Speaker 5: to being hungover is to keep drinking, just get wasted again,
15:57
Speaker 5: just keep going and you'll get ready to hangover because
16:00
Speaker 5: doubling down all this madness. So there's no indication they've
16:04
Speaker 5: recognized they're wrong. Keep in mind, when we opened the
16:07
Speaker 5: parliament three years ago, the Governor General, as the Government
16:12
Speaker 5: General does, addresses the Parliament and in that speech three
16:15
Speaker 5: years ago, the Governor General said that a Labor government
16:17
Speaker 5: would reduce power bills for Australian families and businesses by
16:20
Speaker 5: hundreds of dollars. That obviously didn't happen. They went up
16:24
Speaker 5: by hundreds of dollars instead. And this time this week
16:27
Speaker 5: when Parliament was opened, mysteriously that commitment had disappeared. There
16:31
Speaker 5: were no commitment to reduce power bills at all. And
16:35
Speaker 5: it looks like the have A Party has just then
16:37
Speaker 5: given up on giving cost of relief to Australian families.
16:41
Speaker 5: So I think the Australian people are right to ask,
16:43
Speaker 5: like Ashton k Kucher famously did a few years ago, dude,
16:47
Speaker 5: where's my cheaper energy?
16:49
Speaker 3: I was promised the cheaper energy. Where is my cheaper energy? Dude?
16:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very interesting that you mentioned well.
17:02
Speaker 1: I don't know what he looks like. It looks like
17:03
Speaker 1: a mad uncle to me, Basil.
17:08
Speaker 5: I don't know if it's start a comedy or not,
17:10
Speaker 5: but it's not funny.
17:14
Speaker 1: No, we shouldn't be laughing. Thank you both, appreciate it
17:17
Speaker 1: very much. I'll see you shortly.
17:19
Speaker 2: God, he is a mad uncle.
17:20
Speaker 1: I've got no idea what he's going on with now.
17:23
Speaker 1: He discussed the recruitment file, which I mentioned at the
17:25
Speaker 1: beginning of the program. We've had this discussion about whether
17:28
Speaker 1: we could set up some sort of a youth program
17:30
Speaker 1: where youngsters who are in trouble might go in for
17:33
Speaker 1: some sort of military training or national services, Basil put it.
17:37
Speaker 1: Australian Director of Strategic Analysis is Peter Jennings. Peter, welcome
17:41
Speaker 1: to you. Why is it the IDF have such trouble
17:45
Speaker 1: trying to convince youngsters to sign up to a life
17:49
Speaker 1: in the military, do you think.
17:51
Speaker 6: I think there's probably a sense that the government doesn't
17:55
Speaker 6: have the defense forces back right now. That's one of
17:58
Speaker 6: the things that's contributing to a lot of people leaving
18:02
Speaker 6: the ADF. Steve defenses. People have a way of sensing this,
18:06
Speaker 6: and I think if you're in an environment where military
18:11
Speaker 6: capabilities are being cut, ships aren't going to see aircraft
18:14
Speaker 6: aren't using their flying hours, people ask themselves the question
18:19
Speaker 6: why should I join? It doesn't seem that the government
18:22
Speaker 6: actually supports us. You know, instead of spending six days
18:26
Speaker 6: in China Albanez, you could have spent one day less
18:30
Speaker 6: and come to the Talisman Saber exercise and spend some
18:33
Speaker 6: time talking to Australian soldiers. He didn't do that. I
18:36
Speaker 6: think the first Prime minister in a long time not
18:39
Speaker 6: to have been to that exercise. So people get a
18:41
Speaker 6: sense that it's not a government priority and that hardly
18:45
Speaker 6: encourages individuals to join up.
18:49
Speaker 1: And that was a massive exercise, I mean, it was
18:51
Speaker 1: impressive in its scale. And you arrays a really good point.
18:55
Speaker 1: I mean, given the number of nations involved, given the
18:59
Speaker 1: numbers of of military involved, I think it was in
19:01
Speaker 1: the twenty thirty thousand thirty five, wouldn't the Prime minister
19:06
Speaker 1: show his face? Yeah, why wouldn't the Prime minister have
19:08
Speaker 1: shown his face and something like that?
19:10
Speaker 6: Typically they have And in fact, you if you look back, Steve,
19:14
Speaker 6: you'll find that the current PM has spent very little
19:17
Speaker 6: time with Australian soldiers. Occasionally you'll see him with the
19:21
Speaker 6: top brass, but not the soldiers. And of course that's
19:24
Speaker 6: not how John Howard operated, it's not how Tony Abbott operated,
19:28
Speaker 6: or Kevin Runt or Julia Gillard. It's just not Anthony
19:32
Speaker 6: Alberonisi's priority.
19:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, most Prime ministers in the past have done, you know,
19:39
Speaker 1: drop in visits to when we were involved in places
19:42
Speaker 1: like Afghanistan and Iraq. I mean it was commonplace for
19:46
Speaker 1: that to happen, and I think Australians watching that welcomed
19:50
Speaker 1: the fact that their prime minister was happy and willing
19:52
Speaker 1: to go and do it. And you mentioned Julia Gillard
19:54
Speaker 1: cheated it too. I'll get onto some comments by spinger
19:57
Speaker 1: Scott Morrison in a moment, Peter. But it's reported we've
20:00
Speaker 1: actually quietly made another eight hundred million dollar down payment
20:04
Speaker 1: on nuclear submarines. That's one point six billion in two
20:07
Speaker 1: eight hundred million payments. That shows us that Australia believes
20:13
Speaker 1: that aucust is still healthy. But the Americans are still
20:17
Speaker 1: making some disturbing noises about it, aren't they. Do we
20:20
Speaker 1: get the money back if it doesn't go ahead?
20:23
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a good question. I mean the idea of
20:26
Speaker 6: this is that we're helping American industry to expand its
20:30
Speaker 6: ability to build submarines more quickly, and therefore we'll get
20:34
Speaker 6: the benefit of that. I think the American claim would
20:39
Speaker 6: be that in other respects, we're not spending what we
20:42
Speaker 6: need to on UCUS or indeed defense more widely, Steve,
20:46
Speaker 6: So you know we're not building the required new nuclear
20:51
Speaker 6: submarine based on the East Coast. We're not making progress
20:54
Speaker 6: on establishing a nuclear storage facility for nuclear waste. Yes,
21:00
Speaker 6: we're training sailors, but not in anywhere near the numbers
21:04
Speaker 6: that we need. And they're the practical concerns which I
21:07
Speaker 6: think the Americans have about is Australia really serious about
21:11
Speaker 6: doing this? The problem being that it was always meant
21:15
Speaker 6: to be above the two percent of defense spending which
21:18
Speaker 6: the previous government was allocating, in which this government has kept.
21:24
Speaker 6: And I think the reality is you can't do ORCUS
21:27
Speaker 6: on the cheap. So a payment to America to help
21:30
Speaker 6: them strengthen their industry is a lot of money. Absolutely,
21:34
Speaker 6: but if we want the submarines, we need to be
21:37
Speaker 6: prepared to engage with the Americans in that way and
21:40
Speaker 6: probably do even more, well, significantly do more than we're
21:43
Speaker 6: actually doing now.
21:47
Speaker 1: I was impressed with Scott Morrison appearing at that congressional
21:50
Speaker 1: hearing in the US talking about the threat of China.
21:54
Speaker 1: And you know it comes after that six day visit
21:57
Speaker 1: you just mentioned of Anthony Albineasi Morrison dealt with the Chinese,
22:01
Speaker 1: obviously doing COVID. He demanded that we get some answers
22:05
Speaker 1: about where it came from, how it got out of
22:07
Speaker 1: wu Han. Chinese then slapped on all those trade bands.
22:10
Speaker 1: But I thought he was very impressive today saying that,
22:14
Speaker 1: you know, Americans and Australians have got to be very
22:17
Speaker 1: wary of what the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing is
22:20
Speaker 1: up to and how aggressive they will continue to be
22:24
Speaker 1: in the region. I mean, he's making a hell of
22:26
Speaker 1: a lot more sense, I must say, than the current
22:29
Speaker 1: Defense Minister, Richard Mars or the current Prime Minister.
22:32
Speaker 6: I completely agree. I mean there's a depth to Morrison's
22:36
Speaker 6: analysis which comes out of the fact that he was
22:39
Speaker 6: dealing with China at a particularly rough time during COVID.
22:43
Speaker 6: But you know, the same intelligence information is also available
22:46
Speaker 6: to Anthony Albnizi, and the current PM is just living
22:51
Speaker 6: on this fantasy that, you know, because he goes to
22:54
Speaker 6: nice banquets and the Chinese sort of look after him
22:57
Speaker 6: and show him the Great Wall and pandas everything's fine,
23:02
Speaker 6: Albert Easy will know on the basis of what the
23:05
Speaker 6: national security system tells him that there are actually serious
23:08
Speaker 6: problems with China, problems in the Pacific, with Southeast Asia,
23:12
Speaker 6: problems with the growth of their military capability, their continued
23:16
Speaker 6: cyberspye on Australia, which is enormous, and the Prime Minister
23:21
Speaker 6: is ignoring all of those things in order to maintain
23:25
Speaker 6: the fiction that everything's fantastic, and Scott Morrison's testimony proves
23:31
Speaker 6: the point that it's not. It's such a shame that
23:34
Speaker 6: Albanezi can't talk in the same level of detail as Morrison.
23:39
Speaker 6: Depp to Congress today.
23:43
Speaker 1: Yes, and I thought it was cherlish of the Prime
23:45
Speaker 1: Minister in question time that I had enough. You saw
23:47
Speaker 1: at Peter where August came up and he said, well,
23:50
Speaker 1: don't forget it's my government that signed August. I went
23:54
Speaker 1: and met with Joe Biden and the British Prime Minister
23:58
Speaker 1: and I signed up to August. Well, work had all
24:00
Speaker 1: been done. I mean Morrison, as you say, was at
24:03
Speaker 1: the heart of getting the Orcus Agreement up and running,
24:08
Speaker 1: shaping it and pushing it and making it happen. I mean, yes,
24:11
Speaker 1: he lost an election, so the timing wasn't right for
24:13
Speaker 1: him to go and sign it. But if you go,
24:15
Speaker 1: if we look forward and you look back in history,
24:18
Speaker 1: he'll be the one who's credited largely with doing most
24:21
Speaker 1: of the hard yards waiting.
24:24
Speaker 2: Well.
24:24
Speaker 6: Absolutely, and it needs to be bipartisan. I think my
24:28
Speaker 6: message to Alberzi would be the same as the store,
24:32
Speaker 6: the sign in the China shop. You know, you break it,
24:35
Speaker 6: you pay for it. So if Alberanesi wants it to succeed,
24:39
Speaker 6: you know, why isn't he investing even half the effort
24:43
Speaker 6: into building a relationship with Donald Trump that he is
24:47
Speaker 6: with China's Shujimpen. It's very strange and in many ways,
24:52
Speaker 6: I think, calculated to make the Americans doubt that we're
24:55
Speaker 6: serious about UCUS. So what is the Prime minister's real purpose?
24:59
Speaker 6: Does he actually wantless to succeed? Does he want the
25:01
Speaker 6: Americans to take it away? It's very hard to know
25:04
Speaker 6: what Albaneze's intention is with August Now.
25:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's making much more sense, Scott Morrison than what
25:13
Speaker 1: the Prime minister is. You read the tea leaves pretty well.
25:16
Speaker 1: What do you read of the detail coming out of
25:19
Speaker 1: the United States at a senior level as to whether
25:22
Speaker 1: they are still committed. We know they're having a review
25:24
Speaker 1: into wucas as you would as an incoming Republican administration
25:30
Speaker 1: who hasn't been in charge for four years.
25:32
Speaker 2: While a lot of this happened. Do you think they're
25:35
Speaker 2: you feel they're still comfortable with it.
25:38
Speaker 6: They're worried about us, Steve. The view in the Pentagon,
25:42
Speaker 6: in the US Navy, the Department of Energy is they're
25:45
Speaker 6: not sure Australia is investing the effort that we need
25:48
Speaker 6: to invest in order to be custodians of nuclear powered submarines.
25:53
Speaker 6: They would have expected faster progress across a range of areas.
25:58
Speaker 6: And I think in the White House they're just worried
26:00
Speaker 6: that Albanesi seems determined not to make contact. You know,
26:04
Speaker 6: he refuses to go to Washington. If he gets one
26:07
Speaker 6: of these side meetings in future with Trump, well that'll
26:10
Speaker 6: be a twenty minute discussion. So how can you talk
26:12
Speaker 6: substance in that context? I think there's lots of mixed
26:17
Speaker 6: messages coming out of Canberra. The Americans look at that
26:21
Speaker 6: and say, well, frankly, why would we provide you with
26:25
Speaker 6: Virginia class submarines when we can reliably get more value
26:29
Speaker 6: from them if we use them ourselves. We're not even
26:31
Speaker 6: sure if you'll be with us. So all of these
26:35
Speaker 6: are concerns which could be addressed if our government wanted
26:38
Speaker 6: to be serious about it, But it has to start
26:40
Speaker 6: with a relationship between the PM and the president. And
26:45
Speaker 6: for reasons that no one can really explain, Albanesi just
26:49
Speaker 6: refuses to do the obvious thing, which has get on
26:51
Speaker 6: a flight and go to Washington, DC to have that conversation.
26:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, I suspect the Americans might be a bit worried
26:59
Speaker 1: we're too close to you. Peter jennings All is great
27:01
Speaker 1: to catch up with you, Thank you very much. Coming
27:03
Speaker 1: up after the break, where are the police when an
27:06
Speaker 1: inner city council this is happening in Melbourne in Marabanong,
27:09
Speaker 1: they've got to fork out more than one hundred thousand
27:12
Speaker 1: dollars annually to keep rate payers safe from violent crime
27:16
Speaker 1: on this streets. That's up next, Steeve Price with you.
27:22
Speaker 1: Welcome back, sitting in for Shari Now. I've written a
27:25
Speaker 1: lot in the Herald Sun in columns over the last
27:28
Speaker 1: two years about the youth crime crisis across Victoria. In Melbourne.
27:33
Speaker 1: We're a national program and I know there are issues
27:36
Speaker 1: in many other areas of Australia as well, the center
27:40
Speaker 1: of Australia out of Springs Darwin, parts of northern Queensland,
27:43
Speaker 1: but Melbourne seems to be a particular problem. Michael Kroger,
27:47
Speaker 1: a regular on this program, told me on Monday night
27:51
Speaker 1: that he thinks Victoria, Melbourne is now a lawless place.
27:56
Speaker 1: The youth crime is completely out of control.
28:00
Speaker 2: One of the.
28:00
Speaker 1: City's inner city councils are going to now spend a
28:03
Speaker 1: significant amount of money, I think more than one hundred
28:05
Speaker 1: thousand dollars on around the clock private security to tackle
28:10
Speaker 1: violent crime and anti social behavior in their area. You
28:13
Speaker 1: wouldn't think this would have to happen. In twenty twenty five,
28:16
Speaker 1: marabn On Council says it's cracking down on crime in
28:19
Speaker 1: footscrap with two private security guards on patrol for a
28:23
Speaker 1: six month trial. Here to explain more is Victoria's first
28:27
Speaker 1: Indian born Mayor, Pradeep Twari.
28:30
Speaker 2: Great to have you in the studio.
28:32
Speaker 7: Thanks, thank you, Steve welcome.
28:33
Speaker 2: Do you ever think when you got elected as mayor
28:35
Speaker 2: that it would come to this?
28:36
Speaker 7: Not eddy amount of training could have prepared me for
28:40
Speaker 7: what I've seen in the last eight months in council.
28:43
Speaker 2: So explain to me what the particular I mean.
28:45
Speaker 1: We know the wider issue youth crime often people kids
28:49
Speaker 1: as young as twelve or thirteen. We've got car stealings,
28:52
Speaker 1: you've got home invasions. You've had a particular issue in
28:55
Speaker 1: shopping centers.
28:56
Speaker 8: Yeah.
28:57
Speaker 7: So our CBD, which we call fo Scoed CBD, we've
28:59
Speaker 7: had our issues a bit different. Ours is more drug
29:02
Speaker 7: and alcohol related, which will lead to mental health challenges.
29:06
Speaker 7: We've also had an influx of residents being released into
29:11
Speaker 7: foot Square by the High Court order, you know, people
29:13
Speaker 7: that were out of the detention you know, with the
29:16
Speaker 7: trucker bands and some with some serious criminal history as well.
29:20
Speaker 7: So we've had those challenges which we've actually recently just
29:23
Speaker 7: learned of. We didn't know that, you know, we had
29:25
Speaker 7: that part of the society as well, but we certainly
29:28
Speaker 7: had lots of mental health challenges. We don't have as
29:30
Speaker 7: much youth crime and the other issues that you've mentioned,
29:33
Speaker 7: but the drugs and alcohol are certainly leading to the
29:36
Speaker 7: mental health challenges that we've come up with this proposal.
29:39
Speaker 1: For talk to me about that. I mean the detention
29:42
Speaker 1: centers based in the Marrabonoal Council area.
29:46
Speaker 7: No, I don't think it is no longer based there.
29:48
Speaker 2: A lot of the people have been released from detentions
29:51
Speaker 2: in that area.
29:52
Speaker 7: That's correct. They've been provided housing supports to stay in
29:56
Speaker 7: Marabano and in and around Footscray. So they certainly there's
30:01
Speaker 7: quite a number of them there that we've been told
30:02
Speaker 7: by Victoria Police.
30:04
Speaker 1: Now, give me an example of what you're concerned about.
30:07
Speaker 1: Why did counsel sit down and vote to spend a
30:10
Speaker 1: significant amount of money on private security. Can't the police
30:13
Speaker 1: handle this?
30:14
Speaker 7: It's been a long time in coming. Since I've been
30:16
Speaker 7: in councilate nine months, we've been advocating for the state
30:19
Speaker 7: government for actually increased mental health you know, support getting
30:23
Speaker 7: people the right support at the right time. Since then,
30:25
Speaker 7: we've had a couple of deaths. The crime statistics that
30:29
Speaker 7: we've been received, it's up by sixteen to almost twenty
30:32
Speaker 7: one percent over the last twelve months. The traders are feeling,
30:35
Speaker 7: you know, the brunt of it, and they've been advocating
30:37
Speaker 7: to us, to our council for at least the last
30:39
Speaker 7: four of five months for the security guard patrols. They
30:42
Speaker 7: actually trial this program themselves over a month in March
30:45
Speaker 7: and they said it, you know, yielded effective results. They've
30:48
Speaker 7: presented us with the results and short of any other support,
30:53
Speaker 7: we are getting a mental health hub by our state government.
30:55
Speaker 7: It's coming in the pipeline, which we're really excited for.
30:58
Speaker 7: But short of anything else, this was good way to
31:00
Speaker 7: increase just safety presents in the CBD that the traders
31:04
Speaker 7: and the residents wanted us to do.
31:06
Speaker 1: Do you think two security guards are really going to
31:08
Speaker 1: make a fundamental difference.
31:10
Speaker 2: I mean, we see.
31:14
Speaker 1: In the area that I live in, you've got liquor stores,
31:19
Speaker 1: clothing shops, and supermarkets where people who are drug affected
31:26
Speaker 1: or homeless simply walk in, load up, and walk out.
31:29
Speaker 1: Security guards are not able to do anything.
31:32
Speaker 2: They can't arrest anybody, they can't detain anybody.
31:35
Speaker 7: Yeah, look, I guess it comes down to, you know,
31:37
Speaker 7: the financial I mean, if we had unlimited supply of money,
31:40
Speaker 7: we'd be trying to get mental health workers into trying
31:43
Speaker 7: to adjust this problem. But we don't. It's a six
31:45
Speaker 7: month program, and two security guards with our local laws
31:49
Speaker 7: officers are better than none, you know, and you know
31:52
Speaker 7: where specifically are going out to tender where there's a
31:55
Speaker 7: tender process where we're calling for guards who are culturally appropriate, trained,
31:58
Speaker 7: have some level of unders standing of outreach work as well,
32:01
Speaker 7: so we can connect them to the other supports that
32:04
Speaker 7: we're bringing into the CBD.
32:05
Speaker 2: Have you sat down with local police and talked about this.
32:08
Speaker 7: Yeah, we have. And you know, police can't always be
32:11
Speaker 7: We can't expect them to patrol shopping centers for twenty
32:14
Speaker 7: four by seven. They've got their own, as you mentioned,
32:17
Speaker 7: youth crime, knife crime, all sorts of. It's an open statistics.
32:21
Speaker 7: The crime in Victoria is up over the last twelve months.
32:24
Speaker 7: We can't expect them to be everywhere at all times.
32:27
Speaker 7: And I mean, personally, i'd rather, you know, instead of
32:29
Speaker 7: a triple zero number, a number where we could dial
32:31
Speaker 7: to get someone mental health assistance before we get to.
32:34
Speaker 1: That le playing this issue of mental health. I mean,
32:37
Speaker 1: you seem to be saying that that's at the core
32:39
Speaker 1: of your problem. Yeah, I mean is it mental health
32:41
Speaker 1: or is it unsupervised young people? Is it drugs?
32:47
Speaker 7: It's mainly drugs and alcohol. From what you know we've
32:49
Speaker 7: learned the especially like people like the Detaineers that have
32:53
Speaker 7: been released there, they've had trauma. Obviously, they've probably been
32:56
Speaker 7: through so much trauma in their life, so they self medicate.
32:59
Speaker 7: They know they're open issued up there, they openly drink
33:02
Speaker 7: with open bottles of alcohol and all, and that leads
33:04
Speaker 7: to no good behavior and to social behavior. That's been
33:08
Speaker 7: the biggest concern. And then that antisocial behavior has now
33:11
Speaker 7: been you know, we've had our council staff being assaulted,
33:14
Speaker 7: We've had death as I've mentioned, we've had the traders
33:17
Speaker 7: being attacked to a point where they had to go
33:20
Speaker 7: to police and take out ivos against certain individuals. So
33:24
Speaker 7: it's become that severe otherwise, you know, if and this
33:27
Speaker 7: is a multic collaboration between all organizations, just the mental
33:31
Speaker 7: health hubit is taking some time. Further in the pipeline.
33:34
Speaker 7: We've got that coming out foot Scare Hospital, have a
33:36
Speaker 7: dedicated psyche board next year. We're expecting those things to help.
33:40
Speaker 7: But right now, in the interim, this is the solution
33:42
Speaker 7: that the trader has wanted and this is what we're doing.
33:44
Speaker 1: Are you getting support from the local.
33:47
Speaker 7: State government, not for the security proposal, but we are
33:51
Speaker 7: getting so our local state member, Katie or she is
33:54
Speaker 7: the one who had advocated for the outreach work Salvation
33:58
Speaker 7: Army are coming in. She's occurred over three hundred and
34:01
Speaker 7: fifty thousand dollars in funding in this is budget. It's
34:03
Speaker 7: just a matter of when that comes in. So we
34:06
Speaker 7: will build a mental health hub in for its gray eventually,
34:08
Speaker 7: but you know that could take as government processes do
34:11
Speaker 7: take time, that could take quite some time. But you're
34:14
Speaker 7: going to come back. This is just an interim program
34:17
Speaker 7: until something else happens. So does it have a support
34:21
Speaker 7: of the majority of the council. Yes, it was had
34:24
Speaker 7: a support majority of the council. There was you know,
34:27
Speaker 7: I mean this was voted on Tuesday night. There was
34:30
Speaker 7: an alternative motion put by another counselor who wanted to
34:34
Speaker 7: add things such as consultation with local groups, legal groups,
34:38
Speaker 7: trader groups, you know, or all sorts of other conditions,
34:41
Speaker 7: but the support for the security Guard proposal was unanimous
34:44
Speaker 7: by all counselors.
34:46
Speaker 2: Good to hear, predict, Thank you very much for coming.
34:48
Speaker 7: Thank you, Steve, I appreciate you.
34:49
Speaker 1: Good luck with it all after the break, how the
34:51
Speaker 1: renewables push in regional Australia and I talked a lot
34:54
Speaker 1: about this this week. So is Peter on her program
34:57
Speaker 1: threatening the rehab of former Australian service and women. This
35:00
Speaker 1: is a disgrace. That story up next, Welcome back Steven
35:07
Speaker 1: for Sharhi Danika coming up for Paul Murray straight after
35:10
Speaker 1: the top of the hour. Now look I'm a great
35:12
Speaker 1: advocate for looking after as well as we can our
35:15
Speaker 1: veterans when they come out of the military and often
35:18
Speaker 1: struggle to get themselves back in into a normal lifestyle.
35:23
Speaker 2: And what you go about to.
35:24
Speaker 1: Hear will annoy the hell out of you, like it
35:27
Speaker 1: annoys the hell out of me. Now we've heard about
35:29
Speaker 1: the fight against renewables in Regional Australia. We've seen a
35:33
Speaker 1: lot of stories this week about how local communities have
35:36
Speaker 1: lost control basically of their own community and a lot
35:39
Speaker 1: of these renewable projects are being jammed into the middle
35:42
Speaker 1: of them. I was in a little town last weekend.
35:45
Speaker 1: Two hundred people live there and there's one hundred and
35:47
Speaker 1: twenty wind turbine surrounding the village. Now Regional Australia is
35:51
Speaker 1: about to I think arcup big time about this stuff.
35:56
Speaker 1: Some of the area's been targeted by green energy companies
35:59
Speaker 1: eager to astablished wind turbines. So they're in idyllic sittings settings,
36:03
Speaker 1: I mean places that you will have all been to
36:05
Speaker 1: and when you go back in these things there, you
36:07
Speaker 1: won't believe it. No thought on the impact of these communities.
36:10
Speaker 1: I don't believe Last week the applicants for a project faced,
36:15
Speaker 1: as we've shown on this show, a fiery response from
36:18
Speaker 1: locals at a town hall meeting. Now, Marina maguire is
36:22
Speaker 1: the owner and operator of a charity remount. It's in
36:27
Speaker 1: bounding not for profit organization delivering horsemanship programs for current
36:33
Speaker 1: and former servicemen and women and their families. She has
36:37
Speaker 1: deep concerns that this green project, more than ninety wind turbines,
36:42
Speaker 1: each as high as a city side scraper, will have
36:45
Speaker 1: a pretty big impact on anybody who comes to her
36:48
Speaker 1: property seeking rehab. Marina, welcome, Really nice to have you
36:52
Speaker 1: on the program. I've had a bit to do with
36:55
Speaker 1: organizations that use horses in this way with the return
37:00
Speaker 1: servicemen and women. It's an extraordinarily valuable thing that the
37:06
Speaker 1: horse and the veteran, the relationship gets formed.
37:09
Speaker 2: It really works, doesn't it.
37:12
Speaker 9: It's amazing.
37:13
Speaker 8: The transformations for our veterans that come to our.
37:18
Speaker 9: Remount program are just unbelievable.
37:22
Speaker 8: We've got the testimonials you'll see on our website. That's
37:25
Speaker 8: our beautiful view that you can see there. That view
37:28
Speaker 8: will be absolutely decimated if this project goes ahead. The
37:34
Speaker 8: horses not only is it the horses, because they are
37:37
Speaker 8: truly magical and are an important part of the program.
37:40
Speaker 9: But it is the rural country setting that is one
37:47
Speaker 9: of the truly.
37:49
Speaker 8: Impactful ways that help our veterans, in our first responders.
37:53
Speaker 8: It's that big open space, the place to come and breathe,
37:57
Speaker 8: where the cortisol hormones can reduce, and it just gives
38:02
Speaker 8: the hope, purpose and hand on heart. We can see
38:06
Speaker 8: from people coming through the program, transformational outcomes, totally transformational
38:13
Speaker 8: hand on heart, even to the point of saying we
38:18
Speaker 8: save lives.
38:19
Speaker 9: It's enormous.
38:22
Speaker 2: I can, I can.
38:25
Speaker 1: I can really understand what you're saying, because, as I
38:27
Speaker 1: mentioned last weekend, I was in regional Victoria and I
38:31
Speaker 1: stayed in a beautiful town called Dunkeld, which is at
38:35
Speaker 1: the back of the Grampians, and had a wonderful couple
38:37
Speaker 1: of days there, and then on the drive back toward
38:41
Speaker 1: the coast, I came across this town called Brokewood. Now
38:44
Speaker 1: there's one hundred and twenty, you know, twenty story high
38:49
Speaker 1: wind turbines on the edge of that little village, and
38:52
Speaker 1: I was absolutely shocked and horrified by what I was seeing.
38:56
Speaker 1: So I can understand exactly what's going to happen around
39:00
Speaker 1: your property. So explain to me, are there plans to
39:04
Speaker 1: put them nearby? And if so, how close?
39:09
Speaker 8: Yes, absolutely nearby. Only last week did we see the
39:13
Speaker 8: first map of what it would look like, ninety or
39:17
Speaker 8: ninety three of these Baranguru sized towers the photo you
39:22
Speaker 8: saw before, that would be littered with It would look
39:26
Speaker 8: so industrial, it would look like the Sydney seascape.
39:31
Speaker 9: It would just be so how close to you. We
39:36
Speaker 9: would where.
39:37
Speaker 8: Between two and three kilometers away from the project. But
39:42
Speaker 8: where we're situated, we're on a hill with the most
39:44
Speaker 8: beautiful view. This is a place where the veterans call
39:48
Speaker 8: it their happy place, So.
39:51
Speaker 9: We won't miss it.
39:52
Speaker 8: It'll be right there, we'll hear it, we'll see it,
39:55
Speaker 8: and it'll just totally destroy and decimate the beautiful offering
40:01
Speaker 8: of this service that we are offering, this mental health
40:04
Speaker 8: program to our veterans. These people that serve our country,
40:07
Speaker 8: our first responders who keep us safe and are always
40:11
Speaker 8: you know, on call, doing what they do every day
40:13
Speaker 8: to look after us.
40:16
Speaker 2: Is there.
40:20
Speaker 8: I think it is at risk because it just won't
40:26
Speaker 8: be the same. We just can't offer that beautiful offering
40:30
Speaker 8: that we do. It's the country hospitality, it's the come
40:33
Speaker 8: and have a breath of fresh air, it's the cooking
40:38
Speaker 8: the community. It won't you know, it will just impact
40:42
Speaker 8: the community as well, because Remount is run by a community.
40:46
Speaker 8: My husband Ben and I who co founded. We both
40:48
Speaker 8: co founded and run the run the Remount program. But yes,
40:54
Speaker 8: it will be an awful impact on our offering. It's
40:57
Speaker 8: a place where the veterans, they actually often come back.
41:03
Speaker 8: We've always got this constant flow of people coming through,
41:05
Speaker 8: which we do love. It's so rewarding because we know
41:08
Speaker 8: how helpful it can be. But it just won't be
41:12
Speaker 8: the same. It'll just be.
41:15
Speaker 9: It just won't be the same, it won't have the
41:18
Speaker 9: same impact.
41:21
Speaker 1: Having lived in New South Wales for a long time,
41:24
Speaker 1: I know how beautiful that part of the world is.
41:26
Speaker 1: The yas Maya she made it pretty clear that she's
41:29
Speaker 1: not happy have a look at this.
41:34
Speaker 10: We've done our heavy lifting. We've had four turbine state
41:38
Speaker 10: significant projects approved and under construction, another two solar projects.
41:43
Speaker 10: Our metro mates are getting plenty of energy from us.
41:45
Speaker 10: But we've also got our communities to look after.
41:48
Speaker 2: Here.
41:48
Speaker 10: We've got agried tourism businesses, we reproduce the nation's food
41:53
Speaker 10: and fiber. Here we produce cool climate, export quality wine.
41:57
Speaker 10: It's all going to go to if this is allowed
42:00
Speaker 10: to continue in Yas Valley. And we've had a gut
42:02
Speaker 10: full as a community.
42:06
Speaker 1: Blunt but a great representative, Jasmine is I mean, she's
42:09
Speaker 1: trying her hardest, but it seems that local communities, like
42:13
Speaker 1: the ASMA and like your organization, your voices are just
42:17
Speaker 1: blown away in the wind like these bloody turbines, and
42:20
Speaker 1: no one wants to listen.
42:24
Speaker 8: We feel very let down. We feel like they don't care.
42:30
Speaker 8: At the community center last week when someone said what
42:33
Speaker 8: would it take for you to stop this project and
42:37
Speaker 8: they said.
42:37
Speaker 9: Nothing, We're going to do it anyway.
42:39
Speaker 8: In the news this week we see our new South
42:41
Speaker 8: Wales state premiere. We're made to feel guilty and we
42:46
Speaker 8: have to keep the lights on. But they're just not
42:48
Speaker 8: taking into account. The veterans and the farmers are two
42:51
Speaker 8: communities in this country that are at most risk of suicide.
42:56
Speaker 8: And these are two sets of the veterans and the
42:59
Speaker 8: farm are the people that we need for our food security,
43:03
Speaker 8: national security, and we feel like we are just not
43:07
Speaker 8: being heard and it is such a stress for the community.
43:14
Speaker 2: It's a national disgrace. Marina.
43:16
Speaker 1: I mean congratulations on the work you and your husband do.
43:18
Speaker 1: As I said, I've had some experience in that area
43:21
Speaker 1: and your work is invaluable. We'll keep talking about it,
43:25
Speaker 1: we'll keep advocating on your behalf. Thank you very much
43:28
Speaker 1: for joining us, and let's hope that somebody can see
43:31
Speaker 1: some sense all of this in all of this. Now,
43:33
Speaker 1: coming up after the break, don't go anywhere, David Pearl
43:36
Speaker 1: will join me to discuss how even labor MPs are
43:39
Speaker 1: now worried about their own supertax.
43:42
Speaker 2: Is up next.
43:46
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Nika, coming up shortly now. I always
43:49
Speaker 1: enjoy speaking to David Pearl. He is a former Treasury
43:51
Speaker 1: Assistant secretary. A couple of things tonight for you, David,
43:54
Speaker 1: and I know last time we spoke, we talked about
43:56
Speaker 1: this superannuation tax and what might happen with it. The
44:00
Speaker 1: roundtable that CHARMS is going to have in a few
44:03
Speaker 1: weeks time. But the government's coping criticism on this tax
44:06
Speaker 1: now from all people host plus one of the massive
44:09
Speaker 1: superannuation funds. But Treasury, in your experience, is driving this
44:14
Speaker 1: because they see it as one of the easier ways
44:19
Speaker 1: to claw back some revenue to try and fix the
44:21
Speaker 1: bottom line is that what's happening.
44:25
Speaker 11: Thanks for having me on in part it is, although
44:29
Speaker 11: if you look at the forecasts for the tax, it's
44:32
Speaker 11: only projected to raise forty billion over ten years, and
44:36
Speaker 11: that's assuming it's not index. So we'll capture quite a
44:39
Speaker 11: few people, but it's not going to raise a lot
44:40
Speaker 11: of money. Let's bear in mind that every year the
44:43
Speaker 11: Comworth spends three quarters of a trillion dollars. That's every year.
44:49
Speaker 11: So the line Gym, charmers and some labor backbenches is
44:53
Speaker 11: running that this has to close the budget deficit or
44:56
Speaker 11: make superannuations sustainable is not true.
45:00
Speaker 2: I see.
45:00
Speaker 11: It is that this tax is intended to establish a
45:05
Speaker 11: beachhead which would allow charmers to apply the same principle
45:10
Speaker 11: that is to tax people on their returns before they
45:13
Speaker 11: have them in their pocket. More broadly, I think that's
45:17
Speaker 11: the idea behind this, because if you want to raise
45:20
Speaker 11: more money from superannuation, Ken Henry, a number of accountants
45:24
Speaker 11: many other people have proposed many ways to do that.
45:28
Speaker 11: You don't have to go after unrealized gains, and it's
45:30
Speaker 11: not going to raise a lot of money. So I
45:31
Speaker 11: think it's a beachhead, and it's intended as a precedent
45:34
Speaker 11: so that when the Treasurer eventually goes after family trusts,
45:37
Speaker 11: for example, he can say, well, we've already done this
45:41
Speaker 11: with superannuation.
45:44
Speaker 1: You're scaring me, David. You're scaring me, which is not
45:47
Speaker 1: good at the end of a program on a Thursday night.
45:50
Speaker 1: What other areas could unrealize tax on unrealized profits be applied?
45:56
Speaker 1: I mean you mentioned family trusts. Not a huge number
45:59
Speaker 1: of people have a found family trust. Could it be
46:01
Speaker 1: applied elsewhere?
46:03
Speaker 2: I mean, it could be playing.
46:05
Speaker 11: Home anywhere, sorry, Steve, It could be applied anywhere where
46:09
Speaker 11: capital gains tax applies today, So for share investors, for
46:15
Speaker 11: residential investors, anywhere a capital gains tax applies today. Let's
46:21
Speaker 11: go back to when the hawk Keating government introduced the
46:25
Speaker 11: first ever capital gains tax. They grandfathered every single existing
46:29
Speaker 11: investment in nineteen eighty three, so they never had to
46:32
Speaker 11: pay capital gains tax. They were so aware of the
46:34
Speaker 11: effect on investors. There's no grandfather in here. It's going
46:38
Speaker 11: to be whacked on immediately. So let's go back to
46:41
Speaker 11: Paul Keating and Bill Kelty Steve. They've said that if
46:45
Speaker 11: we think about young workers today accumulating over forty years
46:49
Speaker 11: over three million dollars of savings, they're going to be
46:52
Speaker 11: hit by this as well. So it really does defy logic,
46:55
Speaker 11: this whole approach. I'm sure that Treasury wouldn't have recommend it,
47:00
Speaker 11: and if they did, it says something very negative about
47:03
Speaker 11: the department I worked in.
47:06
Speaker 2: I can take you back to the eighties.
47:08
Speaker 1: I mean I was in newspapers of the day and
47:10
Speaker 1: we were fighting Paul Keating on his assets test, where
47:13
Speaker 1: they're going to apply the assets test to a family home,
47:16
Speaker 1: and we ended up going and finding a sixty five
47:20
Speaker 1: year old woman who had a run down old house,
47:22
Speaker 1: but it was on three acres of land and suddenly
47:25
Speaker 1: she was going to be hit with an assets test.
47:29
Speaker 1: The fight was long and hard, but Keating eventually backed down.
47:32
Speaker 1: I think he hated having to back down. But we
47:35
Speaker 1: could see ourselves back in that sort of battle, can't
47:38
Speaker 1: we We can.
47:41
Speaker 11: Although I think the Prime Minister Anthony Alberniz has been
47:44
Speaker 11: very cagey Steve in the way that he's defended the tax,
47:48
Speaker 11: the Treasure is clearly going to gun for his position
47:51
Speaker 11: sooner or later, let's face it. I mean, I've been
47:53
Speaker 11: in the public service when Ketting was going after Hawk,
47:56
Speaker 11: when Costello was going after Howard. It's a normal dynamic.
48:00
Speaker 11: And so I think that Anthony Abnezi should step back
48:03
Speaker 11: and consider whether he shouldn't pull the rug out from
48:07
Speaker 11: under his treasure on this tax, because I don't see
48:09
Speaker 11: any political benefit in.
48:11
Speaker 2: It at all.
48:12
Speaker 11: And we've even had Labor in peace openly backgrounding journalists,
48:17
Speaker 11: So this is a terrible idea. So I think Jim's
48:19
Speaker 11: on shaky ground, and I'm not sure that this tax
48:23
Speaker 11: is necessarily going to see the light of day. We'll
48:26
Speaker 11: see it hasn't been scheduled for introduction into Parliament yet.
48:32
Speaker 1: Well wait and see. Let's hope that they see common sense. Aw,
48:35
Speaker 1: it's great to catch up with you, David. Thank you
48:37
Speaker 1: very much for that. As David Pearl there who was
48:40
Speaker 1: Assistant Secretary in Treasury. And that round table we've already
48:44
Speaker 1: had this week, Alan Joyce saying that be careful of
48:48
Speaker 1: these roundtable things because what they normally do is rubber
48:51
Speaker 1: stamp union driven agendas. That's Alan Joyce, so be careful.
48:55
Speaker 1: Coming up next to Nika to Georgia