Latest / The Bolt Report / The Bolt Report | 26 June

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The Bolt Report | 26 June · The Bolt Report

0:10
Speaker 1: He's the Bault Report.
0:14
Speaker 2: Good Evening, Malcot, the Vault Report. I'm Steve Price filling
0:16
Speaker 2: in for Andrew tonight, and first up we'll have former
0:19
Speaker 2: four star US General Jackane. He's going to add his
0:22
Speaker 2: way to the arguments of Australia and we all know
0:24
Speaker 2: this needs to do more on defense spending. He says
0:28
Speaker 2: we need to join other liberal democracies, including most of
0:31
Speaker 2: those NATO countries. I'll talk to the General first up tonight.
0:34
Speaker 2: He's got some really fascinated insights into what's unfolded in
0:38
Speaker 2: Iran and Israel. Get the latest from Israel. Also on
0:41
Speaker 2: the twelve day war cease fire and whether that is
0:44
Speaker 2: actually holding up. Plus i'll catch up with former NAT's
0:47
Speaker 2: leader Barnaby Joyce, former Deputy Prime Minister. I'll get his
0:50
Speaker 2: take on defense spending and the state of Australia's alliance
0:54
Speaker 2: with the United States. But first on that the question
0:57
Speaker 2: of spending on defense. The album is government is under
1:01
Speaker 2: huge pressure now to review not just the total spend
1:05
Speaker 2: as it should do, but what are we actually spending
1:08
Speaker 2: the money on now. Last week and following a reasonable
1:11
Speaker 2: request from our American allies, they asked that we live
1:14
Speaker 2: spending from the current two percent of GDP to three
1:17
Speaker 2: point five Now, the government's leadership team, including the Prime Minister,
1:21
Speaker 2: Defense Minister Males and the Foreign Minister Penny Wong, played
1:25
Speaker 2: that we won't be bullied by any other country, including
1:28
Speaker 2: the United States, on what we spend on defense. The
1:32
Speaker 2: three point five figure was floated by US Defense Secretary
1:35
Speaker 2: Pete Heskith on a recent visit to Singapore. Miles was
1:39
Speaker 2: there as well. It was immediately dismissed in Canberra. And
1:43
Speaker 2: you have to ask how that looks today after all
1:47
Speaker 2: of the NATO country's bass Spain agreed to Donald Trump
1:51
Speaker 2: in one forum or another to boost the GDP measure
1:56
Speaker 2: of spending against defense by putting it up to five percent. Now,
2:00
Speaker 2: as I said, we'll hear from former four star General
2:02
Speaker 2: Jack Kean shortly who believes we need to spend more.
2:05
Speaker 2: And even though the Prime Minister and Minister Males still
2:08
Speaker 2: can't get a meeting with Donald Trump, and I don't
2:11
Speaker 2: think Males even caught up with Hesketh at NATO. You
2:14
Speaker 2: know the first thing they will be asked by the Americans,
2:17
Speaker 2: are you going to spend more to defend yourselves against
2:20
Speaker 2: an aggressive China or any other adversary, or you're just
2:23
Speaker 2: relying on us, that's the question. It's pretty simple to
2:27
Speaker 2: know that the problem for labor is deep down on
2:29
Speaker 2: the socialist left side of the government, and General Kean
2:32
Speaker 2: makes this point by the way, those flavors of government
2:36
Speaker 2: are much happier when they're spending up big on social
2:38
Speaker 2: welfare projects and other government social policies that they are
2:43
Speaker 2: on than they don't want to spend money on missiles
2:46
Speaker 2: and ships and drones and planes. Look, it's a hard
2:49
Speaker 2: sell for the Prime Minister internally with his faction and
2:52
Speaker 2: his colleagues, and it goes against his natural love of
2:55
Speaker 2: social justice. Instead of protecting the country from any perceived attack,
3:00
Speaker 2: which we hope never happens, I mean that said. The
3:02
Speaker 2: Australian newspaper Today reports that from July thirteen to August
3:06
Speaker 2: four this year, so in a few weeks time, Exercise
3:10
Speaker 2: Talisman Saber will involve thirty five thousand defense personnel from Australia,
3:16
Speaker 2: the US and seventeen other countries, including live fire exercises,
3:21
Speaker 2: amphibious landings and air and marine operations. Here and also
3:25
Speaker 2: for the first time in PMNG. That's all good and
3:28
Speaker 2: well to involve ourselves in training, but spending more on
3:32
Speaker 2: things to fight with, especially in Jewish warfare, material like
3:36
Speaker 2: attack drones would make much more sense. I mean, we
3:39
Speaker 2: saw what the Ukrainians did to Russia with drones. Let's
3:43
Speaker 2: hope when Parliament finally resumes later next month. Why again,
3:47
Speaker 2: I asked the delay that the new opposition they muscle up,
3:51
Speaker 2: especially someone like Andrew Hasty, who will former sas is
3:56
Speaker 2: given some pertinent questions to ask our gun shy to
4:00
Speaker 2: give the pun some difficult questions. Look, Australia needs a
4:04
Speaker 2: strong alliance with the world's most powerful military, whether the
4:07
Speaker 2: Left and the Greens, and Paul Keating like it.
4:10
Speaker 1: Or not.
4:15
Speaker 2: Joining me now is retired Full Star General Jack Keane.
4:18
Speaker 2: Great to see you again. I'll get onto the ceasefire
4:21
Speaker 2: in a moment, General and whether that'll hold. But I
4:24
Speaker 2: just wanted to get your impression. We haven't spoken since
4:26
Speaker 2: the weekend. What did you make of Operation Midnight Hammer
4:31
Speaker 2: at the weekend?
4:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought it was.
4:35
Speaker 3: A remarkable success and it's absolutely the right thing for
4:40
Speaker 3: the President to do. I mean, I know for a
4:43
Speaker 3: fact because I did have discussions with him about this
4:46
Speaker 3: action and from my own perspective why it was essential
4:50
Speaker 3: to take it, and I know he called the Prime
4:54
Speaker 3: Minister and said, look at anything that you need to
4:58
Speaker 3: finish this off, to help you, and they came back,
5:01
Speaker 3: you know, with the three sites. They had done a
5:04
Speaker 3: lot of damage at Maton's, but they still needed more
5:08
Speaker 3: to do with the underground facility Ishfahan the same way.
5:12
Speaker 3: And of course for now they really weren't able to
5:15
Speaker 3: do much damage, although they had operations planned to do
5:18
Speaker 3: that and they weren't about to.
5:20
Speaker 1: Reveal what they were.
5:21
Speaker 3: But if the United States was not going to help them,
5:23
Speaker 3: they knew they had to do something.
5:25
Speaker 1: But if the United.
5:25
Speaker 3: States, what they accomplished was nothing short of a remarkable operation.
5:30
Speaker 3: In Israeli has contributed significantly to it because they initially
5:34
Speaker 3: in the first twenty four hours, destroyed all remaining seventy
5:38
Speaker 3: air defense batteries. It hasn't been a shot fired, I
5:42
Speaker 3: mean an air defense battery since the first twenty.
5:44
Speaker 1: Four hours of the war.
5:45
Speaker 3: And we were not expecting them to fire at all
5:48
Speaker 3: at the one hundred and twenty five aircraft that would
5:51
Speaker 3: be in that area. Excuse me, not all of them
5:54
Speaker 3: would be there because they were refusers but they would
5:57
Speaker 3: stealth aircraft anyway, and they have difficulty identification ID idea
6:03
Speaker 3: in them and tracking them. Remarkable stunning operation and revealing
6:07
Speaker 3: the advanced technology that the United States certainly.
6:10
Speaker 2: Has won't surprise you. But I mean senior defense officials
6:15
Speaker 2: making the point that the US showed on the weekend
6:19
Speaker 2: that they could bomb any country in the world and
6:24
Speaker 2: those countries would not even know US forces were on
6:27
Speaker 2: their way.
6:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's pretty much a fact that you know, the
6:33
Speaker 3: history of superpower status, which the United States had as
6:37
Speaker 3: the world's leading military superpower, is always projection of combat
6:41
Speaker 3: power globally.
6:43
Speaker 1: You know, we saw that with the Romans, we saw
6:45
Speaker 1: it with the Brits, and.
6:47
Speaker 3: We actually saw it with the Germans during their World
6:49
Speaker 3: War two and the United States pretty much post World
6:52
Speaker 3: War Two. What makes the United States somewhat unique is
6:56
Speaker 3: not only can we project air power and sea power global,
7:00
Speaker 3: but we can project land power globally on a very
7:03
Speaker 3: large scale, which is really quite quite remarkable. So yeah,
7:08
Speaker 3: it was I think in addition to the obvious in
7:13
Speaker 3: terms of shutting down their nuclear program, the degree of
7:17
Speaker 3: deterrence I think the United States has achieved was really
7:20
Speaker 3: critical and was very important, I think in executing this operation.
7:25
Speaker 3: By that I mean Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea
7:29
Speaker 3: have been taking advantage of the United States the last
7:32
Speaker 3: four years, leaving that our leadership was weak and we
7:37
Speaker 3: were vulnerable, and they could see you take advantage of
7:43
Speaker 3: that opportunity that presented itself.
7:44
Speaker 1: It was not isolated that Ukraine.
7:46
Speaker 3: Steve invaded, that Russia invaded Ukraine has not isolated that
7:52
Speaker 3: around operationalized all the proxies in the Middle East, and
7:55
Speaker 3: China increased their regression and not only was preparing for war,
7:59
Speaker 3: but it was threatening or all of that had taken.
8:02
Speaker 1: Place prior to President Trump coming in, and I.
8:04
Speaker 3: Think returning United States deterrence on a global scale was
8:10
Speaker 3: also one of the major byproducts of that operation.
8:16
Speaker 2: Just on the broader question of the defense of Europe, General,
8:20
Speaker 2: you and I sat and watched in the last twenty
8:23
Speaker 2: four hours Donald Trump go to NATO. He's basically said
8:26
Speaker 2: to the NATO leaders, right, you're going to have to
8:28
Speaker 2: substantially ramp up your defense spending. He's hailed the president
8:33
Speaker 2: as a monumental win for America. People are talking about
8:37
Speaker 2: committing five percent of their GDP to spend on defense,
8:42
Speaker 2: that's up from around three and a half. How much
8:46
Speaker 2: of how big a win is that for Donald Trump?
8:49
Speaker 1: I asked, really quite significant.
8:51
Speaker 3: I mean when he went in there in twenty seventeen
8:53
Speaker 3: for the first time, you know, he was just proposing
8:57
Speaker 3: that everybody meet the two percent defense and there's still
9:01
Speaker 3: some countries that haven't been able to get to that level.
9:05
Speaker 3: But the other factor here certainly is Putin. I mean
9:10
Speaker 3: Putin's aggression obviously took place between Trump's first term and
9:16
Speaker 3: second term. And he also has united the Europeans and
9:21
Speaker 3: recognized that the social democracies that have existed in Europe
9:26
Speaker 3: ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, their priorities
9:29
Speaker 3: were not defense. They were welfare, entitlement programs and other
9:33
Speaker 3: domestic programs literally at the expense of defense. And you
9:37
Speaker 3: name the country, and it has all come down very seriously.
9:40
Speaker 3: A country that you're close to, certainly is Britain, and
9:43
Speaker 3: you get into the UK military, it's a mere shadow
9:46
Speaker 3: of its former self, and you know they would struggle
9:49
Speaker 3: to put a division on the field. They claim they can,
9:53
Speaker 3: but it would be a real challenge. And that's the
9:56
Speaker 3: state that we find ourselves in. And yet We've got
9:59
Speaker 3: the significant threat that Russia is posing not only with
10:04
Speaker 3: wanting to take control of the Ukraine, but expanded into
10:07
Speaker 3: eastern Europe. And we know that's not a disputable fact.
10:12
Speaker 3: I mean this is Putin's ambitions and he stated in
10:15
Speaker 3: time and time again. So credit the Europeans here for
10:19
Speaker 3: seeing the threat, understanding it. Certainly, Trump encouraging them and
10:24
Speaker 3: pushing them in that right direction is a factory. He
10:28
Speaker 3: deserves some credit for all of that. But yes, I
10:32
Speaker 3: think the NATO meeting was really centered around defense spending.
10:37
Speaker 3: They had a two plus hour session just on that alone,
10:40
Speaker 3: and every country leader got up and talked about what
10:42
Speaker 3: they were tending to do and why they were going
10:45
Speaker 3: to do it, and President Trump talked about that and
10:48
Speaker 3: how proud he was of all of them during that
10:52
Speaker 3: session when they spoke about their sense of commitment not
10:55
Speaker 3: only to their country but to the Alliance and to
10:58
Speaker 3: standing up against aggression. So yeah, significant progress for sure.
11:04
Speaker 2: Sad to say general Australia is still stuck at under
11:07
Speaker 2: three percent, doesn't likely going to move above that. May
11:11
Speaker 2: get to three, but certainly not five. We need to
11:15
Speaker 2: really have a good, serious national discuss I don't expect
11:18
Speaker 2: you to make policy on the run, but we need
11:22
Speaker 2: to have a very serious look at what we're doing ourselves,
11:24
Speaker 2: given our our alliance with the United States and our
11:27
Speaker 2: proximity to China and this region.
11:30
Speaker 3: I totally agree, I mean, Steve, I think there's huge
11:33
Speaker 3: opportunities here to put together that begins stitching together a
11:39
Speaker 3: collective defense in the Indo Pacific region. It'll never look
11:43
Speaker 3: like NATO, with you know, has homogeneous countries, all types
11:47
Speaker 3: stitch together, you know, on one continent with similar governments
11:51
Speaker 3: and similar histories. But nonetheless, I mean the turing of
11:56
Speaker 3: distance is a factor in the Pacific as well as
11:59
Speaker 3: we all know.
12:00
Speaker 1: But we have common.
12:01
Speaker 3: Objectives here and protecting our citizens and protecting the values
12:05
Speaker 3: we have. And I think that alliance begins with Australia,
12:09
Speaker 3: with Japan, with the United States, South Korea and also
12:13
Speaker 3: the Philippines and start putting this together where we do
12:17
Speaker 3: have common objectives in terms of defence, spending on what
12:22
Speaker 3: capabilities are.
12:23
Speaker 1: Essentially needed here.
12:24
Speaker 3: It's not just the money, what are you really spending
12:27
Speaker 3: it on That is critical. And then also sharing exercises together,
12:33
Speaker 3: not these bilateral exercises that we do a lot of
12:36
Speaker 3: with the United States, but an exercise that's designed to
12:42
Speaker 3: deal with the aggressor in the region, and that's China.
12:44
Speaker 3: We stitch together aspects of the war plan and go
12:48
Speaker 3: out and practice these pieces, and we want China to
12:51
Speaker 3: see it.
12:52
Speaker 1: That helped us during the Cold War.
12:54
Speaker 3: Steve, when we stitch together a plan against the Soviet Union,
12:59
Speaker 3: they helped like China does.
13:01
Speaker 1: They outmanned us.
13:03
Speaker 3: They had more tanks, they had more artillery, they had
13:05
Speaker 3: more of everything. But yet we exercised right in front
13:10
Speaker 3: of them every two years, and we wanted them to
13:12
Speaker 3: see it. And what is the terrence when you get
13:15
Speaker 3: down to it is do you have real capability and
13:19
Speaker 3: are you willing to use it?
13:20
Speaker 1: And we were demonstrating to them, while.
13:23
Speaker 3: We didn't have all the capability that they had, ours
13:26
Speaker 3: was enough to impose impact and cost on them if
13:30
Speaker 3: they came across that border. That is what we got
13:33
Speaker 3: to do with China and a Chinese Communist Party, and
13:36
Speaker 3: we have we have the wherewithal to do that, and
13:39
Speaker 3: I think we should move in that direction. That's certainly
13:42
Speaker 3: what you're suggesting. I think is very much needed, is
13:47
Speaker 3: a national discussion on defence and how Australia contributes to
13:51
Speaker 3: the collective defense of the region against this aggressor, as
13:56
Speaker 3: we know, is preparing for war, just threatening more and
14:02
Speaker 3: given themselves a time date of twenty twenty seven to
14:06
Speaker 3: make certain they can exercise a war plan. That's all
14:10
Speaker 3: real and this is in fiction, this is in speculation.
14:13
Speaker 3: This is real threat.
14:16
Speaker 2: Can I ask you a couple of cook things before
14:17
Speaker 2: you go cease fire? How hard is that going to
14:19
Speaker 2: be to mind tainy thing?
14:23
Speaker 3: I think the ceasefire will hold, you know, I do believe,
14:29
Speaker 3: and the President understands this. I did communicate to them
14:35
Speaker 3: that ran the current regime has not changed. They're on
14:41
Speaker 3: their knees for sure, and needs deserve to be there.
14:43
Speaker 3: We've taken away the thing that they prize the most
14:46
Speaker 3: at nuclear enterprise, but they are still committed to acquire
14:50
Speaker 3: a nuclear weapon and they will try to recover and
14:52
Speaker 3: rebuild it. And when that happens, and if the Israeli
14:56
Speaker 3: has got to go in there and Reattack because they
14:59
Speaker 3: have some evidence that they're doing something at a secret
15:02
Speaker 3: site with a rich uranium, they have got to be
15:05
Speaker 3: had the green light to do that. They have done
15:07
Speaker 3: this so successfully with the ceasefire dealing with Hesbola in Lebanon.
15:11
Speaker 3: They've protect them hundreds of times because they began to
15:15
Speaker 3: come south, violating the ceasefire and put increased missiles, launchers
15:21
Speaker 3: and another military infrastructure in the south, and as soon
15:24
Speaker 3: as the Israeli saw it, they slammed them inhammad them
15:27
Speaker 3: with air strikes. We've got to be prepared to do that.
15:29
Speaker 3: I'm convinced he Israeli. So we want to do that,
15:32
Speaker 3: and administration will certainly would support something like that. So
15:36
Speaker 3: if there is a violation, Steve, it could be for
15:39
Speaker 3: something like that, for a very very good reason.
15:41
Speaker 1: It remains to be seen.
15:45
Speaker 2: Just finally, I'm putting you back in your own job.
15:47
Speaker 2: This operation unfolds and then you get somebody within the
15:53
Speaker 2: US military or within intelligence leaking. A report suggested it
16:00
Speaker 2: might not have been as successful as what Donald Trump
16:04
Speaker 2: was saying. How paid off would you be about that?
16:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean those things are so frustrating. So our
16:10
Speaker 3: audience understands. I mean, like the United States, everything we
16:14
Speaker 3: have is big here, right, So we have seventeen intelligence agencies.
16:19
Speaker 3: Well that's another story that we really need to have
16:21
Speaker 3: all of that, but not all of them. But some
16:26
Speaker 3: of them were tasked to focus on this, develop reports,
16:31
Speaker 3: and then collect those reports together, synthesize them, analyze them,
16:36
Speaker 3: and then bring that report to the National Command Authority,
16:39
Speaker 3: the President of the United States, the Vice President, Secretary
16:42
Speaker 3: of Defense, Secretary of State, etc.
16:45
Speaker 1: In a briefing.
16:46
Speaker 3: This was the early stages, preliminary analysis of twenty four
16:50
Speaker 3: hours of one agency, and they hadn't even rose to
16:54
Speaker 3: the top tier in the agency yet. And somebody who
16:58
Speaker 3: wants to undermine our government, undermine our president leaked that
17:03
Speaker 3: report to the media, who CNN and also The New
17:07
Speaker 3: York Times. I think at times has the same interest
17:11
Speaker 3: that that leaker had in terms of undermining the Trump administration.
17:16
Speaker 3: So for our audience to understand, it doesn't represent at
17:20
Speaker 3: all the collective thought of our intelligence agencies. And the CIA
17:25
Speaker 3: chief has said that based on the analysis, I'm certain
17:28
Speaker 3: they've rushed a lot of this faster than they wanted
17:31
Speaker 3: to because of this report, and they have said that
17:34
Speaker 3: the program has been set back, severely damaged, and set
17:38
Speaker 3: back years. I went right to my Israelis who are
17:41
Speaker 3: very involved in this, as soon as this was happening,
17:44
Speaker 3: and they told me unequivocally General of the program four
17:49
Speaker 3: DOH severely damaged.
17:50
Speaker 1: They have not destroyed.
17:53
Speaker 3: They have people on the ground, Steve, who are do
17:55
Speaker 3: any analysis, and they cautioned me that even that analysis
17:59
Speaker 3: pol but there's no doubt that that program has suffered
18:04
Speaker 3: serious damage and it's years to recover from it. And
18:08
Speaker 3: they emphasize that we're still doing more work here. The
18:11
Speaker 3: human intelligence coming from Israelis are also feeding in to
18:17
Speaker 3: the American intelligence system, and I think by far I
18:20
Speaker 3: mean people on the ground. This is likely Massan and
18:24
Speaker 3: Iranian resistance group people and likely bringing some technologists with
18:29
Speaker 3: them to understand what they're looking at and how to
18:32
Speaker 3: get underneath the ground and.
18:33
Speaker 1: Make some assessments.
18:35
Speaker 3: Those reports are considerably more valid than the very preliminary
18:39
Speaker 3: report that was being made inside the Defense Intelligence Agency,
18:43
Speaker 3: and fairness that I want to Intel agency, this was
18:48
Speaker 3: a preliminary report done at a very low level who
18:51
Speaker 3: had not.
18:51
Speaker 1: Reached the leadership yet.
18:53
Speaker 3: And just sadly, and this happens far too often in
18:56
Speaker 3: our government, somebody leaked that undermined imistration.
19:01
Speaker 1: How shameful is that?
19:04
Speaker 2: It is shameful. Always great to get your analysis, General
19:08
Speaker 2: Jack Kean, thank you very much.
19:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, wonderful talking to you, Steve and your rings. Thank you.
19:17
Speaker 2: How good is Jack Kean. Let's stick with defense spending.
19:19
Speaker 2: It is really important. I think we need to have
19:22
Speaker 2: a look again at what Australia really needs to do now.
19:25
Speaker 2: NATO that's wrapped up in the Hague. Here's the Deputy
19:28
Speaker 2: Prime Minister, Richard Mars. He was there on how that
19:31
Speaker 2: extra investment will actually boost the military capacity.
19:36
Speaker 4: What matters now is that the quality of that defense
19:40
Speaker 4: spending is the best that it can be, so that
19:43
Speaker 4: we are in fact increasing production across all of our countries,
19:47
Speaker 4: which will mean that there is actual better capability which
19:52
Speaker 4: results from this increase in expenditure.
19:56
Speaker 2: He seems to be linking us with the increase in
19:59
Speaker 2: NATO's I'm not quite sure how Richard Males could do that.
20:02
Speaker 2: At the same time, the UK government has now issued
20:04
Speaker 2: a very stark warning that Britain must listen to this
20:08
Speaker 2: brace itself for the real possibility of facing a direct
20:11
Speaker 2: threat Britain, even the outbreak of war. The National Security
20:15
Speaker 2: Strategy warns that twenty twenty five is going to be
20:18
Speaker 2: marked by rising global tensions, urging the UK to boost
20:22
Speaker 2: wartime preparedness. I mean Russia's invasion of Ukraine that's named
20:26
Speaker 2: as the most urgent issue. The release coincided with that
20:30
Speaker 2: NATO summit and leaders of all thirty two member states
20:33
Speaker 2: were there. They're all going to increase their spending. As
20:35
Speaker 2: I said, bar Spain, joining me now to look at
20:39
Speaker 2: the local issue is Strategic Analysis Australia Director, Michael Schubridge,
20:43
Speaker 2: what did you make of what Jack Keane said there,
20:46
Speaker 2: former general, full star general, on what Australia needs to
20:50
Speaker 2: start doing. And I know you've said this over and over, Michael.
20:54
Speaker 2: He agrees we have to have a national discussion about this.
20:59
Speaker 5: Well, Steve, how great to have a general, a retired general,
21:04
Speaker 5: be able to speak so candidly and honestly about issues
21:09
Speaker 5: that we don't hear a peep out of in that
21:12
Speaker 5: same candid, honest way from our senior serving military people
21:17
Speaker 5: or the ministers in charge of defense, let alone the
21:20
Speaker 5: Prime Minister. China is an aggressive, growing military and security
21:27
Speaker 5: challenge in our region, and unlike the Europeans, NATO has
21:33
Speaker 5: thirty two members facing Russia. They've just increased their defense spending.
21:38
Speaker 5: They will increase it to three and a half percent
21:40
Speaker 5: of GDP with another one and a half percent on
21:43
Speaker 5: defense related investment. Here in our part of the world,
21:46
Speaker 5: there's the US, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and US
21:51
Speaker 5: looking at China five countries instead of NATO's thirty two.
21:56
Speaker 5: And our collective effort doesn't look impressive compared to what
22:02
Speaker 5: we've just seen in Europe.
22:07
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I mean we sit here and have Paul
22:08
Speaker 2: Keating lecturing as saying China is not a threat and
22:11
Speaker 2: we don't need to worry about it, and the people
22:13
Speaker 2: running things in Canbra not defense, but the politicians seem
22:16
Speaker 2: to go, okay, well, you know, maybe we don't have
22:18
Speaker 2: a problem with China. I mean, Jack Keane put it
22:20
Speaker 2: very clearly that the countries you just mentioned, Michael, we
22:23
Speaker 2: all need to get together. I mean, if you put
22:25
Speaker 2: together Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, US, the US, I mean,
22:31
Speaker 2: that's fairly formidable and it should be something. I mean,
22:35
Speaker 2: does Asian doesn't cover that? I mean the agreement between India,
22:40
Speaker 2: Japan Australia. Maybe that might, but we don't talk seriously
22:45
Speaker 2: enough about it. And you make a great point. When
22:47
Speaker 2: was the last time we heard from the Chief of
22:48
Speaker 2: Defense about what he thinks about what the world's saying
22:52
Speaker 2: about spending more money on defense.
22:55
Speaker 5: Well, he is not allowed to speak honestly. He's a
22:59
Speaker 5: prisoner of the political leadership that we have, who are
23:03
Speaker 5: busily planning our prime minister's next highly happy and successful
23:08
Speaker 5: trip to Beijing. That's what's going on here.
23:11
Speaker 6: We know.
23:12
Speaker 5: Anyone that has a calculator and that knows anything about
23:16
Speaker 5: our defense force knows that the two percent we're spending
23:20
Speaker 5: right now on defense rising not to three percent. Steve,
23:24
Speaker 5: you are very charitable, But three elections from now, in
23:27
Speaker 5: twenty thirty three, the plan is it will be two
23:30
Speaker 5: point three to three percent. We cannot afford the defense
23:37
Speaker 5: force that we are buying, which is a small conventional
23:41
Speaker 5: force that can't last beyond a few weeks with the
23:44
Speaker 5: supplies it has and nuclear submarines. We have cordial tastes.
23:50
Speaker 5: We have champagne tastes with a cordial income, not even
23:54
Speaker 5: beer income.
23:57
Speaker 2: Will you take it aback by the UK which where
24:00
Speaker 2: they start using words like wartime approach to defense.
24:06
Speaker 5: Not really, I mean there's an active war in Europe
24:08
Speaker 5: with Ukraine. The thirty two NATO nations are alarmed at
24:16
Speaker 5: what at their weakness and hollowness in their militaries aside
24:20
Speaker 5: from America, and that's why they've taken this large step
24:24
Speaker 5: to grow their defense spending, and unlike our government, they
24:29
Speaker 5: will fund the capabilities they need. Our government, with the
24:32
Speaker 5: Strategic Review from Angus Houston and Stephen Smith, were told
24:37
Speaker 5: the capabilities they needed and they left a whole bunch
24:40
Speaker 5: of them on the cutting room floor because they're only
24:43
Speaker 5: willing to spend two point one percent. So it's the
24:48
Speaker 5: UK is taking its security seriously and we are not.
24:56
Speaker 2: Michael. We had to have that conversation and it's always
24:58
Speaker 2: great to catch up with you. Thanks a lot. Thank
25:00
Speaker 2: you very much, Michael Shubridge. Heare Now after the break,
25:02
Speaker 2: I'll stick on the Middle East conflict. We'll go to
25:04
Speaker 2: Tel Aviv. We'll talk to journalist Emily Schrader. Now she'll
25:08
Speaker 2: bring us the latest on what's happening on the ground
25:11
Speaker 2: and talk about that ceasefire. Will it stay back after
25:14
Speaker 2: the break, Welcome back today, priss in for Andrew. I'll
25:20
Speaker 2: talk with former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce in just
25:23
Speaker 2: a moment. I'm sure he'll have a view on defense spending.
25:26
Speaker 2: But let's go to Israel, to Tel Aviv. American Israeli
25:29
Speaker 2: journalist and Iranian affairs expert Emily Schrader joins us. Emily
25:33
Speaker 2: currently in Tel Aviv. What's the feeling like on the
25:37
Speaker 2: ground there. The ceasefire fingers crossed, seems to be holding
25:41
Speaker 2: it this stage anyway.
25:44
Speaker 7: Well, thanks for having me on. So far, so good.
25:46
Speaker 7: In terms of the ceasefire, we haven't seen any major violations.
25:50
Speaker 7: That first day, we did see the Iranian regime fire
25:53
Speaker 7: again at the State of Israel, and then there was
25:56
Speaker 7: some controversy over whether or not Israel would respond or
25:59
Speaker 7: if know how much. In the end, Israel did respond
26:02
Speaker 7: in a sort of symbolic strike targeting a radar area,
26:05
Speaker 7: but other than that, we haven't seen really any further
26:09
Speaker 7: significant activity in the meantime. I think we do expect
26:13
Speaker 7: that to continue. But more importantly, I think is what's
26:16
Speaker 7: happening on the ground in terms of the public opinion
26:19
Speaker 7: and what we've seen since the ceasefire was declared is
26:22
Speaker 7: quite a bit of opposition to it. I think that
26:23
Speaker 7: a lot of the Israeli public was more than prepared
26:26
Speaker 7: to extend this operation and ensure that we really dealt
26:30
Speaker 7: the Islamic Republic a heavy blow and perhaps perhaps gave
26:34
Speaker 7: the Iranian people a chance to really rise up and
26:38
Speaker 7: take back their country. It remains to be seen if
26:41
Speaker 7: that will or will not happen. At this point, we
26:43
Speaker 7: have dealt a pretty serious blow to the Islamic regime.
26:46
Speaker 7: But again, there's a lot of activity going on on
26:49
Speaker 7: the ground inside Iran now that I'm hearing from contacts.
26:53
Speaker 7: There a lot of checkpoints, a lot of arrests. Over
26:55
Speaker 7: seven hundred Iranian civilians have already been arrested. Text messages
26:59
Speaker 7: have gone out to tech ends of thousands of Iranian
27:01
Speaker 7: civilians warning them that there are hefty prison sentences for
27:06
Speaker 7: liking or following Israeli pages on social media. So we
27:10
Speaker 7: see this totalitarian state acting as totalitarian states do, even
27:14
Speaker 7: against their own citizens.
27:16
Speaker 2: In this scenario, well, you are an expert on around you.
27:21
Speaker 2: It's your expertise. I mean, that's how you expect a
27:26
Speaker 2: regime as brutal as the one that's been running around
27:29
Speaker 2: for the last fifty years to that's how they're going
27:33
Speaker 2: to act, don't they. They're going to round up their
27:35
Speaker 2: own people who they might suspect might have helped out
27:37
Speaker 2: to Israel or might be involved with mast or whatever.
27:42
Speaker 7: Well, unfortunately, that is the reality, and that was the expectations.
27:45
Speaker 7: I mean, every day of this operation, I've been in
27:48
Speaker 7: touch with Iranians who said to me, please don't stop,
27:51
Speaker 7: but we need the assistance of the international community, even
27:54
Speaker 7: if not militarily. There needs to be more support from
27:57
Speaker 7: the international community for the people of Iran who are
28:00
Speaker 7: trying to fight back against this regime. There have been
28:03
Speaker 7: multiple waves of massive protests across the country in recent decades,
28:08
Speaker 7: and every single time, Western leaders in the Western world,
28:11
Speaker 7: particularly Europe and the United States, have really turned their
28:14
Speaker 7: backs on the Iranian people, at least that's how they
28:17
Speaker 7: see it. And instead of holding the regime accountable for
28:21
Speaker 7: their crimes, for their funding of terror proxies, for their
28:24
Speaker 7: nuclear program violations and the development or the pursuit of
28:28
Speaker 7: nuclear weapons, we've seen instead the West give them sanction, relief,
28:33
Speaker 7: cut deals, do all kinds of things that really prop
28:35
Speaker 7: up the regime and give them a lifeline in the end.
28:37
Speaker 7: And unfortunately, that's kind of what we're seeing right now.
28:40
Speaker 7: Despite the fact that President Trump has previously been very
28:43
Speaker 7: strong when it comes to dealing with the Islamic regime,
28:46
Speaker 7: the reality is any deal with the Islamic regime in
28:49
Speaker 7: Iran that leaves this regime intact is already a failure
28:53
Speaker 7: because they're just going to continue doing the same thing.
28:56
Speaker 7: They're going to continue funding terror proxies, if they're sanctioned relief,
29:00
Speaker 7: to continue targeting their own people. They're going to continue
29:02
Speaker 7: their crimes against humanity. They're misogynist rules of whipping and
29:07
Speaker 7: arresting and executing people for removing hijab, I mean, outrageous
29:12
Speaker 7: human rights violations taking place. And yet still even during
29:15
Speaker 7: the war, the foreign minister of that regime was invited
29:18
Speaker 7: to speak on the UN Human Rights Council. I mean,
29:21
Speaker 7: as Israeli as we know that this is hypocritical, because
29:24
Speaker 7: there's a lot of problems in the United Nations, but
29:26
Speaker 7: this is just beyond the pale. I mean, it's a
29:28
Speaker 7: slap in the face to the Iranian people who are
29:31
Speaker 7: fighting with everything they have to push back against this regime.
29:34
Speaker 7: And in fact, we've seen a really unprecedented solidarity between
29:38
Speaker 7: Israelis on the ground at the civil level and Iranians
29:42
Speaker 7: on the ground at the civil level. Unfortunately, in their
29:45
Speaker 7: case it does actually or can actually threaten their lives,
29:48
Speaker 7: and we need international support to push back against this.
29:54
Speaker 2: We can anti hypenprif regime change. Emily, try to thank
29:58
Speaker 2: you very much for joining us safe from TELEVI, As
30:00
Speaker 2: I said, I was going to catch up with National
30:02
Speaker 2: MP former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, He joins us. Now,
30:06
Speaker 2: well we've seen the last two days. Just talking briefly
30:10
Speaker 2: about domestic politics before I ask you about defense. Your
30:13
Speaker 2: coalition partners trying to reset themselves. What do you make
30:17
Speaker 2: of this idea of female quotas, Barnaby that seems to
30:21
Speaker 2: already be causing some disagreement between those in the front bench.
30:28
Speaker 6: I've got to like going off here. I don't believe
30:30
Speaker 6: in quotas. We're going to have quotas of dentists, You're
30:32
Speaker 6: going to have quotas for doctors. You should be there
30:35
Speaker 6: on capabilities, not on quotas. I think there should be
30:38
Speaker 6: absolutely a path made clear, and there must be you
30:43
Speaker 6: must be proactive in promoting women. Do that in my
30:47
Speaker 6: own office, and I think I've done in my own career.
30:49
Speaker 6: But the idea that I'm going to select you based
30:52
Speaker 6: on gender, I just I don't like being people being
30:54
Speaker 6: select based on race, based on gender, based on religion.
30:58
Speaker 6: You should get select selected based on capabilities, and I
31:03
Speaker 6: suppose you keep it in the back of your mind.
31:05
Speaker 6: I mean, if it's based on gender, do you say, well,
31:07
Speaker 6: I'm probably not the best person. I just happened to
31:09
Speaker 6: be the right gender.
31:12
Speaker 2: Well, strong women, I know hate that idea that they've
31:15
Speaker 2: been selected because they're a woman.
31:17
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, you know there's places where there should be differentiations,
31:21
Speaker 6: such as in sport. Obviously you can't have blokes competing
31:24
Speaker 6: in women's sport, but in areas where there is basically
31:27
Speaker 6: you've both got a brain between your ears, and you
31:30
Speaker 6: have capabilities and you have experience. The idea that now
31:34
Speaker 6: we're going to select the person who's best to run
31:36
Speaker 6: Australia on the premise of their gender. You know, we
31:40
Speaker 6: need people to run Australia on the premise of the capabilities,
31:44
Speaker 6: on the premise of their attributes, on the premise of
31:46
Speaker 6: their gender.
31:49
Speaker 2: How would you feel if when you were deputy Prime
31:51
Speaker 2: minister you got called into the PM's office and they said, listen,
31:55
Speaker 2: Barnaby wants you to go to NATO because the Prime
31:59
Speaker 2: Minister I can't afford to go there in case Donald
32:02
Speaker 2: Trump won't meet me again. And you get said and
32:05
Speaker 2: you're in the back row up on the right hand side,
32:08
Speaker 2: as far away from Donald Trump as possible, and you
32:11
Speaker 2: still don't get to meet him, and you're going to
32:13
Speaker 2: come back home. How would you have felt about that,
32:15
Speaker 2: my friend?
32:16
Speaker 6: Like the current seating arrangements in the chamber. Actually, but look,
32:22
Speaker 6: it's not it's something's gone seriously wrong here, hasn't it.
32:27
Speaker 6: I mean, our relationship with the United States is obviously
32:31
Speaker 6: has got problems, and that's really bad for us. You know,
32:33
Speaker 6: we as I've said before and the other mast heads
32:36
Speaker 6: and other media, our defense force is way way way
32:40
Speaker 6: below where it needs to be. And we live in
32:42
Speaker 6: the most precarious of times, I would say, since the
32:46
Speaker 6: will probably equivalent to the Kyle War war, but since
32:48
Speaker 6: the Second World War, and we need to have a
32:50
Speaker 6: very close relationship with the United States. By gosh, we
32:53
Speaker 6: need them more than they need us. And we judge
32:56
Speaker 6: dancing to be we don't even we're not even able
33:00
Speaker 6: to crack a cup of tea. And this is this
33:02
Speaker 6: is no good. And yeah, my pearl, Richard Miles, he looked,
33:07
Speaker 6: he looked like he shouldn't be there. I mean, if
33:09
Speaker 6: he was any further out, he'd be in the room
33:11
Speaker 6: next door.
33:11
Speaker 1: Wouldn't he.
33:14
Speaker 2: Listen? You know those NATO countries, they've now said, okay,
33:17
Speaker 2: we're going to go you know, probably up to three
33:19
Speaker 2: point five on defense spending, and then the next level
33:22
Speaker 2: up to five on things like roads and bridges and
33:25
Speaker 2: things in Europe that could be improved in case there
33:29
Speaker 2: is any sort of a ground war. So there must
33:32
Speaker 2: be huge pressure now on Miles and Anthony Albanizi and
33:37
Speaker 2: Penny Wong and that whole crowd to at least have
33:40
Speaker 2: a national discussion about what more we need to spend.
33:44
Speaker 2: I just had a four star retired general from America
33:47
Speaker 2: on the program saying, listen, the region you're in, you've
33:51
Speaker 2: got to get serious, mate.
33:53
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, I've been saying for years, for decades, we've
33:57
Speaker 6: got to become as powerful as possible, as quickly as possible.
34:00
Speaker 6: And that doesn't just mean planes, ships, tanks. It also
34:04
Speaker 6: means that you've got to have connectivity and roads. So
34:07
Speaker 6: trying to see a the out back ways so you
34:09
Speaker 6: can go get troops from Townsville down to Perth straight.
34:11
Speaker 2: Across the nation.
34:12
Speaker 6: This is the sort of thing Eisenhower did to shore
34:16
Speaker 6: up the United States of America. And we've got to
34:18
Speaker 6: make sure that we've got ports, ports that we can move.
34:21
Speaker 1: Ships in move ships out.
34:23
Speaker 6: We have to have base load electricity so we can
34:25
Speaker 6: actually build things.
34:27
Speaker 2: Yet we don't.
34:28
Speaker 6: We're in a war against the weather, you know, we're
34:30
Speaker 6: raging against the rain. That's where we are climate policy
34:33
Speaker 6: and that is not going to take over Australia. If
34:36
Speaker 6: we get this wrong the defense of our nation, we
34:39
Speaker 6: will lose this nation. And that's what Americans and others
34:42
Speaker 6: keep telling us. Do you understand, Australia, how precarious the
34:46
Speaker 6: world is, And it's most precarious in the region that
34:49
Speaker 6: you were in, But you don't seem to be able
34:51
Speaker 6: to lock onto this, and you're distracted by all this
34:54
Speaker 6: other garbage net zero, I mean, forget about net zero.
34:57
Speaker 6: You have net zero Australia. If you get this one wrong.
35:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean you're quite right to bring this
35:04
Speaker 2: up all those years. I mean, you know you champion
35:07
Speaker 2: very much the train service in the in the middle
35:12
Speaker 2: of Australia that had to be built so we could
35:14
Speaker 2: get freight moved up there. I mean, how are you
35:17
Speaker 2: going to move how are you going to move heavy
35:19
Speaker 2: ordnance if you can't even use the train lines properly.
35:22
Speaker 6: But we need This is the train line for your
35:25
Speaker 6: listeners that goes from Melbourne through to Brisbane through the
35:27
Speaker 6: inland and that's how you move massive amounts of stuff
35:31
Speaker 6: quickly and efficiently. If what you're relying on is things
35:34
Speaker 6: such as the Pacific Highway. You probably know that the
35:36
Speaker 6: Pacific Highway goes along the Pacific, so if something goes wrong,
35:39
Speaker 6: it's a very easy road to take out. And you
35:42
Speaker 6: know it's not being melodramatic. That's how you've got to
35:45
Speaker 6: think we'll be going to protect your nation a time
35:47
Speaker 6: of war, and you've actually got to have the capacity
35:50
Speaker 6: to provide every component for artillery shells, to provide to
35:54
Speaker 6: your very best, to manufacture things to fix your planes,
35:57
Speaker 6: to have the capacity to build the ships. And we
35:59
Speaker 6: don't have any of that exactly Like even when we
36:02
Speaker 6: do we borrow components from elsewhere, we don't seem to
36:05
Speaker 6: be able to do the whole job ourselves. And if
36:07
Speaker 6: you get your supply lines cut off, and here's the
36:09
Speaker 6: obvious one, where's if you're coming from you've only got
36:11
Speaker 6: too old fried his left in Australia.
36:15
Speaker 2: Yep, we haven't got much fuel left in the tank.
36:17
Speaker 2: Barnaby always good to catch up with you mate. Thank
36:19
Speaker 2: you very much, Barnaby. Jowece there now coming up one man.
36:22
Speaker 1: I want to.
36:23
Speaker 2: Make this bloke Australian of the Year. He's been fired
36:26
Speaker 2: for questioning a welcome to country. He's a street sweeper
36:30
Speaker 2: in Darribin Council. Guess what he's had the last laugh?
36:38
Speaker 2: Welcome back now. The Herald's unreported today that a Melbourne
36:41
Speaker 2: street sweeper had been fired by one of Australia's most
36:45
Speaker 2: left leaning councils. That's a Darrabin council another one of
36:48
Speaker 2: those in the Melbourne lefty councils after speaking out about
36:53
Speaker 2: or against an acknowledgment of country ceremony. Now he's one.
36:59
Speaker 2: He's unfair dismissive case. His name Sean Turner. He lost
37:02
Speaker 2: his job, sacked from the Darribin City Council after questioning, Hey, guys,
37:07
Speaker 2: why is the street cleaning team starting our weekly toolbox
37:13
Speaker 2: meeting with an acknowledgment of country? He said at the meeting.
37:18
Speaker 2: Quote if anyone deserves sanks, it's the people who've worn
37:21
Speaker 2: the uniform of our country and fought for our nation
37:24
Speaker 2: to keep us free. Let's go to the panel. Now
37:26
Speaker 2: I'm joined by scott News host James McPherson and IPA
37:30
Speaker 2: senior fellow Adam Crichton. Adam, the comments from the street
37:35
Speaker 2: sweeping guy got sacked. I thought he should have been promoted. Yeah, certainly,
37:42
Speaker 2: Steve I would agree.
37:42
Speaker 8: I mean, good on him. I mean, I think his
37:44
Speaker 8: sentiments basically reflect the views of the broader Australian community.
37:47
Speaker 8: It's worth bearing in mind, of course, we just had
37:49
Speaker 8: aose just a few years ago on the Boys and
37:52
Speaker 8: sixty percent of Australian said no. I think there's a
37:55
Speaker 8: movement in Australia against this sort of racial division. So
37:58
Speaker 8: I'm so good on him for standing up. I'm glad
38:00
Speaker 8: that he's going to get some sort of compensation. We
38:03
Speaker 8: don't know what that is yet, but yeah, but it's
38:07
Speaker 8: fantastic that he stood up. And you know, it's worth
38:09
Speaker 8: mentioning he's not even totally against these ceremonies. He's said
38:13
Speaker 8: in various statements and he thinks that they're appropriate at
38:15
Speaker 8: some times at major events, but certainly not the beginning
38:18
Speaker 8: of a street sweep. I mean, that's obviously just totally
38:21
Speaker 8: absurd and it just goes to show you how you
38:23
Speaker 8: know how crazy these councils have become.
38:28
Speaker 2: James, I don't actually know what a toolbox meeting is.
38:30
Speaker 2: I presume it's a briefing for the street sweepers on
38:33
Speaker 2: how to keep the equipment working well. I would imagine
38:38
Speaker 2: his fellow workmates probably said, thank God for that someone
38:41
Speaker 2: finally telling us that we don't have to waste our
38:44
Speaker 2: time at these meetings, which are boring enough anyway, by
38:47
Speaker 2: someone welcoming us to our own counsel.
38:50
Speaker 9: Yes, Steve, so you misunderstand completely. You can't put on
38:53
Speaker 9: your high viz jacket until you have done an acknowledgment
38:56
Speaker 9: of country. This guy is an absolute legend. Make the
39:00
Speaker 9: street sweeper the Lord mayor, in fact, even better, make
39:03
Speaker 9: the street sweeper the leader of the Liberal Party. Because
39:06
Speaker 9: Susan Lee, who started her press club address with a
39:09
Speaker 9: welcome to country saying we want to be in touch
39:12
Speaker 9: with modern Australia, Well, this street sweeper he is more
39:15
Speaker 9: in touch with modern Australia than the leader of the
39:18
Speaker 9: Liberal Party.
39:19
Speaker 1: But as bad as being welcome.
39:20
Speaker 9: To your own country as it's the stifling of your
39:23
Speaker 9: opinion and the stifling of speech that this autocratic bureaucracy
39:28
Speaker 9: in the local council tried to pull off. I love
39:31
Speaker 9: the fact the street sweeper took a support person with
39:34
Speaker 9: him to the meeting. And get this, Steve, the support
39:37
Speaker 9: person was Indigenous.
39:39
Speaker 2: And then the counselor so woke.
39:41
Speaker 9: After the meeting they checked up on the support person
39:43
Speaker 9: just to make sure they were okay with the meeting.
39:46
Speaker 9: Absolutely ridiculous. This street sweeper is an absolute legend. Australian
39:50
Speaker 9: of the Year.
39:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd make him opposition leader in Victoria. He be
39:56
Speaker 2: doing a better job than the people there at the moment.
39:58
Speaker 2: Speaking of Victoria, I've Adam, I've had a bit of
40:02
Speaker 2: a query and I've written a little bit about this.
40:06
Speaker 2: Victoria's got a new police commissioner. He's coming from New Zealand.
40:10
Speaker 2: His name's Mike Bush. Now, he was the police commissioner
40:14
Speaker 2: of all of New Zealand under Jacinda Adern. Now when
40:19
Speaker 2: I found that out, I thought to myself, Okay, so
40:23
Speaker 2: Jasinda Allen, from the hard left as hired a police
40:26
Speaker 2: commissioner who was successful under a hard left prime minister
40:30
Speaker 2: in New Zealand. I wonder what sort of bloke we're getting.
40:33
Speaker 2: We now find out that a few of his Maori
40:36
Speaker 2: mates are flying over here because we're going to have
40:38
Speaker 2: something called a POWHII ceremony featuring singing and dancing to
40:43
Speaker 2: welcome the new police Commissioner's job. Can I tell Mike
40:46
Speaker 2: Bush We've got a youth crime crisis. People's houses have
40:50
Speaker 2: been broken into every night, people have been slashed with
40:52
Speaker 2: machetes and their car's stolen. Forget about you welcome to
40:56
Speaker 2: country and you're welcome to Melbourne's dance.
41:00
Speaker 8: I mean, seriously, no, Well, it just goes to show
41:04
Speaker 8: how deluded both sides of the Tasman are on these
41:06
Speaker 8: sorts of cultural issues. They're just alienating ordinary people and
41:09
Speaker 8: I'm sure many are many in the police force as well.
41:12
Speaker 8: I mean, as you point out, I actually checked the
41:14
Speaker 8: crime statistics the day in Victoria and I was shocked.
41:16
Speaker 8: There's a twenty percent increase in violent crime in the
41:19
Speaker 8: last twelve months, which is pretty extraordinary. There hasn't been
41:22
Speaker 8: a twenty percent increase in the population. So there's something
41:25
Speaker 8: seriously wrong in Victoria. And I think these sorts of ceremonies,
41:28
Speaker 8: these sorts of distractions are not what the state needs.
41:31
Speaker 8: They're not they're certainly not what the voters want. We
41:34
Speaker 8: just talked earlier about how we had the voice vote
41:37
Speaker 8: sixty percent. No, then ordinary Victorians see this waste of
41:41
Speaker 8: money and just this sort of cultural nonsense. And also
41:45
Speaker 8: it's worth pointing out, you know, why didn't they just
41:47
Speaker 8: promote someone from the ranks of the Victorian Police Force.
41:49
Speaker 8: I mean, I've got no doubt that there's a lot
41:52
Speaker 8: of noses being put out of joint within the force.
41:55
Speaker 8: You know, I just don't see the point in hiring
41:57
Speaker 8: a foreigner for this sort of important job. He doesn't
41:59
Speaker 8: know this, he doesn't know the games, he doesn't know
42:01
Speaker 8: the sorts of crime here, So what is the point?
42:07
Speaker 2: Exactly my views, exactly. James Susan Lee had her big
42:12
Speaker 2: moment at the Press Club yesterday, sadly over the Liberal
42:16
Speaker 2: Party's Facebook page was hacked and x rated images of
42:21
Speaker 2: naked women posted on the official party banner. Not a
42:25
Speaker 2: great start for Suit. Not her fault, but can't take
42:28
Speaker 2: a trick.
42:30
Speaker 9: Yes, Steve, this is a fascinating case. It's political hacks
42:34
Speaker 9: being hacked. I haven't heard of that before. But it's
42:37
Speaker 9: a simple issue for the Victorian Liberal Party to the
42:40
Speaker 9: Federal Labor Party. Just change your password from Howard won
42:43
Speaker 9: to something a little less obvious. The thing about this story, though,
42:47
Speaker 9: it was reported in The Australian as Liberals' latest women problem.
42:52
Speaker 9: And this is part of the issue with the Liberals
42:54
Speaker 9: always having this women problem. It's a media beat up.
42:57
Speaker 9: The Liberals don't have a women problem. In this instance,
43:00
Speaker 9: the Liberal Party website was hacked by left wing activists
43:04
Speaker 9: and yet the media reporter as see this is more
43:06
Speaker 9: evidence of a Liberal Party woman problem. So the way
43:10
Speaker 9: it's reported really does do an injustice to the Liberal
43:13
Speaker 9: Party and to Susan Lay.
43:16
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, both of you, James and Adam,
43:18
Speaker 2: I appreciate it. After the break, a fierce backbench revolt.
43:21
Speaker 2: Now Starma the UK Prime Minister, he's come up with
43:25
Speaker 2: this controversial welfare reform. I'll catch up with Patrick Christie
43:29
Speaker 2: straight after this. Welcome back, Charry Markson at the top
43:33
Speaker 2: of the hour, should be all over the latest out
43:35
Speaker 2: of the Middle East. Now, So kis Starmer the UK
43:37
Speaker 2: Prime Minister. He's had to defend his leadership. He's got
43:40
Speaker 2: this controversial welfare reform bill despite a mounting rebellion from
43:45
Speaker 2: within his own party about it. One hundred and twenty backbenches.
43:48
Speaker 2: Can you believe it backed an amendment to scrap the proposals.
43:51
Speaker 2: Now that would have to say, I would have thought
43:53
Speaker 2: that Kis Starmer might be looking back behind his back.
43:57
Speaker 2: I mean the knives out for him. By g B
44:00
Speaker 2: News host Andrew Bolt, regular Sky News contributor like we
44:04
Speaker 2: love to speak to on our Thursday night Patrick Christie's
44:07
Speaker 2: any chance that sir Key Stammer might get rolled?
44:11
Speaker 6: Well?
44:11
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean, Cirkis Sama is finding out that he's
44:13
Speaker 10: about as popular as a fart in a space suit,
44:15
Speaker 10: isn't he really? I mean this is a massive problem
44:18
Speaker 10: for him.
44:18
Speaker 2: So yes.
44:19
Speaker 10: In Britain, believe it or not, a quarter of people
44:22
Speaker 10: are registered as disabled and claiming some form of benefits,
44:25
Speaker 10: a quarter of Britain's population. One in four new cars
44:30
Speaker 10: produced here in Britain. One in four new cars are
44:34
Speaker 10: motability vehicles that are given for free the expense of
44:37
Speaker 10: the tax payers people claiming to be disabled. Six hundred
44:40
Speaker 10: and twenty five thousand, sixteen to twenty four year olds
44:43
Speaker 10: are on benefits in Britain. We've got a massive problem.
44:46
Speaker 10: And that's before we've started talking about us paying for
44:48
Speaker 10: all the illegal migrants and the relatives of people that
44:51
Speaker 10: you know, someone comes over from India and brings their
44:53
Speaker 10: grandma and half the village as well, and we will
44:54
Speaker 10: pay for that. So there is a problem, massive problem. However,
44:58
Speaker 10: the biggest problem for kirs Arma is that he is
45:00
Speaker 10: a Labor Party politician, and Labor Party politicians don't cut
45:04
Speaker 10: people's benefits, do they. In fact, for the last twenty
45:07
Speaker 10: or thirty years that he's been in politics, he's not
45:10
Speaker 10: shut up about increasing people's benefits, and so here he
45:13
Speaker 10: is now can't balance the bucks. Public trust is the
45:17
Speaker 10: lower sense levels since records began in government, which is
45:21
Speaker 10: a remarkable thing. And his own MPs are looking at
45:24
Speaker 10: him and thinking, I don't like you, mate. I think
45:27
Speaker 10: you're going to cost me my seat, costing my job.
45:29
Speaker 10: They're also seeing that on certain policies, is you turned
45:33
Speaker 10: more than a drunk driver on a police chase, and
45:35
Speaker 10: they think you'll do it again this time the knives
45:38
Speaker 10: are out for him. The game's up. He is in
45:40
Speaker 10: massive trouble.
45:44
Speaker 1: Well.
45:44
Speaker 2: On the issue of disability, I'm looking it's almost like
45:47
Speaker 2: us looking in a mirror. I mean the Indie I
45:50
Speaker 2: is in this Australia is exactly in Australia is exactly
45:52
Speaker 2: the same. I mean the amount of people who are
45:54
Speaker 2: now registers having a disability and need a care and
45:57
Speaker 2: a plan, and it's just going to send the country
46:00
Speaker 2: broke at some point, spreading and sending the country broke,
46:04
Speaker 2: the UK says, and I thought this language was I mean,
46:07
Speaker 2: you might tell me it's absolutely correct, but they're talking
46:10
Speaker 2: about in terms of defense that they have to go
46:13
Speaker 2: onder a wartime footing. Is that how you feel in
46:16
Speaker 2: the UK?
46:16
Speaker 10: Patrick, Well, it's not necessarily how we feel. It's what
46:19
Speaker 10: we're constantly being pumped with. You know, there's young people
46:22
Speaker 10: in this country are being told to expect conscription at
46:25
Speaker 10: some point, which is a little bit concerning, isn't it.
46:28
Speaker 10: Then we're being told expector wartime footing. It's almost like
46:32
Speaker 10: our elites know something that we down't, isn't it. Really.
46:36
Speaker 10: But the problem that we're going to have is that
46:38
Speaker 10: we've consistently underfunded our military. You could fit our entire
46:43
Speaker 10: army into Old Trafford football Stadium, Manchester United's football stadium
46:47
Speaker 10: and still have quite a few seats spare, which is
46:50
Speaker 10: a concern. We're now investing heavily in nuclear tipped aircraft.
46:55
Speaker 10: The only problem there is that if Vandamyr Pootsy decides
46:58
Speaker 10: to blow us all up in the next seven years,
47:00
Speaker 10: we won't have those aircraft to defend ourselves. So fingers
47:03
Speaker 10: crossed vlads can just hold off for another few years
47:06
Speaker 10: whilst we make those planes. But this is it. The
47:09
Speaker 10: problem that he's got and everyone's got in this country
47:12
Speaker 10: is that we've demonized a lot of members of our
47:14
Speaker 10: owned forces for years. We've historically prosecuted them for things
47:18
Speaker 10: that go back twenty or thirty years, whilst we've given
47:22
Speaker 10: letters of immunity to people who were part of the IRA.
47:25
Speaker 10: For example, the Royal Air Force refused to hire white
47:30
Speaker 10: men for a period of time and lost the court
47:32
Speaker 10: case over that because it's discrimination, as it turns out,
47:35
Speaker 10: And now they need us, right, this is the thing.
47:38
Speaker 10: Now they need us. So there's a little bit of
47:40
Speaker 10: bitterness and resentment and people thinking I don't really want
47:42
Speaker 10: to fight and die for Circuia Starmer be course, I'm
47:45
Speaker 10: sure if the call came then there would be there
47:47
Speaker 10: will be a lot of Brits who'd be willing to
47:49
Speaker 10: fight for Kingdom country. But yeah, we're being told to
47:52
Speaker 10: expect a war footing.
47:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean I had a retired four star
47:59
Speaker 2: US general on the program about an hour ago, said
48:02
Speaker 2: Britain would we would battle to put a division in
48:05
Speaker 2: the field from its military?
48:08
Speaker 1: Yeah?
48:08
Speaker 10: I mean, this is it's an embarrassment, right because Britain
48:11
Speaker 10: has an incredibly proud military history, as everyone knows, the
48:15
Speaker 10: Commonwealth as well. Let's be honest, all of us do,
48:18
Speaker 10: don't we But it's just be embarrassing that we're in
48:21
Speaker 10: this situation and we've put a lot.
48:24
Speaker 2: It's embarrassing, that is what it is. It's absolutely embarrassing.
48:28
Speaker 2: It's embarrassing for you, it's embarrassing for us, it's embarrassing
48:31
Speaker 2: for the entire Commonwealth countries. Patrick Hall was fantastic to
48:34
Speaker 2: catch up with you, my friend. I'll talk to you
48:36
Speaker 2: next week. Sharie Marksin's up next,