Transcript

Credlin | 22 October · Credlin

0:07
Speaker 1: Good evening. Welcome to the program. Here's what's coming up
0:09
Speaker 1: tonight on Credlin. The Prime Minister demands your respect, but
0:14
Speaker 1: after dodging direct questions about his own office, accused of
0:17
Speaker 1: circulating that dirt sheet on Helen Haynes, well, he responded
0:21
Speaker 1: today in a sort of way, claiming his office document
0:26
Speaker 1: now proves her integrity. We'll cross to the streets of
0:30
Speaker 1: Paris to check in with Sophie Ellsworth. She arrived there
0:34
Speaker 1: overnight as concerns mount that this weekend we'll see a
0:38
Speaker 1: second wave of anarchy. Plus, the Bureau of Meteorology facing
0:43
Speaker 1: the heat itself with fresh calls for an independent investigation
0:47
Speaker 1: after a forensic audit uncovered widespread errors with historical records.
0:53
Speaker 1: But this is more than a data issue. Lives are
0:56
Speaker 1: at risk and the Queensland Premier today weighed in. And
1:01
Speaker 1: Ben Robert Smith, today he broke his silence fighting five
1:05
Speaker 1: war crime murder charges against After years of allegations, tonight
1:10
Speaker 1: we'll speak with a former SAS commander who'll discuss the
1:14
Speaker 1: psychological toll this has had on veterans and how determined
1:19
Speaker 1: Ben Robert Smith is to clear his name.
1:23
Speaker 2: There is not a single part of me that would
1:25
Speaker 2: not do it all again exactly the same way. I
1:28
Speaker 2: go to bed knowing that I gave everything I had
1:31
Speaker 2: to that job and was 100% dedicated to the people
1:35
Speaker 2: I worked with and my love of Australia and I
1:37
Speaker 2: have I wouldn't change a thing.
1:41
Speaker 1: We will stay with Ben Robert Smith, the decorated war
1:44
Speaker 1: hero who today broke his silence and spoke at length
1:48
Speaker 1: about the impact of war crimes allegations on him and
1:51
Speaker 1: his family.
1:53
Speaker 2: Psychologically, that takes a toll. And there was many times
1:57
Speaker 2: in that period that I thought it might be a
2:02
Speaker 2: better option for my family if I just took my
2:07
Speaker 2: own life. And let it go.
2:09
Speaker 1: How did you come out of that?
2:14
Speaker 2: I just made the decision one day. I just decided
2:20
Speaker 2: that I couldn't do it to my kids.
2:27
Speaker 1: Now, we'll go into exactly what he's had to say
2:29
Speaker 1: today in greater depth when we speak with retired Brigadier
2:33
Speaker 1: Dan Fortune. a former SAS officer and one of Australia's
2:37
Speaker 1: most experienced special forces commanders, a little later. But I
2:42
Speaker 1: do want to say this here at the top of
2:44
Speaker 1: the show. When Australia sent our soldiers to fight in Afghanistan,
2:49
Speaker 1: we did not send them into a war against an
2:52
Speaker 1: opponent from a country like our own. They were shipped
2:56
Speaker 1: off just one month after the horrific events of 9-11,
3:00
Speaker 1: where almost 3,000 people were killed in terror attacks, masterminded
3:05
Speaker 1: by Osama bin Laden from his training ground in the
3:08
Speaker 1: mountains of Afghanistan. Like those from other Western nations, like
3:12
Speaker 1: the United States and Britain, our Australian soldiers fought with
3:16
Speaker 1: one arm tied behind their back, honorably bound as they
3:20
Speaker 1: were to international rules of engagement, despite the fact that
3:25
Speaker 1: the Islamists they encountered were barbarians. And should I say
3:31
Speaker 1: they are barbarians? barbarians, given that the Taliban is back
3:35
Speaker 1: in control following President Biden's disastrous withdrawal from Kabul. Despite
3:42
Speaker 1: the thousands of lives lost and the $ 2 trillion that
3:45
Speaker 1: the war in Afghanistan costs the Western world, it's back
3:50
Speaker 1: under control of this ultra-conservative Islamic fundamentalist group, where women
3:56
Speaker 1: and children are again reduced to subhuman. where once women
4:00
Speaker 1: were given an education while Western soldiers were in the
4:03
Speaker 1: country and could move around freely with their faces uncovered,
4:08
Speaker 1: now they can't even speak in public lest a man
4:12
Speaker 1: be forced to hear the voice of a female. Now,
4:15
Speaker 1: this is the sort of evil we sent our men
4:19
Speaker 1: to fight. This and to stop the mass slaughter of
4:23
Speaker 1: 9-11 ever happening again. And it was men fighting. that
4:29
Speaker 1: we sent, our men. In the years since our first
4:33
Speaker 1: deployment in October 2001, we have lost our way with
4:38
Speaker 1: the constant denigration of Australian men and this so-called toxic
4:42
Speaker 1: male masculinity. But when the chips are down and a
4:46
Speaker 1: nation needs to defend the values it holds dear, never
4:50
Speaker 1: forget that it is the men, and men by a
4:53
Speaker 1: whopping big majority, that are the ones we deploy to
4:56
Speaker 1: the combat zone. It is the men who lay down
5:00
Speaker 1: their lives for us. It is men who lay down
5:04
Speaker 1: their lives for our nation and it is men who
5:07
Speaker 1: die defending our values. And yet this is how we
5:10
Speaker 1: treat the best of them, hunted down and humiliated on
5:14
Speaker 1: a tarmac at Sydney Airport, when, as we know, Ben
5:18
Speaker 1: Robert Smith had offered multiple times to walk into a
5:22
Speaker 1: police station if that's what authorities wanted. The effort.
5:27
Speaker 2: and the funding that went into that for so many
5:30
Speaker 2: years about something that happened in Afghanistan during my military service,
5:35
Speaker 2: there is no way in any way, shape, or form
5:38
Speaker 2: that I was considered a threat by the AFP.
5:40
Speaker 1: No way.
5:41
Speaker 2: Because I'm not. I fought for this country. I was
5:43
Speaker 2: willing to die for the country. I'm not a threat
5:46
Speaker 2: to the civilian population. And all those resources continued to
5:49
Speaker 2: be used on me right up until the arrest and
5:52
Speaker 2: still today. But I think about that in the context
5:55
Speaker 2: of Bondi. Because the first statement out of the AFP
5:59
Speaker 2: was that they're under-resourced in counter-terrorism in New South Wales.
6:02
Speaker 2: And I think, well, instead of all this surveillance on me,
6:05
Speaker 2: you could have just asked me to come in. I
6:07
Speaker 2: would have talked to you anyway.
6:09
Speaker 1: Now, I don't think anyone is above the law, least
6:12
Speaker 1: of all our soldiers. After all, they're the ones willing
6:15
Speaker 1: to die to protect the law of the land as
6:17
Speaker 1: we know it. But you do not send someone into
6:21
Speaker 1: battle under one set of rules, under one legal framework.
6:25
Speaker 1: to then change it a decade later and then charge
6:29
Speaker 1: an individual with war crimes as a result. Retrospective laws
6:34
Speaker 1: are laws that most politicians will rail against. And yet
6:38
Speaker 1: this is exactly what the Albanese government has handed to
6:42
Speaker 1: Ben Robert Smith and every one of our Afghan veterans.
6:46
Speaker 1: Worse still, they changed the rules for our military by stealth,
6:52
Speaker 1: in secret. When Ben Robert Smith went into combat in Afghanistan,
6:57
Speaker 1: he operated under a legal framework known as the Order
7:00
Speaker 1: Combat that was first defined in the Commonwealth Criminal Code
7:05
Speaker 1: in 2002. And right up until Labor's Mark Dreyfus quietly
7:09
Speaker 1: changed it in 2024, it had operated without controversy. But
7:15
Speaker 1: then along comes the hundreds of millions spent in the
7:18
Speaker 1: Brereton inquiry process that accused a lot of people of
7:22
Speaker 1: a lot of things, but that then still had not
7:25
Speaker 1: made a single arrest despite six years and all those millions.
7:31
Speaker 1: So the law was changed, changed by the Albanese government
7:35
Speaker 1: on September 11, 2024. And by God, yes, to say
7:40
Speaker 1: that date is ironic is to make light of it.
7:46
Speaker 1: So the law gets changed on the same day as
7:50
Speaker 1: the Twin Tower terror attacks happened. that started the whole
7:54
Speaker 1: war occurred two decades earlier. And then what happens? Well,
7:59
Speaker 1: lo and behold, with a reduction in the evidentiary threshold
8:03
Speaker 1: required to charge a soldier, we see it applied retrospectively
8:08
Speaker 1: going back almost 20 years. And this is where we
8:12
Speaker 1: are today with two Australian men, two army veterans in
8:15
Speaker 1: Ben Robert Smith and Oliver Schultz, both charged with war
8:19
Speaker 1: crimes with the new law now applying retrospectively. Now, I
8:26
Speaker 1: bet Australians don't know much about this either, do they?
8:30
Speaker 3: The Australian government is paying compensation to the families of
8:36
Speaker 3: dead Afghan men.
8:39
Speaker 4: How do you feel about that?
8:40
Speaker 2: I think that's a very dangerous mistake that they've made.
8:44
Speaker 2: So our government's saying, well, you're guilty, that'll happen in
8:47
Speaker 2: due course, but we're going to pay this because you've
8:49
Speaker 2: done the wrong thing.
8:52
Speaker 4: What?
8:53
Speaker 2: But they were doing that before I'd even been charged.
8:56
Speaker 2: It blows my mind. I mean, I'm pretty sure I
8:59
Speaker 2: was fighting for a justice system that is part of
9:03
Speaker 2: a democracy that says you're innocent until you're proven guilty. Well,
9:06
Speaker 2: everything that I fought for hasn't been afforded to me.
9:12
Speaker 1: Is it any wonder Australians are so angry at the
9:15
Speaker 1: treatment of Robert Smith and every other veteran who tonight
9:19
Speaker 1: still has a cloud hanging over their good name? While
9:22
Speaker 1: those who sent them into battle and who commanded them,
9:26
Speaker 1: the top brass in Canberra, walk away scot-free. As I said,
9:37
Speaker 1: former SAS commander, a retired brigadier, Dan Fortune, will join
9:41
Speaker 1: me later in the show. We'll go through all of
9:44
Speaker 1: those lengthy interviews in detail, including, of course, tonight's One
9:49
Speaker 1: with Ben Robert-Smith here on News 24 at 8.30. Let's
9:53
Speaker 1: get our headlines now with our political reporter, Cam Redden.
9:56
Speaker 5: Programming language PHP underpins nearly three quarters of the world's websites.
10:02
Speaker 1: Anything that's pretty interactive on the web, whether that be
10:05
Speaker 1: your bank or government websites.
10:08
Speaker 5: While testing for security flaws, researchers working with OpenAI found
10:12
Speaker 5: what they describe as one of the most severe vulnerabilities
10:15
Speaker 5: on record.
10:16
Speaker 2: This shows the power of AI, both to help make
10:20
Speaker 2: us more secure, but also the power to expose vulnerabilities
10:24
Speaker 2: that can be used by bad actors.
10:26
Speaker 5: It's a reminder not just of the new threats posed
10:29
Speaker 5: by artificial intelligence, but also that old systems and ways
10:32
Speaker 5: of defending against cyber threats will need constant upgrading. Governments
10:37
Speaker 5: around the world are in a race not just to
10:39
Speaker 5: keep up but also to explain the dangers.
10:42
Speaker 1: Imagine that AI is like a super squirrel. It's infinitely
10:45
Speaker 1: full of energy and it will get to the top
10:47
Speaker 1: of the branch and it will get anywhere else that
10:49
Speaker 1: it might find some nuts.
10:51
Speaker 4: Cameron Redden, News 24, Canberra.
10:56
Speaker 1: All right, let's bring in my panel tonight, Thursday. News
10:59
Speaker 1: 24 contributor Carolee Katzen-Barnes and Women's Forum Australia's Stephanie Bastian.
11:04
Speaker 1: Welcome to you both. We'll start with the Prime Minister today,
11:07
Speaker 1: called out again for his hypocrisy over his admonition. We're
11:12
Speaker 1: all going to take the temperature down, he says. And
11:15
Speaker 1: in the debate, the political debate following the alleged attack,
11:17
Speaker 1: of course, on Monday on Helen Haynes, he's now claiming
11:22
Speaker 1: that the dirt file on Haynes circulated by his own
11:27
Speaker 1: private office actually proves her integrity. And where were the
11:32
Speaker 1: calls then, then from the Prime Minister, to turn down
11:35
Speaker 1: the temperature about those student protests and Pauline Hanson?
11:41
Speaker 6: I'm at the students' protest against Pauline Hanson. Let's hear
11:44
Speaker 6: what they have to say.
11:44
Speaker 7: Do you guys, what would you do if Pauline Hanson
11:47
Speaker 7: were here today?
11:48
Speaker 8: I'm not.
11:49
Speaker 6: I would f * * * ing shoot her. I
11:51
Speaker 6: would f * * * ing hit her.
11:53
Speaker 3: It's like, feel.
11:53
Speaker 1: The f * * *. Well, Carolee, he's caught red-handed.
11:59
Speaker 1: He put around a dirt sheet about Helen Haynes. Those
12:04
Speaker 1: tragic events occur, of course. He's trying to be the
12:06
Speaker 1: father of the nation and wax lyrical about it. We
12:09
Speaker 1: have to be more civil. But I don't hear him
12:12
Speaker 1: apologise for that dirt sheet and I don't hear him
12:15
Speaker 1: back then sticking up for women like Pauline Hanson or
12:18
Speaker 1: any politician who's not from his side of the fence.
12:22
Speaker 9: It's very insulting, isn't it?
12:23
Speaker 3: He must think that voters just don't remember things.
12:26
Speaker 9: I mean, he's had 24 hours now.
12:28
Speaker 3: To reconstruct a narrative as to what this sheet was
12:32
Speaker 3: meant to be. I saw him yesterday on News 24.
12:34
Speaker 3: He didn't deny it. He didn't even answer the question
12:36
Speaker 3: as to what it was.
12:38
Speaker 9: It's not good enough.
12:39
Speaker 3: He actually needs to take responsibility because it's.
12:42
Speaker 9: Not, you know, do as I do and do as
12:44
Speaker 9: I say. It's just not good. And he is squirming
12:47
Speaker 9: at the moment. because he doesn't know.
12:49
Speaker 3: He is responsible for the temperature of the political debate
12:53
Speaker 3: in Australia, and this all gets down to what you've
12:55
Speaker 3: been saying regularly on your show, Peter, that it's all
12:59
Speaker 3: about the digital duty of care, they want to censor
13:01
Speaker 3: the internet, and they're now saying that it's all the
13:03
Speaker 3: fault of social media that this is happening.
13:06
Speaker 1: We've also got, Stephanie, two stories today in The Prince
13:09
Speaker 1: that MPs are saying they have raised security concerns with
13:13
Speaker 1: the AFP, they don't feel that they are being taken
13:16
Speaker 1: seriously enough enough. I mean, I saw the bluster the
13:19
Speaker 1: other day from Chrissy Barrett saying, you know, it's a
13:22
Speaker 1: huge priority for us. We've got all of our resources
13:24
Speaker 1: dedicated to it. Well, we know from Bondi, we know
13:28
Speaker 1: for at least the couple of years leading into the
13:30
Speaker 1: attack last December, that there's not been sufficient resources, so
13:35
Speaker 1: say counter-terrorism police. I'm not sure that she's across her brief.
13:39
Speaker 1: This is Chrissy Barrett. And now you've got these threats
13:42
Speaker 1: increasing from MPs. I mean, it's fine for the PM.
13:45
Speaker 1: You and I know, Steph, he's got a big security detail,
13:49
Speaker 1: but I don't think he's taking it seriously enough.
13:52
Speaker 6: No, I don't think so.
13:53
Speaker 10: I mean, the statistic that there's at least one threat
13:57
Speaker 10: against an MP a week is a chilling statistic. There's
14:00
Speaker 10: an arrest over one threat a week for an MP
14:02
Speaker 10: is a chilling statistic right there.
14:05
Speaker 6: And while Albanese does have his.
14:06
Speaker 10: Security detail, where was the upping of Pauline Hanson's when
14:10
Speaker 10: she requested it? The response from the Attorney General, Michelle Rowling,
14:13
Speaker 10: was to blame her. She said that maybe Pauline needed
14:16
Speaker 10: to check her rhetoric, maybe she needed to check her.
14:18
Speaker 6: Policies, her party.
14:20
Speaker 10: There was no accountability, there was no condemnation of the
14:22
Speaker 10: attacks that many of these public figures are facing. And
14:25
Speaker 10: there's almost an increase, they're turning a blind eye or
14:29
Speaker 10: an acceptance that this sort of, on the left, this
14:32
Speaker 10: violence is a form of political resistance. We're seeing it
14:35
Speaker 10: increasingly everywhere. We saw it at that rally against Pauline
14:39
Speaker 10: Hanson by the students. We saw it with Sal Grover,
14:41
Speaker 10: where she received death threats and forced her to pull
14:44
Speaker 10: out of the Let.
14:44
Speaker 6: Women Speak rally.
14:46
Speaker 10: We're seeing these threats everywhere. And there's a lack of
14:49
Speaker 10: condemnation by the Prime Minister, by his cabinet, by everyone involved.
14:53
Speaker 10: And now we've had this shocking situation where Helen Haynes
14:56
Speaker 10: has been hit by what appears to be another left-wing
15:00
Speaker 10: extremist and they've gone silent on it.
15:04
Speaker 1: Well, Stephanie, I'll stay with you on this. I mean,
15:06
Speaker 1: all you need to do is fix the internet. We
15:08
Speaker 1: just need a digital duty of care, the Prime Minister says,
15:11
Speaker 1: and everything will be OK.
15:14
Speaker 6: Look, that's absolutely ridiculous.
15:15
Speaker 10: Of course, any threats online should be investigated and dealt
15:19
Speaker 10: with appropriately, but they are using this to push digital ID.
15:23
Speaker 6: The answer is leadership. It's condemnation.
15:26
Speaker 10: It's not giving a free pass to people who are
15:29
Speaker 10: using violence as a form of political resistance.
15:31
Speaker 6: And we've seen it at the pro-Palestinian rallies.
15:34
Speaker 10: We've seen it at the Let Women Speak rallies by
15:36
Speaker 10: trans activists. There is a lack of leadership from this government.
15:40
Speaker 10: They want to use this bill to censor the internet
15:43
Speaker 10: so that they can maintain their political agenda. We all
15:47
Speaker 10: know that they blamed the loss in Western Australia on algorithms.
15:51
Speaker 10: This is about government control and they're hijacking a very
15:54
Speaker 10: tragic situation to try and push this agenda.
15:58
Speaker 1: Well, I'll say again, they've got all the laws they
16:00
Speaker 1: need to lock up hate preachers right now, and they
16:03
Speaker 1: are on the internet, they have the laws, and not
16:07
Speaker 1: one has been arrested. Let's go to the Senate, if
16:11
Speaker 1: I can, to Canberra. We've had two days of hearings
16:13
Speaker 1: into the grants rorts, the local and community grants rorts program,
16:19
Speaker 1: and I'll call it a rorts program because no less
16:21
Speaker 1: authority than Professor Antumi says it's grey corruption, and we
16:25
Speaker 1: also know from the analysis done by the public in
16:28
Speaker 1: Integrity Centre, 73% of those grants, Kiralee, are going to
16:34
Speaker 1: government or marginal seats that Labor needed to win at
16:37
Speaker 1: the last election. But have a listen to this exchange
16:40
Speaker 1: with Senator Bridget McKenzie. We've written a blank cheque, haven't we?
16:44
Speaker 7: Well, it's not a blank cheque, it's a cheque for
16:46
Speaker 7: a certain amount of money and they would have to
16:48
Speaker 7: scope within that.
16:49
Speaker 1: Right.
16:51
Speaker 9: So we have given them an amount of money and
16:55
Speaker 9: we are scoping accordingly.
16:57
Speaker 1: They are. They are. No, no. So $ 560 million, half
17:03
Speaker 1: a billion dollars. It's written on the cheque, but we
17:06
Speaker 1: just don't really know what it's for. How's that stack up?
17:09
Speaker 3: Well, it doesn't stack up, does it? I mean, they're
17:11
Speaker 3: altering the guidelines. It's retrospectively done. A lot of these
17:14
Speaker 3: grants were awarded in the September and, of course, the
17:16
Speaker 3: election was just a few months later.
17:18
Speaker 9: In the April.
17:19
Speaker 3: But it's interesting because, and to me, as you said,
17:21
Speaker 3: esteemed constitutional expert, She actually said that the Marrickville Golf
17:25
Speaker 3: Club was already a recipient of five federal grants, but, again,
17:30
Speaker 3: no-one quite knew what the.
17:31
Speaker 9: Value was for taxpayers.
17:33
Speaker 3: She's quite right to call it grey corruption because, as
17:35
Speaker 3: you said, 73% of these seats are Labor-held and it's
17:40
Speaker 3: not demonstrating a responsible use of taxpayers' money or even
17:44
Speaker 3: how it's actually going to help individual organisations, and I'm
17:47
Speaker 3: sure that there are many other worthy organisations that happen
17:50
Speaker 3: to be in Liberal electorates that would have missed out.
17:52
Speaker 1: All right, well, if we think the Labor brand's in
17:54
Speaker 1: trouble in Canberra, particularly the Prime Minister's personal trust brand,
17:59
Speaker 1: let's go to Victoria. A piece today in The Age
18:02
Speaker 1: from their political editor, Chip LeGrand, says the mood is
18:05
Speaker 1: mutinous in Labor's heartland in the lead-up to the state
18:08
Speaker 1: election in Victoria on the 28th of November. He talks
18:12
Speaker 1: about a focus group specifically in the Labor-held seat of
18:14
Speaker 1: Sydenham where he says the greatest issue of concern is crime.
18:19
Speaker 1: and that no one in the group thought that Labor
18:21
Speaker 1: had credible policies to combat crime. Well, Stephanie, none of
18:26
Speaker 1: this will be a surprise.
18:28
Speaker 6: No, definitely not.
18:29
Speaker 10: I mean, Labor used to be the party for the
18:31
Speaker 10: working class. Now they are the party for the elites.
18:34
Speaker 10: And you have a look at what these people are
18:36
Speaker 10: suffering in the suburbs. Labor's addiction to climate change and
18:40
Speaker 10: pushing climate change policies has pushed electricity bills up.
18:43
Speaker 6: There are families that are still paying for for.
18:45
Speaker 10: Last year's electricity bill, they're paying it off and they
18:48
Speaker 10: haven't been able to pay for electricity this winter. The
18:52
Speaker 10: government is so out of touch with reality, they're pushing
18:55
Speaker 10: all these woke agendas and they're not looking after the
18:58
Speaker 10: people that need help the most.
19:00
Speaker 6: I mean, you look at crime, for example. I mean,
19:03
Speaker 6: there are people.
19:04
Speaker 10: There was a report in 2023 where magistrates were being
19:08
Speaker 10: trained on how to sentence people so that they didn't
19:11
Speaker 10: lose their visas when they'd committed serious drug and sex offences,
19:15
Speaker 10: minimising their sentence time so they didn't get deported. I mean,
19:18
Speaker 10: this has all happened under the Victorian Labor government that's
19:22
Speaker 10: been in for three terms now. So it's no wonder
19:28
Speaker 10: that these members of the community are looking elsewhere.
19:32
Speaker 1: And what about the revelations, Kerri-Lee? $ 80 million on online
19:37
Speaker 1: ads paid for by Victorian taxpayers, basically to pump up
19:41
Speaker 1: the ties of then it would have been the Andrews government,
19:44
Speaker 1: the Allen government and now the Carroll government.
19:48
Speaker 9: It's not good.
19:48
Speaker 3: $ 80 million.
19:50
Speaker 9: In Facebook ads.
19:51
Speaker 3: I mean, we're 1,500 frontline police down. We've got a
19:54
Speaker 3: surplus of 2,000 graduate nurses and midwives who can't find
19:58
Speaker 3: a job in Victorian hospitals. There's crime, there's machetes, there's firefighters,
20:03
Speaker 3: there's teachers. There are so many issues in Victoria and Melbourne.
20:08
Speaker 3: But the other thing also is they spent $ 1. 7 million
20:10
Speaker 3: on TikTok and they also hired five so-called meta-influencers that
20:15
Speaker 3: didn't need to disclose that they were being paid by
20:17
Speaker 3: the Victorian government to spruik the SRL, which, of course,
20:20
Speaker 3: is the suburban rail loop, which was the toy train
20:22
Speaker 3: to nowhere. And this is taxpayer-funded money going to social
20:28
Speaker 3: media ads.
20:29
Speaker 9: It shouldn't even be needed.
20:30
Speaker 3: It shouldn't be needing to be done because there are
20:32
Speaker 3: a lot of problems in Melbourne.
20:34
Speaker 9: And you said earlier about the tide turning. Well, you know,
20:37
Speaker 9: a lot of money.
20:38
Speaker 3: Don't forget the $ 600 million paid in compensation for the
20:41
Speaker 3: Commonwealth Games that were done as a thing for Dan
20:45
Speaker 3: Andrews to be able to win a third term. There
20:47
Speaker 3: is so much wastage in this state, but it does
20:50
Speaker 3: not surprise me at all. And the fact that they're
20:52
Speaker 3: not arcing up about it, they do know that the
20:54
Speaker 3: tide is turning. Victorians are suffering. November the 28th is coming.
20:58
Speaker 1: Of course, it's all borrowed money. I'll make that point.
21:01
Speaker 1: It's all money borrowed from overseas. It has to be
21:03
Speaker 1: paid back with interest. Interestingly, you know, the New South
21:08
Speaker 1: Wales Parliament finally found a bit of a spine that
21:11
Speaker 1: picked up The change in words from the New South
21:14
Speaker 1: Wales government ripping the words mother and female out of
21:18
Speaker 1: this new document about breastfeeding guidelines in the state parliament
21:23
Speaker 1: building and the public service. Here's the state opposition leader,
21:27
Speaker 1: Kelly Sloan.
21:29
Speaker 6: Why are we messing around with language?
21:31
Speaker 7: Why are we trying to rob females from something that
21:35
Speaker 7: is really special and unique for us?
21:37
Speaker 6: Whether we want it or not, we're the ones that breastfeed.
21:40
Speaker 7: So when government gets the language wrong, when they try
21:43
Speaker 7: to neutralise everything, I think they do everyone a disservice.
21:47
Speaker 6: And quite frankly, they make themselves a joke.
21:50
Speaker 7: This is why we all wonder whether the world is
21:52
Speaker 7: going completely nuts.
21:55
Speaker 1: We've been talking about this for 10 years, I reckon, Steph.
21:58
Speaker 1: It went viral very quickly. Chris Minns now stepped in
22:02
Speaker 1: at the dispatch box in the parliament and said that
22:05
Speaker 1: it would be overturned. But if you're going to take
22:07
Speaker 1: it out of this document, it needs to come out
22:09
Speaker 1: of every hospital document, every medical document around the country.
22:16
Speaker 6: Absolutely. I mean, what a woman. Well done, Kelly Sloan,
22:19
Speaker 6: for calling it out.
22:19
Speaker 10: And what she really demonstrated was the power of strong
22:22
Speaker 10: female leadership because they've now reversed this policy and they're
22:26
Speaker 10: using appropriate terms. Instead of lactating parent, we're having breastfeeding
22:31
Speaker 10: mother back again.
22:32
Speaker 6: I mean, what a revolting term that was. So, yes, absolutely.
22:37
Speaker 10: I mean, this is a problem across the whole of
22:40
Speaker 10: the medical world where women feel like they have been
22:43
Speaker 10: stripped of their identity. You go to a maternity hospital
22:46
Speaker 10: and you're called a pregnant person. There's trans propaganda on
22:50
Speaker 10: the wall saying that, you know, calling people birthing parents.
22:53
Speaker 10: I mean, the whole thing is an insult. Giving birth, breastfeeding,
22:57
Speaker 10: all of these things, even health conditions around endometriosis, these
23:01
Speaker 10: are all uniquely female experiences.
23:04
Speaker 6: And a lot of them are challenging. A lot of
23:06
Speaker 6: them are difficult. A lot of them are emotional roller coasters.
23:09
Speaker 10: And so to strip that away from women and to
23:11
Speaker 10: refer to them as this sort of person is an
23:14
Speaker 10: absolute insult. So I'm very pleased that Kelly Sloan spoke out.
23:19
Speaker 6: I hope that her colleagues across.
23:20
Speaker 10: The political divide do because we could fix this tomorrow
23:23
Speaker 10: with a little bit more leadership.
23:26
Speaker 1: And let's get the legislation, of course, that sex discrimination
23:28
Speaker 1: legislation fixed in Canberra because the High Court didn't side
23:32
Speaker 1: against Sal Grover. They just said that the interpretation of
23:37
Speaker 1: the lower court married with the legislation. So the only
23:39
Speaker 1: way to fix it now is to change it in
23:42
Speaker 1: the federal parliament. Thank you to you both. I'll leave
23:44
Speaker 1: it there. Before the break, though, I want to touch
23:46
Speaker 1: on something briefly if I can. The latest controversy facing
23:49
Speaker 1: the Bureau of Meteorology and those renewed calls for greater accountability.
23:54
Speaker 1: It follows, of course, that forensic audit which uncovered widespread
23:58
Speaker 1: errors in Australia's historical climate records. Former PM Tony Abbott
24:04
Speaker 1: was out earlier in the week. He said that there's
24:06
Speaker 1: now too much evidence of poor practice to be ignored. Today,
24:11
Speaker 1: the Queensland Premier, David Christofoli, well, he came out and
24:13
Speaker 1: backed that call and he's got skin in the game.
24:17
Speaker 1: Queensland's got skin in the game. Given 25 flood gauges,
24:21
Speaker 1: we're not working at all during the devastating North Queensland floods.
24:26
Speaker 1: So it's a lot more than just an academic debate
24:29
Speaker 1: about data. Lives are at risk. We need accurate, timely information.
24:34
Speaker 1: It feeds into things like insurance premiums. the SES services
24:40
Speaker 1: for people hit hard by natural events, all of that,
24:42
Speaker 1: and if we can't trust the BOM, the Bureau of Meteorology,
24:46
Speaker 1: then we're in trouble. So there should be no internal review.
24:50
Speaker 1: There should be an independent investigation with every finding made
24:56
Speaker 1: public and those accountable for what's gone on sacked without
25:02
Speaker 1: a doubt. All right, after the break. The Ben Roberts-Smith interview,
25:07
Speaker 1: it's made headlines right around the country. Former SAS commander,
25:12
Speaker 1: the retired Brigadier Dan Fortune, coming up. Welcome back. We'll
25:19
Speaker 1: cross to Sophie Ellsworth in a moment. She's headed out
25:22
Speaker 1: of London. She got to Paris last night. There's a
25:24
Speaker 1: lot of talk that there'll be another wave of riots
25:28
Speaker 1: in Anarchy over the weekend. She'll give us the situation
25:30
Speaker 1: from the ground in just a moment. But now to
25:33
Speaker 1: Ben Roberts-Smith. the decorated war hero who today has broken
25:36
Speaker 1: his silence and spoken at length about the impact of
25:39
Speaker 1: war crimes and the allegations on him and his family
25:42
Speaker 1: following that dramatic arrest on the tarmac at Sydney Airport
25:45
Speaker 1: earlier this year. Speaking to Ben Fordham on radio today
25:49
Speaker 1: and in another interview that will air here, of course,
25:52
Speaker 1: on News 24 at 8.30 tonight, the former SAS soldier
25:56
Speaker 1: who did six tours of Afghanistan opens up about his
26:00
Speaker 1: military service. the psychological toll of the allegations against him
26:05
Speaker 1: and his utter determination to fight the charges in what
26:09
Speaker 1: will be a long and costly legal battle between him
26:13
Speaker 1: and the might of the Australian Commonwealth and its battery
26:18
Speaker 1: of lawyers. But to understand properly what's at stake, not
26:21
Speaker 1: just for this soldier, but our nation's warfighting machine as
26:25
Speaker 1: a whole, we need to better understand the sort of
26:29
Speaker 1: hellhole that We sent these Australian men to fight in
26:32
Speaker 1: and why? And who better than my next guest, Brigadier
26:36
Speaker 1: Dan Fortune, a former SAS soldier and one of Australia's
26:40
Speaker 1: most experienced Special Forces Commanders. He served with the Royal
26:45
Speaker 1: Australian Regiment before joining the SAS, deployed to Afghanistan, of course,
26:50
Speaker 1: where he went on to command Australian Special Forces, the
26:52
Speaker 1: operations there, as well as holding senior positions within Special
26:56
Speaker 1: Operations Command. He's a leader who to this day remains
27:00
Speaker 1: respected by the men who served under him. I'm pleased
27:04
Speaker 1: to say Dan Fortune joins me now. Thank you for
27:07
Speaker 1: your time, Brigadier. Let's put his charges to one side.
27:12
Speaker 1: We'll get to that in a moment. But most Australians
27:15
Speaker 1: have never even met Ben Robert Smith. So I want
27:18
Speaker 1: to play these comments from him today and then speak
27:22
Speaker 1: with you because you know him. Let's listen.
27:25
Speaker 2: I can say actually, hand on my heart, I don't
27:30
Speaker 2: regret a single thing. I am so proud of the
27:34
Speaker 2: fact that I served my country. I loved being a soldier.
27:38
Speaker 2: I loved it. And I was at all times, at
27:42
Speaker 2: all times prepared to die for my mates. And I
27:44
Speaker 2: know that. That's why I get up every day because
27:47
Speaker 2: I know the situation I've been put in is unfair.
27:52
Speaker 4: It's untrue.
27:53
Speaker 2: And I did everything I could when I was outside
27:55
Speaker 2: the wire in Afghanistan, Iraq. Timor, Fiji, wherever it was,
28:00
Speaker 2: I did whatever I could to make sure everybody came
28:02
Speaker 2: home and I did it the right way. I followed
28:05
Speaker 2: the rules and I behaved as a soldier should, with
28:08
Speaker 2: honour and I followed my training.
28:11
Speaker 4: You've got twin teenage daughters.
28:13
Speaker 10: They've had to hear their dad being described as a bully,
28:18
Speaker 10: a liar and a murderer.
28:21
Speaker 1: Alright Dan, you tell us about the soldier and the
28:27
Speaker 1: man but you know personally.
28:30
Speaker 4: Well, good afternoon, Peter. Great to be with you and
28:31
Speaker 4: thanks for having me back on your show. Yeah, I
28:33
Speaker 4: thought Ben's performance was unsurprising, compelling, belligerent, convincing, all the passion.
28:41
Speaker 4: He's a guy you want to go downrange and fight
28:45
Speaker 4: with and that's the calibre of the men that he
28:48
Speaker 4: served with and he reflects all of the soldiers in
28:51
Speaker 4: the SAS. So I think it also reflects great credit
28:55
Speaker 4: on his family, And the insights as a father and
28:58
Speaker 4: what he carries forward and how he spoke about his
29:01
Speaker 4: daughters and the values he sought to instil with them
29:03
Speaker 4: and the reflections of his family on him. It was
29:06
Speaker 4: a compelling performance, but not unsurprising.
29:10
Speaker 1: So the man we saw in those interviews, and I
29:13
Speaker 1: will say I've only met him briefly myself, but I
29:15
Speaker 1: have met him. The man we saw in those interviews
29:18
Speaker 1: is the man you know?
29:20
Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely. Now, I've served in the same unit as
29:23
Speaker 4: Ben and served with Ben. I'm not close with Ben.
29:27
Speaker 4: We didn't serve together directly. But I know the man
29:30
Speaker 4: Ben is, and it absolutely convinced me of everything he
29:35
Speaker 4: said and uh inspired me i saw a man on
29:37
Speaker 4: his quest and right now fighting for against injustice is
29:42
Speaker 4: where i think we're lined up.
29:43
Speaker 1: Together yeah he was very resolute today about the fight
29:48
Speaker 1: ahead to clear his name um and you and i
29:52
Speaker 1: both know this look look he's up against a government
29:54
Speaker 1: machine that's already spent hundreds of millions of dollars to
29:58
Speaker 1: get to this point. He spoke today about the fact
30:03
Speaker 1: that he's never been a threat to the Australian public.
30:05
Speaker 1: So he's angry about the waste of counter-terrorism resources where
30:11
Speaker 1: they could have been used to keep Australians safe. Let's
30:14
Speaker 1: have a listen to that.
30:15
Speaker 2: The effort and the funding that went into that for
30:18
Speaker 2: so many years about something that happened in Afghanistan during
30:22
Speaker 2: my military service, there is no way in any way, shape,
30:27
Speaker 2: or form that I was considered a threat by the AFP.
30:29
Speaker 1: No way.
30:30
Speaker 2: Because I'm not. I fought for this country. I was
30:33
Speaker 2: willing to die for the country. I'm not a threat
30:35
Speaker 2: to the civilian population. And all those resources continued to
30:38
Speaker 2: be used on me right up until the arrest and
30:41
Speaker 2: still today. But I think about that in the context
30:44
Speaker 2: of Bondi. Because the first statement out of the AFP
30:48
Speaker 2: was that they're under-resourced in counter-terrorism in New South Wales.
30:51
Speaker 2: And I think, well... Instead of all this surveillance on me,
30:54
Speaker 2: you could have just asked me to come in. I
30:56
Speaker 2: would have talked to you anyway.
30:59
Speaker 1: Even today, Dan, people are still angry. It gets raised
31:01
Speaker 1: with me a lot of the time about the circus
31:06
Speaker 1: of that arrest in Sydney.
31:08
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's not fair. And it was a pantomime. And
31:10
Speaker 4: I think Ben raises some real issues around resourcing and
31:14
Speaker 4: the priorities that the regime seems to be setting and
31:19
Speaker 4: the pantomime and the impact of across the veteran community
31:23
Speaker 4: and how that was staged. There's still unanswered questions about
31:26
Speaker 4: how the media were forewarned about the arrest. And it
31:30
Speaker 4: undermines the institutional trust in how we do things. I
31:33
Speaker 4: think Ben's insights into how the AFP officers were a
31:36
Speaker 4: little embarrassed. That's not who we are and that's not
31:40
Speaker 4: the way we should be doing things around our decorated
31:42
Speaker 4: war heroes.
31:45
Speaker 1: I might add, of course, and I'll say it yet again,
31:46
Speaker 1: we haven't had the AFP Commissioner even front publicly the
31:49
Speaker 1: Bondi Royal Commission. And that's obviously a resourcing issue where
31:53
Speaker 1: it should be... Well, exactly. I ask that question most
31:57
Speaker 1: nights here, Dan. Look, I think it's worth giving you've
32:01
Speaker 1: had on the ground experience in theatre at Afghanistan. I
32:06
Speaker 1: flagged this at the top of the show. We sent
32:09
Speaker 1: men there to fight a very non-traditional enemy. It wasn't
32:13
Speaker 1: another country. It wasn't another nation state. They were terrorist insurgents.
32:21
Speaker 1: We had incredibly heavy combatants. rotations of our men in
32:25
Speaker 1: and out of theatre. We sent them under one set
32:29
Speaker 1: of rules, one rules of engagement that they were briefed on,
32:33
Speaker 1: that they knew, that they fought in accordance with, and
32:37
Speaker 1: then we come home and over a decade later we've
32:41
Speaker 1: changed the law, more than a decade, two decades actually, 2024.
32:44
Speaker 1: The laws get changed and it's only under those changed
32:49
Speaker 1: laws that we now have Ben Robert Smith charged with
32:54
Speaker 1: war crimes. How is that fair?
32:57
Speaker 4: Well, it's not fair. And it smacks of retrospective sanitising
33:00
Speaker 4: of the battlefield by regulators and lawyers. And I think
33:04
Speaker 4: Ben did a wonderful job in using the analogy to
33:07
Speaker 4: explain the context on the freeway and the impacts on
33:12
Speaker 4: Ollie Schultz, who's going to trial shortly. And how is
33:16
Speaker 4: that going to give him, I think Ben talked about
33:18
Speaker 4: the burden of proof and importantly, the sequencing We've had
33:22
Speaker 4: the Attorney General permit charges and then the laws have
33:25
Speaker 4: been changed by the same officer of the Crown. I
33:28
Speaker 4: don't understand how that's fair. And I think there's questions
33:32
Speaker 4: to be asked.
33:35
Speaker 1: And then we've got the broader issue, you know, justice
33:37
Speaker 1: delayed is justice denied. This has hung over him for
33:39
Speaker 1: over a decade. The federal government, as I said, with Brereton,
33:43
Speaker 1: has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to get to
33:45
Speaker 1: this point and now they'll spend, it'll be $ 100 million
33:49
Speaker 1: or more to go through this trial, given the likely
33:52
Speaker 1: length it will take. And, yes, yes, you know, he'll
33:55
Speaker 1: get some money to help fund his case, but the
33:58
Speaker 1: government will have a bottomless pit... He won't. He won't.
34:03
Speaker 4: How on earth.
34:04
Speaker 1: It's David and Goliath. How on earth do you fight that?
34:07
Speaker 4: Well, I think Ben did a great job explaining the
34:09
Speaker 4: inequities and the uneven two-tiered system we seem to be
34:12
Speaker 4: now dealing with. But my issue is upstream. Ben made
34:16
Speaker 4: a great case of what else was he going to
34:18
Speaker 4: do around his defamation circumstances and others will make judgments
34:21
Speaker 4: about that. But my view is where was the Army
34:24
Speaker 4: senior leadership, where was the ADF senior leadership meeting their
34:27
Speaker 4: obligations to stand in front of that media speculation prevent
34:31
Speaker 4: the demonisation, the pylon, and do their job and be
34:35
Speaker 4: accountable for the responsibilities they had to defend us while
34:40
Speaker 4: circumstances were quite rightly inquired into. We're not talking about
34:44
Speaker 4: any concerns around accountability and inquiring around allegations, but the
34:49
Speaker 4: ADF senior leadership were absent. And Ben had to deal
34:53
Speaker 4: with it.
34:54
Speaker 11: So why do.
34:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, so on your point, why do the commanders get
34:58
Speaker 1: a blanket get-out-of-jail card?
35:01
Speaker 11: Why?
35:01
Speaker 4: Well, that's the question Major General Breton was not able
35:04
Speaker 4: to answer, and that report has been discredited and heavily
35:07
Speaker 4: criticised for the hand wave, the free pass he gave
35:11
Speaker 4: for the senior leadership accountability. It was a blame-down, kiss-up culture,
35:17
Speaker 4: and Breton has answers that are still inadequate and the
35:22
Speaker 4: criticisms remain, and the longer you look at this, The
35:25
Speaker 4: less credibility and legitimacy, it's now, it's a fiasco, the
35:31
Speaker 4: Brereton inquiry.
35:34
Speaker 1: And of course, Brereton hangs across the head of a
35:37
Speaker 1: lot of soldiers and it impacts morale and it impacts
35:41
Speaker 1: mental health. And I don't think enough, even with that
35:44
Speaker 1: Royal Commission into Veteran Suicide, Dan, I don't think enough
35:48
Speaker 1: has been recognised about the pain for the soldier, but
35:53
Speaker 1: also for their families.
35:54
Speaker 4: Inter-generation impacts are ongoing. You mentioned the resources and the
35:58
Speaker 4: dollar figures. It's incalculable the impact on families, the demonisation
36:04
Speaker 4: of our service, the vandalisation of our honours and awards system,
36:09
Speaker 4: and the failures and the damage to the institutional trust
36:11
Speaker 4: and culture of our martial warfighting competence. The current Chief
36:16
Speaker 4: and I think the Chief of the Defence Force are
36:19
Speaker 4: pivoting that around, but the sort of Handwave failures of
36:23
Speaker 4: senior leadership cause long-term damage. And right now, we need
36:27
Speaker 4: to be doing better than that for the veterans and
36:29
Speaker 4: the ADF of today.
36:32
Speaker 1: And the ADF of tomorrow. I mean, the world's never
36:35
Speaker 1: been more precarious in the period since the end of
36:39
Speaker 1: the Second World War, right? So we've got one of
36:41
Speaker 1: our war heroes being put through a court process, At
36:45
Speaker 1: the same time, we've got all of these individuals, Australians,
36:49
Speaker 1: who left to join Islamic State in one form or another,
36:53
Speaker 1: coming back into Australia, most of them without any consequences
36:56
Speaker 1: at all. Now, I know that Taliban and Islamic State
37:00
Speaker 1: are two different Islamic fundamentalist groups, but they're both radical
37:06
Speaker 1: Islamic extremists. I mean, why would you be a soldier
37:11
Speaker 1: in this day and age?
37:13
Speaker 4: Well, you raise the point about who we are and
37:16
Speaker 4: how we're going to identify and prioritise our values to
37:20
Speaker 4: fight against people who utterly oppose our way of life
37:24
Speaker 4: and want to defeat it and kill us. And that's
37:28
Speaker 4: the brutal reality. And we have to ensure that the
37:31
Speaker 4: ADF and the leadership culture, which is so critical in
37:35
Speaker 4: ensuring you have legal martial war fighting capabilities that can
37:40
Speaker 4: lawfully close with our threats... You've got to ensure the
37:44
Speaker 4: leadership culture is the standard that's required. And we've seen
37:48
Speaker 4: through Burton self-protection. We've had the regulators, not the rat catchers.
37:53
Speaker 4: And others talk about this. You need adaptive war fighters,
37:56
Speaker 4: not regulators, to win tomorrow's war. We've got to grow those.
38:00
Speaker 4: And when we go to war, back our men and women.
38:05
Speaker 4: And Ben going through a judicial process now is undermining
38:10
Speaker 4: the our confidence and our capacity to do that.
38:14
Speaker 1: Particularly a process, we'll say it again, where the rules
38:17
Speaker 1: were changed to judge him today by standards that were
38:22
Speaker 1: very different than he fought under two decades ago. I
38:26
Speaker 1: know you've been filming a doco today in Manly. I'm
38:28
Speaker 1: going to get you on, if I can, a little
38:31
Speaker 1: bit down the track. I'm running out of time tonight
38:33
Speaker 1: because I want to get into it. Let's come back
38:35
Speaker 1: and we'll chat about your new doco because I think
38:37
Speaker 1: this is part of the untold stories about our amazing
38:41
Speaker 1: servicemen and women that we need to get out. But
38:42
Speaker 1: I thank you tonight for your time. Brigadier Dan Fortune.
38:46
Speaker 4: Always glad to be with you. Thanks, Peter.
38:48
Speaker 1: He's terrific, isn't he? Talks a lot of common sense
38:51
Speaker 1: and says a lot of the things from experience so
38:53
Speaker 1: much of us can't say. All right, don't miss that
38:56
Speaker 1: interview tonight. Ben Roberts-Smith, 8.30pm right here on News 24.
39:02
Speaker 1: Quick break. We'll go to Paris in a moment. Sophie's
39:05
Speaker 1: there on the ground. Talk of a repeat of the
39:09
Speaker 1: anarchy from last weekend. More questions too today about a
39:18
Speaker 1: parliamentary junket from the Albanese government to Beijing. Why, we're
39:22
Speaker 1: not surprised. Let's go now to Paris, though. Reports are
39:25
Speaker 1: that authorities are bracing for yet another wave of violent
39:28
Speaker 1: protests over the weekend. and people on the streets are
39:31
Speaker 1: saying it's just another opportunity for the radical left.
39:35
Speaker 12: I feel like in the beginning it was actually students
39:38
Speaker 12: for the most part, but by now I feel like it's,
39:41
Speaker 12: I don't know, maybe like 10%, 20% of actual students
39:44
Speaker 12: who protest and the rest are just different groups, mostly
39:47
Speaker 12: extremist groups who just take the chance and take the
39:49
Speaker 12: chaos to steal, to vandalise and to do stuff like that.
39:53
Speaker 1: Joining me now, a News 24 contributor, News Corp Australia's
39:58
Speaker 1: European correspondent, Sophie Ellsworth. Well, Soph, you've been on the
40:02
Speaker 1: ground now. You've got out and spoken to a lot
40:04
Speaker 1: of people I know. Give us a sense of what
40:07
Speaker 1: you sense on the ground and what people are telling you.
40:12
Speaker 8: Well, Peter, as you can see here in the Republic,
40:15
Speaker 8: you can see behind me, there's actually tradesmen in their
40:19
Speaker 8: hazmat suits, pressure washing all this graffiti off the monument
40:24
Speaker 8: here in what was really the epicentre of those riots
40:28
Speaker 8: last weekend. But people are really angry here, Peter. They're
40:31
Speaker 8: angry with the government. They're angry with Emmanuel Macron and
40:35
Speaker 8: they feel like the government hasn't got control of these
40:38
Speaker 8: riots that have swept across Paris. And we now know
40:41
Speaker 8: that the city and the country is bracing for more
40:44
Speaker 8: riots in the coming days. There's plenty of police around
40:49
Speaker 8: this morning coming out here. There's lots of policemen on horseback.
40:54
Speaker 8: Last night walking through Paris, there was police vehicles everywhere.
40:58
Speaker 8: There's a lot of security around and this is definitely...
41:02
Speaker 8: a city that remains on edge.
41:06
Speaker 1: He left Paris in the aftermath this week. He went
41:09
Speaker 1: to Oman. He had a state visit there. I read
41:12
Speaker 1: reports that was talk of the French military being brought
41:15
Speaker 1: onto the streets. What do we know, particularly given these
41:18
Speaker 1: reports about more riots potentially on the weekend, Sophie?
41:23
Speaker 8: Well, that's right. They are going to have the military
41:26
Speaker 8: out in force on Saturday. It's expected to be really, sadly,
41:30
Speaker 8: a repeat of what we saw last weekend. Now, the
41:34
Speaker 8: government has come out and said we will apply the
41:37
Speaker 8: full force of the law. They're trying to really... make
41:40
Speaker 8: sure they don't see a repeat of those disastrous scenes
41:44
Speaker 8: that we saw across France but Peter walking through the
41:47
Speaker 8: streets yesterday there's lots of still vehicles that have been
41:52
Speaker 8: totally destroyed, they're burnt to crisp, they're sitting on the
41:56
Speaker 8: side of streets here, there's a lot of boarded up
41:59
Speaker 8: buildings even I was walking along the Champs-Élysées which many
42:02
Speaker 8: of our viewers will be familiar with, one of the
42:05
Speaker 8: most popular shopping strips glorious parts of Paris in the world.
42:09
Speaker 8: There were shops there boarded up and shop workers were
42:13
Speaker 8: telling me they're nervous ahead of Saturday because they don't
42:16
Speaker 8: know what to expect.
42:18
Speaker 9: There's some businesses.
42:19
Speaker 8: That will be closed.
42:20
Speaker 1: But this is definitely, I can feel.
42:22
Speaker 8: Here, being here on the ground, this is a city
42:25
Speaker 8: on tenterhooks who are hoping that they don't have a
42:28
Speaker 8: repeat of last weekend.
42:29
Speaker 1: All right, two quick questions for you before we go.
42:33
Speaker 1: I mean, do they buy this notion put out by
42:37
Speaker 1: the government early on that it's a cost of living protest,
42:40
Speaker 1: that it's driven by students, or are Parisians of a
42:45
Speaker 1: different view? And what's the political sentiment, given we've got
42:49
Speaker 1: the elections in six months' time, and I've seen a
42:52
Speaker 1: lot in the last couple of days about Le Pen
42:55
Speaker 1: and the right?
42:58
Speaker 8: Well, Peter, people here on the ground are saying, yes,
43:00
Speaker 8: it was originally these student protests that kicked this whole off,
43:05
Speaker 8: all these protests off about a month ago, but it's
43:07
Speaker 8: quickly transcended into these hooligans, really, that have hijacked this
43:13
Speaker 8: cause and are out to cause as much damage as possible. Secondly, politically,
43:19
Speaker 8: Macron is definitely out of favour. Ask anyone, mention his name,
43:23
Speaker 8: you do not get a warm response, Peter. He's not
43:26
Speaker 8: even in the country. He hasn't been here for several days.
43:29
Speaker 8: People are saying Emmanuel Macron should be here when France
43:33
Speaker 8: is in crisis and we know the economy is under
43:36
Speaker 8: incredible strain. So there's a lot of moving parts here
43:39
Speaker 8: in a country that is definitely feeling the pain in
43:42
Speaker 8: many ways.
43:44
Speaker 1: All right, Sophie, stay safe. We'll check in with you
43:47
Speaker 1: next week. Let's hope they don't get exposed, the poor Parisians,
43:50
Speaker 1: to what they had last week. But it sounds like
43:52
Speaker 1: it looks like that's going to happen. I'll leave it there.
43:53
Speaker 1: Thank you. Let's go to the break. Ilhan Omar, the brother,
43:58
Speaker 1: did she marry him or not? An interesting revelation to
44:02
Speaker 1: bring you after the break. Straight into it with my
44:08
Speaker 1: international panel. Thursday night regulars, of course, News 24 contributor
44:11
Speaker 1: Kosha Garda, former Labor MP Michael Danby. I'll get to
44:14
Speaker 1: you in a moment, Michael, because I know you've got
44:16
Speaker 1: some intel on these delegations. But Ilhan Omar, did she
44:20
Speaker 1: or didn't she marry her brother and all this hoo-ha?
44:22
Speaker 1: Because if she did, obviously she's got no right to
44:24
Speaker 1: be in America. She's not an American citizen, nor is
44:27
Speaker 1: he in the connection to her dad. But have a
44:29
Speaker 1: listen to this interview she did with Fox News.
44:32
Speaker 4: He will tweet.
44:33
Speaker 13: Bill and Omar, she married her brother, blah, blah, blah.
44:36
Speaker 13: You see that, you think to yourself, boy, that sounds odd.
44:39
Speaker 13: It seems unlikely that she.
44:40
Speaker 1: Married her brother.
44:41
Speaker 13: There are right-wing people who believe that this man was
44:44
Speaker 13: your brother.
44:44
Speaker 1: You are not related to him at all.
44:46
Speaker 3: Not to my knowledge.
44:47
Speaker 1: OK, someone asks you, did you marry your brother? The
44:49
Speaker 1: answer's no.
44:50
Speaker 9: Or yes, I hate to say, but it's no.
45:00
Speaker 1: What is this, not to my knowledge?
45:02
Speaker 11: If you want to be very charitable, the most charitable
45:05
Speaker 11: explanation there could be that she's trying to make a joke,
45:07
Speaker 11: but nobody buys that because this has been a rumor.
45:10
Speaker 11: She said it twice. She's under federal investigation. They have
45:13
Speaker 11: DNA evidence or they've gone dumpster diving to try and
45:16
Speaker 11: get DNA evidence. She is in a mountain of trouble.
45:19
Speaker 11: This has been going on for a decade. So that
45:22
Speaker 11: is not the time to make a joke. Nobody buys it.
45:23
Speaker 1: It's a joke.
45:24
Speaker 11: And it doesn't sound like a truth teller because a
45:25
Speaker 11: truth teller would just unequivocally.
45:27
Speaker 1: So your read on this is she's in trouble?
45:30
Speaker 11: I do think that this is so egregious and has
45:32
Speaker 11: been going on for so long and there are layers
45:34
Speaker 11: and layers to the scandal. Just the fact that the
45:36
Speaker 11: father even was allowed refugee status and did he even naturalise?
45:39
Speaker 9: Was she 18?
45:40
Speaker 14: It was started by the Biden administration, the investigation.
45:43
Speaker 11: One investigation. And even before that, there have been at
45:46
Speaker 11: the state level so many things. And then there's a
45:47
Speaker 11: whole financial fraud as well. So this seems to be
45:49
Speaker 11: closing in from multiple angles and I think she is
45:52
Speaker 11: in trouble.
45:54
Speaker 1: A lot of noise today about Labor's delegations, the fact
45:57
Speaker 1: that they basically stacked down a delegation to Beijing, and
46:03
Speaker 1: certainly the appearance that Labor MPs or MPs on the
46:06
Speaker 1: left are banned from going to Taiwan, Michael, lest they
46:11
Speaker 1: offend the Chinese government.
46:13
Speaker 4: Well.
46:14
Speaker 14: Many years ago, I was threatened in Canberra that I
46:17
Speaker 14: should never take the Taiwan trip. Of course, I ignored it.
46:20
Speaker 14: But Beijing has been very effective in influencing Australian politics
46:25
Speaker 14: and influencing particularly the current government and its members, even
46:29
Speaker 14: though there's laws on campaign financing now that mean that
46:32
Speaker 14: Beijing can't directly finance the political parties. But support for Taiwan,
46:37
Speaker 14: Tibet and human rights in Hong Kong have decreased terribly.
46:40
Speaker 14: And it's And it's also in the Liberal Party too, Peter.
46:44
Speaker 4: You know what it is.
46:45
Speaker 14: They affect it by leveraging the Chinese community on WeChat
46:49
Speaker 14: before elections, like Penny Wong did with that disgraceful attack
46:54
Speaker 14: in Menzies just before the last federal election.
46:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've also got Dan Andrews. Remember, he was Premier.
47:00
Speaker 1: And took that secret trip to Beijing that he wouldn't discuss,
47:03
Speaker 1: no media were allowed to go on. This is not
47:05
Speaker 1: after he left. This was when he was Premier.
47:07
Speaker 14: That's why it's not arcane foreign affairs. This is a
47:11
Speaker 14: $ 96 billion that the Victorian taxpayers are saddled with and
47:16
Speaker 14: it's all via a Chinese consortium, which Dan Andrews is
47:20
Speaker 14: secretly going backwards and forwards to Beijing over. It's just
47:23
Speaker 14: not on.
47:23
Speaker 4: It's not fair and it affects us.
47:26
Speaker 1: Michigan latest.
47:28
Speaker 11: The polls are tightening. There was a heated debate the
47:30
Speaker 11: other day there for the Senate.
47:32
Speaker 1: So they are tightening.
47:32
Speaker 11: El-Sayed had a larger lead and Mike Rogers is closing in. However,
47:36
Speaker 11: it's still a statistical toss-up in favour to El-Sayed. So
47:41
Speaker 11: he is right now in the betting markets and everything else,
47:43
Speaker 11: slightly has the edge, because demographics is destiny, as they say.
47:47
Speaker 11: The demographics of Michigan are what they are. And the
47:49
Speaker 11: Israel issue is another thing that's become a flashpoint, certainly.
47:53
Speaker 1: Among independents. And some pressure, too, about Muslim Brotherhood.
47:56
Speaker 11: Yes, and that was a big talking point that came
47:59
Speaker 11: out because Mike Rogers is pretty disciplined and he's on
48:01
Speaker 11: message painting him as that, that the family has had
48:04
Speaker 11: associations and you're more extremist than you come across, et cetera,
48:08
Speaker 11: and he very vociferously denied it.
48:10
Speaker 14: But if Rogers manages to win back Michigan for the Republicans,
48:14
Speaker 14: which I think is unlikely, it'll be because of African-Americans
48:17
Speaker 14: in Detroit. There's a real tension between them and El-Sayed
48:22
Speaker 14: and his camp followers.
48:24
Speaker 1: Right. Got to leave it there. Thank you both. Have
48:26
Speaker 1: a lovely weekend, everyone. The weather will be nice in Victoria,
48:28
Speaker 1: then super wet. I hope it's nice where you are.
48:30
Speaker 1: I will see you on Monday. Here's Andrew.