Transcript

Credlin | 30 October · Credlin

0:02
Speaker 1: Peter Krendland live on Sky Ingins Australia.
0:08
Speaker 2: Good evening, Welcome to the program. Yes, I'm Steve Price
0:10
Speaker 2: filling in for Peter. Should be back with you tomorrow.
0:12
Speaker 2: Here's what's coming up on Kredlin tonight. Nightmares for all
0:16
Speaker 2: of us as a government inquiry into the impacts of
0:19
Speaker 2: the COVID pandemic were laid bare, reminding us all if
0:23
Speaker 2: we needed reminding of how bad those two years were.
0:26
Speaker 2: But are we prepared for the next one? And did
0:29
Speaker 2: those in charge copy for their handling of COVID? Not
0:32
Speaker 2: on your life? Victorian Shadow Health Minister Georgie Crozier will
0:36
Speaker 2: join me shortly and a week from now, voting in
0:40
Speaker 2: the US presidential election, we will be pretty much done
0:43
Speaker 2: and dusted. We might even know who wins, Donald Trump
0:46
Speaker 2: or Kamala Harris and Great Courage Coming up on Sky
0:49
Speaker 2: Greg Sheridan on the program tonight on what it means
0:52
Speaker 2: for our alliance plus reaction to that President Biden quote
0:56
Speaker 2: labeling Trump supporters as garbage? Could that be the final
1:00
Speaker 2: straw for Harris? And the latest on Prime Minister Albanese's
1:04
Speaker 2: airline upgrade nightmare and where that goes next with our
1:07
Speaker 2: political panel and of course the wonderful Kel Richards looks
1:12
Speaker 2: at the words of the week. First though, on that
1:16
Speaker 2: COVID report that I just mentioned, there really wasn't that
1:19
Speaker 2: the Albanezy government needed. That's what they needed yesterday given
1:23
Speaker 2: the day they had with the PM's train wreck media
1:26
Speaker 2: conference around flight upgrades. Now, I'm sure though that the
1:29
Speaker 2: Prime Minister was very grateful he didn't have to show
1:32
Speaker 2: up in hand down that eight hundred and sixty odd
1:35
Speaker 2: page report that for me just brought back a whole
1:38
Speaker 2: lot of nightmares from the COVID pandemic years of twenty
1:41
Speaker 2: twenty and twenty twenty one. That job was left to
1:44
Speaker 2: Health Minister Mark Butler.
1:47
Speaker 3: It's a report that does not pull its punches. The
1:51
Speaker 3: inquiry report points to a lack of transparency around the
1:55
Speaker 3: rationale and the evidence behind decisions that were taken by
1:59
Speaker 3: governments that had such a profound impact on the lives
2:02
Speaker 3: of Australians and the freedom of Australians.
2:06
Speaker 2: Bit of blah blah blah. There now for a start.
2:09
Speaker 2: As good a job as this panel, headed by a
2:10
Speaker 2: retired senior public servant Robin Crook, did what Australian should
2:15
Speaker 2: have been given was a full royal commission with all
2:18
Speaker 2: the legal powers that entails. Of course, federal labor, after
2:21
Speaker 2: winning the twenty twenty two election, were never going to
2:25
Speaker 2: tip their mates, the state labor premiers in for something
2:29
Speaker 2: as rigorous as that. The Crook Report was really a
2:32
Speaker 2: panacea to the likes of Dan Andrews, Anastasia Palichet and
2:36
Speaker 2: Mark McGowan, among others. Even so, what we heard yesterday
2:42
Speaker 2: from Butler hardly painted that Trio and others in a
2:45
Speaker 2: good light. In fact, probably only former Prime Minister Scott
2:49
Speaker 2: Morrison came out of the report looking any good now. Naturally,
2:52
Speaker 2: some in government tried to use it to spear Morrison
2:55
Speaker 2: and the wider coalition, including Treasurer Jim Chalmers, who had
3:00
Speaker 2: a jab at the inflationary nature of the COVID spending measures.
3:05
Speaker 4: The consequences of the economic policies developed through the pandemic
3:09
Speaker 4: also continue to be felt right across our economy even today.
3:14
Speaker 4: Big decisions were taken and big mistakes were made. Those
3:19
Speaker 4: mistakes were costly, and they were inflationary.
3:25
Speaker 2: What Charmers chose not to remind us all of, of course,
3:28
Speaker 2: was that in opposition labor was screaming for Morrison and
3:31
Speaker 2: the Coalition to spend more money, billions more, in fact,
3:34
Speaker 2: more than eighty billion more. Jim's got a very selective memory. Obviously.
3:39
Speaker 2: Now politics aside, and that's hard because this was a
3:42
Speaker 2: political solution, not a roadmap for God forbid if we
3:47
Speaker 2: ever have another pandemic. What this report did do was
3:50
Speaker 2: confirmed that what a lot of us was saying during
3:54
Speaker 2: the hard lockdown years, school should never have been shut
3:57
Speaker 2: down like they were, or for the length of time
4:00
Speaker 2: they remain shut Arbitrary border closures by power hungry state premiers.
4:05
Speaker 2: We are looking at you, Dan and Anastasia, who could
4:07
Speaker 2: forget concrete checkpoints between Tweedheads and cool and Gatty. You
4:12
Speaker 2: couldn't even go over the border for the birth of
4:14
Speaker 2: a child, remote police checkpoints between Victoria and South Australia.
4:19
Speaker 2: Or the Victorians, the gray Nomads, forced to spend weeks
4:22
Speaker 2: weeks in caravan parks in Albury told they couldn't go home,
4:26
Speaker 2: absolute madness. Victorians suffered two hundred and sixty two days
4:31
Speaker 2: in lockdown, just shy of one hundred days away from
4:35
Speaker 2: a year locked in your own house. Playgrounds were chained
4:38
Speaker 2: up and patrolled by police. Dan Andrews without police agreeing,
4:43
Speaker 2: imposed with his health officer Bret Sutton a curfew and
4:47
Speaker 2: you would be arrested by police if you left home
4:49
Speaker 2: after nine pm and went out before five in the morning.
4:53
Speaker 2: I mean, can you believe this? You could walk with
4:56
Speaker 2: one person only and for just an hour a day.
4:59
Speaker 2: Just writing this gives me nightmares. And you know what,
5:02
Speaker 2: I don't reckon We would put up with it again.
5:05
Speaker 2: It got worse. Remember that woman handcuffed in her kitchen
5:08
Speaker 2: wearing pajamas, her crime, posting online her objections to lockdowns. Indeed,
5:13
Speaker 2: when people lost their minds and started protesting, what did
5:17
Speaker 2: the police do? They fired on them with rubber bullets
5:20
Speaker 2: and pepper spray. This was insanity. Tragically, so many lives
5:25
Speaker 2: were lost in age care and who was to blame? Well,
5:28
Speaker 2: we didn't really get there. Luck we might have with
5:30
Speaker 2: a proper royal commission, just as we didn't really work
5:33
Speaker 2: out what happens if there's a next time? Will the
5:35
Speaker 2: premiers be allowed to get away with reckless power grabs
5:38
Speaker 2: again and unnecessary border closures? And what are we doing
5:42
Speaker 2: to make sure that doesn't happen? Will we allow like
5:46
Speaker 2: we did state medical officers to wield such extraordinary powers.
5:50
Speaker 2: Let alone canbra close our national borders, prevent Australians from
5:53
Speaker 2: even returning home, force people against their will to have vaccines,
5:58
Speaker 2: and if they don't, prevent them from working. Now, I'm
6:01
Speaker 2: not sure this report tells me any of that. What
6:04
Speaker 2: it does do is remind me, and this is what
6:07
Speaker 2: it's good for. It reminds me of just how bad
6:10
Speaker 2: those two years were, and that we are still recovering
6:13
Speaker 2: the mental scars. The economic destruction will be with us
6:17
Speaker 2: for a very long time. I just hope we never
6:19
Speaker 2: have to go through such a thing ever again. Okay,
6:26
Speaker 2: let's say to Camber now for tonight's political Headlines with
6:29
Speaker 2: Sky News political reporter cam.
6:31
Speaker 5: Redden Good evening, inflation has fallen to its lowest level
6:35
Speaker 5: in four years, increasing the likelihood of a rate cut
6:38
Speaker 5: in early twenty twenty five.
6:40
Speaker 2: Probably in the first few months of next year. February
6:42
Speaker 2: would be my pick. At this point in.
6:44
Speaker 5: Time, Quarterly inflation fell by a whole point, from three
6:47
Speaker 5: point eight percent in the June quarter to two point
6:50
Speaker 5: eight percent in the September quarter.
6:52
Speaker 4: People are still under pressure. We don't pretend that the
6:54
Speaker 4: fight against inflation has already been one.
6:57
Speaker 2: We see right across the world interest rate coming down,
7:01
Speaker 2: but not in Australia.
7:02
Speaker 5: There are calls for an urgent review into the National
7:04
Speaker 5: Anti Corruption Commission after its leader was found to have
7:07
Speaker 5: engaged in misconduct. The finding relates to National Anti Corruption
7:11
Speaker 5: Commissioner Paul Brereton's involvement in a decision not to investigate
7:16
Speaker 5: six individuals who were referred to the NAC by the
7:19
Speaker 5: Robodette Royal Commission. Justice Brereton declared that one of the
7:23
Speaker 5: six was someone he knows well, so he delegated the
7:26
Speaker 5: call on whether to go ahead with the investigation to
7:29
Speaker 5: his deputy, Bart Nak. Inspector Gail Ferness found the Commissioner's
7:33
Speaker 5: involvement was still comprehensive before, during, and after a meeting
7:39
Speaker 5: at which the decision was made not to investigate the referrals.
7:43
Speaker 5: She found Justice Brereton contributed to discussion, settled the minutes
7:47
Speaker 5: and was involved in formulating the reasons for the decision. Conduct,
7:51
Speaker 5: the inspector says, was a mistake and not unlawful, but
7:56
Speaker 5: which amounts to officer misconduct.
7:58
Speaker 4: They've taken this decision, obviously we all examine it.
8:01
Speaker 6: I think the public has total trust in the Commissioner
8:05
Speaker 6: and in the Commission.
8:06
Speaker 5: The Prime Minister is under pressure to definitively say whether
8:09
Speaker 5: he breached the Ministerial code by accepting quantus flight upgrades.
8:13
Speaker 6: Did he pick the phone up to allen joyce and
8:17
Speaker 6: ask for the free upgrades or not. It's a pretty
8:20
Speaker 6: simple question to answer.
8:21
Speaker 7: If people have got allegations to make about this, we
8:24
Speaker 7: would invite them to make those allegations.
8:25
Speaker 3: The Prime Minister has complied with all of the rules
8:29
Speaker 3: that have been in place for many, many years.
8:31
Speaker 5: Cameron Reddin's Sky News Canberra.
8:35
Speaker 2: Good only, Cam, thank you very much for that. Now
8:36
Speaker 2: to flesh out the politics of all of this on
8:39
Speaker 2: this Wednesday, I'm joined by Sky News senior reporters Trudy
8:42
Speaker 2: McIntosh and Caroline Marcus. Welcome. Great to see you both.
8:45
Speaker 2: Let's start with this interview from Fox News today. I
8:48
Speaker 2: watched it with great fascination. Donald Trump sat down with
8:51
Speaker 2: Sean Hannity, a great supporter of his, of course, and
8:54
Speaker 2: had this to say.
8:56
Speaker 8: My father, when I was young, never mentioned the name Hitler. Ever,
9:02
Speaker 8: it was tough on it somebody who said Hitler never
9:05
Speaker 8: mentioned that name. Nazi never mentioned, never mentioned that name,
9:12
Speaker 8: and he meant it to and it was a word
9:14
Speaker 8: that you never used, you know, you never used those
9:16
Speaker 8: words in the embodiment. They accused me of being a Nazi.
9:21
Speaker 8: They accused me of being a Hitler type guy or
9:26
Speaker 8: a Hitler lover, and I'm not. I'm the opposite. They're
9:31
Speaker 8: the ones that are doing They're oppressive. This is like
9:33
Speaker 8: an oppressive machine, Caroline.
9:37
Speaker 2: The tossing around of terms like Nazi and Hitler, you'd
9:41
Speaker 2: once think that you'd never hear that in Australia, But
9:45
Speaker 2: given the things that you've been reporting on, I'm not
9:47
Speaker 2: so sure about that.
9:48
Speaker 9: Anymore, absolutely, Steve.
9:50
Speaker 10: I mean it's almost on a weekly basis that we're
9:53
Speaker 10: seeing people marching on the streets in these pro Palestinian
9:57
Speaker 10: protests trying to equate what Israel as in fighting a
10:01
Speaker 10: just war against a terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbola
10:06
Speaker 10: with what the Nazis were doing, which of course is
10:09
Speaker 10: absolutely ludicrous and discredits anyone who makes that kind of comparison.
10:15
Speaker 10: I mean, these people haven't heard, just like Trump's critics,
10:19
Speaker 10: that when you invoke Hitler you automatically lose the argument.
10:23
Speaker 10: And not only that, but you are just trashing the
10:27
Speaker 10: memories of the millions of people who suffered in the Holocaust,
10:32
Speaker 10: and that was just an incomparable tragedy to anything we've
10:38
Speaker 10: ever seen. But in the case of Trump, I mean,
10:40
Speaker 10: it's laughable. We've seen those accusations thrown around his latest
10:46
Speaker 10: rally in Madison Square Gardens in New York, and I'm
10:50
Speaker 10: sorry for a Nazi rally, there are an awful lot
10:53
Speaker 10: of Jews. They're celebrating and Israeli flags and people proudly
11:01
Speaker 10: saying that they stand with Israel. It wasn't a very
11:03
Speaker 10: effective Nazi rally, if that's what it's meant to be.
11:07
Speaker 10: Not only that, but Trump has been one of the
11:09
Speaker 10: most pro Israel, pro Jewish presidents and candidate is the
11:16
Speaker 10: most pros Israel candidate in this upcoming election. Don't forget
11:20
Speaker 10: he signed the Abraham Accords, which was negotiating peace between
11:25
Speaker 10: Israel and various Middle Eastern countries when he was the
11:29
Speaker 10: last when he was president last, and he moved the
11:33
Speaker 10: embassy to Jerusalem, he announced Jerusalem as the acknowledged capital
11:38
Speaker 10: of Israel. And there were so many things that he
11:40
Speaker 10: does and it did in his presidency. Not only that,
11:43
Speaker 10: has a Jewish son in law and daughter that it
11:47
Speaker 10: is just crazy and these people don't realize. I guess
11:50
Speaker 10: that that part of the sort of exaggeration, this Trump
11:54
Speaker 10: derangement syndrome, this demonization, is what cost them the election
11:58
Speaker 10: in twenty sixteen when Clinton called everyone deplorable.
12:01
Speaker 11: So I mean, good.
12:03
Speaker 10: Luck to them, but I think it only works in
12:05
Speaker 10: Trump's favor.
12:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, it only sticks, sir, to real Democrats. I think, Trudy,
12:11
Speaker 2: let's talk about the issue of Anthony Albanesi and the upgrades.
12:16
Speaker 2: Is this going to go anywhere? I mean, Peter Dutton
12:18
Speaker 2: is now urging the PM to refer himself to the
12:20
Speaker 2: National Anti Corruption Commissioner. He's not going to do that.
12:23
Speaker 2: Parliament's back next week. I mean, there will be a
12:26
Speaker 2: lot of questions in question time. What about this core
12:30
Speaker 2: question about the code of conduct for ministers? Given that
12:33
Speaker 2: at one point Anthony Albanese he was Transport Minister and
12:38
Speaker 2: requesting upgrades, how damaging's that for him? Do you think?
12:42
Speaker 12: Yeah, that's the central point here, because we know so
12:45
Speaker 12: many politicies right across the board have accepted upgrades with
12:48
Speaker 12: the National Carrier. The PMS declared his But the central
12:52
Speaker 12: bombshell allegation to me here is that as Transport Minister,
12:55
Speaker 12: it's claimed that he was on the phone calling the CEO,
12:58
Speaker 12: Alan Joyce and therefore got personal upgrades on flights. Now
13:03
Speaker 12: that is a problem when it comes to the Code
13:05
Speaker 12: of Conduct, because you are soliciting gifts for your own
13:08
Speaker 12: personal benefit. But that accusation comes quite a time ago
13:12
Speaker 12: in the rud Gillard years under that code of conduct,
13:14
Speaker 12: so it's hard to see how you enforce a conduct
13:16
Speaker 12: that's more than.
13:18
Speaker 9: A decade old now.
13:19
Speaker 12: But this will be a big political issue if you
13:21
Speaker 12: think about the drip drip drip against the Prime Minister.
13:24
Speaker 9: First the Copa Cabana house.
13:26
Speaker 12: He was here with the royals for a week, no
13:27
Speaker 12: oxygen to any political substance. Now this the government needs
13:32
Speaker 12: a reset and it's unclear at this stage what that's
13:34
Speaker 12: going to be.
13:36
Speaker 2: Well, it wasn't anywhere today. The technic obviously is to
13:39
Speaker 2: let this sort of cool down hope it goes away.
13:42
Speaker 2: Is one of his escape roads perhaps if he comes
13:45
Speaker 2: out and throws a member of his staff under the
13:47
Speaker 2: bus and says, well, I didn't I told you I
13:50
Speaker 2: never rang Alan Joyce. My office might have I've I've
13:54
Speaker 2: made some inquiries and you know someone whoever it might be. Well,
13:58
Speaker 2: they rang a number at Quittas wasn't direct to Alan
14:01
Speaker 2: Joyce and asked for the upgrade for me, and he
14:03
Speaker 2: got it. Is that an escape route?
14:07
Speaker 9: Well, wouldn't the best option?
14:08
Speaker 12: Here be the truth? I know that's always novel thing
14:10
Speaker 12: in politics. But if he did call Alan Joyce the
14:13
Speaker 12: truth more than a decade he right happened, But he
14:16
Speaker 12: didn't say that. Yesterday when he was asking you personally
14:19
Speaker 12: call Alan Joyce, he danced around that answer and say
14:22
Speaker 12: give me a specific allegation if you didn't call him.
14:25
Speaker 12: I think it's pretty quick clear. You just say I
14:27
Speaker 12: never called Alan Joyce. What was put in this book
14:29
Speaker 12: is wrong. That hasn't been where five days now since
14:33
Speaker 12: this story broke and that hasn't been the claim.
14:35
Speaker 9: So let's see where this goes.
14:38
Speaker 2: Caroline, what about this? I mean, we're all got a
14:40
Speaker 2: bit sick and tired of hearing about the PM growing
14:43
Speaker 2: up in social housing, single car you know, single mum.
14:47
Speaker 2: I mean, she obviously did a great job, but he
14:49
Speaker 2: keeps tossing that out, particularly when there's an election. You know,
14:52
Speaker 2: when you've got a four point three million dollar holiday
14:54
Speaker 2: house at Copa Cabana and you're flying first class on jets.
14:58
Speaker 2: That image takes a bit of a b mattering, doesn't it.
15:02
Speaker 9: Yeah.
15:02
Speaker 10: I don't think a lot of us want to begrudge
15:06
Speaker 10: anyone who's done well in life. You know that tool
15:10
Speaker 10: poppy syndrome. That's really one of the worst aspects I
15:16
Speaker 10: think of Australian culture. But I don't think that's what's
15:18
Speaker 10: happening here. I think you've got a politician who has
15:22
Speaker 10: made it basically his origin story to talk about how
15:26
Speaker 10: he came from public housing with a single mum, okay,
15:29
Speaker 10: good on you.
15:29
Speaker 9: But now all of this.
15:31
Speaker 10: Apparent grifting in the form of these upgrades and the
15:35
Speaker 10: chairman's lounge membership for his son. It's not a good
15:40
Speaker 10: look for someone who keeps talking about how they came
15:42
Speaker 10: from the sticks and how they can appreciate what life
15:45
Speaker 10: is like for those people. And it turns out that
15:48
Speaker 10: voters already it's doing not well at all with voters.
15:53
Speaker 10: A Redbridge focus group hell last week, before even the
15:56
Speaker 10: latest revelations about these Quantus upgrades came out, It found
16:01
Speaker 10: that most people found that thought that he was betraying
16:05
Speaker 10: his working class background and they didn't like the purchase
16:09
Speaker 10: of this holiday home in the slightest so it's not
16:13
Speaker 10: going down well. The latest story this week about the
16:17
Speaker 10: flights is going to take him even further down in
16:21
Speaker 10: the public perception, and this is months out from a
16:23
Speaker 10: federal election. These optics are not good in the middle
16:27
Speaker 10: of the cost of living crisis, and just gives the
16:31
Speaker 10: impression that he may have come from a very modest background,
16:36
Speaker 10: but he certainly is enjoying the finer things in life now.
16:40
Speaker 2: Jordi, Georgie and Trudy, thanks very much for joining us tonight.
16:43
Speaker 2: I appreciate it. Now to that landmark COVID inquiry, now
16:46
Speaker 2: I've got fired up about this at the start of
16:48
Speaker 2: the program. It's an eight hundred and sixty eight page report.
16:51
Speaker 2: It was handed down yesterday slammed the state lockdowns and
16:54
Speaker 2: border closures in response to the pandemic Victoria, as I
16:58
Speaker 2: well remember, was out with scathing criticism of Premier Daniel
17:03
Speaker 2: Andrews and his harsh mandates were almost got locked up
17:06
Speaker 2: for a year. Haphazard approached. The report says to restrictions,
17:09
Speaker 2: failure to factor in mental health or economic considerations, and
17:13
Speaker 2: even former Chief Health Officer Bret Sutton today admitted to
17:16
Speaker 2: his own failings in explaining the advice. Now, of course
17:19
Speaker 2: Melbourne set that world record, it was not a world
17:22
Speaker 2: record Melbourne wanted joining me now is Victoria's Shadow Minister
17:25
Speaker 2: for Health, Georgie Crozy A welcome thank It's a scathing report,
17:30
Speaker 2: but it's not still enough.
17:32
Speaker 13: No, it's not enough, And really there should have been
17:35
Speaker 13: a national Royal commission into what happened here in Australia.
17:38
Speaker 11: And as you said, Victoria, you were here through those
17:41
Speaker 11: long dark years.
17:42
Speaker 13: We had the harshest restrictions and the worst of outcomes.
17:46
Speaker 13: So there is just so much in that report that
17:48
Speaker 13: it didn't cover off that really had a massive impact
17:51
Speaker 13: here in Victoria.
17:52
Speaker 2: Once Labour got elected federally, they were never going to
17:55
Speaker 2: tip their premiers under a bus with it.
17:56
Speaker 13: No, no, the premiers, especially the Victorian premier. It got
18:00
Speaker 13: away scott free. And really, you know those decisions that
18:04
Speaker 13: were made, the curfews, the playgrounds, the school closures, the
18:09
Speaker 13: interstate boarder closures, they were devastating and the economic impacts
18:13
Speaker 13: that you mentioned have had a long lasting impact and
18:16
Speaker 13: the mental health for our children are we're still seeing
18:19
Speaker 13: those impacts today.
18:20
Speaker 2: So we've been through the Coat inquiry. No one could
18:24
Speaker 2: remember exactly what happened with hotel quarantine. Who hired the
18:28
Speaker 2: private guards that let the virus get in. Dan Andrews
18:32
Speaker 2: said he couldn't remember. Now we've got this, no one's
18:35
Speaker 2: going to pay the price. There will be no person.
18:38
Speaker 2: I mean. The people who paid the price are the
18:40
Speaker 2: Australian public, the people who lost businesses, the people whose
18:44
Speaker 2: children spent two years locked up, not being able to
18:46
Speaker 2: go to school, people who miss births and funerals. The
18:49
Speaker 2: Australian public are the victims. The people making those over
18:52
Speaker 2: the top decisions, like Sutton and Andrews in particular, they
18:56
Speaker 2: pay no penalty. Andrews is on a three hundred thousand
18:58
Speaker 2: dollar a year tax free pens for life. Well that's right,
19:01
Speaker 2: and we're going to build a statue to him as well.
19:04
Speaker 13: Well that's right, and it's really and look at what's
19:07
Speaker 13: happening here in Victoria. We've got a COVID levy, we've
19:10
Speaker 13: got a mental health levy that's bringing in a billion
19:13
Speaker 13: dollars a year, and we're still not getting good outcomes
19:16
Speaker 13: for those kids and people that have been just affected
19:20
Speaker 13: so severely Steve, and that's what the real you know,
19:25
Speaker 13: the massive criticism that I had right throughout and let's
19:28
Speaker 13: not forget you know, Daniel L Andrew shut the Parliament down,
19:31
Speaker 13: so there was never any accountability or transparency, true transparency
19:35
Speaker 13: or accountability into the decisions that were made, and they
19:38
Speaker 13: were very devastating in so many areas.
19:41
Speaker 2: Brett Sutton's reacted today. Now, Brett Sutton, of course got
19:44
Speaker 2: an Australian Day Award. I think off the back of
19:47
Speaker 2: his work during COVID, he said today, and this is
19:50
Speaker 2: a direct quote. Evidence changes all the time, and I
19:52
Speaker 2: think sometimes the evidence just wasn't there. That's in responsible
19:56
Speaker 2: question about what evidence did he use to make the
19:59
Speaker 2: disease he made. But then I'm staggered. I want your
20:02
Speaker 2: reaction to this quote quote. So, of course, sometimes you're
20:06
Speaker 2: making a best guess and sometimes you're applying the precautionary principle.
20:12
Speaker 2: He submitted that he was guessing when he shut playgrounds
20:16
Speaker 2: and borders and told people that they couldn't go out
20:18
Speaker 2: after nine o'clock at night. That's a disgrace.
20:20
Speaker 13: It's a scandal. It's an absolute disgrace, and that's been
20:24
Speaker 13: the problem all along. We never had that accountability. We
20:27
Speaker 13: never had the truth, and I think Victorians know that,
20:30
Speaker 13: and that's you know, to admit today in a best
20:34
Speaker 13: best guess is not good enough.
20:36
Speaker 2: The mental health impact. I mean, we've now got Daniel Anders.
20:39
Speaker 2: Were you staggered when you saw that he was appointed
20:41
Speaker 2: chairman of an organization that's working in the mental health
20:44
Speaker 2: area given what he did to people for two years.
20:47
Speaker 13: I was utterly shocked when I heard that, and I
20:50
Speaker 13: think a lot of Victorians were, understandably because of what
20:53
Speaker 13: we've just been discussing, the mental health impacts from the
20:56
Speaker 13: decisions that he made. I mean, well, I've got a
21:00
Speaker 13: that jacintail on now premiere was around that COVID cabinet
21:03
Speaker 13: and making the decisions with him, So he can't bear
21:06
Speaker 13: all of the responsibility given what was happening, but you know,
21:11
Speaker 13: the mental health impacts, and to be shairing a youth
21:14
Speaker 13: mental health organization, I think is a real slap in
21:17
Speaker 13: the face that so many people have said.
21:19
Speaker 2: I showed some vision before of the COVID locked, mainly
21:24
Speaker 2: the COVID vaccine protests, where there was big protests, particularly
21:28
Speaker 2: among construction workers, that if you weren't vaccinated, you couldn't work.
21:32
Speaker 2: Victoria police chose, with the blessing oppresum of the premiere
21:38
Speaker 2: to use rubber bullets and pepper spray on their own citizens.
21:42
Speaker 2: I mean, we can never see that again.
21:45
Speaker 11: Surely know that they were dark years in this state.
21:48
Speaker 13: And I said it at the time, and the image
21:51
Speaker 13: is that you just describe as something that I'll never forget.
21:54
Speaker 13: And I don't think many Victorians ever want to see
21:57
Speaker 13: that again. And that's why it was important that we
21:58
Speaker 13: actually had a or commission to understand what government's got
22:02
Speaker 13: right and what they got wrong. And you know, it's
22:06
Speaker 13: I think it's just it shows the weakness of government
22:09
Speaker 13: not to have the convictions of what they're really doing
22:12
Speaker 13: for their communities.
22:13
Speaker 2: Still it goes on here at Sun reports that day
22:15
Speaker 2: thirty two firefighters desperately needed to work over the summer
22:19
Speaker 2: season have still not been allowed to go back to
22:22
Speaker 2: work because they refuse to be vaccinated. Two years after COVID.
22:25
Speaker 2: I've had COVID twice since the end of it. It's
22:28
Speaker 2: like cold, what the hell? Why is that still there?
22:31
Speaker 13: Well, Steve, I've asked about this in the Parliament on
22:33
Speaker 13: numerous occasions, and the Minister responsible still fails to take.
22:38
Speaker 11: Responsibility in this area.
22:39
Speaker 13: You've got those firefighters that can go into a hospital.
22:42
Speaker 11: See they're dying loved one. They can socialize.
22:45
Speaker 13: We see if the volunteers or even other firefighters quite
22:48
Speaker 13: quite normally, but they can't actually go to work. And
22:51
Speaker 13: we've got the COVID mandates have been dropped in this state.
22:56
Speaker 13: It makes no sense that these people are unable to
22:59
Speaker 13: work in their workplace.
23:00
Speaker 11: That's what they're trained to do.
23:01
Speaker 2: It graceful, thanks for coming in, appreciate it very thank you,
23:03
Speaker 2: Georgie Crazier. There now coming up, still ahead. International student
23:06
Speaker 2: numbers are now going to be cap next year. Universities
23:09
Speaker 2: are going to make changes to recoup some of their
23:11
Speaker 2: falling revenue. And next up, final countdown to the US election.
23:15
Speaker 2: We've only got a week to go. We might know
23:17
Speaker 2: this time next week who wins. It sees Joe Biden
23:20
Speaker 2: taking swipes at Donald Trump what he had. Welcome back
23:26
Speaker 2: to Steve Price in for Peter Cretlin tonight. Peter will
23:28
Speaker 2: be back with you tomorrow night, and I of course
23:31
Speaker 2: be with you at this time on Friday. Well, the
23:33
Speaker 2: US presidential election about this time next week, depending on
23:36
Speaker 2: how close or not. The contest is we might have
23:40
Speaker 2: a result. Sky's got incredible coverage, a heap of people
23:44
Speaker 2: on the ground in the US that'll run all day
23:46
Speaker 2: next Wednesday. It'll be like Grand Final Day or I
23:51
Speaker 2: don't know. I'll be sitting there all day watching. It
23:53
Speaker 2: should be sensational. Kamala Harris, Donald Trump. They made their
23:57
Speaker 2: final pitchures to voters, large, elaborate, at least Donald Trump,
24:00
Speaker 2: as we know, packed out Madison Square Garden in New York.
24:03
Speaker 2: Kamala Harris, she was in Washington, d C. But it's
24:07
Speaker 2: the current president Joe Biden now who's making headlines today.
24:11
Speaker 6: Have a look Puerto Rico, where I'm in my home
24:14
Speaker 6: state of Delaware for good, decent, honorable people.
24:18
Speaker 14: The only garbage ic floating down there is just quorders.
24:23
Speaker 2: Mana for heaven from Donald Trump, I think for more.
24:25
Speaker 2: We're joined by the foreign editor for The Australian, Greg Sheridan. Greg,
24:28
Speaker 2: great to join you. You can imagine what was going
24:32
Speaker 2: on in the back office at Kamala Harris's campaign when
24:35
Speaker 2: she saw that from Joe Biden.
24:39
Speaker 15: Yeah, great to be with you.
24:40
Speaker 2: Steve. You're absolutely right.
24:42
Speaker 15: The one person she doesn't want to hear of is
24:45
Speaker 15: Joe Biden. I mean he wanted to do a joint
24:47
Speaker 15: appearance with her, and she said, no, I don want
24:50
Speaker 15: to be leading with you. Whereas Democrats Senate candidates are saying,
24:53
Speaker 15: you know, boasting about legislation that they got Donald Trump
24:56
Speaker 15: to sign in his first term, ups organizers did a
25:01
Speaker 15: really stupid thing by having a comedian who made racist
25:05
Speaker 15: jokes against Puerto Ricans in that Madison Square Garden rally.
25:09
Speaker 15: That was unbelievably done. That's Trump for you, very effective rally,
25:13
Speaker 15: but with one really stupid offensive thing. So all the
25:17
Speaker 15: Democrats had to do was say we love Porto Ricans
25:20
Speaker 15: and isn't Trump offensive? Instead of which Joe Biden goes
25:24
Speaker 15: further and says, except for the Trump supporters, the only
25:28
Speaker 15: garbage I see as Trump supporters. So this is so dumb.
25:33
Speaker 15: You attack Trump by all means, don't attract his supporters.
25:36
Speaker 15: So half of America has suddenly been insulted by Joe Biden,
25:40
Speaker 15: whom Kamala Harris wants to be in perda, in hiding
25:43
Speaker 15: and not seen in public. So he couldn't have done
25:46
Speaker 15: more to sabotage. And I don't know, maybe he's not
25:49
Speaker 15: that fond of her candidacy anyway, Yeah, I.
25:53
Speaker 2: Think he might be onto something there. And the other
25:55
Speaker 2: thing it did was reminded all of us. Took us
25:57
Speaker 2: all way back to twenty sixteen when Hill of course
26:00
Speaker 2: stood up and called Donald Trump's half Donald Trump supporters deplorable.
26:05
Speaker 2: I mean, so every news channel in the United States,
26:08
Speaker 2: Sky included today here been replaying Hillary's comments that have
26:14
Speaker 2: sort of gone into the trash can of history, and
26:17
Speaker 2: now they're being replayed on fast forward.
26:21
Speaker 15: Yeah, most Americans really hate the limousine liberal super elite
26:27
Speaker 15: who lead these unbelievably affluent lives and want to impose
26:32
Speaker 15: their feel good virtue signaling policies on the backs of
26:38
Speaker 15: ordinary Americans. If energy prices go up doesn't hurt the
26:41
Speaker 15: likes of Kamala Harris or Hillary Clinton, it really hurts
26:44
Speaker 15: ordinary working Americans. So ordinary working Americans have been moving
26:48
Speaker 15: over in huge numbers to the Republican Party, and so
26:54
Speaker 15: the Democrats want to do everything they can to emphasize
26:56
Speaker 15: that really they're simpatico with ordinary folks. Instead of which
27:02
Speaker 15: Biden inserts himself into the debate calls ordinary Americans garbage,
27:07
Speaker 15: reminds everyone of the Hillary Clinton moment. I mean, you
27:11
Speaker 15: couldn't script it better if you were Donald Trump. And
27:13
Speaker 15: so a big Trump mistake, the racist comedian has turned
27:17
Speaker 15: into an even bigger Democrat mistake. Now, who knows how
27:21
Speaker 15: many votes it'll shift, but it certainly rob's Kamala Harris
27:25
Speaker 15: of any positive attention she was trying to get in
27:28
Speaker 15: this news cycle.
27:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, on the worst possible day, let's talk back home.
27:33
Speaker 2: Defense industry Minister Pat Conroy turned up at the National
27:37
Speaker 2: Press Club today. I don't know there would have been
27:39
Speaker 2: a huge crowd in house. He was boasting about our
27:43
Speaker 2: missile defense capability, lots of talk, lots of money. I've
27:47
Speaker 2: seen your reaction to this plan with these missiles. Then
27:51
Speaker 2: they're not defensive at all, are they. I mean they're
27:55
Speaker 2: not really improving the way we would combat any aggression
28:00
Speaker 2: by China. So what did you make of what Conroy
28:03
Speaker 2: said today?
28:05
Speaker 15: Well, it was an unbelievably fatuous speech. I mean, I
28:08
Speaker 15: don't know whether they're starting to boycott me or not,
28:10
Speaker 15: but I can't you know, I have to get the speech,
28:12
Speaker 15: help reporter friends. They won't send it to me from
28:15
Speaker 15: the government and can't get the documents and so on.
28:18
Speaker 15: You know, It's understandable that I fell off their Christmas
28:20
Speaker 15: card list. It's a bit silly that they're trying to
28:22
Speaker 15: keep government to basic government documents from me. But this
28:26
Speaker 15: is one of the most fatuous, ridiculous speeches I ever heard.
28:29
Speaker 15: All of his money, the problem with it is none
28:32
Speaker 15: of it's real. It's billions and billions of dollars, but
28:34
Speaker 15: it's all far off in the distant horizon in ten years,
28:37
Speaker 15: twenty years, thirty years. Most of the money was not
28:40
Speaker 15: tied to any time frame. And then a number of
28:44
Speaker 15: the missiles that he did announce, the only platforms that
28:47
Speaker 15: can carry them are our three air warfare destroyers. They're
28:50
Speaker 15: about to enter long service and maintenance, so one of
28:53
Speaker 15: them will be out of the water all the time.
28:56
Speaker 15: So that means half of this missile category only operates
28:59
Speaker 15: on two Australian platforms. Now, the one missile we are
29:03
Speaker 15: going to start to manufacture in Australia, but we still haven't.
29:07
Speaker 15: We've been three years of an Alberanesi government for Guided
29:09
Speaker 15: Weapons and Explosive Ordinance initiative was in place when they
29:13
Speaker 15: came into office, we still haven't actually done anything. In
29:16
Speaker 15: the physical universe is a short range army artillery piece
29:22
Speaker 15: which will hold an enemy at bay as far from Canberra,
29:26
Speaker 15: maybe as golden, but it does nothing to hold Chinese
29:30
Speaker 15: ships at bay at sea. We're still the only military
29:33
Speaker 15: in the world of our size which has no armed
29:35
Speaker 15: maritime drone. We're still not going to do any missile
29:39
Speaker 15: defense for our northern air bases or anything. We have
29:42
Speaker 15: no ground based missile defense. It was the Albernesi government
29:45
Speaker 15: which decided not to put tomahawks on the Collins class submarines.
29:49
Speaker 15: It was the Albernesi government which decided to scrap the
29:52
Speaker 15: fourth squadron of F thirty five Joint Strike Fighters. What
29:56
Speaker 15: they've done is cut capabilities, and in fact, it just
30:00
Speaker 15: as I put in the paper tomorrow, it turns out
30:02
Speaker 15: we didn't even make two percent of GDP for defense
30:05
Speaker 15: spending in the financial year just gone. What they've done
30:09
Speaker 15: is cut defense capabilities. But they're making these sort of
30:13
Speaker 15: you know, ABC Utopia comedy style announcements about capabilities. You know, Steve,
30:20
Speaker 15: when you and I are going to be pushing up daisies,
30:22
Speaker 15: even our sons are going to be pushing up daisies.
30:25
Speaker 15: And then they want to get accolades for this it's
30:28
Speaker 15: belogning to use a technical term, it's just blooney.
30:34
Speaker 2: Just before you go, briefly, I assure your comments about
30:36
Speaker 2: Joe de Bruin's speech to the Australian Catholic University, I
30:39
Speaker 2: agree with you completely. Has the Vice chancellor responded and
30:43
Speaker 2: what did you make of what he said?
30:47
Speaker 15: Well, I asked him eight questions. He gave a response
30:50
Speaker 15: with a generic response and in my opinion, he didn't
30:53
Speaker 15: answer any of the questions. But in the complete transparency
30:56
Speaker 15: of The Australian published his reply online in full. There's
31:00
Speaker 15: a deeper issue though here. Numbers of people associated where
31:04
Speaker 15: they see us say that they really feel the university
31:07
Speaker 15: is going under undergoing a process of decatholicization. It's not,
31:11
Speaker 15: it's moving away from being a meaningfully Catholic university. And
31:15
Speaker 15: I think this was demonstrated by the official paper of
31:18
Speaker 15: the Sydney Archdiocese, the Catholic Weekly, reprinting to Bruin's speech
31:22
Speaker 15: in fulhan saying it was perfectly apt, completely appropriate, quite
31:26
Speaker 15: right for any Catholic graduating audience, for any graduating audience
31:31
Speaker 15: at a Catholic university, and of course to Bruin was
31:34
Speaker 15: infinitely milder than Pope Francis on any of the subjects
31:37
Speaker 15: that he addressed. Now, I think the bishops need to
31:40
Speaker 15: take hold of this. They need to re establish control
31:43
Speaker 15: over their university. There are rules about how a university
31:48
Speaker 15: is meant to behave. If it is going to enjoy
31:50
Speaker 15: the title of a Catholic university, and if it's just
31:53
Speaker 15: going to follow along with the standard zeitgeist, then really
31:58
Speaker 15: the Church needs to rethink its position vis a vis
32:02
Speaker 15: this university. There's a lot of angst out there, and
32:07
Speaker 15: I think the vice chancellor, I mean, he's a good man,
32:09
Speaker 15: he's a good professor and everything, but I think he
32:11
Speaker 15: was very very ill judged in his response to Jade
32:15
Speaker 15: Brun's speech, and the consequence of his words is to
32:19
Speaker 15: mean that it's much harder now for Christian authorities to
32:22
Speaker 15: argue for freedom of religion because state agencies will say, well, look,
32:25
Speaker 15: even the Catholic university vice chancellor thinks these words will
32:29
Speaker 15: cause offense and distress even to university staff, even at
32:33
Speaker 15: a Catholic university. Well, I just don't think that's a
32:36
Speaker 15: tenable position anymore. I think there has to be new
32:39
Speaker 15: leadership at the Catholic University and I hope, I hope
32:42
Speaker 15: they come to grips with it and resolve the situation.
32:45
Speaker 2: Well, said Gregor, was a pleasure to catch up with you.
32:47
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. That's Greg Sheridan from The Australian.
32:50
Speaker 2: Now now some news just in. The Prime min strength
32:52
Speaker 2: in Alberanezi hasn't been out in public today, but he's
32:55
Speaker 2: broken his silence over the upgrade scandal. He's confirmed an
33:00
Speaker 2: audit of his travel has found that he never directly
33:04
Speaker 2: called the then CEO Alan Joyce for upgrades on personal travel. However,
33:09
Speaker 2: he has still not denied that he or his staff
33:12
Speaker 2: called the Airlines government relations team or the Champions Lanch hotline.
33:16
Speaker 2: A spokesperson has told News dot com dot au all
33:19
Speaker 2: travel has been appropriately declared and is a matter of
33:22
Speaker 2: public records. So that news just in. That'll have some
33:25
Speaker 2: more developments as we go through the night. I'm sure
33:28
Speaker 2: Andrew Bolt will have more to say about that as
33:31
Speaker 2: we go through the night. And also of course we'll
33:34
Speaker 2: hear from Paul Murray later this evening. Now and Shari Markson,
33:38
Speaker 2: as I talked about earlier, yesterday saw the release of
33:40
Speaker 2: this report into the federal COVID inquiry. It's an eight
33:44
Speaker 2: hundred and sixty eight page report, highly critical of many
33:47
Speaker 2: aspects of state and federal governments and their responsors, warned
33:50
Speaker 2: of long lasting impacts public health trust has collapsed. Now
33:55
Speaker 2: for his take, I'm joined by someone who we spoke
33:57
Speaker 2: to regularly during COVID infectious disease, a specialist, and as
34:01
Speaker 2: I said, we saw him plenty of times during COVID,
34:04
Speaker 2: doctor Sinda Yaka. Good to see you again. What did
34:07
Speaker 2: you make of the report?
34:10
Speaker 16: Yeah, nice to be here, Steve. So the report, I
34:13
Speaker 16: guess didn't have a lot of surprises. I think it's
34:16
Speaker 16: a good broad report. I think one of the key
34:20
Speaker 16: features it tells us that Australia and really the world
34:23
Speaker 16: in general, was not prepared for this pandemic. I think
34:27
Speaker 16: a lot of the perception was a pandemic was something
34:30
Speaker 16: that was going to last for maybe a few months
34:33
Speaker 16: and would solely focus on the healthcare sector, without realizing
34:37
Speaker 16: that three years later it had sort of eroded into
34:40
Speaker 16: every cabinet portfolio and even potentially attacked the cohesiveness of society.
34:46
Speaker 16: So given that that really no one was that well prepared,
34:51
Speaker 16: a lot of what was done was reactive rather than
34:55
Speaker 16: proactive and things followed from there. Having said all that,
35:00
Speaker 16: Australia still did very well compared to a lot of
35:03
Speaker 16: parts of a lot of other parts of the world.
35:06
Speaker 16: The government early on in the pandemic did well, and
35:10
Speaker 16: of course the people of Australia did remarkably well, particularly
35:13
Speaker 16: with their vaccine uptake, which was really fundamental in controlling
35:16
Speaker 16: the pandemic. But it does show that the next couple
35:21
Speaker 16: of years we have to try and get it right
35:23
Speaker 16: for the next pandemic whenever that comes. So we already
35:26
Speaker 16: have every plan in place for every possible alternative that occurs,
35:32
Speaker 16: and the Center for Disease Control that was just announced
35:35
Speaker 16: will be at the forefront of trying to correct that.
35:40
Speaker 2: I just before we go to the future, I just
35:41
Speaker 2: want to go back a little bit. The report was
35:43
Speaker 2: critical of things like school lockdowns and the length of them,
35:47
Speaker 2: some of the border lockdowns by some of the premiers,
35:49
Speaker 2: and some of the over the top restrictions about only
35:53
Speaker 2: being out of walk for an hour a day with
35:54
Speaker 2: one person. It does take us back and remind us,
35:59
Speaker 2: doesn't it, how much we were asked to do, and
36:02
Speaker 2: largely how the public agreed. I'm still amazed that Australians
36:07
Speaker 2: actually did that.
36:10
Speaker 16: No, No, it's extraordinary. The Australian people are extraordinary. We're
36:16
Speaker 16: in a very lucky country. But you're right, there was
36:19
Speaker 16: prior to the pandemic. You look at trust and we
36:23
Speaker 16: Australia had a trust a rating of about fifty to
36:26
Speaker 16: sixty percent, which was pretty good early on in the pandemic.
36:29
Speaker 16: In those first few months it went up to ninety percent,
36:32
Speaker 16: but it very quickly dropped. And the focus groups that
36:36
Speaker 16: talk to the people who put this review together said
36:40
Speaker 16: that in about twenty one percent of them said that
36:42
Speaker 16: they would be reluctant to take a vaccine again because
36:46
Speaker 16: of what had happened to them through the pandemic, a
36:48
Speaker 16: vaccine for another pandemic at least. So yeah, Australians had
36:52
Speaker 16: to do a lot of things. And another important thing
36:54
Speaker 16: with the review is they said, we need that leaders
36:57
Speaker 16: who are communicating messages need to be more unspare it
37:00
Speaker 16: and communicate evidence and if there isn't evidence for it,
37:04
Speaker 16: say there is ant evidence for it.
37:07
Speaker 2: Yeah. Just finally, Brett Sutton today said, well, at some
37:10
Speaker 2: point I had to guess because I didn't have all
37:12
Speaker 2: the information that I needed. I mean, I'm not sure
37:15
Speaker 2: that's going to go down well. But look, it was
37:17
Speaker 2: a dreadful time you became a national figure. We talked
37:22
Speaker 2: to you about fifty thousand times I think, so you've
37:25
Speaker 2: probably drifted back into your normal job. Great to see
37:28
Speaker 2: you again, Sanjaya. Thanks for making time today. That's just extraordinary.
37:35
Speaker 2: That wasn't now coming up after the break, more on
37:37
Speaker 2: that COVID report. We'll tucket talk it through and the
37:39
Speaker 2: US election. Plus, of course it's Wednesday night. Kel Richards
37:43
Speaker 2: is here with words that matter. That's all coming up next.
37:50
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Price with you. Andrew Bolt coming up
37:52
Speaker 2: at the top of the our Peter. We'll be back
37:53
Speaker 2: with you tomorrow night, and of course Keil Richards will
37:57
Speaker 2: join us. Before the end of the program. Let's bring
37:59
Speaker 2: in our on our broadcaster, Lucy Zelek and senior fellow
38:03
Speaker 2: at the Menzies Research Center, Nick Cator. Welcome to both
38:06
Speaker 2: of you. We'll get into COVID and the US election shortly,
38:10
Speaker 2: but I want to talk about this new wage deal
38:12
Speaker 2: at New South Wales public school teachers have gotten during
38:15
Speaker 2: the week a nine percent pay rise that's over three years.
38:19
Speaker 2: I also get three extra pupil free staff development days. Okay,
38:23
Speaker 2: I could accept that, But the new deal is going
38:26
Speaker 2: to give teachers the right to disconnect work phones and
38:30
Speaker 2: laptops before nine am and after three pm, and a
38:35
Speaker 2: more generous deal and other full time workers, Lucy, I
38:39
Speaker 2: thought teachers the trade off of having all those holidays
38:43
Speaker 2: that they get through the year was that they did
38:46
Speaker 2: work after school hours.
38:49
Speaker 7: Yeah, and not only that, I thought the pay rise
38:51
Speaker 7: Steve was designed to also alleviate any of the angst
38:54
Speaker 7: that was afforded to them through having to do all
38:57
Speaker 7: these additional work.
38:58
Speaker 14: Hours, etc.
38:59
Speaker 7: Right, the question can be asked, are these good changes?
39:02
Speaker 7: But I think it should be rephrased to are these
39:04
Speaker 7: ambitious changes? Because it also doesn't factor in things like
39:08
Speaker 7: preparing for lessons, lesson planning.
39:10
Speaker 14: What about all those emails.
39:11
Speaker 7: That we're encouraged as parents to send to the schools
39:14
Speaker 7: to say, Hey, my child's experiencing issues academically or socially.
39:19
Speaker 7: When those things get addressed and don't forget This also.
39:22
Speaker 14: Follows on from the fact that last year.
39:24
Speaker 7: They also secured a further twenty percent pay rise for
39:27
Speaker 7: some staff in their first years. Now, I don't think
39:30
Speaker 7: anyone's in dispute of the fact that our teachers deserve
39:33
Speaker 7: to pay rise. But this whole concept of the right
39:35
Speaker 7: to disconnect and it being more generous than most other
39:39
Speaker 7: employees receiving, that's kind of what's on the nose for
39:42
Speaker 7: a lot of people. And when you also consider that
39:45
Speaker 7: they'll also receive a further one thousand dollars relief payment
39:48
Speaker 7: if inflation exceeds four and a half percent at any time,
39:51
Speaker 7: it sort of starts to make you wonder, hey, is
39:54
Speaker 7: this the right thing to be going forward with.
39:56
Speaker 14: You know, all of it sounds good in theory, but
39:58
Speaker 14: this right.
39:59
Speaker 7: To disconnect is, as I said, something that really needs
40:01
Speaker 7: to be considered a lot more because it sounds great
40:04
Speaker 7: on paper, but is it actually going to work in
40:07
Speaker 7: the real world and practically, because as it stands, teachers
40:10
Speaker 7: con strolling at eight fifty nine and as soon as
40:12
Speaker 7: that bell goes at three pm they can completely log
40:15
Speaker 7: off and ignore every other responsibility by the letter of
40:17
Speaker 7: the law now, and I don't think that that makes
40:19
Speaker 7: a lot of sense to most involved.
40:23
Speaker 2: Nicka, I thought we were trying to turbo charge productivity.
40:26
Speaker 2: This is doing exactly the opposite, isn't it.
40:31
Speaker 1: I'd be in favor of these pay rises, Steve, if
40:35
Speaker 1: there was a commensurate rise in our nat Plan scores,
40:39
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you have a job. You get
40:40
Speaker 1: paid for doing a job better nat Plan scores. By
40:44
Speaker 1: every measure, our kids are doing worse, even though we're
40:48
Speaker 1: paying a lot more to educate the more per pupil.
40:51
Speaker 1: As for these pupil three days, well, you know what
40:56
Speaker 1: would you be thinking if you're a mom who works
40:57
Speaker 1: in a supermarket checkout? You know, so you've got to
41:00
Speaker 1: take three extra days off or find childcare for those
41:04
Speaker 1: three days because they're having a pupil free day. I mean,
41:06
Speaker 1: I think you probably want a customer free day, wouldn't
41:09
Speaker 1: you if you were working on a checkout You never
41:11
Speaker 1: get them, of course.
41:14
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, I'm very reluctant to be super critical of teachers,
41:18
Speaker 2: but it's not their fault. I mean, the union went
41:20
Speaker 2: to the New South Wales government, and the New South
41:22
Speaker 2: Wales government rolled over and said, scratch our tummy, no worries,
41:25
Speaker 2: all good lucy. How bad was COVID for you? I mean,
41:28
Speaker 2: I've read this COVID report today, or tried to read it,
41:31
Speaker 2: eight hundred odd pages. All it's done for me? Is
41:34
Speaker 2: trigger me. I mean, oh, I'll be able to sleep tonight.
41:36
Speaker 2: It's made me go back to you know, Dan Andrews
41:38
Speaker 2: saying don't leave the house after nine o'clock or the
41:41
Speaker 2: police will come and arrest you. And you can only
41:43
Speaker 2: have one friend and you've got to walk for an hour,
41:45
Speaker 2: and don't play golf on your own in the middle
41:47
Speaker 2: of nowhere. It's triggering this, but I'm not sure it
41:51
Speaker 2: actually is preparing us for the next pandemic.
41:57
Speaker 11: It's not.
41:57
Speaker 14: And you know, I agree with you, Steve.
41:59
Speaker 7: I think it was trigger for a lot of people
42:00
Speaker 7: to have to read and you know, look at the
42:03
Speaker 7: findings of this inquiry.
42:04
Speaker 14: I mean, if I could respond immaturely, it.
42:06
Speaker 7: Would be with the word dar We all knew that
42:08
Speaker 7: these things were going to occur if you removed children
42:11
Speaker 7: from social situations, from exposure to their friends, telling them
42:15
Speaker 7: they couldn't go outside, that they had to limit their
42:17
Speaker 7: time outside, you know, forcing women like myself, a woman
42:20
Speaker 7: at seven months pregnant, to take which I didn't, by
42:23
Speaker 7: the way, vehemently I said, I'm not going to take
42:25
Speaker 7: an unproven shop. But forcing people under these mandates to
42:29
Speaker 7: take these vaccines which were unproven and untested. I think
42:33
Speaker 7: it all really, all that reminds us of is that
42:36
Speaker 7: we knew at the time that these things were wrong,
42:38
Speaker 7: and all this talk of potentially going down the path
42:41
Speaker 7: of a royal commission. I mean, Australians have been almost
42:44
Speaker 7: over exposed to the concept of a royal commission.
42:47
Speaker 14: When we look at some of the findings, all we
42:48
Speaker 14: do is say, yes, we told you at the time
42:51
Speaker 14: that this was the problem.
42:52
Speaker 7: And what really, what would applying more scrutiny do to
42:55
Speaker 7: this situation.
42:56
Speaker 14: It would effectively be getting the.
42:57
Speaker 7: Turkeys to vote for Christmas, because it would have to
43:00
Speaker 7: put our politicians and many of our health experts in
43:03
Speaker 7: situations where they would have to admit that they were wrong.
43:06
Speaker 14: And how many of them want to really do that?
43:08
Speaker 7: I mean, you spoke to Professor Sunjay earlier before the
43:11
Speaker 7: break and you know he admitted that there weren't all
43:13
Speaker 7: that many surprises from the inquiry.
43:15
Speaker 14: What we do know is that it was an absolute disgrace.
43:19
Speaker 7: And the thing that I've probably liked watching and observing
43:21
Speaker 7: the most is people like members of small businesses in
43:25
Speaker 7: the community in the state of Victoria taking matters into
43:28
Speaker 7: their own hands and creating a class action, unfortunately, which
43:32
Speaker 7: taxpayers have had to foot a ten million dollar bill
43:34
Speaker 7: for because it's going to the Supreme Court. But this
43:36
Speaker 7: is all that we're left with with Australian's feeling as
43:39
Speaker 7: though they were very hard done by.
43:40
Speaker 14: They lost businesses, in some cases people lost their lives,
43:44
Speaker 14: and we were the.
43:45
Speaker 7: Ones that were most affected by these ill decisions. We
43:47
Speaker 7: weren't prepared then, and I dare say that just by
43:50
Speaker 7: developing this Center of Diseases Control center in the country,
43:54
Speaker 7: that we will be going forward. I mean America had
43:56
Speaker 7: a CDC and a fat lot of good that did
43:58
Speaker 7: then because we had fauci manted admit that they were
44:01
Speaker 7: making up rules about distancing and how far you needed
44:04
Speaker 7: to be from other people. I mean, it's all a
44:07
Speaker 7: disgrace and all this does is reinforce as you said,
44:10
Speaker 7: just how difficult this time was for many Australians.
44:15
Speaker 2: And Nick, what do we do to Dan Andrews, Well,
44:16
Speaker 2: we give him a three hundred thousand dollars a year
44:19
Speaker 2: tax free pension for life, a driver free airfares, a
44:24
Speaker 2: statue to be built of him, and he gets a
44:26
Speaker 2: job as a chairman of a mental health organization. We're
44:30
Speaker 2: crazy in Victoria.
44:34
Speaker 1: I'm very much against chopping down statues, but in this
44:38
Speaker 1: case I might make an exception as soon as it
44:40
Speaker 1: had put up the point. I think the points that
44:43
Speaker 1: have been raised are very very valid. We knew what
44:46
Speaker 1: we knew, We knew everything that was going wrong. We
44:48
Speaker 1: know how to avoid this next time, and that's to
44:51
Speaker 1: take away these ridiculous emergency powers that people like Dan
44:55
Speaker 1: Andrews and in fact every government, including the federal government,
44:58
Speaker 1: were able to seize upon. Because then politicians just get together,
45:01
Speaker 1: they bypass Parliament, they bypass their own party rooms. They
45:05
Speaker 1: make these authoritarian decisions from the top down, just with
45:09
Speaker 1: a handful of so called health bureaucrats in the room,
45:13
Speaker 1: and they're wrong, they're mistaken. We must never ever do
45:16
Speaker 1: lockdowns again. We must take a very sensible attitude to
45:20
Speaker 1: vaccines and the which we didn't take this time around.
45:23
Speaker 1: People just to have their liberty. People need to be
45:26
Speaker 1: responsible for their own health and less of this top down,
45:31
Speaker 1: you know, police on the streets. No, never again. I
45:35
Speaker 1: just hope we can learn that lesson from this report,
45:37
Speaker 1: and that's at least one thing that could come out
45:40
Speaker 1: of it.
45:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think Australians are put up with it again,
45:44
Speaker 2: so good to catch up with you both, Lucy and Nick.
45:47
Speaker 2: Thank you very much and you'll be back with Peter
45:49
Speaker 2: of course at the same time next week. Coming up
45:51
Speaker 2: after the break. Lots of words to toss at our
45:54
Speaker 2: matekil Richards, welcome back. It's that time of the week.
46:01
Speaker 2: Let's bring in wordsmith and broadcaster Kel Richard's Kel fantastic
46:05
Speaker 2: to see you again. I've used the word fascist a
46:08
Speaker 2: couple of times tonight. Donald Trump has been accused by
46:11
Speaker 2: his opponents of being a fascist. What's the actual met
46:14
Speaker 2: I mean, we know about the Nazi history and the
46:17
Speaker 2: Hitler history, what's the actual history of that word.
46:21
Speaker 17: Bernito Mussolini chose fascist for the name of his political party,
46:25
Speaker 17: National Fascist Party in nineteen twenty one, and he chose
46:29
Speaker 17: it because it was the title of a group of
46:31
Speaker 17: magistrates in ancient Rome. They walked around the streets carrying
46:35
Speaker 17: a bundle of rods as their symbol of office. They
46:38
Speaker 17: never actually hid anyone with them, but it was a
46:40
Speaker 17: symbol of the fact that they ruled by force. And
46:43
Speaker 17: the old Latin word for rods was something like fasci,
46:47
Speaker 17: so from that they were called the fascists. Mussolini liked
46:51
Speaker 17: the idea of ruling by force, so he borrowed the
46:54
Speaker 17: word from those ancient Roman magistrates with the goal of
46:58
Speaker 17: setting up a nationalist dictator that ruled by force. The
47:02
Speaker 17: problem with applying it to Trump is it cheapens the word,
47:05
Speaker 17: so when real fascists turn up in the world, we
47:07
Speaker 17: don't have a strong word to name them. So it
47:10
Speaker 17: is very sad that it's being bandied around in this way.
47:12
Speaker 2: Steve, Yeah, well said Still on the politics, John is
47:18
Speaker 2: a big fan of yours. He said, in political terms,
47:20
Speaker 2: why does the word And I've had a lot of
47:22
Speaker 2: my mates ask me this, why does the word liberal
47:25
Speaker 2: have completely opposite meanings in Australia compared to the United States.
47:30
Speaker 17: It's a good question, isn't it, Steve, And I've wondered
47:32
Speaker 17: the same thing, So I had to do a bit
47:33
Speaker 17: of digging in research. Early in the twentieth century, the
47:36
Speaker 17: left wing the Liberals called themselves progressives, but after Franklin
47:40
Speaker 17: Roosevelt and his New Deal, they took with a lot
47:43
Speaker 17: of government intervention in those days in the New Deal.
47:47
Speaker 17: During the Great Depression, they took to calling themselves liberal socialists.
47:53
Speaker 17: Then the nineteen fifties hit and suddenly the Cold War
47:57
Speaker 17: and anything that was remotely socialist or communists out the window.
48:01
Speaker 17: So they dropped the socialist part of it and just
48:03
Speaker 17: call themselves liberals. So they completely abandoned the heritage by
48:09
Speaker 17: people like John Locke and John Stuart Mill, the great
48:12
Speaker 17: libertarian heritage behind liberal. So the English speaking world is
48:16
Speaker 17: divided into two groups, those people for whom liberal means liberty,
48:20
Speaker 17: and those people the Americans, for whom liberal means interventionist
48:24
Speaker 17: government interventionist. But it's because of what happened under Franklin
48:28
Speaker 17: Roosevelt and then the fact that they had to drop
48:30
Speaker 17: the socialist part of their self chosen title when the
48:33
Speaker 17: Cold War hit.
48:36
Speaker 2: I've known you for decades. You always dress impeccably. Now
48:40
Speaker 2: Michael has asked, so good question. Is there such a
48:45
Speaker 2: word as peckable.
48:46
Speaker 17: Yes, there is, Steve. It's existed since about sixteen oh four,
48:51
Speaker 17: and peckable meant able to sin. So when the opposite
48:54
Speaker 17: came in, impeccable it meant unable to sin. So when
48:57
Speaker 17: it first came in, it only ever applied to say,
49:00
Speaker 17: but you know what we like, We like to water
49:02
Speaker 17: words down and incapable of sinning was not a goal
49:07
Speaker 17: that a lot of people were aiming at, so impeccable
49:10
Speaker 17: came to mean just well dressed, but there really was
49:13
Speaker 17: a word peckable. You could try out on your friends
49:15
Speaker 17: and baffle everyone at a dinner party.
49:17
Speaker 2: Steve, that's a good idea, Thank you very much. And
49:21
Speaker 2: you do dress impeccably. You always have. Curl Richards, the
49:24
Speaker 2: Great Curl Richards will be back with Peter Kredlin next week.
49:27
Speaker 2: Now I'll be back with you, of course on Friday night.
49:30
Speaker 2: Andrew Bolt, my great mate Andrew Bolt, is coming up.
49:33
Speaker 2: There has been some developments in the issue with the
49:35
Speaker 2: Prime Minister and his upgrades. I'm sure Andrew will have
49:39
Speaker 2: the latest. Thank you, Peter. Back tomorrow