Latest / The Bolt Report / The Bolt Report | 3 September

Transcript

The Bolt Report | 3 September · The Bolt Report

• 0:11
  Speaker 1: This is The Bolt Report.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Welcome to The Bolt Report. I'm James McPherson. Here's what's
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: coming up tonight. A One Nation candidate with no political
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: experience is the bookmaker's favourite to win former Victorian Premier
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Jacinta Allen's seat. I'm starting to wonder if no political
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: experience used as a term of derision by the media
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: is now an electoral advantage. I'll talk to Barnaby Joyce
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: about that in a moment. The government's Climate Change Authority
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: has said people who question the benefits of renewable energy
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: may be guilty of spreading misinformation. If only they were
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: as focused on lowering power prices as silencing those of
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: us who can't afford electricity. And Meghan Markle might have
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: a tough time finding staff to work for her after
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: her bizarre interview techniques have been made public. I'll get
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: into that shortly with Patrick Christies from London. But first,
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: the Albanese government has announced it will spend $ 2 million
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: helping to fund a national database that records hateful things
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: said about Indigenous people. Now, you can see the problem already,
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: can't you? Who decides what is and what is not hateful?
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: For instance, is it hateful to say the Aboriginal flag
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: shouldn't be flown on government buildings?
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: Is that hateful?
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Is it hateful to say welcome to country ceremonies are insulting?
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Is it hateful to boo an AFL player ducking for
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: free kicks if he's Aboriginal, like former Swans player Adam Goodes?
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Are those the sort of opinions now being logged at
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: taxpayer expense so that activists... can build their case that
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Australia is inherently racist?
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: Well, I'll show you in a moment.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Indigenous Affairs Minister Melendiri McCarthy said the call it out
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: register would be used to inform government policy on combating racism.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: She told journalists, and I quote, I encourage Aboriginal and
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Torres Strait Islander people to engage with Call It Out
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: and report their experiences and call on all Australians to
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: call out racism when they see it. Well, OK, so
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: today I went on to the Call It Out register,
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: which is receiving your taxpayer money because I wanted to
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: see precisely what sort of material is going to be collected. Well,
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: the first thing I learned having logged on was that
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: those administrating the website were doing so on stolen grounds.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: So there you go.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: As a white Australian, the first thing I'm told when
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: I log on to the anti-racism database is that what
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: I always thought was my country, I don't have any other, isn't.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: So I wondered if there was a government funded website
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: where I could register my objection to that because it
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: did seem kind of racist towards me. Of course, there
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: isn't such a website. So having been reminded that Australia
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: was stolen from Indigenous people, you're then instructed to provide
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: details of, and I quote, anything that you feel is
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: unfair or unjust towards First Nations people, e.g. interpersonal or
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: structural bias, prejudice or discrimination.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: Anything you feel.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: That's quite a remarkable evidentiary standard, by which I mean
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: it's pretty vague. And a quick scan of the most
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: recent reports of racism highlighted on this website that will
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: now be funded with your money, well, they're pretty vague,
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: to say the least. Here's an example that was featured
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: prominently on the website as evidence of racism in this country,
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: and I quote, Everywhere I go, no matter where, if
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: it's around non-Indigenous.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: People, I feel a hate vibe. I'm not joking.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: That comment was actually used as a banner on the website.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Surely evidence of racism has to be based on more
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: than a vibe. And isn't it kind of racist to
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: say that all white people give off a hate vibe?
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: For a second, I had to remember this was a
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: website to collect instances of hate against Indigenous people rather
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: than by Indigenous people. Here's another comment featured prominently on
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: the website. Now, remember, your taxpayer money is now being
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: used to fund the collection of this stuff, which will
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: inform government policy and anti-racism action.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: The comment went like this.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Sometimes when I'm doing cultural dance, I feel a bit judged.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: People whisper. Well, I get that too.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: When I dance, although admittedly, nobody's ever mistaken me for
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: a cultural dancer.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: Here's another.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: My ancestors connect to me spiritually. Sometimes my ancestors will say,
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: this isn't a safe space for you. Other times they're saying,
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: you should stand your ground. Now, I'm not here to
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: critique Aboriginal spirituality, but surely messages from the other side
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: are not evidence of racism. They are at most evidence
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: that someone believes their deceased ancestors are sending them messages.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: I could go on and on with examples from the
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Call It Out website that our Indigenous Affairs Minister is
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: now so enamoured with, she wants to back it with
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: millions of your dollars. Let me give you just one
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: more prominent post on the website. Remember, this is from
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: a now government-funded website that the Indigenous Affairs Minister says
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: will be used to inform government policy.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: I quote.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: I saw a young First Nations girl in year eight
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: standing there crying and talking to a teacher who wasn't
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: First Nations.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: I asked her if she was OK.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: She said she felt culturally unsafe, uncomfortable and that the
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: school was whitewashed. Now, perhaps this young girl genuinely felt
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: uncomfortable and that feeling may have been worth addressing.
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: But is it evidence? of racism?
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: And more importantly, should it become part of a national
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: database being used to inform government policy? Because this isn't
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: just some online complaint box.
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: The Albanese government.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: Is putting $ 2 million into it. The Indigenous Affairs Minister
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: justified spending millions on this website, saying, this investment will
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: strengthen the important work of Call It Out and support
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: efforts to collate rigorous data.
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: Rigorous data indeed. I mean, rigorous data.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: Usually means something that can be independently verified. A person
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: saying they experienced a hate vibe, that's an experience. A
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: person saying they felt culturally unsafe is an experience. A
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: person believing their ancestors told them a place wasn't safe
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: is an otherworldly experience. But subjective experiences and allegations aren't
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: evidence of racism. And if the government's going to spend
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: $ 2 million of our money collecting this stuff, we're entitled
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: to ask what exactly it intends to do with the
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: resulting database. If subjective feelings, perceptions and unverifiable allegations are
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: going to be counted as evidence of systemic racism, well,
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: perhaps Australians should ask another question. Is the government measuring
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: racism or is it measuring how many people feel racist
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: things are happening?
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: Because... Those are two very different things.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: And if you collect enough of the second, you could
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: probably manufacture a very impressive looking case for the first,
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: all courtesy of the Australian taxpayer. Now, this obsession with
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: dividing our beautiful country by race is absolutely everywhere, not
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: least in our universities. Today is National Flag Day, so
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: One Nation candidate Colleen Harkin went to see how Melbourne
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: University was celebrating the symbol that unites us.
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: Here I am standing at Melbourne University and standing behind
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: me is two flagpoles. Not one Australian flagpole, we have two.
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: And only the Aboriginal and the Torres Strait Islanders flags.
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: But this is what we talk about when we say
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: this is divisive. There's no Australian flag here. It's dividing
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: us by ethnicity and heritage. We are one nation. We
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: are one country. We stand under one flag.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: And we wonder why Victoria is so divided. This same
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: obsession with sorting Australians into racial categories doesn't stop.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: At university campuses.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: It increasingly finds its way into government policy and nowhere
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: more so than in Victoria.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: You know, there was a.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Time in this country when winning a government contract was
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: pretty simple. You demonstrated experience, competence, reliability and value for money.
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: Not so much anymore.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: In Victoria, companies can access millions of dollars in government
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: work by satisfying a rather different qualification, their ancestry. The
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: Victorian Labor Government requires 1% of government procurement to go
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: to so-called Indigenous businesses.
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: And an Indigenous business.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: Is generally one that has at least 51% Indigenous ownership,
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: which creates a rather extraordinary situation. Business managers are having
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: to argue not about their expertise, but about their DNA.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: The Herald Sun reported today that several Victorian businesses have
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: had their Indigenous certification suspended or revoked amid allegations of
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: what's called black cladding. That's businesses that allegedly present themselves
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: as Indigenous-owned so they can access contracts reserved for Indigenous enterprises.
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: And here's the amazing thing. According to this report.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: It's become so ugly that some Indigenous businesses claim rival
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: Aboriginal groups are trying to have their certifications revoked so
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: they can steal their contracts. So we've now got this
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: extraordinary spectacle of government officials investigating who's Indigenous enough to
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: qualify for taxpayer-funded work. Doesn't this tell us something about
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: the wisdom or otherwise of handing out government contracts on
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: the basis of race? If you create a special lane
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: on the government gravy train for businesses of a particular
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: racial background, we shouldn't be surprised when everyone suddenly becomes
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: very interested in proving who belongs in that lane or
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: who doesn't. Because suddenly the most important question in a
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: government tender isn't, can you do the job? It's, Can
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: you prove who your grandmother is? Imagine applying, for example,
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: for a bridge building contract. Okay, so you've got 20
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: years experience, excellent safety record, outstanding qualifications.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: Fantastic.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Just before we sign the contract, what percentage Aboriginal are you?
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's a bizarre way to run an economy.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: While I'm submitting my resume, my competitor is submitting his
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: family tree. Indigenous Australians should have every opportunity to build
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: successful businesses, employ people and compete. But there's a fundamental
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: difference between helping people overcome barriers and allocating contracts.
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: According to racial classification.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, honestly, does the taxpayer care whether the company
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: fixing the road has ancestors stretching back 60,000 years?
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: I don't think so.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: The taxpayer just wants the road fixed. And there's an
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: unfortunate irony in all of this. A system designed to
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: advance Indigenous business risks undermining confidence in Indigenous business when
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: the certification itself becomes the subject of bitter disputes.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: The government should want.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: Indigenous businesses to succeed because they're good at business, not
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: because they have the right skin colour. The ultimate goal
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: should be an economy where an Indigenous businessman wins a
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: government contract because he's the best person for the job,
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: not because he has the right bloodline. What I wouldn't
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: give for a country where ancestry is something.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: You inherit, yeah, but it's not your resume.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: Bookmakers have won nation as favourites to win Jacinta Allen's
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: former seat of East Bendigo at the Victorian state election
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: in November. Imagine that, a One Nation candidate replacing the
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: former Victorian Premier in her old seat. For voters angry
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: they didn't get a chance to punt Jacinta Allen. She
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: announced last month she won't contest the poll. It'd be
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: something of sweet revenge, I imagine. Jacinta Allen replaced by
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: One Nation. It'd be a remarkable achievement if it happens.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: One Nation only got 5.7% of the vote in 2022. Now,
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: you've got to remember that bookmaker odds and opinion polls
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: are very different things, but still, Sportsbet has One Nation
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: as favourite to win the seat at $ 1. 83, followed closely
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: by the Nationals at $ 2. 50, with Labour lagging behind at $ 6.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: But here's the line that caught my attention when this
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: was reported in the Herald Sun today. I quote, a
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: cattle farmer with no political experience. is the shock frontrunner
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: to claim Jacinta Allen's former seat of East Bendigo. The
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: minor party announced on Wednesday it had selected cattle farmer
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: and grandmother Cheryl Hawken to contest the seat.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: So there you go. That's the big headline.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: One nation's candidate has, and I quote, no political experience.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: To which I think most people would reply, and, or maybe,
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: thank God. I mean, most of our Labor government ministers
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: have been in politics all their lives and the country
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: is a complete disaster.
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: I think it's kind of funny.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: How people who live in the real world, you know,
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: people who actually work for a living and know how
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: to balance budgets and live within their means are classified.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: As too inexperienced for politics.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: And yet career politicians who've lived off the backs of
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: taxpayers all their lives are somehow qualified to run the country.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: If the political class is wondering why voters are increasingly
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: attracted to outsiders, maybe they should consider the possibility that
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: voters aren't necessarily looking for someone with more political experience.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: They might be looking for something rather more exotic, you know,
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: like real-world experience and competence, and maybe even someone who
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: knows what a real job looks like. Joining me now
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: is One Nation MP and former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce. Barnaby,
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: do you think the political class has become so detached
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: from ordinary Aussies that not having political experience might almost
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: these days be an electoral advantage?
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Look at this.
• 14:52
  Speaker 5: Cheryl Hawkins. What a terrible candidate. single mother, dairy farmer,
• 14:57
  Speaker 5: cattle producer, grandmother. Gosh, it sounds like she lived. Can't
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: have any of them. I mean, she should be a
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: student unionist with a massive socialist chip on her shoulder
• 15:08
  Speaker 5: whose only experience has been going from one political office
• 15:11
  Speaker 5: to another political office after leaving student union politics at
• 15:15
  Speaker 5: Melbourne University.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, apparently they're the.
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: Candidates we want, but they're not the candidates the political
• 15:21
  Speaker 5: class want, but they're not the candidates that people want.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: And we saw that in Secret Harbour.
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: And Cheryl's a great candidate because she's real. And I
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: bet you what, she's damn well had more experience in
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: business than the vast majority of other people I've seen
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: in that socialist, you know, Republic of Victoria. What a
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: basket case that place is. I'm not surprised that One
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: Nation are leading the polls. And, you know, I hope
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: they go really well because, by gosh, that place, it
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: is disastrous. I mean, down there, I mean, the last
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: person to turn off the lights, that's what's happening in Victoria.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: Well, when I speak to people around the place and,
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: you know, you bring up the fact that, well, a
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: lot of these One Nation candidates, they're not that experienced
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: in politics, most people smile and say, that's wonderful the
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: way the country's going. I tell you who is experienced
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: in politics, that's the Prime Minister. He's at the Pacific
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: Islands Forum where he's had to defend the United States
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: after some of our Pacific partners wondered how they could
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: condemn China for its recent missile test when the US
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: also tests missiles.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: Here's what he said. The US.
• 16:23
  Speaker 6: gives proper notice, has an agreement with the Marshall Islands.
• 16:27
  Speaker 6: What we saw with the Chinese test was a firing
• 16:34
  Speaker 6: of a missile with very little notice, certainly not what
• 16:40
  Speaker 6: is expected internationally.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: Barnaby, while that's true, isn't the more pertinent point that
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: when the US test missiles, they're practising for our defence,
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: but when the Chinese do it, they're practising for an attack?
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and the IC, Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, which the Chinese tested,
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: was remarkably close to the agreement. And, you know, credit
• 17:01
  Speaker 5: where credit's due, that the government did with Vanuatu and
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: Fiji and the Chinese got their nose completely, not the
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: Chinese people, the Chinese totalitarian regime, the Chinese Communist Party.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: They got their nose completely out of.
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: Joint and so sent an ICBM off into the Pacific
• 17:17
  Speaker 5: just to give us notice then. Remarkably and coincidentally, but
• 17:20
  Speaker 5: we can never actually get to the bottom of it,
• 17:22
  Speaker 5: it was like the next day our Telstra network went down.
• 17:25
  Speaker 5: No-one's actually ever denied that it had anything to do
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: with the Chinese. They just refused to talk at the
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: Chinese Communist Party. They just refused to sort of mention it,
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: sweep it under the carpet. But we've got to be really,
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: really careful. What that shows is the overt nature of
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: the Communist Party in China is They do not like
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: coming second.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: They will push forward. They are projecting power.
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: And the future for us is as a vassal state,
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: unless we get our act together and become as powerful
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: as possible, as quickly as possible.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: And you're dead right. I mean, if the United States of.
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: America wasn't there, by gosh, wouldn't we be in a
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: real pickle? Because I don't think the Australian Navy can
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: stand up to the Chinese one, nor our Air Force
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: stand up to the Chinese one. And I don't think
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: our missiles will quite match up with the nuclear power
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: which is the Communist People's Republic of China.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: I think you're right.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: All right, I've got to ask you about the copycat coalition,
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: or at least that's how it seems to me. Today
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: they announced that if they win the next election, they'll
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: slash the tobacco tax by 80%. I think it's good policy,
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: but it comes two weeks after your party announced that
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: if elected, you'd cut the tax by 75%. Here was
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: opposition leader Angus Taylor this morning.
• 18:35
  Speaker 7: We're very confident. At an 80% cut, we will smash
• 18:39
  Speaker 7: the business model of the criminal gangs who are supporting
• 18:43
  Speaker 7: illegal tobacco. We've been working closely with the Parliamentary Budget Office.
• 18:47
  Speaker 7: We know that is the point at which that business
• 18:50
  Speaker 7: model simply doesn't work anymore.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: Sir Barnaby, they've copied your policy and undercut you by 5%.
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, you don't have to talk to the
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: Parliamentary Budget Office. I know, look, good luck and God
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: bless them. They're following One Nation policy and they've been
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: doing that a bit lately with whether it's excise, whether
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: it's issues pertinent to superannuation. I mean, there's so many
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: things that they're following us on. Immigration, of course, the
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: big one. But look, you don't have to listen to
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: the Parliamentary Budget Office. You could listen to Charles Dover,
• 19:20
  Speaker 5: I think he was back in about a bit before 1700, 1699, thereabouts.
• 19:25
  Speaker 5: Or Antoine Augustin Cournot, he was around about the 1830s.
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: But the person they should really listen to is a bloke.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: By the name of Alfred Marshall. He wrote a little
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: book called The Principles of Economics. It's an interesting read
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: if you ever get bored.
• 19:41
  Speaker 5: And it talks about this wonderful thing called marginal utility.
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: And it's these things called neoclassical microeconomics.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: And what it says is this remarkable concept that if.
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: You put up the price of something, people buy less
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: of them and they'll find an alternative product.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: And that's kind of what's happening with the illegal cigarette market.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: We've put up the price. So a packet of bungers is.
• 20:01
  Speaker 5: About $ 55 and people know they can buy them for $ 15.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: We all know that.
• 20:05
  Speaker 5: And so they're going down the street and buying them
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: for $ 15 off the mafia. And unless we want to
• 20:11
  Speaker 5: stop funding the mafia, because when we.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: I think we may have lost Barnaby Joyce there, of course.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: Tanya Plevisek.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: Said it's a terrible idea to reduce the tax excise
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: on tobacco because it means people will die, forgetting the
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: fact we've had two people shot dead in Sydney over
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: the last 48 hours in gangland wars. And there was
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: another firebombing in Victoria just this morning.
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: So there you go.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: All right, we're going to go to a break. When
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: we come back, AI is meant to make us smarter, right? Well,
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: one New South Wales university is using AI chatbots to
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: teach psychology students. I can't believe that. I'll talk to
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: an AI expert after this break.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: Stick around.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: A New South Wales university has decided it'll use an
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: AI chatbot to help teach psychology. Psychology is the study
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: of human behaviour, thought and emotion. So using an AI
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: chatbot makes perfect sense. Macquarie University has introduced the chatbot
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: it calls Virtual Peer into two compulsory psychology subjects, replacing
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: the weekly Zoom tutorials previously conducted by academics. Now, the
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: uni insists the chatbot doesn't replace educators, and I'm sure
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: it doesn't. It just replaces the part where an educator
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: actually talks to you. Macquarie says the AI is designed
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: to support learning. Well, OK, but there's a rather magnificent irony,
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: is there not, in outsourcing the teaching of human psychology
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: to something that has never experienced a human emotion, had
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: a relationship, felt loneliness or had to sit through a
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: university lecture.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: Maybe this is cutting edge.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: I suspect it's a surefire way to graduate psych students
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: who understand everything about humans except what makes them humans.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: Joining me now is CEO of Sovereign Australia AI, Simon Criss.
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: Simon, welcome to the program. What am I missing here?
• 22:11
  Speaker 8: Now, you're not missing anything, and the irony is not
• 22:14
  Speaker 8: lost on me, too. From what I understand, this chat
• 22:18
  Speaker 8: bot's being used for a number of subjects, but introducing
• 22:22
  Speaker 8: it to psychology in particular is an interesting twist. I mean,
• 22:26
  Speaker 8: the information that we've seen around it is a little
• 22:29
  Speaker 8: bit light on for detail in terms of what type
• 22:32
  Speaker 8: of AI are they using? How was this model built?
• 22:35
  Speaker 8: How is it actually being deployed? While it might be
• 22:39
  Speaker 8: great for some students that actually enjoy interfacing that way,
• 22:44
  Speaker 8: there will be other students that will feel quite left
• 22:47
  Speaker 8: out by it.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: Well, it seems to me that, you know, universities and
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: other organisations use AI and spruik it as if because
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: it's AI, it must therefore be cutting edge and taking
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: things forward. But that's not necessarily going to be the case.
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: Is it? No, no.
• 23:05
  Speaker 8: In actual fact, often it's not the case. While the
• 23:10
  Speaker 8: frontier models are doing amazing work at reasoning and trying
• 23:14
  Speaker 8: to be more like a human, being a human is
• 23:18
  Speaker 8: being a human. As you said, you know, these tools
• 23:22
  Speaker 8: have never actually gone through a breakup or lost a
• 23:25
  Speaker 8: parent or, you know, been through that type of thing.
• 23:29
  Speaker 8: And so, you know, short of telling the kids how
• 23:33
  Speaker 8: to say, And how do you feel about that?
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: I wonder about its value.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: Well, Canberra seems to be having its own problems with AI.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: Analysis revealed that an increasing number of policy submissions to
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: our MPs are being generated by AI, which is attributing
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: non-existent studies and non-existent research to actual academics and authors.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: And a couple of questions about this. First, who is
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: ultimately responsible for when a parliamentary committee is given fabricated research,
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: is it the person who submitted it or is it
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: the AI they used?
• 24:08
  Speaker 8: It's definitely not the AI they used. Every legal opinion
• 24:11
  Speaker 8: that I've seen on this talks about that the final step,
• 24:17
  Speaker 8: it belongs to a human. And so a human has
• 24:20
  Speaker 8: submitted this and therefore they must be accountable for their work.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: Is this ultimately a problem with AI or it's actually
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: a problem with the people who, I guess, are too
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: lazy to check whether what AI is telling them is
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: actually true?
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: That's where the fault lies, right?
• 24:37
  Speaker 8: Yeah, look, humans will be humans and we'll always take
• 24:39
  Speaker 8: the shortest path from A to B. And if there's
• 24:43
  Speaker 8: an easy way to get your job done, hey, you know,
• 24:46
  Speaker 8: let's do that. That's kind of the Australian way. But,
• 24:50
  Speaker 8: you know, a lot of this is both, you know,
• 24:53
  Speaker 8: there might be a little bit of laziness, but there's
• 24:55
  Speaker 8: also probably a lack of AI literacy. A lot of
• 24:58
  Speaker 8: people that are using these tools don't understand that most
• 25:03
  Speaker 8: language models, in fact, pretty much all language models, operate
• 25:07
  Speaker 8: on a probability scale. And so if you ask it
• 25:10
  Speaker 8: to execute something, if you ask it to research something
• 25:13
  Speaker 8: and no research exists, the model will tend not to
• 25:17
  Speaker 8: come back and say, I don't know. It will tend
• 25:19
  Speaker 8: to come back and say, well, here's a probable thing
• 25:23
  Speaker 8: that would fill that request. And so there needs to
• 25:26
  Speaker 8: be a lot more literacy around how these tools actually
• 25:31
  Speaker 8: work and therefore how they should be used.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: OK, that's really fascinating. I did not know that's the
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: model on which it operates. I want to ask you
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: about Defence Minister Richard Marles. He's in the United States
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: at the moment and he's endorsed Australia's AI take up
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: as a sovereignty and national defence issue. Here he was
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: speaking today after meeting with his US counterpart, Pete Hegseth.
• 25:55
  Speaker 9: AI is going to be a part of the way
• 25:58
  Speaker 9: in which defence is undertaken around the world. And it
• 26:01
  Speaker 9: really matters that we have access to this technology. And
• 26:07
  Speaker 9: it therefore matters that we have agency here.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: I know this is going to be a broad question,
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: but in what ways will AI transform national defence? Can
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: you give me some examples of what he might be
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: talking about?
• 26:22
  Speaker 8: Yeah, look, there's physical use cases, you know, drone targeting
• 26:28
  Speaker 8: and so forth. There's the human side of it, so
• 26:33
  Speaker 8: assessing whether or not a battalion is fit and ready
• 26:36
  Speaker 8: to make a charge over a hill. There's a whole
• 26:40
  Speaker 8: pile of use cases identifying threat actors early, things like that,
• 26:46
  Speaker 8: that would be of interest to Defence.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: Is relying too heavily on AI... a security issue as well?
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, what happens if we're hacked by a hostile nation?
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: It seems to me there's two sides to this AI coin.
• 27:02
  Speaker 8: Yeah, and that's really interesting.
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: That Mr.
• 27:06
  Speaker 8: Miles decided to use the word agency. I struggle to
• 27:10
  Speaker 8: see how we would have agency without sovereignty. A few
• 27:15
  Speaker 8: weeks ago, we saw the American government make a call
• 27:19
  Speaker 8: on an anthropic model and suddenly we lost access to
• 27:23
  Speaker 8: it in Australia. That was 6pm on a Friday night.
• 27:27
  Speaker 8: How is that agency, until we have full control of
• 27:31
  Speaker 8: at least a subset of AI in this country, I
• 27:36
  Speaker 8: think we're going to struggle with this whole question of
• 27:39
  Speaker 8: agency and therefore we're Is our defence being set up
• 27:43
  Speaker 8: at the, you know, at the whim of the US president?
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: Alright, well, you've set me up perfectly for a question
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: I want to ask you about Treasurer Jim Chalmers, because
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: he's been talking up artificial intelligence as our economic saviour.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: He wrote an article in the Australian Financial Review effectively
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: likening the AI revolution to the industrial revolution, which it
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: may well be. The problem, as I see it, is
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: Labor's insistence on things like renewable energy, not to mention
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: its commitment to unions that likely insist no jobs can
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: be lost to AI. Those sort of policy positions don't
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: exactly position the Labor government to maximise the AI revolution,
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: do they?
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: No, not really.
• 28:24
  Speaker 8: And, you know, you need to understand that just getting
• 28:27
  Speaker 8: all of your workers to use Microsoft Copilot is not
• 28:30
  Speaker 8: going to move the needle anytime soon on true productivity gains.
• 28:35
  Speaker 8: It's only when agentic type processes are put in place
• 28:40
  Speaker 8: and the AI is actually really delivering tangible outcomes that
• 28:44
  Speaker 8: you'll start to see it. And while we'd all love
• 28:47
  Speaker 8: to live in a future where we work three days
• 28:50
  Speaker 8: a week instead of five because AI does the rest
• 28:53
  Speaker 8: of the work, that's still.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: A long way off.
• 28:56
  Speaker 8: So we need to be really careful about what we're
• 28:59
  Speaker 8: looking at and where the dollars are being spent. and
• 29:02
  Speaker 8: where that money is going. Today, if we're using an
• 29:06
  Speaker 8: offshore model sitting in an Amazon environment, there will be
• 29:10
  Speaker 8: mere cents in the dollar realised in Australia. All of
• 29:14
  Speaker 8: that economic benefit flows offshore. And we have to pull
• 29:18
  Speaker 8: that back if we're going to try and make these
• 29:21
  Speaker 8: productivity gains and see the type of wins that the
• 29:25
  Speaker 8: Honourable Mr Chalmers is talking about.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: Simon, Chris, it's fascinating to talk about and I'm sure
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: we'll be having a lot more of these conversations over
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: the next couple of years. Appreciate you joining me tonight.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: All right, coming up after the break, a Queenslander develops
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: a safe chief... cheap, portable nuclear reactor that provides electricity
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: at a third of the price we're currently paying. Donald
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: Trump loves the invention. Anthony Albanese has banned it.
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: That's next.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: An Australian engineer has developed a micro nuclear reactor that
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: can be mass produced in months, fits on the back
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: of a ute, and can run for five years before
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: it needs refueling. And when it does need refueling, you
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: just swap the nuclear reactor module, much like changing a
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: gas bottle. And here's the best part. It can produce
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: electricity for about a third of what Australians are currently paying. Naturally,
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: the Albanese government.
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: Has banned it.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: Here's the engineer, a Queenslander who Donald Trump has described
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: as one of the greatest in the world, Bobby Gallagher.
• 30:29
  Speaker 10: Energy security, which, you know, is a travesty, considering how
• 30:35
  Speaker 10: much energy resources we have in Australia, is probably one
• 30:40
  Speaker 10: of the biggest concerns. And so a technology like ours
• 30:45
  Speaker 10: would be.
• 30:47
  Speaker 10: Transformational for the Australian economy if it was allowed to
• 30:52
  Speaker 10: be deployed.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: Except Gallagher's nuclear reactor is not allowed to be deployed
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: in Australia. Our government would rather spend billions erecting thousands
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: of wind turbines, stringing transmission lines across the country and
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: covering enormous areas with solar panels. They'd rather that than
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: allow a tiny reactor on the.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: Back of a ute.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: Joining me now is Christy McSweeney from PR Council, who's
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: worked with Coalition Prime Ministers and Premiers and former Federal
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: Nationals Minister Peter McGoran.
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: Welcome to you both. Peter, I'll start with you.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: Australian technology providing Americans with cheap, reliable, low emission power,
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: but it's.
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: Not permitted here.
• 31:31
  Speaker 11: It's economic lunacy of the kind that's corroding Australia's standard
• 31:35
  Speaker 11: of living and jeopardising our energy future. So we're not
• 31:39
  Speaker 11: allowed to use gas or coal. All we're allowed to
• 31:44
  Speaker 11: use is hydro and renewables. Small modular reactors are taking
• 31:50
  Speaker 11: off around the world. There's four in operation, two in China,
• 31:54
  Speaker 11: two in Russia, and 70 in development. United Kingdom, Canada,
• 31:59
  Speaker 11: the United States, Japan, South Korea, a host of European countries, India.
• 32:05
  Speaker 11: So the technology is there, but this ban that was legislated...
• 32:09
  Speaker 11: 27 years ago is out of date. It was referring
• 32:13
  Speaker 11: to the big Three Mile Island or Chernobyl type reactors.
• 32:17
  Speaker 11: We have the technology. Thankfully, the opposition has committed to
• 32:23
  Speaker 11: lifting that ban if they come to office. But at
• 32:26
  Speaker 11: the moment, it's an ideological ban. It's not an engineering
• 32:30
  Speaker 11: or technological one.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you're exactly right, because, Christy, right now we're
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: paying record energy bills. Manufacturing is almost non-existent. We're doing
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: all of this not to save the planet, but to
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: support Labor ideology.
• 32:45
  Speaker 12: Well, we are. And we're giving $ 33 million to Twiggy Forest.
• 32:50
  Speaker 12: And then we're chasing him to pay back the money
• 32:52
  Speaker 12: because he shut down the green hydrogen plant he was
• 32:55
  Speaker 12: supposed to build with it because it didn't work. And
• 32:57
  Speaker 12: then we gave that same $ 33 million to Rio Tinto,
• 33:01
  Speaker 12: a global multi-billion dollar company with a market cap beyond
• 33:06
  Speaker 12: the realm of possibility of some of these smaller companies
• 33:09
  Speaker 12: like this gentleman here. who are just trying to innovate
• 33:12
  Speaker 12: and promote and be the next energy technology success story
• 33:17
  Speaker 12: in Australia. And I'm sure Peter will agree with me.
• 33:20
  Speaker 12: He's been a minister for a long time. The people
• 33:23
  Speaker 12: that we ignore in this country who are innovators, who
• 33:28
  Speaker 12: are technology developers, who are doing it to, yes, they
• 33:32
  Speaker 12: have a commercial vested interest, but they want to help
• 33:35
  Speaker 12: their nation and The people we ignore who are doing
• 33:38
  Speaker 12: amazing things in energy security and artificial intelligence and other
• 33:44
  Speaker 12: innovation is incredible. And many, many times over, I have thought,
• 33:49
  Speaker 12: you know, we really should be ashamed of ourselves in
• 33:51
  Speaker 12: Australia and some of the decision makers in Canberra with
• 33:54
  Speaker 12: regards to the people that we ignore that come forward.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, the more we ignore them, the more
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: they end up overseas providing benefits for others when we
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: should be enjoying them ourselves. I need to warn both
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: of you, we need to be careful in these discussions
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: because the Climate Change Authority may well report us.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: You're laughing, Peter. I'm serious. They could report us for
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: spreading dangerous... Misinformation, the green.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: Bureaucracy headed by Matt Keane, has sensationally claimed that concerns
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: about soaring power prices or the environmental impact of solar
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: and wind farms can be misinformation. The Climate Change Authority
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: has released a document saying that common misinformation narratives seek
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: to increase uncertainty. about climate policies, technologies and solutions, focusing
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: on the cost of living, energy prices and reliability, jobs,
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: regional impacts, biodiversity, environmental impacts and whether Australia's action matters.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: All of those things, Peter, could be misinformation. Sounds suspiciously,
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: to me, like the Climate Change Authority is trying to
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: silence anyone who dares criticise their ideology.
• 35:02
  Speaker 11: Now, James, you can be very cynical and untrusting.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 35:06
  Speaker 11: Look, the left is so authoritarian. That is clearly an
• 35:10
  Speaker 11: attempt to intimidate. Now, the Climate Change Authority was set
• 35:14
  Speaker 11: up by Prime Minister Gillard. In 2011, it's a statutory
• 35:19
  Speaker 11: independent authority meant to independently advise the government on climate
• 35:24
  Speaker 11: change measures, to provide reports on alternate sources of energy
• 35:30
  Speaker 11: and so on. But they've lumped themselves entirely to wind
• 35:35
  Speaker 11: and water. And of course, solar. So they won't consider
• 35:42
  Speaker 11: any other source of electricity and power. And as a result,
• 35:46
  Speaker 11: we're paying the price. So the authority is very politicised now.
• 35:51
  Speaker 11: That's obvious from their intimidatory attack on anybody who disagrees
• 35:55
  Speaker 11: with them.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: Well, Christy, the irony here is that, I mean, Climate
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: Change Authority, right?
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: Well, trust is earned.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: We trust authorities because they answer questions, not because they
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: try to shut them down.
• 36:09
  Speaker 12: Well, in terms of misinformation, I think the Climate Change
• 36:12
  Speaker 12: Authority is subject to its own misinformation slightly because the
• 36:19
  Speaker 12: level of concern as a top issue of climate change
• 36:24
  Speaker 12: is in the electorate has actually dropped significantly far down
• 36:28
  Speaker 12: the list. You know, yes, it was right up there
• 36:31
  Speaker 12: in the early 2020s, but the cost of living is
• 36:35
  Speaker 12: so far outstripping it. And here in Victoria, of course,
• 36:39
  Speaker 12: people are very much focused on corruption with the Victorian
• 36:43
  Speaker 12: Labor government and false promises and hiding, you know, public service,
• 36:48
  Speaker 12: public transport levies. When you talk to people, climate change
• 36:54
  Speaker 12: and really wanting this renewable energy transition, it doesn't factor
• 37:00
  Speaker 12: in things that people think about politically. It's not important
• 37:04
  Speaker 12: to them anymore. It has dropped way, way down the list. Now,
• 37:07
  Speaker 12: that's not to say it's not really important for certain demographics,
• 37:12
  Speaker 12: but it is nowhere near what it was when we
• 37:15
  Speaker 12: are seeing things like the Climate Change Authority being established
• 37:18
  Speaker 12: under the Gillard government.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're absolutely spot on. You mentioned Victoria, so let's
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: go there. The Victorian government plans to supply drug addicts
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: with an opioid that's seven times stronger than morphine in
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: a bid to wean them off heroin.
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: Here's the silly part.
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: They're going to do this out of a CBD building
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: on Flinders Street, but they're insisting this is not a
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: drug injecting room.
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: No, no, it's a community health hub.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: Peter, I don't care if Ben Carroll calls the building
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: where drug addicts are being given drugs the Crystal Cathedral.
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: It's a drug injecting room.
• 37:51
  Speaker 11: Exactly right. You only have to ask the Yarra City,
• 37:56
  Speaker 11: who have withdrawn their support for the North Richmond injecting
• 37:59
  Speaker 11: room because of the effect on the community, neighbours and
• 38:03
  Speaker 11: businesses because of the threats to safety, the syringes littering
• 38:07
  Speaker 11: the streets, the presence of drug supplies. Because remember, injecting
• 38:14
  Speaker 11: rooms are where drug addicts go and bring their own drugs.
• 38:19
  Speaker 11: to inject and be supervised. Now, a lot of health
• 38:23
  Speaker 11: professionals support them, believe it stops overdoses. But where you
• 38:28
  Speaker 11: locate them is something that is most certainly beyond debate.
• 38:34
  Speaker 11: It's got to be where it's safe and not part
• 38:37
  Speaker 11: of a community. Now, if you go to Flinders Street...
• 38:40
  Speaker 11: That is already unsafe in many ways. It's one of
• 38:44
  Speaker 11: the worst streets in the Melbourne CBD. So the Melbourne
• 38:48
  Speaker 11: City Council has to step in here because there are
• 38:53
  Speaker 11: security and safety issues. And worse still is, of course,
• 38:56
  Speaker 11: the larger issue, James. Why do we have these injecting rooms?
• 39:03
  Speaker 11: because you're just enabling it. We should be looking at
• 39:07
  Speaker 11: rehabilitation and medical support, not providing a place and even
• 39:13
  Speaker 11: providing drugs to inject.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: All right, before you both go, today is our National
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: Flag Day, marking 125 years since the Australian flag was
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: flown on 3 September 1901. I have to show you
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: this because at Parliament, House, they decided to fly 35
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: Australian flags to celebrate our National Flag Day, or at
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: least it was meant to be 35 Australian flags. Two
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: were New Zealand flags, hastily taken down after our News
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: 24 colleagues pointed out The mistake. Christy, this is exactly
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: what you'd expect from a country that can't just have
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: one flag, we've got three, and now we can't identify
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: which is the main one.
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: We get it confused with the Kiwis.
• 39:58
  Speaker 12: Oh, just stop being so excited about giving all that
• 40:01
  Speaker 12: money to the Pacific, would you?
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: Stop it.
• 40:04
  Speaker 12: New Zealand doesn't need to join with us in that endeavour.
• 40:08
  Speaker 12: Maybe it's a signal to that.
• 40:10
  Speaker 13: I don't know.
• 40:10
  Speaker 12: If that was me and I was spinning for them,
• 40:13
  Speaker 12: I would turn it into that. But clearly it was
• 40:15
  Speaker 12: just an absolute stuff up.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: All these people who say, you know, we've got a
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: problem with the flag, not enough people recognise it. Canberra
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: can't even get it right, honestly. Peter, sorry, I don't
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: have time to go to you on that one. We've
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: got to go to a break, but appreciate both of
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: your company. Thanks for coming on the program. We are
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: going to go to a break, but when we come back,
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: the United Nations wants Britain to erect statues of African
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: people as a way of saying sorry for slavery. And
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: Meghan Markle is looking for household staff, but after hearing
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: how she conducts interviews... I'm not sure there'll be many takers.
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: We'll talk about all of that with Patrick Christies after this.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: United Nations member states have backed demands made by the
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: UN's Racial Discrimination Committee that Britain and other countries who
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: were historically involved in the transatlantic slave trade shouldn't only
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: pay reparations... but they should also erect statues of prominent Africans,
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: implement more slavery education in schools and be nicer to migrants.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: That's despite the fact the transatlantic slave trade they speak
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: of peaked in the 1780s and Britain was instrumental in
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: abolishing it more than 200 years ago. Joining me now
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: is GB News host Patrick Christies. Patrick, it always strikes
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: me as odd that Britain gets all the blame for
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: having been one of many participants in the slave trade,
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: but zero credit for being the driving force to end it.
• 41:41
  Speaker 13: Yeah, absolutely. It's utterly infuriating.
• 41:43
  Speaker 14: And actually, they're completely wrong about this because there are
• 41:46
  Speaker 14: loads of statues to people who are either African or
• 41:49
  Speaker 14: of African heritage here in Britain.
• 41:51
  Speaker 13: I mean, we've got Nelson Mandela's statue.
• 41:53
  Speaker 14: There's the enslaved Africans memorial statue in Lancaster directly about
• 41:58
  Speaker 14: this thing that they want. The wake as well is
• 42:01
  Speaker 14: another one which commemorates the victims of the transatlantic slave trade.
• 42:04
  Speaker 13: That's in the London Docklands. You've got.
• 42:08
  Speaker 14: Endless council statues here with the Windrush generation statue, Mary
• 42:11
  Speaker 14: Seacole statue treated war veterans during the war there. She
• 42:16
  Speaker 14: was of African descent. I could go on and on
• 42:19
  Speaker 14: and on, right? I mean, there's so many of them.
• 42:21
  Speaker 14: Britain was the only country that actively made itself poorer
• 42:24
  Speaker 14: in order to tackle.
• 42:25
  Speaker 13: The slave trade.
• 42:26
  Speaker 14: And plenty of Africans and people in Muslim countries as
• 42:30
  Speaker 14: well were also involved in the slave trade. And in fact,
• 42:32
  Speaker 14: in many cases, still are when it comes to modern slavery.
• 42:36
  Speaker 14: Do we hear many calls for them to pay reparations
• 42:39
  Speaker 14: or erect statues to people over there?
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: No, we don't.
• 42:42
  Speaker 14: And one person who's on the board of this UN
• 42:45
  Speaker 14: committee that's calling for more statues is, you'll be very
• 42:47
  Speaker 14: surprised to learn, also a leading figure calling for trillions
• 42:51
  Speaker 14: of pounds of reparations for Caribbean countries.
• 42:54
  Speaker 13: So they do have a little bit of skin in
• 42:56
  Speaker 13: the game here.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: They always do, Patrick, they always do, and you don't
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: have to dig very far to find it, normally. Analysis
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: conducted by the UK Telegraph has revealed foreign-trained doctors are
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: responsible for the majority of misconduct cases in Britain. They
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: accounted for 55.6% of cases where misconduct was proven last.
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: Year, despite.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: making up only 42% of doctors working in the UK.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: There's a bit to unpack there, but what surprised me
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: the most is 42% of doctors in the UK were
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: trained abroad, mostly in India and Egypt.
• 43:34
  Speaker 14: I'm so glad you've said that, because that actually is
• 43:37
  Speaker 14: the bigger story, I think, here, isn't it? They say
• 43:40
  Speaker 14: that the NHS wouldn't survive without foreign doctors. I mean, unfortunately,
• 43:43
  Speaker 14: several NHS patients haven't survived because of foreign doctors.
• 43:47
  Speaker 13: Two stories in one here.
• 43:48
  Speaker 14: The medics trained abroad, 55.6% of cases were misconduct. Proven
• 43:54
  Speaker 14: was last year, 42% of doctors working in the UK
• 43:57
  Speaker 14: are foreign. The most common overseas training locations are for
• 44:00
  Speaker 14: people who were sanctioned was India, followed by Egypt, then
• 44:04
  Speaker 14: Nigeria and Pakistan. One bloke charged thousands of pounds for
• 44:08
  Speaker 14: giving out fake cancer treatments. And in fact, there are big, big,
• 44:13
  Speaker 14: big question marks as to whether or not some of
• 44:16
  Speaker 14: the people who are working in our NHS are even
• 44:19
  Speaker 14: qualified or are even who they say they are. This
• 44:23
  Speaker 14: is a big problem that we've had here at the moment.
• 44:27
  Speaker 14: not necessarily being able to correctly identify it. I spoke
• 44:30
  Speaker 14: to one oncologist with decades of experience in the NHS
• 44:33
  Speaker 14: who told me that he actually regularly reports people in
• 44:37
  Speaker 14: his department who he thinks are not actually qualified trained doctors,
• 44:42
  Speaker 14: but are claiming to be. I mean, it's scary stuff.
• 44:44
  Speaker 14: All the while, by the way, British trained doctors... cannot
• 44:49
  Speaker 14: get jobs in the NHS. There are thousands of British
• 44:52
  Speaker 14: doctors every single year who train, who qualify, et cetera,
• 44:56
  Speaker 14: and medical professionals in general who cannot find room to
• 44:59
  Speaker 14: work in our NHS because we are importing these people.
• 45:03
  Speaker 13: And it just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: Absolutely unbelievable.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: All right, speaking of unbelievable, I want you to tell
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: me about the Sussexes who are returning to.
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: The UK or have arrived back in the UK.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: They're obviously going to look for household staff, right, because
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: you wouldn't expect them to do their own laundry and
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: things like that. But sources have told the media they
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: might find it difficult because of Megan's reputation for rude behaviour,
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: especially when it comes to job interviews.
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: Tell me about that.
• 45:32
  Speaker 13: Yeah, well, talking of slavery, actually.
• 45:35
  Speaker 14: So Meghan Markle apparently has got a track record of
• 45:39
  Speaker 14: being incredibly.
• 45:40
  Speaker 13: Rude to staff. In fact... when she was in the.
• 45:43
  Speaker 14: UK, there was a bullying investigation that was being undertaken
• 45:47
  Speaker 14: by the palace about Meghan Markle, the results of which
• 45:50
  Speaker 14: are being kept locked away in a vault, possibly just
• 45:53
  Speaker 14: in case she ever decides to do another Netflix documentary
• 45:56
  Speaker 14: and then King Charles can come out and start waving
• 45:58
  Speaker 14: it around. But apparently, if you go and want to
• 46:01
  Speaker 14: work for Meghan Markle, you apply for the job, then
• 46:03
  Speaker 14: you hand over your resume, then you are told... to
• 46:06
  Speaker 14: go and meet her, stand off in the side of
• 46:10
  Speaker 14: the room, don't speak to.
• 46:11
  Speaker 13: Her or make eye contact with Megan.
• 46:14
  Speaker 14: She sits there, reviews the resume, and then looks you
• 46:18
  Speaker 14: up and down, and then just simply says, you can
• 46:21
  Speaker 14: leave now. Now, I kind of want this to be
• 46:24
  Speaker 14: true because I can see it. I think we can
• 46:26
  Speaker 14: all see that that might actually be true. She's been
• 46:29
  Speaker 14: through so many different staff members, even in America. People
• 46:33
  Speaker 14: who work for Harry and Meghan tend to have a
• 46:36
  Speaker 14: shelf life of about six months. They have a very
• 46:39
  Speaker 14: similar shelf life to kind of milk left outside on
• 46:42
  Speaker 14: a warm day.
• 46:43
  Speaker 13: And yet, you know, this is where we end up
• 46:45
  Speaker 13: with now.
• 46:46
  Speaker 14: But the other question for this is, like, does she
• 46:48
  Speaker 14: really need the help I mean, we're not hearing anything
• 46:51
  Speaker 14: about her working. I mean, Prince Harry isn't going to
• 46:53
  Speaker 14: be doing a huge amount of work.
• 46:55
  Speaker 13: They've got a couple of kids.
• 46:56
  Speaker 14: Like, how many staff do you really need in a house?
• 47:00
  Speaker 14: Can you not just, like, learn to mop and hoover
• 47:02
  Speaker 14: a bit yourself?
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump has made fun of you guys for taking
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: them back.
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: Have a listen to what he said.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: I'm happy about it. No, I was not a fan.
• 47:13
  Speaker 5: I thought they treated the royal family with great disrespect.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: I didn't like it. Maybe I'm different. I wouldn't have
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: taken them back.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: As I understand it, a lot of Brits can't stand
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump, but I think most of them would probably
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: be with him on that.
• 47:27
  Speaker 13: Oh, yeah, 100%.
• 47:29
  Speaker 14: I mean, the only thing that there can possibly be
• 47:31
  Speaker 14: in terms of, like, you know, bringing Harry and Meghan
• 47:34
  Speaker 14: back home or allowing them to come back home would
• 47:36
  Speaker 14: be to do with the King's health. So is that
• 47:38
  Speaker 14: the reason really why they've come back? However, that wasn't
• 47:41
  Speaker 14: what we heard. I mean, there was this farcical situation
• 47:43
  Speaker 14: where Meghan Markle was apparently saying that she was involved
• 47:45
  Speaker 14: in a new series of a show called The Gentleman,
• 47:48
  Speaker 14: which is taking place here. Only for it to turn
• 47:51
  Speaker 14: out that that didn't happen. So, yeah, I mean, I
• 47:53
  Speaker 14: think she's on thin ice. You know, one wrong move
• 47:56
  Speaker 14: and there could be some kind of deportation flight, although
• 47:59
  Speaker 14: we don't really do that to anyone in Britain.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: Well, it'll give us weeks and weeks of fodder, that's
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: for sure, Patrick.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: Appreciate you joining me. Thanks so much. Enjoy your weekend.
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: That's all from me tonight, but coming up in just
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: a moment is Shari Marks and I'll see you again
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: on Sunday at 8pm for the Macpherson Angle.
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: Here's Shari.