Latest / Sharri / Sharri | 16 September
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Why on Sky News. This is Sharry.
- 0:07Speaker 2: Good Evening, Welcome to the show.
- 0:09Speaker 3: Tonight, the ABC admits it doctored a video adding in
- 0:13Speaker 3: gunshots to accuse a commando.
- 0:15Speaker 2: Of being a war criminal.
- 0:17Speaker 3: This major admission from the ABC's investigations unit. Ben Fordham
- 0:22Speaker 3: and Sarah Henderson would join me tonight to discuss this
- 0:25Speaker 3: bombshell revelation. Well, Donald Trump speaks out after a second
- 0:30Speaker 3: assassination attempt? Can the Secret Service actually keep him safe?
- 0:35Speaker 3: I look at this with Kosher Gata and joining us
- 0:38Speaker 3: live the polster behind new research that shows Dutton could
- 0:43Speaker 3: be the next Prime Minister. ALBINIZI clearly on the nose
- 0:47Speaker 3: with voters. Leo Shanahan will be on the show later. Also,
- 0:50Speaker 3: Karon Milner shares his prediction that.
- 0:52Speaker 2: Albo will be a one term PM.
- 0:56Speaker 3: But first tonight, the ABC has made a bombshell admission
- 0:59Speaker 3: that it published fake footage with extra gunshots added in
- 1:04Speaker 3: a report wrongly accusing a hero commander of being a
- 1:08Speaker 3: war criminal. This revelation has rocked the ABC after its
- 1:13Speaker 3: beleagued investigations unit made the devastating admission that it used
- 1:18Speaker 3: fabricated audio as part of its defamatory pursuit of Heston Russell.
- 1:23Speaker 3: As you know, Russell is a decorated Farmer special Forces
- 1:27Speaker 3: commander who fought against Taliban terrorists in Afghanistan. Well, the
- 1:32Speaker 3: ABC's Mark Willersey published downing allegations against Russell and his platoon,
- 1:38Speaker 3: wrongly claiming they killed unarmed civilians.
- 1:44Speaker 4: We don't have the vision that comes immediately before this,
- 1:48Speaker 4: but this Australian soldier is firing towards what appeared to
- 1:51Speaker 4: be unarmed civilians in residential compounds.
- 1:54Speaker 5: And they're saying that you're shooting at unarmed civilians.
- 1:58Speaker 4: And this guy had literally just been on the back
- 2:00Speaker 4: of a motorbike with his mate shooting at two of
- 2:04Speaker 4: my teams that were on the ground. But we don't
- 2:06Speaker 4: see any of that, no, nor do they, but they're
- 2:09Speaker 4: still happy to jump to a conclusion from fifteen seconds
- 2:11Speaker 4: worth of footage.
- 2:13Speaker 3: And that was Heston Russell on Channel seven speaking about
- 2:17Speaker 3: the original ABC broadcast from two years ago. Russell gave
- 2:21Speaker 3: the ABC the raw footage to show the whole context,
- 2:26Speaker 3: but the ABC wouldn't fix its report and Russell took
- 2:30Speaker 3: the public broadcaster to court. He won and was awarded
- 2:33Speaker 3: almost four hundred k in damages.
- 2:37Speaker 4: Two things, First and foremost, it's not me. Secondly, here's
- 2:42Speaker 4: the full context. They were not unarmed civilians.
- 2:46Speaker 5: Incredibly, the ABC refused to acknowledge it, so in September
- 2:51Speaker 5: of twenty twenty two, Russell commenced defamation proceedings in the
- 2:56Speaker 5: Federal Court to defend himself again against their accusations of
- 3:02Speaker 5: war crimes. The reporter Mark Willisy is saying, we don't
- 3:05Speaker 5: know what happened before this, but he does. He's known
- 3:09Speaker 5: about it since April last year. For a year he's known.
- 3:14Speaker 5: So what's online, what's up on the net is a lie.
- 3:18Speaker 4: Absolutely.
- 3:20Speaker 3: And now Heston Russell has made the quite extraordinary discovery
- 3:24Speaker 3: that the ABC had edited its footage, adding in extra
- 3:29Speaker 3: gunshots and taking a fifteen second clip entirely out of context.
- 3:35Speaker 3: Here was that amazing revelation on Channel seven last night.
- 3:40Speaker 5: In the actual helmet cam vision, it's a warning shot,
- 3:49Speaker 5: then Heston's command to shoot.
- 3:56Speaker 1: Followed by six.
- 3:57Speaker 3: Shots, and then seven went on to explain how the
- 4:08Speaker 3: single warning shot became six.
- 4:10Speaker 4: Have a look, they've literally added extra gunshots.
- 4:16Speaker 1: That's phenomenon.
- 4:17Speaker 4: So I fell off my chair when I saw this.
- 4:22Speaker 3: A forensic audio expert analyzed the footage and had this
- 4:25Speaker 3: to say last night.
- 4:28Speaker 6: They've taken the audio from the six shots and they've
- 4:32Speaker 6: applied it to this video in the news clip, and
- 4:35Speaker 6: they've copied and pasted across this scene. It completely misrepresents
- 4:39Speaker 6: what those soldiers were going through that day.
- 4:41Speaker 1: It also makes you wonder what else has been fabricated?
- 4:43Speaker 1: Doesn't it correct well?
- 4:46Speaker 3: When presented with the evidence, the ABC admitted the concoction.
- 4:51Speaker 3: They said, we have removed the online video where an
- 4:54Speaker 3: error has been identified based on preliminary inspection of the audio.
- 4:58Speaker 3: The ABC is seeking more inf on how this occurred.
- 5:02Speaker 3: Joe Puccini, Mark Willersey, and Josh Robertson had no role
- 5:05Speaker 3: in the production and editing of the online video you've
- 5:08Speaker 3: brought to our attention. Any suggestion that they have acted
- 5:12Speaker 3: inappropriately or unethically is completely false. So these are the
- 5:18Speaker 3: three you can see them on the screen, who claim
- 5:20Speaker 3: they had nothing to do with adding those extra gunshots,
- 5:24Speaker 3: but they were responsible for the defamatory crusade against Russell.
- 5:30Speaker 3: Already the court has heard that they relied on the
- 5:33Speaker 3: hazy memory of an American soldier who said to Mark
- 5:37Speaker 3: Willersey that he couldn't recall any specific details from a
- 5:41Speaker 3: decade ago, and that his account shouldn't be relied on.
- 5:46Speaker 3: Yet that is what the ABC based their story on,
- 5:49Speaker 3: insisting they had a confidential source. And here was Mark
- 5:53Speaker 3: Willersey boasting about repeatedly going back to his source when
- 5:58Speaker 3: he was on stage at Walkley Awards.
- 6:01Speaker 7: And I spent two months checking out, going back to
- 6:04Speaker 7: this guy, getting more detail, more detailed.
- 6:06Speaker 8: And this is this idea that we we make up
- 6:11Speaker 8: and we don't.
- 6:13Speaker 2: That's Joe hood around laughing out loud.
- 6:15Speaker 3: He can't help himself. And we'll get his opinion on
- 6:17Speaker 3: that in just a minute. But as you saw, Mark
- 6:19Speaker 3: Willisey never mentioned there that his source told him not
- 6:23Speaker 3: to rely on his memory at all. Now, this is
- 6:27Speaker 3: a journalist, Mark Willersey, who has called news corp tabloids,
- 6:31Speaker 3: murdock bottom feeders. Well, I'll tell you this news corp
- 6:36Speaker 3: would never add extra gunshots into a video to falsely
- 6:41Speaker 3: accuse a decorated soldier of war crimes. This unthinkable conduct
- 6:48Speaker 3: happened at the ABC, and it keeps claiming it's the
- 6:51Speaker 3: most trusted media organization in the country. Well, Heston and
- 6:55Speaker 3: his legal team, Barrister Sucrasanthu and Rebecca Giles. Eventually he
- 7:00Speaker 3: discovered the sources, identity and emails from that soldier showed.
- 7:05Speaker 3: He warned the ABC not to rely on his memory.
- 7:08Speaker 3: He said it was hazy. What's worse, it's now eventuated
- 7:13Speaker 3: that Heston wasn't even in Afghanistan at the time that
- 7:17Speaker 3: the ABC claimed the war crime happened.
- 7:21Speaker 4: When the ABC published their articles saying this happened between
- 7:24Speaker 4: June and July, and I produced my deployment record that
- 7:27Speaker 4: showed we weren't even in Afghanistan during that time.
- 7:30Speaker 3: Pudin Well, another American soldier who did work with Heston Russell,
- 7:36Speaker 3: had this to say about him.
- 7:39Speaker 9: Most of our one on one interaction was with with Heston,
- 7:42Speaker 9: and then usually we you know, we'd get up with
- 7:44Speaker 9: the platuna in the aircraft. You know, most of the
- 7:47Speaker 9: communication it was with Heston.
- 7:50Speaker 1: Could you rank him highly?
- 7:51Speaker 9: I held him in the highest regard out of everybody
- 7:54Speaker 9: I worked with. I thought he was the most professional
- 7:57Speaker 9: commander that I got the hand A pleasure of.
- 7:59Speaker 1: Work went down.
- 8:04Speaker 9: I spent a year in Afghanistan during that deployment, and
- 8:08Speaker 9: at no point during that time that I ever did
- 8:11Speaker 9: we ever think that any of the engagements were illegal
- 8:15Speaker 9: or unethical or.
- 8:18Speaker 1: Outside the rules of it.
- 8:19Speaker 9: Absolutely so.
- 8:20Speaker 5: Did anybody try to call you, any journalists from Australia
- 8:24Speaker 5: Do they try to get in touch?
- 8:27Speaker 1: No one ever trying to call me or contact me
- 8:29Speaker 1: about it.
- 8:29Speaker 10: No, sir.
- 8:31Speaker 3: You just think how far removed is that account from
- 8:35Speaker 3: how the ABC chose to portray Heston Russell. They portrayed
- 8:40Speaker 3: him as a murderer who they claimed killed innocent civilians,
- 8:45Speaker 3: and the public broadcaster has refused to apologize, showing extreme
- 8:49Speaker 3: arrogance even after being found in a court of law
- 8:53Speaker 3: to have wrongly pursued an innocent veteran. And here is
- 8:57Speaker 3: the ABC's from a managing director showing no remorse for
- 9:01Speaker 3: destroying Russell's life after publishing utter lies about him.
- 9:07Speaker 11: What do you say to war veteran Heston Russell, the
- 9:11Speaker 11: ABC wrongfully accused of committing all crime at.
- 9:15Speaker 12: The moment, I would say that, and the court agrees
- 9:20Speaker 12: that those stories were in the public interests. The ABC
- 9:23Speaker 12: held a genuine belief that they were in the public interest.
- 9:25Speaker 5: The court degrees of that.
- 9:27Speaker 13: I'm not interested in your belief.
- 9:28Speaker 11: I'm interested in the facts you have been found to
- 9:32Speaker 11: have him properly and wrongly accused mister Heston Russell of
- 9:37Speaker 11: being a war criminal. What do you say, firstly to
- 9:39Speaker 11: mister Heston Russell, Sandra, if.
- 9:42Speaker 6: You're asking for me to apologize to mister Russell, I'm
- 9:44Speaker 6: not going to apologize to mister Russell.
- 9:47Speaker 2: It's unbelievable.
- 9:49Speaker 3: All the ABC is erroneous reporting brought Heston Russell almost
- 9:53Speaker 3: to the edge, and the ABC even went after his sexuality,
- 9:58Speaker 3: shaming him he thought about taking his own life.
- 10:03Speaker 14: Well.
- 10:04Speaker 3: Rebecca Giles, his lawyer, said that she felt that ABC
- 10:07Speaker 3: was trying to push Russell over the edge.
- 10:12Speaker 15: I think the personal attacks were so hurtful to him
- 10:14Speaker 15: that potentially there was a hope that he wouldn't survive them.
- 10:19Speaker 2: This is disgraceful.
- 10:21Speaker 3: The ABC recklessly destroyed the reputation of a fine serving
- 10:26Speaker 3: commander who had repeatedly put his own life on the
- 10:30Speaker 3: line fighting for our country.
- 10:32Speaker 2: The ABC tried to prove.
- 10:34Speaker 3: That he was a war criminal, and even in the
- 10:37Speaker 3: face of growing evidence that he was innocent and highly respected,
- 10:41Speaker 3: refused to acknowledge the truth. Well, there needs to be
- 10:44Speaker 3: accountability here. Yet we've seen ABC executives behave as arrogantly
- 10:50Speaker 3: and despicably as their own reporters. The ABC does need
- 10:54Speaker 3: to explain why this team still has jobs if it
- 10:59Speaker 3: doesn't get more more serious than this than doctoring a
- 11:02Speaker 3: video in a report wrongly accusing a decorated soldier of
- 11:06Speaker 3: war crimes. Well, the accusations against our soldiers against Heston
- 11:12Speaker 3: Russell came very quickly on the ABC. Yeah, the apologies
- 11:17Speaker 3: for getting it wrong have not been forthcoming and this
- 11:22Speaker 3: is shameful. Now Ben Fordham is going to join me
- 11:28Speaker 3: on the show live to speak about this in a moment.
- 11:30Speaker 3: Also Sarah Henderson as well. But right now, let's bring
- 11:33Speaker 3: in Sky News contributor Joe Hildebrand and Daily Telegraph columnist
- 11:37Speaker 3: James Willis.
- 11:38Speaker 2: Welcome it to you both.
- 11:40Speaker 3: Now, James, you wrote a very strong piece about this
- 11:43Speaker 3: in the Telegraph today. What's your take on this shoddy journalism.
- 11:48Speaker 8: Well, this is as bad as it gets, but it's
- 11:50Speaker 8: part of a wider four year campaign that the ABC
- 11:54Speaker 8: ran against our soldiers where there were dozens of stories published,
- 11:58Speaker 8: every bit of footage, every from Defense or another sorcering
- 12:01Speaker 8: government was allowed to be massaged together into a campaign against.
- 12:07Speaker 14: Some of the most vulnerable people in the community.
- 12:09Speaker 8: It was rumor, it was innuendo, and ultimately, in the
- 12:13Speaker 8: last twelve months, the ABC has had to take down
- 12:15Speaker 8: from my count three stories in regards to war crimes,
- 12:18Speaker 8: two of them relating to the Heston Russell case after
- 12:21Speaker 8: he won the defamation case against them, and now this
- 12:23Speaker 8: one where they've conceded that there've been multiple gunshots added
- 12:28Speaker 8: to a war crime. I mean, this is really really bad.
- 12:32Speaker 8: What you said there is spot on. There is no
- 12:34Speaker 8: other newsroom in the country, no other news boss that
- 12:36Speaker 8: would allow this kind of journalism to go ahead, and
- 12:39Speaker 8: yet we're talking about war crimes.
- 12:41Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 12:41Speaker 3: I also liked when you wrote in your piece today
- 12:44Speaker 3: you asked, what is this off for online clicks or
- 12:48Speaker 3: trying to get gongs at industry award nights.
- 12:50Speaker 8: Yeah, that's right, And I think with a lot of
- 12:52Speaker 8: media outlets, or sorry, a few of them, it became
- 12:55Speaker 8: a race to try and outdo each other and say, okay,
- 12:59Speaker 8: who can we name here? We want to go to
- 13:01Speaker 8: this mission, We want to find out what people are saying,
- 13:03Speaker 8: and ultimately they weren't getting the whole story. They were
- 13:06Speaker 8: getting tiny little bits of information and dressing them up
- 13:09Speaker 8: as incredibly serious accusations.
- 13:12Speaker 14: And the way that this continued.
- 13:14Speaker 8: And let's face it, at the very beginning, Heston Russell
- 13:16Speaker 8: wanted an apology and his legal fees covered to the
- 13:19Speaker 8: tune of about ninety thousand dollars. The ABC refused to apologize,
- 13:24Speaker 8: doubled down, tripled down, went into his private life, and
- 13:27Speaker 8: then at the end of the federal court case, it
- 13:29Speaker 8: costs millions of dollars, But the people involved, the journalists
- 13:34Speaker 8: and the investigations team that ran this campaign against a veteran,
- 13:38Speaker 8: there were no consequences for And I can tell based
- 13:40Speaker 8: on that statement that right now they are trying to,
- 13:44Speaker 8: I have no doubt, to try and blame this on
- 13:47Speaker 8: someone in production or say, oh, look, it was an error.
- 13:50Speaker 1: We're sorry.
- 13:51Speaker 8: Someone just went bang bang bang. You know a couple
- 13:53Speaker 8: more times that person's gone there on a contract. Don't worry,
- 13:56Speaker 8: Come on, it doesn't The journalists who put their name
- 13:58Speaker 8: to this story, we all know this, would have sat there,
- 14:01Speaker 8: would have looked through the whole thing and decided what
- 14:03Speaker 8: went to We're in the end, so you know, And
- 14:05Speaker 8: the fact the ABC didn't go out hard on it
- 14:07Speaker 8: this morning, like we know they do when you know
- 14:09Speaker 8: they want to stand up for themselves, indicates that there
- 14:12Speaker 8: is a big problem.
- 14:13Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 14:13Speaker 3: Heston Russell came on this program when he first won
- 14:16Speaker 3: his defamation case.
- 14:17Speaker 2: He was very emotional.
- 14:19Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure it was his first television interview, and
- 14:22Speaker 3: he said that ABC nearly broke him. And he said
- 14:24Speaker 3: it was harder to come up against the ABC than
- 14:27Speaker 3: any terrorist in Afghanistan. Joe, you can see the human
- 14:31Speaker 3: consequences that ABC never cared that they were potentially breaking
- 14:36Speaker 3: a soldier with no evidence to support it.
- 14:40Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 14:40Speaker 16: I've only met Heston Russell, I think once or twice.
- 14:42Speaker 16: It's always struck me as the most incredible individual and
- 14:46Speaker 16: incredibly decent and honest and warm and compassionate person. I
- 14:50Speaker 16: don't know why you would single him out as being
- 14:53Speaker 16: a murdering war criminal without any apparent evidence, and.
- 14:57Speaker 1: I think that a lot of the I think there
- 15:00Speaker 1: are a couple of interesting things.
- 15:01Speaker 16: One is it's a matter of people in glasshouses not
- 15:04Speaker 16: throwing stones. Now, every journal gets things wrong from time
- 15:07Speaker 16: to time, but not every media institution has its own
- 15:11Speaker 16: inner institution, A, which have more resources than any other
- 15:15Speaker 16: organization in the country, and B, which sits in judgment
- 15:19Speaker 16: quite literally over every other media organization.
- 15:22Speaker 1: So ABC Paul Barr is a nice guy. I like it.
- 15:23Speaker 16: But the ABC is the only one with a show
- 15:25Speaker 16: called Media Watch, which says, right, all you are the
- 15:28Speaker 16: ones you're not living up to expectations despite the fact
- 15:31Speaker 16: we're scrambling on far smaller budgets.
- 15:33Speaker 1: The ABC has also got its.
- 15:34Speaker 16: Own fact check unit, and I think that is currently
- 15:37Speaker 16: being revamped after a slight incident with Dick Smith, and
- 15:40Speaker 16: I was lucky enough to do a function with the
- 15:42Speaker 16: person overseeing it, and I'm sure he.
- 15:46Speaker 1: Was very point being.
- 15:48Speaker 16: And yet even after all that, they still manage to
- 15:50Speaker 16: do something like this. And this tells me that there
- 15:52Speaker 16: must be some weird, preconceived, hard baked in idea of
- 15:58Speaker 16: soldiers as just been intrinsically murderously bad people. If only
- 16:02Speaker 16: we could just get to the bottom of it, because
- 16:04Speaker 16: I don't know how else you would take this one
- 16:06Speaker 16: little scaret.
- 16:07Speaker 3: I think he's been this journalist that the ABC have
- 16:09Speaker 3: this god complex and they think they couldn't possibly be wrong.
- 16:12Speaker 3: I should just point out that David Addison, who refused
- 16:16Speaker 3: to apologize in that grilling by Sarah Henderson before he
- 16:19Speaker 3: is still in the job.
- 16:20Speaker 2: He leaves next year.
- 16:21Speaker 3: And Sarah Henderson and Ben Fordham are coming up on
- 16:24Speaker 3: the show to talk more about this. But let's turn
- 16:26Speaker 3: to this massive news today, the second attempted assassination.
- 16:30Speaker 2: Of Donald Trump.
- 16:31Speaker 3: Now, at this point, I'm worried whether he's actually going
- 16:34Speaker 3: to make it to the election alive.
- 16:36Speaker 2: And you know, you just.
- 16:38Speaker 3: Think there are so many crazy enemies out there. They
- 16:41Speaker 3: keep coming for Donald Trump.
- 16:44Speaker 2: James, are you worried.
- 16:45Speaker 3: About this that voters might not actually have a choice,
- 16:48Speaker 3: that they might succeed in killing him.
- 16:50Speaker 8: Well, I think we'd be silly to think this will
- 16:52Speaker 8: be the last attempt assassination attempt on Donald Trump. And
- 16:57Speaker 8: I think the hostility we're seeing America right now is frightening.
- 17:01Speaker 14: I think, you know, we.
- 17:03Speaker 8: Have two people that are in a really genuine contest here.
- 17:07Speaker 8: The polls have even up since Joe Biden dropped out,
- 17:09Speaker 8: But ultimately it's terrifying to think that you could be
- 17:13Speaker 8: heading into a poll and anytime Donald Trump steps out
- 17:16Speaker 8: in public or goes on a golf course in this case.
- 17:19Speaker 14: That there would be a possible risk on his life.
- 17:21Speaker 8: I always wonder why the media in these stories reports
- 17:25Speaker 8: on the person's political.
- 17:27Speaker 14: Views or who they've voted for previously. I find that irrelevant.
- 17:30Speaker 8: For someone to be taking this course of action is
- 17:33Speaker 8: just unhinged, and it is terrifying that in a country
- 17:36Speaker 8: like America this does go on. But thank god we
- 17:38Speaker 8: live in Australia, I suppose.
- 17:39Speaker 16: Well, the worst part is it's so incredibly stupid, Like
- 17:43Speaker 16: if this person is trying to stop Donald Trump, it
- 17:45Speaker 16: is events like this which actually make him more popular.
- 17:47Speaker 16: The more you make him a martyr, the more popular is.
- 17:50Speaker 16: This is why the judge was smart enough to know
- 17:52Speaker 16: not to sentence him before election day. This is why
- 17:55Speaker 16: his popularity shot up to unprecedented heights after the first
- 17:59Speaker 16: assassination attempt. Here's someone who's actually clearly unhinged, clearly too
- 18:03Speaker 16: stupid to be able to think it through, but who
- 18:06Speaker 16: was actually going through with this and trying to stop
- 18:10Speaker 16: him when in fact they're.
- 18:11Speaker 1: Just fueling him.
- 18:11Speaker 16: But I find it, I actually find it very interesting
- 18:14Speaker 16: that this person, who does appear to be a Democrat supporter,
- 18:18Speaker 16: has previously said that apparently he said he voted for
- 18:20Speaker 16: Donald Trump in twenty sixteen, but he voted in a
- 18:22Speaker 16: Democratic primary, and well.
- 18:24Speaker 1: Or whatever, whatever.
- 18:25Speaker 16: But the point I think, well, no, I think the
- 18:27Speaker 16: point is though, that this seems to have been very
- 18:29Speaker 16: much downplayed. Like whenever else you get an attempted shooter
- 18:31Speaker 16: or attemptionhip, it's like, oh, it's an extreme right winger
- 18:34Speaker 16: with you know, with you know, all these crazy views,
- 18:36Speaker 16: and he loves guns, and he's got you know, he's
- 18:38Speaker 16: a racist and he hates this.
- 18:40Speaker 2: We only seeing the assassination Trump, that's.
- 18:42Speaker 16: Right, But as soon as it's someone with links to
- 18:44Speaker 16: the Democrats, it's like, oh, yeah, he was known to police.
- 18:46Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- 18:48Speaker 3: And Koshergarder would join me later to speak about Joe
- 18:51Speaker 3: Biden's reaction to this.
- 18:53Speaker 2: Now let's have a look at Twiggy Forest.
- 18:55Speaker 3: Now we know he loves a bit of good publicity
- 18:57Speaker 3: and he was keen to reveal the man behind the
- 19:00Speaker 3: headlines to the Daily Telegraph on the weekend.
- 19:03Speaker 2: He then went on to detail, and this.
- 19:05Speaker 3: Is the very first paragraph of the entire story.
- 19:09Speaker 2: He talks about an horrific.
- 19:11Speaker 3: Childhood trauma, and the Telly reports that at eight years
- 19:14Speaker 3: of age, Twiggy recall sitting in the back of his
- 19:17Speaker 3: father's ute holding the hand of a badly burnt and
- 19:19Speaker 3: dying man, and Twiggy says, I don't share that story,
- 19:24Speaker 3: but I wanted to share it with you because it's
- 19:27Speaker 3: why I have such a deep.
- 19:28Speaker 2: Appreciation for life.
- 19:31Speaker 3: Well, that's interesting, he says, this is a story he
- 19:33Speaker 3: doesn't share. But let's have a look at the Sydney
- 19:35Speaker 3: Morning Herald from back in two thousand and nine, where
- 19:38Speaker 3: again the start of the story says, when he was eight,
- 19:42Speaker 3: Andrew Forrest held a man in his final moments before
- 19:45Speaker 3: death from bushfire injuries. The man passed away as the
- 19:49Speaker 3: youngsters sang him nursery rhymes. Now, James, obviously this is
- 19:54Speaker 3: a tragic story. But what is Twiggy trying to achieve here?
- 19:58Speaker 3: Is this an image brandt Well?
- 20:02Speaker 8: I think two years a very fascinating person, and the
- 20:06Speaker 8: supporters of him say that he's on this campaign to
- 20:09Speaker 8: save the planet.
- 20:10Speaker 14: Other people have accused him.
- 20:12Speaker 8: Of flat at greenwashing, and I think the truth lights
- 20:15Speaker 8: somewhere in the middle there. But he's always struck me
- 20:18Speaker 8: as someone that is desperate to be liked by the
- 20:21Speaker 8: public and wants to leave this great legacy.
- 20:24Speaker 14: Now that can be done in a range.
- 20:25Speaker 8: Of ways, but for him it's clearly very important and
- 20:28Speaker 8: on a number of fronts, with a number of the
- 20:29Speaker 8: things he's done.
- 20:30Speaker 14: Publicly over the last few years. I feel like.
- 20:32Speaker 8: Ultimately he is desperate to make that legacy count. He's
- 20:36Speaker 8: clearly forgotten the fact that he told the story previously
- 20:38Speaker 8: fifteen years.
- 20:39Speaker 1: Ago, but I can't remember much that I did fifteen
- 20:43Speaker 1: Tell you a story fifteen years is exactly.
- 20:46Speaker 3: So much positive publicity that I guess he can't remember
- 20:49Speaker 3: his own spent now. The who's who of Australian television
- 20:53Speaker 3: came together last night in a moving memorial for TV
- 20:56Speaker 3: legend Reg Grundy, six years since his pass and he
- 21:00Speaker 3: was remembered in a joint memorial with his late wife,
- 21:04Speaker 3: Joy Chambers Grundy, she passed away last year. Have a
- 21:08Speaker 3: look at some of the tributes to him from Tracy Grimshaw,
- 21:11Speaker 3: Alan Jones and Tony Abbott.
- 21:15Speaker 15: For decades from the dawn of television, Reg Grundy was
- 21:18Speaker 15: Australia's most prolific and successful TV producer. Joy was the
- 21:24Speaker 15: love of his life and Reggie, as she called him,
- 21:27Speaker 15: was certainly hers.
- 21:29Speaker 17: If ever there was an Australian team of achievement, these
- 21:33Speaker 17: two were that team. Reg Grundy was the Rupert Murdoch
- 21:38Speaker 17: of television, the biggest independent television producer in the world.
- 21:45Speaker 3: Joe Alan Jones, made the point last night that Reg
- 21:48Speaker 3: Grundy was so private that his legacy hasn't properly been celebrated.
- 21:54Speaker 1: Reg Grundy, It's difficult to overstate.
- 21:56Speaker 16: It's impossible, in fact, to overstate how much of a
- 22:00Speaker 16: titan he is. This man has almost godlike status in television,
- 22:04Speaker 16: and you don't.
- 22:04Speaker 1: Really know it. Like everyone would know. At the end
- 22:06Speaker 1: of every.
- 22:07Speaker 16: Show you've ever watched, a real fortune or blankety Blanks
- 22:10Speaker 16: or perfect match, whatever, you know, the Grundy thing would
- 22:12Speaker 16: come out and b ubicuous. He never actually think of
- 22:14Speaker 16: the person behind it. It was incredibly reclusive. I think he'
- 22:17Speaker 16: lived for the last few decades of his life with
- 22:19Speaker 16: joy in Bermuda, and it was impossible to see, possible
- 22:23Speaker 16: to get in touch with and he had it was
- 22:26Speaker 16: almost like a sort of Bond villain, but without the
- 22:28Speaker 16: villain part, Like you just had this incredible mystique about.
- 22:31Speaker 1: Him, but absolute reverence.
- 22:33Speaker 16: When you do daytime television for seven years, you see
- 22:37Speaker 16: all these sort of old kind of legends of the
- 22:39Speaker 16: eighties and the nineties come through, people like Greg Evans,
- 22:43Speaker 16: for example, and John bagen All, these people, and they
- 22:46Speaker 16: would speak in almost hush tones about him as though
- 22:49Speaker 16: again it was as close to sort of a demi
- 22:52Speaker 16: god of television as you could possibly get. A four
- 22:55Speaker 16: hundred TV shows, four hundred TV shows, Prisoner, Real of Fortune,
- 22:58Speaker 16: as I mentioned Blankety Blanks, I mentioned Class of seventy four,
- 23:01Speaker 16: and of course everybody's personal favorite The Restless.
- 23:03Speaker 3: Yes, no, incredible legacy. All right, Joe Hildebrand and James Willis.
- 23:07Speaker 3: Great to have you on, Thank you, thank you. Now
- 23:10Speaker 3: let's return to these massive bombshell revelations that the ABC
- 23:14Speaker 3: has doctored video. There's now urgent investigations underway at the ABC.
- 23:19Speaker 3: The footage featuring that compromised audio.
- 23:22Speaker 2: Has been removed.
- 23:23Speaker 3: To look at this further, let's bring in now two
- 23:26Speaker 3: GB Breakfast host Ben Fod and Ben, great to have
- 23:29Speaker 3: you on the show. From the very start of this saga,
- 23:32Speaker 3: you pointed out that the ABC's reporting was not up
- 23:36Speaker 3: to scratch, but this video editing is just the latest
- 23:40Speaker 3: egregious example.
- 23:44Speaker 7: I remember the TV show Frontline, Sharry. I'm sure you
- 23:47Speaker 7: do as well. It was one of those fantastic shows
- 23:49Speaker 7: put together by the working dog team here in Australia.
- 23:52Speaker 7: Rob Sitch and Jane Kennedy and many others, and they
- 23:56Speaker 7: highlighted some of the crazy tricks and track that TV
- 24:01Speaker 7: Current Affairs crews get up to. And that was all
- 24:02Speaker 7: aimed at the commercial TV networks, of course, and we
- 24:06Speaker 7: always presume that our ABC would never do a thing
- 24:08Speaker 7: like that. I don't know how something like this happens.
- 24:11Speaker 7: It's just unbelievable that it could be allowed to be
- 24:14Speaker 7: up online for so long. And when you think about it,
- 24:17Speaker 7: why would someone move gun shots from one section of
- 24:21Speaker 7: a video to another. I mean, the footage is dramatic enough.
- 24:24Speaker 7: I mean you've got an Australian commando and a helicopter
- 24:27Speaker 7: flying above Afghanistan in the middle of a conflict, firing
- 24:32Speaker 7: down below on suspected insurgents. That's dramatic enough. Why would
- 24:36Speaker 7: you need to dress it up any more than it
- 24:38Speaker 7: already is. And to move the gun shots from the
- 24:40Speaker 7: end of the sequence to the start of the sequence,
- 24:43Speaker 7: you're changing the story because, as we've heard from Heston Russell,
- 24:47Speaker 7: there was one warning shot and if you look closely
- 24:50Speaker 7: at that warning shot, it was not directed at the
- 24:52Speaker 7: individual on the ground. The gun moved away from them
- 24:56Speaker 7: and shot the ground near them to send a sign
- 24:58Speaker 7: to them that we're up above and we're coming after you.
- 25:00Speaker 7: And sometimes when you fire a warning shot like that,
- 25:03Speaker 7: Heston Russell says, the person will stop in their tracks,
- 25:06Speaker 7: and that's what they're after. They were trying to kill
- 25:08Speaker 7: people from the air. They were trying to capture people
- 25:10Speaker 7: and to gain information from them. And to then move
- 25:14Speaker 7: the one single warning shot and replace it with six
- 25:18Speaker 7: shots after each other.
- 25:20Speaker 14: It looked like.
- 25:22Speaker 7: Australian troops were showing very little regard for human life.
- 25:26Speaker 7: And it's just phenomenal when you think about all of
- 25:28Speaker 7: the mistakes that the ABC made on this and all
- 25:30Speaker 7: of the warnings they've had. Shari think about all those moments.
- 25:33Speaker 7: It's a bit like watching one of those movies where
- 25:36Speaker 7: you're thinking, no, don't do that, get out of that,
- 25:38Speaker 7: escape that, and the person keeps falling into trap after
- 25:41Speaker 7: trap after trap. They've had so many chances to apologize,
- 25:45Speaker 7: including David Anderson, the outgoing ABC boss, who was there
- 25:49Speaker 7: before that parliamentary committee, and he said, I'm not going
- 25:52Speaker 7: to apologize. He wasn't even asked whether he was going
- 25:54Speaker 7: to apologize, but he volunteered, I'm not going to apologize.
- 25:57Speaker 7: If anyone deserves an apology from the ABC, it's Heston.
- 26:00Speaker 3: Russell one hundred percent. He had his reputation and life
- 26:04Speaker 3: destroyed over this. It's possible that he might not have
- 26:08Speaker 3: survived it. Thankfully he has. Thankfully he is seeing justice
- 26:12Speaker 3: now thanks to the courts and media reporting, including yours
- 26:16Speaker 3: on the two GB. But these personal attacks have been
- 26:20Speaker 3: incredibly hurtful, the arrogance of the ABC not only refusing
- 26:24Speaker 3: to apologize, but also Mark Willisy's conduct.
- 26:28Speaker 2: I mean, Ben, when you were first reporting on this, Mark.
- 26:31Speaker 3: Willisey rang your producer, James Willison, who's now at the Telly,
- 26:35Speaker 3: who I just had on the show, and yelled at
- 26:37Speaker 3: you guys over this.
- 26:40Speaker 7: I can still remember sitting on air that morning and
- 26:44Speaker 7: talking to the microphone and just looking outside the studio
- 26:47Speaker 7: window and seeing James Willis out there with a shocked
- 26:50Speaker 7: look on his face. And look, James is a bloke
- 26:53Speaker 7: who can handle many many things. He's not intimidated by anyone,
- 26:57Speaker 7: but to see his reaction that morning, and then when
- 27:00Speaker 7: I threw to a commercial break, I asked him what
- 27:02Speaker 7: was going on and he explained that Mark Willisey had
- 27:04Speaker 7: just unloaded on him. James was in stun silence and
- 27:07Speaker 7: then later called Mark Willisey back and return serve. But
- 27:11Speaker 7: it was a sign of how sensitive they were. I mean,
- 27:14Speaker 7: they were wrong on so many counts on this, but
- 27:16Speaker 7: if you think about it, from the very beginning Showry,
- 27:19Speaker 7: they had a bloke and James explained this and a
- 27:21Speaker 7: column in the Sunday Telegraph on Sunday, a bloke in
- 27:24Speaker 7: America who said, look, I'm warning you, I'm a bit
- 27:26Speaker 7: foggy on this. I'm a bit fuzzy on this. Don't
- 27:29Speaker 7: go basing a story on what I'm saying because I
- 27:32Speaker 7: can't rely on my memory.
- 27:34Speaker 1: That was the source.
- 27:35Speaker 7: He didn't see anything. He was not an eyewitness. He
- 27:38Speaker 7: was an ear witness. He heard a sound and from
- 27:41Speaker 7: that sound he came up with a claim that turned
- 27:46Speaker 7: into the ABC calling it a war crime. And then
- 27:48Speaker 7: you know, they had the platoon wrong, they had the
- 27:50Speaker 7: rotation wrong, they had the dates wrong. It was wrong, wrong, wrong,
- 27:54Speaker 7: And now we find out there was a manipulation going
- 27:56Speaker 7: on in the edit suite. And look, I'm with James
- 27:59Speaker 7: Willis on this. Someone will lose their job over this,
- 28:01Speaker 7: and I'm just hoping it's not some poor editor in
- 28:04Speaker 7: the ABC editing suites, because it needs to go higher
- 28:07Speaker 7: up than that.
- 28:08Speaker 2: Higher up, how high? Who do you think should lose
- 28:10Speaker 2: their job?
- 28:10Speaker 7: Mark Willersey, Well, look, I certainly think that this story
- 28:16Speaker 7: warrants a proper examination of processes. I think if you
- 28:19Speaker 7: have a look at Joe Puccini, who was above Mark Willersey,
- 28:23Speaker 7: she was just running a defense left, right and center
- 28:25Speaker 7: from the very beginning on this instead of sitting down
- 28:28Speaker 7: and saying, right, oh, let's start from the beginning here,
- 28:30Speaker 7: what have we got? Show me the emails. The fact
- 28:33Speaker 7: that those things had to come to light in the
- 28:35Speaker 7: Federal Court of Australia just shows that the processes weren't
- 28:38Speaker 7: followed to begin with. I would be directing my criticism
- 28:42Speaker 7: to Joe Puccini to be saying to her, listen, you're
- 28:44Speaker 7: in charge here. When questions are raised about our reporting,
- 28:48Speaker 7: when there are criticisms that are leveled at our journalism, you've
- 28:51Speaker 7: got to then conduct a bit of an audit and say,
- 28:54Speaker 7: what have we got? Where did it come from? Do
- 28:56Speaker 7: we need to retract here? Do we need to clarify
- 28:58Speaker 7: or correct or apologize? This should have been done long
- 29:01Speaker 7: before it turned up in the Federal Court of Australia.
- 29:04Speaker 3: All Right, ben Fordham, always love having you on the show,
- 29:07Speaker 3: and I have to say I was very moved by
- 29:10Speaker 3: your story this morning, terrible story about that twelve year
- 29:13Speaker 3: old girl who took her own life after being so
- 29:16Speaker 3: badly bullied. And you know you are just a champion
- 29:19Speaker 3: of so many families. So I'm sure you'll talk about
- 29:22Speaker 3: that on air again tomorrow if everyone watches starting at
- 29:26Speaker 3: five am the Breakfast Club. Thankfully that's not a club
- 29:29Speaker 3: I'm part of, Get up at six, not five, but
- 29:32Speaker 3: ben Fordham on air every morning from five am.
- 29:34Speaker 2: Now to someone else who's been.
- 29:36Speaker 3: Relentless in holding the ABC to account and senate estimates
- 29:39Speaker 3: over this. We've showed you the grilling that Sarah Henderson
- 29:42Speaker 3: gave the ABC bosses and she joins us now, Sarah,
- 29:47Speaker 3: thank you for your time. Look you just heard Ben
- 29:50Speaker 3: Fordham say that perhaps the head of the ABC's investigations unit,
- 29:54Speaker 3: Joe Puccini, should be sacked over this. What consequences do
- 29:58Speaker 3: you think there should be after this admission by the
- 30:02Speaker 3: ABC that it docted video to add in more gunshots.
- 30:08Speaker 14: We'll shrey good evening.
- 30:09Speaker 11: Firstly, let me say this is a story the ABC
- 30:12Speaker 11: got very very wrong and there needs to be a
- 30:16Speaker 11: full investigation. This is the most appalling standards of journalism,
- 30:21Speaker 11: and the fact that the ABC was presented with the
- 30:24Speaker 11: evidence showing they had the story wrong and they continue
- 30:27Speaker 11: to prosecute the case in the federal court mounting up
- 30:31Speaker 11: millions of dollars in costs is an absolute disgrace.
- 30:34Speaker 2: So there does need to be a full investigation.
- 30:36Speaker 11: Including in relation to the doctoring of the video. Of course,
- 30:41Speaker 11: the Channel seven Spotlight program raised very very serious matters
- 30:46Speaker 11: and so that does need to be fully investigated. It's
- 30:49Speaker 11: also been brought to my attention that the ABC employees
- 30:52Speaker 11: might have broader statutory obligations to act with honesty and
- 30:57Speaker 11: due diligence and care and good faith, and those requirements
- 31:02Speaker 11: are in the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability at twenty thirteen.
- 31:08Speaker 2: So this is a very very serious.
- 31:10Speaker 11: Matter and we need all of the answers, Sharry, and
- 31:13Speaker 11: we need them urgently.
- 31:15Speaker 3: Sarah, what's your view on the ABC using unlimited taxpayer
- 31:20Speaker 3: funds for a case like this? Do you think there
- 31:23Speaker 3: should be a limit to how far the ABC can
- 31:26Speaker 3: go when it's defending ultimately a hopeless defamation case with
- 31:30Speaker 3: taxpayer funds.
- 31:34Speaker 11: Well, I think the bottom line is that they failed
- 31:37Speaker 11: the ordinary standards of good journalism. They didn't interrogate the facts,
- 31:41Speaker 11: and rather than do their job, they continue to prosecute
- 31:44Speaker 11: this in the Federal court, mounting millions of dollars. And
- 31:47Speaker 11: it's very clear to me, Shari that the ABC has
- 31:50Speaker 11: not been a model vitigant. They could have resolved and
- 31:54Speaker 11: settled this matter for a very small amount of money.
- 31:56Speaker 11: In fact, initially they could have resolved it for no
- 32:00Speaker 11: money at all, just an apology and removing the offensive material.
- 32:04Speaker 11: But the ABC doubled down, They did not check their facts,
- 32:07Speaker 11: They ran this horrendous case in the Federal court and
- 32:11Speaker 11: Heston Russell was subjected to the most appalling conduct by
- 32:17Speaker 11: our national broadcaster. So I think as part of this
- 32:20Speaker 11: full investigation, the actions of the lawyers, as I said
- 32:24Speaker 11: in cened estimates, must also be fully investigated.
- 32:27Speaker 3: All right, Well, Sarah Henderson, good on you for holding
- 32:30Speaker 3: them to account and thank you for your time this evening.
- 32:34Speaker 3: Now after the break, could we be heading for Peter
- 32:37Speaker 3: Dutton Prime Minister ship. Well, the polster behind this new
- 32:40Speaker 3: research will join me Live plus A War of words
- 32:43Speaker 3: between the.
- 32:44Speaker 2: PM and Elon Musk.
- 32:46Speaker 3: As Musk doubles down on his fascist comment, that's all
- 32:50Speaker 3: coming up, don't go away, welcome back. Well, Anthony Albernezi
- 32:57Speaker 3: should be getting worried because you. Polling today shows the
- 33:01Speaker 3: Coalition is inching closer to the prospect of minority government.
- 33:06Speaker 3: Freshwater Strategy polling shows that on a two party preferred basis,
- 33:10Speaker 3: the Coalition now leads at fifty two percent. Meanwhile, Labour's
- 33:15Speaker 3: primary is tanking down two points to thirty percent, and
- 33:19Speaker 3: according to this pole, the Coalition's.
- 33:21Speaker 2: Primary is at forty two percent.
- 33:23Speaker 3: We're joining us to n pack, is Freshwater Strategy Director
- 33:26Speaker 3: Leo Shanahan. Leo, this is extraordinary polling. Can you tell
- 33:31Speaker 3: us a bit more about these results?
- 33:32Speaker 18: Yeah, well, look, I mean you say it's extraordinary, it's
- 33:34Speaker 18: actually pretty consistent with the trend that we've had. We
- 33:37Speaker 18: had a trend whereby two pp effectively Labor fell behind
- 33:44Speaker 18: a month ago and had fallen behind before. Now it's
- 33:48Speaker 18: at fifty two to forty eight to the Coalition. Now
- 33:53Speaker 18: that is, you know, it is within the margin of error,
- 33:56Speaker 18: but it's showing pretty consistently. It's about fifty to fifty
- 33:59Speaker 18: two aabouts, and a really worrying thing for Labor is
- 34:03Speaker 18: that is that primary vote that's dropped down just to
- 34:06Speaker 18: thirty with the cualition going up over forty now forty two. Now,
- 34:13Speaker 18: if that swing on a two pp basis was reflected,
- 34:19Speaker 18: and I should say swings are very rarely uniform, of course,
- 34:23Speaker 18: but if that swing was reflected at federal election, based
- 34:26Speaker 18: on these results, we'd have a seat count of Labor
- 34:28Speaker 18: just at sixty five and the Coalition at seventy five.
- 34:33Speaker 18: So obviously, on those numbers, the box seat to form
- 34:37Speaker 18: a government, I should say, and fresh Water in our
- 34:40Speaker 18: head of polling Dr Mike Turner has said more likely
- 34:44Speaker 18: on these numbers, we're looking about seventy seats for the Coalition,
- 34:48Speaker 18: but you know, still very close between the two major.
- 34:52Speaker 3: Posts, and I should say he is a highly respective
- 34:55Speaker 3: polster by both political parties. Can you tell us which
- 34:59Speaker 3: vote issues and concerns are shaping the results contributing to
- 35:04Speaker 3: this momentum.
- 35:05Speaker 18: Yeah, well it's that key. It's that cost of living again, Sharry.
- 35:08Speaker 18: I mean it's been I've spoken to you before about this,
- 35:11Speaker 18: but look at that. I mean, it's cost of living
- 35:13Speaker 18: in daylight and really a cost of living and housing
- 35:16Speaker 18: and accommodation are really a super issue in terms of
- 35:20Speaker 18: the way in which it's viewed in the electric because
- 35:23Speaker 18: housing accommodation is very much the cost housing and accommodation,
- 35:27Speaker 18: that is, interest rates, rent for renters and interest rates
- 35:32Speaker 18: for mortgage holders.
- 35:33Speaker 1: So it's that.
- 35:35Speaker 18: Issue and the inability or the perception of an inability
- 35:39Speaker 18: of this government to deal with that issue after it
- 35:42Speaker 18: put it central in the last election saying.
- 35:45Speaker 1: That it would.
- 35:46Speaker 3: Peter Dutton's also spent a good amount of time, you know,
- 35:49Speaker 3: a full fortnight of a parliamentary sitting period focusing on
- 35:54Speaker 3: alban easy bringing in Gazans without proper security checks. How
- 35:59Speaker 3: does this issue of immigration and national security feature in voters.
- 36:03Speaker 18: Concerns, Well, it does increasingly actually figure in voter concerns,
- 36:08Speaker 18: and concerningly for the Labor Party, it's very much an
- 36:11Speaker 18: issue that the Coalition historically is owned and that trend
- 36:16Speaker 18: is not going anywhere. In fact, it's gaining ground in
- 36:18Speaker 18: terms of both immigration, national security and this view of
- 36:23Speaker 18: criminality as well, which is kind of tied up in
- 36:27Speaker 18: the in the issue of concerns about you know, refugees
- 36:35Speaker 18: not having proper security checks and those that were obviously
- 36:39Speaker 18: released obviously released incorrectly into the community, and that we're.
- 36:46Speaker 2: Then from the immigration from immigrated attention exactly.
- 36:49Speaker 3: Yep, all right, Leah Shanahan, thank you so much for
- 36:52Speaker 3: your time, really appreciate it.
- 36:53Speaker 2: Thanks y Now.
- 36:55Speaker 3: Labor Insider also believes Albanezi could be on the cusp
- 36:58Speaker 3: of a major pal defeat, and he'll speak about this
- 37:02Speaker 3: on air for the first time after the break. Plus,
- 37:05Speaker 3: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris respond to the second assassination
- 37:09Speaker 3: attempt on Donald Trump.
- 37:11Speaker 2: That's all coming up. Welcome back.
- 37:17Speaker 3: Well, a prominent labor strategist is predicting that Labor might
- 37:21Speaker 3: be on the cusp of a voice like federal election defeat,
- 37:25Speaker 3: and he thinks the coalition could be poised to win
- 37:28Speaker 3: the next election. And Cameron Milner joins us now along
- 37:31Speaker 3: with John Howard's former press secretary David Gazard for our
- 37:35Speaker 3: regular Monday panel. Welcome gentlemen. Cameron, talk us through your
- 37:39Speaker 3: reasoning here.
- 37:42Speaker 13: Well, Sharie, a week ago you challenged me on the
- 37:44Speaker 13: program to name the seats and show that I was
- 37:47Speaker 13: the only person saying Labor could lose, and so I
- 37:49Speaker 13: went through the exercise and I got Cos Samaris, a
- 37:51Speaker 13: very good polster from Redbridge, to check my work as well.
- 37:53Speaker 1: We looked at news.
- 37:54Speaker 13: Pot, we looked at Freshwater, we looked at all the
- 37:55Speaker 13: poles out there, and all the Poles are saying one thing.
- 37:58Speaker 13: Labour's behind and even further behind than the last election
- 38:02Speaker 13: on their primary and the Coalition consolidate their primary to
- 38:05Speaker 13: election winning levels in the low forties. And so we
- 38:08Speaker 13: extrapolate that seat by seat, state by state, Labour's well behind.
- 38:12Speaker 13: The best Labor can hope for. The best Labor can
- 38:15Speaker 13: hope for is a minority government with Adam Bant and
- 38:17Speaker 13: the Teals being in charge, and that that's what Albanize
- 38:20Speaker 13: wants to take the next election. Good luck to him,
- 38:22Speaker 13: or in fact, Labor's actually on the customer losing altogether,
- 38:25Speaker 13: because even if Dutton falls short, as my article says,
- 38:28Speaker 13: I think there are a couple of Conservatives in the
- 38:31Speaker 13: Lower House will get re elected who may well plum
- 38:33Speaker 13: for him to be the Prime Minister of Australia and
- 38:35Speaker 13: the LNP to form government after just one term of Labor.
- 38:39Speaker 13: So that's the really serious conversation.
- 38:40Speaker 1: Labor's got to have Sharik.
- 38:42Speaker 3: Yeah, and that article, of course is in the Night Leave.
- 38:44Speaker 3: If you want to read it, you can search for
- 38:46Speaker 3: that online. Dave Gazard, what do you think we've heard
- 38:49Speaker 3: about this Freshwater polling tonight, which is an official polling
- 38:54Speaker 3: company Cameron's given his analysis. Do you think this might
- 38:59Speaker 3: be wish thinking by some or do you think the
- 39:02Speaker 3: momentum is against Albanzi here?
- 39:06Speaker 19: Well, the momentum is certainly against Albinesi. The question is
- 39:09Speaker 19: can he arrest the slide and bring it back into
- 39:12Speaker 19: a position where he can win. Now, you can come
- 39:16Speaker 19: back from fifty two to forty eight down, there's no
- 39:19Speaker 19: problem with that. John Howard did that several times, and
- 39:22Speaker 19: he did it over the course of the election campaign.
- 39:25Speaker 1: But Cameron is quite right.
- 39:26Speaker 19: The numbers have just kept drifting for Anthony Albanesi and
- 39:30Speaker 19: there is no sign of any restoration in sight. The
- 39:33Speaker 19: other thing that I think we can add to his
- 39:36Speaker 19: interesting analysis is that even that the Teal teals, the
- 39:41Speaker 19: Teals that would never normally vote for the coalition in
- 39:44Speaker 19: a pink fit but are in coalition seats, they would
- 39:49Speaker 19: have to think very carefully about going against the wishes
- 39:54Speaker 19: of a large swing towards the coalition in seats that
- 39:58Speaker 19: have traditionally been co There's been a couple of examples
- 40:02Speaker 19: of this in recent history. Probably the most prominent is
- 40:06Speaker 19: how Rob oakshot and Tony Windsor got it wrong in
- 40:10Speaker 19: the twenty ten election in both in Conservative seats, back
- 40:14Speaker 19: Julia Gillard and paid the price in the next election.
- 40:17Speaker 19: So if you're an alleged respender or a Sophie Scomps
- 40:21Speaker 19: somebody like that who's come in with a big swing
- 40:24Speaker 19: in a traditionally coalition seat, you've got to think twice
- 40:27Speaker 19: about backing alban Easy this time around. If it is
- 40:32Speaker 19: poised in a minority situation.
- 40:34Speaker 3: Yeah, indeed was Its going to be a tough battle.
- 40:36Speaker 3: That's for show for both sides. Let's have a look
- 40:39Speaker 3: at the Labour's Misinformation Bill now. Now, this has been
- 40:42Speaker 3: widely criticized by the left and the right, by every group.
- 40:47Speaker 2: Under the sun.
- 40:48Speaker 3: The Coalition has accused Albanezy of being contemptuous of free speech.
- 40:52Speaker 3: Here was David Coleman with Andrew Clenel yesterday.
- 40:56Speaker 12: The government got this wrong catastrophically last time, Andrews. So
- 41:01Speaker 12: I've minused to put this bill out in June last year.
- 41:03Speaker 12: We had four months when pretty much everyone in Australia
- 41:06Speaker 12: came out and said it was a grotesque piece of legislation,
- 41:09Speaker 12: from the Civil Liberties Council to the Human Rights Commission.
- 41:12Speaker 12: They pulled the bill in disgrace in November. They then
- 41:14Speaker 12: work on it for ten months and then they've come
- 41:18Speaker 12: out with a bill which has a lot of issues.
- 41:21Speaker 12: We in the Coalition will always stand up for free speech.
- 41:25Speaker 12: We did that last time. We thought this bill very
- 41:28Speaker 12: hard it had to be withdrawn, and will certainly fight
- 41:31Speaker 12: hard for free speech this time.
- 41:34Speaker 3: Caaron, I've spoken a lot on the show about my
- 41:36Speaker 3: concerns about this piece of legislation. From a journalism perspective,
- 41:41Speaker 3: Elon Musk has come out and accused the Albanezi government
- 41:45Speaker 3: of being fascists over this.
- 41:47Speaker 13: What do you think, Well, I'm not on social media,
- 41:51Speaker 13: but the social media is full of awful stuff, awful
- 41:55Speaker 13: terrorism stuff, racism and semitism, misogynistic hate. So it's a sewer.
- 42:01Speaker 13: It's a sewer shari and if it's going to be
- 42:04Speaker 13: a news or organization, if it wants to promulgate itself
- 42:06Speaker 13: as that, it needs to be held to the same
- 42:08Speaker 13: standards that our show does, or you know, the Australian does,
- 42:11Speaker 13: or the wider newspapers and the radio in television Australia.
- 42:15Speaker 13: We need to have standards, but I don't think those
- 42:17Speaker 13: standards should be arbitrarily set by people like Albow. Just
- 42:21Speaker 13: because he's offended, Just because Albo doesn't like it, doesn't
- 42:24Speaker 13: mean it's wrong.
- 42:24Speaker 1: Shari.
- 42:25Speaker 13: I think that's the real concern about this bill, that
- 42:27Speaker 13: the misinformation disinformation test is not about whether it's true,
- 42:32Speaker 13: whether it's false, or whether it's actually offensive.
- 42:34Speaker 1: It's just whether Albo doesn't like it.
- 42:36Speaker 13: I think that's a really poor standard to try to
- 42:38Speaker 13: put into the bill.
- 42:39Speaker 3: I mean, David Gazard, we've heard the number of things
- 42:41Speaker 3: the Prime Minister has accused of being misinformation, including people
- 42:45Speaker 3: who opposed the Voice. So there are a lot of
- 42:48Speaker 3: concerns around this. We saw how much was censored during
- 42:52Speaker 3: the COVID pandemic. There are a lot of concerns about
- 42:56Speaker 3: having legislation around misinformation.
- 43:00Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no doubt.
- 43:01Speaker 19: And when you get as Cameron has just rightly pointed out,
- 43:04Speaker 19: the various ministerial powers where ministers can direct reviews into
- 43:10Speaker 19: matters that it deems to be misinformation, then you've got
- 43:13Speaker 19: another worry because it's the government forcing the chilling hand
- 43:18Speaker 19: of censorship into the community. You know, it's taken all
- 43:21Speaker 19: of a few days to find out that academics who
- 43:25Speaker 19: say one thing are exempt from the legislation, but people
- 43:28Speaker 19: who repeat what they hear by the academics are caught
- 43:31Speaker 19: up in it. So there does seem to be an
- 43:33Speaker 19: arbitrariness of it, and it will be easy to pick
- 43:37Speaker 19: apart on that basis side.
- 43:39Speaker 2: Imagine, Yeah, it is. It's quite terrifying.
- 43:42Speaker 3: Now, very quickly before we go from a Defense foss
- 43:45Speaker 3: Chief Angus Campbell and other prominent military figures are being
- 43:48Speaker 3: urged to give back their medals. Cameron, what do you
- 43:52Speaker 3: think do you think this would be appropriate for the
- 43:54Speaker 3: top brice to surrender their honors given others.
- 43:57Speaker 2: Have had to.
- 43:59Speaker 13: Well, it stops at the top as far as I'm concerned, Shari,
- 44:02Speaker 13: and they should if they're not asked to leave them,
- 44:05Speaker 13: they should actually do the voluntary thing and give them up.
- 44:07Speaker 13: I mean, ultimately, the buck stops at the top of
- 44:09Speaker 13: the Defense Force. For what has been found the burrit
- 44:11Speaker 13: and report. You can't just fire middle management. The CEO
- 44:14Speaker 13: has got to go as well.
- 44:15Speaker 2: David, what's your take on this?
- 44:17Speaker 19: Yeah, look, I hate this debate. In the Defense services,
- 44:22Speaker 19: we train these people to go into really really difficult
- 44:26Speaker 19: jobs in a wide range of challenging circumstances, and then
- 44:31Speaker 19: we pick it apart from the side through through media
- 44:34Speaker 19: articles and inquiries when it's highly dynamic. But I tend
- 44:39Speaker 19: to agree with Cameron on this. If there is malfeasan's
- 44:43Speaker 19: displayed in the defense forces, the buck stops with the
- 44:46Speaker 19: commanding officers. You can't just sort of, you know, push
- 44:49Speaker 19: it down the line to the poor person in Afghanistan
- 44:53Speaker 19: or Iraq who's who's had been forced into a difficult
- 44:56Speaker 19: situation and maybe made the wrong choice. He's got a
- 44:59Speaker 19: commanding off us and that extends all the way up
- 45:01Speaker 19: into the senior brass Yeah.
- 45:04Speaker 3: Yeah, I think this debate is going to run for
- 45:06Speaker 3: a while yet. All Right, David Gazzard, Camra Milner, thank you.
- 45:08Speaker 2: For your time.
- 45:10Speaker 3: Now after the break, Donald Trump says he hates Taylor Swift.
- 45:15Speaker 2: We'll talk about that.
- 45:16Speaker 3: Plus Biden and Kamala respond to the second assassination attempt.
- 45:21Speaker 2: This is an insider comes out to claim that.
- 45:24Speaker 3: The US ABC network leaked questions to Kamala ahead of
- 45:29Speaker 3: the debate, don't go away, that's after the break, welcome back.
- 45:36Speaker 2: Well. Photos have emerged of Donald Trump.
- 45:38Speaker 3: In golf gear and smiling after the second attempt on
- 45:42Speaker 3: his life in just two months. Let's bring in now
- 45:46Speaker 3: our Sky News contributor Koshergade to discuss Kosher. This is
- 45:51Speaker 3: highly concerning another assassination attempt. What has been the reaction
- 45:55Speaker 3: from Kamala Andree Biden along with the fomb president today.
- 46:02Speaker 10: Really concerning and just stepping back really quickly, Shari, it
- 46:05Speaker 10: really is such a remarkable day, and I feel very
- 46:08Speaker 10: sad for my country that there's this level of hatred
- 46:11Speaker 10: out there, whether directly or stoked or every which way
- 46:14Speaker 10: in between. And I do fear for the former president
- 46:17Speaker 10: that now this has not happened for forty years in
- 46:19Speaker 10: the history of the country. The last one was Ronald
- 46:21Speaker 10: Reagan's attempted assassination, and now in a matter of sixty
- 46:24Speaker 10: two days, you have not one, but two attempts. So
- 46:26Speaker 10: it is highly, highly concerning. In terms of the reaction,
- 46:30Speaker 10: Kamala Harris put out a statement that I think you
- 46:32Speaker 10: know was appropriate. She condemned all forms of violence as
- 46:35Speaker 10: it has no place in America and express relief that
- 46:39Speaker 10: President Trump is safe. I will say that it felt
- 46:42Speaker 10: a little bit boilerplate to me. I think she actually
- 46:44Speaker 10: missed an opportunity to do something more vice presidential, such
- 46:48Speaker 10: as a live televised address from the West Wing or
- 46:51Speaker 10: something like that might have helped take down that temperature.
- 46:53Speaker 10: But at least you know the statement was out there.
- 46:55Speaker 10: President Biden put a statement out I think hours late.
- 46:58Speaker 10: It was three hours late and after the Vice president,
- 47:02Speaker 10: which I don't.
- 47:02Speaker 2: Think was a good look.
- 47:03Speaker 10: And I also really quickly looked at other people like
- 47:05Speaker 10: former President Obama, Michelle Obama, vice President Mike Pen's, Dick Cheney,
- 47:10Speaker 10: all these people who are obviously not big fans of Trump.
- 47:13Speaker 10: There was the silence, I think was quite conspicuous. I
- 47:16Speaker 10: didn't see a lot of statements coming out from them,
- 47:18Speaker 10: and I think that's something that's a little bit unfortunate,
- 47:20Speaker 10: because this really is a serious matter.
- 47:22Speaker 3: Yeah, they claim to care about democracy, Well, democracy means
- 47:26Speaker 3: both candidates staying alive before and after the election, and
- 47:30Speaker 3: I think there are serious concerns that Donald Trump may
- 47:34Speaker 3: not survive an assassination attempt. I think this is a
- 47:37Speaker 3: genuinely terrifying prospect. Now we got another indication today that
- 47:42Speaker 3: Trump hasn't taken Taylor Swift's endorsement of Kamala Harris Well.
- 47:46Speaker 2: He wrote on social.
- 47:48Speaker 3: Media, I hate Taylor Swift, but surely this reaction Kosher
- 47:54Speaker 3: won't go down well either, given she is literally one
- 47:57Speaker 3: of the most popular figures in well not just the
- 48:00Speaker 3: US but lively.
- 48:04Speaker 10: Yes, I think you know that's Trump being Trump with
- 48:06Speaker 10: his four worded tweet that drove all these media cycles.
- 48:10Speaker 10: I think the whole Taylor Swift thing, it's great for
- 48:13Speaker 10: commanding attention in the media cycle and sucking up the oxygen,
- 48:17Speaker 10: just given the name brand that she is, and Trump
- 48:20Speaker 10: knows how to play into that, for better or for worse.
- 48:23Speaker 10: I don't know that she's really going to influence too
- 48:25Speaker 10: many opinions of undecided voters, the few remaining ones in
- 48:29Speaker 10: the swing states. But the biggest value she brings is
- 48:32Speaker 10: potentially her contributions to database of voters, because since we
- 48:36Speaker 10: don't have mandatory voting in the US as you know,
- 48:38Speaker 10: it so much about it as the turnout game and
- 48:40Speaker 10: the machinery of both parties being able to target those
- 48:43Speaker 10: last few remaining voters who may not have turned out
- 48:46Speaker 10: to vote in the swing states, and she's got this
- 48:48Speaker 10: database of hundreds of thousands of concert goers, people that
- 48:51Speaker 10: are typically low propensity voters because they're young and they're
- 48:54Speaker 10: not inclined to show up at the polls, and she
- 48:56Speaker 10: can convert even one to two percent of those people
- 48:59Speaker 10: to show up and vote. That potentially is problematic. And
- 49:02Speaker 10: I think the counter to that is going to be
- 49:04Speaker 10: the Republican Party doing everything they can to drive turn
- 49:07Speaker 10: out from their base to counter what I would call
- 49:09Speaker 10: the Taylor Swift database effect.
- 49:11Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 49:12Speaker 3: I think it is possible though, that people like their
- 49:14Speaker 3: favorite pop star but don't necessarily follow their political insights.
- 49:18Speaker 3: And as many have pointed out, she is the woman
- 49:20Speaker 3: famous from making wrong decisions, at least.
- 49:23Speaker 2: When it comes to men. So there you go.
- 49:25Speaker 3: Look just twenty seconds, Kosher. There's claims on social media.
- 49:31Speaker 3: We don't know if they're credible or not. They're probably
- 49:33Speaker 3: not credible that a US whistleblower says that the questions
- 49:38Speaker 3: were given to Kamala Harris before the debate.
- 49:42Speaker 10: Yes, in regardless of the veracity of those comments, I
- 49:45Speaker 10: think what it's highlighting and underscoring is what we all
- 49:47Speaker 10: saw with our own eyes in terms of the lopsided
- 49:49Speaker 10: nature of the moderators, and that what's interesting here is
- 49:51Speaker 10: it's getting a lot of weight and traction from people
- 49:54Speaker 10: like Bill Ackman and Elon Musk that are asking Bob Iger,
- 49:56Speaker 10: the CEO of Disney that's the parent company of ABC,
- 49:59Speaker 10: to investigate, which is interesting. But other than that, as
- 50:01Speaker 10: you see, who knows what's going to come from this.
- 50:04Speaker 3: All right, Always great to have you on the show, Koshagada,
- 50:06Speaker 3: Thank you, and that's it for me. I'll see you
- 50:08Speaker 3: tomorrow at eight o'clock. Right now, Paul Mara