Transcript

Sharri | 14 October · Sharri

0:07
Speaker 1: Good evening.
0:07
Speaker 2: Thanks, Andrew. Well, powerhouse show tonight. James Patterson, Matt Canavan,
0:12
Speaker 2: Michael Schellenberger from the US and Michael Kroger. And a
0:17
Speaker 2: lot coming up. There's tensions tonight between the Prime Minister
0:20
Speaker 2: and his Treasurer. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke is under
0:24
Speaker 2: fire over social cohesion grants to hate preachers. And it's
0:28
Speaker 2: trial by fire for President Trump's new press secretary. We'll
0:32
Speaker 2: get into all of that. But first, to the dysfunctional
0:36
Speaker 2: relationship between Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers. It's now spilled
0:41
Speaker 2: into the public domain. I've been speaking to you for
0:44
Speaker 2: over a week now about the deteriorating partnership. between the
0:48
Speaker 2: Prime Minister and the Treasurer. It is troubled. And today,
0:53
Speaker 2: this personal relationship, this growing enmity has been exposed publicly,
0:59
Speaker 2: with Albanese and Chalmers each giving conflicting accounts over who
1:03
Speaker 2: decided to backflip on the ATO's disastrous credit card ban
1:08
Speaker 2: for bills. Albanese last night publicly took the personal credit
1:15
Speaker 2: for this reversal of a bad policy to begin with.
1:19
Speaker 2: Have a look.
1:20
Speaker 3: Andrew did text me last Thursday morning. And by Friday morning,
1:27
Speaker 3: we had an announcement. And that was an example of
1:34
Speaker 3: a relationship that takes time to develop as well, that
1:37
Speaker 3: trust where you can have a discussion saying it's in hand.
1:41
Speaker 3: I agree with what you are saying.
1:45
Speaker 2: But this is a version of events that was disputed
1:48
Speaker 2: by Chalmers today, who said it wasn't the Prime Minister's
1:51
Speaker 2: captain's call, but a team decision.
1:54
Speaker 4: Were you rolled by the PA?
1:56
Speaker 5: No, not at all. And it is true that there
2:00
Speaker 5: were discussions with ACCI on Thursday. We were involved in
2:03
Speaker 5: some of those discussions at office level. They were engaging
2:06
Speaker 5: with my team on... Were.
2:09
Speaker 4: You overlooked by ACCI?
2:11
Speaker 5: If you just let me set it out for you,
2:13
Speaker 5: Prime Minister and I were in discussions on Wednesday of
2:15
Speaker 5: last week. He had a view, and I agree with it,
2:19
Speaker 5: that we needed to step in to provide this longer
2:22
Speaker 5: transition period to allow the ATO the time.
2:25
Speaker 6: To get it right.
2:27
Speaker 5: We had the same view. We had the same view.
2:31
Speaker 2: So either Albanese received a text message from the head
2:35
Speaker 2: of the Australian Chamber of Commerce on Thursday and it
2:38
Speaker 2: was that text message that prompted the government to backflip,
2:42
Speaker 2: or Chalmers had been looking at this for a couple
2:44
Speaker 2: of days while he was overseas and working on changing course. Well,
2:49
Speaker 2: Albanese later walked back his comments under pressure in question time.
2:55
Speaker 3: The Treasurer and I had a discussion last week.
2:59
Speaker 7: We convened.
3:01
Speaker 3: The Expenditure Review Committee and we unanimously, right across the
3:07
Speaker 3: leadership of the government, agreed that the decision by the
3:12
Speaker 3: ATO to have a limited period of pause on the
3:22
Speaker 3: ban that had been imposed.
3:25
Speaker 2: But Albanese's initial deliberately inflammatory comments also detracted from a
3:30
Speaker 2: major speech Chalmers gave where he said that One Nation
3:34
Speaker 2: voters deserved empathy and respect.
3:38
Speaker 5: Our role as progressive people is not to scold those
3:41
Speaker 5: who see appeal in that message. It's not to mock them,
3:44
Speaker 5: dare I say cancel them, or talk down to them.
3:47
Speaker 5: And you do that by starting not from a place
3:50
Speaker 5: of smug, Now, to.
3:57
Speaker 2: Most of us, of course, it is obvious that all
3:59
Speaker 2: voters deserve respect. But Chalmers needed to specifically say this
4:03
Speaker 2: because Labor does have a tendency to mock Pauline Hanson
4:07
Speaker 2: and her supporters, just like how the Democrats were patronising
4:11
Speaker 2: towards Trump and his voters. Of course, with Hillary Clinton
4:15
Speaker 2: famously describing MAGA voters as the basket of deplorables. Well,
4:21
Speaker 2: Labor figure Cameron Milner writes that Albanese's insecurity and jealousy
4:25
Speaker 2: meant he couldn't let Chalmers have the news cycle with
4:29
Speaker 2: his plan to tackle One Nation. And Cameron also reiterates
4:32
Speaker 2: that there's a lot of discussion still in Canberra about Chalmers'
4:36
Speaker 2: own future. He writes there's already been plenty of briefing
4:40
Speaker 2: by disaffected MPs and ministers complaining of Chalmers' poor performances
4:45
Speaker 2: and Albanese's regular briefing against and kneecapping of his treasurer.
4:51
Speaker 2: Chalmers is under pressure, his time remaining as Treasurer a
4:55
Speaker 2: point of open speculation in Canberra. And he says Chalmers
4:59
Speaker 2: knows the risk he's taken by contradicting his Prime Minister.
5:05
Speaker 2: We've been speaking for over a week now right here
5:08
Speaker 2: about the relationship between the pair. The discussion about Chalmers'
5:13
Speaker 2: future is because Albanese knows Labor is in trouble over
5:17
Speaker 2: the economy and the cost of living. And the polls
5:20
Speaker 2: also show that Albanese personally is extremely unpopular. Although, of course,
5:25
Speaker 2: you don't need polls to tell you that. But the
5:28
Speaker 2: point is Albanese is blaming his treasurer. He's openly criticising
5:33
Speaker 2: him to business and political figures, as I reported exclusively
5:38
Speaker 2: last Thursday. Now, on the one hand, it's not unusual
5:43
Speaker 2: for a Prime Minister and Treasurer to have a difficult relationship.
5:47
Speaker 2: This was the case with Josh Frydenberg and Scott Morrison,
5:50
Speaker 2: as Josh told me in my interview with him on
5:52
Speaker 2: Monday night. And John Howard even spoke about his relationship
5:58
Speaker 2: with Peter Costello yesterday at Frydenberg's book launch.
6:02
Speaker 8: When I was Treasurer, I thought Prime Ministers were a
6:05
Speaker 8: pain in the neck. And when I became prime minister,
6:08
Speaker 8: I thought treasurers occasionally were a pain in the neck.
6:11
Speaker 8: It's just the nature of the relationship.
6:15
Speaker 2: Look, it's a funny line, but an important insight. So
6:18
Speaker 2: a testy relationship isn't unusual. But here's the difference. This
6:23
Speaker 2: is a live situation. We don't know yet how it
6:27
Speaker 2: will all unfold and whether the Treasurer will survive. Because
6:33
Speaker 2: Albanese is a ruthless political operator. As hopeless as he
6:38
Speaker 2: truly is as Prime Minister, he's equally sharp and brilliant
6:43
Speaker 2: at the politics. There's no rival he wouldn't shaft or
6:47
Speaker 2: throw under the proverbial bus. And it seems the Treasurer
6:52
Speaker 2: is in his sights. I'll come back to that shortly.
6:58
Speaker 2: But now the Albanese government is under fire for giving
7:01
Speaker 2: more of your hard-earned taxpayer dollars to Islamic organisations promoting extremism.
7:07
Speaker 2: In revelations today, a group called the One Path Network
7:12
Speaker 2: received more than $ 300, 000 in taxpayer funding from Home Affairs
7:15
Speaker 2: in April. The Daily Telegraph reports the funding was intended
7:22
Speaker 2: to strengthen social cohesion while increasing tolerance and understanding between
7:26
Speaker 2: individuals and groups in Australia. But you've got to ask,
7:31
Speaker 2: why would this organisation be given money to strengthen social
7:35
Speaker 2: cohesion when it's published highly offensive commentary like this?
7:41
Speaker 9: Zionists are Jewish supremacists, as some scholars call them.
7:48
Speaker 7: Are mortal enemies of Islam.
7:50
Speaker 6: In fact, many would argue that there's no moral difference
7:54
Speaker 6: between putting people in gas chambers and burning people alive
7:59
Speaker 6: inside tents. I don't know about you, but I kind
8:01
Speaker 6: of get Nazi vibes.
8:04
Speaker 2: And in another video, a speaker said the spate of
8:07
Speaker 2: anti-Semitic attacks across Sydney were just fake.
8:12
Speaker 7: It was all a sham.
8:14
Speaker 6: And the lie came crumbling down. The entire saga and
8:19
Speaker 6: string of attacks were nothing more than the doings of
8:22
Speaker 6: an underworld, organised crime network, trying to mislead the police
8:27
Speaker 6: and manipulate government resources. It had absolutely nothing to do
8:32
Speaker 6: with anti-Semitism.
8:35
Speaker 2: Of course, when the Jewish community is being targeted, that
8:39
Speaker 2: is anti-Semitism. But do clips like that sound like promoting
8:43
Speaker 2: social cohesion? I mean, it's quite the opposite. And in fact,
8:47
Speaker 2: The Telegraph calls it Labor's gift to Jew hate and
8:52
Speaker 2: inside how you paid for them to spread hatred. But
8:57
Speaker 2: one of those speakers, Kamal Saylor, has hit back tonight
9:00
Speaker 2: at The Daily Telegraph editor Ben English and bizarrely me
9:05
Speaker 2: for these reports today.
9:07
Speaker 6: This is a disgusting fat lie. The Daily Teller trash
9:11
Speaker 6: just ran a full front page and double page image
9:14
Speaker 6: spread with my face on it, accusing me of being
9:17
Speaker 6: a Jew hater and anti-Semite.
9:21
Speaker 2: But this is a broader issue than just one case.
9:25
Speaker 2: The telly reports that the Albanese government has overseen a
9:29
Speaker 2: tenfold explosion in multicultural grants, totalling more than $ 325 million
9:36
Speaker 2: since coming to power. A staggering 94% of the money
9:40
Speaker 2: has flowed into Labor-held electorates. Mr Burke's South West Sydney
9:45
Speaker 2: electorate of Watson was among the biggest beneficiaries, receiving approximately
9:49
Speaker 2: $ 45 million in funding, the bulk of the money going
9:54
Speaker 2: to Islamic groups. And this, of course, comes as the
9:58
Speaker 2: Albanese government refuses to say that it will stop funding
10:02
Speaker 2: to the Islamic centre linked to the fly Dubai co-pilot. Now,
10:07
Speaker 2: the co-pilot, who's accused of nearly causing a 9-11 style
10:11
Speaker 2: terror attack, well, he's told UAE investigators that he was
10:15
Speaker 2: radicalised in Australia and And the imam at the centre
10:19
Speaker 2: he attended has made despicable comments like this.
10:23
Speaker 10: I've always believed that these Zionists are not normal. They're
10:27
Speaker 10: blood-sucking human beings.
10:30
Speaker 2: They're scavengers.
10:32
Speaker 10: They're not humanists, I swear by Allah. 82%, not 20%
10:35
Speaker 10: or 15%, 82% believe in ethnic cleansing. And as we
10:37
Speaker 10: spoke about last night, of course, it too has received
10:40
Speaker 10: taxpayer funding.
10:48
Speaker 2: Well, I thought it was interesting. I found this out today,
10:50
Speaker 2: that back in February, a Victorian Liberal Senator, Evan Mulholland,
10:55
Speaker 2: gave a condolence motion, a condolence motion on the Bondi
10:59
Speaker 2: terror attack. And then he spoke about how he wanted
11:02
Speaker 2: to reflect on the issue of anti-Semitism. And he raised
11:06
Speaker 2: this very preacher in Parliament.
11:09
Speaker 11: We certainly on the opposition side do not believe that
11:12
Speaker 11: organisations whose leaders have expressed such hatred have should be
11:16
Speaker 11: worthy of taxpayer funds, as has happened under this government.
11:21
Speaker 11: We certainly do not believe these kind of individuals should
11:25
Speaker 11: be given relevance or endorsements by the way of multiple
11:29
Speaker 11: ministerial visits and multiple government MP visits, as has happened
11:34
Speaker 11: in recent years under this government.
11:37
Speaker 2: And then under parliamentary privilege, Evan made this point. He
11:42
Speaker 2: linked the extremism of hate preachers with terror attacks like Bondi.
11:48
Speaker 11: Hatred like this should never, ever be tolerated. Tragedies like
11:55
Speaker 11: this don't happen out of nowhere. They begin with hateful
11:58
Speaker 11: bile like this.
12:00
Speaker 7: And the Liberals and Nationals.
12:02
Speaker 12: Know where the line is.
12:04
Speaker 11: And you will never see us associating with so-called leaders
12:08
Speaker 11: who have spewed such hatred, and I would say incitement,
12:13
Speaker 11: about our Jewish community here in this state. If we
12:16
Speaker 11: don't know where the line is and we don't take
12:19
Speaker 11: a stand and call it out for what it is,
12:22
Speaker 11: because it might be politically inconvenient, we're not serving our
12:27
Speaker 11: duty as elected leaders and we will end up with
12:30
Speaker 11: more Bondi's.
12:33
Speaker 2: I mean, well said. But the Albanese government has been
12:37
Speaker 2: inexcusably weak on this issue, giving grants worth hundreds of
12:41
Speaker 2: thousands of dollars to organisations promoting extremism. These grants are
12:45
Speaker 2: often in the name of social cohesion. I mean, it's
12:48
Speaker 2: a joke. Yet the so-called hate preachers are often openly
12:53
Speaker 2: hostile to Western values, to Australian values. And even now,
12:58
Speaker 2: with more centres being exposed every day, Tony Burke did
13:03
Speaker 2: not say that he'll stop the funding to that centre
13:06
Speaker 2: in Melbourne. He's passed the buck and shifted all of
13:09
Speaker 2: this onto his junior colleague, Anne Ali. And she has
13:14
Speaker 2: today confirmed that the grant given to One Path, the
13:18
Speaker 2: network in Sydney we spoke about, at least that will
13:22
Speaker 2: be terminated.
13:23
Speaker 13: In April, the Albanese government handed a $ 300, 000 grant to
13:27
Speaker 13: the One Path Network. Why on earth did the minister
13:30
Speaker 13: give taxpayer funding to a group spilling hate-filled lies about Jews?
13:35
Speaker 2: The decision that the member refers to was a decision
13:38
Speaker 2: that was made by the department. The department has now
13:41
Speaker 2: sent One Path a notice of intention to terminate. This
13:45
Speaker 2: is a massive issue. It's a much broader issue. There
13:48
Speaker 2: are dozens and dozens of grants... And these are home
13:52
Speaker 2: affairs grants. Tony Burke is the minister. He needs to
13:56
Speaker 2: sort this out and quickly. Well, for more on this now,
14:02
Speaker 2: I'm joined by Shadow Defence Minister James Patterson. James, thank
14:05
Speaker 2: you very much for your time. As I said, this
14:08
Speaker 2: is a serious issue and one that you personally first
14:11
Speaker 2: exposed at least a year or two years ago, the
14:14
Speaker 2: fact that taxpayer-funded grants were being given to organisations promoting
14:18
Speaker 2: extremism and What needs to be done about this?
14:23
Speaker 7: You're right, Shari.
14:23
Speaker 9: It was two years ago in Senate estimates that I
14:26
Speaker 9: put to the Department of Home Affairs that they had
14:29
Speaker 9: given taxpayers money under so-called social cohesion grants to organisations
14:34
Speaker 9: that were promoting hatred of the Jewish community, anti-Semitism and extremism.
14:39
Speaker 7: And at the time, I just thought it was sloppiness.
14:41
Speaker 7: I thought it was carelessness.
14:42
Speaker 9: I thought the department was not doing adequate due diligence
14:46
Speaker 9: and they were handing out taxpayers money to organisations who
14:48
Speaker 9: never should have received it. This has now happened so
14:51
Speaker 9: many times. This is now continuing to happen even after
14:55
Speaker 9: Bondi that it is very difficult to say anymore that
14:59
Speaker 9: it's just incompetence, that it's just laziness, that it's just
15:02
Speaker 9: a failure to do due diligence. It looks to me
15:05
Speaker 9: like it's deliberate. And I don't think it's a coincidence
15:08
Speaker 9: that the person ultimately responsible, the minister ultimately responsible, is
15:12
Speaker 9: Tony Burke. And it is his electorate which is a
15:15
Speaker 9: primary beneficiary. He would know these organisations and these leaders
15:19
Speaker 9: better than anyone And given the previous failures of Home
15:22
Speaker 9: Affairs to adequately vet organisations, he should have taken a
15:26
Speaker 9: personal interest to make sure that not one cent of taxpayers'
15:30
Speaker 9: money went to an Islamist extremist organisation. The fact that
15:34
Speaker 9: it has is his responsibility, that he must own and
15:37
Speaker 9: he must take responsibility for.
15:39
Speaker 7: Tony Burke owns this.
15:42
Speaker 2: By the way, I put questions to him today about
15:45
Speaker 2: any links he has to OnePath and he came back
15:47
Speaker 2: strongly and said he's got nothing to do with them,
15:50
Speaker 2: no relationship with them whatsoever. So just adding that in there.
15:54
Speaker 2: James Annerley said in Parliament that she's looking at using
15:58
Speaker 2: the technology that screens visas to screen grants. Do you
16:03
Speaker 2: think that this seems like a good solution? Or is
16:06
Speaker 2: there another way? I mean, these grants weren't issued under
16:09
Speaker 2: the Coalition government, were they?
16:12
Speaker 9: We didn't have this problem when the coalition was last
16:14
Speaker 9: in power. We were not handing taxpayers' money over to
16:17
Speaker 9: Islamist extremists who were using it to undermine social cohesion
16:21
Speaker 9: and damage our national unity. It's only been a problem
16:25
Speaker 9: under Labor in recent years. They should have known from
16:27
Speaker 9: 7 October onwards and they should have known from two
16:29
Speaker 9: years ago when they got this warning in Senate estimates
16:32
Speaker 9: that their processes were not up to scratch.
16:34
Speaker 7: The fact that it's only now.
16:36
Speaker 9: long after Bondi, long after, in my view, extremism like
16:41
Speaker 9: this contributed to events like Bondi, that they are now
16:44
Speaker 9: saying that they maybe look at some technology that might
16:46
Speaker 9: fix this. They just shouldn't have given this money in
16:49
Speaker 9: the first place. There's no excuse for it and political
16:51
Speaker 9: leadership from the ministerial level should have stopped it.
16:54
Speaker 2: And just finally, quickly on this issue before we move
16:56
Speaker 2: on to other topics, quite extraordinary that your colleague Evan
17:00
Speaker 2: had spoken about one of these places months ago in
17:04
Speaker 2: the Victorian Senate.
17:07
Speaker 9: That's exactly right. Evan's shown great leadership in the Victorian
17:09
Speaker 9: Parliament on this issue. He's courageously called this out and
17:12
Speaker 9: copped a pretty serious backlash from the Labor Party in Victoria,
17:16
Speaker 9: who have knowingly associated with these extremists as well, plus
17:20
Speaker 9: some elements of the Muslim community in Victoria who do
17:24
Speaker 9: have extreme views and should be condemned for them. And
17:27
Speaker 9: he was ahead of the curve in calling this out,
17:29
Speaker 9: in warning people about it, and they should have heeded
17:31
Speaker 9: those warnings.
17:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, indeed. Just before we went to air tonight, the
17:35
Speaker 2: Coalition had a major win, it looks like. The reports are, James,
17:41
Speaker 2: that you've managed to team up with the crossbench in
17:44
Speaker 2: the Senate to block Labor's changes to private health insurance.
17:49
Speaker 2: So can you tell us what's happened here and how
17:51
Speaker 2: this will impact on the more than three million older
17:54
Speaker 2: Australians who were looking at premium rises of hundreds of dollars?
18:00
Speaker 7: That's right, Shari.
18:01
Speaker 9: So in their wisdom, the Albanese government decided that the
18:03
Speaker 9: best way to save money was to take away rebates
18:06
Speaker 9: from pensioners and self-funded retirees who use private health insurance,
18:10
Speaker 9: and in doing so, take pressure off the public system.
18:13
Speaker 9: Australians aged 65 and over were going to be paying
18:16
Speaker 9: up to $ 800 each more, $ 1, 600 for couples.
18:20
Speaker 7: For their private health insurance in the middle of a
18:23
Speaker 7: cost of living crisis in.
18:24
Speaker 9: This incredibly mean-spirited move by the Albanese government. But they
18:29
Speaker 9: have been defeated in the Senate today, led by the
18:31
Speaker 9: Liberals and Nationals, but supported across the chamber by other parties,
18:35
Speaker 9: including the Greens. And it has left Mark Butler in
18:38
Speaker 9: a very embarrassing place. I mean, this guy's been trailing
18:40
Speaker 9: his coat as a future leader of the Labor Party.
18:43
Speaker 9: to replace Anthony Albanese, and his signature budget savings measure
18:47
Speaker 9: has just blown up in his face, and so it
18:49
Speaker 9: should have, given how cruel it was to older Australians.
18:54
Speaker 2: I just want to go back to the comments that
18:56
Speaker 2: the Treasurer made about One Nation in that speech. I mean,
18:59
Speaker 2: we know both major parties are really struggling to know
19:02
Speaker 2: how to respond to this new phenomenon of the rise
19:06
Speaker 2: of One Nation. The Treasurer says Labor shouldn't mock One
19:10
Speaker 2: Nation voters.
19:11
Speaker 11: I mean.
19:11
Speaker 2: Quite an extraordinary thing to have to say. But it
19:15
Speaker 2: is the case that the Coalition doesn't know how to
19:17
Speaker 2: react to the rise of Pauline Hanson either. How do
19:21
Speaker 2: you think the parties should respond?
19:25
Speaker 9: Well, our primary political opponent is the Labor Party. The
19:28
Speaker 9: purpose that the Liberal Party exists for is to get
19:30
Speaker 9: the Labor Party out of office and to govern well
19:32
Speaker 9: for Australians. But One Nation is also a political competitor
19:36
Speaker 9: for us that seems very intent on trying to take
19:39
Speaker 9: seats off the Liberal and National Party, judging by the
19:42
Speaker 9: amount of time they spend in our seats, even though
19:45
Speaker 9: they say that their aim too is to get rid
19:47
Speaker 9: of the Labor Party. And so when One Nation... makes
19:50
Speaker 9: policy errors, when they say silly things, I think they
19:53
Speaker 9: can and should be called out upon that. But I
19:55
Speaker 9: agree with the Treasurer that voters must always be treated
19:58
Speaker 9: with respect, that they have legitimate grievances with our political system,
20:03
Speaker 9: with the direction of our country, that they have understandable frustrations,
20:06
Speaker 9: including with the Liberal and National parties, and that we
20:09
Speaker 9: need to listen to them and do better to earn
20:11
Speaker 9: back their trust and support.
20:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's extraordinary that some of the Coalition's
20:16
Speaker 2: best performers, like Andrew Hastie, who should have a big
20:22
Speaker 2: future ahead of him, I mean, he could be gone
20:24
Speaker 2: at the next election because of One Nation's campaign. Just finally, James,
20:29
Speaker 2: you've introduced a bill today which would give both houses
20:33
Speaker 2: the power to block the sale of key military sites. Now,
20:36
Speaker 2: you've done this amid this battle to save Victoria Barracks,
20:40
Speaker 2: which you've had a petition on, you've been campaigning on.
20:43
Speaker 2: I mean, given so many very experienced war veterans have
20:48
Speaker 2: spoken out against this, it is hard to believe that
20:50
Speaker 2: the Defence Minister, Richard Miles, is digging his heels in.
20:55
Speaker 9: Shari, when I first came on your program to discuss
20:57
Speaker 9: this several months ago now, there were about 11,000 Australians
21:01
Speaker 9: who'd signed my petition. As of tonight, it's up to
21:04
Speaker 9: 108,000 Australians who have said, Australia's military heritage belongs to
21:09
Speaker 9: all of us. It is not the plaything of the
21:11
Speaker 9: Labor Party and it should not be flogged off. And
21:14
Speaker 9: none less an authority as Sir Peter Cosgrove, the former
21:17
Speaker 9: Governor-General and Chief of the Defence Force, has called out
21:20
Speaker 9: Richard Miles on this.
21:21
Speaker 7: So to give effect to the.
21:23
Speaker 9: Wishes of those Australians, I've introduced the Protecting Australia's Military
21:26
Speaker 9: Heritage Bill in the Senate today. And if it passes,
21:30
Speaker 9: it will allow the Senate or the House of Representatives
21:32
Speaker 9: to stop the sale of any individual base by making
21:36
Speaker 9: it an instrument that has to be issued by the
21:38
Speaker 9: finance minister, which would be disallowable. This means if the
21:41
Speaker 9: government wants to sell a military base, they actually have
21:44
Speaker 9: to make the case for it.
21:45
Speaker 7: They can't just unilaterally do it.
21:47
Speaker 9: If there's a legitimate case for selling some unused block
21:50
Speaker 9: of land, fine. But that does not include Victoria Barracks,
21:53
Speaker 9: Sydney or Melbourne. It does not include HMAS Penguin. It
21:56
Speaker 9: does not include Irwin Barracks. It does not include so
21:58
Speaker 9: many other precious items of heritage around our country. And
22:02
Speaker 9: if you want to add your voice, please visit senatorpatterson.com.au
22:05
Speaker 9: to sign the petition.
22:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an important petition. I was going to ask
22:09
Speaker 2: you for a reminder about the link for viewers, but
22:11
Speaker 2: you've done that there. Yeah, it is really important. All right.
22:16
Speaker 2: James Patterson, great as always to have you on the program.
22:18
Speaker 2: Thank you. And let's turn to some other news now.
22:21
Speaker 2: And One Nation's ranks are slowly being filled with Liberal
22:24
Speaker 2: defectors or failed coalition politicians. Paul Sakar reports that those
22:30
Speaker 2: hoping to stand for One Nation at the New South
22:32
Speaker 2: Wales election include former Liberal candidate Catherine Deaves. You remember
22:36
Speaker 2: she was controversial. Former Liberal Senator Holly Hughes and former
22:41
Speaker 2: New South Wales MP Lou Amato. And I'll just mention
22:44
Speaker 2: Holly did reveal on this program for the first time
22:47
Speaker 2: that she was putting herself forward as a One Nation candidate.
22:51
Speaker 2: Joining me for more now is former Victoria Liberal Party
22:54
Speaker 2: President Michael Kroger and News24 host Joe Hildebrand. Great to
22:58
Speaker 2: see you both.
22:59
Speaker 3: Good evening.
22:59
Speaker 14: Great to be here.
23:00
Speaker 15: How are you?
23:00
Speaker 2: Michael, you know, from Barnaby Joyce to Holly Hughes, disgruntled
23:05
Speaker 2: former Coalition politicians are turning to One Nation.
23:12
Speaker 1: They are.
23:12
Speaker 15: And in the Upper House, I think they need 4.5%
23:14
Speaker 15: to get elected. So they might win 27. They'll probably
23:18
Speaker 15: win six seats in the Upper House in the New
23:20
Speaker 15: South Wales Parliament out of 42.
23:20
Speaker 1: So.
23:22
Speaker 15: They're going to be a very significant bloc. But that's
23:24
Speaker 15: how these parties form, disgruntled people. And, you know, they
23:31
Speaker 15: build up their numbers as more and more people get disgruntled.
23:34
Speaker 15: And that's what's happened here. But the answer, by the way,
23:38
Speaker 15: to the whole issue of, you know, should the Liberal
23:40
Speaker 15: Party be chasing One Nation? Should it not? What should
23:43
Speaker 15: Taylor be doing?
23:43
Speaker 10: Yeah.
23:44
Speaker 2: There's a very.
23:45
Speaker 15: Simple answer to all this, which is just to change
23:47
Speaker 15: the conversation. Think of something new to say. A new
23:51
Speaker 15: policy idea, something inspiring. For as long as you keep
23:55
Speaker 15: talking about immigration, you will lose because the electorate have
23:58
Speaker 15: decided that Hansen's 30 year crusade against mass immigration, especially
24:05
Speaker 15: Muslim immigration, which he says has been too much of,
24:08
Speaker 15: the electorate have said, she's correct. If we want to
24:11
Speaker 15: vote on what immigration is an issue, we're voting for Hansen.
24:14
Speaker 15: There's no point the Liberal Party making this a big issue.
24:17
Speaker 15: So perhaps they should change the conversation and think of
24:19
Speaker 15: some new ideas and have a new front. For example,
24:23
Speaker 15: means testing every single federal government payment for a start.
24:30
Speaker 2: It's a good point because, Joe, I remember last week
24:33
Speaker 2: there was a poll and I can't remember exactly whether
24:36
Speaker 2: it was our poll at News 24 or the Resolve one,
24:39
Speaker 2: but one of the polls had cost of living as
24:41
Speaker 2: an issue and The coalition was still, you know, ahead
24:45
Speaker 2: of either Labor or One Nation on that. So voters
24:49
Speaker 2: still think that they would turn to the coalition to
24:53
Speaker 2: fix the economy. This is the biggest issue. So this
24:55
Speaker 2: is where the fight needs to be for the coalition.
24:58
Speaker 14: Yeah, absolutely. And you've seen the coalition sort of change
25:00
Speaker 14: tack a bit on this. Angus Taylor has been talking
25:02
Speaker 14: about the coalition's economic credentials as opposed to One Nation.
25:06
Speaker 14: I mean, cost of living is front and centre in
25:08
Speaker 14: every poll. It's front and centre in Labor's own internal
25:11
Speaker 14: polling as well. The question is, who do you blame
25:14
Speaker 14: for cost of living? Is it Anthony Albanese? Is it
25:16
Speaker 14: high immigration? Is it a combination of both? So that's
25:19
Speaker 14: when immigration comes into it. It's not an issue that
25:22
Speaker 14: people just throw out there straight away. It's cost of
25:24
Speaker 14: living and managing the economy, that sort of stuff. The
25:28
Speaker 14: interesting thing, I suppose, with the defection of Liberals to
25:31
Speaker 14: One Nation is that it exposes the sort of catch-22
25:36
Speaker 14: at the heart of One Nation's rise and indeed the
25:39
Speaker 14: Liberal Party's survival, which is that if One Nation is
25:43
Speaker 14: just going to be basically the coalition but with a
25:46
Speaker 14: different name and the same people who left the coalition
25:49
Speaker 14: because it wasn't right-wing enough for them or conservative enough
25:51
Speaker 14: for them, it will end up being just another kind
25:54
Speaker 14: of mainstream political party and then you might have a
25:57
Speaker 14: rump of Liberal sort of moderates And unless those parties
26:02
Speaker 14: form a coalition, there is no way they'll be able
26:04
Speaker 14: to form government. And so we'd end up turning into
26:07
Speaker 14: something resembling, you know, a European parliament. And then One Nation,
26:11
Speaker 14: of course, by acting like a mainstream party or having
26:13
Speaker 14: to become one to get the seats it needs, have
26:15
Speaker 14: that kind of discipline, professional politicians, then it's suddenly not
26:19
Speaker 14: the maverick party.
26:20
Speaker 2: Which is what we've seen a bit in the UK
26:22
Speaker 2: with 5% of the vote coming off reform and going
26:24
Speaker 2: to restore.
26:25
Speaker 6: Exactly. Yeah.
26:26
Speaker 2: All right, I want to talk about Josh Frydenberg. We
26:28
Speaker 2: haven't spoken about him yet. Tonight we're 26 minutes in,
26:31
Speaker 2: so new record.
26:32
Speaker 14: Got to fulfil our contractual obligation to Josh Frydenberg.
26:35
Speaker 2: No, there's nothing like that, Joe.
26:36
Speaker 7: I know.
26:37
Speaker 2: Look, his book NPR Tour has... It's unnerving the Liberals.
26:42
Speaker 2: It's all everyone's talking about. Is he going to come back?
26:45
Speaker 2: But the Liberals are furious that he's dared to write
26:47
Speaker 2: a book, dared to get some publicity for it, and
26:50
Speaker 2: here's even what Anthony Albanese said in Parliament today.
26:54
Speaker 3: You can't turn on a TV without seeing Josh Frydenberg.
26:58
Speaker 3: He's out there every single day.
27:02
Speaker 2: Look, it's the midpoint of an Albanese term, and surely
27:06
Speaker 2: that must be the best time to release a book
27:08
Speaker 2: like this. It doesn't interfere in the federal election. And
27:12
Speaker 2: as for the Victorian state election, Michael, I mean, as
27:16
Speaker 2: the former president of the Liberal Party yourself, does anyone
27:20
Speaker 2: seriously think that Victorian voters heading to the polls in
27:23
Speaker 2: some 50 days' time are going to be thinking about
27:26
Speaker 2: Josh's book then?
27:27
Speaker 3: No.
27:29
Speaker 15: No-one's thinking about Josh's book on November 28th. It will
27:34
Speaker 15: have zero impact on the Victorian state election. And, by
27:40
Speaker 15: the way, it's a low-profile book launch. I've just come
27:44
Speaker 15: from the Melbourne launch where at the Malvern Town Hall
27:47
Speaker 15: there's a mere 650 people at his book launch.
27:51
Speaker 2: Amazing.
27:51
Speaker 15: So including the AFL great Gerard Healy, who gave a
27:56
Speaker 15: magnificent speech, Jennifer Westacott, who spoke beautifully, No, it's not
28:01
Speaker 15: interfering with the state election in the slightest. And I,
28:05
Speaker 15: for one, would welcome Frydenberg back into Parliament, that we'd
28:09
Speaker 15: be going so well that we don't need people like him.
28:11
Speaker 6: Really?
28:11
Speaker 2: We're on 20%, Sharon.
28:12
Speaker 7: Exactly.
28:13
Speaker 2: Exactly.
28:14
Speaker 15: I mean, we had the worst ever result we had
28:17
Speaker 15: last May and we got 32%, right? So what's that?
28:23
Speaker 15: 17 months on, 17 months on from the last election,
28:27
Speaker 15: we've gone from 32 to 20 or to 22 on
28:28
Speaker 15: a good day.
28:31
Speaker 16: Mm-hmm.
28:31
Speaker 6: Really?
28:32
Speaker 4: Yeah.
28:32
Speaker 15: I don't think that's going well. That would be my view,
28:35
Speaker 15: that things aren't going well.
28:36
Speaker 3: Yeah.
28:36
Speaker 15: The fact that there are some people apparently saying to
28:39
Speaker 15: the newspapers off the record that they don't want Frydenberg back,
28:43
Speaker 15: goodness me, wow.
28:45
Speaker 2: Yeah.
28:45
Speaker 12: Good luck to them.
28:47
Speaker 2: I agree with you, Michael. I said, you know, the
28:50
Speaker 2: party would be lucky to have him return. But, Joe,
28:53
Speaker 2: I think it just shows how threatened... all those Liberals
28:57
Speaker 2: are who are coming out against, who are leaking against him.
28:59
Speaker 14: Yeah, I think it's pretty obvious that Angus Taylor is
29:03
Speaker 14: not going to be Prime Minister of Australia. I think
29:05
Speaker 14: Josh Frydenberg is a huge talent. As you know, we're
29:08
Speaker 14: both friends of Josh's and we're both at the book
29:10
Speaker 14: launch yesterday. I wrote a column saying that he could
29:13
Speaker 14: be the Liberal Party's great white hope, whether he would be,
29:17
Speaker 14: you know, considered right wing enough to bring a whole
29:20
Speaker 14: bunch of, you know, disaffected voters from my nation from
29:25
Speaker 14: the right. Maybe not. But I think it's because he's
29:27
Speaker 14: just got those rock solid economic credentials. And he's clearly
29:30
Speaker 14: someone who thinks about politics, thinks about Australia, thinks about
29:35
Speaker 14: policy responses in a way that we haven't really seen
29:39
Speaker 14: from the Liberal Party. much since 2022. So I think Scott,
29:43
Speaker 14: I think Josh Frydenberg and also Andrew Hastie are both
29:46
Speaker 14: big talents and the idea that the Libs might be
29:49
Speaker 14: trying to knock off one of them and one nation
29:51
Speaker 14: is trying to knock off the other is passing strange.
29:54
Speaker 2: No, I completely agree. I mean, and just to reiterate
29:57
Speaker 2: how much I agree with what you said, Michael, I mean,
29:59
Speaker 2: if the Liberals had a primary of even in the 30s,
30:03
Speaker 2: you know, but 40%, fine, they don't need Josh, but
30:06
Speaker 2: they need all the help they can get.
30:08
Speaker 1: Of course.
30:09
Speaker 15: Can I just make one other point? I said to
30:11
Speaker 15: someone the other day, when was the last time an
30:13
Speaker 15: Australian political leader gave an inspirational speech, a spine-tingling inspirational
30:20
Speaker 15: speech which grabbed, you know, the thoughts of a nation,
30:25
Speaker 15: unified a nation, you know, built people as one behind
30:29
Speaker 15: a speech.
30:30
Speaker 6: Yeah. When?
30:31
Speaker 2: Josh Bondar.
30:31
Speaker 15: There's only been one.
30:32
Speaker 6: Yeah.
30:32
Speaker 15: There's only been one that I can remember. Maybe Hawke
30:36
Speaker 15: over Tiananmen Square, you know, what's that, 35 years ago.
30:40
Speaker 15: But Frydenberg's speech is the only speech I can remember
30:43
Speaker 15: that in the modern era, which was an inspirational speech
30:48
Speaker 15: and people looked at him and thought, my God, that
30:50
Speaker 15: was just a magnificent address for the times.
30:55
Speaker 6: I agree.
30:55
Speaker 7: So if they don't want him back, well, good luck
30:57
Speaker 7: to them.
30:57
Speaker 2: I agree. I was standing there in person watching it
31:00
Speaker 2: and I was floored and I thought, I have never
31:03
Speaker 2: seen anything like this in my lifetime. Joe Hildebrand, Michael Kroger,
31:07
Speaker 2: thank you both so much. I also just wanted to
31:10
Speaker 2: quickly let you know, or at least Melbourne viewers, that
31:14
Speaker 2: we are having a Melbourne book launch for our book
31:16
Speaker 2: Bondi Terror. The opposition leader and maybe the next Premier,
31:20
Speaker 2: Jess Wilson, is launching it. My colleague... Andrew Bolt is
31:25
Speaker 2: our brilliant emcee. Senator James Patterson will be there too.
31:29
Speaker 2: If you'd like details, please message me on Instagram privately
31:34
Speaker 2: just with the title Melbourne Book Launch and I'll send
31:37
Speaker 2: you the link to register.
31:39
Speaker 1: All right.
31:40
Speaker 2: Still to come, President Trump's press secretary faces a hostile
31:43
Speaker 2: White House press pack. Now there's speculation she won't last.
31:47
Speaker 2: Plus why Matt Canavan is accusing the Albanese government of
31:51
Speaker 2: coming after Australian pineapples. What's he talking about? It's after
31:55
Speaker 2: the break. Well, in breaking news, New South Wales Premier
32:01
Speaker 2: Chris Minns has tonight said he'll scrap stamp duty for
32:05
Speaker 2: businesses forced to restructure as a result of the Albanese
32:08
Speaker 2: government's controversial tax changes. Now, the Albanese government today tabled
32:13
Speaker 2: legislation to put a minimum 30% tax on trusts, plus
32:16
Speaker 2: the overhaul of negative gearing. And many people in businesses
32:20
Speaker 2: would be looking to restructure. But the problem is if
32:23
Speaker 2: they restructure their trusts, they may be liable for stamp duty.
32:27
Speaker 2: So the New South Wales government has announced a state-based
32:30
Speaker 2: relief scheme, the first state to do so. And Mark
32:33
Speaker 2: Burris broke this story a little while ago.
32:36
Speaker 14: The men's government saying, look, if we get re-elected, we
32:39
Speaker 14: will ensure that this unintended consequence state government.
32:44
Speaker 2: Tax, otherwise known as stamp duty, will not be applied.
32:47
Speaker 7: That's the bottom line.
32:49
Speaker 2: And Nationals leader Matt Canavan joins me now. Matt, this
32:53
Speaker 2: is quite complicated, but basically Chris Minns is helping Jim
32:57
Speaker 2: Chalmers out.
33:00
Speaker 17: Well, Jim Chalmers is hurting the taxpayers of New South
33:03
Speaker 17: Wales too. Keep in mind that someone has to pay
33:05
Speaker 17: for this and That means there are fewer resources in
33:08
Speaker 17: New South Wales to fund public services thanks to an
33:10
Speaker 17: Australian government decision. And so why would the federal government
33:15
Speaker 17: make tax changes which put at risk hospital services, education services,
33:20
Speaker 17: road upgrades in New South Wales?
33:23
Speaker 7: And all states are affected by this.
33:26
Speaker 17: State revenues are already way down thanks to the impact
33:28
Speaker 17: of the capital gains tax changes, the negative gearing tax
33:31
Speaker 17: changes on property markets. This is a massive disaster, this budget.
33:36
Speaker 17: And you've got to ask yourself, Shari, at a time
33:39
Speaker 17: of almost a historic cost of living crisis, a historic
33:45
Speaker 17: fall in our productivity performance, declining real wages and living standards,
33:49
Speaker 17: why is the Australian government so focused on making so
33:53
Speaker 17: many complicated tax changes that it destroys economic confidence and
33:57
Speaker 17: imposes large red tape and administrative burdens onto small business
34:03
Speaker 17: to such an extent that the state governments have to
34:05
Speaker 17: bail them out for it.
34:06
Speaker 7: Why are they doing that?
34:08
Speaker 17: That is not the priority. It should not be the
34:10
Speaker 17: priority for our Australian government right now. They should be
34:12
Speaker 17: focused on getting inflation down, focused on getting productivity up,
34:16
Speaker 17: focusing on ending mass migration so we don't have to
34:20
Speaker 17: prop up our economic statistics with artificial numbers of people.
34:25
Speaker 17: That should be the government, that should be the focus
34:27
Speaker 17: of this government. It will be the focus of a
34:28
Speaker 17: Liberal and National government, I can tell you that, Angus
34:31
Speaker 17: Taylor and I and our team have a plan to
34:33
Speaker 17: do all those things, to lower taxes, to get energy
34:36
Speaker 17: prices down and productivity up and to end Labor's mass
34:39
Speaker 17: migration too.
34:41
Speaker 2: There's no question. I mean, the actual cost plus the
34:44
Speaker 2: loss of productivity from businesses having to comply with all
34:47
Speaker 2: these tax changes is just extraordinary. Matt, the Coalition is
34:52
Speaker 2: vowing to scrap a rule that forces planning authorities to
34:56
Speaker 2: consider the climate impacts of coal burnt overseas. Matt, you're
35:00
Speaker 2: saying that Australian businesses shouldn't have to report on emissions
35:04
Speaker 2: that they can't control.
35:07
Speaker 17: Yeah, look, this has been a little notice change that
35:10
Speaker 17: this government has made. It's at odds with where most
35:13
Speaker 17: of the rest of the world is going, but this
35:15
Speaker 17: government is effectively requiring large businesses to to report the
35:19
Speaker 17: emissions of all of their customers and suppliers. Now, what
35:23
Speaker 17: that means then, of course, is that for, say, a
35:26
Speaker 17: large business like a bank, they have to go to
35:28
Speaker 17: all of the people they provide finance to and ask
35:31
Speaker 17: them to tell the government what their emissions are. So
35:34
Speaker 17: farms and small businesses who bank with a certain company
35:38
Speaker 17: will have to go and report to their bank what
35:40
Speaker 17: their emissions are on their farm or in their small business.
35:42
Speaker 17: We're already seeing an army of consultants reporting licking their lips,
35:48
Speaker 17: turning up at Farmgate saying, hey, we can do your
35:51
Speaker 17: emissions reporting for just the knockdown price.
35:54
Speaker 7: Of $ 3, 000. I've heard this report.
35:56
Speaker 17: And that might not sound like a lot, but when
35:58
Speaker 17: you add that up and all the other costs, well,
36:01
Speaker 17: it is a lot for a farmer who might be
36:02
Speaker 17: struggling right now with the fuel prices going up.
36:05
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
36:06
Speaker 17: And we've got to keep in mind none of these
36:08
Speaker 17: jobs that are created in the consultant class produce anything.
36:14
Speaker 17: They don't produce any food. They don't make any products.
36:16
Speaker 17: They don't serve any people at a cafe or a restaurant.
36:19
Speaker 17: It is all just waste and it's one of the
36:21
Speaker 17: reasons our productivity is through the floor. And so we
36:24
Speaker 17: would scrap all these requirements and so that small businesses
36:27
Speaker 17: don't have to increase their compliance costs to meet this
36:31
Speaker 17: government's net zero obsession.
36:32
Speaker 2: All right. Let's talk pineapples, Matt. Sentence I never thought
36:36
Speaker 2: I'd say on air. But the Albanese government has a
36:39
Speaker 2: proposal to allow imports of decrowned pineapples from India and Indonesia,
36:45
Speaker 2: and you are campaigning against this. So why are you?
36:52
Speaker 17: Well, I think we don't need foreign pineapples in this country.
36:55
Speaker 17: I love good, fresh, local Australian pineapples. We've got plenty
36:58
Speaker 17: of them. There's no shortage of them. They're not even
37:01
Speaker 17: affected by shortages like other fruits sometimes are. And you
37:05
Speaker 17: just can't protect against these diseases. So you mentioned there
37:07
Speaker 17: that pineapples have to be de-crowned. And someone will also,
37:11
Speaker 17: apparently under the rules that the Labor government are considering,
37:14
Speaker 17: have to hand-pick all the leaves off the bottom of
37:16
Speaker 17: the pineapple. Now, the problem there is, as we demonstrated
37:19
Speaker 17: on air, as you can see just on your screens,
37:23
Speaker 17: you can't necessarily get rid of all the leaf tissues
37:25
Speaker 17: with your hands. And obviously people can make mistakes. It
37:27
Speaker 17: only takes one pineapple with a disease called heart rot
37:30
Speaker 17: to come into this country. It's actually called the exploding
37:33
Speaker 17: pineapple disease. And we don't want that in our country.
37:36
Speaker 7: We don't need.
37:36
Speaker 17: Diseases here, which would put at risk our own local
37:39
Speaker 17: pineapple industry. And today we've called on the government to
37:43
Speaker 17: scrap this foreign pineapple import plan. I don't think we
37:46
Speaker 17: need Indian or Indonesian pineapples. We can rely on good
37:49
Speaker 17: Australian ones this summer and this Christmas. Get out there
37:51
Speaker 17: and eat them as it gets warmer.
37:53
Speaker 2: They're sweet already. That's for sure. It looks like you
37:55
Speaker 2: would have eaten a lot of pineapples today in Parliament
37:58
Speaker 2: House in Canberra.
38:01
Speaker 17: They were beautiful, although it was a bit cold here today, Shara.
38:04
Speaker 17: It wasn't exactly tropical weather.
38:06
Speaker 2: Oh, well, it's bad weather in Sydney as well, that's
38:10
Speaker 2: for sure. All right, Matt Canavan, great to see you.
38:13
Speaker 2: Coming up, can Trump's new press secretary handle the heat?
38:16
Speaker 2: And Michael Schellenberg is here in studio accusing the government
38:20
Speaker 2: of sinister censorship plans. That's next. Welcome back with a
38:27
Speaker 2: highly controversial digital duty of care bill is said to
38:30
Speaker 2: be introduced to Parliament tomorrow. American journalist Michael Schellenberger has
38:35
Speaker 2: travelled to Australia to argue against these laws. The communications minister,
38:40
Speaker 2: Annika Wells, even gave him a name check.
38:44
Speaker 4: Welcome to the country, Michael, if these reports are true.
38:48
Speaker 4: If your products are safe, this costs you nothing. And
38:51
Speaker 4: it's not about what people say. It is about what
38:53
Speaker 4: platforms do. We are regulating the machine here, not the message.
38:58
Speaker 2: And I'm pleased to say Michael joins me at the
39:00
Speaker 2: desk now. And I am genuinely happy to see you here, Michael.
39:03
Speaker 2: She probably isn't, given your extensive reporting on this issue.
39:07
Speaker 2: I mean, you've been really exposing... sinister side of this
39:13
Speaker 2: legislation that both the eSafety Commissioner and the government have,
39:17
Speaker 2: I mean it's in the legislation, the use of sock
39:19
Speaker 2: puppets or bots to change the narrative.
39:23
Speaker 12: By far the craziest thing because two years ago when
39:25
Speaker 12: I was here pointing out the problems with this misinformation
39:28
Speaker 12: bill they wanted to crack down on these fake accounts.
39:32
Speaker 12: Now the government wants to use fake accounts in an
39:35
Speaker 12: unlimited way to essentially run disinformation campaigns because it's all
39:39
Speaker 12: completely deceptive, clearly motivated by the fact that when you
39:43
Speaker 12: go to the news articles about various government policies, the
39:46
Speaker 12: replies are mostly negative. The replies on the prime minister's
39:51
Speaker 12: ex account Instagram are negative. So they want to, they
39:54
Speaker 12: want to flood the zone with their own voices. I've
39:56
Speaker 12: never seen anything like this. And that, you know, that
39:59
Speaker 12: plus the, just the broad remit that they give themselves
40:02
Speaker 12: to censor basically anything they want under this legislation, they
40:05
Speaker 12: could censor the news around the Bondi massacre, you know,
40:08
Speaker 12: and like that is insane. And that's what they're basically
40:11
Speaker 12: saying is anything that could cause harm or they said
40:14
Speaker 12: copycat killings. So it's just an absurd bill.
40:17
Speaker 1: Yeah.
40:18
Speaker 2: And we've seen, tech giants in the past censor the news.
40:23
Speaker 2: I mean, the origins of COVID, a topic both of
40:26
Speaker 2: us have reported on extensively, and the tech giants completely censored,
40:31
Speaker 2: you know, the fact that it was created likely in
40:33
Speaker 2: a laboratory. But now you've got the tech giants leaning
40:37
Speaker 2: towards free speech, so the governments are stepping in.
40:40
Speaker 6: Right.
40:41
Speaker 12: Well, I mean, look, it's like they censored Harvard Medical
40:44
Speaker 12: University professor, for saying that if you have COVID, you
40:47
Speaker 12: don't need the vaccine because of natural immunity, something we've
40:50
Speaker 12: known about for 2,500 years. We had Facebook executives telling
40:54
Speaker 12: the White House that we were even taking down true
40:57
Speaker 12: stories of vaccine side effects. Mark Zuckerberg came out January
41:00
Speaker 12: 2025 saying they were not going to do this anymore.
41:03
Speaker 12: They were going to go to the X system of
41:04
Speaker 12: community notes, which is crowdsourced fact-checking. The Albanese government hates this.
41:09
Speaker 12: They want to control what people say online. It's so
41:12
Speaker 12: base and it's so petty. It's I think it's a
41:15
Speaker 12: sign of desperation as well. They just really feel like
41:18
Speaker 12: if they can't control social media, they can't control the narrative.
41:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we've seen. I mean, more than any government
41:24
Speaker 2: or politicians that I can remember, really, you hear the
41:27
Speaker 2: Prime Minister and his ministers often speak about misinformation and disinformation.
41:32
Speaker 2: They complained about this so heavily during the Voice campaign,
41:35
Speaker 2: you know, when they were trying to get an Indigenous
41:37
Speaker 2: voice to Parliament. They blamed misinformation for the fact that
41:40
Speaker 2: didn't get up.
41:41
Speaker 12: Well, and the mask slipped when he was at the
41:43
Speaker 12: United Nations, right? Because he actually went on and said, oh,
41:45
Speaker 12: it's to censor the extremes, the polarization. He made it
41:49
Speaker 12: very clearly about politics. Then the next day he was
41:50
Speaker 12: asked about it and he said, oh, I didn't say that. So,
41:53
Speaker 12: I mean, if he wants to stop missing disinformation, maybe
41:56
Speaker 12: he should stay quiet because he's a big source of
41:59
Speaker 12: it himself.
42:00
Speaker 6: I mean... Yes.
42:01
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, he has been known to... I don't know
42:04
Speaker 2: if we can directly accuse him of lying, but saying
42:06
Speaker 2: the opposite of what was true, even on the most
42:08
Speaker 2: basic things like falling down the stairs or not falling
42:11
Speaker 2: down the stairs.
42:11
Speaker 13: Right.
42:12
Speaker 2: But just one piece of... A line in this legislation
42:16
Speaker 2: basically gives the minister the arbitrary power to remove or
42:21
Speaker 2: censor information that she considers would be serious..... would cause
42:25
Speaker 2: serious harm.
42:27
Speaker 12: Well, and I was joking, you know, that, like, we
42:29
Speaker 12: all feel sad or offended by the news, but I mean,
42:32
Speaker 12: that's not the basis for censorship. I mean, anything can
42:37
Speaker 12: hurt your feelings. So what are we doing here? I mean,
42:39
Speaker 12: we're regressing to children.
42:41
Speaker 2: It's crazy. It's crazy. I do want to speak to
42:44
Speaker 2: you about this issue that actually is dividing even the
42:46
Speaker 2: Republican Party in the US. And this is the live
42:49
Speaker 2: stream execution of a, of a, can I call him
42:53
Speaker 2: a terrorist, Nidal Hassan, responsible for the murder of 13
42:58
Speaker 2: people in Texas. Now, as a free speech advocate, I'm
43:02
Speaker 2: keen to get your thoughts on this. What do you think?
43:05
Speaker 2: Should this be live streamed?
43:06
Speaker 12: I mean, I haven't heard an argument not to do it.
43:09
Speaker 12: I've never been a big death penalty guy myself. I've
43:11
Speaker 12: always been against that. I don't like the state doing
43:15
Speaker 12: executions in general, but it is a public execution. And
43:20
Speaker 12: I think if you don't want to watch it, you
43:21
Speaker 12: shouldn't watch it. No one's presented any evidence to me.
43:24
Speaker 12: I mean, it was sort of suggested in a meeting
43:26
Speaker 12: in Canberra by some some Labor Party staffers that it
43:29
Speaker 12: could result in copycat killings. But what are we talking
43:32
Speaker 12: about here? Like by governments copycatting it?
43:35
Speaker 2: So this is the meeting you had with the staffers
43:38
Speaker 2: for the Albanese government.
43:39
Speaker 6: Yeah.
43:40
Speaker 12: And so I was kind of like, well, what do
43:43
Speaker 12: you what is it that you don't? Why do you
43:45
Speaker 12: want to censor it? And this has been a big
43:47
Speaker 12: part of the problem with the whole government is that
43:49
Speaker 12: they can't give a good reason why they even need
43:51
Speaker 12: this bill. One of the reasons that Annika Wells gave
43:54
Speaker 12: was that, well, 14-year-old girls are getting eating disorders. Well,
43:58
Speaker 12: you just, they have been enforcing a ban on under
44:00
Speaker 12: 16 for the last year. So why is that even,
44:03
Speaker 12: they can't seem to find any rationale for it, which
44:06
Speaker 12: is why everybody's looking for ulterior motives.
44:08
Speaker 2: I actually don't mind, very controversial thing to say, I
44:11
Speaker 2: don't mind the death penalty in some scenarios where it's
44:14
Speaker 2: very clear cut that someone has done evil, has committed
44:17
Speaker 2: a lot of murder. I personally wouldn't watch it, but
44:20
Speaker 2: I don't really have a view on whether or not
44:22
Speaker 2: it should be. I don't think the media would would
44:24
Speaker 2: cover it in any case. But should it be on
44:27
Speaker 2: the Internet? But now it seems like the president might
44:29
Speaker 2: be saying, you know, it's not going to be live streamed.
44:33
Speaker 2: He seems to be reversing course a bit.
44:35
Speaker 12: I'm sure they're looking at the polls. Everything right now
44:37
Speaker 12: has to be viewed through an eye toward what would
44:39
Speaker 12: help with the elections. Uh, but I just, you know,
44:42
Speaker 12: there was a ruling member because Julian and grant your
44:44
Speaker 12: safety commissioner tried to pull from the entire internet, this
44:48
Speaker 12: terrorist attack, um, from X and, uh, they basically, the
44:52
Speaker 12: courts ruled against her and they said that she couldn't
44:54
Speaker 12: do that. So it seems to me, I mean, I,
44:56
Speaker 12: I don't, if you could show me that there was
44:58
Speaker 12: some harm caused by showing that otherwise, Don't let your
45:01
Speaker 12: kids watch it.
45:02
Speaker 7: Don't watch it if you don't.
45:02
Speaker 12: I don't want to watch it.
45:03
Speaker 2: No, I don't want to watch it.
45:04
Speaker 12: I don't know why we would want the government.
45:06
Speaker 7: To censor it.
45:06
Speaker 2: Yeah. Just finally, French riots. There's tens of thousands of
45:10
Speaker 2: students rioting in Paris. And in fact, even Greta Thunberg
45:14
Speaker 2: apparently joined the action. We're looking at some of the
45:17
Speaker 2: scenes on the screens right now. I mean, what does
45:20
Speaker 2: this tell us about the state of France right now?
45:23
Speaker 12: Well, I think Greta solved climate change and the issues
45:26
Speaker 12: in Gaza. So now she needs something.
45:28
Speaker 2: A new cause.
45:29
Speaker 12: Yeah, she needs a new cause. Hopefully she'll turn to
45:31
Speaker 12: AI after this.
45:32
Speaker 6: Yeah.
45:32
Speaker 12: I mean, look, these were protests that were explicitly and
45:35
Speaker 12: deliberately organized by the party of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who's the
45:40
Speaker 12: radical left candidate. And it's worked. It's made him so
45:43
Speaker 12: that he'll make it probably pass the first round of
45:46
Speaker 12: elections next year in France. But School funding in France
45:51
Speaker 12: has only gone up. The number of pupils per class
45:54
Speaker 12: has only gone down. This couldn't possibly be about school
45:57
Speaker 12: funding because they've only been increasing it. It was always
46:00
Speaker 12: about politics. It was always about creating disruption to support
46:03
Speaker 12: this particular far-left party. So I just think the media
46:06
Speaker 12: coverage has been dishonest. We also discovered that the French
46:10
Speaker 12: government has been putting millions of dollars into French news
46:13
Speaker 12: media companies.
46:14
Speaker 2: So just like here, just like here. Well, if this
46:18
Speaker 2: means Greta's off Israel, I'm happy. All right, Michael, thank
46:21
Speaker 2: you so much.
46:22
Speaker 7: Thank you, Sherry.
46:23
Speaker 2: After the break, Trump's new press secretary stepped into the
46:26
Speaker 2: lion's den for the first time and will she get
46:29
Speaker 2: over her nerves? It's after the break. Well, Katie Zachariah
46:36
Speaker 2: had her first press conference as President Trump's press sec today,
46:40
Speaker 2: and despite her TV experience, it's safe to say it
46:43
Speaker 2: wasn't her best performance.
46:46
Speaker 16: I am so honored to work for President Trump and
46:50
Speaker 16: the American people as the new White House press secretary.
46:55
Speaker 16: I want to thank President Trump for his trust that
47:00
Speaker 16: he has placed in me, I have wanted to work
47:04
Speaker 16: for him for a very long time.
47:08
Speaker 2: And News 24 contributor Kosha Garda joins me now. Kosha,
47:12
Speaker 2: Trump said she did a good job. He's standing by her.
47:16
Speaker 2: But there is speculation about how long she's going to last.
47:19
Speaker 2: Do you think this is just nerves?
47:23
Speaker 1: Probably, I would say, majority of it is noise, Shari,
47:26
Speaker 1: just because, you know, the vultures or the sharks, I
47:28
Speaker 1: should say, were always going to be out there circling
47:31
Speaker 1: for whoever would take this very high-profile, highly visible role
47:34
Speaker 1: from Trump. She did make herself an easy target, for sure.
47:38
Speaker 1: I think even supporters of her think she could have
47:41
Speaker 1: done better. There was room for improvement. But I say,
47:43
Speaker 1: I'm sure you have similar stories from when you got
47:46
Speaker 1: started into this business. I certainly say it. It's not
47:48
Speaker 1: really that easy to get in front of camera and
47:51
Speaker 1: speak off the cuff, extemporaneously, be natural, et cetera. And
47:55
Speaker 1: she doesn't actually, in the scheme of things, have that
47:57
Speaker 1: much experience in terms of on camera. expertise. She's done
48:00
Speaker 1: a little bit, but she was a lawyer. She worked
48:03
Speaker 1: in different nonprofits. She worked in China for a little bit.
48:05
Speaker 1: She was an advisor to the Trump media company. And
48:08
Speaker 1: I'm sure she was loyal and probably behind the scenes,
48:11
Speaker 1: did good work and caught Trump's attention. So he threw
48:14
Speaker 1: her into the lion's den. If she gets some time,
48:17
Speaker 1: I'm sure she will improve. But we also know that
48:20
Speaker 1: Trump is not shy to pull the trigger if he's
48:22
Speaker 1: unhappy with you. So I'm sure she's feeling a trying
48:28
Speaker 1: to improve rather quickly.
48:30
Speaker 2: Speaking of Trump pulling the trigger, the U.S. ambassador to Greece,
48:33
Speaker 2: Kimberly Guilfoyle, has stepped down. This is after the allegations
48:37
Speaker 2: in The Wall Street Journal that Greek shipping billionaires have
48:40
Speaker 2: been giving her money, taking her on lavish trips. I mean,
48:43
Speaker 2: I've read these stories. They're extraordinary. There were also reports
48:46
Speaker 2: in The Wall Street Journal that she asked a businessman
48:49
Speaker 2: to pay off a $ 100, 000 credit card bill, Kosha.
48:54
Speaker 1: Yes, she is, of course, vigorously denying these. However, it
48:58
Speaker 1: should be said that these reports are in The Wall
48:59
Speaker 1: Street Journal, certainly a more serious publication. Before that, they
49:03
Speaker 1: were in The Daily Mail, which is maybe a little
49:05
Speaker 1: bit more salacious. But these are not exactly left-wing publications
49:08
Speaker 1: that are out to get her. So it certainly has
49:11
Speaker 1: made people take notice with it. And just the specificity
49:14
Speaker 1: in it has the ring of truth. I'm sure all
49:16
Speaker 1: of that will come out in due course and be
49:19
Speaker 1: further investigated. and probed. But as we said, Trump is
49:22
Speaker 1: not shy to pull the trigger. He has done that
49:24
Speaker 1: for her. She's somebody who was in the Trump orbit
49:27
Speaker 1: for a long time, of course, was engaged to Don Jr.
49:30
Speaker 1: and all the rest of it. So I think for
49:31
Speaker 1: him to have made that move there, this seems to
49:34
Speaker 1: be a case of where there's smoke, there's fire, or
49:37
Speaker 1: at least just the The perception of it is not
49:39
Speaker 1: helpful for something like being the ambassador to Greece, which
49:42
Speaker 1: should really be a non-controversial position that doesn't add extra
49:46
Speaker 1: noise around Trump. There's plenty of that already, and that's
49:49
Speaker 1: why he's made his decision.
49:50
Speaker 2: Turning to Democrat Ilhan Omar, who had her home raided
49:55
Speaker 2: in that pre-dawn raid by ICE agents. Now, it's believed
49:58
Speaker 2: this is about alleged immigration fraud. What's the latest on this, Kosha?
50:03
Speaker 2: What has come out?
50:06
Speaker 1: The latest on this, there have been rumors for a long,
50:08
Speaker 1: long time that she potentially committed fraud by allegedly, reportedly
50:12
Speaker 1: marrying somebody related to her, her brother. There were some
50:15
Speaker 1: rumors that also her father maybe falsified information when he
50:19
Speaker 1: filed their paperwork for the family when she was a
50:21
Speaker 1: minor and they immigrated to the US as refugees. So
50:25
Speaker 1: that was sort of the source of this. She potentially
50:28
Speaker 1: also making false statements later after that when she naturalized
50:31
Speaker 1: in 2000 and all of that with her brother. There's
50:33
Speaker 1: a second vector around financial fraud, which the DOJ under
50:37
Speaker 1: the Biden administration also looked into, later abandoned, but they've
50:41
Speaker 1: looked into that. And now again, under the Trump administration,
50:43
Speaker 1: it's picking up heat again. I just find the timing
50:46
Speaker 1: of this very interesting. The raid at her house had
50:49
Speaker 1: to take place after a warrant signed off by a judge.
50:52
Speaker 1: So this is not just the Trump administration, but a
50:54
Speaker 1: federal judge signed off on the warrant that allowed them
50:57
Speaker 1: to go in and raid her home to get paperwork
50:59
Speaker 1: around that. So this is definitely picking up heat. And
51:02
Speaker 1: the timing so close to the midterms is interesting. If
51:05
Speaker 1: this turns into something where they denaturalize her or this
51:08
Speaker 1: problem becomes bigger, it would definitely be a big deal.
51:10
Speaker 6: Yeah.
51:11
Speaker 1: All right.
51:11
Speaker 2: Kosha, thank you so much. Fascinating stories in the US today,
51:14
Speaker 2: no question. All right, look forward to seeing you all
51:17
Speaker 2: tomorrow at 8pm. And for now, it's Kayla Bond filling
51:20
Speaker 2: in for Paul Murray.