Latest / The Bolt Report / The Bolt Report | 28 October

Transcript

The Bolt Report | 28 October · The Bolt Report

• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I am barking about that, anyway. Tonight, surprise results from
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Israel's elections coming up. And one of the world's biggest
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: sports stars in a huge brawl with China after simply
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: telling the truth. But watch him now crawl. It's a worry.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Plenty more, including Gemma and Caroline.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: But first.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Two political disasters today came together. The Marrickville Golf Club
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: scandal that just got even worse for the Prime Minister,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: and the inflation that also got worse, and that is
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: a problem for us all. And one of those disasters
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: actually helps to explain the other. Now, obviously, the one
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: that hits hardest is inflation, which today jumped higher than
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: expected to 4.3%. That's the headline rate. But the underlying
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: rate was also high, up to 3.6%. That's the rate
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: that strips out temporary factors. And the bad news is
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: that this rate is what the Reserve Bank will look
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: at when it decides next week whether to increase interest rates.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: That's now odds on. Yet another rise in interest rates.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: It'll be the fifth this year to add to these
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: rising prices for food and petrol especially. That's going to hurt. Now,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: the Reserve Bank governor said we couldn't just blame all
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: this on foreign factors like the war in Iran. Inflation
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: was getting worse too. And that's, of course, because of
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: factors right here.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: Although growth in the Australian economy is slowing as expected,
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: some of the international and domestic upside risks to inflation
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: have materialised or are materialising.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: But as always, Treasure Jim Chalmers today did blame Iran
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: and all that, blamed all those damn foreigners for causing
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: us these problems instead of blaming what he could control
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: himself and has not, which is the government's own wild spending.
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: We already had an inflation challenge in our economy and
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: the war in the Middle East is making it worse.
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: We've seen higher oil prices driving higher inflation around the world.
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: And today's figures confirm that we are not immune from that.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Bull alert. The trim mean inflation figure I showed you,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: that the Reserve Bank uses to decide interest rate rises,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: actually cuts out factors like big price rises in petrol,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: which go up and down. Jim, it's your big spending.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: That's the crucial factor here. And the question then is,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: why can't the government control it? so that inflation doesn't
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: get this bad. And that's where we come to the
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Prime Minister's golf club scandal. That's what makes that even worse. Now,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: so far, this has all been really a disaster for
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Anthony Albanese because it confirms for many voters that he
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: really is a liar, or at least in this case,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: someone you can't trust to tell the truth. He's a
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: man so reluctant to claim he's wrong or to admit
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: he's wrong that it took until yesterday, after weeks, months,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: to finally admit that he'd made what he called a
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: mistake when he told this falsehood last month about why
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: he'd given $ 6 million of your money to his local
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Marrickville golf club.
• 3:34
  Speaker 5: When it floods in Marrickville, raw sewerage flows into the
• 3:39
  Speaker 5: Cooks River.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: That is what the funding is for. I always try
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: to be fair. It's not, you know, partisan politics kind
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: of stuff. I don't actually think his false statement to
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Parliament is a hanging offence. It was pretty obviously a mistake.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: And his real sin is one for voters to punish.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: That bizarre reluctance of his to admit to a mistake
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: and fix it fast, long before everyone works out, hey,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: I've heard about this and here's more proof that I
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: can't trust him. That's the disaster for him. But there's
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: now more because of all this. It's the excuses given
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: for saying that that $ 6 million grant was for Sewerage
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: works at the club. It was not correct.
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: The state government have moved in and are funding the project.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Now, his excuse is actually quite weird and quite telling. Now,
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: I bet he's saying, well, actually, yes, the $ 6 million,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: he's saying it today, really. Again, it really was for
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: these very urgent sewage works, among other things. But in
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: the end, the New South Wales government stepped in to
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: pay for it itself. And this is a story that
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Albanians and its ministers today stuck to again and again.
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: I've said that part of the original commitment of the
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: upgrade of Maracle Golf Club was going to fix the
• 5:02
  Speaker 5: long-running sewage issue that was to be part of renovations.
• 5:07
  Speaker 5: That isn't the case because the state government have stepped in.
• 5:10
  Speaker 5: and announced funding in September 2025.
• 5:14
  Speaker 6: When this funding commitment was made in April 2025, part
• 5:18
  Speaker 6: of the commitment included Sewerage Works. In September 2025, the
• 5:23
  Speaker 6: New South Wales government stepped in to fund the sewage-related
• 5:26
  Speaker 6: aspects of the club as they were pressing.
• 5:28
  Speaker 7: When he made that original commitment, the Sewerage Works were
• 5:33
  Speaker 7: part of the original commitment. The scope of that changed
• 5:36
  Speaker 7: because the state government stepped in to do the Sewerage Works.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: And in Albanese's partial defence, as you probably got from
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: some hints in how that was answered, that $ 6 million
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: from the start was not just for sewerage works. It
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: was for other stuff as well, as documents at the
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: time made clear. Only $ 300, 000 was for the sewerage. But
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: the fact that Albanese went on and on about the
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: sewerage suggests that this was for him and his ministers
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: the crucial thing in this grant. But if this government then,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: this is the curious thing, if this government then says
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: to the club, look, here's $ 6 million, I want you
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: to fix your sewerage especially, and then finds out, oh, dear,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: the state government has stepped in and it's now going
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: to pay for those sewerage works instead. Shouldn't the government say,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: hang on, we want that $ 6 million back? Or at
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: least the bit of it that was for the sewerage.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: After all, I mean, you can't waste a cent. The
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: government's got a trillion-dollar debt now. Shouldn't be splashing cash
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: around like it was for free. Instead, it told this
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: lucky club, nah, keep the lot. So this $ 6 million
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: of our money is now going not on that sewage
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: work that Albanese keep talking about, but things like tizzing
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: up the club's pro shop.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: It's barred.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: It's alfresco facilities, plus new furnishings and more. There'll even
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: be a dog walking station, which I'm sure Toto would appreciate.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: So already I'm thinking here, this government has no respect
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: for how it spends our taxes, not when it can
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: help Labor win votes. Now, I know $ 6 million is
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: a drop in the ocean and $ 300, 000 of that is
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: even less. But it's this kind of thinking that has
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: helped get our debt now to a trillion dollars. And
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: then I'm thinking, wait a minute. What are we talking about?
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Why is a government with that level of debt even
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: considering spending millions on a golf club, of all things?
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Golfers should pay for their own fun, surely. You know,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: pay to play. And why is this government giving $ 6
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: million to this particular golf course and only this golf
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: course of the 1,500 or more golf courses in Australia?
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Then again, I guess, you know, how many golf clubs
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: are just 200 metres from the Prime Minister's investment property
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: and in his electorate? How many are owned by a
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: council headed by Darcy Byrne, who worked for Albanese for
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: nearly a decade and is tipped one day to be
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Labor's candidate, or at least the Socialist Left's, for his seat.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about this guy.
• 8:36
  Speaker 8: With the Inner West Council election coming up on the
• 8:39
  Speaker 8: 14th of September, we're so happy to have the support
• 8:42
  Speaker 8: of the Prime Minister of Australia, perhaps the most famous
• 8:45
  Speaker 8: Inner Westie of them all.
• 8:47
  Speaker 5: Well, Darcy, I want to support you and your Labor team.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: So the poo may be cleared, but the stink remains.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: And I'm afraid it's coming from the general direction of Albanese,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: who's shown again. how he struggles with the truth, but
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: is a master at blowing your taxes. Now, the Prime
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Minister did also today use the Helen Haynes defence, the tragedy,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: exploit the tragedy, to try to stop the opposition from
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: laughing and groaning at him for blaming foreigners again for
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: today's terrible inflation figures.
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: The groaning that occurs opposite... This is about the RBA governor.
• 9:30
  Speaker 5: And we should turn the temperature down and maybe people
• 9:34
  Speaker 5: could stop interjecting.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Turn the temperature down rather than attack your poor Prime Minister.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Joining me is the political panel, Cameron Milner, former Chief
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: of Staff to Labor leader Bill Shorten, now Director of
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: GXO Strategies, and Michael Kossa, former New South Wales Labor Treasurer. Michael,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: given your background, first the inflation figures... Looks almost certain
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: now that we are going to get another interest rate
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: rise as soon as next week, doesn't it?
• 10:03
  Speaker 9: Well, these figures are appalling and, you know, they were
• 10:06
  Speaker 9: eminently predictable. Everybody predicted that we would end up with
• 10:09
  Speaker 9: some further interest rate increases, whether it was next month
• 10:14
  Speaker 9: or the month after, that's where we were heading. I mean,
• 10:16
  Speaker 9: but Andrew, you're absolutely correct about that. I mean, the
• 10:19
  Speaker 9: trim mean is the problem here. We've got ingrained inflation.
• 10:23
  Speaker 9: The government's got no answers. I mean, I thought it
• 10:26
  Speaker 9: was pathetic today watching Albo trying to defend Chalmers.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: I mean.
• 10:31
  Speaker 9: I mean, people forget that Chalmers had the gall, the
• 10:34
  Speaker 9: hubris to write an essay about three years ago about
• 10:37
  Speaker 9: how he was going to reform capitalism. And one of
• 10:39
  Speaker 9: the factors that he pointed at, Andrew, one of the
• 10:42
  Speaker 9: factors he pointed at was deregulation and austerity, the very
• 10:47
  Speaker 9: things that we require to get out of this mess
• 10:51
  Speaker 9: that we're in at the moment. He is chronically unable
• 10:55
  Speaker 9: to understand the problem, let alone come up with solutions. And,
• 10:59
  Speaker 9: you know, it's good having a PhD in Paul Keating,
• 11:01
  Speaker 9: but you really do need to understand how an economy works.
• 11:05
  Speaker 9: Record spending, you know, collapsed productivity and a treasurer that
• 11:11
  Speaker 9: is absolutely clueless. He's asking the community how to cut spending. Well, mate,
• 11:15
  Speaker 9: start with the NDIS. Everybody knows it's a rort. And,
• 11:19
  Speaker 9: you know, we're not going to get any sense out
• 11:21
  Speaker 9: of this. And as for Albo, mate, he loves throwing
• 11:23
  Speaker 9: mud at people. but when it starts coming back to him,
• 11:26
  Speaker 9: the glass drawer comes out. You know, he's abused more
• 11:28
  Speaker 9: people in his political career and claimed all sorts of
• 11:32
  Speaker 9: things than anybody that I know, and now he can't
• 11:35
  Speaker 9: take it and he wants to turn down the temperature.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Well, it's funny. Personally, I found him good company and
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: he still reaches out, so I give him credit for that.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: If I've come across worse, let me tell you. But
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: the Prime Minister's response, Cameron, to being jeered today using
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: the attack on MP Helen Haynes by... actually a mentally
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: ill man, the son of family friends. I'm not quite
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: sure what lesson we can draw from that, but he
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: used it to stop people laughing at him. That seemed
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: to me a little odd.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: Well, it's just perverse, isn't it? It's all so disgraceful.
• 12:08
  Speaker 8: I mean, you know, on Monday we're giving bouquets to
• 12:10
  Speaker 8: Helen Haynes, as we should, and now we're using her
• 12:12
  Speaker 8: as a straw man, you know, to protect Albo from
• 12:15
  Speaker 8: a bit of criticism. I mean, to your point, Michael,
• 12:17
  Speaker 8: I mean, this Albanese government is a bunch of economic arsonists,
• 12:21
  Speaker 8: economic arsonists, running around with a jerrycan full of budget overspend,
• 12:24
  Speaker 8: putting on the inflation fire.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, these guys have got it out of control,
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: and now.
• 12:28
  Speaker 8: The RBA is going to put up interest rates next month,
• 12:30
  Speaker 8: potentially the week, month after, again, because of this reckless,
• 12:33
  Speaker 8: reckless overspend.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: From Labor who just can't seem to stop spending money.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: We saw more of the same, actually, I think, Michael,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: from the Governments Resources Minister, Madeleine King, who also... used
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: the tragedy to try to mute media criticism and satire
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: of her hypocrisy. Now, look, maybe she's got a reason
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: to complain. I'll leave you to judge. But here she
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: is today complaining about a front-page cartoon responding to her
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: blaming the media for inciting such violence.
• 13:07
  Speaker 10: Image of me in a pot to be boiled. I mean,
• 13:11
  Speaker 10: this is what, you know, tabloids do. And, you know,
• 13:15
  Speaker 10: then the media just shares it and shares it and
• 13:18
  Speaker 10: shares it as an image. So it's sort of feeding
• 13:20
  Speaker 10: into the clickbait that we see.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: And you're doing it again.
• 13:25
  Speaker 10: So, you know, fabulous. It sort of makes my point.
• 13:28
  Speaker 10: I don't really know what to say about the kind
• 13:30
  Speaker 10: of violence that implies.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Well, Michael, what did you make of that? Does she
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: have a point?
• 13:39
  Speaker 9: No, she doesn't have a point. It's a cartoon for
• 13:41
  Speaker 9: crying out loud. And, look, if she's so sensitive, and
• 13:45
  Speaker 9: I apply this to all politicians, not just her, they
• 13:48
  Speaker 9: ought to get out of politics. You know, it is
• 13:50
  Speaker 9: a contact sport. Yes, we don't want people advocating violence,
• 13:55
  Speaker 9: but I can tell you there are people in that
• 13:57
  Speaker 9: parliament that have supported, you know... claims of genocide in
• 14:02
  Speaker 9: Palestine and actually supported people that are potentially terrorists. So
• 14:08
  Speaker 9: let's be clear here. Robust political debate is part of
• 14:12
  Speaker 9: our system and it's important to the system. If people
• 14:16
  Speaker 9: are involved in individual threats, it's up to the police
• 14:19
  Speaker 9: to deal with that. Don't use it as an excuse
• 14:22
  Speaker 9: to not cop criticism for bad policies.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Unless I forget, when Aboriginal activists burned down burn the
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: front door of the old Parliament House, Independent Senator Lydia
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Thorpe posted a tweet that to me was a very
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: clear celebration of that. Please, there's so much hypocrisy going on.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: But the golf club affair, Cameron, what is the take
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: out for you from all that?
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: Well, the whole thing stinks, doesn't it? It stinks to
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: high heaven.
• 14:54
  Speaker 8: I mean, to hide behind sewerage as an excuse.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, for goodness sake, can the Prime Minister get
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: any lower? I mean, in the end, finally the Prime.
• 15:03
  Speaker 8: Minister cut the crap today and came clean like this
• 15:06
  Speaker 8: and said he'd actually made a mistake. Well, goodness me,
• 15:08
  Speaker 8: everyone had known that for.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: Weeks, for weeks. And this is the problem.
• 15:12
  Speaker 8: If he wants to turn the temperature down, he needs
• 15:14
  Speaker 8: to start doing a better job. If he wants to
• 15:15
  Speaker 8: turn the temperature down, stop lying.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny, isn't it, Michael? I guess he thought
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: that saying it was for sewerage when it's not, he
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: might not have known, but for saying it was sewerage
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: is far better than saying for what the money really
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: went on. Like we want to, you know, pay for
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: a really nice alfresco dining area and the bar, we'd
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: like that to look a bit nicer too and this
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: and that. $ 6 million for that? People would really be
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: right on to this con.
• 15:46
  Speaker 9: Yeah, it's a complete joke. But what is a joke
• 15:49
  Speaker 9: is the way the money was handed out. And I
• 15:51
  Speaker 9: think we shouldn't lose sight of that in all of this.
• 15:54
  Speaker 9: There should never be a process where the government invites
• 15:57
  Speaker 9: people to tender for these rorts and pork barrelling exercises. And,
• 16:03
  Speaker 9: you know, I'm really disgusted with the Federal Integrity Commission.
• 16:07
  Speaker 9: You know, these politicians in Canberra got together and made
• 16:09
  Speaker 9: sure it had no teeth. And this is precisely where
• 16:12
  Speaker 9: you needed to have teeth. You know, the New South
• 16:14
  Speaker 9: Wales Commission always puts out guidelines to head off potential
• 16:18
  Speaker 9: corruption or malfeasance before it occurs. Where are the guidelines
• 16:22
  Speaker 9: on these grants? Where is the Federal Integrity Commission dealing
• 16:26
  Speaker 9: with these grants? We don't want to see this again,
• 16:28
  Speaker 9: and the way it is, we'll see it again.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Well, Cameron, talking about the waste, One Nation's Barnaby Joyce
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: made an excellent point about that today, about a massive example,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: never mind sewerage at a golf club, and got pure
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: drivel in response. Listen.
• 16:48
  Speaker 11: Why don't we look at getting rid of the climate
• 16:50
  Speaker 11: change department. There's $ 8. 7 billion a year we spend on it.
• 16:54
  Speaker 11: It would loosen up 5,700 full-time equivalent positions, which would
• 16:59
  Speaker 11: go through natural attrition. It's got absolutely no prospects whatsoever
• 17:02
  Speaker 11: of changing the climate or anything like that, and would
• 17:05
  Speaker 11: save us from jacking up taxes on capital gains tax
• 17:07
  Speaker 11: for small business, taxing superannuation funds, and taxing trusts.
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: There has been now decades of science and advice on
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: climate change, that it is real. I support responding to
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: the science of climate change, which does represent a challenge,
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: but also represents an enormous opportunity. It is a cost
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: of inaction as well. What we are seeing, not the
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: least of which is in the great state of Queensland
• 17:47
  Speaker 5: that the member represented in the other place is increasing
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: numbers and frequencies and intensity of extreme weather events.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Sorry to play it at length, but a very quick
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: fact check. Saying I believe in climate change is a catechism.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: It's completely meaningless. I believe in climate change too. And
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: as for extreme weather, in fact, Australia, and this is
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: the science, and especially for Queensland, is in fact getting
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: fewer cyclones. And as for the cost, how, Cameron, could
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: man-made global warming cost us anything like the government's insane
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: global warming policies?
• 18:33
  Speaker 8: And I'm glad you played the whole clip of Albo
• 18:36
  Speaker 8: because it's a cure for your insomnia.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: Cure for insomnia. I mean, it was just drivel, wasn't it?
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: Total drivel.
• 18:41
  Speaker 8: A fair question from Barnaby Joyce, which is, where's the $ 8.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: 7 billion going?
• 18:45
  Speaker 8: Why are the 5,500 public servants doing no good on
• 18:48
  Speaker 8: climate change? And the Prime Minister just gives a drivel answer.
• 18:51
  Speaker 8: This is the level of politics that Albanese wants to celebrate.
• 18:53
  Speaker 8: And this is the problem we've got with the parliament
• 18:55
  Speaker 8: and politics in our country right now.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: And, Michael, isn't it... I would suggest that One Nation...
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: now starts asking every single opportunity for Chris Bowen and
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: the Prime Minister, for all these billions that you are
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: spending on climate change programs, by how much will the
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: temperature be lowered? By how much? I used to ask it.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: It got known as the Bolt question. It got asked
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: of just about every Prime Minister for a while. People
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: have stopped asking. They should do it again.
• 19:26
  Speaker 9: Well, not just One Nation. Obviously, the Coalition should be doing.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: That, Andrew.
• 19:30
  Speaker 9: I mean, I think that that's... Really the key question.
• 19:33
  Speaker 9: We all know the answer to that. I think the
• 19:35
  Speaker 9: chief scientist, and you've played it on your own program many,
• 19:38
  Speaker 9: many times, said it wouldn't do anything. But the thing
• 19:41
  Speaker 9: that annoys me about that is if you're serious about it, Albo,
• 19:44
  Speaker 9: where's the nuclear reactors? Everybody knows that's the key solution. And,
• 19:50
  Speaker 9: you know, if you're serious about it and you believe
• 19:53
  Speaker 9: in the science, I want to see a nuclear reactor
• 19:56
  Speaker 9: announced by this government. It's not going to happen because
• 19:58
  Speaker 9: it's about the Greens.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: No, so true. Michael Costa, Cameron Milner, thank you very
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: much to you both. After the break, this morning we
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: were told that Benjamin Netanyahu looked finished in Israel's election.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: But this evening, the news is, well, not so fast.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: More than half the votes in Israel's election have now
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: been counted. And forget the early reports that Benjamin Netanyahu's finished.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: He's the great survivor. The man hated by the left
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: around the world could actually be Prime Minister yet again.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: In fact... It's looking a little healthy. Projections from actual
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: votes so far show that Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party is
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: tipped to win as many as 56 seats in the
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: parliament or Knesset, a Knesset of 120 seats, while his challenger,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Gadi Eizenkot, the former chief of staff of the Israeli
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Defence Force, is 149. This is just an introduction.
• 21:03
  Speaker 12: We are still waiting for the true results. The true
• 21:05
  Speaker 12: results which we will receive over the next day or two.
• 21:08
  Speaker 12: With God's help, regarding the Likud, two things have become clear.
• 21:12
  Speaker 12: The first is unequivocal. The Likud is the largest party
• 21:16
  Speaker 12: in Israel. We must form a right-wing, national, strong government.
• 21:20
  Speaker 12: That is what must be done. We must not, just not,
• 21:23
  Speaker 12: endanger Israel and establish a government that is backed by
• 21:26
  Speaker 12: anti-Zionist Arab parties. Israel faces a singular historical opportunity, together
• 21:35
  Speaker 12: with our partner President Trump, to remove the existential threat
• 21:38
  Speaker 12: of Iran once and for all.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Now, of course, the key here is which party can
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: now form a coalition with minor parties that could take weeks,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: even months, or also and or get the backing of
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: the Arab MPs, of whom there will be Some estimates
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: say 15, others 19. And these are politicians who don't
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: like Netanyahu and his more right-wing ministers. And by the way,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: something for all those haters of Israel on our streets
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: to consider. Israel's Muslims, they can vote in free elections.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Palestine's Muslims, they can't. Joining me from Tel Aviv is
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: Ayla Nivi, a podcaster, excellent podcaster, by the way, and
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: former spokesman for the Netanyahu government during the first year
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: of the Gaza war. Ayla, thank you so much for
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: your time. Really appreciate it. Who has won? Nobody has won.
• 22:38
  Speaker 13: Look, here's what we know because the votes are still
• 22:41
  Speaker 13: being counted. Netanyahu's bloc has lost its majority. It is
• 22:45
  Speaker 13: extremely unlikely now that Netanyahu will have that magic number
• 22:49
  Speaker 13: of 61 together with the religious and far-right parties to
• 22:53
  Speaker 13: form a coalition. But at the same time, the opposition
• 22:57
  Speaker 13: bloc doesn't either. The Arabs produced record turnout, brought a
• 23:02
  Speaker 13: record result. And that means that the possibility of a
• 23:06
  Speaker 13: minority government backed by the Arab parties is no longer
• 23:11
  Speaker 13: so realistic. We're looking really at two options. Either there
• 23:16
  Speaker 13: is a unity government or Israel goes back to elections.
• 23:20
  Speaker 13: We will have to wait and see the full results.
• 23:23
  Speaker 13: But that's what it's looking like at the moment.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: So what is the problem with Netanyahu's opponents? Forming government
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: with the permission, so to speak, of the Arab MPs,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: they'll say, we're not going to join the government, but
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: we won't, we'll never vote against you. We won't have a,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: let you lose a no confidence motion. Why can't that
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: be a credible way to keep going?
• 23:53
  Speaker 13: There has never been a minority government formed in Israel
• 23:56
  Speaker 13: after an election. Governments have lost their majorities, never a
• 23:59
  Speaker 13: minority government formed from the get-go. And if this happens,
• 24:02
  Speaker 13: it would be extremely unpopular because the Arab parties are
• 24:05
  Speaker 13: not considered by most parties to be natural partners for government.
• 24:10
  Speaker 13: I don't think most Australians would want a government formed
• 24:12
  Speaker 13: with an Islamist party or an Arab Communist party of Australia.
• 24:17
  Speaker 13: The fact is, despite Rahm making really serious steps towards
• 24:21
  Speaker 13: the Jewish parties to accommodate them. They still won't say
• 24:25
  Speaker 13: explicitly that Hamas is a terrorist organization. And the Joint
• 24:29
  Speaker 13: List is a communist party. One of their candidates said
• 24:32
  Speaker 13: they dedicate their victory to the people of Gaza and
• 24:35
  Speaker 13: occupied Jerusalem. So within the opposition bloc, there is a
• 24:38
  Speaker 13: fear that if they tried to form a minority government
• 24:42
  Speaker 13: backed by these parties from the outside, It would be unstable.
• 24:46
  Speaker 13: We would go back to elections. And in those elections,
• 24:48
  Speaker 13: Netanyahu would win a landslide. So it's mathematically possible. Much
• 24:54
  Speaker 13: more likely at the moment is that Netanyahu forms a
• 24:58
  Speaker 13: unity government of sorts. Someone breaks their promise not to
• 25:01
  Speaker 13: sit with him. Let's see how possible conflict with Iran
• 25:04
  Speaker 13: in the next few weeks can shape those coalition dynamics.
• 25:08
  Speaker 13: Or if everyone hunkers down in their positions, Israel could
• 25:12
  Speaker 13: get dragged back into fresh elections with Netanyahu as a
• 25:15
  Speaker 13: caretaker prime minister.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Now, Elon, I want to get to the mainstream issues
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: with you in a sec that were decisive in this election,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: in your opinion. But I just want to tease out
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: that bit about... So here we had a massive turnout,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: unusually big turnout, of Muslim voters, some Hamas-praising, some communists, etc.,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: There's a high birth rate among Muslim Israelis. There's a
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: lot of Muslims, of course, demanding, you know, we want
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: a one-state solution, all that. What would that tell Israelis
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: when you could have such a block of quite important
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: votes in the Knesset by Muslim voters? What does it
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: tell them about things like immigration and one-state solutions and
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: birth rates?
• 26:07
  Speaker 13: Israel is changing demographically. When you look at children going
• 26:11
  Speaker 13: into first grade, half of them are either Arab or ultra-Orthodox.
• 26:16
  Speaker 13: Both population groups that don't serve in the army and
• 26:19
  Speaker 13: are definitely underrepresented in the workforce and the country's tax base.
• 26:24
  Speaker 13: These are demographic changes that will change Israel and force
• 26:28
  Speaker 13: it to make some very serious changes in how the
• 26:30
  Speaker 13: country is constructed. And it's going to change Israeli politics.
• 26:34
  Speaker 13: It will either require a way for parties to work
• 26:38
  Speaker 13: together with the Arab parties and bring them into the mainstream.
• 26:41
  Speaker 13: When you have 17, 18 seats and a 120 seat Knesset,
• 26:45
  Speaker 13: you can no longer ignore that. Or for the left
• 26:49
  Speaker 13: and right or what's left of the left across the
• 26:51
  Speaker 13: opposition in government to reach across and realize they have
• 26:54
  Speaker 13: much more in common as parties that want to bring
• 26:58
  Speaker 13: and build a safe, strong, secure Jewish homeland than the
• 27:02
  Speaker 13: left does with Arab parties and the right does with
• 27:05
  Speaker 13: ultra-Orthodox parties that campaigned on a promise to get out
• 27:09
  Speaker 13: of military service. So Israel's demographics are changing and that
• 27:12
  Speaker 13: is already having an impact on the elections.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Looks very well explained. And I think, you know, the
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: danger is when people say bring the Muslims into, you know,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: a particular grouping of Jewish parties or Israeli parties, it
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: could actually go the other way. There will be people
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: who will feel they can exploit, go the other way.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: The mainstream goes to the extreme, which is a little
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: bit what we've seen with our Labour Party. Now, what
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: were the decisive issues here?
• 27:43
  Speaker 13: Netanyahu made this about who is the right person to
• 27:47
  Speaker 13: finish the job. Israel is not out of the danger
• 27:50
  Speaker 13: zone yet in the longest war in its history. the
• 27:53
  Speaker 13: Iranian regime is still racing ahead with its ballistic missile
• 27:56
  Speaker 13: and nuclear weapons program. And Trump is, Netanyahu is saying,
• 28:00
  Speaker 13: I'm the only person who can take advantage of the
• 28:02
  Speaker 13: last two years of the Trump administration to finish the job.
• 28:05
  Speaker 13: He even posted an AI picture of a nuclear bomb
• 28:07
  Speaker 13: exploding in Tel Aviv saying, if you don't vote for me,
• 28:10
  Speaker 13: you're all going to die in a nuclear Holocaust. So
• 28:13
  Speaker 13: he's saying, the opposition would not have the courage of
• 28:20
  Speaker 13: their convictions to plow ahead, finish off Hamas, finish Hezbollah,
• 28:23
  Speaker 13: finish off the Iranian regime. Only I can do that.
• 28:27
  Speaker 13: The opposition, meanwhile, tried to make this about October 7th,
• 28:30
  Speaker 13: which happened on Netanyahu's watch. He's blocking a state commission
• 28:33
  Speaker 13: of inquiry. And about the question of who is meant
• 28:36
  Speaker 13: to fight this war, because Netanyahu's Main partners are the
• 28:40
  Speaker 13: ultra-Orthodox parties that are insisting on an exemption from military
• 28:43
  Speaker 13: service for tens of thousands of perfectly healthy young men
• 28:48
  Speaker 13: for religious reasons, while you have a whole generation of
• 28:50
  Speaker 13: men in their 30s who've done 600, 700 days of
• 28:53
  Speaker 13: reserve duty. They've been press ganged back into the army.
• 28:56
  Speaker 13: So the opposition tried to make this about equality in
• 29:01
  Speaker 13: the burden, in the duties of citizenship. as well, but
• 29:05
  Speaker 13: Netanyahu managed to cannibalise a lot within his own bloc,
• 29:09
  Speaker 13: and the Likud, by all accounts, will be the largest party.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Elon Levy, always great to talk to you. Thank you
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: so much for that. After the break, you thought we
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: said no to being divided by race in the Albanese
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: government's referendum on The Voice, and yet it's actually growing.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: It's being imposed on you, and a new book today
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: blows the whistle. Few Australians realise how far the drive
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: to apartheid in this country has already gone. For instance,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Victoria has an Aboriginal-only kind of parliament. The First Peoples Assembly,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: South Australia has one too. Most states have Aboriginal-only courts.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: There are also race-based jobs in universities, government and even
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: football codes. And of course, there's government race-based benefits and
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: even cheap race-based tickets to a number of top arts events.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: We're even being walled off from each other. And I mean,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: you know, literally, you've got hospitals in Melbourne and Canberra.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: They've got Aboriginal waiting rooms. You've got universities with Aboriginal-only
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: study areas. Our top football codes even pick teams based
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: on race. like the Indigenous All-Stars, as if that's a
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: great idea, pitching races against each other. Well, today, a
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: former federal Labor minister, Gary Johns, now chairman of Close
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: the Gap Research, has launched a book saying this is
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: a dead end. The book is called Australian Apartheid, the
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: Aboriginalisation of a Nation, and I spoke to him a
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: short while ago. Gary Johns, good to see you again.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: Why this book?
• 30:47
  Speaker 14: Well, why this book and why Australian Apartheid, which is
• 30:51
  Speaker 14: the title? Because you recall the referendum of The Voice.
• 30:55
  Speaker 14: That was an attempt by the elites in this country, government, CEOs, churches, NGOs,
• 31:02
  Speaker 14: to divide us by race. I mean, Paul Aydin didn't
• 31:05
  Speaker 14: call it race always. They just talk about cultural First Nations.
• 31:09
  Speaker 14: But they were dividing Australians on a basis other than
• 31:13
  Speaker 14: our common citizenship.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: So we brought together.
• 31:16
  Speaker 14: 15 to 16 authors to explain the many ways in
• 31:21
  Speaker 14: which Australia is being Aboriginalised. So it's called the Aboriginalisation
• 31:26
  Speaker 14: of a nation. And I'll give you a nice little example.
• 31:30
  Speaker 14: So there are literally tens of thousands of Aboriginal people
• 31:34
  Speaker 14: who are hired by public services and semi-government organisations into
• 31:39
  Speaker 14: designated positions, i.e. only they can get the job. Now,
• 31:44
  Speaker 14: up until that time, the last 10 years or so,
• 31:46
  Speaker 14: Anyone who got a call from an Aboriginal person who
• 31:50
  Speaker 14: was a client would look after them, talk to the
• 31:52
  Speaker 14: Aboriginal person.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Now you know what happens?
• 31:55
  Speaker 14: That Aboriginal client gets sent over to the Aboriginal designated person.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: We're dividing. We're not talking to each other anymore.
• 32:02
  Speaker 14: So it's just a good, common, recent example of this
• 32:06
  Speaker 14: Australian apartheid.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I just think the referendum on The Voice was
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: an attempt by government to forwarders, fast forwarders on a
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: road that bit by bit were on already because of
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: all the things that I mentioned before. Why has the
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: government gone along with what really is segregation or even
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: apartheid when it's what many activists of the left, you know,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: the kind of people that went to the public service
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: jobs or left-wing politics, your Labor Party, they actually condemned
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: it when it was in South Africa years ago. Yeah,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: you're right. I mean, there's a massive inconsistency.
• 32:49
  Speaker 14: For instance, if you're a good leftist, many years ago
• 32:53
  Speaker 14: you would have said, let's ensure that Aboriginal people join
• 32:56
  Speaker 14: the workforce. You know, they can have solidarity with workers.
• 33:00
  Speaker 14: They can be the proletariat, if you like. So it
• 33:01
  Speaker 14: was a good left-wing thing. But they stopped talking about workers,
• 33:05
  Speaker 14: of course, in the labour movement 20, 30 years ago,
• 33:08
  Speaker 14: and they caught this new thing called identity.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: So it was the.
• 33:12
  Speaker 14: Fact that you were different racially or culturally and that
• 33:16
  Speaker 14: brought you to the top of the oppressed groups. And
• 33:19
  Speaker 14: that became the obsession. And little by little, all of
• 33:21
  Speaker 14: those university educated Aboriginal people thought, well, this is a
• 33:25
  Speaker 14: good little earner. We will get a job berating the
• 33:28
  Speaker 14: rest of the country for the poor lives of the
• 33:32
  Speaker 14: relatively minor minority of Aboriginal people who are not doing well.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Well, of course, other Aborigines or Aboriginal Australians that have
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: assimilated well got good jobs. They don't take part in
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: any of that nonsense. And I've got to say, the
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: honeypot of Aboriginal-only jobs has attracted a lot of people
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: who are white claiming to be Aborigines too, which a
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: lot of activists are now complaining about, Aboriginal activists. What
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: does any of this, though, all these race games, all
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: this separatism, the race courts, the racial-based Aboriginal... parliaments, all that,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: what has any of it got to do with stopping
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: the abuse of Aboriginal children that we are now seeing
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: tragically right now in so many Aboriginal settlements and all
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: the poverty and the domestic violence? To me, it looks
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: like displaced effort. Absolutely right.
• 34:32
  Speaker 14: Look, these communities, mainly the remote communities, is where the
• 34:36
  Speaker 14: mayhem occurs and They're not communities.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: They are settlements.
• 34:39
  Speaker 14: They're the last place where, if you like, the church
• 34:42
  Speaker 14: has stopped or World War Two aircraft hangar or whatever.
• 34:47
  Speaker 14: That's where people settled. But we've been unable to make
• 34:50
  Speaker 14: them into communities. And that's blindly obvious because of the mayhem,
• 34:54
  Speaker 14: the abuse of children and so on. Look, this is
• 34:56
  Speaker 14: our Dunkirk moment. We have to think about how we
• 35:01
  Speaker 14: bring children away from those settlements.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: I don't mean all at once. I mean in this sense.
• 35:07
  Speaker 14: Of lots of small means by which we have conversations
• 35:12
  Speaker 14: with families to say, your children will be better off elsewhere.
• 35:16
  Speaker 14: They must go to school.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Gary, we've gone through so many Dunkirk moments. I hate
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: to think, I remember talking to John Howard, I think
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: it was relatively early on, when he was boasting about
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: what this aid package they had given to WADAIR in
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: the Northern Territory. He said, Prime Minister, you could gold...
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: plate the taps and it won't make a difference. It's
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: not about that. And indeed, what remains a basket case
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: to this day. What is the alternative to this dead
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: end of, you know, valorising Aboriginal culture, promoting separatism, all
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: that kind of stuff? What is the alternative? Why would
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: the alternative be better?
• 36:01
  Speaker 14: The alternative is the path chosen by about 80% of
• 36:04
  Speaker 14: Aboriginal people who've come in. I come in, I mean,
• 36:07
  Speaker 14: they might physically come into the cities or the regions, whatever,
• 36:11
  Speaker 14: but mentally they do. They are prepared and able to
• 36:15
  Speaker 14: operate in the modern world and.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: To produce value.
• 36:17
  Speaker 14: So we have to normalise the fact, make it common,
• 36:22
  Speaker 14: that children from remote communities will find life and work
• 36:28
  Speaker 14: and happiness elsewhere. In most cases, there are some communities
• 36:32
  Speaker 14: that might actually work. They're not just settlements, but they're
• 36:35
  Speaker 14: very rare. We need, we fortunately have a large institutional
• 36:40
  Speaker 14: base in schools. There are all sorts of groups now
• 36:45
  Speaker 14: who'll take children to their schools or into their homes
• 36:49
  Speaker 14: and Work with these kids for years, which you'll have
• 36:53
  Speaker 14: to do, in order to get them through school. There'll
• 36:56
  Speaker 14: be a lot of failure there, but at the moment
• 36:59
  Speaker 14: it's all failure.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: That's why I'm so angry with the stolen generation, so-called
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: stolen generation story, or myth as I've called it, in
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: that it has terrified people out of integrating kids into
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: mainstream societies that portrayed Australia falsely as irredeemably racist, child-stealing, genocidal.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: when we should, in fact, be encouraging this, as you say,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: this move, mental move to Western norms, Western values, Western societies.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: That's my opinion at any rate. Gary Johns, how do
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: we order your book?
• 37:35
  Speaker 14: Well, order it through Quadrant. Go online with Quadrant. It's
• 37:39
  Speaker 14: on sale now.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: Well, congratulations, Gary. I know it's a pretty thankless task
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: trying to fight against this, but I think history will
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: prove you right. And the only question is counting how
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: many poor Aboriginal children have had to suffer for the wait.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: Gary Johns, thank you so much. After the break, one
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: of soccer's greatest world stars is in a war with China,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: but his surrender is a huge warning to us. To
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: a war between one of the world's greatest sports stars
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: and China's dictatorship. And the result is a warning of
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: how easily the West can surrender its freedoms. French soccer
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: superstar Kylian Mbappe is known as a dictator in his teams,
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: the French national one and his Real Madrid one in
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: Spain's La Liga. And there are jokes, joke memes picturing
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: him as a dictator. Back in April, he was asked
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: which of them he liked best. And he said, oh,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: it's one of a video of me, of a guy
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: I think is a Chinese dictator. which seems, of course,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: to be a reference to China's Mao Zedong, who was
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: the deadliest dictator of last century, a tyrant who killed
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: and starved tens of millions of Chinese people. China's communist
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: regime has only now got to hear of this and
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: has gone nuts. This week, broadcast in China for La
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: Liga games, Mbappe was dropped by Chinese companies and signed
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: him up to sell stuff, and now Mbappe is apologising
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: for telling the truth, and so are companies and soccer
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: administrators associated with him. Mbappe said, my comment was ill-judged,
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: and I now understand that it hurt many people in China, i.e.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: the dictator there, and in Chinese communities, And what's so
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: telling in this is that China's dictatorship is so scared
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: of the.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Just the word dictator being spoken in China that its
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: state media refuses to use it even in reporting on Mbappe.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: For instance, its Global Times paper said French football star
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: Kylian Mbappe has recently sparked a fierce backlash in China
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  Speaker 1: after making extremely inappropriate remarks in a recent interview. Remarks
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  Speaker 1: are never explained. It says, what did he say? Many
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  Speaker 1: Chinese would rather not repeat it. No, you don't want
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  Speaker 1: to be shot. And China's biggest social media site even
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  Speaker 1: blurs out the word dictator from posts about all this.
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  Speaker 1: Joining me are Caroline de Russo, commentator and president of
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  Speaker 1: the West Australian Liberals, and Gemma Tonini, columnist and communications consultant,
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  Speaker 1: now moonlighting over in Lombardy, one of the only areas
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  Speaker 1: in Italy actually named after a German tribe, but having
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: a ball, I presume. Gemma, Mbappe apologising, La Liga crawling,
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  Speaker 1: Chinese media too scared to even report the word dictator.
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  Speaker 1: What does all this tell you?
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  Speaker 3: It just tells us that everybody's a little bit weak
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  Speaker 3: and maybe that there are commercial things at play. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: let's not pretend that history is history. I mean, Mao
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  Speaker 3: Zedong was a terrible dictator. Millions upon millions upon millions
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  Speaker 3: of people were murdered. And if the Chinese government want
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  Speaker 3: to jump up and down and say it's not true,
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  Speaker 3: they can do that all the time, any time they want.
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  Speaker 2: It doesn't mean that they are correct.
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  Speaker 3: I can say that I've won five Wimbledons, Andrew, and
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  Speaker 3: I have, you know, I was chucked out of year
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  Speaker 3: five tennis camp just because I say something doesn't mean
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  Speaker 3: it's true and I think sporting leaders, because he is
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  Speaker 3: a leader, love to have an opinion, but when it's tested,
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  Speaker 3: very few of them are actually prepared to stand up
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  Speaker 3: and back their opinion. It's just disappointing, but we shouldn't
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  Speaker 3: be disappointed because they're just sportsmen.
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  Speaker 1: Well, for me, Caroline, that last bit that Gemma mentioned
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  Speaker 1: there is the key thing. China can threaten and bully us, absolutely,
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  Speaker 1: but it is powerless unless we're too greedy for Chinese
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  Speaker 1: dollars or yen. Chinese dollars or Chinese audiences or Chinese
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  Speaker 1: this and all that and give in, which is what
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  Speaker 1: Mbappé has done. He'd prefer the money to his freedom
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  Speaker 1: to speak the truth. That's the bottom line.
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  Speaker 2: That is the bottom line.
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  Speaker 15: And before I deal with that in substance, the Lombards
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  Speaker 15: are basically German. They're not really Italian, so it's perfectly
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  Speaker 15: acceptable that you refer to it in that way.
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  Speaker 12: Second of all, in WA.
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  Speaker 15: I can never help myself. WA, we had our state
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  Speaker 15: conference on the weekend. I have finished after four years
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  Speaker 15: as state president.
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  Speaker 9: I have been paroled.
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  Speaker 15: I'm still a federal vice president, though, but no longer
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  Speaker 15: a state president. And then on to the substance of
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  Speaker 15: your remarks.
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  Speaker 9: Anything else you need to deal with, Caroline?
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  Speaker 12: No, no, no.
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  Speaker 15: They're all the caveats I need before I get to
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  Speaker 15: the substance of the question. Andrew, you're absolutely right. But
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  Speaker 15: there's a saying in business that if you only have
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  Speaker 15: one customer or, you know, you have a biggest customer,
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  Speaker 15: they own you. And evidently, that is the way that
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  Speaker 15: certain people feel here and... Like we talk about, you know,
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  Speaker 15: often about freedom of speech, that there are consequences to
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  Speaker 15: freedom of speech. And in this case, this is what
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  Speaker 15: happens when you do business with people who don't share
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  Speaker 15: the same values as you.
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  Speaker 2: And it's one thing.
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  Speaker 15: And we saw it during COVID when we questioned the
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  Speaker 15: origins of the virus. This happened to trade here in Australia.
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  Speaker 15: So it is one thing to say these sorts of things.
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  Speaker 15: There's one thing in other parts of the world to
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  Speaker 15: get a reaction from the government. You don't normally see
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  Speaker 15: it from the companies because they are independent of the government.
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  Speaker 15: That is not the case in China.
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  Speaker 1: So if this is.
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  Speaker 15: If you do business with the Chinese, you do heavily
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  Speaker 15: business with the Chinese, and in this case, I'm.
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  Speaker 2: Going to be.
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  Speaker 15: I'm going to be careful here and say the CCP
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  Speaker 15: because this is where this ultimately comes from.
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  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 15: There's a muddying of the waters here in this about
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  Speaker 15: it offending the Chinese people. I think it offends the
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  Speaker 15: CCP because they haven't managed to get rid of their dictators.
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  Speaker 15: They're still producing them and it's evidently uncomfortable for them.
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  Speaker 15: But when you do business with people who don't necessarily
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  Speaker 15: share the same values as you, don't be surprised when
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  Speaker 15: they kick up. over something as, frankly, benign as this.
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  Speaker 1: No, it's so true. Whenever I hear Australian businessmen like
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  Speaker 1: Andrew Forrest, you know, say, oh, China, you know, it's great,
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  Speaker 1: it's the future, blah, blah, I always want to know
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  Speaker 1: how dependent are you on Chinese money for your business?
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  Speaker 1: And I just discount because you see, you see what
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  Speaker 1: China does when you actually speak the truth. Gemma, I
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  Speaker 1: don't know how much you've been following all this stuff
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  Speaker 1: about the golf club and the money thrown at it
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  Speaker 1: and all that, and what a scandal. Well, the thing is,
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  Speaker 1: if that's a scandal, they're all into it, really. They're
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  Speaker 1: all into it. What about, for instance, Labor and the
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  Speaker 1: Liberals now in Victoria, the brokest state in this country,
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  Speaker 1: both throwing huge grants, and I mean huge, at a
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  Speaker 1: Hindu temple that just happens to be... in a critical
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  Speaker 1: seat in Craigieburn, Melbourne's north, with lots of Indian voters.
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  Speaker 1: I showed the other day a Labor minister promising this
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  Speaker 1: temple half a million dollars, half a million, mind you,
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  Speaker 1: to get more people through the door. And now, incredibly,
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  Speaker 1: the Liberals have turned up to the very same temple
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  Speaker 1: to promise even more, $ 600, 000. Gemma, why are taxpayers funding
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  Speaker 1: Hindu and Muslim and even Christian places of worship?
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  Speaker 3: Oh, that's a great question. I think there is some
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  Speaker 3: nuance to it because I think Christians pay tax. I
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  Speaker 3: certainly pay more than my fair share. Hindus and Muslims,
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  Speaker 3: we all pay tax. There has to be a degree,
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  Speaker 3: and I use that phrase very deliberately, there should be
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  Speaker 3: a degree of government support for some of these things,
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  Speaker 3: which is not what we're talking about here. And I
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  Speaker 3: think you're right to raise it, but if we can
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  Speaker 3: shimmy back 20 seconds to the Prime Minister and that
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  Speaker 3: golf club, It's beyond just, oh, well, you know, he
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  Speaker 3: told a fib in Parliament. It is deeply misleading what
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  Speaker 3: the Prime Minister has said. You know, other people have
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  Speaker 3: resigned for lesser. And it's a pattern of behaviour. We
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  Speaker 3: can joke about the fact that he said, I didn't
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  Speaker 3: do the melon thing. We can joke about the fact
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  Speaker 3: that he said, I didn't fall off a stage when
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: obviously he fell off a stage. He told Parliament that
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  Speaker 3: that money was for sewage works. The money was not
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  Speaker 3: for sewage works. He denied having anything to do with
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: that club. We know that he has long had an
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  Speaker 3: association with that club. This is the Prime Minister of
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  Speaker 3: this country. Rot starts from the top, and God knows
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  Speaker 3: how rotten it absolutely is, Andrew. He should resign, in
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  Speaker 3: my view. He should resign. What he's done is it
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  Speaker 3: fails the pub test, it fails the honesty test, it
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  Speaker 3: fails every kind of leadership test. Imagine if you were
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  Speaker 3: in corporate life. And the consequences, you would lose your job.
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  Speaker 3: It's absolutely, it's black and white. But maybe, Andrew, we
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  Speaker 3: are so, I don't know, we are so desensitised, maybe
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  Speaker 3: we are just so tired of it, maybe our expectations
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  Speaker 3: are so low because we've had such garbage leadership in
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  Speaker 3: this country for so long. We've got to wake up.
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  Speaker 3: We've got to hold them to account.
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  Speaker 1: But, Caroline, you and Trevor said small things, but I
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  Speaker 1: think it's the very... fact that he's lied even about
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  Speaker 1: small things. What would it hurt him to say? Yes,
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  Speaker 1: I did fall off the stage. I mean, where is
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  Speaker 1: the political damage there? I fell off the stage. You know,
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  Speaker 1: make a joke about it. Yes, look, I'm terribly sorry.
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  Speaker 1: Made a mistake when I said it was just, you know,
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  Speaker 1: for sewage works. It was just a mistake. And I
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  Speaker 1: think it was originally just a mistake. Where is the
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: political harm? I don't understand it. And that's what makes
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: you think, golly, you know, what is it with this guy?
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  Speaker 15: Well, he doesn't want to apologise for anything, even when
• 47:43
  Speaker 15: it's very, very obvious. And the thing is, is that,
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  Speaker 15: you know, Australians, they have two eyes and two ears
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  Speaker 15: and they can see and hear and... They know that
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  Speaker 15: the PM fell off the stage.
• 47:52
  Speaker 6: You're absolutely right.
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  Speaker 15: He should have just made a joke about it and
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  Speaker 15: moved on and we would not be talking about it.
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  Speaker 15: But it's very kind of Streisand effect, right? When you
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  Speaker 15: bring attention to something that, you know, there shouldn't be
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  Speaker 15: attention to, you end up amplifying it and it ends
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  Speaker 15: up as a caricature. It takes on this personality of
• 48:12
  Speaker 15: its own. Like how often just in passing do we
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  Speaker 15: talk about Albo saying, who didn't fall off the stage
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  Speaker 15: and everyone laughs.
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  Speaker 9: Like, you actually become.
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  Speaker 15: A political caricature because you did not have the humility
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  Speaker 15: in the moment to just go, I fell off the stage.
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  Speaker 15: I've been campaigning for six weeks. I was absolutely exhausted.
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  Speaker 15: You know, if the least I do is fall off
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  Speaker 15: the stage, well, then I'm going to call it a win.
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  Speaker 9: No one would have.
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  Speaker 15: Ever talked about it again.
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: But that's exactly the point, isn't it? The fact that
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  Speaker 1: he does it on such low stakes issue. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: I can imagine, you know, you're not wanting to tell
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  Speaker 1: the truth, you know, say he burbled out a state
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  Speaker 1: secret to China. Fine, you know, I can... Well, not
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  Speaker 1: fine that he did it and not fine that he
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  Speaker 1: lies about it, but I understand why he'd lie about it.
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  Speaker 1: The stage or this... Crazy. Caroline de Russo, Gemma Tonnini,
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  Speaker 1: thank you very much to you both. Up next, Shari Markson.
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  Speaker 1: Good night.