Speaker 1: Welcome to the Late Debate.
Speaker 2: Good evening.
Speaker 3: I'm James Macpherson with Liz Storer and Caleb Bond. Coming up,
Speaker 3: council parking permits being sold on the black market. We'll
Speaker 3: tell you what's going on there. And when we look
Speaker 3: at the papers, Queensland Premier Stephen Miles throwing huge amounts
Speaker 3: of money at a mining giant, though we won't say
Speaker 3: exactly how much, and a Melbourne council's radical plan to
Speaker 3: lower power prices. But first we've got massive breaking news
Speaker 3: here on the Late Debate.
Speaker 2: About hour ago that.
Speaker 3: Australian breakdancing sensation Rachel Gunn aka Big Girl ray Gun,
Speaker 3: she broke her silence about that Olympic Can we call
Speaker 3: it a performance? Finally talking about what happened, releasing this
Speaker 3: statement on Instagram.
Speaker 4: Have a listen, Hi, everyone, Raygun here.
Speaker 5: I just want to start by thanking all the people
Speaker 5: who supported me.
Speaker 4: I really appreciate the positivity and I'm glad I was
Speaker 4: able to bring some joy into your lives. That's what
Speaker 4: I hoped. I didn't realize that that would also open
Speaker 4: the door to so much hate, which has frankly been
Speaker 4: pretty devastating.
Speaker 3: I don't know about hate Caleb, but she certainly brought
Speaker 3: a lot of joy.
Speaker 2: I mean, I laughed myself silly at that performance.
Speaker 1: How I was glad that when I actually watched it live,
Speaker 1: because I had the unfortunate chance to sit down on
Speaker 1: the couch at about half past midnight last Friday and
Speaker 1: watch it live, that I was about a bottle of
Speaker 1: red deep at that point. Because if I wasn't a
Speaker 1: bottle of red Deep, I may will have cried myself
Speaker 1: to sleep that night. I mean, look, you know, I
Speaker 1: understand that it's hard when you're in the public eye
Speaker 1: and you get criticized, etc. But if you go to
Speaker 1: the Olympic Games to represent your country, the whole country
Speaker 1: expects you to do well, right, and she didn't do well.
Speaker 1: She went there to compete in a sport where you
Speaker 1: are judged. It's not a well, I mean sport. I
Speaker 1: use the word loosely great breakdancing is. It's not a sport.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. It ain't a sport. But it's not like
Speaker 1: running or golf or whatever, where you can do it
Speaker 1: based on a score. You have to be judged by
Speaker 1: judges who decide whether or not they liked your performance
Speaker 1: based on various techniques and whatever that you have used,
Speaker 1: you are judged. She went to the Olympics to be judged.
Speaker 1: She was judged by the judges. They gave her a
Speaker 1: big bat zero, and then the rest of the world
Speaker 1: judged her performance. What did she expect she was getting
Speaker 1: herself in for?
Speaker 3: Did you just say technique? I wasn't where there was
Speaker 3: any technique, not at all.
Speaker 1: I mean, looking some of the other performances, there might
Speaker 1: have been some technique, but you know, seriously, to complain that,
Speaker 1: oh my god, there's been always outpouring of hate. There
Speaker 1: hasn't really been hate. It's just been people going what
Speaker 1: the hell did we were?
Speaker 4: If you didn't see the performance, perhaps you can't relate
Speaker 4: to the outrage because it was objectively terrible. I don't
Speaker 4: think the woman can break dance at all. And the
Speaker 4: funniest part was watching the faces of the crowd in
Speaker 4: the background watching her, because they're all serious breakdancers from
Speaker 4: all over the world flown in to compete, and they
Speaker 4: were watching her with mouth open.
Speaker 3: One of the problems is we don't tell people early
Speaker 3: on you know you're just not good.
Speaker 2: Don't do it.
Speaker 3: I disagree with you, because remember Australian Idol. Right, the
Speaker 3: best episodes in Australian Idol were not when they got
Speaker 3: like the top ten and Guys Sebastian is wowing us.
Speaker 3: All the best episodes were the early ones where you
Speaker 3: had these people rock up thinking they were the next yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, Bob Dylan, and they were atrocious. I stopped
Speaker 3: watching once they got through the riff raft to the
Speaker 3: good people because you know, good people are a dime
Speaker 3: a dozen, but people with illusions of grandeur, those are
Speaker 3: the people who are truly entertaining.
Speaker 2: She's she's a great entertainer for the risk that.
Speaker 4: We're oats for those terrible your crap get out of here.
Speaker 1: That's why it shows good because people tuned in to
Speaker 1: watch them be taken down a peg or two and
Speaker 1: people like ray Gun should have been taken down a
Speaker 1: peg or two. And going back to your point about qualifying,
Speaker 1: I think one of the other rules for Australian competitors
Speaker 1: you wanted to qualify was that they already had to
Speaker 1: have a passport, so they couldn't get a passport subsequent
Speaker 1: to qualify, they had to prove that they like it's
Speaker 1: just ridiculous anyway, she's broken haha. Her silence good on her.
Speaker 1: Something tells me we won't see her competing anywhere again
Speaker 1: anytime soon. And if there's anything good to come of
Speaker 1: all of this, it will be that break dancing will
Speaker 1: never return to the Olympics again. And to that, I say,
Speaker 1: who Ray just the one song exactly exactly as well. Well,
Speaker 1: actually shouldn't have been a once off. It should never
Speaker 1: happened in the first place anyway. Be that as it may.
Speaker 1: Now in Victoria, Dale'sford and anyone who's been to Dallasford
Speaker 1: knows it is a wonderful part of the world. I
Speaker 1: have been there. It has great pubs, great people. It
Speaker 1: is a lovely part of Victoria. But Dan Murphy's wanted
Speaker 1: to move into the town, and no wonder because it
Speaker 1: is a rapidly growing part of Victoria, very popular holiday spot.
Speaker 1: Lots of people have, people with money, I should not
Speaker 1: have holiday homes in Victoria. So Dan Murphy's thought, well,
Speaker 1: here's a good place to expand into. They went off
Speaker 1: and applied to set up a shop and they've had
Speaker 1: their application denied. Can you believe it on the basis
Speaker 1: that it will be harmful to the community. Now, look,
Speaker 1: there are existing bottle shops in Dalsford, so it's not
Speaker 1: as though it's a dry town. And you know we're
Speaker 1: talking about setting up a grog shop in Alice Springs.
Speaker 1: We're talking about you know, bad lands of Dalsford. It's
Speaker 1: pretty good territory in Victoria, and the local council Hepburnshire,
Speaker 1: fought hard against Dan Murphy's opening up, and the CEO
Speaker 1: of the council, Bradley Thomas said in response to this
Speaker 1: being knocked back by lick A Lison since today. The
Speaker 1: decision which was announced this morning was made namely on
Speaker 1: the basis that granting the license could pose a public risk,
Speaker 1: encourage harm and have adverse social impacts. I mean you'd
Speaker 1: think we were talking about opening up a safe injecting
Speaker 1: room or something. Oh, they've already done that in Victoria. Yes,
Speaker 1: that is safe. But you say I want to open
Speaker 1: up a Dan Murphy's shop. No, no, no, that is harmful.
Speaker 1: I mean you have to look that there's a few
Speaker 1: things here. Clearly it is the good people of Dalsford
Speaker 1: don't want to the nice country feel of their town
Speaker 1: being ruined by our big dern Murphy's coming in to
Speaker 1: do business. But one wonders as well whether there was
Speaker 1: perhaps a little bit of well, we've got to protect
Speaker 1: the smaller operators who are already in Dalsford from the
Speaker 1: competition of an outfit like Dan Murphy's, which will of
Speaker 1: course necessarily come in with lower prices than the businesses
Speaker 1: that are already there. So who cares. Let's run a
Speaker 1: protection racket for the dog the consumers.
Speaker 3: What's wrong with either of those two things? I mean,
Speaker 3: if you want to live in Melbourne, to live in Melbourne.
Speaker 3: But I presume if you move to Dalsford it's because
Speaker 3: you don't want maccas and KFC and Dan Murphy's. You
Speaker 3: want your picturesque, sort of quaint Victorian town. And second,
Speaker 3: what's wrong with looking after the local traders? This Dan
Speaker 3: Murphy's was going to be three times the size of
Speaker 3: the two existing alcohol outlets put together. So what's wrong
Speaker 3: with preserving the pristine nature of your own community? And
Speaker 3: what's wrong with looking after the locals rather than a
Speaker 3: major conglomerate.
Speaker 1: Well, we're about looking after the locals. What about providing
Speaker 1: them with some competition to drive prices down exactly?
Speaker 4: I'm not sure how many locals would be happy about this.
Speaker 2: They're with locals.
Speaker 4: As I'm about to get to that. But the population
Speaker 4: of Dalsford is ten thousand people. So for two hundred people, I.
Speaker 2: Think it's only three things scupperr.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, I checked it before I came online. For
Speaker 4: two hundred people to scupper the place, I don't know
Speaker 4: that that's entirely fair. And also you do wonder how
Speaker 4: many of those two hundred signatures came from the proprietors
Speaker 4: of the current bottle os and or wineries in the region,
Speaker 4: So you do have to wonder. Also what they really
Speaker 4: highlighted in their objecting to this was miners drinking. And
Speaker 4: so you've got these miners that they made it all
Speaker 4: about the secondary the other I would increase and miners
Speaker 4: would drink more, and there would be more abuse of
Speaker 4: alcohol amongst miners. But the bottom line is if miners
Speaker 4: want to drink, if miners want to get their hands
Speaker 4: on alcohol, they are going to get their hands on out.
Speaker 2: I've got to pull you up on something.
Speaker 3: The twenty twenty one census, the population of Dallasford was
Speaker 3: two thousand, seven hundred and eighty one, which means just under.
Speaker 4: Twenty four population.
Speaker 3: Was it exploded by seven thousand people in it.
Speaker 4: It is just under.
Speaker 1: Dalesford is a growing place. It is a very popular place.
Speaker 4: And just about to host the block.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and let's be honest here, Like you open a
Speaker 1: Dan Murphy's in Dalesford. It's not simply exclusively for the
Speaker 1: people of Dalesford. It's for the people of the surrounds
Speaker 1: as well. Right, So people might come half an hour
Speaker 1: down the road.
Speaker 2: Dan Murphy's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, okay, should go there. Okay, So you're telling
Speaker 1: the good people of Dalesford that they have to govern
Speaker 1: Balerte and if they want to get.
Speaker 2: Good people at Dalesford have told Dan Murphy's.
Speaker 1: We don't want two hundred of them.
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty one census, ten percent of the town.
Speaker 1: Oh for good. But this is how it always works, right,
Speaker 1: This is this is NIMBYism at work. You get a
Speaker 1: small group of people who ban together and fight like
Speaker 1: hell and make a lot of noise, the vocal minority,
Speaker 1: we might call them, who fight tooth and nail against development.
Speaker 1: And I've seen this when I was when I was
Speaker 1: a local government reporter. I saw it all the time.
Speaker 1: It happened all the time. A small group of very
Speaker 1: noisy people fight against in some cases bad development, but
Speaker 1: often quite sensible development. Now, Dan Murphy's is a shrewd
Speaker 1: and astute business. It will not seek to open up
Speaker 1: a store in a place where it does not think
Speaker 1: it is going to do good business. It's run all
Speaker 1: those numbers before it makes any applications. It knows that
Speaker 1: Dalsford is a good market and people will go there.
Speaker 1: If there Murphy's opened up a shop in Dalesford and
Speaker 1: no one went there because the good people of Dalsford
Speaker 1: have decided they don't like Dan Murphy's, then that would
Speaker 1: be even more funny because they would drum dan Murphy's
Speaker 1: out of town. But the proof of the pudding is
Speaker 1: in the eating, and they won't get to eat the
Speaker 1: pudding because they've gone and scup at it before they
Speaker 1: had the chance.
Speaker 4: And this ruling really is a landmark one because, to
Speaker 4: quote the article, it's the first time this new definition
Speaker 4: of harm under the Liquor Control Reform Act has been
Speaker 4: used to refuse a license. So if we're going to
Speaker 4: say alcoholism equals harm, well, not even alcoholism, but use
Speaker 4: of alcohol in smaller communities, et cetera. If you're going
Speaker 4: to follow that line of reasoning to its logical conclusion,
Speaker 4: no Dan murphy should exist, because nobody's arguing, oh well,
Speaker 4: the existence of this Dan Murphy's isn't going to lend
Speaker 4: itself to alcoholism in this community. So it really this
Speaker 4: landmark ruling for me personally, has so many question marks
Speaker 4: around it because it's like, well, if it's not okay
Speaker 4: in Dalesford, why is it okay anywhere? Because if you're
Speaker 4: going to sell alcohol, people are going to drink it,
Speaker 4: people are going to abuse it, Miners are going to
Speaker 4: get their hands on it. The last time I remember
Speaker 4: Dan Murphy's being knocked back of an application was back
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty one and that was in the Northern Territory.
Speaker 4: So to this day, there is no dan Murphy's in
Speaker 4: the Northern Territory because after five years, which included court battles,
Speaker 4: they were just like, okay, we give up. And obviously
Speaker 4: there was a much stronger case in.
Speaker 1: Case.
Speaker 4: It was where they wanted to build, it was surrounded
Speaker 4: by dry towns and towns that it had a lot
Speaker 4: of problems in the past with alcoholism. So that one
Speaker 4: everyone can pay that case, everyone can go okay. Not
Speaker 4: in the Northern Territory fair deuce, but this one just
Speaker 4: seems to be no free market. And now the Bottlows
Speaker 4: and other people in the area, the pubs who do
Speaker 4: sell alcohol can keep their prices as high as they
Speaker 4: like because the people of Dalsford have no other option.
Speaker 3: One of the things that made me laugh was in
Speaker 3: the ABC report they quoted the owner of a quote
Speaker 3: boutique distillery in Dlsford who said this was a very
Speaker 3: good result of good for the young people.
Speaker 2: For the young people.
Speaker 4: Oh, I'm sure he was one of those two hundred signatures.
Speaker 1: It's a town with at least two pubs. I've been
Speaker 1: to both of them. I mean, maybe they need to
Speaker 1: shut one of the pubs down because it's causy harm.
Speaker 1: You know, it's harmful.
Speaker 3: The pub is harmful, please, all right, aside from drinking,
Speaker 3: that's one of Caleb's great enjoyment pleasures. But we also
Speaker 3: love AFL and there's nothing better than just watching a
Speaker 3: great broadcast on the Telly watching the AFL. But the
Speaker 3: AFL are determined to ruin it by insisting on diversity
Speaker 3: and inclusion. Their new broadcasting rights deal with radio stations
Speaker 3: and television stations, including Fox tells stipulates that the commentary
Speaker 3: teams must provide representation from minority groups. So three AW
Speaker 3: Radio asked the AFL boss Andrew Dillon, what exactly does
Speaker 3: it mean to have diversity on a commentary team? And
Speaker 3: the amazing thing was that Andrew Dillon couldn't really answer
Speaker 3: the question as to what diversity really means.
Speaker 6: Have a listen, you mean fewer middle aged white men
Speaker 6: like Brian Taylor and James Brayshaw and more, I don't know,
Speaker 6: more indigenous commentators, more female commentators, more gay commentators.
Speaker 1: What do you actually I don't think it's less of anything.
Speaker 1: I think it's just more of but it will.
Speaker 6: Be not necessarily. I continue, here we have we have
Speaker 6: about eight middle aged white men who comment on the
Speaker 6: football here hello, Bruce Ever and Tim Lane and Shane
Speaker 6: mcinneses and Matt Gronland and and they do a great job.
Speaker 6: But if we have to have some more diverse commentators,
Speaker 6: we'll have to get rid of half of them. We
Speaker 6: can't afford to just keep employing more people.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that's you know, that's a call obviously
Speaker 1: that AW would make.
Speaker 6: We just pick the best commentator. I mean, I don't
Speaker 6: think especially on radio. No one cares what they look
Speaker 6: like or what their background is. They just want to
Speaker 6: know that they're the most interesting and well informed football
Speaker 6: people around.
Speaker 1: That's right, But I think you get that time when
Speaker 1: you have a diversity of thought and a diversity of background.
Speaker 3: It's almost like the AFL boss doesn't understand his audience.
Speaker 3: He doesn't understand corporate realities, and he doesn't understand football.
Speaker 3: The audience don't care whether it's a gay person, an
Speaker 3: indigenous person, or a stale, pale male calling the game
Speaker 3: as long as they call it well. And in terms
Speaker 3: of commercial realities, if you're going to employ more minority
Speaker 3: groups than by necess you have to get rid of
Speaker 3: some of the white guys who are already in jobs.
Speaker 3: And third, in terms of understanding football, Caleb, just because
Speaker 3: you're gay, or just because you're indigenous, or just because
Speaker 3: you're white, doesn't mean you are able to call football.
Speaker 3: It's your experience, not your diversity group that you belong to.
Speaker 1: Exactly. It's like thinking that because you're a thirty six
Speaker 1: year old academic that you can be a break dancer.
Speaker 1: I mean, for heaven's sake, that there is a reason
Speaker 1: that the majority of footy commentators in this country are aging, white,
Speaker 1: straight males. It's because predominantly the people who have played
Speaker 1: football in the past who have gone on to now
Speaker 1: have commentary careers, were straight white males. Now, over time,
Speaker 1: that will change. You now have the AFLW and there
Speaker 1: are female commentators, and some of them quite excellent. You
Speaker 1: have great diversity of race moving into the game. There's
Speaker 1: obviously great representation of Indigenous people within the game Eddie
Speaker 1: Bett's works on Fox Footy. There is now great representation
Speaker 1: of African players within the game. These things will naturally
Speaker 1: change as there is more representation in the game and
Speaker 1: those people go on to have commentary careers. What the
Speaker 1: AFL is trying to do is reverse engineer it and say, okay,
Speaker 1: we understand that there haven't been that many people of
Speaker 1: those backgrounds in the game yet, but you've got to
Speaker 1: force them into commentary positions now. No, they will naturally
Speaker 1: move into those positions over time if they can string
Speaker 1: a few words together. That's just how it works. And
Speaker 1: the point that Tom Elliott is making there is so right.
Speaker 1: And by the way, he might have noticed his Hawaiian
Speaker 1: shirt that he always wears a Hawaiian shirt. I take
Speaker 1: issue with it, Tom, I like your radio program, I
Speaker 1: don't like your dress since But what he's saying is, look,
Speaker 1: we can't just keep adding more and more commentators. And
Speaker 1: he goes on to say in that interview that all
Speaker 1: of the straight white aging males at three AW are
Speaker 1: really worried now that they're going to lose their jobs
Speaker 1: because they're going to have to be sacked so that
Speaker 1: the broadcaster can comply with these rules and go and
Speaker 1: find some gay black person to sit in the chair
Speaker 1: for them. Well, I don't want a gay black person
Speaker 1: telling me about the football if they haven't played football
Speaker 1: or they don't know about football.
Speaker 3: Well I want to know when we're going to have
Speaker 3: a gay or a black AFL CEO book. But that's
Speaker 3: where you Andrew Dillon's not going intoutly by example.
Speaker 1: And of course Gillan McLaughlin before him was a straight
Speaker 1: white male. And Andrew Demitriu straight well actually Demitriu, but
Speaker 1: he was a.
Speaker 2: North Melbourne manager.
Speaker 3: But still, the other hypocrisy here is we're always taught,
Speaker 3: you know, about how important representation is. Parliament should represent
Speaker 3: the community. You know, this group should represent that group.
Speaker 3: And so if the commentary team are going to represent
Speaker 3: the players. Well, nine of AFL players are white, and
Speaker 3: so you know, if you want representation in the commentary box, well,
Speaker 3: I reckon, we've about got it.
Speaker 4: Well, I want to know what this means now that
Speaker 4: it's written into their broadcast rights agreement. Broadcasting rights be
Speaker 4: taken off you if there's not enough diversity in your
Speaker 4: commentary team. I mean Australian sports journalist Tom Morris put
Speaker 4: it really well. He's like, basically, this means you can't
Speaker 4: just have white men sitting behind a desk for every
Speaker 4: single broadcast that you do. You need to diversify. But
Speaker 4: as we've already thoroughly covered off on those other guys
Speaker 4: that play the sport, those are the guys who have
Speaker 4: been doing it their entire lives. Those are the guys
Speaker 4: who grew up dreaming about it, did it, and are
Speaker 4: now on the sidelines because their bodies can't keep it
Speaker 4: up forever, and therefore they're the best to commentate on it.
Speaker 4: I like your point, Caleb that if we just gave
Speaker 4: it enough time it'll have we would see those DEI
Speaker 4: hires coming in actually on merit. But what we're talking
Speaker 4: about now is further the death of meritocracy at the
Speaker 4: hands of DEI hires and like the people watching aren't
Speaker 4: going to notice that a certain commentator isn't as up
Speaker 4: to scre with the other ones. When they have someone
Speaker 4: sitting at the desk who knows they're underqualified to be there,
Speaker 4: who knows that they're years behind in experience and knowledge
Speaker 4: of the bloats flanking them, and they're just there because well,
Speaker 4: it's signed into our broadcast rights that you have to
Speaker 4: be here.
Speaker 3: And conversely, when next year we all watch the football
Speaker 3: and we've got, oh, we've got a new commentator, they've
Speaker 3: got a woman on the team, and we'll all sit
Speaker 3: here and think she's only there because the broadcasting.
Speaker 2: This is what you're dis service to her.
Speaker 1: This is what really irks me about it, right because
Speaker 1: I don't think there's anyone who wouldn't be happy to
Speaker 1: see a great female commentator, a great black commentator, a
Speaker 1: great gay commentator. I don't really care. I just want
Speaker 1: you to be good at your job. And by trying
Speaker 1: to shoehorn people into these positions who may not be
Speaker 1: the best at their job, it creates a perception that
Speaker 1: if there is a female commentator then they must be rubbish, right,
Speaker 1: People automatically go, oh, well, they're only there because they're
Speaker 1: there to fill some diversity spot, right, And you have
Speaker 1: And I'm going to go to cricket here. And I
Speaker 1: remember maybe six seven years ago hearing Isha Goa commentate
Speaker 1: the cricket on Triple M when Triple M first got
Speaker 1: the cricket rights in Australia. And I'm listening to this
Speaker 1: woman in the car one day, never heard of her
Speaker 1: in my life, going, my goodness, she is running rings
Speaker 1: around the blokes here. She is now a major part
Speaker 1: of the Fox cricket coverage. She is, you know, pound
Speaker 1: for pound, one of the best cricket commentators in the world.
Speaker 1: She just happens to be an English woman of Indian heritage, right.
Speaker 1: She hasn't got the job because she is a woman
Speaker 1: of Indian heritage. She's got the job because she is
Speaker 1: so darn good at it. And if we just naturally
Speaker 1: allow these people to be found without shoehorning them in,
Speaker 1: then no one will question them being there. But when
Speaker 1: you force them into these roles, people will go I
Speaker 1: don't want to listen to this woman commentating the cricket
Speaker 1: or the footy what do they know? And I think,
Speaker 1: as you say, it does a real disservice to people
Speaker 1: who actually have skill and talent and could get these
Speaker 1: jobs on that basis, and they probably miss out because
Speaker 1: someone else just got put in there.
Speaker 3: And on that issue, you know, if you're listening to
Speaker 3: a sports broadcast and it's male sport and you've got
Speaker 3: a female commentator, your ears probably do prick up and
Speaker 3: you think, oh, they've got a woman commentating. But you're
Speaker 3: not once think oh, I wonder what color skin that
Speaker 3: commentator's got, or I wonder what their sexual preference is
Speaker 3: while they're calling, you know, a great specky at C
Speaker 3: and a half back in the quarter final of the AFL.
Speaker 3: You're not thinking about those things. It's weird that the
Speaker 3: AFL are thinking about those things. I get that they're
Speaker 3: trying to broaden the appeal of the game and they're
Speaker 3: trying to get more people involved, but you don't do
Speaker 3: it by lowering the.
Speaker 5: Standard, because how is that going to broaden the appeal.
Speaker 4: Someone's going to be like, I watch the AFL now
Speaker 4: because they've got a gay commentator and I'm gay, or
Speaker 4: I'm a supporter of the LGBTI trus humanity. Please, we
Speaker 4: already know we have several out AFL players on the field, nowaday.
Speaker 1: We don't. He's actually there's never been an out in.
Speaker 2: Community football, but not in the.
Speaker 4: Topler now okay, well, I don't want to name names.
Speaker 3: Now, I don't want to out anyone AFLW that's a different.
Speaker 4: Story, correct, but in news that is in fact news
Speaker 4: to no one. A whistleblower has recently told us all
Speaker 4: that China is trying to interfere in debate in Australia. Gasps,
Speaker 4: I know, we can't believe this. A network of some
Speaker 4: five thousand AI run accounts on social media site x
Speaker 4: otherwise known as Twitter, is just one part of an
Speaker 4: all out information war China is waging against Australia. According
Speaker 4: to this intelligence insider, who's also a counter interference expert.
Speaker 4: He says they use a network of private companies just
Speaker 4: like Wagner's are technically killers for hire, but really under
Speaker 4: the Russian control, these are CCP proxies under Beijing's thumb.
Speaker 4: China's goal is to subjugate Australia cognitively, to control the
Speaker 4: narrative and control the way Australians think. I don't think
Speaker 4: this comes as a surprise to anyone. We all remember
Speaker 4: last year when the heads of Five Eyes got together
Speaker 4: and we're like, China is the biggest danger to the
Speaker 4: Western world. Yes, it's true, and they'd never been that
Speaker 4: upfront about it, although they in their own countries obviously
Speaker 4: that is a narrative that they run with. And we
Speaker 4: all understand that China's capabilities in this area are unprecedented.
Speaker 4: I would say the amount of times we get told, oh,
Speaker 4: almost on a daily basis, we're fighting off cyber attacks
Speaker 4: from Chinese hackers, etc. And so on. So I don't
Speaker 4: think it comes as a surprise, but it's always good
Speaker 4: to be reminded that not everything you see, yes, even
Speaker 4: on sites like Elon Musk's Twitter, are actually real. They
Speaker 4: have these centers where they set up AI bots that
Speaker 4: are commenting, liking, stirring up descent, planting little narratives of
Speaker 4: their own into the Australian and in other countries as well,
Speaker 4: into the Australian social psyche. It's quite fascinating.
Speaker 3: I think what's interesting about this story is you've got
Speaker 3: Chinese Communist Party accounts or linked accounts trying to sew
Speaker 3: division and discord in Western nations. But they're not creating
Speaker 3: the division. They are simply taking advantage of the division
Speaker 3: that we ourselves as societies have allowed. And I think
Speaker 3: the wake up call. You can say, oh, we need
Speaker 3: to crack down on all these Chinese bot accounts. Well,
Speaker 3: that's true, but the bigger issue is that our political
Speaker 3: and civic and religious leaders need to come together and say,
Speaker 3: we've got a major problem in the West where we
Speaker 3: have done away with all of our greed values, all
Speaker 3: of our greed traditions. We've got rid of all of them.
Speaker 3: So now we're at war with each other. We saw today,
Speaker 3: and we won't get time to talk about it, I guess.
Speaker 3: But how one side of politics is demonizing the other side.
Speaker 3: You're all a bunch of racists because you want to
Speaker 3: have a conversation about immigration. We've created division in our
Speaker 3: own cultures by getting rid of all of the things
Speaker 3: that we traditionally agreed on. We've got nothing left that
Speaker 3: we agree on other than Raygun performed really badly in Paris,
Speaker 3: and so the Chinese and our enemies are now taking
Speaker 3: advantage of it. But we have given the enemy a foothold,
Speaker 3: and it's one thing to shut down Twitter and TikTok accounts.
Speaker 3: But the bigger issue is we've got to find out
Speaker 3: what are our common values and what are we actually
Speaker 3: building our society on.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting some of the topics that these CCP
Speaker 1: run accounts have been tweeting about. The CFMEU of all things,
Speaker 1: they've been tweeting about nuclear energy and tweeting about immigration.
Speaker 1: And immigration is such an important one because the greatest
Speaker 1: example of the danger of all of this is happening
Speaker 1: in the UK right now because we saw the riots.
Speaker 1: We've seen in the riots that broke out in the UK,
Speaker 1: which was started on the basis of misinformation that was
Speaker 1: spread online that the seventeen year old who is alleged
Speaker 1: to have stabbed and killed three girls was a refugee.
Speaker 1: He's not a refugee. He was the son of Rwandan migrants.
Speaker 1: He was born in the UK. But there were posts
Speaker 1: put online saying that he was a refugee. And it's
Speaker 1: believed that these posts were posted and promulgated by foreign
Speaker 1: AI run accounts. What they've done, whether that be China
Speaker 1: or Russia or any other country, they can see so
Speaker 1: clearly the divisions that we have in our own countries,
Speaker 1: and with something as simple as a post like that,
Speaker 1: they can create civil unrests on the civil unrest, sorry,
Speaker 1: on the streets of Western nations. That's one example, and
Speaker 1: there'll be so much more of it to come. And unfortunately,
Speaker 1: the problem here is that because we have freedom, and
Speaker 1: we believe in freedom and freedom of speech and freedom
Speaker 1: of information, we have a system whereby foreign nations that
Speaker 1: don't have freedom of speech and freedom of information are
Speaker 1: able to readily attack us and target those divisions. And
Speaker 1: we can't do the same thing because we can't just
Speaker 1: go on you know, Chinese versions of social media and
Speaker 1: try to do the same thing because the CCP controls
Speaker 1: the flow of information, so the Chinese people see exactly
Speaker 1: what the CCP want them to see, and people in Australia,
Speaker 1: in the UK and the US are also seeing exactly
Speaker 1: what the CCP wants them to see. You can't undo
Speaker 1: that because the alternative would be to take away freedom,
Speaker 1: and that would be even worse than this situation. But
Speaker 1: we have opened the door to countries like China to
Speaker 1: further divide us, which of course only helps their ins.
Speaker 4: And when Elon first purchase Twitter, one of the big
Speaker 4: things that he said he wanted to do was get
Speaker 4: rid of all the bots, because there is hundreds of
Speaker 4: thousands of bots run by You can just be a
Speaker 4: hacker actually just doing your own thing in your basement,
Speaker 4: if you like. They literally have hundreds of phones that
Speaker 4: they're tapping away out programming on their computers, and those
Speaker 4: phones are unique individuals who again are posting this kind
Speaker 4: of content, sowing descent regarding any number of issues that
Speaker 4: you can name, and then getting a lot of traffic
Speaker 4: on Twitter. So one of the things that he said
Speaker 4: he wanted to do was to ensure that people had
Speaker 4: to have an ID And this is where my ears
Speaker 4: pricked up, because we all know how much Liz Stoa
Speaker 4: loves the idea of digital ID not but that is
Speaker 4: one of the things that he was saying. We have
Speaker 4: to have something like that, which means that every x
Speaker 4: account user, everyone using Twitter, is a verified human being.
Speaker 4: And that's when we can then pull out these hundreds
Speaker 4: of thousands, it may even be millions, given how many
Speaker 4: millions of people use Twitter, and then they'll just be
Speaker 4: taken out of the public discourse and this kind of
Speaker 4: hacking and usage of the system will no longer be possible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean the CCP are bad, but some
Speaker 3: Western nations are becoming more and more like the CCP.
Speaker 2: Including the UK government.
Speaker 3: Caleb mentioned the riots that have been happening there, and
Speaker 3: of course many people have been commenting on social media,
Speaker 3: not just in the UK we'll get to that in
Speaker 3: the moment, but people overseas have been commenting. Elon Musk
Speaker 3: has made comments about immigration policy in the UK and
Speaker 3: what they're allowing, so this headline is absolutely astonishing. The
Speaker 3: UK Police Commissioner has threatened to extradet and jail US
Speaker 3: citizens over online posts, saying we'll come after you if
Speaker 3: you violate our rules about online speech, no matter where
Speaker 3: you are. Liz, I'm just trying to work out how
Speaker 3: this would actually operate. So if I'm sitting in Castle
Speaker 3: Hill on Twitter and i write something about how ridiculous
Speaker 3: the UK immigration and policy is and two tiered policing
Speaker 3: and it's stupid and kiss Starmer is an idiot, the
Speaker 3: UK Police Commissioner says, I could be on their radar.
Speaker 4: Well, this is not to be taken all that lightly,
Speaker 4: because as much as it sounds utterly ridiculous, these aren't
Speaker 4: even citizens of the UK, you're talking about now that
Speaker 4: you want to tap into their social media accounts and
Speaker 4: go They said this, They said that it's been happening
Speaker 4: across the UK now for months and months. I've said
Speaker 4: plenty of times that just last year alone, there was
Speaker 4: over three thy three hundred arrests in the UK four
Speaker 4: things that people had posted online, just jumping onto their
Speaker 4: social media accounts and posting something that the government disagreed with.
Speaker 4: And most recently there has been a litany of these
Speaker 4: offenses for which people are going to jail. Here's a judge,
Speaker 4: straight faced saying to someone who had posted something the
Speaker 4: government didn't approve of online, sentencing a woman to twenty
Speaker 4: months in jail. Check it out.
Speaker 7: Went on to say that you did not want your
Speaker 7: money going to immigrants who quote, rape our kids and
Speaker 7: get priority end quote. This offense is so serious that
Speaker 7: an immediate custodial sentence is unavoidable. Would you stand please?
Speaker 7: The sentence that I pass has been reduced by one
Speaker 7: third to reflect your guilty plea. The sentence is one
Speaker 7: of twenty months imprisonment.
Speaker 4: Twenty months in prison for expressing that you were sick
Speaker 4: of the crime rates in the UK due to illegal immigration,
Speaker 4: illegal immigrants that the UK people are forking out millions
Speaker 4: of pounds a week to house and feed and keep
Speaker 4: them there. Check out this headline. This woman is fifty
Speaker 4: three years of age. She has been sent to jail
Speaker 4: for fifteen months for another post on Facebook. She is
Speaker 4: the sole career of her disabled husband. But there has
Speaker 4: been no compassion. This tyrannical government has locked her up
Speaker 4: for fifteen months. Who would not say that that is excessive.
Speaker 4: She's never been in trouble with the law before she
Speaker 4: deleted the post. Not good enough, says the government. We're
Speaker 4: locking you up. Who knows who's going to look after
Speaker 4: her disabled husband. Check Out this guy. He's a man
Speaker 4: from Sutton. He's sixty one years old and he chanted
Speaker 4: a chant that you may have seen online. Crowds of
Speaker 4: people in the UK have taken to chanting in unison
Speaker 4: Allah allah who the f is allah? Now they chant
Speaker 4: it hundreds at a time. But this guy has now
Speaker 4: been locked up for this egregious crime. Now that wasn't
Speaker 4: a post on faith book. But I don't know how
Speaker 4: you would single someone out in a crowd, because I've
Speaker 4: seen them chant one hundreds strong. This chant in the UK.
Speaker 4: They've had enough of this, and their own citizens living
Speaker 4: in the UK are no longer able to even express
Speaker 4: the fact that they are frustrated. They are sick and
Speaker 4: tied of like that judge said, these immigrants being shown
Speaker 4: preference over the natives.
Speaker 5: What happened to the whole Oh, we've got to protect
Speaker 5: the indigenous from the colonialist This seems to be like
Speaker 5: an inverse colonialism happening here when you consider that the
Speaker 5: indigenous in England are the English.
Speaker 3: Indeed, very well said, we're going to go to a break.
Speaker 3: When we come back, we'll look at what's making news tomorrow,
Speaker 3: including a Melbourne council's radical plan to lower the cost
Speaker 3: of electricity that's coming up in a moment.
Speaker 2: All right, welcome back.
Speaker 3: Let's take a look at what's making news in tomorrow's papers.
Speaker 2: Kleb. You've got the queen Land career Mail.
Speaker 1: Indeed, I do. I didn't know there was another state
Speaker 1: with the courier mail. But we'll go to the Queensland
Speaker 1: version anyway, and you know James.
Speaker 2: Helping people in the case. I don't know where the
Speaker 2: career mail is.
Speaker 1: It's in queens Well, I would have thought that little
Speaker 1: bit of Queensland that sits between the courier and the
Speaker 1: mail would have been enough for them.
Speaker 4: To help out the visually impaired. Kayla, Oh here we
Speaker 4: go serious, I should understand.
Speaker 1: I forgot. I'm a bigot and I am discriminatory. But
Speaker 1: I will tell you what. He's on the front of
Speaker 1: the Courier Mail. Tomorrow says Labor throws cash at mining
Speaker 1: giant in key seat. Premier goes to Rio. I was
Speaker 1: going to sing the song. I know Liz can sing
Speaker 1: the song. Do you want to give it a go?
Speaker 4: Liz? I don't know the song?
Speaker 1: Whoa where my baby bear? Where my baby miles at me?
Speaker 1: I go to Riyo dejah naire rule and if he's going.
Speaker 4: To go there, Stephen Marles, Ladies and gentlemen, if.
Speaker 1: Exactly I could beat reygun Stephen Marles, If you're going
Speaker 1: to go to Rio, don't come back it, says Tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Premier Stephen Marles has thrown taxpayer money at multi billion
Speaker 1: dollar mining company Rio Tinto to keep it operating in
Speaker 1: the labor stronghold of Gladstone, but has come under fire
Speaker 1: for refusing to say how much. Now the government is
Speaker 1: characterizing this as a support package and it's basically a
Speaker 1: sum of money to keep their smelter and their aluminium
Speaker 1: refinery going in Central Queensland. It uses about ten percent
Speaker 1: of the state's entire power supply and they'll be able
Speaker 1: to keep going until twenty twenty nine at least. But
Speaker 1: how can a state government give a sum of money
Speaker 1: to a private business? And by the way, I'm all
Speaker 1: on board with the labor waking up to the fact
Speaker 1: that we actually need mining in this country and how
Speaker 1: great it is for the country. But how can you
Speaker 1: give a sum of money, large sum of money, presumably
Speaker 1: to a private business, and not reveal to the rate
Speaker 1: payers of Queensland exactly how much you've given them.
Speaker 3: Well, calib as we know, renewable energy is the cheapest
Speaker 3: form of energy available. Now check the more money the
Speaker 3: government give you, the cheaper it gets.
Speaker 2: So it's outrageous, isn't it.
Speaker 3: I mean the government have made the cost of electricity
Speaker 3: unaffordable for the general public, and then they take even
Speaker 3: more money from the general public to prop up industry
Speaker 3: who can't afford power either, so that the government doesn't
Speaker 3: look bad.
Speaker 4: It's just and they won't even tell us how much
Speaker 4: they spent The state government has been criticized for doing
Speaker 4: deals in the dark because it refuses to reveal the
Speaker 4: cost of the arrangement. That's our money. Okay, you worked
Speaker 4: for us. How much did this cost us? I'm not
Speaker 4: going to tell us, are you? To the front page
Speaker 4: of the Daily Telegraph, Don and dumber party bosses turn
Speaker 4: on each other as nominations scandal explodes. The two most
Speaker 4: senior New South Wales Liberal executives Don Harwin and Richard
Speaker 4: Shields were at war with each other last night over
Speaker 4: who caused the council nominations saga, engulfing the party. Labeled
Speaker 4: the worst act of mismanagement in the party's history, the
Speaker 4: scandal now risks poisoning the coalition's federal election campaign. So
Speaker 4: this bungle saw forty eight current councilors without seats. Now
Speaker 4: they won't be able to run in the next election.
Speaker 4: And on top of that, one hundred and forty would
Speaker 4: be candidates who are now no longer. Didn't get your
Speaker 4: application in time, you're not a candidate. This is unbelievable.
Speaker 4: These numbers have grown and grown. Last night we didn't
Speaker 4: know the extent of the damage. Today we do. Someone's
Speaker 4: head's going to roll and now these guys are basically
Speaker 4: just having a big biff out over whose head it's
Speaker 4: going to be.
Speaker 1: Well, you've got councils in New South Wales now that
Speaker 1: will not have a single Liberal candidate, which means that
Speaker 1: which means and voting is compulsory in council elections in
Speaker 1: New South Wales, so you'll have to go and vote
Speaker 1: for people that you may not want anywhere near your council.
Speaker 1: There are entire councils that will be run by either Labor,
Speaker 1: the Greens or sort of teal independence and you can
Speaker 1: only imagine what they'll get up to when they can
Speaker 1: just do whatever the hell they want because they have
Speaker 1: total control of the council. Yes, you had last night
Speaker 1: Mark Speakman, the opposition leader, the Liberal leader in New
Speaker 1: South Wales, calling for the head of the state Director
Speaker 1: Richard shield saying that his position was now untenable. Richard
Speaker 1: Shilds comes out today and says the talk of my
Speaker 1: demise has been premature because actually Don Harwin, who is
Speaker 1: the president of the New South Wales Liberal Party, said
Speaker 1: that he would take control of the process when it
Speaker 1: came to council nominations. It's like that spider Man meme
Speaker 1: where it's like Spider Man pointing at Spider Man and
Speaker 1: whose fault is all of this? Right? This is a
Speaker 1: party that, presumably, in three years time, would ask the
Speaker 1: people of New South Wales to elect them to government.
Speaker 1: It is a party that in less than a year's
Speaker 1: time will be asking for the support of people in
Speaker 1: New South Wales to install them as the federal government.
Speaker 1: And they cannot get something so simple as putting in
Speaker 1: one hundred and forty council nominations before the deadline. They
Speaker 1: can't do that, and then they can't work out who
Speaker 1: who's folded actually was? How is this a real political party?
Speaker 3: So they've just made a bad situation worse there was
Speaker 3: the stuff up with nominations. Now you've got the front
Speaker 3: page of the Telegraph an internal spat. Meanwhile, Peter Dutton's
Speaker 3: giving his all being lableed to racist because he's trying
Speaker 3: to get some policies on border issue in immigration. He
Speaker 3: must be tearing. I was going to say, Peter doesn't
Speaker 3: be tearing.
Speaker 4: He did that a long time ago.
Speaker 1: By the way that the Spider Man meme that I
Speaker 1: was referencing, I think we've got to flash up on
Speaker 1: the screen hit that is currently the new South Wales
Speaker 1: Liberal Party. I mean, you thought things were bad down
Speaker 1: in Victoria with Don Persudo being Don I got Don
Speaker 1: on the brain. Now John Persudo the opposition leader, being
Speaker 1: sued by former members of his own and all this
Speaker 1: sort of stuff going on. I mean, I just can't
Speaker 1: believe it that the Liberal Party just needs to be
Speaker 1: blown up and started again. I think at this point.
Speaker 3: Let's go to the front page of Caleb the Melbourne
Speaker 3: Herald Suns. It's in Melbourne, that paper, the front.
Speaker 1: Melbourne being in Victoria's Victoria being in Australia.
Speaker 3: The headline in the Lord Mayor reveals radical plan to
Speaker 3: take hundreds of dollars off energy bills for a million
Speaker 3: small businesses and residents.
Speaker 2: Power place as the headline. All right, here's the story.
Speaker 3: Up to a million residents and small businesses across Melbourne's
Speaker 3: inner suburbs could have their power bills slashed under an
Speaker 3: ambitious renewable energy plan unveiled by Lord Mayor Nick Reese. Now,
Speaker 3: the idea is that the council will bulk purchase renewable
Speaker 3: energy and then sell it to local businesses and local residents.
Speaker 3: So I guess at a reduced price. So the Melbourne
Speaker 3: City Council are going to become I'm looking at you
Speaker 3: because I think the Sydney Council did something similar. They
Speaker 3: effectively they become the middle person in this. You've got
Speaker 3: the renewable energy companies, you've got the consumers, and now
Speaker 3: councils are inserting themselves in the middle of that, buying
Speaker 3: from one and on selling.
Speaker 2: To the other.
Speaker 1: They essentially become like a power wholesaler. Right, And once
Speaker 1: upon a time energy generation was a nationalized thing in Australia,
Speaker 1: and then slowly we sold off the poles and wires,
Speaker 1: and we sold off the qulified power plants, et cetera
Speaker 1: to big companies. Everything old is new again. But let's
Speaker 1: not forget that. When Peter Dutton said that he wanted
Speaker 1: a nationalized nuclear power system in this country, labor was going, oh,
Speaker 1: you can't nationalize power again. We privatized all that. I Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the councils are running around saying, yeah, let's nationalize all
Speaker 1: privatizing it.
Speaker 3: Speaking of councils, after the break, council parking permits are
Speaker 3: being sold on the black market.
Speaker 2: Also Facebook, that's coming up in just a moment.
Speaker 3: Well, last night we talked about parking permits and parking
Speaker 3: five but Caleb, people in the Northern Beaches in Sydney
Speaker 3: have come up with a way to get around council issues.
Speaker 1: I think this is a great bit of ossie ingenuity.
Speaker 1: On the Northern Beaches in Sydney. If you're a rate payer,
Speaker 1: you get issued a permit that you've put on your windscreen.
Speaker 1: That means you can park by the beach without having
Speaker 1: to pay for it. And these are prized pieces of
Speaker 1: real estate because it costs upwards of ten dollars to
Speaker 1: park at Manly Beach per hour for instance. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: go down there for the day, Say it's like five
Speaker 1: hours you spend there, that's five fifty dollars and fifty cents,
Speaker 1: which isn't you know It's a lot of money for
Speaker 1: one day. So there's this Facebook group has popped up
Speaker 1: called and I'd love to know how they came up
Speaker 1: with the name Northern Beaches Fancy Pen Sales and anything
Speaker 1: else where people go on and post photos of these
Speaker 1: parking permits, very valuable as they are, whether fancy or
Speaker 1: not so fancy pen over the top of them and
Speaker 1: then say look, you sling me one hundred bucks. One
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty bucks. You can have this very valuable
Speaker 1: permit to stick on your windscreen and go to the
Speaker 1: beach anytime you want. Now the residents are up in
Speaker 1: arms because they're like, oh, we got all these out
Speaker 1: of towners coming in to flood our beaches and they're
Speaker 1: parking at our parking spots. How dare they get out
Speaker 1: of the northern beaches. What's the problem? I mean, the
Speaker 1: permits are either going to be used by a ratepayer
Speaker 1: or someone someone that has been sold to. It's still
Speaker 1: only one car with the permit on it given to
Speaker 1: someone else. I love the problem here. This is people
Speaker 1: saying you can't come into my territory. Well, you know what,
Speaker 1: the beaches are ours there every once. Let us have
Speaker 1: them here.
Speaker 2: All right, very quickly.
Speaker 3: It's the pressing the level of political discourse, and in
Speaker 3: the United.
Speaker 2: States it's really bad.
Speaker 3: Here's the latest Trump attack ad with the Democrats saying,
Speaker 3: you wouldn't leave your kids with someone like Trump? Would you,
Speaker 3: which begs the question would you leave your kids with Biden?
Speaker 2: But here's the anti Trump ad and then.
Speaker 1: You dictator and would there will have to be some
Speaker 1: form of punishment women. Robuss Wade was terminated by your fury, bloodbad.
Speaker 1: I'll get in here.
Speaker 4: You know what, honey, I'm gonna drive you today. Besides
Speaker 4: can convicted fellas, you can drive school buses.
Speaker 7: If you wouldn't trust him with your kid, why would
Speaker 7: you trust him with your country?
Speaker 3: And yet they trusted the US with Joe Biden for
Speaker 3: four years. That's it from US stick around coming up
Speaker 3: against the readA Pennehey Show