Speaker 1: Welcome, Wait bad.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us. I'm James Macpherson with Liz Storer
Speaker 2: and Caleb Bond coming up tonight. Former NRL star John
Speaker 2: Hoppowate avoids jail for driving offenses. But wait until you
Speaker 2: hear what the court did dish out as a punishment,
Speaker 2: and when we get to the papers, the Albanesi government's
Speaker 2: plan to curry favor with the Trump administration over defense,
Speaker 2: and people racing to rearrange their finances ahead of an
Speaker 2: anticipated Labor Greens alliance after the election. Speaking of the
Speaker 2: Labor Party, they're under fire today for failing to disendorse
Speaker 2: a candidate who accused the Pope of supporting pedophilia. Helen Medel,
Speaker 2: who's running for the Labor seat for Labor in the
Speaker 2: Queensland seat of Flynn, made the comment on Twitter five
Speaker 2: years ago. Was in response to someone else's tweet about
Speaker 2: Pope Francis visiting Iraq to promote justice. She tweeted in response,
Speaker 2: don't know how he can promote common values. I hope
Speaker 2: no one else embraces the value of ongoing support of pedos.
Speaker 2: Now the Coalition have demanded senior Labour MPs condemn the
Speaker 2: comments and disindorse the candidate, but Claire O'Neil, among others,
Speaker 2: has refused to do so. Here she is speaking on
Speaker 2: television this morning.
Speaker 3: She made some intemperate comments five years ago, and I
Speaker 3: think if we're counting out anyone who's ever said anything intemperate,
Speaker 3: then most people in Australia are probably never going to
Speaker 3: be eligible to sit for parliament.
Speaker 2: Indeed, now the comments were slanderous. Helen Medel, for her part,
Speaker 2: has conceded she could have chosen her words more carefully,
Speaker 2: which is something of a concession. But the question remains,
Speaker 2: should she be condemned and disindorsed or is this trawling
Speaker 2: through people's social media history and a kind of weird
Speaker 2: archaeological dig something that should stop. Calebin Lie.
Speaker 1: Of course it has to stop.
Speaker 4: I mean, for heaven's sake, if we're going to judge
Speaker 4: everyone on something they've said in the past, as Clara
Speaker 4: O'Neill says, everyone would not meet the standard to get
Speaker 4: into politics. And I think that's part of the problem
Speaker 4: now is you have a lot of people who don't
Speaker 4: even make it to the preselection stage of politics because
Speaker 4: you know, the party's gone back and dug up something
Speaker 4: and said, Ah, you know, it'll come out that when
Speaker 4: you were twenty four years old you slept with someone
Speaker 4: who was with someone else, and it'll all like it
Speaker 4: is ridiculous now that the level of puritanism that has
Speaker 4: seeped into politics, which means we miss out on what
Speaker 4: could be genuinely good people, and the kind of people
Speaker 4: who might be inclined to go into politics are the
Speaker 4: kind of people who are also inclined to have strong opinions.
Speaker 4: And sometimes those opinions you will agree with, and sometimes
Speaker 4: those opinions you will disagree with. Sometimes those opinions you
Speaker 4: will disagree with viscerally, and you will think that what
Speaker 4: they have said is awful or repugnant or disgusting, but
Speaker 4: it doesn't change the fact that they ought to have
Speaker 4: the right to say it. And I have to say
Speaker 4: good on the Labor Party for standing by their candidate
Speaker 4: and saying no, actually, we're not going to be puritans
Speaker 4: one hundred percent at the time and say that everyone
Speaker 4: has to be cast out because they said something that
Speaker 4: was a little bit below the belt. If only the
Speaker 4: Liberal Party had taken the same position on Ben Britton
Speaker 4: a couple of weeks ago, who they got rid of
Speaker 4: because he, as a former soldier, said that he didn't
Speaker 4: think women should be on the front line. So the
Speaker 4: Liberal Party turfed him the next day when this came
Speaker 4: back from a podcast that was recorded a year ago,
Speaker 4: they dumped him.
Speaker 1: And now they're trying to tell.
Speaker 4: It was Jane Hume was taking this up this morning
Speaker 4: on Sunrise. Now the Liberal Party is trying to tell
Speaker 4: the Labor Party how they should be conducting their affairs
Speaker 4: with their candidates. Get over it. If you don't like
Speaker 4: what she said about the Pope, don't vote for her,
Speaker 4: as simple as that.
Speaker 5: Indeed, although in this case she was just downright wrong,
Speaker 5: like Pope Francis for all his faults. And you all
Speaker 5: know I haven't been a massive fan of the last pope.
Speaker 5: It would be very difficult, I think near impossible to
Speaker 5: name a pope who.
Speaker 6: Did more in this space.
Speaker 5: He genuinely invited victims to the Vatican begged for their forgiveness.
Speaker 5: He changed the laws within Vatican City which meant that
Speaker 5: anyone found guilty of child sexual abuse, the definition of
Speaker 5: which he expanded, would get twelve years in the clink.
Speaker 5: That became the maximum sentence. He abolished the rule of
Speaker 5: pontifical secrecy, so that could no longer be exploited as
Speaker 5: a loophole to cover up pedophiles that were found within
Speaker 5: the church. And in twenty twenty one, after he convened
Speaker 5: this massive get together of bishops and cardinals, over two
Speaker 5: hundred of them at the Vaticans sitting down just to
Speaker 5: address this one issue and how can we root this out?
Speaker 5: Their code of canon law underwent the most extensive revision
Speaker 5: in four decades, again just on this particular issue. That's
Speaker 5: how passionate he was about addressing this issue within the church.
Speaker 5: He certainly wasn't a denier. He certainly wasn't someone who
Speaker 5: defended anything or covered it up. That isn't to say
Speaker 5: there are people in the church who have been found
Speaker 5: guilty of that.
Speaker 6: But she certainly went after the wrong guy here.
Speaker 5: I just have to point that out in fairness to
Speaker 5: the now departed Pope.
Speaker 2: I do have one question about this, and I agree
Speaker 2: with what both of you have said, But she made
Speaker 2: a comment about the pope and pedophilia. Would the Labor
Speaker 2: Party have stood by her if she'd made a comment
Speaker 2: about Islam and pedophilia?
Speaker 4: Do you think it's a very good point I highly doubted,
Speaker 4: and that's.
Speaker 6: Too many votes in that.
Speaker 4: But then that's the problem is there is a double standard.
Speaker 4: There's no denial of that. I think every religion should
Speaker 4: be up for debate and ridicule and anything else. I mean,
Speaker 4: you know, you can put the Life of Brian on
Speaker 4: television during Christmas or Eastern and no one sort of
Speaker 4: bats an eyelid. But can you imagine trying to put
Speaker 4: something critical of Islam or lampooning Islam on during Ramadan
Speaker 4: for instance? You know you'd have your broadcast license taken
Speaker 4: away from you probably, Or you try to draw Mohammad
Speaker 4: in a cartoon and we know what happens to you.
Speaker 4: Then if you work for Charlie Hebdo in France, you
Speaker 4: get killed. I mean people get killed over.
Speaker 2: The Labour candidate was lucky that she had.
Speaker 4: Correct But on principle, I think you should be able
Speaker 4: to say anything you want. Good on the Labor Party
Speaker 4: for not buckling to pressure. I'll tell you what though,
Speaker 4: when we're talking about the Labor Party in buckling to pressure,
Speaker 4: good old Anthony Albanezi faced a little bit today, but
Speaker 4: he pretended none of it existed. Because it turns out
Speaker 4: in his electorate of Graindler, which I used to live in.
Speaker 4: By the way, I was redistributed into Sydney. So I
Speaker 4: now have to deal with voting for tenure plipusik or not.
Speaker 4: I don't know whether that's a good thing or not.
Speaker 4: I could have cast a vote against the Prime Minister,
Speaker 4: but never mind. But on his how to vote card
Speaker 4: he has put all the Labor Party at that anyway,
Speaker 4: has put the Greens second in this particular candidate Hannah
Speaker 4: Thomas has carried on about how you know Israel's conducting
Speaker 4: genocide etc. And she's even said that if you vote
Speaker 4: with the Greens you are voting with Palestine. I mean,
Speaker 4: you know. She couldn't make it any clearer that she's
Speaker 4: essentially a one issue candidate who's saying if you vote
Speaker 4: in Australia for an Australian party is somehow voting overseas.
Speaker 4: We know what her jigg is.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 4: The Australian pointed out today that despite Albo carrying on
Speaker 4: about how we won't do any deals with the Greens
Speaker 4: of course if they end up in minority after the election,
Speaker 4: he's put the Greens second in his own electorate. So
Speaker 4: he was asked about this at his presser this morning,
Speaker 4: and he claimed that he didn't even know the name
Speaker 4: of the candidate.
Speaker 7: I wouldn't have been able to tell you if you'd
Speaker 7: have asked me. He the canate was last time an
Speaker 7: in this seat. I wan on primaries. I won on primaries.
Speaker 7: That's why the system works. I got more than fifty
Speaker 7: percent of the vote. I look forward to people voting
Speaker 7: at number one for me and then filling in all
Speaker 7: the numbers just as they do to make sure it's
Speaker 7: a formal vote.
Speaker 6: And I don't intend to.
Speaker 7: Promote the name or the candidate of the Greene Party candidate.
Speaker 4: You don't know the names of the candidates that you're
Speaker 4: up against. I mean, could you make it any clearer
Speaker 4: that you take the electors of Graindler for granted by saying, ah, well,
Speaker 4: last time I won by fifty percent of the primary
Speaker 4: vote anyway, so it doesn't bloody matter. I mean, I'm
Speaker 4: just standing here because well, I clipped the ticket, and
Speaker 4: I get to take the money and hopefully it'll be
Speaker 4: PM again come May three. He doesn't care about the
Speaker 4: people if he's electric because he hasn't even looked at
Speaker 4: the ballot paper to see who he is running against,
Speaker 4: and it in bizarrely had a crack at The Australian
Speaker 4: for pointing out that the Labor Party had preferenced the
Speaker 4: Green second Ingraindler saying, I can't believe that the Australian
Speaker 4: is giving so much promotion to the Greens candidate.
Speaker 6: I mean, please.
Speaker 4: Mate, what is he does he take us? Well, clearly
Speaker 4: does take us for mugs if a he expects us
Speaker 4: to believe that he doesn't know the name of the
Speaker 4: opposition in his electorate. And you know clearly he is
Speaker 4: backing in a candidate that he's a one issue candidate.
Speaker 4: I mean she's made it very clear. Also she moved
Speaker 4: here as a foreign student and claims that she lives
Speaker 4: on unseeded lands. So I mean, I don't know, go
Speaker 4: back to where you came from, love, You didn't have
Speaker 4: to come and sit on someone else's land that you
Speaker 4: think doesn't belong to you, was stolen from them. But
Speaker 4: he's backing a one issue candidate, which is on Palestine.
Speaker 4: And we'll have some more on that in tomorrow's OS
Speaker 4: a little bit later as well, because it turns out
Speaker 4: her relationship with Anthony Albanezi is a little bit frosty,
Speaker 4: which makes it even weirder that he's backing her in here.
Speaker 4: But imagine trying to say, oh, don't even.
Speaker 2: There's only two options here, right, Either the Prime Minister
Speaker 2: is lying or he has no clue at all what's
Speaker 2: going on, which is pretty much the way he's run
Speaker 2: the country for the past three years. His claim that well,
Speaker 2: I get voted in on primary votes anyway, I don't
Speaker 2: need preferences begs the question. So if you don't need preferences,
Speaker 2: why put the Greens number two, especially when you made
Speaker 2: such a big deal at the debate just the other
Speaker 2: night about the fact that you would not do any
Speaker 2: deals with the Greens and he could always at the
Speaker 2: last minute change his how to vote card and amend
Speaker 2: it if it's an honest mistake. This just goes to
Speaker 2: show what most Australians believe about the Prime Minister, that
Speaker 2: he's duplicious.
Speaker 6: No, I honestly don't think he's lying.
Speaker 5: He is safe as houses Greenler has been in a
Speaker 5: labor seats. It's nineteen forty six. The guy doesn't need
Speaker 5: to know their names. I find it strange that you
Speaker 5: then extrapolate that with him just oh, he doesn't give
Speaker 5: us stuff about people in his constituency. No, if my
Speaker 5: seat was that safe of houses, the names of my
Speaker 5: opponents are entirely inconsequential. And of course he's going to
Speaker 5: put the Greens second, because when you look at everybody
Speaker 5: else running in his seat, it is absolutely out of
Speaker 5: the question. He's got a One Nation candidate, he's got
Speaker 5: a Trumpets of Patriots candidate, he's gotten Independent, and then he's.
Speaker 6: Got the Libs.
Speaker 5: So naturally he's going to choose his closest bedfellow, which
Speaker 5: is the Greens, which again poses no problem because she's
Speaker 5: never gonna get up in his seat, which he holds
Speaker 5: by a whopping seventeen point three percent.
Speaker 2: Certainly that while he's got policy differences with Trumpet of
Speaker 2: the Patriots and One Nation, he stood in Parliament and
Speaker 2: he's accused the Greens of stoking social division. He's had
Speaker 2: the most serious charges to make against the Greens, so
Speaker 2: to put them second in his electric and I don't
Speaker 2: buy the idea.
Speaker 6: No, he is more in common with them than any
Speaker 6: of the above.
Speaker 2: Fact, he's accused them of creating social division, which is
Speaker 2: a very serious accusation, far more than we disagree on
Speaker 2: tax policy, or we've got different ideas about the housing cristis.
Speaker 4: And I think it brings up the point that he
Speaker 4: keeps saying, we will, under no circumstances do a deal
Speaker 4: with the Greens. But if the how to the Vote
Speaker 4: card has the Greens second, I mean what you are
Speaker 4: saying is that if I don't get the electorate, I
Speaker 4: would prefer the Greens to be the next mob to
Speaker 4: get the electric But yeah, but it doesn't it doesn't make,
Speaker 4: It doesn't matter.
Speaker 6: It was making in a storm and a deep I
Speaker 6: think it was either.
Speaker 4: Twenty ten or twenty thirteen that there was a serious
Speaker 4: threat of the Greens taking Graindler and the Daily Telegraph
Speaker 4: had on the front page Save our Elbow, because it.
Speaker 1: Was a serious thing.
Speaker 4: So it's not out of the question that one day
Speaker 4: someone can come and take a seat like that. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's an inner city lefty seat. It's the kind of
Speaker 4: place where the Greens would eventually like to try to
Speaker 4: take it, I would think. But if he's saying I'd
Speaker 4: never do a deal with this mob, and then number
Speaker 4: two on your how to vote card, I mean you're
Speaker 4: not really making it. You've given up the game as
Speaker 4: to who you would prefer to be in power if
Speaker 4: you weren't in power.
Speaker 2: And you can't tell me you wouldn't pay attention even
Speaker 2: if you were going to win by a landslide, that
Speaker 2: you wouldn't pay attention or to your opponent we ought to.
Speaker 5: I genuinely wouldn't if you had that big a margin.
Speaker 5: And he's got other things to take up his brain
Speaker 5: space as PM, don't we know that?
Speaker 6: Well? On Sunday we learned that Daniel Andrews COVID curfew.
Speaker 5: Was not based on any expert health advice whatsoever. It
Speaker 5: wasn't even their idea, much less their recommendation. We found
Speaker 5: this out, of course, thanks to emails obtained by the
Speaker 5: Victorian opposition, thanks to a FOI.
Speaker 6: Now we know that it.
Speaker 5: Was Dan Andrews in his cabinet who decided to lock
Speaker 5: up five million Victorians during the hours of eight pm
Speaker 5: to five am, four goodness knows. I mean this was
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty as well as twenty twenty one. If
Speaker 5: you're in Victoria, I'm sure you remember it well. Now
Speaker 5: the only person left serving in the Labor Party that
Speaker 5: was on that cabinet is a woman by the name
Speaker 5: of now premiere just sent to Allan.
Speaker 6: So when the press got to talk to her.
Speaker 5: Today, they weren't going to miss out on the opportunity
Speaker 5: to ask her. What the heck were you guys thinking,
Speaker 5: Lady Hardy kurfew was introduced in twenty twenty wasn't based
Speaker 5: on poligizing.
Speaker 6: Instead the decision of a state by cabinet. Why do
Speaker 6: cabinet make that decision to.
Speaker 2: Be introduced with her?
Speaker 8: Well, let's reflecting back on that period of time, and
Speaker 8: I know it was a tough time for so many Victorians.
Speaker 6: So who made the decision? Was it Daniel Agris who
Speaker 6: made a decisions?
Speaker 8: He's a curfew as part of that process working with
Speaker 8: public health officials on this particular map, The advice from
Speaker 8: the public health officials, from the then Chief Health Officer
Speaker 8: was look at doing what needed to be done to
Speaker 8: limit movement.
Speaker 5: Except that they never recommended that by limiting movement you
Speaker 5: would introduce a curfew that required people to have a
Speaker 5: permit to leave their own homes for crying out loud.
Speaker 6: Woman, of course, that was just more obfiscation.
Speaker 5: She didn't actually make herself accountable.
Speaker 6: For the decision that was made that affected.
Speaker 5: Millions of Victorians over the course of two years, it's
Speaker 5: just more of nothing from this woman.
Speaker 6: Can we fast forward to the election.
Speaker 5: Because I'm sure that we are finally going to see
Speaker 5: the back of Labour's rule and reign in the state
Speaker 5: of Victory.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't be too sure about that, because depending on
Speaker 4: how things go in the federal election, they'll circle on
Speaker 4: Jacinta Allen and hunt her and put Ben Carroll in
Speaker 4: the seat in the hope that that'll save them. And
Speaker 4: something tells her it may well, it may it may
Speaker 4: well actually do it, which would be a disgrace. But
Speaker 4: Jacinta Allen, being that the last person left and there
Speaker 4: were seven of them on this crisis cabinet, six of them,
Speaker 4: including the former premier Daniel Andrews, are no longer in politics.
Speaker 4: What does that tell you about how they feel about
Speaker 4: how things went down and the fact that they could
Speaker 4: see the writing on the wall. So you've only got
Speaker 4: one left in Cina Allen and she refuses to front up.
Speaker 4: I mean this came out on Sunday in the Sunday
Speaker 4: Herald's Son and the work that David Davis did. I mean,
Speaker 4: he's been fighting for four and a half years to
Speaker 4: get hold of these documents through the courts, the tribunals, whatever.
Speaker 4: The government has tried their darndas to stop this stuff
Speaker 4: coming out, but he was like a dog with a bone,
Speaker 4: and thank God for that. He's done excellent work on
Speaker 4: this count. But this came out on Sunday. Today is Wednesday.
Speaker 4: It's the first time that Cinta Allen has fronted the
Speaker 4: cameras since this story came out, so she's had plenty
Speaker 4: of time to come up with an answer to tell
Speaker 4: the press. And she could not give a straight answer
Speaker 4: as to who made the decision or why the decision
Speaker 4: was made. I mean, she should fall on her sword.
Speaker 4: She's the only one left. She should be able to
Speaker 4: tell us exactly what happened in that room. There's a
Speaker 4: reason she doesn't want to tell us exactly what happened
Speaker 4: in that room, because if we knew how the sausage
Speaker 4: was made, we would be outraged. Some people certainly already are,
Speaker 4: but they're trying to protect their own bums.
Speaker 1: It's as simple as ever.
Speaker 2: And this is why a royal commission into what happened
Speaker 2: during the pandemic is so essential. So that people like
Speaker 2: to sen to Allan and Dan Andrews, who's left politics,
Speaker 2: as Caleb pointed out, and others are compelled to answer
Speaker 2: these questions rather than obfuscate. For her to respond as
Speaker 2: you saw there by saying, well, let's reflect, there was
Speaker 2: a tough time for Victorians. That was exactly the of
Speaker 2: the questions you created, the tough times, Why and why
Speaker 2: did you lie about it? Trying to brush it off
Speaker 2: as well. You know, we were advised to limit movement,
Speaker 2: as you said, Liz, there's a big difference between you know,
Speaker 2: maybe some social distancing and a curfew that required people
Speaker 2: to have government permission to leave their own homes.
Speaker 6: The experts were like, this wasn't even our idea. We
Speaker 6: didn't even float this. They made it up.
Speaker 5: And when we talk about tough times for Victorians, I'll
Speaker 5: never forget this piece.
Speaker 6: Of research that came out.
Speaker 5: These researchers did a massive poll in Victoria in September
Speaker 5: twenty twenty in which they found that nine point five
Speaker 5: that's almost one in ten Victorians said that they had
Speaker 5: seriously considered taking their own lives in the last thirty
Speaker 5: days prior to this survey that they were now undergoing.
Speaker 6: That's how bad it was.
Speaker 5: Over twelve percent of Victorians said that they'd either started
Speaker 5: or increased relying on substance abuse in order to deal
Speaker 5: with this emotions that they were going through being locked
Speaker 5: up like animals in their own state. When we talk
Speaker 5: about tough times for Victorian's premier just center Allan, you
Speaker 5: weren't one of them, but you were making the rules
Speaker 5: that everyone suffered under, and for some it ended for good.
Speaker 5: I just find that this cast off comment today utterly
Speaker 5: vile in the face of the very real suffering that
Speaker 5: is not even five years old yet that many people
Speaker 5: would be living with the scars of to this day,
Speaker 5: having even lost loved ones.
Speaker 6: More research was done.
Speaker 5: About the first sixty people that did take their lives
Speaker 5: in the state of Victoria during that first year of lockdown,
Speaker 5: et cetera, et cetera, and so on. And you want
Speaker 5: to face the press today, after days of prepping your
Speaker 5: response to this question that you knew you would be
Speaker 5: asked just to be like.
Speaker 6: Oh, we were just doing the best we could. It
Speaker 6: was such tough times.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, it's a little bit pointed out. She's
Speaker 2: spent four and a half years of taxpayer money to
Speaker 2: add insult Stoffid injury, trying to never have to answer
Speaker 2: this question because it never was to be revealed.
Speaker 4: And that's not to mention the eight hundred people who
Speaker 4: died because they bungled hotel quarantine system, of course.
Speaker 1: And I went through one.
Speaker 4: Of those lockdowns in Melbourne. I only had to do one,
Speaker 4: thank god. But it started in August twenty twenty one
Speaker 4: went through to October. I think it was about seventy
Speaker 4: eight days and I just moved to Melbourne and it
Speaker 4: was I have to say, one of the worst periods
Speaker 4: of my life in terms of I felt depressed and
Speaker 4: I had a few sessions with a psych in that time,
Speaker 4: because it is just so anathema to being a human
Speaker 4: to be locked away, particularly the circumstance I was where,
Speaker 4: you know, I went to work in a new workplace
Speaker 4: and I'd go into the office and I'd be lucky
Speaker 4: to have ten people there on a good day. So
Speaker 4: I didn't know anyone. I couldn't make any friends, I
Speaker 4: couldn't make any contacts or do anything. You know, it
Speaker 4: was dead set awful. And of course, if you've had
Speaker 4: any troubles with mental health yourself, the numbers on the
Speaker 4: bottom of the screen for Lifeline. But you know, what
Speaker 4: was done to people in that period of time was
Speaker 4: genuinely awful, and I know a lot of people don't
Speaker 4: want to think about it because it was that bad,
Speaker 4: but they have serious questions to answer. Well, just into
Speaker 4: ours the only one, but she has serious.
Speaker 2: Quest and not just just into Allen. When we get
Speaker 2: to the papers a little later, the front page of
Speaker 2: tomorrow's Herald's Son deals with more hypocrisy that took place
Speaker 2: during the pandemic. Let's go to the UK now, where
Speaker 2: transactivists have taken to the streets of London to protest
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court's decision to define a woman according to
Speaker 2: biology rather than self selection, which means that trans women
Speaker 2: are not women after all. Now we're told that we
Speaker 2: have to support trans ideology because it's polite, it's respectful,
Speaker 2: it's loving, and of course trans people are vulnerable people.
Speaker 2: But check out some of the signs on display in
Speaker 2: this march in London. Activists held signs saying things like
Speaker 2: the only good turf that's a trans exclusionally exclusionary radical
Speaker 2: feminist or someone who opposes trans ideology. A good turf
Speaker 2: is a dead turf. Other signs had bullet holes in them,
Speaker 2: saying I will make you listen, and another sign said
Speaker 2: are your transphobe? Why not try a do it yourself lobotomy.
Speaker 2: So these signs are being waived about on the street.
Speaker 2: Obviously some people were upset and reported them to police
Speaker 2: because clearly those signs are inciting violence against people who
Speaker 2: don't believe trans women are women. As the UK Supreme
Speaker 2: Court ruled, Well, the police initially said they would not
Speaker 2: be investigating because well, you know, for a variety of reasons,
Speaker 2: until the UK Telegraph got hold of the story, and
Speaker 2: now the met will investigate. A couple of questions, Caleb
Speaker 2: and Liz, could you imagine if the situation was reversed.
Speaker 2: Instead of holding a sign saying the only good only
Speaker 2: good turf is a dead turf, imagine if someone will
Speaker 2: a signed saying the only good trans person is a
Speaker 2: dead trans person. The police would be there so fast. Well,
Speaker 2: we know exactly what would happen, because there's a woman
Speaker 2: in prison at the moment. Lucy Connelly who dared to
Speaker 2: tweet that a hotel containing migrants should be burned to
Speaker 2: the ground. She was promptly arrested and as I said,
Speaker 2: she's serving two and a half years in prison, but
Speaker 2: police took the media to get onto their case before that,
Speaker 2: even bother investigating these signs inciting violence. And of course,
Speaker 2: as JK. Rowling can well attest in the UK, and
Speaker 2: as people like Curile Smith, Rachel Wong and Sell Grover
Speaker 2: here in Australia can testify, this level of hatred was
Speaker 2: not something recent posts the UK Supreme Court decision. People
Speaker 2: who've taken up the issue of trans ideology and defense
Speaker 2: of women's rights have had to put up with this
Speaker 2: nonsense for years now and it.
Speaker 6: Doesn't seem to be going away.
Speaker 5: What's so well, So until we see a strong response
Speaker 5: like this, they've got no reason to back down.
Speaker 6: And the fact is what people need to be.
Speaker 5: Worried about is these people feel genuinely validated in these views.
Speaker 5: It's just like the whack jobs that we've seen in
Speaker 5: America saying the same about Trump. Oh they're only good.
Speaker 5: Fascist is a dead fascist. I want to see him
Speaker 5: strung up by his legs. We've shown you footage of
Speaker 5: countless people now wishing that guy dead.
Speaker 6: And when you see someone talk like that, they genuinely
Speaker 6: believe it.
Speaker 5: And one wonders if it's just a matter of time
Speaker 5: before they decide to take matters into their own hands.
Speaker 5: But I certainly hope that the Supreme Court in the
Speaker 5: UK has some very good security because they are the
Speaker 5: ones who have made this decision. And it's not like
Speaker 5: people like this are just going to be targeting turfs
Speaker 5: willy nilly. But the people who have made this decision
Speaker 5: according to the law in the UK, imagine how much
Speaker 5: the hatred is that is being fermented in their direction
Speaker 5: at the moment.
Speaker 4: How is this not incitement to violence? And if you're
Speaker 4: waving around a sign that says, you know, a certain
Speaker 4: group of people ought to be dead, surely that is
Speaker 4: encouraging people to make that so unlike you say, if
Speaker 4: you had a sign that said the only good trans
Speaker 4: person is a dead trans person, they'd be on you
Speaker 4: like that. You had a sign that said the only
Speaker 4: good black person is a dead black person, they be
Speaker 4: on you like that, and as well they should, because
Speaker 4: you're waving around a sign that is encouraging other people
Speaker 4: to go and kill other people. You were saying that
Speaker 4: is the right thing to do. And for the coppers
Speaker 4: in the UK to say in the first instance that
Speaker 4: they thought these signs were from another event that wasn't
Speaker 4: in London and so that they weren't going to do
Speaker 4: anything about it. And it took the Telegraph actually showing
Speaker 4: them the time stamps and saying no, this photo was
Speaker 4: taken on the weekend. Oh okay, well will review it now.
Speaker 4: I mean if it was any other group, there'd be
Speaker 4: no review. They would have been arrested on the spot.
Speaker 4: It is pathetic to know, oh, we'll review those. What
Speaker 4: is there to review? I mean, surely that is an
Speaker 4: open and shutcase. And I know we've had discussions about
Speaker 4: hate speech here in this country, but if that's not
Speaker 4: hate speech in the UK that you get arrested. If
Speaker 4: you post a fruity meme on social media, or you
Speaker 4: pray silently five doors down from an abortion clinic, you'll
Speaker 4: have the roses on you. But your way of a
Speaker 4: sign around saying someone should be dead and you don't,
Speaker 4: it just seems extraordinary, quite the opposite to being dead, though, Berts,
Speaker 4: we don't have enough of them anymore. The birth rate
Speaker 4: across the world is falling. Here in Australia now one
Speaker 4: point five is the fertility rate.
Speaker 1: That means for.
Speaker 4: Every woman there are one point five children. So of
Speaker 4: course the replacement rate just to maintain the population as
Speaker 4: it is is two, because if two people having a child,
Speaker 4: you need two children in order to replace both of them.
Speaker 4: But we can't make that anymore. It's one and a
Speaker 4: half children per woman. I feel sorry for the half
Speaker 4: a child that keeps being born. Of course, that's not
Speaker 4: how statistics were, but in the US it is now
Speaker 4: one point six, and that is an historic low. So
Speaker 4: there was reporting on the weekend that the White House
Speaker 4: was looking at ways to incentivize people to have more children.
Speaker 4: And Donald Trump was asked about this yesterday and.
Speaker 1: He indeed said it sounded.
Speaker 4: Like a good idea. It sounds like a good idea
Speaker 4: to me, was the direct quote. Now, a couple of
Speaker 4: the ideas that the White House has been looking at
Speaker 4: is a baby bonus, which, of course you will remember
Speaker 4: John Howard did as Prime Minister and Petti Costello as
Speaker 4: Treasurer in this country during their term, and that started
Speaker 4: out as a tax break and then eventually went up
Speaker 4: to a five thousand dollars cash in hand payment for
Speaker 4: having a child. And the suggestion in the US is
Speaker 4: that it would be a five thousand US dollar payment
Speaker 4: so that's more like ten thousand Australian dollars. Other ideas
Speaker 4: is that they would give out to Fulbright scholarships to
Speaker 4: women who are married and have children, and that's a
Speaker 4: scholarship to go overseas and work overseas and study overseas, etc.
Speaker 4: The US does that to maintain relations with other nations.
Speaker 4: There could be other things, such as educating women on
Speaker 4: when they're ovulating so they know when they're more likely
Speaker 4: to have a child. I suspect the one that would
Speaker 4: get more people over the line is a baby bonus,
Speaker 4: because when we did it here in Australia, there was
Speaker 4: a gradual increase in the fertility rate and the peak
Speaker 4: it hit was almost back to the replacement rate. We
Speaker 4: nearly hit the replacement rate here in Australia thanks to
Speaker 4: the baby bonus that was then later dismantled by the
Speaker 4: rad government. So they're saying in the US, what can
Speaker 4: we possibly do to bring this back? And of course
Speaker 4: we know how close Elon Musk has been with Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: He's one man who's sort of taken things into his
Speaker 4: own hands. He's got fourteen children now by I think
Speaker 4: seven or eight women, so he's doing his bit to
Speaker 4: populate the world, but he has spoken extensively about this before.
Speaker 9: The birth rate is very low in almost every country
Speaker 9: and something unless that changes, civilization will disappear. America had
Speaker 9: the lowest birth rate I believe, ever, that was last year.
Speaker 9: Places like Korea the birth rate is one third replacement rate.
Speaker 9: That means in three generations, career will be three or
Speaker 9: four percent of its current size. Humanity is dying, and
Speaker 9: it's just not something we evolved to react to.
Speaker 4: Now it says humanity is dying. That's not entirely true.
Speaker 4: Sub Saharan African countries is still having lots of children.
Speaker 4: But this is part of the problem, is that if
Speaker 4: you look across the western world, or not even the
Speaker 4: Western world, the developed world, where of course the pendulum
Speaker 4: I think has swung too far away from the ability
Speaker 4: to have a family because the economy doesn't serve the
Speaker 4: people anymore. The people serve the economy, so people work
Speaker 4: for much longer, and you have to have both the couple,
Speaker 4: you know, both people in couple at work in order
Speaker 4: to sustain themselves, let alone children. So the circumstances in
Speaker 4: which people feel comfortable to have a child have slowly
Speaker 4: been slipping away, so governments say we'll give you an
Speaker 4: incentive to have a child, And yes, there is evidence
Speaker 4: that it worked in Australia, but I still think it's
Speaker 4: a band aid measure. If you really want people to
Speaker 4: have children, you have to create a society in which
Speaker 4: they want to have children, and I think we've done
Speaker 4: too much to go past that point. I'm not sure
Speaker 4: we'll ever actually get that to it.
Speaker 2: Mark Stein wrote a brilliant book on this about fifteen
Speaker 2: years ago called America Alone, and then the follow up
Speaker 2: after America, arguing that demography is destiny and if you
Speaker 2: want to know what the world will be like fifty
Speaker 2: years from now, we'll just look at who's having children today.
Speaker 2: And the problem, of course in the West, as you said, Caleb,
Speaker 2: is that in Western nations we're not replacing ourselves. So
Speaker 2: a baby bonus is a right idea. You have to
Speaker 2: wonder whether it goes far enough. Nations like Hungry, which
Speaker 2: we talked about on the program recently, have offered Liz,
Speaker 2: I think it's tax free for the rest of your
Speaker 2: life to women who have three or more children. So
Speaker 2: there's other things that can be done, and leavers that
Speaker 2: can be pulled. But even if nothing is done, just
Speaker 2: the conversation that creates the message children are welcome and
Speaker 2: having children is a good thing, not just for yourself
Speaker 2: but for society at large. Is a valuable thing in
Speaker 2: and of itself. So just for Western nations to be
Speaker 2: having the conversation, I'm not saying that's all that's needed,
Speaker 2: but that's a step in the right direction, because so
Speaker 2: many people having children are demonized because it's inconvenient, it's
Speaker 2: economically not viable. You're fled out affording ourselves these days
Speaker 2: without anybody else. The irony is that we're telling women
Speaker 2: they've got to get back to work to help the economy.
Speaker 2: But of course if women are working rather than having children,
Speaker 2: then ultimately you get economic decline. Anyway, Well, I.
Speaker 5: Think so much of this has to do with the
Speaker 5: fact that Western societies stopped celebrating children. If you even
Speaker 5: watch our advertisements from decades ago, there were families in them.
Speaker 5: There were kids running around in the backyard. Marriage was
Speaker 5: either the butt of the joke in the ad movies,
Speaker 5: married people plenty of kids running around. We see this
Speaker 5: even in the subliminal messaging all around us on a
Speaker 5: daily basis. Everything's about singles and potentially looking for love.
Speaker 5: Women are not finding men who want to get married and.
Speaker 6: Who want to have children.
Speaker 5: You do wonder what has happened to us as a society,
Speaker 5: because healthy, thriving people naturally want to couple up, naturally
Speaker 5: want to reproduce, and that has either been beaten out
Speaker 5: of people ideologically through all sorts of whether it's radical
Speaker 5: feminists or guys have been raised to see a family
Speaker 5: as a noose around their neck.
Speaker 6: I'll leave that off for as long as I can,
Speaker 6: might hit forty.
Speaker 5: Then think about it, at which point all the women
Speaker 5: in their age bracket are like, well.
Speaker 6: What are we supposed to do?
Speaker 5: This is something that I've spoken to so.
Speaker 6: Many men and women about.
Speaker 5: Even the ones who genuinely want to get married, who
Speaker 5: genuinely want to have a family, they can't find the
Speaker 5: right person to do it with. And that's where we
Speaker 5: see countries like Japan starting their own dating apps because
Speaker 5: they're another country that has a massive birth deficit. One
Speaker 5: of the most interesting workshops that I saw when I
Speaker 5: went to ARC in London earlier this year big Conservative
Speaker 5: get together, was this fellow who's sorry, Matt, I don't
Speaker 5: remember your name, but I do remember your workshop, and
Speaker 5: I think you'd prefer that anyway. He was specifically talking
Speaker 5: about the birth rate in Western countries and how every
Speaker 5: single one of them is a massive birth and we
Speaker 5: can rich and moan about immigration all we like, but
Speaker 5: we are not having babies.
Speaker 6: And until you address that root cause, then nothing's going
Speaker 6: to change.
Speaker 5: Particularly, I loved about this idea that the Trump administration
Speaker 5: is floating, as it includes the National Medal of Motherhood
Speaker 5: for women with six kids or more.
Speaker 6: So, my mom, you would qualify for this. But this
Speaker 6: is part of what I'm talking about.
Speaker 5: Society that honors motherhood like that is an incredible achievement.
Speaker 6: Thank you for doing this. That is wonderful.
Speaker 5: That is a society that is going to see more
Speaker 5: of that happening. But we don't do this in the
Speaker 5: West anymore. The alban Easy government, the closest they come
Speaker 5: to encouraging motherhood is free mother care. We want universal
Speaker 5: free daycare rather not mother care.
Speaker 6: So you can get back to.
Speaker 5: Work and work for the man and earn us some
Speaker 5: more tax dollars and we the state will raise your
Speaker 5: children for free.
Speaker 6: If that is your idea of.
Speaker 5: Supporting families and women having babies in your nation. You've
Speaker 5: just signed its death warrant right there, and then it's disgusting.
Speaker 2: Well, just before we go to a break, we were talking
Speaker 2: about Elon Musk, who's doing his best to repopulate the world.
Speaker 2: He's also going to do his best to get Tesla
Speaker 2: back on track, telling investors this week that he will
Speaker 2: start focusing again on his car company, ending most of
Speaker 2: the work he's doing with the Donald Trump administration, hanging
Speaker 2: up doze finding savings in government departments. He said that
Speaker 2: as of May, he will only do one or two
Speaker 2: days a week and in the doze role and focus
Speaker 2: the rest of his time back on Teesla. This comes
Speaker 2: after they've released their first quarter trading results, which do
Speaker 2: not show a pretty picture. There's a lot of red there,
Speaker 2: including their net income as you can see, down by
Speaker 2: seventy one percent in the first quarter of this year. Obviously,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of things happening here. Caleb Evs aren't
Speaker 2: as popular as they were, there's competition for China. Tariffs
Speaker 2: from the Trump administration ironically have affected Musk's company, and
Speaker 2: also there's been the personal backlash because of his association
Speaker 2: with Trump. What do you think of this, Can he
Speaker 2: rescue Tesla? It's still worth seven hundred and fifty billion
Speaker 2: dollars US, so it's not like the thing is falling apack.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think rescuing it's going to be a task.
Speaker 4: Though part of it is, of course, the personal brand
Speaker 4: of Elon Musk that has hit it in recent times.
Speaker 4: But the reality is now that anyone who wants an
Speaker 4: EV already has an EV. And the kind of people
Speaker 4: who were early into the market bought those Tesla's, they've
Speaker 4: already got their EV. So it's just the rest of
Speaker 4: the market to fiddling around based on subsidies basically. And
Speaker 4: those people are buying cheap evs out of China. They're
Speaker 4: not buying expensive vehicles like Tesla. So unless Tesla can
Speaker 4: compete with the Chinese market and produce cheap evs, I
Speaker 4: think they've run their race.
Speaker 2: We're going to go to a break. When we come back,
Speaker 2: we'll look at what's making news tomorrow, including the Albanezi
Speaker 2: government's idea too, the Trump administration in a deal on
Speaker 2: defense that's coming up in just a moment. Welcome back.
Speaker 2: Let's take a look at tomorrow's newspaper. Front pages will
Speaker 2: start colored with the Australian newspaper.
Speaker 4: Indeed, we will Elbow's mate that he doesn't know the
Speaker 4: name of the Greens candidate in Graindler makes another appearance
Speaker 4: here and says Anthony Alberize has claimed was we told
Speaker 4: you before that he's not responsible for his own how
Speaker 4: to vote cards and has never heard the name of
Speaker 4: his Greens challenger. As it emerged the anti Israel candidate
Speaker 4: preference by the Prime Minister was part of a blockade
Speaker 4: of his Graindler electorate office. Green's hopeful Hannah Thomas on
Speaker 4: Wednesday said the Prime Minister was quote unquote arrogant for
Speaker 4: claiming he wouldn't be able to tell you who she was,
Speaker 4: adding mister alberizi had failed to act on the cost
Speaker 4: of living, climate and gaza. She also said Graindler voters
Speaker 4: had hoped for a Whitlamesque prime minister but had been
Speaker 4: let down by mister Alberze's performance as a leader. I
Speaker 4: mean you can even blockade out the front of his office,
Speaker 4: which kept his electoral office closed for months and threatened
Speaker 4: the safety of his staff, and you still get his
Speaker 4: number two on the how to vote card. I mean
Speaker 4: it must be hard to get on his bedside.
Speaker 2: You can't tell me. No one in his electric office
Speaker 2: knows who this candidate is and her involvement in blockading
Speaker 2: the office. Oh the staffers word well, and they don't
Speaker 2: talk to the PM at all.
Speaker 5: But once again, given his other options, he was always
Speaker 5: going to choose the Green. She could set his car
Speaker 5: on fire, she'd still be number two because he was
Speaker 5: never going to make it one nation.
Speaker 6: He was never going to make it the Independent. He
Speaker 6: certainly wasn't going to make the Libs.
Speaker 5: Can you imagine the Libs being preferenced by the Prime
Speaker 5: Minister number two on his And it wasn't going to
Speaker 5: be trumpets of patriots either. So naturally, I just like
Speaker 5: I said before, I think we're making a storm out
Speaker 5: of a teacup here.
Speaker 6: It had to be her.
Speaker 2: He certainly knows who she is.
Speaker 1: But if it doesn't matter.
Speaker 4: He could have made one nation his second preference. It
Speaker 4: wouldn't have changed anything. If that's the argument, is that
Speaker 4: it doesn't really have it and just put anyone there.
Speaker 4: Another story on the front of the Ods tomorrow, Anthony
Speaker 4: Alberinezi will move to make Australia a key supplier of
Speaker 4: critical minerals and rear earths to help like minded nations
Speaker 4: make weapons without relying on China through a one billion
Speaker 4: dollar plus strategic reserve to be used by re elected
Speaker 4: labor government as a bargaining chip to win an exemption
Speaker 4: from Donald Trump's tariffs. The Prime Minister on Wednesday unveiled
Speaker 4: plans for an initial one point two billion dollar investment
Speaker 4: or I think they mean on Thursday, because of course
Speaker 4: today is Wednesday in national reserve that will stockpile critical
Speaker 4: minerals such as lithium, nickel and cobalt so they are
Speaker 4: available for Australian manufacturers and select nations such as Japan,
Speaker 4: Japan Sorry, and South Korea and fair enough. I think
Speaker 4: if Donald Trump has taught us one thing and much
Speaker 4: of the world one thing is that much like he
Speaker 4: is America first, we should all be Australia first, and
Speaker 4: Japan first, and Korea first and West first as well.
Speaker 4: So he has some way or another actually encouraged us
Speaker 4: to take a little more self reliance, which of course
Speaker 4: is need good for the US and the rest of
Speaker 4: the Western world. More broadly, the question is, though, will
Speaker 4: it be enough to get an exemption on tariffs?
Speaker 2: Who would know what it is enough though, to do
Speaker 2: is to remove whatever advantage the Coalition may have had
Speaker 2: on defense, which they pretty much squandered by leaving their
Speaker 2: big announcement to the last week and a half of
Speaker 2: the campaign. And then Labor have come up with this, which,
Speaker 2: as you said, seems like a perfectly sensible solution stands
Speaker 2: us in good stead helps with the Trump administration. So
Speaker 2: whatever advantage or bounce Dutton was hoping for from his
Speaker 2: defense policy announcement, it's sort of gone from the front
Speaker 2: pages and Labor back on the front foot.
Speaker 6: Overshadowed so soon.
Speaker 5: It does make you wonder, given this ticks a lot
Speaker 5: of boxes, why it took them so long to come
Speaker 5: up with. I mean, that's such a good bargaining chip.
Speaker 5: Everyone needs these and a we've found out great way
Speaker 5: to use them as a bargaining chair.
Speaker 2: Is it any coincidence that Labor put this out what
Speaker 2: the day after? Of course, the Coalition announced their defense
Speaker 2: policy so immediately nullified it.
Speaker 4: I feel like that's been a large part of this
Speaker 4: campaign though, is why has it taken so long for
Speaker 4: so many policies to be announced? I mean, in this
Speaker 4: world now where you don't just have election day, you
Speaker 4: essentially have an election period. I mean people went to
Speaker 4: the polls on Tuesday, so people voted on Tuesday, and
Speaker 4: we still haven't had the full suite of policies released yet.
Speaker 4: I mean they're expecting record numbers of people to prepole.
Speaker 4: Half the bloody country is going to pre poll before
Speaker 4: we get to election day, and there will be policies
Speaker 4: trickling out in the next week or so. It kind
Speaker 4: of makes a mockery of the whole idea of having
Speaker 4: an election day, I think. But also what's the strategy
Speaker 4: from the parties to leave things so late when they
Speaker 4: know that people are voting.
Speaker 5: Now, That's exactly what I said last night when the
Speaker 5: front headline was oh, twenty one billion, extra one hundreds
Speaker 5: the limbs are gone.
Speaker 6: Why on earth would you wait this late?
Speaker 5: An excellent policy, something people are passionate to get behind.
Speaker 5: Yay national security. We haven't done enough. Everybody knows this.
Speaker 5: It's such an obvious, strong and clear policy. Why would
Speaker 5: you wait until what ten days out to the election?
Speaker 2: Greg greg Sheridan's got an answer to that on the
Speaker 2: front page of Tomorrow's Australian. He reckons the coalition were
Speaker 2: waiting to see what money was left over to spend
Speaker 2: on defense, which is he points out, is exactly the
Speaker 2: wrong way to do defense. You defend the country first,
Speaker 2: then you work out what money you've got left to
Speaker 2: spend on social welfare things. No point having social welfare
Speaker 2: if the Chinese invague something else.
Speaker 4: I think that the coalition has just not really had
Speaker 4: to go lay before at all. Which I don't understand
Speaker 4: is the tax on unrealized capital gains. It is insane,
Speaker 4: but it says in the front of the ODZ tomorrow
Speaker 4: super tax plan risks twenty five billion dollar exodus after
Speaker 4: twenty five billion dollars could be withdrawn from self mana
Speaker 4: superannuation funds this year as people race to reduce their
Speaker 4: account balances below a two million dollar threshold that the
Speaker 4: Greens were require sorry in exchange for supporting Labour's new
Speaker 4: tax on unrealized capital gains. Jeff Wilson, the architect of
Speaker 4: a successful attack on Labour's franking credits policy before the
Speaker 4: twenty nineteen election, said he'd been fielding calls from clients
Speaker 4: about shifting money out of self managed funds and said
Speaker 4: the opposition was now missing a golden opportunity to unseat
Speaker 4: a first term government by not attacking Labour's unrealized capital gains.
Speaker 4: He goes on to say, I think there has been
Speaker 4: a misunderstanding by the coalition of how brutal this unrealized
Speaker 4: capital gains tax policy will be on the economy. Labour
Speaker 4: should be losing the election on this issue. Shareholders are
Speaker 4: calling me very concerned about the taxing of unrealized gains
Speaker 4: and I mean the idea that you would tax something
Speaker 4: that doesn't yet exist. He's fundamentally insane. I mean, the
Speaker 4: government is going to take money from you when you
Speaker 4: haven't actually made the profit yet, and yet no one
Speaker 4: is talking about it.
Speaker 2: But did you see the explanation in tomorrow's paper from
Speaker 2: a Liberal Party spokesperson as to why they haven't made
Speaker 2: an issue of this. They said, well, most of the
Speaker 2: people who have got more than two million in their
Speaker 2: super funder in teal seats and they've not mentioned it
Speaker 2: to us as being a problem. So for that reason
Speaker 2: they're not bothering.
Speaker 4: And of course the other thing as well as if
Speaker 4: they pull all their money out of the stock market
Speaker 4: and go property, we'll go property.
Speaker 1: What do you think that does to property prices?
Speaker 4: For goodness, let's go to.
Speaker 2: The front page of tomorrow's herald Son. We were talking
Speaker 2: about just center Allen dodging questions as to the curfew
Speaker 2: during the pandemic. Well, there's some more news about what
Speaker 2: occurred during the pandemic In tomorrow's paper. Ambos above Law
Speaker 2: reads the headline Inquiry uncovers a legal funeral sanctioned by
Speaker 2: bosses in COVID. The story reads that a secret send
Speaker 2: off for an ambulance Victoria paramedic, in breach of strict
Speaker 2: COVID rules but allegedly approved by bosses, been exposed as
Speaker 2: part of an ongoing inquiry into the beleagued agency. Now,
Speaker 2: this is a parliamentary inquiry into the ambulance service that
Speaker 2: was opposed by the Allen government. They tried to prevent
Speaker 2: this inquiry. The inquiry has heard about the poor performance
Speaker 2: of the service as well as cultural problems. But this
Speaker 2: is the latest revelation from this inquiry. At a time
Speaker 2: when funerals who were restricted to just ten people in attendance,
Speaker 2: I read one story about a woman who died. She
Speaker 2: had twelve siblings. They applied for an exemption so that
Speaker 2: all the siblings could attend. They were denied, and now
Speaker 2: it turns out that members of the ambulance service were
Speaker 2: holding funerals with more than more people than were permitted,
Speaker 2: in violation of laws that everybody else had to abide by.
Speaker 2: We're going to go to a break when we come back.
Speaker 2: The NRL star who avoided jail over driving offenses. But
Speaker 2: wait until you hear the punishment that the court did
Speaker 2: give out to him. That's coming up in just a moment.
Speaker 2: Welcome back. Well, if you follow NRL, John Happawa is
Speaker 2: quite an infamous former NRL player. Caleb like, what did
Speaker 2: he do?
Speaker 4: He stuck his finger out people's jacksies. I believe was
Speaker 4: his modus operanda, and it seemed to work every now
Speaker 4: and again. And he's been in trouble a few times
Speaker 4: through his life. He's been charged with assault multiple times.
Speaker 4: He was charting, I think it was in twenty thirteen
Speaker 4: with intimidating a parking inspector. He's had numerous driving indiscretions.
Speaker 4: His latest one that was that he was caught driving
Speaker 4: wild disqualified. So of course he's serving a sentence after
Speaker 4: a previous discretion and he gets behind the wheel of
Speaker 4: the car again and he gets caught doing that. So
Speaker 4: once again he gets trundled off to court and they
Speaker 4: let him off with a suspended sentence. He had to
Speaker 4: do one hundred hours of community service. So this repeat offender,
Speaker 4: John Hoppawate, what does he do for.
Speaker 1: His one hundred hours of community service? Is learning to knit?
Speaker 8: And then once you've learned that and you're doing that,
Speaker 8: I can teach you her as he was.
Speaker 4: Casting on already.
Speaker 8: Didn't do is get a long row of ditches.
Speaker 4: I mean, he is this rugby enforcer finger up the bummer,
Speaker 4: you know, built like a brick you know what house,
Speaker 4: and he's like, I know what I'll do.
Speaker 1: I've been caught yet again.
Speaker 4: The court will let me go and learn how to
Speaker 4: knit beanies for poor kids. You know, it's quite funny
Speaker 4: on one level, but how many times do you have
Speaker 4: to be caught before they say, well, chuck in the
Speaker 4: slammer for a little while and not seeing you to
Speaker 4: do knitting lessons with granny.
Speaker 2: Well, he himself was making a joke out of it,
Speaker 2: telling journalists he was putting his fingers to better use now,
Speaker 2: So there you go. But I'm not sure how many
Speaker 2: people have been victims of you know, bad drivers would
Speaker 2: be happy to see that sort of punishment dissed doubt
Speaker 2: to someone with multiple driving offenses.
Speaker 5: Indeed, you wonder if he wasn't who he is, if
Speaker 5: the sentence had been any different, not that it should
Speaker 5: be before the law. But before we go tonight, the
Speaker 5: Great Barrier Reef maybe the unexpected recipient of a United
Speaker 5: Nations award. It's called the Prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award, which
Speaker 5: is normally given to people like Sir David Attenborough. But
Speaker 5: tourism Tropical North Queensland has adopted a unique version of
Speaker 5: their understanding of what would make eligible nominee and they've
Speaker 5: decided to nominate the Great Barrier Reef as opposed to
Speaker 5: a person. As far as I concerned, we here in
Speaker 5: Australia don't want anything from the United Nations.
Speaker 1: Well, but it don't at.
Speaker 4: Least prove once and for all that the thing's still
Speaker 4: alive and not did as we keep them.
Speaker 2: There you go, That's all we've got time for stick arounds.
Speaker 2: Coming up is the reader Pennehy show. Good Night,