Speaker 1: Good evening. Welcome to the program. In the mothership studio
Speaker 1: tonight in Sydney is what's coming up on the program.
Speaker 1: The Victorian Premier under fire over the secret levy to
Speaker 1: fund the suburban rail loop. Apologising today, promising to scrap
Speaker 1: the tax. but not so transparent when it comes to
Speaker 1: questions over how long he knew about this tax hit shocker.
Speaker 1: A terrible attack on a 10-year-old child outside of Victoria
Speaker 1: Police Headquarters in Melbourne. We learned today he was only
Speaker 1: in the city for brain cancer treatment. But wait until
Speaker 1: you see the extraordinary court exchange from the man accused
Speaker 1: of stabbing his mother. More on immigration too tonight. Legged
Speaker 1: details about where it's rumoured Labor will go on visa reform.
Speaker 1: A promised crackdown on international students and visa jumping. Yet
Speaker 1: nothing from the Coalition still tying itself in knots over
Speaker 1: numbers and policy inertia. An embarrassment today for the Prime
Speaker 1: Minister met with jeers at the Bush summit in Dubbo
Speaker 1: when he tried to defend Labor's record in regional Australia.
Speaker 2: Well, what worries me is over-regulation. I wouldn't care. And
Speaker 2: we need to do something about it.
Speaker 1: Country people, my good brethren, they have got a good
Speaker 1: BS meter. I'll come back to that in a moment.
Speaker 1: But first, just when you think it can't get any
Speaker 1: worse than the broken state of Victoria, well, it does. Yesterday,
Speaker 1: the bombshell report from the Auditor-General revealing that for 18 months,
Speaker 1: Victorian commuters have been paying a secret public transport tax, well,
Speaker 1: that made headlines for all the wrong reasons. Not only
Speaker 1: do we have taxpayers ripped off yet again, but the
Speaker 1: millions collected from this secret tax are were being used
Speaker 1: to help fund the controversial suburban rail loop project that
Speaker 1: nobody wants anyway. A $ 36 billion project funded by ever-increasing
Speaker 1: state debt, the SRL has now become a byword for
Speaker 1: waste that even Labor luminaries, like former Senator Stephen Conroy,
Speaker 1: can't defend.
Speaker 3: This is a dog of a project that the previous
Speaker 3: leadership committed Labor to. It's totally sabotaged the budget going
Speaker 3: forward and I would hope that they're able to do
Speaker 3: a lot more than just $ 2 billion in savings.
Speaker 1: What is a dog of a project? A railway line
Speaker 1: to nowhere that no-one needs or wants in a state
Speaker 1: that can't fix its roads, that's got ambulance ramping in
Speaker 1: hospitals and an out-of-control crime crisis that is now so
Speaker 1: bad you get headlines like this. It reads, child punched
Speaker 1: in the head on Melbourne Street was in city for
Speaker 1: brain cancer treatment. I mean, seriously? Can it get any
Speaker 1: worse than that? A 10-year-old boy from Phillip Island randomly
Speaker 1: attacked in broad daylight by a stranger in the Melbourne CBD.
Speaker 1: His mother, Cherie, then stabbed with scissors when she went
Speaker 1: to his aid. Both mum and son remain in hospital.
Speaker 1: And speaking of the attack, Cherie's brother, Kirk Holt, said
Speaker 1: this to Channel 9.
Speaker 4: Just absolutely disgusted. She's really struggling at the moment. She
Speaker 4: can't be with her son. It's traumatic enough fighting cancer.
Speaker 4: We're now looking to see if it's caused any extra damage,
Speaker 4: if there's any more inflammation around where the tumour is.
Speaker 1: Now, appearing in the Melbourne Magistrates Court yesterday via video link,
Speaker 1: the alleged attacker, 27-year-old Gerry Sowood, told the magistrate, there's
Speaker 1: no need to hide it, he said. At least they're
Speaker 1: both still breathing. So I kept my humanity intact. I'll
Speaker 1: come back to that story a little later. But honestly,
Speaker 1: you've got to feel for the people of Victoria. Failed
Speaker 1: at every turn facing crime in the city and the suburbs.
Speaker 1: Taxed to the hilt. and lied to time and time
Speaker 1: again by their government. Honestly, it doesn't matter which Labor
Speaker 1: politicians the Premier, the lies just keep coming. Today, in
Speaker 1: what is fast becoming the latest tactic used by Premier
Speaker 1: Ben Carroll to avoid proper media scrutiny, he fronted the
Speaker 1: cameras at 9.18am, just before the start of Parliament at 9.30am.
Speaker 1: Barely 12 minutes of transparency in front of the waiting
Speaker 1: media pack and all the while dodging any attempt to
Speaker 1: get to the bottom of his shock transport tax. As
Speaker 1: revealed yesterday, Carroll was the Minister for Public Transport when
Speaker 1: this tax hit was first signed off in the Daniel
Speaker 1: Andrews era. Here is opposition leader Liberal Jess Wilson on
Speaker 1: this point.
Speaker 5: Ben Carroll signed off on this secret tax when he
Speaker 5: was the Minister for Public Transport in 2021. And it's
Speaker 5: gone through various iterations over the years before it was
Speaker 5: secretly put on every single public transport fare in January
Speaker 5: last year. This is an incredible breach of trust with
Speaker 5: the Victorian people.
Speaker 1: Now, he was the minister at the time. As Jess
Speaker 1: Wilson says, if he wants to now say that when
Speaker 1: he was the minister, he knew nothing about this tax,
Speaker 1: then what does this say about the lack of proper processes,
Speaker 1: indeed cabinet government, during the Andrews era? If he really
Speaker 1: did know about it when it was first agreed, then
Speaker 1: how and when did he find out? Because clearly, before
Speaker 1: he was Premier, Ben Carroll was Jacinta Allen's deputy for
Speaker 1: almost three years, so Absolutely, he knew about this bombshell
Speaker 1: tax before the report hit yesterday. So when did he
Speaker 1: know and how did he find out? Two questions that
Speaker 1: today the Premier did his best to dodge.
Speaker 6: The public transport minister in 2021, when this was first
Speaker 6: cooked up, when did you first find out.
Speaker 4: About its existence?
Speaker 6: Richard, I will not relitigate the past. No, no, but
Speaker 6: except to say in 2021... I was a public transport
Speaker 6: minister that made sure our public transport system operated during COVID,
Speaker 6: got nurses to work, made sure vulnerable Victorians got the vaccine.
Speaker 6: And that was what I focus on every single day.
Speaker 1: What was your involvement in the decision making on this?
Speaker 6: I was not part of the creation.
Speaker 1: That is very clear. Even the new Deputy Premier, Gabrielle Williams,
Speaker 1: was today herself in the hot seat because, like Ben Carroll,
Speaker 1: she too once held the transport portfolio. Williams, though, well,
Speaker 1: she at least made some attempt at honesty.
Speaker 7: I was aware in the lead-up to that fare change
Speaker 7: on 1 January 2025. I was never aware that there
Speaker 7: had been any decision taken to withhold information about the charge.
Speaker 1: All credit here to my colleague, News 24 reporter Georgie Dickerson,
Speaker 1: who really took it up to the Premier.
Speaker 6: That is what I am doing today, announcing there was
Speaker 6: no transparency around this charge and I will abolish it.
Speaker 8: So it will be abolished from today?
Speaker 1: Is it happening from today?
Speaker 6: No, there will be a proper Cabinet process, but my
Speaker 6: recommendation to the Cabinet.
Speaker 1: So how long will that take?
Speaker 6: is going to be effective as soon as it can be.
Speaker 1: Dodge, dodge and dodge today. And after all, it was
Speaker 1: only a couple of weeks ago that he said when
Speaker 1: assuming the top job that integrity was no longer optional.
Speaker 6: In my government, integrity will not be optional.
Speaker 1: Well, that's a lie, Ben Carroll. Optional then and clearly,
Speaker 1: integrity is still optional now. At 9.30am, Ben Carroll was
Speaker 1: saved by the parliamentary bells as he scurried away hoping
Speaker 1: his latest crisis was behind him.
Speaker 6: I've saved Victorians $ 2 billion this week on this project.
Speaker 2: It will be delivered.
Speaker 6: It was being delivered on time and on budget and
Speaker 6: under my premiership will be delivered on time.
Speaker 1: And under budget.
Speaker 2: Thank you very.
Speaker 9: Much.
Speaker 1: 12 minutes of transparency, Victorians. That's all you get. That
Speaker 1: footage is damning. Even for Victoria, a state mired in crime,
Speaker 1: corruption and bad government, a two-year secret tax is a
Speaker 1: new low. And quick out of the box, Liberal HQ
Speaker 1: had this ad out on social media by mid-afternoon.
Speaker 3: What did you find out about this charge?
Speaker 1: I'm not going to stand here. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: stand here.
Speaker 6: I'm not going to stand here.
Speaker 1: And take questions on integrity.
Speaker 6: and relitigate the past.
Speaker 8: I'm not going to stand here and take questions on integrity.
Speaker 6: I'm not going to stand here and relitigate the past.
Speaker 1: Honestly, Victoria, what next? Right, let's head to Canberra now
Speaker 1: for the political headlines with our reporter, Cam Redden.
Speaker 10: Good evening.
Speaker 11: The Prime Minister has given his strongest indication yet of
Speaker 11: where the cuts will come when he announces an overhaul
Speaker 11: of the migration system.
Speaker 2: We're worried about trying to get the numbers right. Our
Speaker 2: priority and what we're really looking at as well is
Speaker 2: people who gain the system.
Speaker 11: Also at the Bush summit in Dubbo, a group of
Speaker 11: anti-renewables protesters make their voices known.
Speaker 6: What message do you have for people here whose lives
Speaker 6: and livelihoods.
Speaker 12: Are being up in?
Speaker 10: And they can't understand why?
Speaker 2: That I get it. We need to do better than that.
Speaker 11: Australia's Commissioner on Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence has spoken
Speaker 11: exclusively to News24 ahead of the release of the second
Speaker 11: National Action Plan.
Speaker 10: There are areas where we all know we are not
Speaker 10: seeing the improvement that the community wants and expects, particularly
Speaker 10: sexual violence where we're doing poorly.
Speaker 11: Michaela Cronin tells News 24 the next five-year action plan
Speaker 11: will place a premium on early intervention to ensure children
Speaker 11: never develop dangerous behaviours.
Speaker 10: I think we need to start as early as we
Speaker 10: can on every front. When we run education programs in schools,
Speaker 10: we also need to be running things parallel for parents.
Speaker 11: Cameron Redden, News 24, Canberra.
Speaker 1: All right, more now on the continuing fallout from that
Speaker 1: secret transport tax in Victoria. Let's bring in our Melbourne reporter,
Speaker 1: News 24's Georgie Dickerson. Georgie, welcome. Ben Carroll moved quickly
Speaker 1: today to scrap the contentious secret tax and he added
Speaker 1: an apology, but he refused to answer questions on when
Speaker 1: he first knew about the secret tax and why Victorians
Speaker 1: were kept in the dark.
Speaker 8: Yeah, he certainly wouldn't be drawn on exactly what he
Speaker 8: knew and when. He continuously told reporters he was not
Speaker 8: going to relitigate in the past, instead focusing on the
Speaker 8: transparency and.
Speaker 1: What was going to be coming in the.
Speaker 8: Future for Victorians as he announced that he does plan to.
Speaker 2: Scrap that tax.
Speaker 1: But as you heard earlier, I tried.
Speaker 8: To ask the Premier exactly how long Victorians.
Speaker 1: Will have to wait.
Speaker 8: Until that tax is scrapped, he couldn't tell me. He
Speaker 8: said it has to go through the proper cabinet process.
Speaker 8: So now Victorians are really in a state of limbo
Speaker 8: as to how long they'll actually have to wait until
Speaker 8: that additional charge is taken of public transport here in.
Speaker 1: Victoria, Peter. Yeah, it just did strike me as a
Speaker 1: bit unbelievable that he's got to follow a Cabinet process
Speaker 1: now to take off a bad tax, a hidden tax,
Speaker 1: a tax that Victorians did not know about. But clearly
Speaker 1: the processes in good government weren't there when it was
Speaker 1: thrown onto Victorian commuters. It's not plausible, Georgie, it's just
Speaker 1: not plausible that he was the Deputy Premier and he
Speaker 1: was clueless about this tax when even Gabrielle Williams... who
Speaker 1: followed him into the transport portfolio, admitted she knew all
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 8: Yeah, she was transport minister in December of 2024 when
Speaker 8: she was actually making an announcement about the updated fares.
Speaker 1: For the coming year.
Speaker 8: Of course, public transport fares in Victoria go up year
Speaker 8: on year, but that is when that additional 1% was
Speaker 8: added on.
Speaker 1: So she said she was aware of it.
Speaker 8: But wasn't aware that it was essentially being kept a secret.
Speaker 8: from Victorian communities. Of course, it is a 1% rise
Speaker 8: from January 2025. But, of course, as the Vargo report
Speaker 8: pointed out, that charge and that increase is likely to
Speaker 8: reach $ 8 billion by 2062, $ 4. 8 billion of that going
Speaker 8: directly to the SRL.
Speaker 1: Will Victorians get their money back, Georgie?
Speaker 8: It's unclear at this stage. Already more than $ 6 million
Speaker 8: has been brought in from that extra charge. The opposition
Speaker 8: leader today, Jess Wilson, saying that that money should be
Speaker 8: given back to taxpayers because they didn't know they were
Speaker 8: being charged that extra fee in the first place, Peter.
Speaker 1: Well, surely this is more pressure on the Premier now
Speaker 1: to scrap the whole horror show that is the SRL.
Speaker 8: Well, you'd think so, Peter, but today, or rather two
Speaker 8: days ago now, the Premier had first announced that he
Speaker 8: plans to have $ 2 billion in savings on the SRL.
Speaker 8: Of course, that was announced before the Auditor-General's report was
Speaker 8: brought out, but he's remained adamant today that they are
Speaker 8: looking at cost-saving measures. They have refused to pause and review.
Speaker 8: The opposition says if they win government come November 28,
Speaker 8: they will pause and review the SRL to see what
Speaker 8: has to happen to this project.
Speaker 1: And look, I want to pick up that shocking attack yesterday.
Speaker 1: The 10-year-old boy and his mum out the front, Georgie,
Speaker 1: of Victoria Police Headquarters. It was the middle of Melbourne
Speaker 1: it occurred. It was the middle of the day. We
Speaker 1: now learn the little boy was in Melbourne for brain
Speaker 1: cancer treatment. I mean, bad enough that he was attacked
Speaker 1: or allegedly attacked, the mother also too in hospital with
Speaker 1: stab wounds. But now you've got this offender in the court.
Speaker 1: Tell us what he had to say.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's a completely horrific case, Peter. And it should
Speaker 8: be noted that where this incident actually occurred was outside
Speaker 8: Police HQ, the largest police station here in Melbourne. So
Speaker 8: police were very quick to jump on that alleged offender.
Speaker 8: But some of the horrific detail... Of that court hearing,
Speaker 8: he said that he'd punched the kid in the head,
Speaker 8: so admitted to doing it. I'm telling you what I did,
Speaker 8: and I'm saying there was no family that was torn apart.
Speaker 8: Even though I did what I did, the mum did
Speaker 8: not lose her child. He didn't apply for bail. He
Speaker 8: wasn't on bail at the time of the incident. His
Speaker 8: case will be heard back on November 18. But, of course,
Speaker 8: for this poor family, that poor 10-year-old child who's already
Speaker 8: battling cancer to have this horrific incident happen, it goes
Speaker 8: to levels of crime that we are really dealing here.
Speaker 8: within the Victorian state.
Speaker 1: And just quickly, any sense of what the motivation might
Speaker 1: have been today in the court?
Speaker 8: They've said it's completely random at this stage. Of course,
Speaker 8: police are continuing their investigations to hopefully bring some sort
Speaker 8: of closure to this family. But, of course, at this time,
Speaker 8: they're probably focusing on their little 10-year-old boy who remains
Speaker 8: in hospital. The mother is in an OK condition at
Speaker 8: this stage, but no doubt they're all shocked and traumatised
Speaker 8: by that horrific event.
Speaker 1: Hey, you might have missed my comments at the top
Speaker 1: of the show, but I said well done to you
Speaker 1: for taking it up to the Premier and putting him
Speaker 1: under some real pressure. I think everyone's screaming out for
Speaker 1: some transparency and honesty out of government at the moment.
Speaker 1: So well done you, Georgie. Stay on it. All right,
Speaker 1: let's go now to my panel. News 24 hosts James
Speaker 1: Morrow and Jamie Rogers. Because I'm in Sydney, they are
Speaker 1: both at the desk with me. This is a turn
Speaker 1: up for the books.
Speaker 7: Isn't it?
Speaker 13: It's great to be here with you in Sydney, yeah.
Speaker 1: Hey, I'll come to you. I know you're not a Melbournian,
Speaker 1: but you're a mum, Jamie. You hear a story like that,
Speaker 1: and I'll put allegedly, allegedly, allegedly around it, of course,
Speaker 1: but he made admissions in the magistrate's court. Kid gets thumped.
Speaker 1: Ten-year-old child who's in Melbourne for brain cancer treatment. Mum
Speaker 1: gets stabbed. And this is day normal in daylight in Melbourne.
Speaker 14: Peter, it's just horrific. When I read that story, my
Speaker 14: heart broke. especially the fact that it was out the
Speaker 14: front of police headquarters, which just really shows how out.
Speaker 1: Of control the crime is in Victoria.
Speaker 14: And another family is now going to be having lifelong trauma.
Speaker 14: The children couldn't have the lights off when they were
Speaker 14: in the hospital because there were other siblings there that
Speaker 14: witnessed what had happened with this alleged attack. But the
Speaker 14: fact that this 10-year-old boy, only a few years older
Speaker 14: than my own son, which is why it really hits
Speaker 14: home hard... And the fact that he is battling brain cancer,
Speaker 14: and as his uncle said in your editorial, they have
Speaker 14: to now assess that it's not going to cause more
Speaker 14: swelling around the tumour. So the fact that this family
Speaker 14: is going through something so traumatic. and they just randomly
Speaker 14: get attacked. I think Victorians have really been let down
Speaker 14: by their government that something like this just randomly happens
Speaker 14: in broad daylight out the front of the police headquarters.
Speaker 1: And it was Good Samaritans, actually, who wrestled the man
Speaker 1: to the ground. It wasn't the police.
Speaker 13: Yeah, it was actually passers-by. There was, I think, a
Speaker 13: Champion X weightlifter or something of that sort of order
Speaker 13: who had... been on the scene and they said, instinct
Speaker 13: just kicked in, which is of course great and it's
Speaker 13: wonderful that that happened, but it is just such an
Speaker 13: indictment of what has been happening in Melbourne. I think
Speaker 13: about what Melbourne was like 10 years ago, and it
Speaker 13: was this very lively, cosmopolitan city. And I was there
Speaker 13: a few weeks ago, and, you know, every time you
Speaker 13: see one of these surveys that says, oh, most liveable survey,
Speaker 13: you think, what Melbourne were they living in?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm with you, James. I'm with you. Hey,
Speaker 1: let's go to Dubbo. I think we've got some footage
Speaker 1: of the Prime Minister today. I think he rolled up
Speaker 1: to town, thought he might get the welcome mat, but
Speaker 1: country people are pretty shrewd. Have a listen.
Speaker 7: Does it bother you that in regional communities, farmers see
Speaker 7: the Albanese government as the enemy?
Speaker 2: Oh, well, what worries me is over-regulation. I wouldn't care.
Speaker 2: And we need to do something about it.
Speaker 1: Well, over-regulation, we know who makes the regulation.
Speaker 13: And, you know, how many years has he been in power?
Speaker 13: How many years has the Labor government been in power?
Speaker 13: And they said, oh, well, you know, we really ought
Speaker 13: to do something about this problem that's been going on
Speaker 13: for four years under our watch. But the Bush summit today,
Speaker 13: the National Bush Summit in Dubbo, Such an extraordinary event
Speaker 13: because it's the one time when country people, people in
Speaker 13: the regions, really get to interface with the politicians, the policymakers.
Speaker 13: And I'll tell you what, Albanese, I hope he was
Speaker 13: listening to what people said because the people who spoke
Speaker 13: at that summit, people like Emma Webb from Yass, who
Speaker 13: was speaking about the unbelievable impact of these renewables projects
Speaker 13: smashing their communities. And he says, oh, well, you know, yeah,
Speaker 13: I get it.
Speaker 1: I hear you.
Speaker 13: He doesn't get it.
Speaker 1: They're not in Marrickville, are they?
Speaker 13: They are not in Marrickville. They don't have wind farms
Speaker 13: in Marrickville. If they did, I'd be processing those, too.
Speaker 13: But this was a great opportunity for him to see
Speaker 13: the anger on the ground. And, you know, there were
Speaker 13: people who talked about their farms hemmed all in on
Speaker 13: three sides by massive solar farms. They don't know what
Speaker 13: the value of their property is. And again, he says, oh, well,
Speaker 13: we have to balance you know, this and that. But
Speaker 13: it's all about this relentless net zero obsession and the
Speaker 13: fact that I think, you know, as many people said
Speaker 13: at the summit, this government doesn't treat country people with
Speaker 13: the same value and regard as people who live in
Speaker 13: their inner city electorates.
Speaker 1: Spot on. And just speaking there of renewables, Jamie, launched
Speaker 1: today in Victoria. It had been delayed, but it's just
Speaker 1: now been kicked off. This offshore wind auction, and we
Speaker 1: all know the travesty that is offshore wind, these huge
Speaker 1: monoliths sitting out in some of our most beautiful coastline areas.
Speaker 1: There was one set for Illawarra. It's being knocked off.
Speaker 1: Socialist Victoria is pursuing it and pursuing it hard. Billions
Speaker 1: of subsidies will be paid, billions of dollars of subsidies
Speaker 1: to foreign companies You're a competitive swimmer in the past.
Speaker 1: You tried to win the seat of Warringah, which of
Speaker 1: course includes Manly. This is not off the beaches of Manly.
Speaker 1: This is off the Victorian regional coast.
Speaker 14: And again, it's the regional areas that are expected to
Speaker 14: pick up the brunt of this renewable transition. But when
Speaker 14: it comes to this wind farm and this auction, it
Speaker 14: Victoria's energy security is really getting gambled right now because
Speaker 14: you look at the coal-fired power station in Yalloran, which
Speaker 14: is set to close down in mid-2028, and the auction
Speaker 14: today went live a year late, and they're not going
Speaker 14: to stop taking contracts until mid-next year, and then when
Speaker 14: they actually give out those contracts, it'll be 2028. So
Speaker 14: when is the government expecting... this to all start to work.
Speaker 14: So when that closes down with the coal-fired power station
Speaker 14: in 2028, this is the project that's supposed to be
Speaker 14: picking up that baseload power. And we also know that
Speaker 14: offshore wind farms are two times more expensive than onshore
Speaker 14: wind farms. So the cost alone of that, we need
Speaker 14: to stop having the government saying to everyone, oh, but
Speaker 14: it's cheaper, it's cheaper, that's why we're doing it. No,
Speaker 14: this is literally the most expensive form of energy and
Speaker 14: Victorians will end up picking up the bill when it
Speaker 14: comes to the taxpayers and probably having some real issues
Speaker 14: when it comes to energy security.
Speaker 1: And problems with migratory birds, problems with whales and other mammals. Yes. And,
Speaker 1: of course, these huge structures are left to rust in
Speaker 1: our oceans. We've seen this around the world.
Speaker 14: And they rust quickly because they're out in the elements
Speaker 14: in the saltwater. And we see what happens with boats
Speaker 14: and other.
Speaker 1: Materials that's out there. The salt is harsh.
Speaker 14: So it needs to be replaced more often than what
Speaker 14: we see on the land. And let's not forget how
Speaker 14: many times on the land they close down or they're
Speaker 14: not working. And it'll happen a lot more out in
Speaker 14: the ocean.
Speaker 1: Let's go to those leaks in the papers today. It
Speaker 1: was across the board, not just the Australian. I read
Speaker 1: the Australian, but it was also in the Financial Review.
Speaker 1: This is Labor's... started, then stalled and looks like back
Speaker 1: on again, migration reform. Tony Burke, a month ago or so,
Speaker 1: was supposed to front... the National Press Club. He didn't.
Speaker 1: That signals to me you've got some caucus revolt, probably
Speaker 1: a few issues in Cabinet. The League today says that
Speaker 1: they are going to do wholesale reform. So not just
Speaker 1: the numbers, and I don't believe they'll bring them down,
Speaker 1: but just beyond the numbers, they're talking about collapsing a
Speaker 1: whole lot of disparate visa categories, doing some deals in
Speaker 1: relation to students, stopping the visa hopping between visa classes.
Speaker 1: I have to admit, and I don't want to admit
Speaker 1: this to Tony Burke, but there's a lot in here
Speaker 1: that I could support, right? I do think there needs
Speaker 1: to be large-scale reform, but are Labor to be trusted
Speaker 1: to deliver it, James?
Speaker 13: Well, no, they're not. And I get what you're saying
Speaker 13: about liking some of the things that they're doing. And,
Speaker 13: you know, I can tell you a few months ago
Speaker 13: I had a chat to a university VC who was
Speaker 13: absolutely ropeable because, you know, they were jacking up the
Speaker 13: prices on visas and things like that. It was making
Speaker 13: it more difficult for people from some countries... to come
Speaker 13: in and his university was looking at a diminished bottom line.
Speaker 13: But I thought, well, you know, it's probably actually better
Speaker 13: for your university in the long run that you get
Speaker 13: off of the drip of these foreign students, because that's
Speaker 13: what's going on. And I think Labor, I think their
Speaker 13: internal numbers must be telling them that people are really,
Speaker 13: really tired of this. It's not just the one nation thing.
Speaker 13: This has been brewing for a long time. I don't
Speaker 13: trust them, though, because, you know, they're not doing anything
Speaker 13: about what do you do about the huge cohort of
Speaker 13: people who are simply here illegally. We love to say
Speaker 13: that we have a controlled immigration process here, Peta. We
Speaker 13: don't have America when they had the southern border under
Speaker 13: Joe Biden. It's all very orderly. But there's a lot
Speaker 13: of people here who have exhausted every single avenue of appeal,
Speaker 13: and they are still here. We can't get rid of them.
Speaker 13: And there's no appetite among labor to get serious about
Speaker 13: people who shouldn't be here. And I would also like
Speaker 13: to see them get serious about making sure people leave
Speaker 13: the country before they apply for some new visa so
Speaker 13: they can't just keep, as you say, hopping from, you know,
Speaker 13: vine to vine to vine, and then you wind up
Speaker 13: with people here who probably shouldn't be here, but they're
Speaker 13: here forever.
Speaker 1: What about the coalition, Jamie? I'm pretty critical. We haven't
Speaker 1: got a number from them, a lot of good sentiment,
Speaker 1: but nor have we got any policy details.
Speaker 14: I can understand the number, but what I would like
Speaker 14: them to be answering is to say, look, based on
Speaker 14: last year's housing supply, we would be bringing in $ 170, 000,
Speaker 14: instead of the answer being you'll get a number in
Speaker 14: due course, you'll get a number in due course, because
Speaker 14: I think that really frustrates people.
Speaker 1: The number's just a small component of it, right? It is.
Speaker 1: What about the reform? What about all the other things
Speaker 1: that we're reading today that Labor are exploring? Where's the
Speaker 1: coalition with this reform?
Speaker 14: And they should be going hard, too, because Albanese is
Speaker 14: also now just backtracked on the refugees that he was
Speaker 14: going to be bringing in. He said, no, no, no,
Speaker 14: we're sticking with the 20,000. So this is the perfect
Speaker 14: chance for the coalition to come out and say, well,
Speaker 14: this is the number that we would be bringing in.
Speaker 14: If you're based on the last election, it would be
Speaker 14: around that 13,000 mark.
Speaker 1: But you are right.
Speaker 14: This is a time where they should be coming out
Speaker 14: very strong with at least just the policy idea. And
Speaker 14: then the number can come later on. But I think
Speaker 14: that's across the board in lots of policy ideas, Peter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but this is the problem, right, James? The policy
Speaker 1: constipation that we saw with Susan Lee and Peter Dutton
Speaker 1: eventually ended their times as leader. I saw Angus Taylor
Speaker 1: get to his feet in that address in reply in
Speaker 1: Budget Week. Cracker of a speech. Lots of elements in there.
Speaker 1: He won plaudits for days and days later and then
Speaker 1: they've hit the wall again.
Speaker 13: Well, they've hit the wall and, you know, I think
Speaker 13: there's a problem that they have with this idea that
Speaker 13: the dial goes up and down depending on housing because,
Speaker 13: you know, housing to people says, you know, that's crowding.
Speaker 13: That's also crowding our cities. So that means more people.
Speaker 13: So I think a lot of people will look at
Speaker 13: that and say, I actually don't want property developers to
Speaker 13: be in the driver's seat of how many people we
Speaker 13: bring into the country. I want Australia to be in
Speaker 13: the driver's seat for that. And I would love to see,
Speaker 13: and I think we've spoken about this before, some real
Speaker 13: boldness on this refugee question. Jamie just mentioned that Labor
Speaker 13: is not going to bring down the number. I would
Speaker 13: like to see a wholesale reinvention of the way we
Speaker 13: deal with refugees in this country. That refugee convention is
Speaker 13: one of the reasons why we have so many people
Speaker 13: here who are exhausting the Administrative Reviews Tribunal, all of
Speaker 13: this stuff, and they can stay forever. And they're not oppressed.
Speaker 13: They make up a story, and then some judge somewhere,
Speaker 13: and it kicks on and kicks on and kicks on,
Speaker 13: and it costs a fortune. And that needs to change
Speaker 13: before we do anything else.
Speaker 1: I'd limit appeals and I'd reform the appeal tribunal that
Speaker 1: they have now. I'd scrap a lot of the visa
Speaker 1: categories and, like you, I'd go hard on the convention.
Speaker 1: That's just a start. There you go, Angus Taylor. Four
Speaker 1: or five things. Get cracking. Alright, just before the break,
Speaker 1: this afternoon the Australian newspapers revealed that the government accidentally
Speaker 1: released cabinet documents without confidentially disclaimers. which were then passed
Speaker 1: on to witnesses for the Bondi Royal Commission. Now, yes,
Speaker 1: this is very embarrassing. But what's also interesting is that
Speaker 1: the documents were a review of the extremist de-radicalisation program
Speaker 1: called Step Together. Now, this is the program that has
Speaker 1: not been reviewed for more than six years, despite the
Speaker 1: millions being spent on it. and the fact that it
Speaker 1: was expanded nationally in July last year. Now, unfortunately, we
Speaker 1: don't know what was in the report that was erroneously disseminated.
Speaker 1: But as you know, I'd be very curious about how
Speaker 1: little we do know about these de-radicalisation programs. Clearly, the
Speaker 1: federal government has done an audit, but we are not
Speaker 1: being told whether these de-rad programs actually work for the
Speaker 1: millions we are spending. After the break, more on Australia's
Speaker 1: bleak property market and the impact, the continuing fallout from
Speaker 1: Jim Chalmers' bad budget. Plus, promising signs that corporate Australia
Speaker 1: might be getting a spine and starting to ditch woke.
Speaker 1: Ross Greenwood, coming up. Welcome back. Still to come, the
Speaker 1: latest on the Brumby Cull in New South Wales and
Speaker 1: this new alternative plan to save the wild horses. But first,
Speaker 1: as I said last night, nearly every day now we're
Speaker 1: getting a new story about Labor's botched budget and the
Speaker 1: litany of consequences that have come because of it. Today
Speaker 1: we learned that the number of properties listed for auction
Speaker 1: have almost halved this year, going from a peak of
Speaker 1: around 40% in March to now closer to 25%. Joining
Speaker 1: me now to discuss this and more on the desk
Speaker 1: as well, News 24's business editor, Ross Greenwood. You know,
Speaker 1: I can't remember another time where we're in August on
Speaker 1: the cusp of September, and we're still reeling from a
Speaker 1: bad budget. And almost every week, certainly every couple of days,
Speaker 1: we're getting another new unintended consequence as people have digged
Speaker 1: through the detail and seen that something they thought that
Speaker 1: might have been okay announced back in May has turned
Speaker 1: out to be a shocker.
Speaker 15: Well, that's right. And so the consequences, like the big consequence,
Speaker 15: is home prices are falling. Now, you'd sit there and
Speaker 15: say that the government may very well have decided that
Speaker 15: it wanted those home prices to fall because it says, well,
Speaker 15: we'll get investors out of the market and that'll give
Speaker 15: more opportunity to first home buyers. But the reality is
Speaker 15: there's no more homes being built. In fact, there's fewer
Speaker 15: homes being built. And the reason for that is because
Speaker 15: it's too expensive to build those homes. And while property
Speaker 15: prices are tanking... Builders don't build. That's just the pure
Speaker 15: mathematics of it. So then the second part of this
Speaker 15: is the mathematics of 13 or 14 million Australians own
Speaker 15: a home. They want those homes to at least maintain
Speaker 15: their value or to rise. So that's the maths. And
Speaker 15: then you've got around 110,000 to 120,000 people per year
Speaker 15: who are first home buyers, who really would like the
Speaker 15: home prices to fall. So you've got 14 million at
Speaker 15: one end, $ 120, 000 at the other end, and really you've
Speaker 15: got a great mismatch in the expectations and the outcomes.
Speaker 1: Just on those numbers, you're talking about that cohort that
Speaker 1: are madly trying to save as the prices look like
Speaker 1: they're falling to get into the home.
Speaker 15: That's right.
Speaker 1: Well, they're likely renters as well, right?
Speaker 15: That's it.
Speaker 1: So they're renters and rents are going up because the
Speaker 1: landlords are doing it tough. Because nobody's building.
Speaker 15: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And suddenly how do you save when your rent's going
Speaker 1: up to take advantage of of this momentary drop in
Speaker 1: the market?
Speaker 15: So what happens, what's the behavioural thing that happens? So
Speaker 15: what happens is that the investors stop investing, right? So
Speaker 15: what happens is that drives up the rents because there's
Speaker 15: not enough investment properties out there for the growing population,
Speaker 15: which goes back to the migration question. And then the
Speaker 15: second thing that happens is that because the family home
Speaker 15: is now taxed favourably, a lot of people say, well,
Speaker 15: I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going
Speaker 15: to do up my family home and I'm going to
Speaker 15: sit on that and I won't change that.
Speaker 1: So it makes the system more sclerotic. It doesn't free
Speaker 1: up stock.
Speaker 15: That's right.
Speaker 1: And, of course, if you're about to retire, this is
Speaker 1: a bad time to retire. If you want to downsize,
Speaker 1: you won't downsize. Again, that's a problem. But if you
Speaker 1: have to sell... If you're going through a divorce or
Speaker 1: any other sort of personal.
Speaker 15: Or you've lost a business, whatever it might be, they're
Speaker 15: the main reasons why people sell. You're going to become unemployed.
Speaker 15: And remember also the unemployment rate is now starting to
Speaker 15: tick up. So there will be ultimately some people who
Speaker 15: are forced to sell homes. And in those cases, they're
Speaker 15: really going to have to accept what the market's going
Speaker 15: to offer.
Speaker 1: Now, is that a 5% fall.
Speaker 15: A 10% fall, a 12%? Where does it land? So
Speaker 15: what's the bottom out here? Well, the bottom, some people
Speaker 15: are suggesting it's 10%. It's already down in Melbourne and
Speaker 15: Sydney by between 4% and 5%, and probably in some
Speaker 15: suburbs even greater than that. But, of course, the forced
Speaker 15: seller is always going to have to accept what the
Speaker 15: buyer is wanting to offer, and so that's why the
Speaker 15: bargains will turn up.
Speaker 9: Mm.
Speaker 15: But the second part about this is it's about trying
Speaker 15: to skew more investment into new homes to try and
Speaker 15: get developers to start to build. The problem there is
Speaker 15: the people who want to buy first homes need to
Speaker 15: pay probably $ 800, 000 tops.
Speaker 1: They can't pay the $ 1. 3 to $ 1.
Speaker 15: 5 million that is needed for a developer of a
Speaker 15: new home to make a profit. And unless a developer
Speaker 15: can feel as though they've got a good chance of
Speaker 15: making a profit, they don't build. And so the problem
Speaker 15: keeps on just rolling along.
Speaker 1: OK, the banks are writing less loans.
Speaker 13: Yes.
Speaker 1: So their book's going to fall. And if their book falls,
Speaker 1: it's probably going to have some sort of market shift,
Speaker 1: market hit or profitability hit. And we've all got banking shares,
Speaker 1: most of us in our super, if not more. What's
Speaker 1: this done politically to Jim Chalmers? Because He fancies himself
Speaker 1: to take on the top job. after Albanese exit stage left.
Speaker 1: How's he seen out there in the real world?
Speaker 15: Well, look, I think the truth is that Jim Chalmers
Speaker 15: is an exceptional communicator. There is no doubt about that.
Speaker 15: But the fact of the matter is that the government.
Speaker 1: But he's selling a dog.
Speaker 15: Yeah, well, that's right. The government has now got to
Speaker 15: be accountable for trying to sell a message that the community,
Speaker 15: the 14 million homeowners, don't want to buy.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 15: Because they can see it's affecting their hip pocket in
Speaker 15: some way. Now, it is fair to say that while
Speaker 15: you had three interest rate cuts in an election year...
Speaker 15: Home prices, home values after COVID move pretty rapidly ahead.
Speaker 15: And so a lot of people are happy to sit
Speaker 15: on that profit and if it drops off by 10%,
Speaker 15: they can wear it. But there's a group in our
Speaker 15: community who can't wear that, who may be going into retirement,
Speaker 15: who have really banked the idea that this home is
Speaker 15: worth this price. And this is where there's going to
Speaker 15: be disgruntlement at the government. over its measures, because this
Speaker 15: is really an own goal. This is of their making.
Speaker 15: This is about the redistribution of the wealth in Australia
Speaker 15: versus the growing of the pie, which the Business Council
Speaker 15: this week told the Prime Minister when he was sitting
Speaker 15: there and was a guest speaker at their annual dinner.
Speaker 1: And again, I say this, and this happens with all
Speaker 1: of their policies at the moment. It's Labor's people that
Speaker 1: are being hurt here. It's not the rich. They're insulated, right? Yep.
Speaker 1: It's not the welfare class, the true welfare class, because
Speaker 1: they've got a safety net under them. It's middle class
Speaker 1: to lower income Australians that are hit fairly severely.
Speaker 15: Who feel like they're working their guts out right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and going nowhere. And this is it.
Speaker 15: And you've got probably two people working in that family.
Speaker 15: They've got to have kids in childcare. They prefer to
Speaker 15: have more time with their kids. So you're right, the
Speaker 15: stresses are growing in those families. But then on top
Speaker 15: of that, you've had three interest rate rises this year
Speaker 15: from the Reserve Bank. And now the markets are telling
Speaker 15: you there's going to be another one. And the reason
Speaker 15: for that is because homegrown inflation. The government can't now
Speaker 15: point at the Middle East and say, ah, it's all
Speaker 15: inflation that's come from... No. What really economists are saying,
Speaker 15: and what you saw in the inflation report yesterday, is
Speaker 15: this is homegrown inflation. This is wages rising. This is
Speaker 15: the fact that despite the fact that you've had the
Speaker 15: three interest rate rises and home prices are falling... Many
Speaker 15: Australians are literally still spending money. And so as a result,
Speaker 15: another interest rate rise is likely. Now, it's often said
Speaker 15: that you don't really feel the genuine pain. It's a
Speaker 15: bit like the straws on a camel's back. You know,
Speaker 15: the camel stands up fine until you put the last
Speaker 15: straw on. And the interesting thing is interest rate rises
Speaker 15: are just like that. You don't feel the economy sort
Speaker 15: of tend to cripple itself until you put the final
Speaker 15: interest rate rise on. Now, you wonder whether that's enough
Speaker 15: or is there one more after that as well?
Speaker 1: Quickly, quickly, quickly. Woodside, are we still in the end
Speaker 1: of woke? They've stepped away from some of these big
Speaker 1: multi-billion dollar green energy policies.
Speaker 15: Well, they've just had to simply because it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: So, yes? Yeah, the answer is yes.
Speaker 9: Yeah, good. 100%.
Speaker 15: And there's going to be more companies will do the
Speaker 15: same thing. Because they can ultimately see that these policies
Speaker 15: are leading them down a path where it's way too
Speaker 15: expensive and really not justifiable to their shareholders that they
Speaker 15: are accountable to.
Speaker 1: Got to leave it there. The boys are in my ear.
Speaker 1: That's OK. Thanks, Ross.
Speaker 4: No problems.
Speaker 1: All right, quick break. After the break, we're going to
Speaker 1: get into the Brumby story and get you an update
Speaker 1: that looks like there might be a very slight reprieve.
Speaker 1: It's temporary, but I'll get you the details in a moment.
Speaker 1: Welcome back. Still to come, the court case that's dividing America.
Speaker 1: Mother Lindsay Clancy claims postpartum depression drove her to kill
Speaker 1: her three children. The political fallout here too is huge.
Speaker 1: But first, that update I promised you on the Brumby
Speaker 1: Cull in New South Wales because I know so many
Speaker 1: of you have written to me on this issue. There's
Speaker 1: been a temporary reprieve, at least for some of these
Speaker 1: wild horses, with a last-minute court bid halting the culling
Speaker 1: at Eurega National Park. The cull was set to start
Speaker 1: this week, but it will now be on hold until
Speaker 1: the matter returns to the court on the 9th of September.
Speaker 1: Joining me now, though, someone who's right across the detail
Speaker 1: of the cull to date, Managing Director of the Umbungo
Speaker 1: South Wild Brumby Sanctuary in New South Wales Riverina, Jenny Cole. Jenny,
Speaker 1: I am not over-exaggerating here when I say the Brumby
Speaker 1: cause is hugely popular with my viewers. They've contacted me.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad to have you here. What's the latest
Speaker 1: in the cull? You're out there on the front line, really.
Speaker 1: What can you tell us?
Speaker 12: Well, look, the hard thing at the moment is that
Speaker 12: the New South Wales Labor government is just not listening.
Speaker 12: We've got thousands and thousands of people signing petitions. We've
Speaker 12: had hundreds of people writing to the minister. We've had
Speaker 12: us putting together our fully costed proposal to government, multiple contacts,
Speaker 12: multiple respectful contacts with government and virtually no response. interaction
Speaker 12: at all. So it's just a closed door.
Speaker 1: And this is the Minister, Penny Sharpe. She's not returning.
Speaker 1: She's not even prepared to have an argument. No, nothing.
Speaker 12: And I guess that's what's really hard, too, is that
Speaker 12: people in Brumby world feel that there's absolutely nobody listening
Speaker 12: here in government. And yet they're listening very closely to
Speaker 12: the pro-coal lobby, which credits itself for changes in policy
Speaker 12: and which... basically is providing the words that the government
Speaker 12: is then speaking. So there's a real asymmetry in access.
Speaker 12: There's a real asymmetry in funding. You know, the government's
Speaker 12: spending millions of dollars funding mass killing of these wild
Speaker 12: horses and not investing one single cent beyond the trapping
Speaker 12: process into the non-lethal option, which is trapping, sorry, which
Speaker 12: is rehoming and sanctuary. So there's this massive asymmetry. And
Speaker 12: where we find the real challenge here is that Nobody
Speaker 12: actually knows how many horses are in that park. We
Speaker 12: know that the numbers are contested and last week Penny
Speaker 12: Sharp herself admitted that they're contested. The count from 2024
Speaker 12: to 2025, the raw count, only went up 19%. which
Speaker 12: is within the upper limits of natural biological increase. And
Speaker 12: yet when the numbers come out as an excuse for
Speaker 12: mass killing of these horses, suddenly it's up, by its estimates, 165%.
Speaker 12: It doesn't pass the pub test.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, do you think part of
Speaker 1: this is they're looking for the complete eradication of the horse? population,
Speaker 1: absolutely never to be seen again?
Speaker 12: That's our instinct. And certainly that's what the Invasive Species
Speaker 12: Council strategy is. Their strategy first was to lobby for
Speaker 12: reintroduction of aerial culling, which happened when the Labor government
Speaker 12: got in. Now they're saying they want no horses there
Speaker 12: at all, not even in retention zones. And our concern
Speaker 12: is that when they don't even know how many are there,
Speaker 12: the current management plan is in place till 2027. And
Speaker 12: yet they're killing these horses and removing them from the
Speaker 12: retention zone as well. And as far as we're concerned,
Speaker 12: we might be seeing the removal of the last horses and.
Speaker 1: Who would know. Well, we don't have a lot of
Speaker 1: time to save these horses. So let's focus on the politics.
Speaker 1: There's a state election in March in New South Wales.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 1: So you've got a prime opportunity. My view is you've
Speaker 1: got a prime opportunity there. To make a difference, contacting
Speaker 1: Penny Sharp is a brick wall. Yes. Chris Minns is
Speaker 1: the Premier. If anyone can overrule the Minister, it is
Speaker 1: Chris Minns. Have you had a meeting with Chris Minns? No.
Speaker 12: We wrote to Chris Minns when we hit a brick
Speaker 12: wall with Penny Sharp and her office and we asked
Speaker 12: for him to intervene on a governance issue and to
Speaker 12: actually talk with us and to look at the oversight.
Speaker 1: At least hear you out. At least hear us out.
Speaker 12: We didn't even get a thank you for writing to
Speaker 12: us from him.
Speaker 1: That's not good enough. Not good enough. And you've got
Speaker 1: support from the National Party. You've got support from One Nation.
Speaker 1: You've got terrific support from Angus Taylor. I've seen him
Speaker 1: on his horse. He's a huge supporter of the Brumbies.
Speaker 1: But where are the New South Wales Liberals?
Speaker 12: As far as we're aware, the current New South Wales
Speaker 12: Liberals are pro-cull and we are at a loss to
Speaker 12: understand why.
Speaker 1: OK, wake up, Liberals. Come on, wake up, Liberals.
Speaker 12: Particularly because there is a non-lethal alternative and that alternative
Speaker 12: has never been funded. Can you tell me honestly that
Speaker 12: aerial culling or even ground shooting would succeed if you
Speaker 12: didn't spend money on it?
Speaker 15: No.
Speaker 1: And so we.
Speaker 12: Need the Liberal Party and to join the Nationals and
Speaker 12: others to to support rehoming.
Speaker 1: Why don't you have a trial, Jenny? Why don't you
Speaker 1: have a trial of what you're putting up? Well, that's
Speaker 1: what we've asked for. Closed door. All right. Well, we'll
Speaker 1: keep up the pressure. All credit to you and all
Speaker 1: the work that you do. Thank you. And I'll keep
Speaker 1: doing my best here to raise awareness. Thank you.
Speaker 13: Liberals.
Speaker 1: New South Wales Liberals, I've got my eye on you.
Speaker 1: Please listen to Angus Taylor. Angus, pick up the phone,
Speaker 1: call your counterparts in New South Wales and tell them
Speaker 1: to lift their game and please at home, contact Chris Minns,
Speaker 1: contact the New South Wales Liberals and let's see where
Speaker 1: this goes. Quick break. After the break, imagine if a
Speaker 1: father was charged with murdering his three children as opposed
Speaker 1: to a mother. Would there be protesters in support of
Speaker 1: him like there is for her outside the court? Welcome back.
Speaker 1: Let's jump into the news around the world with my
Speaker 1: international panel, News24 contributor Kosha Garda and former Labor MP
Speaker 1: Michael Damby, who joins us tonight from Vietnam. Michael, you're
Speaker 1: away offshore. I want to go to some... Shocking scenes
Speaker 1: out of Nepal, if I can. That footage, really hard
Speaker 1: to watch. I'll give you a warning, please, at home.
Speaker 1: It's a flash flood, Michael. And look, we all know
Speaker 1: what a flash flood is. But this shocked me when
Speaker 1: I saw the images earlier today. The absolute force of
Speaker 1: that water... I mean, I can't imagine if you saw
Speaker 1: it coming for you that you'd have any opportunity to
Speaker 1: get out of the way. I know we've got Australians
Speaker 1: missing and we can only hope and pray that the
Speaker 1: numbers of those we're told have not been found, that
Speaker 1: that number comes down. But, Michael, your thoughts?
Speaker 16: It's said to be on the Nepalese-China border, but it's
Speaker 16: in fact Old Tibet, Nepal and Tibet, and that's probably
Speaker 16: why there are so many Australians there.
Speaker 9: And....
Speaker 16: I am surprised at the amount of environmental degradation in
Speaker 16: the high Himalayas, but that's largely due to the incredibly
Speaker 16: abusive way Beijing treats the Himalayas. So I think that's
Speaker 16: at least partially responsible for the vast erosion on the
Speaker 16: hillsides and the depletion of the, they call it the
Speaker 16: third ice cap in the world.
Speaker 1: Let's go to that trial, a murder trial in the US.
Speaker 1: Lindsay Clancy is the mother's name, alleged to have killed
Speaker 1: her three children, eight, five and three. Mental health is
Speaker 1: the key issue here. Prosecutors say she deliberately killed the children. Defence,
Speaker 1: they say she was experiencing postpartum psychosis. Hugely polarising case
Speaker 1: in the US, Koshu, and I said going into the break,
Speaker 1: I don't suspect if a dad had been accused of
Speaker 1: killing three of his children, there would be the sort
Speaker 1: of pro-Lindsay protests that we're seeing out the front of
Speaker 1: the court, would we? Probably not.
Speaker 17: I think, you know, in the court of public opinion,
Speaker 17: there's this swath of society that's very feminized, very much
Speaker 17: they see everything through the framework of paternalism, and somehow
Speaker 17: it's either the system's fault and she's a victim of
Speaker 17: the system or the victim of a culture that led
Speaker 17: her to do this. That's where I think those people
Speaker 17: are litigating this. The fan club, for lack of a
Speaker 17: better word, outside the courthouse, see it as some sort
Speaker 17: of indictment of that.
Speaker 1: Now, that is part of the picture, for sure.
Speaker 17: The ex-husband has filed a civil suit against one of
Speaker 17: the psychiatrists that she was seeing, who prescribed her all
Speaker 17: manner of drugs without doing a full assessment of what
Speaker 17: other drugs she had been prescribed on previously. And that's
Speaker 17: going to run its course in the civil courts. So
Speaker 17: that's certainly a factor. But it should not obfuscate or
Speaker 17: take away from the act, the heinous act that she
Speaker 17: did commit. But it's all coming down to ultimately she
Speaker 17: will be locked up and nobody's denying that. But is
Speaker 17: she going to be locked up in a mental institution
Speaker 17: or in a prison? And that's what has gripped the
Speaker 17: nation and really the world in this story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just so sad. Let's go to that starting
Speaker 1: exchange between Fox News host Jesse Water and Michigan Democrat
Speaker 1: Senate nominee Abdul El-Saeed. This is on Sharia law. Let's
Speaker 1: have a look.
Speaker 11: You said getting rid of Sharia law was white supremacy.
Speaker 1: Can you explain that one?
Speaker 9: Do you know what canon law is, Jesse?
Speaker 1: I assume you're Christian, right? Yeah, tell me.
Speaker 9: All right, so canon law is the name for Christian law.
Speaker 9: I don't begrudge you your right to practice your faith
Speaker 9: as you choose. I don't know why the idea that
Speaker 9: I could practice my faith as I choose is a problem.
Speaker 9: Nobody is trying to push Sharia law on anyone else,
Speaker 9: just like I hope nobody is trying to push canon
Speaker 9: law on anybody else.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll let you speak for Jews there, Michael, but
Speaker 1: I'd have to say for Christians, our law, canon law,
Speaker 1: Christian canon law, rarely breaches Australian law. But I tell
Speaker 1: you what, the rules of Sharia law absolutely do. How
Speaker 1: can you make this sort of comment?
Speaker 16: Well, I'll say it is that epitome of that system
Speaker 16: of the Red-Green Alliance. And the Green Alliance is the
Speaker 16: Islamist tradition that does highlight Sharia law. It's something he's
Speaker 16: trying to evade because Michigan, with its city of Detroit,
Speaker 16: should be a Democrat city. But I think if anyone's
Speaker 16: going to defeat the Democrats in the Senate, it's going
Speaker 16: to be El-Sayed.
Speaker 1: Where's this headed, Kosha?
Speaker 17: He, I think, knows exactly what he's doing, to be
Speaker 17: perfectly blunt, where he is riding the wave of demographics
Speaker 17: which favor him, and he's riding the wave of the
Speaker 17: coalition of the fringes, that there's just enough of these
Speaker 17: fringe elements in society— and he's surmised in that electorate— that will
Speaker 17: come together, despite what he says. They're probably not even
Speaker 17: listening to what he says. They probably don't understand what
Speaker 17: canon law means. And he knows that, but he comes
Speaker 17: across in a good package. He sounds good to people
Speaker 17: that aren't paying attention too deeply, and they will vote
Speaker 17: based on party lines and based on the fact that
Speaker 17: he somehow is representing the oppressed. That seems to be
Speaker 17: the framework. And I think it's going to be very,
Speaker 17: very close. Even though the Republican candidate is strong, this
Speaker 17: is going to be a complete squeaker. It is certainly
Speaker 17: not in the bag for the Republicans at all.
Speaker 16: Peter and Koshy, the mere fact that he appears on
Speaker 16: Fox shows that he's tacking to the centre. So he's
Speaker 16: a dangerous extreme leftist.
Speaker 3: Smart one.
Speaker 15: Yeah, well.
Speaker 1: Just quickly, Koshu, if I can, you know, this big
Speaker 1: payout for Meta, this is on stronger measures to protect children.
Speaker 1: Will we see this money in Australia, do you think?
Speaker 1: I think so, possibly.
Speaker 17: I mean, it's really a rounding error for Meta. 18
Speaker 17: billion US dollars is nothing. But what the significance of
Speaker 17: it is, is it was a jury trial that led
Speaker 17: to that defense. And that just continues to pierce at
Speaker 17: that argument. It sets a precedent that courts around the
Speaker 17: world will continue to look at. It probably shifts responsibility
Speaker 17: from parenting into these platforms. But broadly speaking, it's piercing,
Speaker 17: I think, the power structure that big tech has become.
Speaker 17: And in that sense, it is something that I think
Speaker 17: will have legs.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you to you both. Thank you to my
Speaker 1: wonderful viewers. Enjoy a lovely weekend, even though it's not
Speaker 1: the weekend yet. It certainly is for me. I will
Speaker 1: see you on Monday. Here's the Bolt Report.