Speaker 1: Live on Sky News. This is Shari.
Speaker 2: Good evening and welcome to the program. Caleb Bond in
Speaker 2: for Sharry Marson all week, and congratulations to my colleague
Speaker 2: James McPherson, who has just got engaged. He what's coming
Speaker 2: up on the program tonight. The case against the Racial
Speaker 2: Discrimination Act. Today's judgment won't stop anti Semitism, but it
Speaker 2: does expose some hard truths that we need to face.
Speaker 2: My thoughts on this in just a moment. Plus, the
Speaker 2: list of critics against Albanese's controversial supertax grows, with ACTU
Speaker 2: boss Sally McManus slamming it today or in. Hogan will
Speaker 2: be on to discuss later. And a new study suggests
Speaker 2: that margarant mothers are more likely to give birth to
Speaker 2: sons rather than daughters. A demographer will be on to
Speaker 2: explain the impacts of this further on Now. The case
Speaker 2: against Muslim preacher Wisdom Hadad. I'm sure you've seen. The
Speaker 2: Federal court today found that he breached section eighteen C
Speaker 2: of the Racial Discrimination Act in the number of sermons
Speaker 2: that were also posted online. Now, look, I don't think
Speaker 2: that eighteen C should exist. I think it's a handbreak
Speaker 2: on free speech. And that it has on many occasions
Speaker 2: been weaponized against genuine debate in this country, just as
Speaker 2: it was against our colleague here at Sky News, Andrew Bolt,
Speaker 2: fourteen years ago. I think it was ridiculous that Pauline
Speaker 2: Hanson was found to have breached the law when she
Speaker 2: told Green Senator Marine Ferruki to pack her bags and
Speaker 2: pisce off back to Pakistan. Other successful cases include a
Speaker 2: counselor who made a joke about shooting Aboriginal people, one
Speaker 2: against the Victorian government for referring to the Macedonian language
Speaker 2: the wrong way, and now did broadcast to Howard Satler
Speaker 2: God Rest his Soul, who allowed callers to make jokes
Speaker 2: about Aboriginal people and a sacred site. Now, any right
Speaker 2: thinking person, including me, would find that kind of stuff
Speaker 2: to be offensive, insulting, humiliating or potentially intimidating, which is
Speaker 2: what eighteen C covers. But my point is that it's
Speaker 2: not the law's job to stop people from being racist,
Speaker 2: and it never will stop people from being racist, because
Speaker 2: even if they stop staying stuff openly, they'll still say
Speaker 2: it privately, and their garbage will simply go underground to
Speaker 2: places where it's harder to detect. So I want to
Speaker 2: make it clear I've always been opposed to eighteen C.
Speaker 2: I still am opposed to eighteen C. And that doesn't
Speaker 2: change because in this case, I'm more sympathetic to those
Speaker 2: who took on an Islamic preacher. Having said that, I
Speaker 2: understand why the Executive Council of Australian Jury ran this
Speaker 2: case against Hadad, first because the law is available to them,
Speaker 2: and second because things were said, in my view that
Speaker 2: could incite violence or at least justified violence at some
Speaker 2: point in time against Jews. Now, clearly the criminal law
Speaker 2: as it stands doesn't agree with me on that, and
Speaker 2: Jewish Australians were sick of watching ramp and antisemitism go
Speaker 2: on unchecked, so they launched this case. It got to
Speaker 2: the point where the criminal law hadn't dealt with anything,
Speaker 2: so they took the civil options that were available to them. Now,
Speaker 2: much of what Hadad said in his sermons business about
Speaker 2: Jews being descendants of pigs and apes, etc. Was found
Speaker 2: to be wrong in theological fact. And I've read these
Speaker 2: particular texts myself, and that is right. The Quran doesn't
Speaker 2: refer to Jews in general as descendants of pigs and apes,
Speaker 2: but refers to particular Jews who were cursed by Allah
Speaker 2: and literally turned into apes. Most of the rest of
Speaker 2: it this case I'm talking about, focused on age old
Speaker 2: anti Semitic tropes. But I would point out some interesting
Speaker 2: parts from this judgment from the Federal court. One is
Speaker 2: that the idea that Islam is not critical of Jews
Speaker 2: as people, but.
Speaker 3: The expert witnesses on Islamic theology from both sides agree
Speaker 3: that neither the Qur'an nor the Hadith teach that Jews
Speaker 3: have an inherent negative quality as a people. Ibrahim, the
Speaker 3: respondents expert said that is does not encourage hatred towards Jews.
Speaker 3: I was not called on to decide whether religious belief
Speaker 3: can ever be a justification for propagating racist, bigotry and hate.
Speaker 2: Now that may will be true, But I would then
Speaker 2: ask the question, why does some Muslims, not all, but
Speaker 2: certainly some seem to hate Jews. I mean, maybe their
Speaker 2: texts don't specifically command them to hate Jews, but I
Speaker 2: don't think you could argue that long historical conflicts between
Speaker 2: Jews and Muslims, including the one currently going on between
Speaker 2: Israel and Gaza, have been ethno religious And even with
Speaker 2: the judgment today, will it's stop anti semitism? I don't
Speaker 2: think so. The law cannot retrospectively change people's beliefs. It
Speaker 2: won't stop people from being racist, even if there are
Speaker 2: some restrictions on what they can say in public. In fact,
Speaker 2: there's a pretty good body of evidence to suggest that
Speaker 2: the more you tell people not to do or think things,
Speaker 2: particularly where religion is involved, the more they dig their heat.
Speaker 4: And you have to.
Speaker 2: Consider how we got to this point. I said this
Speaker 2: on air in February. We all know there are racist
Speaker 2: people in the world, but even most people who are
Speaker 2: racist don't feel comfortable talking publicly about how they really
Speaker 2: feel because they fear the consequences of their speech. These
Speaker 2: two clearly didn't fear the consequences of their speech. They
Speaker 2: didn't think they were doing anything wrong. And if you
Speaker 2: look around the country its synagogue's being firebombed and vandalized,
Speaker 2: and homes being attacked, and a federal government that's tiptoed
Speaker 2: around the issue for more than a year, that it's
Speaker 2: not hard to understand how they might come to that conclusion.
Speaker 2: I mean, let's be clear, anti Semitism is not new.
Speaker 2: It has existed for a long time, and we've probably
Speaker 2: imported more of it into this country. I'll get to
Speaker 2: that in the moment. But a lot of anti Semites
Speaker 2: or people with anti Semitic undertones who previously wouldn't have
Speaker 2: said anything, now feel like they can because they think
Speaker 2: their strength in numbers, and that's how you end up
Speaker 2: with cases like Hadad. He may well have thought and
Speaker 2: even been preaching stuff like this for a long time,
Speaker 2: but in the context of how things have gone in
Speaker 2: the past couple of years, he felt comfortable not only
Speaker 2: to preach that stuff at the Al Madina Duar Center,
Speaker 2: but to post it online. And Hadad has ten thousand
Speaker 2: followers on Instagram, so he has a reasonable following. What
Speaker 2: was dealt with today, of course, is the least of
Speaker 2: our worries. Hadad and the Al Madeen Duar Center have
Speaker 2: been accused of radicalizing young people.
Speaker 4: A todd Ez, you'll think you are in an Isol
Speaker 4: camp in Syria or in Irak. The materials of ISOL videos,
Speaker 4: the songs of Isols. They are aware about all this information.
Speaker 5: The leader of the center, with some Hadad also known
Speaker 5: as Abu Said, is a notorious hate preacher.
Speaker 4: Are you suggesting he radicalized them. Yes, they became extremist
Speaker 4: after they attended and Medina Dawa Centaur and been and
Speaker 4: have been exposed to the speech and the listeners.
Speaker 2: And sure Hadad has been dealt with in court today
Speaker 2: for his preachings, But what about all the people who
Speaker 2: go to his Islamic center. How many other people might
Speaker 2: be preaching these sorts of things in Australia that we
Speaker 2: don't know about Islamic preachings such as this is incompatible
Speaker 2: with Australian culture and values in our way of life.
Speaker 2: And I accept that the court today was dealing specifically
Speaker 2: with Hadad and his preachings and his interpretations of Islam.
Speaker 2: But I ask this, where was the Australian National Imam's
Speaker 2: Council today? Did they condemn her Dad? No, they said nothing.
Speaker 2: The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils said nothing today. The
Speaker 2: Lebanese Muslim Association so said nothing today. All of those
Speaker 2: organizations have previously been given the opportunity to condemn the
Speaker 2: preachings of Hadad and they have refused to do so.
Speaker 2: The biggest Islamic representative bodies in this country will not
Speaker 2: condemn the hate preaching of Hadad even after he's lost
Speaker 2: in court. What does that tell you? Hadad even described
Speaker 2: during the court case how shakh Shady Alissamaine, the president
Speaker 2: of the National m M's Council, was the man who
Speaker 2: took him under his wing. He told the court shake
Speaker 2: Shady taught me through Islamic scripture and lessons that the
Speaker 2: life I was living was spiritually wrong and that the
Speaker 2: people I was affiliating myself with were not living in
Speaker 2: accordance with the origins of Islam. Now I've extended the
Speaker 2: opportunity to the National Imam's Council to come on the
Speaker 2: show and condemn Hadad or explain why they think he
Speaker 2: shouldn't be condemned, and I hope they take it up.
Speaker 2: My door is open. We'll see tonight. And consider that
Speaker 2: the Almadina Duas Center is in Bankstown. This is an
Speaker 2: area where the top ancestry is Lebanese sixteen point eight
Speaker 2: percent of the population compared to two point two percent
Speaker 2: of the New South Wales population. Nearly two thirds of
Speaker 2: the population have two parents born Overseas sixty two point
Speaker 2: nine percent. Less than a fifth have two parents born
Speaker 2: in Australia. The top religion is Islam twenty five point
Speaker 2: six percent of the population, compared to four point three
Speaker 2: percent of New South Wales. The top language spoken at
Speaker 2: home other than English is Arabic twenty one point two
Speaker 2: percent compared to two point eight percent of New South Wales. Now,
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that every Muslim or every Arab who
Speaker 2: lives in Bankstown would agree with what Hadad has said,
Speaker 2: but I am saying we should be very careful about
Speaker 2: importing cultures, people from cultures and religions who may sometimes
Speaker 2: hold extremist views that are anathema to ours, and then
Speaker 2: allowing them to flourish. When you have extremeistviews and tell
Speaker 2: people they're free to express them here, then you end
Speaker 2: up with division and disharmony. And that's how this ended
Speaker 2: up in court. Well onto some of the other news
Speaker 2: of the day. It was a busy morning for the
Speaker 2: Prime Minister. He was on a media blitz and he
Speaker 2: spent most of it defending his inability to snag a
Speaker 2: meeting with Trump. Do you expect Pennywong to get you
Speaker 2: a meeting with Trump while she's at the quad?
Speaker 6: Wong's meeting is with foreign ministers. I expect her to
Speaker 6: have a meeting with her co foreign ministers.
Speaker 7: The President was actually elected last November. You've had plenty
Speaker 7: of time before our own election to actually visit him.
Speaker 7: Are you now looking at this and thinking it was
Speaker 7: a mistake to leave it this late?
Speaker 2: No? A little bit embarrassing, hasn't that pretty simple question?
Speaker 4: When are you going to meet the Donald?
Speaker 8: Look?
Speaker 6: Where we'll meet when we meet in coming months. But
Speaker 6: my priority has been on delivering for Australian.
Speaker 2: Let's bring in my panel now, Former Liberal Senator Holly Hughes.
Speaker 2: Do you feel free? Holy? Today is the first day
Speaker 2: outside of It's.
Speaker 9: Really quite liberating. Where else would I want to be?
Speaker 10: I'm here with you and with me later on.
Speaker 2: On the Late Debate, and of course is always on
Speaker 2: a Tuesday form of Speaker of the House. Bronwin Bishop,
Speaker 2: you escaped Parliament to quite some time ago, so you
Speaker 2: must be feeling nice and.
Speaker 8: Relaxed, having spent thirty years there.
Speaker 2: I think you would you have you would do for
Speaker 2: a break this business with Paul Keating getting involved in
Speaker 2: the supertax. You know that the architects only of course,
Speaker 2: of compulsory superannuation and the Prime Minister's sort of dancing
Speaker 2: around some of that stuff that the Trump stuff will
Speaker 2: get to in a minute. But he couldn't answer straight
Speaker 2: this morning what he felt about Keating's intervention.
Speaker 9: No, and I think that was just the warm art
Speaker 9: cat for Paul Keating. I think he's going to have
Speaker 9: plenty more to say, as Paul Keating is wont to do.
Speaker 9: But I think it's interesting as well that saliment Manis
Speaker 9: has now come out as well. So when you've got
Speaker 9: the head of the Unions, the architect of this superannuation
Speaker 9: scheme in its entirety, condemning a labor government over its
Speaker 9: plans and how unfair it is going to be, particularly
Speaker 9: on younger Australians, and this government is so arrogant that
Speaker 9: they're refusing to budge in any shape or form. I
Speaker 9: think says an awful lot about them.
Speaker 2: Indeed, I'll talk to Warren Hogan about a bit more
Speaker 2: about that later on the Trump stuff from one, I mean,
Speaker 2: he was basically saying this morning, Ah, you know, there'll
Speaker 2: be a meeting at some point, we'll get around to it.
Speaker 2: He doesn't even seem to be interested.
Speaker 8: He's not, And to send Penny Wong there, she may
Speaker 8: as well continue her journey and go to Beijing, because
Speaker 8: basically what is happening is that under Alberanzi, a capital
Speaker 8: s socialist, capital s socialist, he is moving us away
Speaker 8: from our traditional alliance where we are totally dependent. At
Speaker 8: the moment where he pretends to spend money on defense
Speaker 8: and lies about it, he listens to Beijing when they say,
Speaker 8: don't spend any more money on defense. We like it
Speaker 8: the way it is. That's the way he wants it.
Speaker 8: So we are in a very difficult position. He stands
Speaker 8: there and we can laugh and say, oh, how ridiculous
Speaker 8: he looks, how tongue tied, how stupid he looks. But
Speaker 8: really it's far more serious than that. Our alliance has
Speaker 8: been in solid shape for decades. We have been comrades
Speaker 8: at arms, we have fought and bled together through wars.
Speaker 8: And yet this man, with his arrogance and his lies
Speaker 8: and his socialist tendencies, wants to take away our freedoms
Speaker 8: and we'll see this country a vassal state where we
Speaker 8: pay homage. He has reduced this country to being just
Speaker 8: a farm and a mine. We are the lowest manufacturing
Speaker 8: nation in the OECD, and that is all because of
Speaker 8: this man's policies. They are socialist policies and they are
Speaker 8: destroying US.
Speaker 2: Well, you mention Penny Wong in the US. She's just
Speaker 2: gone off to Washington to meet with Kevin Rudd and
Speaker 2: of course do the Quad all the foreign ministers. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, she's taking happy snaps there with Rada. I'm
Speaker 2: sure that makes her feel good. But as you point out, Bronwin,
Speaker 2: you know, we are at one of the lowest points
Speaker 2: we've probably ever had with the United States. So if
Speaker 2: Wong doesn't come home Holly with a meeting wind up
Speaker 2: for alban Easy with Donald Trump, there was no point
Speaker 2: of her going right, or.
Speaker 9: A tariff exemption, something else that could be discussed.
Speaker 2: That's She's in the room with Marco Rubio, look, and.
Speaker 9: He has a very close relationship with Trump. And I
Speaker 9: can't imagine Penny is going to do anything to further
Speaker 9: and dear herself to the Americans, particularly with her very
Speaker 9: weak stance and what's happened in Israel, what her performance
Speaker 9: at the UN has been like, and what Australia has
Speaker 9: voted in against the US there as well. I mean,
Speaker 9: she is not in a position to go and demand anything.
Speaker 9: And I think think it's just a continuation. Bromwin is
Speaker 9: one hundred percent right, but it's getting It's embarrassing, but
Speaker 9: it's dangerous, incredibly dangerous. From a geographic perspective, we are
Speaker 9: so isolated from the rest of the world, but strategically we're.
Speaker 10: Very important for the US.
Speaker 9: Yet they are more fixated on focusing on China and
Speaker 9: the relationship with China, and if they don't increase the
Speaker 9: defense spending or they don't make some serious overtures in
Speaker 9: that area. Again, to Bromin's point, it's just proof that
Speaker 9: the Chinese ambassadors op ed was really their new white
Speaker 9: paper for the defense.
Speaker 2: Well, in all your years in public life, Bronwin, did
Speaker 2: you ever think we would get to a point like this?
Speaker 8: No, I didn't. Then I never thought Albanese would ever
Speaker 8: be leader and elected. I just feel that we are
Speaker 8: we are rudderless with this.
Speaker 9: Unfortunately we're not ruddless. We've got run in throwing our relationship.
Speaker 10: If only we were.
Speaker 8: Ruddless, what a three albanezy wog and rug and you
Speaker 8: expect to have a good relationship with the presidents in
Speaker 8: the United States. Look, it is, as I said, it
Speaker 8: is a far more serious matter than it is being taken.
Speaker 8: People laugh and say, oh, he's running around trying to
Speaker 8: get a meeting and roadway and talk to him.
Speaker 5: And it's far.
Speaker 8: More serious than that. And I want to hear the
Speaker 8: opposition come out loudly and bulkling on this issue too,
Speaker 8: because it is vital and the American people and the
Speaker 8: President needs to know that there is a strong commitment
Speaker 8: to our alliance, that the Australian people do want to
Speaker 8: continue this strong alliance. And if there's no leadership being
Speaker 8: given anywhere, then it starts to fall apart.
Speaker 2: It's a very good point to quickly. Have had a
Speaker 2: bit of good news meet in Livestock Australia, the representative
Speaker 2: body for the red meat industry. They've dumped their net
Speaker 2: zero by twenty thirty gold because cattle farmer is a
Speaker 2: sick of being blamed for climate change because the cows
Speaker 2: built and built elch and fart too much, and so
Speaker 2: they've said we're doing away with a thirty seconds each. Holly, Finally,
Speaker 2: some common sense hasn't got People are starting to come
Speaker 2: bring on.
Speaker 9: The ribbi And luckily for you, Caleber almost mastered the
Speaker 9: burnet sauce. So next dinner party will be a cracker
Speaker 9: full of redmade test. It's so sensible.
Speaker 10: If only the.
Speaker 9: Liberal Party could get itself together and start to look
Speaker 9: at doing the same sort of thing.
Speaker 2: Well, this is exactly the point. Right while they're going,
Speaker 2: oh will we won't will you? I mean they still
Speaker 2: don't have any real policy agenda. You've got other people
Speaker 2: saying look knit to it doesn't work, We're going to
Speaker 2: walk away from it. Even Tony Blair says it.
Speaker 8: For evens say Australia is so far behind when it
Speaker 8: comes to these issues. The rest of the world is
Speaker 8: walking away from the idiocy of this global warming religion,
Speaker 8: and yet we are still committed. Although I see mister
Speaker 8: Bowman is now having to go back on these words
Speaker 8: and say, oh we need guests after all, isn't it amazing?
Speaker 8: So suddenly the Narrowboro guess was might take off. But
Speaker 8: the whole point of it is is that we take
Speaker 8: up technology quickly in this country somebody else's technology, but
Speaker 8: when it comes to making our own policy decisions and
Speaker 8: our own stance. By saying we are the richest blessed
Speaker 8: country with energy in the world and it is the
Speaker 8: only competitive edch we have, the only one and we're
Speaker 8: sending our own firms broke because of it. This then, seriously,
Speaker 8: we have just got to say we're going to use
Speaker 8: our own resources. And with regard to twenty fifty and
Speaker 8: net zero, I'm going home to have a good steak.
Speaker 2: Heah here. I hope I'll be doing the same when
Speaker 2: I leave tonight too, probably with a nice bottle of red.
Speaker 2: I think Ron within Bishop Holly Hughes will see you
Speaker 2: again at ten pm hear me on the late debate.
Speaker 2: Thank you to both of you. Now, if you're in
Speaker 2: Sydney on New South Wales, you don't need me to
Speaker 2: tell you. It's been cold and rainy today. But we've
Speaker 2: apparently been hit by a bond cyclone which all sounds
Speaker 2: a bit violent, but torrential run and damaging winds have
Speaker 2: puneled parts of the steak. The latest details and warnings.
Speaker 2: I'm joined now by reporter Crystal Wu who's in Woollongong Crystal.
Speaker 2: Where has been affected today by this low precious system?
Speaker 2: What sort of rainfalls have we.
Speaker 11: Seen right along the coast, Caleb, It's affected the central
Speaker 11: coast and right down here in Wollongong Jervis Bay, about
Speaker 11: three hours south of Sydney saw more than two hundred
Speaker 11: millimes of rain, but the SES has issued four emergency
Speaker 11: warnings to the Central Coast due to a coastal erosion.
Speaker 11: So many people who live near the beach have been
Speaker 11: told to evacuate. We saw massive swells along multiple beaches today.
Speaker 11: Sydney also impacted by these. Travelers have been their flights
Speaker 11: have been delayed. They're feeling very frustrated. We know twenty
Speaker 11: two flights coming out of Sydney domestically have been canceled.
Speaker 11: Thirty two coming in have also been canceled. This strong
Speaker 11: destructive winds have also damaged power lines. So there was
Speaker 11: a gum tree that fell down on a power line
Speaker 11: north of Sydney earlier today that created power outages across
Speaker 11: hundreds of homes.
Speaker 2: Here in Wollongong.
Speaker 11: It hasn't stopped raining since last night. I can feel
Speaker 11: damaging winds expected to continue right throughout the night.
Speaker 2: What should we expect for the rest of the week.
Speaker 2: Have we seen the worst of it yet?
Speaker 11: We haven't yet, Caleb. We've seen around fifty to one
Speaker 11: hundred and fifty millimeters of rain across parts of the States.
Speaker 11: Some isolated areas could see up to two hundred millimeters
Speaker 11: of rain, strong wind gusts, as you can properly see
Speaker 11: behind me, big droplets of rain, wind gusts of up
Speaker 11: to one hundred and twenty five kilometers an hour. And
Speaker 11: this is all due to a low pressure system forming
Speaker 11: along the coast. It is expected to remain active until Thursday.
Speaker 11: So until then, Caleb, residents have been told to stay
Speaker 11: at home and avoid driving through floodwaters.
Speaker 2: That's really important, Caleb, Crystal, thank you for your time.
Speaker 2: As my grandmother always says, as long as you're not
Speaker 2: in the firing line for any damage, good for the garden.
Speaker 12: Now.
Speaker 2: I talked last night about Paul Keating's first public intervention
Speaker 2: over Labour's super Text, because he pointed out that the
Speaker 2: average worker will now be on the road to three
Speaker 2: million dollars in super and there was more this morning,
Speaker 2: this time ACTU boss Sally McManus, who agrees that the
Speaker 2: unrealized capital gains tax should be indexed over time.
Speaker 13: I do think it's got to be indexed, and because
Speaker 13: you've got to make sure eventually people don't end up there,
Speaker 13: but that's a very long time in the future. I
Speaker 13: think that asking you know, those people not to get
Speaker 13: you know, Super isn't there to be a tax fraud.
Speaker 13: It's there to make sure you've got a dignified retirement.
Speaker 2: The PM was asked about Keating's veiled message this morning.
Speaker 2: This was his lily livid response.
Speaker 6: Well, there's are very modest changes discussed where we are right,
Speaker 6: we are right. Well, good on you. You stay on Paul.
Speaker 6: I'll stay on superannuation.
Speaker 2: Because he's wrong.
Speaker 6: No, I'm talking about superannuation.
Speaker 2: With me now, as Judo Bank chief economist Warren Hogan,
Speaker 2: Warren welcome. It's a pretty weak response from the Prime Minister.
Speaker 2: He's been called out by the man who was the
Speaker 2: architect of this system. He can see that his legacy
Speaker 2: may well be destroyed here. But it's about more than
Speaker 2: just Paul Keating's legacy. He designed this for a reason.
Speaker 2: He's watching it be destroyed by his own party.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think taylb there's a little bit of
Speaker 1: necessity to this. Super isn't delivering what was promised thirty
Speaker 1: odd years ago. It's proving to be a lot more
Speaker 1: expensive than we thought. It's cost as well above what
Speaker 1: the pension would have been, and that of course is
Speaker 1: what it was there to help sort of offset from
Speaker 1: this aging population we've got. And of course the real
Speaker 1: issue for the government and why they're doing this is
Speaker 1: it you know, they need money. They're spending is obviously
Speaker 1: growing rapidly, both in just growth terms as well as
Speaker 1: a share of the economy, and of course the tax
Speaker 1: burden is increasingly being borne by everyday Australian's income tax payers,
Speaker 1: and they need to find other sources of income or
Speaker 1: even take some pressure off other income payers. So this
Speaker 1: is a necessity, partly because the system isn't turning out
Speaker 1: as expected, and partly because the government's spending and they
Speaker 1: need more taxation revenue. So the issue of indexation is critical.
Speaker 1: Though it's a moral issue in my view, particularly in
Speaker 1: relation to a new tax, because as we've just seen
Speaker 1: in the last three years, inflation is hard to predict,
Speaker 1: and of course that's when you don't index it, that's
Speaker 1: what's going to determine the actual tax burden for future Australians.
Speaker 1: But when you do indexit, at least people have a
Speaker 1: sense of what they're going to have to pay because
Speaker 1: they can see or have visibility of how the tax
Speaker 1: will go up and in line with their income and
Speaker 1: inflation broadly is the idea. So there's a lot to this.
Speaker 1: It's important, but of course there's the government sticking to
Speaker 1: its guns. It's not a good tax.
Speaker 2: And this is the argument of Keating and to some
Speaker 2: degree Sally McManus as well, that if you don't index
Speaker 2: that three million dollars, which is of course what the
Speaker 2: government wants, Greens want two million, and of course they
Speaker 2: have absolute balance of power in the Senate now, so
Speaker 2: we'll keep an eye on that. But if you don't
Speaker 2: index that number, you risk eventually superannuation becoming something only
Speaker 2: for low to middle income earners. And if you get
Speaker 2: to that point, you might start to lose some political
Speaker 2: support for superannuation, which could eventually lead to the destruction
Speaker 2: of compulsory superannuation, which would hurt the balances of those small,
Speaker 2: low to middle income owners.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think really what you're alluding to there
Speaker 1: is that these changes, because they're the first substantial changes
Speaker 1: to the tax benefit or the tax rate, are really
Speaker 1: opening Pandora's box on this. If my judgment is right,
Speaker 1: the tax or this supersystem isn't turning out as as
Speaker 1: promised or as expected thirty years ago, then of course,
Speaker 1: once you open Pandora's box, it's going to be at
Speaker 1: the whim of the sort of political wins of the day,
Speaker 1: and who knows. And of course what we've got to
Speaker 1: not forget and all of this is that this is
Speaker 1: one particular part of our economic life, that is saving
Speaker 1: for retirement, that is super sensitive to our expectations of
Speaker 1: the long term. You want as much certainty as possible
Speaker 1: for Australians to understand what they need to do now
Speaker 1: to get to a point in the future. And of
Speaker 1: course indexation is just one component of it. But of
Speaker 1: course chopping and changing the policy at the whim of
Speaker 1: any given parliament means that people just give up on
Speaker 1: it in terms of certainty, and that will just make
Speaker 1: Australian save more now. And whether or not that's deemed
Speaker 1: a good thing or not, we do know that that
Speaker 1: means that there'll be less money going into spending in
Speaker 1: the economy.
Speaker 2: Indeed, and of course today is the beginning of the
Speaker 2: new financial years, so that means a raft of new
Speaker 2: policies introduced by state and federal governments have come into effect.
Speaker 2: And I suppose the key change is to note are
Speaker 2: the minimum wage that's gone up three and a half
Speaker 2: percent to twenty four bucks and ninety five cents an hour,
Speaker 2: and the superannuation guarantee has gone from eleven and a
Speaker 2: half to twelve percent, which is what prompted Paul Keating
Speaker 2: to come out yesterday. But because none of this stuff
Speaker 2: happens in a vacuum, there will be ripple effects. We've
Speaker 2: had concerns, of course about inflation. What kind of difference
Speaker 2: will this make?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think the problem for me, or the
Speaker 1: problem this presents, is you're going to be putting more
Speaker 1: pressure on business costs, and that is the crunch point
Speaker 1: in the economy right now. So the three and a
Speaker 1: half wages from the Fair Work Commission, and if that's
Speaker 1: what's happening more broadly, that's not too bad. But in
Speaker 1: the context of very little productivity growth, if not productivity
Speaker 1: going backwards, that's meaning the cost for business of labor
Speaker 1: is actually higher than that, and then the souper is
Speaker 1: just another cost of business bear. And of course what
Speaker 1: we've seen in the last year is the business costs
Speaker 1: have not fallen much. They're still running around five percent
Speaker 1: or higher. But of course inflations come down at the
Speaker 1: expense of business. Margins. That is, business haven't been able
Speaker 1: to pass on these costs. So the question is are
Speaker 1: these increased costs for business in the form of higher
Speaker 1: wages and super going to be able to be passed on?
Speaker 1: And if the answer is no, that's going to hurt
Speaker 1: business profitability and eventually investment and therefore our future. Or
Speaker 1: the answer is yes, and therefore inflation is probably going
Speaker 1: to stop falling and start picking up again, and the
Speaker 1: RBA will have a thing or two to think about there.
Speaker 1: So you know, this is a critical junction for the
Speaker 1: Australian economy and these costs are going to hit businesses
Speaker 1: and they're the ones who are under pressure right now.
Speaker 2: Indeed, and of course when businesses go backward, so do's employment.
Speaker 2: Warren Hogan, thank you for joining me. Still to come,
Speaker 2: David Adler will join me to discuss the hate preacher
Speaker 2: who today was found guilty of breaching racial discrimination laws.
Speaker 2: That soon, but first the News South Wales tobacco wars,
Speaker 2: the Daily Telegraphs James Willis knows more about them than
Speaker 2: anyone else I know. He'll join me on the Dickson
Speaker 2: at the desk. Sorry next now you know as well
Speaker 2: as I that elicit tobacco's a scourge across the country
Speaker 2: thanks to the ridiculously high cigarette tax, and so the
Speaker 2: states are scrambling to do something about all these shops
Speaker 2: popping up, and I feel sorry for them. I mean,
Speaker 2: the Fed's created this problem. Of course, the states are
Speaker 2: responsible for police and the like. So in New South
Speaker 2: Wales the opposition has proposed rules to shut down dodgy
Speaker 2: shops for a month and give landlords the right to
Speaker 2: evict them. The Premier, Chris Min's told to gb yesterday
Speaker 2: he was open to tougher penalties.
Speaker 12: I had to think about it overnight and I think
Speaker 12: she makes some really good points and we'd be silly
Speaker 12: to just reject an idea because it comes from the opposition.
Speaker 12: You'd also know, Ben I would have prefer to do this,
Speaker 12: have a new regime, a tougher approach to illegal tobacco,
Speaker 12: alongside what I would regard as a common sense approach
Speaker 12: from the Commonwealth where they dropped the excise well.
Speaker 2: The Men's government announced today that they'll set up a
Speaker 2: major task force that will include police, health, fear trading,
Speaker 2: liquor and gaming, and the Department of Communities and Justice
Speaker 2: and journalist James Willis at the Daily Telegraph. He's been
Speaker 2: following these criminal tobacco gangs for a long time now,
Speaker 2: he's been breaking these exclusive stories all week and he
Speaker 2: joins me here at the desk. James, I'm glad I've
Speaker 2: got a kindred spirit in this matter because I've been
Speaker 2: banging on about it for so long and it's got
Speaker 2: to the point now where it's you know, you just
Speaker 2: can't deny there is a massive issue. Everyone can see it.
Speaker 2: So the Men's government says we'll set up this task force.
Speaker 2: What's it going to look like.
Speaker 14: Well, for the next few months they'll have a look
Speaker 14: at how the new licensing policy is working, which began today.
Speaker 10: Caleb.
Speaker 14: We've allowed up until now business is to just sell
Speaker 14: tobacco without having to apply for a license, which is.
Speaker 10: Really a dumb way of doing things.
Speaker 14: The number of tobaccosts in New South Wales or tobacco businesses.
Speaker 10: Is now at twenty thousand.
Speaker 14: It's grown by twenty five percent in the last five years.
Speaker 14: And so this is going to have a look at
Speaker 14: where the laws can be tightened. Critically, it involves police
Speaker 14: now where there is still a to and fro, and
Speaker 14: I think as much as I do feel sorry for
Speaker 14: the States, and I'm the number one supporter of police,
Speaker 14: I do wonder whether there is going to be a
Speaker 14: time when police do have to get down and dirty
Speaker 14: and get involved in this with a day to day
Speaker 14: compliance we know that the presence of police in a
Speaker 14: pub or in a venue tends to have people sort
Speaker 14: of stand up and do the right thing. There's an
Speaker 14: argument to say that that could happen here. At the
Speaker 14: moment's left up to health bureaucrats. They're doing their best,
Speaker 14: but ultimately you're dealing with criminal gangs, which at one
Speaker 14: level leads to some of the baddest people in this
Speaker 14: country and overseas.
Speaker 10: And so therefore, why wouldn't law enforcement be more involved?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I guess they'll have to be. And the
Speaker 2: point that Chris Mince has been trying to make is
Speaker 2: that this isn't a situation of his making. This is
Speaker 2: essentially a situation of the federal government's making. With the
Speaker 2: stupidly high tobacco tech that is now in place, and
Speaker 2: it's a dollar forty seven a cigarette or something stupid
Speaker 2: like that, right, And so it was fun to have
Speaker 2: compliance officers previously because they were able to deal with
Speaker 2: the problems that existed, Tex goes up. Problem becomes much bigger.
Speaker 2: Now they have to get the coppers in. But the
Speaker 2: coppers have much preferred to be investigating domestic violence, murder
Speaker 2: and other much more serious crimes than someone flogging a
Speaker 2: packet of cigarettes for ten dollars. But what's min supposed
Speaker 2: to do about it? He's not getting any support from
Speaker 2: the FED.
Speaker 14: Well, this is a complete failure in public policy from
Speaker 14: the Albanezi government. This problem has spiral out of control
Speaker 14: under the last few years under Mark Butler's Health Minister
Speaker 14: Jim Chalmers now has a tax which was worth sixteen
Speaker 14: billion dollars in twenty nineteen twenty twenty. And look, even
Speaker 14: if you don't smoke, you've never had a cigarette. You're saying, oh,
Speaker 14: look if people want to smoke stuff and I don't care,
Speaker 14: you should care about the tax. Jim Charmers at the
Speaker 14: moment is having a look around the cup tray and
Speaker 14: the car trying to find a dollar. This is nine
Speaker 14: or at least eight billion dollars a year we're missing
Speaker 14: out on because people aren't buying legal cigarettes. Now, if
Speaker 14: the number of people smoking had fallen off a Cliff.
Speaker 14: You'd say, well, we've won the war against big tobacco,
Speaker 14: but that's not the case. These tobaccos are the only
Speaker 14: business that are doing well in town. They're popping up
Speaker 14: on every street corner. They're selling ten dollars smokes compared
Speaker 14: to fifty or sixty dollars legal cigarettes. So no wonder
Speaker 14: people are picking the cheaper option. So you'd have to
Speaker 14: lower the excise dramatically to even get that price under control.
Speaker 14: But it has to start at the border and the
Speaker 14: government for everything. Mark Butler said about we've spent more
Speaker 14: money on compliance. It's garbage when you actually break it down,
Speaker 14: what the states get individually to help them in.
Speaker 10: This war is very little.
Speaker 2: Most of it goes to the bureaucracy.
Speaker 10: So it must start in Canberra, just very quickly.
Speaker 2: We've only got a minute. But I read a report
Speaker 2: the other day that in fact, people who smoke elicit cigarettes,
Speaker 2: I'm more likely to smoke more cigarettes. I think it's
Speaker 2: four more a day, is what the reports is. Because
Speaker 2: of course they're cheapest, so they sort of feel encouraged
Speaker 2: to do so. This would have to be one of
Speaker 2: the biggest failues of public health policy in a long time.
Speaker 2: You deal with people in and around this stuff every day.
Speaker 2: What's your feeling about why the federal government won't move.
Speaker 14: I think they are convinced that if they can run
Speaker 14: big tobacco out of town, the big guys and they
Speaker 14: will be a win and then they can deal with
Speaker 14: the rest of the market. So they've got two wars
Speaker 14: going on. One against the criminal syndicates which they largely
Speaker 14: created or helped flourish because of the excise and then
Speaker 14: you've got big tobacco, and they be happy for big
Speaker 14: tobacco to leave Australia and then deal with the rest.
Speaker 10: I mean, the problem is that just doesn't work, and so.
Speaker 2: That report is right.
Speaker 14: The other issue entirely is vapes, which has hooked kids.
Speaker 10: More than anyone else.
Speaker 14: And so you've got this whole generation of people that
Speaker 14: you know, we've just stuffed this up so badly, and
Speaker 14: as I say, it is a complete failure of public policy.
Speaker 14: Mark Butler, Anthony Albanezi, Jim Chalmers, you've got a lot to.
Speaker 2: Answer for them. Vapes another thing they refuse to regulate.
Speaker 2: Probably you know better the devil, you know, I think, James,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for joining me now more on
Speaker 2: that huge win in the Federal Court. Today we're a
Speaker 2: judge rule that a g hardy hate preacher was hadad
Speaker 2: for each racial discrimination laws and a series of sermons
Speaker 2: and lectures.
Speaker 3: The imputations include age all tropes against Jewish people that
Speaker 3: are mentally racist and anti Semitic. They make perverse generalizations
Speaker 3: against Jewish people as a group. Jews in Australia in
Speaker 3: November twenty twenty three and thereafter would experience them to
Speaker 3: be harassing and intimidating.
Speaker 2: Joining me on the desk for more. And the result
Speaker 2: is Australian Jewish Association President David Adler. David, I imagine
Speaker 2: you were pleased with this judgment today.
Speaker 15: Yes, it'd be much better than the alternative, and we
Speaker 15: are pleased that this particular type of hate preaching can't
Speaker 15: hide from the law calling on Islamic radical ideology. So
Speaker 15: from that point of view, it's good to be perfectly honest.
Speaker 15: I'm not a great fan.
Speaker 2: Of eighteen norm I talked about that at the top
Speaker 2: of the show.
Speaker 15: And I don't see it as curing anti Semitism, where
Speaker 15: we think that there are some bigger issues that need
Speaker 15: to be addressed. But here's a win. Let's bet it
Speaker 15: down and make sure that this particular brand of incitement
Speaker 15: should cease.
Speaker 2: And that was my point is that the reason as
Speaker 2: much as I don't agree with eighteen C, and in
Speaker 2: an ideal world, I don't think it would be possible
Speaker 2: to run a case like this because eighteen C wouldn't exist.
Speaker 2: But the reason this case was run is because the
Speaker 2: criminal element of the law didn't deal with what I
Speaker 2: thought were issues that could potentially lead to or were
Speaker 2: advocating for, elements of violence against Jewish people, and the
Speaker 2: parts of the judgment today.
Speaker 10: Do talk about that.
Speaker 2: That's why this case was run because seemingly the criminal
Speaker 2: law is too weak to deal with those matters.
Speaker 15: There are a couple of lessons that come out of
Speaker 15: this Caleb, and the failure to use the criminal law
Speaker 15: is a really important one. We have been very, very
Speaker 15: very disappointed by the week leadership politically on anti Semitism
Speaker 15: and frankly the failure of our law enforcement authorities, beginning
Speaker 15: on October eight, when we had Islamic preachers in the
Speaker 15: street of Sydney celebrating the massacres of Jews in Israel.
Speaker 15: October nine, at the Opera House with the riots and
Speaker 15: a number of laws were broken on both those days,
Speaker 15: and yet no consequences. And this is what's opened the
Speaker 15: opportunity for the hate preachers to be more and more emboldened.
Speaker 15: So our lessons here are that, yes, you can't hide
Speaker 15: behind the extremist religious ideology. Secondly, that the authorities have
Speaker 15: been ineffective, demonstrably ineffective.
Speaker 2: There is a lot more to be done.
Speaker 15: Alluded to incitement of violence when we hear them talk
Speaker 15: about inter Farder, that is an incitement to violence, is
Speaker 15: a violent uprising involving terrorism and the murder of Jews.
Speaker 15: No action when they chant all Zionists are terrorists. Zionism
Speaker 15: is simply recognizing the right of Jewish people to have
Speaker 15: self determination in their biblical homeland, nothing more than that.
Speaker 15: So the vast majority of Jewish people in this country
Speaker 15: a Zionists doing that sort of smear is outrageous and
Speaker 15: again no action. And the final observation that I'd make
Speaker 15: is that because eighteen C was used as the legal instrument,
Speaker 15: the consequences of very minor. All he's had to do
Speaker 15: is pulled down the offending material and promise not to
Speaker 15: do it again. We have seen in Europe, in Italy
Speaker 15: and France in particular, that if these hate preachers are foreignness,
Speaker 15: if they've got citizens, and in fact, in some cases
Speaker 15: if they're dual citizens, their centers can be closed down
Speaker 15: and they're deported, and that is the sort of action
Speaker 15: that we.
Speaker 2: Need in Australia.
Speaker 15: It is a big deal, and I'm not smearing all Muslims,
Speaker 15: of course, but we have to recognize and have a
Speaker 15: discussion concerning immigration policy the sort of people we want
Speaker 15: in this country. These are discussions which have been avoided.
Speaker 15: And if you look at the census data over the
Speaker 15: last few decades, the growth rate of the Muslim population
Speaker 15: is four times the general population. And we have been
Speaker 15: importing people from Gaza in their thousands, which is an
Speaker 15: area that is substantially inspire the Muslim brotherhood. So all
Speaker 15: these big issues are being ignored. We welcome the win today,
Speaker 15: it's important, but we want our authorities, to our political
Speaker 15: leadership to deal with the really big problems.
Speaker 2: Indeed, David Adler, thank you so much for joining me tonight.
Speaker 2: Coming up after the break, a demographer will unpack this
Speaker 2: interesting new study on why Margaret mothers are giving birth
Speaker 2: to more boys than girls. And the answer will shock you.
Speaker 2: He'll be with me soon, Mark McCrindle coming up and
Speaker 2: I'll discuss all things defense with my panel GXO Strategies
Speaker 2: Director Cameron Milner and former Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee
Speaker 2: Chair Michael Danby. Don't go away, Let's jump straight into
Speaker 2: it with my next panel, GXO Strategies Director Cameron Milner
Speaker 2: and the former chair of Parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee,
Speaker 2: Michael Danby. Jans welcome shocking reports coming out today that
Speaker 2: Defense Minister Richard Marles has been left out of the
Speaker 2: loop on formal updates on Australia's military readiness for two
Speaker 2: and a half years. I mean the AFR reports that
Speaker 2: escape Order to General's report found that in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: three and twenty four Defense stopped giving Marles six monthly
Speaker 2: preparedness reports that outlined what units and platforms such as ships,
Speaker 2: submarines and aircraft were ready to be deployed into conflict
Speaker 2: or natural disaster zone. So, Cameron, if they're not keeping
Speaker 2: the Defense Minister up to date on this stuff, A,
Speaker 2: you'd have to ask why. But B surely it underlines
Speaker 2: the point that if we were, for whatever reason to
Speaker 2: end up in a conflict that unfortunately were stuffed.
Speaker 16: Well that's right, what a disgrace, when absolute disgrace. The
Speaker 16: Defense Minister wasn't being told and didn't even think to ask.
Speaker 16: Caleb didn't think to ask for where the six month
Speaker 16: report was. Look, the reality is that Males is a
Speaker 16: defense diletant.
Speaker 2: This is bloke.
Speaker 16: He used raft jets as an uber service to get
Speaker 16: him home in time. From camera, he packs his golf
Speaker 16: clubs and gets raft people to put them on the
Speaker 16: plane when he goes overseas. I mean, defense is not
Speaker 16: Richard Marles strong suit. And it shows and the defense
Speaker 16: establishment knows that too. The whole thing with this alberdis government, Caleb,
Speaker 16: the Alberti's government wants dialogue over direct hits on Aram's
Speaker 16: n clear facilities. They want fillerbusters rather than Trump's bunker busters.
Speaker 16: I meant this labor party is all over the shop
Speaker 16: on defense, all over all over the shop on defense, Caleb,
Speaker 16: and it just shows and reports like this are going
Speaker 16: to be one of many I suspect with what's happening
Speaker 16: with his labor administration.
Speaker 2: You're on fire tonight, Cameron, Michael. What does it say
Speaker 2: about the relationship between the minister and the department.
Speaker 17: Well, first of all, at Echo Cameron's point, this is
Speaker 17: a dereliction of duty by the Defense Minister himself, you know,
Speaker 17: going off and playing golf. You know, he was known
Speaker 17: the right of the Labor Party as being lazy. But
Speaker 17: this is even beyond that. We need a general raising
Speaker 17: Cane like Trump got himself after Caine destroyed Isis. One
Speaker 17: of the worst decisions Miles made was to reappoint all
Speaker 17: of those military dilettants who've got us no equipment, no missiles,
Speaker 17: have stripped out the core of the defense forces in
Speaker 17: order to pay for the subs. I mean, Israel spends
Speaker 17: more on defense in one year than we do with
Speaker 17: a country population a third of our size. I mean
Speaker 17: it's and we have no bank for the buck like
Speaker 17: they do. So I just think it's hopeless, hopeless minister,
Speaker 17: hopeless military leadership.
Speaker 2: They should all go well, that would be helpful, but
Speaker 2: it's not going to happen, unfortunately, Michael. There are also
Speaker 2: concerns that Australia may miss out on critical missiles from
Speaker 2: the US, obviously due to Alberanezi's refusal to boost spending
Speaker 2: the hours for three and a half percent. We're not
Speaker 2: coming to the table on that because the White House
Speaker 2: still needs to approve a seven billion dollar order we
Speaker 2: made last year, and sources have told the odds that
Speaker 2: they could be redirected to countries who are willing to
Speaker 2: play ball. I mean, Michael, we're just doing this to ourselves.
Speaker 2: It's insane.
Speaker 17: If you watch that very emotional press conference that Trump
Speaker 17: had NATO, you would have seen the Polish Ukrainian journalists
Speaker 17: leading from Kiev to get Patriot missiles. Now they're going
Speaker 17: to go ahead of the queue in front of us.
Speaker 17: They're willing to pay for them. They're willing to pay
Speaker 17: for their defense. We just can't stick with this some
Speaker 17: you know, we'll pay for the subs on them never never,
Speaker 17: And what we do is strip back and cut back,
Speaker 17: you know, mind sweepers. The Chinese don't have to be geniuses.
Speaker 17: They just have to read the media to note that
Speaker 17: all of our defense bases are naked. We have no
Speaker 17: air defense thanks to the dilettants in the military leadership.
Speaker 17: And our dilettant minister and his predecessor was as bad too,
Speaker 17: so I should be fed him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now that that's correct. And speaking of China, their ambassador,
Speaker 2: of course to Australia, intervened in our national security this
Speaker 2: week wrote in the OS that against Canberra boosting the
Speaker 2: defense spending, and Cameron, You've written a brilliant piece in
Speaker 2: The Nightly saying that Albanesi was already doing exactly what
Speaker 2: China needed. Now he'll have to react in the opposite
Speaker 2: direction to say any face. But what's the likelihood of that, Gameran, Well,
Speaker 2: let's see.
Speaker 16: I mean, what a shocking situation where you have a
Speaker 16: Chinese ambassador telling weak albow to make Australia even weaker in.
Speaker 2: His likeness so to speak.
Speaker 16: No, I think this will have the opposite reaction. I mean,
Speaker 16: Albo and one were doing their very best to shred
Speaker 16: our relationship with the US, shred our relationship with Trump
Speaker 16: and our allies like Israel and the UK, all by
Speaker 16: their lonesome, but by China calling for us to be
Speaker 16: even weaker again, I think Australians will actually have a
Speaker 16: wake up moment and actually say, hang on a moment, Albo,
Speaker 16: why would we be backing in China over our allies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good point and we've run out of
Speaker 2: time unfortunately. But there was a great piece in the
Speaker 2: OS from Henry Ergus talking about defense spending between Australia
Speaker 2: and Israel, and it turns out that between twenty twenty
Speaker 2: and twenty twenty three Australia spent fifty billion dollars more
Speaker 2: than Israel did. And yet I don't think you could
Speaker 2: argue that we could achieve a fraction of what Israel
Speaker 2: has been able to achieve in the last couple of years. Actually,
Speaker 2: it tells you everything about where we are. Cameron, Michael,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for your time, both of you.
Speaker 2: All right, coming up after the break, Hold, take a
Speaker 2: look at that new study which is suggesting that migrant
Speaker 2: women are aborting daughters at higher rates than sons. Demographer
Speaker 2: Mark McCrindle will be with me next. Really interesting piece
Speaker 2: in the odds this morning about how Chinese, Indian and
Speaker 2: Lebanese immigrants in Australia are having more sons than daughters
Speaker 2: who study from Edith Cown University suggests that women from
Speaker 2: these countries were more likely to abort girls, possibly over
Speaker 2: cultural differences which places higher value on having sons. It says,
Speaker 2: quote Indian and Chinese mothers had much higher induced abortion
Speaker 2: rates and early pregnancy than their Australian counterparts, which coincided
Speaker 2: with the introduction of non invasive prenatal testing. Joining me
Speaker 2: now demographer Mark krindle Mark. They found that for people
Speaker 2: born in Australia, the UK, New Zealand, the birth rate
Speaker 2: was around one hundred and five boys for every hundred girls,
Speaker 2: But for Indians it goes to one hundred and nine
Speaker 2: boys for the second child, one hundred and eighteen for
Speaker 2: the third, one hundred and fifteen for the fourth. Chinese
Speaker 2: have one hundred and fifteen for the third, one hundred
Speaker 2: and eleven for the fourth, Lebanese have one hundred and
Speaker 2: sixteen boys for every hundred girls for the fourth. This
Speaker 2: is really worrying the idea that this sort of sex
Speaker 2: selective abortion, which we know goes on overseas, is going
Speaker 2: on here in Australia.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's the inference made through this data. And we
Speaker 5: know from fifty years of analyzing Australian birth data those
Speaker 5: sex ratios of babies born it sticks at one hundred
Speaker 5: and five boys for every one hundred girls born. That's,
Speaker 5: in fact, just to show how little it changes. The
Speaker 5: lowest in fifty years got to one oh four point
Speaker 5: nine and the highest is one oh six, so it
Speaker 5: hardly changes out of that one oh five ratio, and
Speaker 5: anything much beyond that shows that there's other factors at play.
Speaker 5: And we know that on the global data, the ratio
Speaker 5: of boys to girls born in China currently is one
Speaker 5: hundred and eleven, in India at t one hundred and
Speaker 5: nine for every hundred girls, and by the way, in
Speaker 5: India nineteen seventy, before there was the technologies for sex
Speaker 5: determining and before there was legal abortion, it was one
Speaker 5: hundred and five. So anything beyond one hundred and five
Speaker 5: or much more shows something going on in the fact
Speaker 5: that this peer reviewed published paper in the Global Public
Speaker 5: Health Journal of the Review of two point two million
Speaker 5: berths in New South Wales and WA for twenty years,
Speaker 5: all of the births pretty much in those two states
Speaker 5: over twenty years, shows that based on the birth country
Speaker 5: of mother, you get some of these ratios blowing out.
Speaker 5: Should cause us to have a deeper look at what's
Speaker 5: going on well.
Speaker 2: Study also sees this study provides is quoting from the
Speaker 2: study provides the most compelling observational evidence to date of
Speaker 2: mail by six ratio at birth among overseas born mothers,
Speaker 2: which appears to be attributed to prenatal six determination followed
Speaker 2: by a selective abortion of females, which is what we're
Speaker 2: talking about. And if you follow this to its logical conclusion,
Speaker 2: what does it mean for the demography of Australia. You
Speaker 2: end up with far more men than you do women.
Speaker 5: Well exactly, and we see that large at a global level.
Speaker 5: At a country level, you've got the missing millions in
Speaker 5: China and India as well, and the social problems, but
Speaker 5: just of course the basic moral outrage that you can
Speaker 5: have a society and large proportions say we value boys
Speaker 5: more than girls. We meen need to make it clear
Speaker 5: at Australia that baby girls are as valued and have
Speaker 5: all the rights of protections as baby boys, and that
Speaker 5: needs to be made very clear. And even with the
Speaker 5: new South Wales Abortion Law Reform Act of twenty nineteen
Speaker 5: that increased access to abortions, it makes it explicitly clear
Speaker 5: that abortion should not be performed solely on the basis
Speaker 5: of sex selections, so as well.
Speaker 2: It should be And I just can't believe that this
Speaker 2: is going on at the rate obviously as we've run
Speaker 2: at a time macro quindled thank you for joining me,
Speaker 2: And here's Paul Murray, hopefully with a bit of slim
Speaker 2: dusty again tonight.