Speaker 1: Why on Sky News.
Speaker 2: This is Sharry Good Evening.
Speaker 3: We're coming up on tonight's show. The Boss of Azio
Speaker 3: issues a rare rebuke to the Iranian ambassador. I'll bring
Speaker 3: you this exclusive story and it comes as an Iranian
Speaker 3: attack on Israel is imminent.
Speaker 2: The Macarata Commission.
Speaker 3: Is the Albanezy government going to move forward with it
Speaker 3: or not?
Speaker 2: Just Enterprise will join.
Speaker 3: Me live for her take on the PM's latest blunder,
Speaker 3: and we'll cross to the US where Kamala Harris is
Speaker 3: attempting to undergo a major reinvention with ninety days to
Speaker 3: spare until America votes. But first tonight, I want to
Speaker 3: start with the economy. RBA Governor Michelle Bullock has ruled
Speaker 3: out a rate cut in the next six months, saying
Speaker 3: inflation has been more persistent than expected. In part, she
Speaker 3: blamed high government spending and low productivity for the need
Speaker 3: to keep rates higher for longer.
Speaker 4: We're coming out of an extraordinary period of massive supply shocks,
Speaker 4: a new zero cash rate back in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 4: massive physical support for the economy, all part of the
Speaker 4: pandemic and the pandemic response. And it's not surprising really
Speaker 4: that it's taking time for things to stabilize a bit.
Speaker 4: What we can say is that a near term reduction
Speaker 4: in the cash rate doesn't align with the board's current thinking.
Speaker 3: Up until this week, the economic conversation has centered on
Speaker 3: the number of rate rises needed to curb inflation. But
Speaker 3: now the very real risk of recession in the United
Speaker 3: States has changed the debate from not only controlling inflation.
Speaker 2: But to carefully avoiding a recession.
Speaker 3: Treasurer Jim Chalmers has spoken for some time about the
Speaker 3: narrow path between not crushing our economy whilst still bringing
Speaker 3: inflation under control, and his want that the balance of
Speaker 3: risk is shifting in our economy.
Speaker 5: We've said around budget time, before that and since then,
Speaker 5: just how important it is that we recognize the balance
Speaker 5: of risks in our economy, domestic and international, our growth
Speaker 5: and inflation. And it's just as important now as it's
Speaker 5: ever been.
Speaker 3: Well, many economists locally have looked to the US for guidance,
Speaker 3: and they were highly critical of the IBA for not
Speaker 3: tackling inflation fast enough with earlier rate hikes. Interest rates
Speaker 3: in the US are higher than ours at five point
Speaker 3: five percent compared to our four point three five percent,
Speaker 3: so Australia took a less aggressive approach in curbing inflation
Speaker 3: so as not to crush growth, and while the future
Speaker 3: CPI data is.
Speaker 2: Uncertain, at the moment, it.
Speaker 3: Looks like Australia's path out of the global inflation.
Speaker 2: Crisis may have been better than in the US.
Speaker 3: The Treasurer today said that the concerns of a US
Speaker 3: recession show that Australia's economic plan to fight inflation without
Speaker 3: plunging US into recession is the more responsible path to
Speaker 3: have taken.
Speaker 5: We are confident about the Australian economy. We are confident
Speaker 5: we can continue to see inflation moderate. We're confident that
Speaker 5: we can continue to grow. But this is a really
Speaker 5: important warning against complacency.
Speaker 3: And Chalmers claimed his measures had in fact taken half
Speaker 3: a percentage point of inflation. But Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor
Speaker 3: seized on the RBA's concerns about government spending and low productivity.
Speaker 1: Our inflation is stuck at a persistent level around four percent,
Speaker 1: and as I said, the Reserve Bank is seeing that
Speaker 1: inflation staying higher for longer than its previous forecasts back
Speaker 1: in May. It is clear that inflation is running the economy,
Speaker 1: not the government.
Speaker 3: So while the main discussion point has been whether rates
Speaker 3: would have to rise this year, and some economists have
Speaker 3: even predicted up to three rate hikes, it is possible
Speaker 3: that the next move we see will be an interst
Speaker 3: rate drop, and that's the prediction of Deloitte Access Economics
Speaker 3: partner Stephen Smith. He said it is now looking increasingly
Speaker 3: certain that the next move and the cash.
Speaker 2: Rate will be down, not up, with the RBA.
Speaker 3: Clearly concerned that its quest to stamp out inflation might
Speaker 3: derail an emerging recovery, he said, with inflation trending down
Speaker 3: a week Australian economy and rising volatility in global markets,
Speaker 3: Australia needs an environment where business can invest for growth.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 3: Herald's Sun Business legend Terry mccran will be on tonight
Speaker 3: just in a minute to break this down, but he
Speaker 3: says the RBA shouldn't be raising rates and that today's
Speaker 3: decision to hold was the right one. He says, yes,
Speaker 3: our own jobless numbers and other indicators like those from
Speaker 3: SEKH suggests our economy might be close to snapping and
Speaker 3: there is absolutely no case, he says, for a rate hike. Well,
Speaker 3: it's true the growth in our economy is weak and consumption.
Speaker 2: Is down a little, but employment remains strong.
Speaker 3: If we start to see weaker jobs numbers, then there
Speaker 3: will be cause for alarm. And the inflation battle is
Speaker 3: far from over, as Michelle Bullock stressed today, and even
Speaker 3: Charmers admits, inflation is persistent and stubborn. And inflation rose
Speaker 3: one percent in the June quarter in Australia, but in
Speaker 3: the US it only went up by zero point two percent. Now,
Speaker 3: this is all sparking a debate about migration.
Speaker 2: Internally, in the Labor Party, there's a.
Speaker 3: Big political push to slash the high migration number and
Speaker 3: stop the government's big Australia, but those concerned about the
Speaker 3: economy are unlikely to support a migration cut ahead of
Speaker 3: what is looking like a dicey next twelve months in
Speaker 3: the global economy. We are already in a per capita
Speaker 3: recession in Australia and the reality is if the immigration
Speaker 3: levels hadn't been so high, we would absolutely be in
Speaker 3: a recession now.
Speaker 2: Internally in the.
Speaker 3: Labor Party there's already some resistance to cutting the migration rate.
Speaker 3: This isn't about the cost of living crisis of costs
Speaker 3: for Albanese.
Speaker 2: It's about politics.
Speaker 3: If the US plunges into a recession, an Australia manages
Speaker 3: to avoid one thanks to the narrow path Jim Chalmers
Speaker 3: is taking along with the high migration numbers.
Speaker 2: Well, this will be good.
Speaker 3: News for the Albanese government ahead of an election. A
Speaker 3: rate cut early next year would be the prime minister's
Speaker 3: dream ahead of an election campaign that could kick off
Speaker 3: in early April.
Speaker 2: Well for more.
Speaker 3: Expert analysis on this now, I'm joined by business columnist
Speaker 3: Terry mccran. Terry, great to see you again and thanks
Speaker 3: for joining US. Economists have been pushing for an interest
Speaker 3: to rate cut. We've heard many call for that, but
Speaker 3: Michelle Bullock today made it absolutely clear that a cut
Speaker 3: isn't on the cards anytime soon. No time in the
Speaker 3: next six months, which probably puts the first potential rate
Speaker 3: cut in the first quarter of next year.
Speaker 7: Which might work out quite well for the government if
Speaker 7: it has an election in the normal course. Sherry, But
Speaker 7: I thought, looking at Jim Chalmers's comments today, I thought
Speaker 7: I saw signs of fear in those eyes of his
Speaker 7: where he really thought that there's a prospect that rather
Speaker 7: than get a rate cut, as you move into the
Speaker 7: election campaign, you might actually face a rate high. I think, Chris,
Speaker 7: I think we can be very thankful to Michelle Bollock.
Speaker 7: She was absolutely crystal clear in describing the state of play,
Speaker 7: and that was inflation is too high. There was absolutely
Speaker 7: no prospect of a rate cut anytime soon, and the
Speaker 7: Reserve Bank was looking seriously at hiking rates today and
Speaker 7: we'll keep that possibility on the table going forward. Now
Speaker 7: there anything that's going to save us from a ray hike.
Speaker 7: Charity is if the economy does go over that cliff,
Speaker 7: and that's not exactly an attractive prospect.
Speaker 3: On the other hand, no, absolutely, Look, we heard the
Speaker 3: Treasurer today.
Speaker 2: I argue that he's.
Speaker 3: Successfully walking this narrow path avoiding a recession, unlike the
Speaker 3: very real risk in the US at the moment.
Speaker 2: Do you give him credit for this?
Speaker 7: I give him zero credit for a shary because and
Speaker 7: I think the Reserve Bank hit has quite a moment,
Speaker 7: so we'll also give him zero credit for it because
Speaker 7: the government is the one that's causing the difficulties. The
Speaker 7: government the one, as you've indicated, Cherry, with that massive
Speaker 7: immigration program, which is force you up rents, forcing up
Speaker 7: the cost of living, putting great stress on Australian families.
Speaker 7: What the government's done with energy prices. Everybody understand what's
Speaker 7: happening as a consequence of that, what it's done in
Speaker 7: the industrial relations space, where it's making very hard to
Speaker 7: get productivity improvements. All those things are not only making
Speaker 7: life tough for Australians and for business, it's also making
Speaker 7: it tough for the Reserve Bank to think about cutting
Speaker 7: rates anytime soon. So the buck stops precisely at Jim
Speaker 7: Chalmers's desk. He's not the guy that's delivering some sort
Speaker 7: of benefit. He's making life tough for everyone.
Speaker 3: What did you think about the IBA governor's comments when
Speaker 3: she spoke about government spending being an issue. I mean,
Speaker 3: that's quite rare for her to say that, isn't it.
Speaker 7: Well absolutely, I mean it's because it's just the basic
Speaker 7: reality cherry that the numb if the government is adding
Speaker 7: to demand, and demand is the problem. There's too much
Speaker 7: demand chasing what's produced in the economy. That's what causes inflation. Well,
Speaker 7: then you know the government is part of that problem,
Speaker 7: but that's only a small part of it. And she
Speaker 7: didn't want to get into a direct assault on the government,
Speaker 7: and she doesn't want it, certainly doesn't want to get
Speaker 7: you a situation where she's got to put up rates
Speaker 7: precisely because the government is creating the problem.
Speaker 3: All right, Terry mccran, you always are spot on and
Speaker 3: have such brilliant analysis. We appreciate you joining us on
Speaker 3: your show and look forward to reading more in the
Speaker 3: Herald Sign tomorrow. Now, AZO Boss Mike Burgess has entered
Speaker 3: the debate about the Iranian ambassador's offensive tweet.
Speaker 2: Now just to recap.
Speaker 3: In a post on x, Iran's ambassador, Ahmed Sadagi, referred
Speaker 3: to Israel as a Zionist plague that he said should
Speaker 3: be wiped out by Hamas.
Speaker 2: Have a look at his comments.
Speaker 3: Here they are, he said, the late leader of Hamas
Speaker 3: Resistant Movement rectified, wiping out the Zionus plague of the
Speaker 3: Holy Lance. Now, the alban Eezy government has admitted that
Speaker 3: these comments are unacceptable and yes they hold in the ambassador,
Speaker 3: but not at the ministerial level.
Speaker 2: Have a look.
Speaker 6: We have called in the Iranian ambassador to the Department
Speaker 6: of Foreign Afairs and Trade. Is the protocol when something
Speaker 6: like this happens. There's no place for the sword of
Speaker 6: comments that were made online in social media by the
Speaker 6: Iranian ambassador. They're a born and they are hateful, they
Speaker 6: are any Semitic and they have no place.
Speaker 2: Would shadow.
Speaker 3: Home Affairs Minister James Patterson said today that if the
Speaker 3: Prime Minister and Penny Wong was serious about this, they
Speaker 3: could take stronger action, have.
Speaker 8: A look and so if the government is really concerned
Speaker 8: about what the ambassador has said, then there are powers
Speaker 8: of rble to the Minister for Foreign Affairs to make
Speaker 8: an ambassador persona on Grada and send them home. And
Speaker 8: it's up to the government and the Foreign Minister to
Speaker 8: explain if she's not going to use those powers. If
Speaker 8: she's not going to do so, why isn't she and
Speaker 8: how bad would it have to get What could they
Speaker 8: say that would cause her to use that option of
Speaker 8: able to.
Speaker 3: Now you might think, oh, it's just a social media post,
Speaker 3: what's the big deal. Well, the AZO Director General, Mike
Speaker 3: Burgess told me today just how dangerous this type of
Speaker 3: language from.
Speaker 2: The Iranian ambassador is.
Speaker 3: These are exclusive comments, and he told me the comments
Speaker 3: were disgraceful and given the current security climate, deeply unhelpful.
Speaker 3: Inflamed language can inflame emotions an inflame action, he said,
Speaker 3: I again call on all parties to reflect on the
Speaker 3: words they use and the impacts they can have. So
Speaker 3: those exclusive comments from the Boss of ASIO, the top
Speaker 3: spy agency about the Iranian ambassador, let's bring in now
Speaker 3: our Tuesday panel former Speaker of the House Bronwin Bishop
Speaker 3: and Shadow Housing Minister Michael Sooker.
Speaker 2: Welcome to you both.
Speaker 3: Michael, that is a rare rebuke of an ambassador from
Speaker 3: ASIO from.
Speaker 2: The Boss of Aisio. Do you agree with James Patterson.
Speaker 3: Do you think Penny Wong and ALBINIZI should have perhaps
Speaker 3: expelled the Iranian ambassador over these remarks?
Speaker 9: Well, of course I agree with James Patterson, and one
Speaker 9: I think can reflect on this, And I suspect one
Speaker 9: of the motivations for the ambassador on this is that
Speaker 9: he knows how weak Anthony Albanesi and this government is.
Speaker 9: The probably made a calculated decision that he would get
Speaker 9: away with it because they are so weak, as weak
Speaker 9: as water, And you know, diplomats like that generally make
Speaker 9: very calculated statements. And I suspect he knew that he
Speaker 9: would get not so much as a wrap over the knuckle.
Speaker 9: He got caught into the Department for a cup of tea.
Speaker 9: Albanezy is so weak and every single day he seems
Speaker 9: to exceed himself as to how weak he can possibly be.
Speaker 9: I think this is a clear cutcase. I think, as
Speaker 9: Simon Birmingham has said, this could amount to incitement under
Speaker 9: our criminal Code and those are the sorts of things
Speaker 9: that someone like Mike Burgess doesn't weigh into lightly. And
Speaker 9: I spect that Mike Burgess has waited into that because
Speaker 9: he has seen how weak the government's response has been run.
Speaker 2: What do you think on this?
Speaker 3: I mean Mike Burgess's intervention here comes when he just
Speaker 3: yesterday raised the terror threat level to probable. We just
Speaker 3: heard from Michael Silk of the suggestion that this could
Speaker 3: be incitement to violence?
Speaker 2: Do you think this is that dangerous language?
Speaker 10: Absolutely? But the thing that gets me where is this
Speaker 10: royal we come from? I am ashamed to have such
Speaker 10: a coward from our Prime minister at Penny One's way.
Speaker 10: He should call in the ambassador. He should have been
Speaker 10: absolutely had the stripped words to him saying you are
Speaker 10: no longer acceptable in this country. What that man was saying,
Speaker 10: that ambassador was calling for the genocide of the Jewish nation.
Speaker 10: That's what he was calling through and you could see
Speaker 10: Hitler could smile from his grave that he's passed on
Speaker 10: such hatred. And to think that we get, oh, we
Speaker 10: called him in to talk to the department, is just appalling.
Speaker 10: It's just appalling and quite unacceptable is a word that
Speaker 10: I'm beginning to turn off greatly because it's been robbed
Speaker 10: of any meaning. What happened today is cowardice, nothing short
Speaker 10: of the government. And Michael's quite right when he says
Speaker 10: that the ambassador made a calculated decision that nothing would
Speaker 10: happen to him and his confreres and the people of Homas,
Speaker 10: they would laugh.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, indeed, I think your remarks about the Hitler comparison,
Speaker 3: you know, spot on.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: We all knew this already about the era employees, but
Speaker 3: big news today because the United Nations officially came out
Speaker 3: and said that nine employees of UNRA were likely involved
Speaker 3: in the October seven attacks. United Nations held a press
Speaker 3: conference but said it had no idea where those nine
Speaker 3: UNRA staff involved in the October seven attacks are now.
Speaker 2: Have a look, are any of them in Israeli custody?
Speaker 2: Where are they? Are you there?
Speaker 11: I don't have a case by case amount of information.
Speaker 11: I believe that they're not. I believe that they're not
Speaker 11: people who are currently in custody.
Speaker 3: I mean, the UN supposedly all concerned about justice, Well
Speaker 3: where is the justice? Why aren't these people facing a court?
Speaker 3: They absolutely should well. The Opposition leader Peter Dutton today
Speaker 3: called on the Albanese government to stop funding this group.
Speaker 12: It should cause the Aurbanzi government to reconsider their involvement
Speaker 12: to their engagement, their funding of UNRA. It's completely an
Speaker 12: utterly unacceptable that a UN agency would have employees involved
Speaker 12: in or alleged to have been involved in the October
Speaker 12: seventh tragedy.
Speaker 3: And these revelations are just the tip of the iceberg.
Speaker 3: As we've spoken about on this show before, the links
Speaker 3: between ANRA and terrorism and extremism and in doctor tranation
Speaker 3: of children are extensive and date back years.
Speaker 2: Michael Sika, what do you.
Speaker 3: Think it says about the Albanzi government that this has
Speaker 3: emerged big press conference and they're still happy to send
Speaker 3: millions and millions and millions and millions of our hard earned,
Speaker 3: taxpaid dollars to this group that has been linked to terrorism.
Speaker 9: It's disgusting it's beyond belief. You know, weakness is a
Speaker 9: theme I think tonight in critiquing the governments. How weak
Speaker 9: is Anthony Albanesi and this government? And it's disgusting because
Speaker 9: we've sent sixty million dollars of Australian taxpayers money over
Speaker 9: there that he's funding. Quite frankly people who have been
Speaker 9: terrorists and presumably have only we're only able to participate
Speaker 9: in terrorist as because they are on the under a
Speaker 9: payroll and sadly Australian taxpayers dollars have contributed to that organization.
Speaker 9: So Anthony ll needs he's asking Australians to get up
Speaker 9: every morning, work hard, take more of their paypacket in
Speaker 9: order to ship it over to NRA so they can
Speaker 9: employ people to be part of a terrorist organization. It
Speaker 9: is just beyond belief. You almost laugh if it wasn't
Speaker 9: such a serious topic, because this is a clear cutcase
Speaker 9: as the US is quite rightly done where you cut
Speaker 9: off the funding. Now Anthony Alberanezi needs to explain what
Speaker 9: does he know that the United States doesn't know? What's
Speaker 9: his intelligence that the United States doesn't have because they've
Speaker 9: cut off the funding, He's reinstated the funding and let's
Speaker 9: always remember Shari, this is not Anthony Albanese's money. He's
Speaker 9: using Australia as taxpayers money. It's in our name money
Speaker 9: being sent over to anra who I think, in the
Speaker 9: full light of day, will be shown to have employed
Speaker 9: people who were up to their necks in this absolute atrocity.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 3: And Bronwin, you know what's even work is that initially
Speaker 3: the government paused funding, but they didn't even wait for
Speaker 3: the investigation before recommencing it again.
Speaker 10: Well, Pennywong has showed herself to have made some made
Speaker 10: decision on which side she backs, and she's backing the
Speaker 10: Palestinians and she doesn't care about what happens to the
Speaker 10: Israeli citizens, Otherwise she would cut the funding. America has
Speaker 10: ensured that the funding is not being renewed. But honestly
Speaker 10: and truly, when you see that the United Nations has
Speaker 10: become so self righteous about so many issues, why aren't
Speaker 10: these nine people being referred to the International Criminal Court?
Speaker 10: Why aren't they being prosecuted?
Speaker 2: Exactly?
Speaker 10: Why aren't they being hearded up and kept I mean,
Speaker 10: it just makes a joke of it.
Speaker 3: Where are they now? Are they in Gaza? Are they
Speaker 3: still working with harms. I mean there's a lot you'll
Speaker 3: need to know about.
Speaker 10: This well, and look at the amount of money that's
Speaker 10: at stake. It is said that agency has thirty thousand
Speaker 10: employees doing what doing good?
Speaker 2: Question? Good question?
Speaker 3: Now a bit of a change of pace now the
Speaker 3: New South Wales and Victorian governments are at odds over
Speaker 3: whether public service employees should.
Speaker 2: Be forced back into the office.
Speaker 3: New South I was Premier Chris Mins publicly said today
Speaker 3: that he thought it was bizarre Victoria wasn't asking their
Speaker 3: employees to get back to work after what were quite
Speaker 3: extreme COVID restrictions.
Speaker 1: Have a look, I've seen the Victorian government, not New
Speaker 1: South Wales for this change.
Speaker 2: We're not for changing.
Speaker 3: We think it's important for the public service in New
Speaker 3: South Wales.
Speaker 8: And at the end of the day, frankly, with all
Speaker 8: of the lockdowns.
Speaker 1: In Melbourne, I would have thought a lot of people
Speaker 1: in Victoria would be desperate to get out of the house.
Speaker 3: The Allen government in Victoria said that any public servants
Speaker 3: from New South Wales who wanted workplace flexibility should move
Speaker 3: to Victoria. Michael Suko, you know you live in Melbourne.
Speaker 2: What did you think of this response from Victoria, Well.
Speaker 9: There were smart alic words from a premier who's basically
Speaker 9: running an insolvent government. Let's be frankier, and the premier
Speaker 9: has been a part of every single decision, wayful decision
Speaker 9: that has led Victoria to the position wherein now I
Speaker 9: think the Premier of New South Wales has made a
Speaker 9: pretty self evident call today in many respects that follows
Speaker 9: what the corporate world is already doing. And I think
Speaker 9: the truth is of public servants, they are there to
Speaker 9: serve the public good and the vast majority of them
Speaker 9: want to do so, but they need some leadership. And
Speaker 9: this sort of smart alec line from the Victorian premier,
Speaker 9: I mean they are the worst performing government in this
Speaker 9: country behind Anthony Albanese's government. So she doesn't exactly have
Speaker 9: a place occupy a place where she should be giving
Speaker 9: advice to any other state, let alone sort of smart
Speaker 9: lines like that. This is sadly Victoria a government that's
Speaker 9: seeing business leave our state, investment leave our state, and
Speaker 9: on so many metrics, Victoria which occupied and I'm a
Speaker 9: very parochial Victorian, but Victoria which occupied the upper echelon
Speaker 9: of virtually every single economic statistic in this country is
Speaker 9: now right at the bottom of the ladder, and I
Speaker 9: would have thought someone like the Victorian premier will try
Speaker 9: and take some advice and look at what other states
Speaker 9: are doing. Quite frankly, other states that are doing much
Speaker 9: better than Victoria and are not in the parlas financial
Speaker 9: situation that we're in, which is basically bankrupt.
Speaker 3: Look aside from the budget bottom line run when I
Speaker 3: think Chris Men's is showing time and time again that
Speaker 3: he is the model of what a centrist lay politician
Speaker 3: should look like. I mean, whatever the issue is, he
Speaker 3: mostly takes a very mainstream, sensible standpoint.
Speaker 10: I don't think I can endorse him on everything, but
Speaker 10: I can certainly do so on this issue. I think
Speaker 10: he's realized there is no productivity growth that he's decided
Speaker 10: that he's going to insist there be some. And Michael,
Speaker 10: I feel very sorry for you down there with Victoria
Speaker 10: having to live there appalling government. It's a basket case.
Speaker 2: And everyone watching who's in Melbourne.
Speaker 10: And everyone watching indeed indeed, and you don't deserve it,
Speaker 10: but you really have to vote them out to get
Speaker 10: a change. But if you go back to this question
Speaker 10: of productivity, generally there is none while there's work from home.
Speaker 10: He's become such a norm. People say, oh, you can't
Speaker 10: go back, Well, yes you can, and indeed peritate today
Speaker 10: coming out and saying that mandatory vaccinations were wrong. Finally
Speaker 10: a mission about how we're induced into the myths that
Speaker 10: has followed COVID. We're still not over it, we're still
Speaker 10: suffering from it.
Speaker 2: He didn't come out and publicly say that, of course
Speaker 2: at the time. We're not at the time.
Speaker 3: You said it today the day indeed, all right, Michael Silko,
Speaker 3: Brahma Bishop.
Speaker 2: Great to have you both on the show. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Coming up after the break, just Center Price will join
Speaker 3: us live to unload on alban Easy's Macarata confession plus
Speaker 3: Facebook censorship of the now famous photograph of Donald Trump
Speaker 3: right after the assassination attempt.
Speaker 2: You won't believe Meta's excuse.
Speaker 3: That's all coming up, Welcome back with the Prime Minister
Speaker 3: has been accused of backtracking on an election promise to
Speaker 3: create a Macarata commission, one of the key pillars of
Speaker 3: the earliery statement from the heart. The confusion came after
Speaker 3: this awkward response on the ABC over the weekend.
Speaker 12: One of the architects of the Ularuz Statement.
Speaker 13: Pat Anderson says that you should be embarking on a
Speaker 13: truth and justice.
Speaker 8: Commission and you're saying it's not that.
Speaker 14: That's not what you're going to do.
Speaker 6: Well, that's not what we have proposed. What we're proposed
Speaker 6: is Makarada just being the idea of coming together.
Speaker 2: So it's talking about that's what we want to do.
Speaker 2: We're engaging.
Speaker 6: Being here is a starting point.
Speaker 3: And it's made the news eversets over the years. Albanezi
Speaker 3: has been adamant that his government will commit to the
Speaker 3: statement in full.
Speaker 6: And on behalf of the Australian Labor Party, I commit
Speaker 6: to the Ularus Statement from the heart and whole, and
Speaker 6: I recommit on behalf of the government that I proudly
Speaker 6: lead to the implementation of the Ularuz Statement from the
Speaker 6: heart in full. And I'm proud to lead a government
Speaker 6: that's committed to implementing the ULARUS Statement from the heart
Speaker 6: in full.
Speaker 3: And Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians just Enterprice joins us.
Speaker 2: Now, just great to see you.
Speaker 3: Look do you think this was an unclear answer of
Speaker 3: Albernizi's odd Do you think it is a broken promise.
Speaker 15: Oh look, it's absolutely a broken promise from Anthony Alberzi.
Speaker 15: He's demonstrated many broken promises over and over again. You know,
Speaker 15: he's quite competent at breaking promises, it seems. But look,
Speaker 15: I mean he's at odds with his Minister for Indigenous Australians,
Speaker 15: who I know at the last Senate estimates told us
Speaker 15: that they would be pursuing makarata form of truth telling commission.
Speaker 15: She also said that recently. So I'm not sure who
Speaker 15: he thinks is running the portfolio, whether it's himself or
Speaker 15: it's the Minister herself. But again, this is our prime
Speaker 15: minister unclear on many things.
Speaker 3: And do you personally think that there is a case
Speaker 3: for a Macaraatei commission?
Speaker 2: And if not, what do you think the issues are?
Speaker 15: Look, the term macarata, and that's another thing. The Prime
Speaker 15: Minister has to get that right. The term macarata actually
Speaker 15: means it's.
Speaker 2: A form of payback. It's a spearing in the leg.
Speaker 15: It's not a coming together as he likes to suggest
Speaker 15: it is. So I don't like the concept behind it,
Speaker 15: which tells me, you know, is this a commission that
Speaker 15: will would be set up by the Labor government to
Speaker 15: again hold responsible non Indigenous Australians for our country's history.
Speaker 2: I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in real.
Speaker 15: Educational outcomes for all of Australia's young people. And if
Speaker 15: that means teaching history in its entirety, the good, the bad,
Speaker 15: the ugly, everything, not for the purposes of weaponizing it
Speaker 15: against our country, but to have a better understanding of
Speaker 15: who we are, I'm all for that, But I'm not
Speaker 15: up for this commission that they're suggesting.
Speaker 3: I mean, you get this and so that the Prime
Speaker 3: Minister has all but abandoned Indigenous policy after the failure
Speaker 3: of the Voice. He doesn't speak about it anymore. He
Speaker 3: spoke about it virtually every day for the best part
Speaker 3: of the year, and now it does seem like his
Speaker 3: lost interest.
Speaker 2: What do you think?
Speaker 15: Look, the Prime Minister has failed miserably when it's come
Speaker 15: to addressing the needs of our most disadvantaged.
Speaker 2: He didn't have any ideas to begin with.
Speaker 15: He put all these eggs in one basket and the
Speaker 15: very expensive referendum that he could have invested where it
Speaker 15: is needed. He talks about touching down and listening. Well,
Speaker 15: he's got to get out of Gama. He's got to
Speaker 15: get out of Ulara. When he visits Ulara, he's got
Speaker 15: to go out to remote communities. He should come back
Speaker 15: to Alice Springs and go to some town camps. The
Speaker 15: situation has not improved on the ground, but he goes
Speaker 15: to where it's easy for him to grandstand, which is
Speaker 15: Gama every year and do very little. But he knows
Speaker 15: he'll get very little pushback from those that are ten Garma.
Speaker 3: I mean, we're coming up to an election probably in
Speaker 3: the next nine or ten months. If you were Indigenous
Speaker 3: Affairs minister, what are the first thing you do from
Speaker 3: a policy perspective.
Speaker 15: Well, several times already I've attempted to pass a motion
Speaker 15: in the Senate to launch an inquiry into land councils
Speaker 15: and statutory authorities, those who are funded who have the
Speaker 15: responsibility to improve the lives of our most marginalized, so
Speaker 15: that we can better know where the money is being misspent,
Speaker 15: you know, where it's not actually providing outcomes.
Speaker 2: And each time we've.
Speaker 15: Put this motion up, the Labor Government and the Greens
Speaker 15: have voted it down for what reason, I do not know,
Speaker 15: And if Minister Melanderry McCarthy is serious about taking a
Speaker 15: bipartisan position, then she would support efforts to vote in
Speaker 15: favor of an inquiry to begin with, so we know
Speaker 15: where to invest money that will actually produce outcomes.
Speaker 2: But we also need a rural.
Speaker 15: Commission into the sexual abuse of Indigenous children.
Speaker 2: You know, we talk about.
Speaker 15: High rates of youth incarceration, of incarceration. The reason we've
Speaker 15: got that is because our kids experience the highest rates
Speaker 15: of sexual abuse and neglecting the country. And if we
Speaker 15: don't address that, we're not going to get further upstream
Speaker 15: and reduce rates of incarceration, suicide and everything else.
Speaker 2: Whether the gap is greatest a.
Speaker 3: Lot to do for sure, if you do get the
Speaker 3: opportunity to be Indigenous Affairs Minister Disent Deprice.
Speaker 2: Great to have you on the show again. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Now still to come Keir Starmer facing accusations of hypocrisy
Speaker 3: over the riots that have rocked the UK and why
Speaker 3: did Facebook censor the photograph of the Donald Trump assassination attempt?
Speaker 2: All of that coming up next. Welcome back.
Speaker 3: Well, let's turn to the UK now, which is still
Speaker 3: in the throes of deep social unrest and violent anti
Speaker 3: immigration riots that have rocked parts of England.
Speaker 2: For the past week.
Speaker 3: The protests have provided a major challenge to the new
Speaker 3: Prime Minister, Kiir Starmer, who has called on a standing
Speaker 3: army of police.
Speaker 2: To deal with the disorder.
Speaker 3: Things have got so extreme that even Australians have been
Speaker 3: advised to exercise a high degree of caution in the
Speaker 3: UK due to the threat of terrorism. Well, I'm joined
Speaker 3: now by Tom Slater, editor of Spiked. Tom, thank you
Speaker 3: very much for your time. Look, these riots were sparked
Speaker 3: in part by the horrific stabbing of three young girls.
Speaker 2: How have they taken off since then?
Speaker 14: Well, as you say, that was the thing that lit
Speaker 14: the flame, I think that was the excuse that a
Speaker 14: lot of these thugs chose to use, chose to jump on,
Speaker 14: to commit the carnage that we've seen across the country.
Speaker 14: But it's spread very organically, very alarmingly, first across the
Speaker 14: North and the Midlands, now parts of the South well,
Speaker 14: and it's something that quite clearly the authorities don't really
Speaker 14: have a handle on. I think Kir Starmer's most to
Speaker 14: make a horrendous situation much worse. He's managed to essentially
Speaker 14: fuel the kind of the narrative put out by a
Speaker 14: lot of the hard right agitators that this is two
Speaker 14: tier policing, that they are coming down hard on protesters
Speaker 14: but not on counter protests and so on, when it
Speaker 14: would have been so easy for him to make clear
Speaker 14: that all forms of crime and disorder would be condemned.
Speaker 14: And I think that's the real, really disheartening thing in
Speaker 14: the UK at the moment, is there's no clear sense
Speaker 14: that anyone is really in control at this point.
Speaker 3: Look, initially we were seeing you know, fire right anti
Speaker 3: immigration protesters leading the social mayhem and the violence here,
Speaker 3: but we've also been seeing footage of other groups joining
Speaker 3: in the violence, you know, pro Palestinians and others in masks.
Speaker 2: Andrew Bolt played some of that footage a bit earlier.
Speaker 3: So it seems like this is just complete social line
Speaker 3: that's now breaking loose on the street. Is that an
Speaker 3: accurate depiction of what's happening in the UK?
Speaker 14: Absolutely? And of course the kind of response that we've
Speaker 14: seen from groups of British Muslims, Islamist activists and so
Speaker 14: on has been nowhere near the same scale. I mean
Speaker 14: of what the kind of racist writing that we've seen,
Speaker 14: which has been targeting migrant hotels, has been smashing up
Speaker 14: minority businesses has been a costing ethnic minorities in the street.
Speaker 14: We've seen nothing on the scale of that. But what
Speaker 14: we saw in say Birmingham last night when you had
Speaker 14: groups of young Muslim youth wearing balaclava's harassing, intimidating press.
Speaker 14: They chase an LBC journalists out of the area, They
Speaker 14: tried to slash the tires of a Sky News UK crew.
Speaker 14: There was also footage of them beating up someone outside
Speaker 14: of a pub, which kind of community elders have since
Speaker 14: apologized for. And even though as I say, it is
Speaker 14: on a smaller scale, it shows that things are spinning
Speaker 14: out of control and worse still, there's a sense that
Speaker 14: from the Labor Party they struggled to condemn or take
Speaker 14: seriously that behavior, which again fuels this narrative that this
Speaker 14: is a two tier policing. We even saw the local
Speaker 14: Birmingham Labor MP there effectively tried to basically talk down
Speaker 14: what been going on there last night. So, as you say,
Speaker 14: what's things aren't on the same scale of the racist
Speaker 14: writing that we've seen. It's a sign that British societies
Speaker 14: is threatening to kind of come apart, not just in
Speaker 14: one area or one community.
Speaker 3: Across many Yeah, look the violence is shocking and terrifying
Speaker 3: and even a travel warning to Australians. Tom Slater, thank
Speaker 3: you very much for your time. Now, Facebook has come
Speaker 3: out of fire for censoring the now iconic photograph our
Speaker 3: former president Donald Trump right after the assassination attempt. Users
Speaker 3: were complaining that their Facebook accounts were categorizing the image
Speaker 3: as altered, with an explanation then saying independent fact checkers
Speaker 3: reviewed a similar photo and said it was altered in
Speaker 3: a way that could mislead people, and Meta has tried
Speaker 3: to defend this well. To discuss, let's bring in now
Speaker 3: the CEO of Libernette, Andrew Lowenthal. Andrew, great to have
Speaker 3: you in Australia once again. So look, we are seeing
Speaker 3: the odd censorship and it does seem to be growing
Speaker 3: of big tech over Donald Trump. What was Facebook's response
Speaker 3: to this censoring of the most iconic photograph to come
Speaker 3: out of what was now a very historic event.
Speaker 16: Sure well, apparently there was another photograph that was circulating
Speaker 16: that was doctored, and the AI system and other systems
Speaker 16: they were using to identify what they've considered false information
Speaker 16: flag this one up as well. Obviously, this image is
Speaker 16: so iconic now that you would probably expect, kind of
Speaker 16: with the resources that a Facebook has for them to
Speaker 16: be much more on top of this kind of thing.
Speaker 16: And given the lack of trust that has developed through
Speaker 16: things that have been exposed through the Twitter files or
Speaker 16: other kind of investigations that you know, big tech is considered,
Speaker 16: you know, or seen by many many people as been
Speaker 16: really quite quite partisanates. So you don't really want to
Speaker 16: kind of be messing this level of stuff.
Speaker 3: And I should have mentioned to everyone that you were
Speaker 3: part of the Twitter files. You were part of the
Speaker 3: investigative investigative journalists along with Michael Schallenberger and Barryweese who
Speaker 3: went into Twitter and uncovered the evidence of what they'd
Speaker 3: been censoring right after Elon Musk brought it, So I
Speaker 3: should have mentioned that.
Speaker 2: But we've also seen.
Speaker 3: From Google, you know, a censoring of the search results
Speaker 3: for the Donald Trump assassination attempt as well. So do
Speaker 3: you think this is part of that same pattern that
Speaker 3: you saw when you went into Twitter?
Speaker 16: Oh, I mean, obviously we don't one hundred percent no,
Speaker 16: because there's no kind of specific receipts to explain to
Speaker 16: us why that has happened there's a certain level of
Speaker 16: plausible deniability, but again, the trust is broken down so much,
Speaker 16: I think by a huge way of not just the
Speaker 16: American public, but the public at large in you know,
Speaker 16: are these big tear companies really properly managing what is
Speaker 16: now essentially the public square. It seems they're doing really
Speaker 16: quiet a bad job of it, and a lot of
Speaker 16: people feel censored because there really was quite a lot
Speaker 16: of censorship going on and still is really so there
Speaker 16: needs to be a lot more alternatives. There needs to
Speaker 16: be a lot more accountability for big tech to make
Speaker 16: sure that they're you know, if they're going to have
Speaker 16: this much power, they need to have a lot more accountability.
Speaker 3: What's interesting because in Australia there is a push by
Speaker 3: our government to make big tech accountable, but not from
Speaker 3: you know, the aspect of censoring one side of politics,
Speaker 3: but from misinformation. And there's this very controversial misinformation bill.
Speaker 3: You've looked at it in some detail and you've even
Speaker 3: made a submission to the Communications Minister Michelle Roland. What
Speaker 3: do you think the main problems are with formalizing misinformation
Speaker 3: in legislation?
Speaker 16: Well, one is do you trust politicians to be the
Speaker 16: arbatas or bureaucrats to be the arbators of truth. I
Speaker 16: think most people would put them absolutely, very very low
Speaker 16: down in trustworthyness. The other is that you know who's
Speaker 16: actually getting policed. So think that we've seen that the
Speaker 16: people who get of policed online tend to be at
Speaker 16: the bottom of the food chain, and they don't they're
Speaker 16: not the people at the top of the food chain.
Speaker 16: That the kind of if you want to police missing
Speaker 16: disinformation or hate speech as well, you should be looking
Speaker 16: at the government, politicians, corporations, etc. Who have the most
Speaker 16: power and the most capacity to spread misleading claims.
Speaker 3: And we saw during the COVID pandemic, and this was
Speaker 3: under a coalition government by the way, that the Home
Speaker 3: Affairs Department was centering about four thousand posts where people
Speaker 3: had been critical of mask mandates COVID vaccines. So none
Speaker 3: of that freedom of speech was allowed during the COVID pandemic.
Speaker 16: Well exactly, so they flagged four thousand Twitter didn't necessarily
Speaker 16: take all of them down. That was the freedom of
Speaker 16: information requests. In the Twitter files we found two hundred
Speaker 16: or so of the content of those requests.
Speaker 2: But in Australia at in Australia.
Speaker 16: In Australian Twitter files that I worked on that showed
Speaker 16: they were flagging you know, jokes about Dan Andrews, jokes
Speaker 16: about how long you'd have to wait in the car
Speaker 16: for a PCR test accounts with this few of twenty followers,
Speaker 16: which makes you wonder, what is the Department of Home
Speaker 16: Affairs doing following accounts with only twenty people on it
Speaker 16: when you know they're tasked with quite serious, quite serious
Speaker 16: remit in terms of public safety and terrorism and other issues.
Speaker 16: So it's really this again, this problem where you're policing
Speaker 16: the people at the bottom and saying you're the baddies,
Speaker 16: whereas actually the people who do need watching, which is
Speaker 16: the role of the media and should be a role
Speaker 16: for anti disinformation campaigns if you're going to have a
Speaker 16: field that that is that large is concentrated on the
Speaker 16: people with the most power, not on.
Speaker 2: The people on the street.
Speaker 3: We've also got an e Safety Commissioner who's spoken out
Speaker 3: about missing disinformation. She previously was you know, a woke
Speaker 3: Silicon Valley involve you know, an executive, and now she's
Speaker 3: come to Australia. Originally appointed to the role by former
Speaker 3: Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, but it is still in the
Speaker 3: role under the Labor government. So this again says something
Speaker 3: about where Australia is headed well totally.
Speaker 16: And again to go back to the point that I've
Speaker 16: made a few times, is you were doing a story
Speaker 16: earlier about the tweet from the Ranian ambassador. Yeah, so
Speaker 16: there's no comment that I've seen so far from E safety.
Speaker 2: Yes, that issue good point.
Speaker 16: E safety would be all over or manner of kind
Speaker 16: of issues of you know, the kind of general person
Speaker 16: might be saying, and here you have something really at
Speaker 16: scale that would be much more concerning. I'm not sure
Speaker 16: that I would be one hundred percent backing kind of
Speaker 16: censorship there or not. But it's interesting that if you're
Speaker 16: going to apply the rules, you know, then you should
Speaker 16: you have to apply them fairly across the board, and
Speaker 16: that based on her rules and her very strict system
Speaker 16: that she currently has in place, that tweet would probably
Speaker 16: come within them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: It is incitement to violence, So there is an argument
Speaker 3: for censoring.
Speaker 2: I agree with you.
Speaker 3: I don't know whether you'd want it censored or you
Speaker 3: want to see what the Iranian ambassador is actually saying.
Speaker 2: I'd follow on the.
Speaker 3: Free speech side in this particular case. But agreed, right,
Speaker 3: Andrew Lowenthal, Thank you very much for your time.
Speaker 16: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Now, we've still got a lot to come.
Speaker 3: We've got Facebook admitting the mistake in censoring Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: We've just covered that.
Speaker 3: But after the break, we are going to cross live
Speaker 3: to the US where Kamala Harris is experiencing the mother
Speaker 3: of all makeovers.
Speaker 2: Will it work well? The Democrats, sure hope, So stay
Speaker 2: tuned after the break. Welcome back.
Speaker 7: Well.
Speaker 3: The rebranding of Kamala Harris is well underway, and it's extraordinary.
Speaker 3: As Jared Baker writes in The Wall Street Journal, can
Speaker 3: the Democrats and a collaborative media pull off? They're recasting
Speaker 3: a vice president Kamala Harris from the verbally malley, politically
Speaker 3: inept ruinous policy espousing electoral dud we have all seen
Speaker 3: over the past five years, into the holy trinity of
Speaker 3: Joan of Arc, Harriet Tubman and Margaret Thatcher we have
Speaker 3: been presented with in the past two weeks.
Speaker 2: He says time all.
Speaker 3: The lack of it is the key to the operation's success.
Speaker 3: I say ninety days, but in practice they need to
Speaker 3: keep the hype show.
Speaker 2: On the road.
Speaker 3: For just two months after in August of jubilees. Well,
Speaker 3: the left media and the Democratic spin doctors do seem
Speaker 3: to be pulling this off, despite old clips like this
Speaker 3: that keep popping up.
Speaker 12: And as a woman, there is a balance to be
Speaker 12: struck between being tough.
Speaker 2: And being a turn that off, and there's so much
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 3: Well, let's bring in now Fox News contributor political podcaster
Speaker 3: Brad Palambo.
Speaker 2: Brad, thank you very much for joining us.
Speaker 3: Look, this transformation is quite stunning, really because Kamala Harris
Speaker 3: was considered pretty much incompetent vice president and suddenly she's
Speaker 3: the new Obama.
Speaker 13: Yeah, even a couple months ago before this all went
Speaker 13: down and she became the nominee, the New York Times
Speaker 13: as writers they ranked her as the least electable of
Speaker 13: the possible Biden replacements. But now because the switch has
Speaker 13: been made, they all flipped on a dime. And you
Speaker 13: got to give the mainstream media credit for one thing.
Speaker 13: It's message and discipline control. But look, they're going to
Speaker 13: have to shelter her because she is a gaff machine.
Speaker 13: She is cringe personified. So what they're going to have
Speaker 13: to do is try to keep her away. She still
Speaker 13: has not done an interview or a press con since
Speaker 13: becoming the nominee, and it's been more than two weeks.
Speaker 13: They're going to have to try to hide her away
Speaker 13: until now an election day and hope that just their
Speaker 13: heavily filtered media coverage is all people will be exposed to,
Speaker 13: or her edited TikTok videos, which I will admit are
Speaker 13: well done. But because if she's actually scrutinized for all
Speaker 13: her flip flops, for the Biden administration's many failures and calamities,
Speaker 13: then I think Americans will really lose a lot. The
Speaker 13: shine will come off, they'll really see what's there, and
Speaker 13: they won't be so interested. But if they can successfully
Speaker 13: pull a Joe Biden in twenty twenty and just campaign
Speaker 13: from the basement, it might just work out for them,
Speaker 13: but it is kind of a sham for the democratic process.
Speaker 3: Or she is on show, she's doing events, just not
Speaker 3: rigorous interviews or press conferences, but at least she is
Speaker 3: out of the proverbial basement.
Speaker 2: But Brad, you know, this strategy is clearly.
Speaker 3: Working because the polls are showing that she's now catching
Speaker 3: up to Trump. But it is becoming a major news story.
Speaker 3: That she hasn't done an interview in fifteen days, So
Speaker 3: how long is she is Kamala Harrison the Democratic Party
Speaker 3: actually going to be able to stick with this strategy
Speaker 3: of not sitting down with a serious, tough journalist.
Speaker 13: Well, unfortunately, you know, people in right of center media,
Speaker 13: Fox News or the Wall Street Journal they're not going
Speaker 13: to listen to us, right, It's going to have to
Speaker 13: come from the New York Times. It's going to have
Speaker 13: to come from the liberal media establishment actually sticking to
Speaker 13: their journalistic principles rather than their rank partisan bias and
Speaker 13: calling her out and saying, listen, you're running for president
Speaker 13: of the United States. You've got to do actual interviews,
Speaker 13: not just fan service, not just events with celebrities. You've
Speaker 13: got to sit down and be held to account because
Speaker 13: she has flip flopped on everything under the sun just
Speaker 13: in the last few weeks, from healthcare policy to fracking
Speaker 13: to so many other things. She's done a complete eighty
Speaker 13: not really explained any of it. Plus, there's so much
Speaker 13: she needs to answer for from this administration's record, from
Speaker 13: the inflation and the policies they had that contributed it
Speaker 13: to the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan that left many US
Speaker 13: service members dead unnecessarily, that could have been avoided so
Speaker 13: many things. But if they just want to try, what
Speaker 13: the campaign wants to do is just avoid all that
Speaker 13: and just do like cooking videos with celebrities between now
Speaker 13: and November. So you will come down to the liberal
Speaker 13: media establishment. Are they going to actually stick up for
Speaker 13: journalism and demand that Kamala does some interviews? She will
Speaker 13: listen if they do. Are they just going to keep
Speaker 13: their democratic partisan hats on and go along till now
Speaker 13: in November?
Speaker 3: Yeah, just quickly before you go, We've had the big
Speaker 3: news that there could be a recession in the United
Speaker 3: States precisely the same time that Kamala Harris has claimed
Speaker 3: the economy is in top shape in the US. You've
Speaker 3: got about thirty seconds. But this is now going to
Speaker 3: be a big problem for her ahead.
Speaker 2: Of the election.
Speaker 13: It has and it will be a problem because it
Speaker 13: has been a problem. They keep bragging about Bidenomics when
Speaker 13: Americans cannot afford groceries. So now if we do end
Speaker 13: up going into a recession, they're talking points on the
Speaker 13: economic agenda will only ring even more empty.
Speaker 3: Indeed, it will Brad Plumboth thank you very much for
Speaker 3: your thoughts tonight, and thanks everyone for your company and
Speaker 3: for watching this evening, so we've got time for I'll
Speaker 3: be back tomorrow at eight. And right now, here's Paul Murray.