Speaker 1: News.
Speaker 2: This is Shari.
Speaker 1: Good evening and welcome to the program. I'm Caleb Bond
Speaker 1: filling in for Shari tonight. What's coming up on the
Speaker 1: show The truth between Israel and Hesbella in full effect
Speaker 1: with hopes of calm in the Middle East tonight. But
Speaker 1: what happens next? Also tonight, Lydia Thorpe suspended following a
Speaker 1: wild outburst in the Senate was just one of the
Speaker 1: dramatic scenes that unfolded today. Liberal Senator Holly Hughes will
Speaker 1: join me to break that down. Plus how out of
Speaker 1: touch can the ABC chairman get Kim Williams unloaded on
Speaker 1: the world's most popular podcaster, as the National Broadcaster's Radio
Speaker 1: Ratings Tank. My take on that in a moment. But first,
Speaker 1: the Albaneze government has become quite adept at cooking the
Speaker 1: books to make the numbers look better. That's of course
Speaker 1: what they did with the three hundred dollars subsidy for
Speaker 1: power bills. It doesn't actually reduce the price of power
Speaker 1: at all. It's a payment to power companies so they
Speaker 1: can knock some money off the bill that they send you,
Speaker 1: which conveniently means that when inflation is calculated, power bills
Speaker 1: have gone down and so inflation will go down, but
Speaker 1: the actual cost of the commodity hasn't changed. You might
Speaker 1: call it creative accounting. Well, Deloitte Access Economics has exposed
Speaker 1: another dodgy way that Prime Minister Anthony Albanesi and Treasurer
Speaker 1: Jim Charmers of course, problem with Bishop who's on this
Speaker 1: program on a Tuesday, calls him the stake charmer. They're
Speaker 1: diddling the numbers. It's called off budget spending, which is
Speaker 1: where the government spends more money by declaring it as
Speaker 1: an investment ie. That money goes through a government business
Speaker 1: or lending scheme, which means it isn't included in the
Speaker 1: underlying budget number, which is the one that we talk
Speaker 1: about on Budget Night, surplus and deficit, etc. The Financial
Speaker 1: Review reported today that based on Deloitte numbers, off budget
Speaker 1: spending will go through the roof to eighty seven point
Speaker 1: one billion dollars over the next four years. Now take
Speaker 1: a look at this graph the AFR RAN. This shows
Speaker 1: the off budget spending for the past couple of decades
Speaker 1: and what Deloitte projects will be spent in the future.
Speaker 1: That's the red bit there. As you can see it
Speaker 1: wasn't a thing before the NBN came along, and for
Speaker 1: the most part was below ten billion dollars a year
Speaker 1: after that, but it will explode to record levels under
Speaker 1: Albanzi and Charmers, and this shows exactly what that means.
Speaker 1: The federal budget is actually about twenty billion dollars worse
Speaker 1: off a year than what Charmers will tell you on
Speaker 1: budget Night, very tricky. A large portion of this is
Speaker 1: student loans, as you can see here, and things like
Speaker 1: the Clean Energy Finance Corporation Snowy Hydro and the Housing
Speaker 1: Future Fund. Now the student loan number, of course has
Speaker 1: increased because the Albanesi government is for giving sixteen billion
Speaker 1: dollars worth of student debt. So in effect, the government
Speaker 1: uses this money, which isn't really counted in the budget,
Speaker 1: to achieve populist promises to buy off voters like writing
Speaker 1: off student debt, and to achieve policy ends like funding
Speaker 1: renewable energy. And because this money is spent directly on
Speaker 1: things or putting money in people's hands, it is directly
Speaker 1: inflationary and this is exactly what Reserve Bank Governor Michelle
Speaker 1: Bullock has warned about high government spending fuels inflation economist
Speaker 1: Chris Richardson told the AFR that discrepancy between the underlying
Speaker 1: and headline figures had encouraged politicians to hide their trash there.
Speaker 1: He said, it's reached a point where the headline balance
Speaker 1: is now becoming the figure that deserves more attention than
Speaker 1: the underlying figure, and that is deliberately why they use
Speaker 1: the other figure. The Center for Independent Studies also blew
Speaker 1: the whistle on this last week in an excellent paper
Speaker 1: by former Treasury official Gene Tunney. In his report, he
Speaker 1: says that overall, off budget activities expand the reach of government,
Speaker 1: are bad for transparency and new risks to government balance sheets,
Speaker 1: and ultimately can result in lower productivity and living standards.
Speaker 1: Off budget spending contributes to higher debt and interest payments,
Speaker 1: potentially leading to higher taxes, which can reduce productivity in
Speaker 1: living standards. It also may exacerbate inflation. He writes that
Speaker 1: much of the off budget spending in recent years has
Speaker 1: been concerning, and that it will become more common as
Speaker 1: quote a way for politicians to appear to be responding
Speaker 1: to society's challenges while minimizing the direct budget impact, even
Speaker 1: though they bring significant risks onto the balance sheet. The
Speaker 1: report's conclusion says that taxpayers suffer through underperforming sorry investments
Speaker 1: of taxpayer funds. It is bad for accountability and transparency
Speaker 1: and makes the RBA's monetary policy task of controlling inflation
Speaker 1: more difficult. In other words, this off budget spending, this
Speaker 1: almost secret or hidden spending, if you like, under the
Speaker 1: guise of investment, makes it's harder for you to get
Speaker 1: an interest rate cut, all while the treasurer brags about
Speaker 1: how good is budget numbers are.
Speaker 3: The Albanesi Labor government has delivered a second consecutive budget surplus.
Speaker 4: We found savings in the budget.
Speaker 2: We delivered a second surplus.
Speaker 5: The big improvement is from less spending.
Speaker 2: We have turned two big.
Speaker 3: Liberal deficits into two big labored surpluses, bigger surplus, delivering
Speaker 3: back to back budget surpluses for the first time in
Speaker 3: nearly two decades.
Speaker 1: It's easy to appear a good economic manager when you're
Speaker 1: pulling fiscal slights of hand, and that's effectively what the
Speaker 1: Albanzi government has mastered. I mean, they push spending off
Speaker 1: budget to hide from you what the books actually look like.
Speaker 1: They quote unquote reduce your power bill and the inflation
Speaker 1: numbers in the process by giving your money that you
Speaker 1: pay in taxes to your power company to essentially write
Speaker 1: us off the bill. No changing cost, but it is
Speaker 1: a change in the numbers on the piece of paper. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're wondering why the ABC's viewership and listenership is
Speaker 1: going through the floor, well, actually you probably do know,
Speaker 1: because you're watching me instead of them for a reason.
Speaker 1: But just humor me for a moment. If you want
Speaker 1: to know why, then just listen to its chairman Kim Williams.
Speaker 1: Today he was asked at the National Press Club about
Speaker 1: the Joe Rogan effect, referring to the massive popularity the
Speaker 1: biggest podcaster in the world and how the ABC should
Speaker 1: adapt to a modern market.
Speaker 6: I'm not sure that I'm the right person to respond
Speaker 6: to that question. I am not a consumer or enthusiast
Speaker 6: about mister Rogan and his work. Shock, I am not
Speaker 6: one of the three billion, and I'm unlikely to be
Speaker 6: three billion and one anytime soon. I think people like
Speaker 6: mister Rogan pray on people's vulnerabilities. They pray on fear,
Speaker 6: they pray on anxiety, they pray on all of the
Speaker 6: elements that contribute to uncertainty. In society, and they entrepreneur
Speaker 6: fantasy outcomes and conspiracy outcomes as being a normal part
Speaker 6: of social narrative.
Speaker 1: So hang on a minute. The chairman of the National Broadcast,
Speaker 1: which has a large podcast, refuses to listen to one
Speaker 1: of the most popular sorry podcast hosts in the world.
Speaker 1: I mean, has he no curiosity? It's his job to
Speaker 1: listen to other people's products to know whether or not
Speaker 1: his is any good. And not that I want to
Speaker 1: be agist, but mister Williams is seventy two. Perhaps he
Speaker 1: just hasn't quite moved with the times to chair a
Speaker 1: media company in the modern world. And how can he
Speaker 1: posit that Rogan is a conspiracy theorist when he doesn't
Speaker 1: even listen to him. I mean, he's clearly just read
Speaker 1: what someone else has said and taken it as gospel.
Speaker 2: But it got worse.
Speaker 6: I personally find it deeply repulsive, and to think that
Speaker 6: someone has such remarkable power in the United States is
Speaker 6: something that I look at him disbelief. I'm also absolutely
Speaker 6: in dismay that this can be a source of public
Speaker 6: entertainment when it's really treating the public as plunder for
Speaker 6: purposes that are really quite malevolent.
Speaker 1: I mean, seriously, he just doesn't get it. Rogan has
Speaker 1: about eleven million listeners per episode. Meanwhile, the ABC's radio
Speaker 1: audience has been in free fall across most of the
Speaker 1: country all year. The ABC just doesn't get it, and
Speaker 1: it would seem they don't want to get it. Just
Speaker 1: keep going down the same road and we'll see how
Speaker 1: things turn out. Let's bring in now Liberal Senator Holly Hughes. Holly, welcome,
Speaker 1: got It was an interesting time in the Senate today,
Speaker 1: wasn't it. Independent Senator Olidia Thorpe we found out this
Speaker 1: evening has been suspended from the Senate after she tore
Speaker 1: up motion papers and she stormed out of the chamber
Speaker 1: flipping the bird. This was after and you can see
Speaker 1: the photograph there, and there was this extraordinary meltdown from
Speaker 1: fat Payment over paul In Hanson's attempt to initiate an
Speaker 1: inquiry into her eligibility to be in Parliament due to
Speaker 1: her Afghan citizenship. Here's a bit of how it unfolded.
Speaker 3: Because the documentation is not good enough, It would not
Speaker 3: be good enough for anyone else here in this place.
Speaker 2: So why the protection racket is going on?
Speaker 5: I don't know if that is not racist.
Speaker 3: What is it?
Speaker 2: Senator Hansen has worn the burker in this place.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's time that she pack her burker and go
Speaker 1: to Afghanistan and.
Speaker 2: Talk to the talib about this. I kept on giving you.
Speaker 7: The benefit of the doubt, Senator Hansen.
Speaker 1: Despite your repetitive attempts to be racist to anyone who.
Speaker 2: Does not look like you.
Speaker 1: You're not just vindictive, mean nasty.
Speaker 2: You bring disgrace to the human race.
Speaker 1: I think the look on the face of Ralph for
Speaker 1: Babet sitting behind Fatima payment there just about says at all.
Speaker 1: But I mean, this would have to be one of
Speaker 1: the most extraordinarily childish displays on the part of both
Speaker 1: Payment and Lydia Thorpe that I have ever seen in
Speaker 1: Australian Parliament.
Speaker 8: So I actually feel like I need to take some
Speaker 8: ownership here. I was on chamber duty yesterday in the
Speaker 8: Ministerial seat when Pauline wanted to table the document with
Speaker 8: regards to Fatima payment. It had gone to all the
Speaker 8: whips the night before. Everyone had agreed that she would
Speaker 8: be allowed to table these documents, which did not mean
Speaker 8: Pauline would speak to them, and Marine Feruki actually did
Speaker 8: not give her leave and for those not obsessed with
Speaker 8: Senate process, any senator can deny leave to speak. So Pauline,
Speaker 8: as she was walking out of the chamber, I said
Speaker 8: to well, well, why didn't you suspend standing orders? And
Speaker 8: she sort of looked at me and went, I means
Speaker 8: I can speak to it, can't I? And I went, oh,
Speaker 8: yes you can. So I kind of feel like I
Speaker 8: need to take some o ownership here to my part.
Speaker 8: But it happened this morning, and having been someone who
Speaker 8: was struck out of the Senate by the High Court,
Speaker 8: mine was because apparently the election never ended in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 8: and therefore me taking a role meant that had officer
Speaker 8: profit under the Crown, and I was neligible to stand.
Speaker 8: There's a lot of us that have been through Section
Speaker 8: forty fours sitting in that place, and Senator Payment does
Speaker 8: have some serious questions to answer. She did not take
Speaker 8: reasonable steps. She is not written to anyone, She has
Speaker 8: not endeavored in any official form to renounce her citizenship.
Speaker 8: But it is actually the Greens behavior, by purely and
Speaker 8: simply vindictiveness denying Senator Hanson from tabling documents has led
Speaker 8: to this whole frakka. But what happened with Senator Thought
Speaker 8: today was I have to say, one of the more
Speaker 8: disturbing things I've seen. She ripped up papers in Senator
Speaker 8: Hanson's face and then threw them in her face. Now,
Speaker 8: I actually bumped into one of the press gallery photographers
Speaker 8: this afternoon and I said, oh, I guess we're seeing
Speaker 8: you later today because we knew the suspension motion was coming.
Speaker 8: But his comment may was thank goodness someone is doing
Speaker 8: something because the next thing she does, or the next
Speaker 8: thing that someone does, could potentially be physical. This is
Speaker 8: not acceptable in any workplace at all, and it is
Speaker 8: completely unacceptable behavior. But we're talking about this tonight and
Speaker 8: the suspension is quite a momentous occasion, and the Greens
Speaker 8: opposed it, and I mean, it just shows their blatant hypocrisy.
Speaker 8: And I'm reasonably confident because, like you, Caleb, I love
Speaker 8: our sky viewers and I'm pretty sure none of them
Speaker 8: vote Green. But to check the grains, well, they're paying
Speaker 8: for a subscription unlike the ABC, to watch sensible opinion.
Speaker 2: But the Greens oppose.
Speaker 8: This, and they oppose this because Samainfall is due to
Speaker 8: have a private Senator's Members bill in tomorrow on the
Speaker 8: alleged genocide, but has from what I've heard and understand,
Speaker 8: around one hundred or more supporters coming for the senator members' bills. So,
Speaker 8: for those of us that know Lidiar, I think we
Speaker 8: can safely assume there will be some form of attempted
Speaker 8: entrance into the Senate because of this suspension. Under two
Speaker 8: oh three of the standing orders, the black Rod is
Speaker 8: entitled to block her entrance. Now, the black Rod is
Speaker 8: a very big pseudo almost. I mean it's the staff.
Speaker 8: It's not a sword, but it's a big piece of gear.
Speaker 8: The Black Rod is entitled to hold her to that
Speaker 8: and not allow her entrance. So you know, who knows.
Speaker 8: Maybe she sets a fire up into the entrance to
Speaker 8: the chamber.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's.
Speaker 1: Just just don't know what this. No, no, you do
Speaker 1: not know what this woman.
Speaker 8: It will be extraordinary seeing you tomorrow night. The conversation
Speaker 8: will be about what happens tomorrow. Yes, I cannot imagine
Speaker 8: Lydia is going to let this.
Speaker 1: Snib and look, we know what Lydia Thorpe is like,
Speaker 1: the fact that she's even still there is just incredible.
Speaker 1: Holly Hughes, thank you so much for your time. Now,
Speaker 1: I know it might sound a bit like saying this
Speaker 1: guy is blue, but and you read Ridge Pole has
Speaker 1: found that Australians say the Alban Eazy government has the
Speaker 1: wrong priorities and that they are no better off since
Speaker 1: the PM was elected. And for the first time, this
Speaker 1: poll says that the majority of people think Peter Dutton
Speaker 1: is ready to lead the country, which is well up
Speaker 1: from being twenty points behind a year ago. To discuss
Speaker 1: this and more, I'm joined now by former Victorian Liberal
Speaker 1: Party president Michael Kroger and Sky News contributor Gary Hardgrave. Michael,
Speaker 1: I think we all sort of had this in the
Speaker 1: back of our head, certainly those of us here, all
Speaker 1: three of us certainly would have thought this, But we
Speaker 1: have it in black and white now that the majority
Speaker 1: of Australians know and feel that they have gone backwards
Speaker 1: under this government.
Speaker 7: Well, there are eerie similarities between the political dynamic of
Speaker 7: play in Australia and that in America. There are some
Speaker 7: obvious differences, of course, which we all know, but there
Speaker 7: are some serious parallels. And what Albanezi doesn't understand what
Speaker 7: these cosmopolitan inner city elites, these rootless cosmopolitans, as they
Speaker 7: call them, the wealthy, upper class left wing elite here
Speaker 7: in America don't understand is that the working middle class,
Speaker 7: the working class are actually very proud people, and they're
Speaker 7: very proud of their achievements. They're interested in personal security,
Speaker 7: which is their job, providing for their family, roof over
Speaker 7: the head, for the kids, contributing to their community. And
Speaker 7: these people are proud and they don't want to be
Speaker 7: lectured to by Albanesi that they're dumb people without an education.
Speaker 7: You haven't got a university degree, Oh my goodness. You know,
Speaker 7: you don't go to the arts festivals, you don't watch
Speaker 7: the ABC, et cetera, et cetera. And for as long
Speaker 7: as Albo has lost the plot completely, which he has,
Speaker 7: and as part of the inner City, you know, Cambridg
Speaker 7: Literati Labour's fortunes will continue to decline. And as I said,
Speaker 7: for weeks now, I think Dutton's favorite to win the election,
Speaker 7: and I think people are very comfortable with Peter Dutton
Speaker 7: coming in as prime minister.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, this is the thing.
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of people have criticized Upton for
Speaker 1: a long time for not being personable enough, and oh
Speaker 1: you know, people think he's bold and mortnal this sort
Speaker 1: of nonsense. And I have said for some time Gary
Speaker 1: that you just give him time and he will come
Speaker 1: into his own and people will compare him to Albanesi,
Speaker 1: and I'll go, Actually, this bloke looks like, sounds like,
Speaker 1: acts like a leader, and I think people have realized
Speaker 1: that now.
Speaker 5: I've known Peter Dutton for thirty five years of it.
Speaker 5: As far as I'm concerned, he's a very personable bloke,
Speaker 5: a really terrific sense of humor. You know, he's just
Speaker 5: he's really very down to earth, although amazingly tall and look.
Speaker 5: I think the guy the times will suit him. And
Speaker 5: the point is that Peter is a bloke who's achieved things,
Speaker 5: but he doesn't act as though he is morally and
Speaker 5: intellectually superior to everybody else. And that is really the
Speaker 5: type of people Michael's just talking about. They believe they
Speaker 5: are morally and intellectually superior to everybody else, and they
Speaker 5: lauded over us. They think that the smartest people in
Speaker 5: every room. Peter is a bloke who enters the room
Speaker 5: and wants to meet people, wants to listen to them,
Speaker 5: actually wants to relate to them, who actually sticks up
Speaker 5: for the trades, in the everyday doers, and that's the
Speaker 5: sort of person I want as a Prime minister. I
Speaker 5: reckon a lot more Australians are warming to that idea
Speaker 5: on an hourly basis for acting.
Speaker 1: Now, this is interesting. The Sydney Morning Herald was reporting
Speaker 1: today that environment, our Environment Minister, sorry Tanya Plibasic, about
Speaker 1: to secure a deal with the Greens last night to
Speaker 1: establish a federal environmental protection agency. This was, of course
Speaker 1: a promise that Labor made before the election, but the
Speaker 1: PM intervened at the last minute and canceled the deal
Speaker 1: because he was apparently worried it had given too much
Speaker 1: rope to the Greens and it had turned into an
Speaker 1: election issue next year. And they'd apparently been so confident
Speaker 1: of a deal that journo's had been briefed to expect
Speaker 1: an announcement last night, but at the last minute Michael
Speaker 1: Albow comes through and says it's not happening.
Speaker 2: Yeah, amazing.
Speaker 7: But again, this is all about politics. This is all
Speaker 7: about seats in Western Sia. It's got nothing to do
Speaker 7: with the principle. He's been in favor of this principle
Speaker 7: four years now. He ran for election on this policy.
Speaker 7: But as soon as his pulses tell him there are
Speaker 7: seats at risk in Western Australia because of this, he'll
Speaker 7: lose three or four seats in WA. He's rung up
Speaker 7: and junk the policy. But this is typical of Albow.
Speaker 7: There's no great principles involved any more. Everything's about politics,
Speaker 7: as we see from the disgusting display he's put on
Speaker 7: in relation to the Jewish community in Western said to
Speaker 7: win seats in Western Sydney. It's one of the other
Speaker 7: reasons why people have lost people have lost confidence in
Speaker 7: this blake.
Speaker 1: Yeah, most definitely. Now when I read this story after say,
Speaker 1: I nearly fell off my chair. The former Victorian CFM
Speaker 1: you boss John Setka, he's launched a worker's compo, claim
Speaker 1: saying that he's suffering from PTSD from running the Construction
Speaker 1: Union Gary. He says that there's a number of things
Speaker 1: that led to this. He received death threats apparently in
Speaker 1: the job. But I mean, for heaven's sake, you're running
Speaker 1: the CFMU, which we all know is full of thugs,
Speaker 1: So what did you expect? He said when they had
Speaker 1: that big protest out the front of the CFMU office,
Speaker 1: when he wouldn't back in construction workers against vaccine mandates
Speaker 1: that that contributed to his PTSD. I mean, could the
Speaker 1: CFMU story get any better?
Speaker 5: Gary Well, I'm so sorry that he's having a metal
Speaker 5: health crisis, but think of the one that the CFMU
Speaker 5: is inflicted upon every day Australians. The cost of building's
Speaker 5: gone thirty forty percent. They've wrought at every building site
Speaker 5: they've been on. As far as I'm concerned, under the
Speaker 5: guys of safety, it's back to the sort of staff
Speaker 5: that the late warre Perry is to report on in
Speaker 5: his Wrought report. I mean the nineteen eighty seven Wrought report.
Speaker 5: I'll never forget the Darling Harbor project was in full
Speaker 5: swing and the people on the work sites were smelling
Speaker 5: Chinese food coming out of Chinatown in Sydney, and they
Speaker 5: got and they were awarded a dim sim allowance, Caleb
Speaker 5: because of the smell that got them back to work.
Speaker 5: This is the sort of stuff that's ruined Australia's ability
Speaker 5: to make anything anywhere. And Setka, I'm so sorry he's
Speaker 5: having mental health issues because that's a serious claim. I
Speaker 5: wish him well in his bid, but it seems like
Speaker 5: money fixes everything in the CFMEU so good on him.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, sir, you are correct. If it is indeed true,
Speaker 1: then then we wish him the best. But you've given
Speaker 1: me an idea.
Speaker 3: Gary.
Speaker 1: There's a KFC down the road from our studios here
Speaker 1: and I sometimes smell it, so I'm going to get
Speaker 1: a KFC.
Speaker 2: Alow.
Speaker 1: Let's Michael Kroger, Gary Yard, great, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for you. It's time still to come. The truth between
Speaker 1: Israel and Hesbla has begun with hopes for lasting calm
Speaker 1: in the Middle East. But what happens next that story after.
Speaker 2: The break well.
Speaker 1: Israel had a major win today with a cease fire
Speaker 1: deal negotiated with Hezbolla in Lebanon, who they've been at
Speaker 1: war with for nearly two months now. It means that
Speaker 1: over sixty days, Lebanese forces will move into the south
Speaker 1: and Israeli forces will pull out of the south and
Speaker 1: go back to Israel, and Hezbla will have to move
Speaker 1: north of the Latani River, which is what they were
Speaker 1: meant to have done back in two thousand and six.
Speaker 1: In a joint statement, the US and France said the
Speaker 1: agreement would cease fighting in Lebanon and secure Israel from
Speaker 1: the threat of Hezbala and other terrorist organizations. Foreign Minister
Speaker 1: Penny Wong welcome the news today.
Speaker 4: The people of Lebanon will welcome this cease far, the
Speaker 4: people of Israel will welcome this seas far. What I
Speaker 4: would say is that we hope that this is a
Speaker 4: catalyst for a broader cease far in the region and
Speaker 4: we look forward to the day when there is a
Speaker 4: ceasefire two in Gaza.
Speaker 1: Joining me to discuss is the Executive Council of Australian
Speaker 1: Jury co CEO Peter Wertheim. Peter, what difference will this
Speaker 1: make to the broader war?
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, it will isolate Hummas. There's no
Speaker 2: doubt that.
Speaker 3: What's left of Hamas will be just left to deal
Speaker 3: with the situation that they've created in Gaza by themselves.
Speaker 3: The original hope that they had of drawing Hezbalara and
Speaker 3: ultimately he Ran into the war has failed as a strategy,
Speaker 3: and I think this whole ceasefire agreement just underlines the
Speaker 3: entire futility of the war that Hamas started on October
Speaker 3: the seventh in the South and the war that Hesbella
Speaker 3: started against Israel on October the eighth in the north.
Speaker 2: They didn't have to do that.
Speaker 3: You know, there were ceasepires in effect on both fronts,
Speaker 3: and they chose. The leaders of Hamas and the leaders
Speaker 3: of Hesbela chose to break that ceasefire and launch wars
Speaker 3: against Israel from those fronts. It was not a decision
Speaker 3: that was forced on them. And now those leaders are dead,
Speaker 3: as are their deputies, and there's been untold deaths, enormous
Speaker 3: numbers of people displaced in the South and.
Speaker 2: The North, and all for what This is a result that.
Speaker 3: Could have been achieved in two thousand and six, as
Speaker 3: you pointed out in your introduction.
Speaker 1: Exactly, we've only got a minute to go, Peter, But
Speaker 1: you know what they've essentially achieved. He is what a
Speaker 1: lot of people said wouldn't happen or couldn't happen, which
Speaker 1: is the best outcome. Hezbollah has been pushed back, which
Speaker 1: is good not only for Israel, but it's good for
Speaker 1: the people of Lebanon.
Speaker 3: Yes, it is because Hesbela has lost a lot of
Speaker 3: support in recent years in Lebanon because of the complete
Speaker 3: ruin nation of the country economically.
Speaker 2: So it is good news for the Lebanese as well.
Speaker 3: As for the Israelis, but make no mistake, HESBLA is
Speaker 3: down but not out. They will use whatever time is
Speaker 3: available to them once they withdraw, to regroup, to rearm.
Speaker 3: And you know, the Foreign Minister has talked about a
Speaker 3: widening truce. I understand why she's doing that, but why
Speaker 3: can't there be, for heaven's sake, a call from Australia's
Speaker 3: Foreign minister for peace. It's it's you know, we've had
Speaker 3: truces of plenty in the past and they don't last.
Speaker 1: I know, it's we need to move on. Peter, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for your time. That's it from me,
Speaker 1: Shary'll be back tomorrow at o'clock up now, the great
Speaker 1: Man Paul Murray