WEBVTT - Credlin | 28 September 0:00:02.670 --> 0:00:08.250 Peter Credlin, live from News 24. 0:00:08.250 --> 0:00:10.520 Good evening. Welcome to the program. Here's what's coming up 0:00:10.550 --> 0:00:13.840 tonight on Credlin. The devil in the detail of Labor's 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:17.680 extraordinary digital duty of care reforms. One real for you 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:21.640 and me, another for the Commissioner. Getting free reign under 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:26.140 these laws to use online bots to influence debate. Is 0:00:26.180 --> 0:00:28.590 that really what it's all about? More on that in 0:00:28.630 --> 0:00:32.319 a moment. One nation's poll surge continuing. Pauline Hanson now 0:00:32.340 --> 0:00:35.879 the PM of choice for anyone in Queensland as the 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:38.940 party today calls on the government to establish new powers 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:43.800 to target radical terrorism Islamic style. More on the latest 0:00:43.820 --> 0:00:47.520 fight too against reckless renewables in our regions and how 0:00:47.580 --> 0:00:50.560 a massive wind farm in the Yas Valley could threaten 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:54.830 the work being done to support Australia's veterans. And tomorrow's 0:00:54.890 --> 0:00:58.010 predicted rate rise, if it happens, it'll be historic news. 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:03.410 Mortgage holders copying the highest rates in two decades. But 0:01:03.590 --> 0:01:05.570 don't point the finger at the government. 0:01:07.150 --> 0:01:11.130 I think it is the universal or near universal expectation 0:01:12.110 --> 0:01:17.140 of economists and the market that rates will go up 0:01:17.180 --> 0:01:19.320 around the world, including in Australia. 0:01:19.340 --> 0:01:22.520 If you look around the world, advanced economies, there is 0:01:22.540 --> 0:01:25.700 an inflation challenge there. For us here, the war in 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:27.589 the Middle East could not end soon enough. 0:01:29.510 --> 0:01:33.350 Get to the self-congratulatory Jim Chalmers and that budget update 0:01:33.770 --> 0:01:35.170 a little later in the show. But first, I'm not 0:01:35.209 --> 0:01:37.649 sure where to start tonight because I tell you, so 0:01:37.670 --> 0:01:40.350 many of the issues now are starting to really converge. 0:01:40.930 --> 0:01:43.600 News overnight out of the United Kingdom where a terror 0:01:43.620 --> 0:01:48.380 plot has been foiled. According to authorities, these five men 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:52.840 were captured just outside RAF Base Fairford in southwest England 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:56.600 where the allegation is they were attempting to detonate car 0:01:56.640 --> 0:02:01.480 bombs in in a mass casualty event. RAF Fairford is 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:04.120 the UK base where at present the US Air Force 0:02:04.510 --> 0:02:08.389 launched their bombing raids on Iran. Reports are that a 0:02:08.450 --> 0:02:10.870 local tipped off police to the presence of the vans 0:02:10.930 --> 0:02:13.890 near the base on Sunday morning. But there are also 0:02:14.070 --> 0:02:17.480 other sources saying this was the work of intelligence agencies 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:20.660 and that the base had already been put on Charlie Alert, 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:23.780 which is the second highest threat level that can be 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:26.600 issued by the US Department of Defence. And that was 0:02:26.660 --> 0:02:30.190 on Sunday, the day the attack was foiled. 0:02:30.210 --> 0:02:34.570 Do you know any more about the attack? Were these 0:02:34.630 --> 0:02:36.350 suspects migrants in the UK? 0:02:36.470 --> 0:02:37.910 Is there a connection to Iran? 0:02:38.030 --> 0:02:40.010 We know all about them and you'll be hearing about 0:02:40.030 --> 0:02:40.610 it very soon. 0:02:40.650 --> 0:02:41.190 We caught them. 0:02:42.630 --> 0:02:45.239 For months now, the Iranian regime has been calling on 0:02:45.300 --> 0:02:48.560 Muslims around the world to take up arms against the West. 0:02:49.300 --> 0:02:52.239 In Australia, we have this Melbourne man who goes by 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:55.300 the name of Abu Ahmed who who's called on followers 0:02:55.340 --> 0:02:59.020 to take up arms against Christians and Jews, declaring, and 0:02:59.060 --> 0:03:02.239 I quote, the sake of Allah to take up arms 0:03:02.300 --> 0:03:05.760 against his enemies, to shun them and to stay far 0:03:05.860 --> 0:03:09.360 away from them in both word and deed. Abu Ahmed 0:03:09.419 --> 0:03:13.489 is a preacher at the Al Bayinya Islamic Centre in Springvale. 0:03:14.030 --> 0:03:16.610 The Sydney Morning Herald reports today that this Melbourne centre 0:03:16.630 --> 0:03:20.650 is connected to the Sydney-based preacher Wissam Haddad from the 0:03:20.730 --> 0:03:24.620 Al Medina Darwish Centre in Bankstown. And that's the centre 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:29.000 that's linked to Bondi shooter, Naveed Akram. Now, you will 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:31.000 remember Wissam Harad. 0:03:31.930 --> 0:03:34.810 By Allah, the day you will be kicked out of 0:03:34.850 --> 0:03:35.770 Palestine is coming. 0:03:35.910 --> 0:03:38.190 A day when the stones and the trees will speak 0:03:38.270 --> 0:03:40.890 and say, O Muslim, there is a Jew behind me. 0:03:41.170 --> 0:03:41.830 Come and kill him. 0:03:43.710 --> 0:03:46.630 And you'd ask yourself, what's being done to deal with 0:03:46.830 --> 0:03:51.230 Abu Ahmed or Harad in the light of this hate preaching? Well, 0:03:51.270 --> 0:03:55.060 absolutely nothing. That's what. Here's a report on this group 0:03:55.100 --> 0:03:58.480 from ABC Four Corners in April last year. It says 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:03.860 Harad rapidly expanded the Al-Madinah Dawa Centre, turbocharging his online 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:09.750 influence and re-energised a national pro-IS, so Islamic State Network, 0:04:10.230 --> 0:04:14.210 which now includes an affiliated presence in Melbourne, the Al-Bayinya 0:04:14.550 --> 0:04:19.680 Islamic Centre. Associate Professor John Roos from Deakin University told 0:04:19.700 --> 0:04:22.419 the Sydney Morning Herald that effectively HUD had set up 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:27.390 an outpost in Melbourne. See why the online threat environment 0:04:27.830 --> 0:04:31.610 is so elevated in Australia? Because your child doesn't even 0:04:31.670 --> 0:04:35.110 need to go anywhere near these radical men. They can 0:04:35.170 --> 0:04:38.480 get to them online, in the bedroom at home and 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:43.120 radicalise them fast. Said Professor Roos, if authorities don't crack 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:46.070 down on these centres as soon as they emerge, then 0:04:46.110 --> 0:04:52.849 we are inviting quite literally extremists, Salafists, jihadist Islam into 0:04:52.890 --> 0:04:57.050 the suburbs. Only last week we covered here the arrest 0:04:57.070 --> 0:05:02.540 of 65-year-old Somali man, now Australian citizen, Mohamed Bakit, arrested 0:05:02.570 --> 0:05:05.799 by police for allegedly being a member of the Islamic 0:05:05.860 --> 0:05:10.340 State regime and for his online dissemination of horrific terrorist 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:14.950 content and propaganda. Bakid was arrested by the AFP and 0:05:15.010 --> 0:05:18.730 countered terrorism police in Melbourne. Now take a close look 0:05:19.070 --> 0:05:22.969 at these images and note what you see. A man 0:05:23.050 --> 0:05:27.860 who authorities say is a member of a terrorist organisation, uncuffed, 0:05:28.460 --> 0:05:32.680 escorted by two police only. Compare that with the arrest 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:35.779 of war hero Ben Robert Smith on the tarmac in Sydney, 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:40.400 flanked by a small army of police and then handcuffed. 0:05:41.650 --> 0:05:44.950 I know the conventional wisdom is that cost of living 0:05:45.070 --> 0:05:48.950 is what drives support away from Labor, but that's only 0:05:49.010 --> 0:05:52.460 half the story. Many people will list this as an 0:05:52.500 --> 0:05:57.600 issue because Labor is spending your money wastefully and that's 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:00.460 driving up inflation and that hurts everyone, not least of 0:06:00.500 --> 0:06:03.320 all those paying rent or paying a mortgage, because if 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:06.770 it hits tomorrow with another hike, That takes interest rates 0:06:06.810 --> 0:06:10.370 to a 15-year high. So yes, cost of living, it's real, 0:06:10.950 --> 0:06:14.030 but it's not the whole of it. When people talk 0:06:14.089 --> 0:06:17.830 about immigration as being another big priority for them, what 0:06:17.850 --> 0:06:21.440 they're really talking about is concern they have about the 0:06:21.570 --> 0:06:26.120 cultural makeup of this country. Yes, it is about the numbers, 0:06:26.860 --> 0:06:30.120 but it's also critically the sort of people we are 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:33.830 letting in. In the last couple of days, the Italian 0:06:33.890 --> 0:06:36.810 Prime Minister, Giorgia Maloney, has drawn a line in the 0:06:36.850 --> 0:06:40.820 sand on radical Islam, banning face coverings in schools and 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:46.200 putting a per-class cap on non-Italian speaking students and a 0:06:46.220 --> 0:06:49.380 bid to stop the erosion of Italian culture. 0:06:50.310 --> 0:06:52.430 There is also an obligation for parents of foreign students 0:06:52.470 --> 0:06:56.450 with serious problems of school enrollment to learn Italian and 0:06:56.870 --> 0:07:00.250 introduces the ban on burqa and niqab at school. 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:04.790 In Paris on the weekend, there were these extraordinary scenes 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:08.950 of almost one million young people attending an open air 0:07:09.110 --> 0:07:13.210 mass led by Pope Leo. Now, France is a famously 0:07:13.290 --> 0:07:17.250 secular society. While Catholicism is, at least for the moment, 0:07:17.270 --> 0:07:21.320 the most practiced religion, the majority of the population identifies 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:26.170 either atheist or agnostic. meaning a lot of Francophile commentators 0:07:26.570 --> 0:07:30.980 have interpreted this weekend's mass as a show of strength 0:07:31.390 --> 0:07:35.980 against the growing influence of Islam in the French Republic 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:40.480 and as a pushback against the acts of terrorism we've 0:07:40.540 --> 0:07:44.540 seen there, the murdering of priests and the burning of 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:49.730 Christian churches. Here in Australia, we're almost the polar opposite, 0:07:49.790 --> 0:07:54.430 aren't we? We've got security agencies talking about religious extremism 0:07:54.930 --> 0:07:58.140 rather than say the words radical Islam, as if somehow 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:00.480 it's the Catholics and the Anglicans, the Hindus and the 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:03.980 Buddhists that want death to the infidels. Well, they don't. 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:06.950 Where Christ preached love and urged followers to turn the 0:08:06.970 --> 0:08:12.030 other cheek, radical Islam urges jihad. In the parliament, Albanese 0:08:12.070 --> 0:08:15.190 is far more likely to rail against neo-Nazis than he 0:08:15.270 --> 0:08:18.660 is against the hate preachers in mosques and Islamic organisations 0:08:19.020 --> 0:08:23.800 that his government openly funds with taxpayer money. In July, 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:27.380 the Prime Minister announced a $ 66 million package to fight 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:32.380 so-called Islamophobia. And yet I've never, ever visited a mosque 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:35.449 or an Islamic school that needs the same level of 0:08:35.490 --> 0:08:40.530 security that our Jewish Australians live under every single day. 0:08:41.690 --> 0:08:43.530 We'll cross live to the UK for the latest in 0:08:43.550 --> 0:08:46.610 those foiled terror plots tonight, but already there's a fierce 0:08:46.670 --> 0:08:50.760 debate there about how this would-be terror attack is being 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:54.300 reported with a lack of information about the legal status 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:58.960 and ethnicity of the men arrested. That's a key part 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:03.620 of the left's game, to deny you information that once 0:09:03.900 --> 0:09:10.580 was commonplace. And I want to stay with that word 0:09:10.620 --> 0:09:15.760 information and the Prime Minister's censorship, his big brother legislation. 0:09:16.620 --> 0:09:19.020 The truth is this is having an impact on our 0:09:19.059 --> 0:09:24.890 entire society and how it functions with misinformation, disinformation, with 0:09:24.910 --> 0:09:29.190 the increased polarisation that we're seeing as well in the 0:09:29.230 --> 0:09:33.859 political system where people are moving away from the centre 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:36.300 and more and more to the extremes, be they of 0:09:36.340 --> 0:09:39.230 the left or the right. This isn't about government control 0:09:39.410 --> 0:09:43.600 at all. It's not about misinformation or disinformation. I didn't 0:09:43.620 --> 0:09:44.699 link the two yesterday. 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:50.040 It cannot lie straight, can it? What a fraud. Labor 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:53.590 has taken, Albanese has taken Labor to record lows in 0:09:53.610 --> 0:09:57.510 the polls. His personal ratings are in the toilet. His 0:09:57.610 --> 0:10:00.560 only comfort at the moment is that the majority vote 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:03.819 against him is split on the right between One Nation 0:10:04.059 --> 0:10:08.580 and the Coalition. But don't underestimate how seriously he's taking 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:13.440 this challenge to his grip on power. That's what's driving 0:10:13.480 --> 0:10:17.560 Labor's digital duty of care legislation. Albanese wants the bill 0:10:17.620 --> 0:10:19.920 passed through the Parliament and up and running before the 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:24.020 next election so he can control the information you receive 0:10:24.450 --> 0:10:28.849 before you go to the polls next time. Don't be fooled. 0:10:29.470 --> 0:10:33.210 It's not about protecting anyone online. We already have the 0:10:33.250 --> 0:10:36.790 laws we need to deal with online terrorism and online 0:10:36.850 --> 0:10:42.720 child exploitation as recent arrests amply show. This is about 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:47.520 creating a whole new category of so-called harmful content, with 0:10:47.540 --> 0:10:51.860 the definition of harmful content to be decided by the minister. 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:57.650 But harmful isn't necessarily illegal, because if it was illegal, 0:10:58.210 --> 0:11:01.750 we would already have laws to ban it. I believe 0:11:01.770 --> 0:11:04.870 that this is about stopping the discussion we've just had 0:11:04.890 --> 0:11:08.610 about radical Islam, for example, or information I brought to 0:11:08.670 --> 0:11:11.300 you most nights in my fight against the voice of 0:11:12.490 --> 0:11:16.270 That's what they will shortly deem as harmful in order 0:11:16.309 --> 0:11:19.410 to shut it down. But it gets worse. And I 0:11:19.470 --> 0:11:22.690 am indebted here to the US author Michael Schellenberger for 0:11:22.750 --> 0:11:26.599 his revelations over the weekend. In Labor's digital duty of 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:30.760 care bill is new laws to allow the e-safety commissioner 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:35.420 to create fake online accounts and to generate material using 0:11:35.620 --> 0:11:41.040 AI while operating those accounts. Australians will think these accounts 0:11:41.100 --> 0:11:44.640 are real, that they're real human beings behind them, but 0:11:44.660 --> 0:11:50.270 they will be government created, so-called sock puppet identities, sock 0:11:50.670 --> 0:11:56.690 puppet identities. That's how the bill defines them, fake identities, 0:11:57.090 --> 0:12:00.370 all with AI. It's in the bill, literally on pages 0:12:00.370 --> 0:12:04.569 62 and 63. Now, this is precisely what happened in 0:12:04.590 --> 0:12:09.030 the 2016 US presidential election, where similar fake accounts were 0:12:09.330 --> 0:12:13.950 this time generated by the Russian government, pumped out misinformation 0:12:14.110 --> 0:12:20.230 and disinformation, as later revealed in US Senate hearings. Now, 0:12:20.290 --> 0:12:23.770 why on earth would our federal government need to create 0:12:23.929 --> 0:12:28.390 fake online accounts? What on earth could be the justification 0:12:28.410 --> 0:12:33.010 to give the eSafety Commissioner these powers? After all, the 0:12:33.050 --> 0:12:37.270 government can create legitimate accounts now. So why the need 0:12:37.309 --> 0:12:43.700 for these AI-manufactured fake accounts? You join the dots. See 0:12:43.770 --> 0:12:47.980 what is happening here. Labor's duty of care legislation is 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:51.640 without a doubt the most radical assault on free speech 0:12:51.820 --> 0:12:55.060 in this country that we have ever seen. And the 0:12:55.120 --> 0:13:02.610 more and more we learn, the worse it gets. All right, 0:13:02.650 --> 0:13:04.770 let's get the headlines out of Canberra now with our 0:13:04.809 --> 0:13:06.329 political reporter, Cam Redden. 0:13:07.250 --> 0:13:07.670 Good evening. 0:13:07.830 --> 0:13:11.170 The final budget outcome shows a $ 6 billion improvement to 0:13:11.210 --> 0:13:14.460 the bottom line, driven largely by businesses and super funds 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:15.480 paying more tax. 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:18.699 This is not about wage and salary earners. It's not 0:13:18.740 --> 0:13:20.100 about commodity prices. 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:24.040 Public demand or government spending grew by 2.2% for the 0:13:24.090 --> 0:13:27.309 financial year. That's the slowest rate in more than a decade. 0:13:27.610 --> 0:13:31.190 Treasurer Jim Chalmers is rejecting suggestions he needs to tighten 0:13:31.230 --> 0:13:32.670 his belt even further. 0:13:33.090 --> 0:13:38.179 We have found well over $ 100 billion in savings. Governments 0:13:38.260 --> 0:13:40.920 always have to balance the different considerations in the economy. 0:13:41.100 --> 0:13:43.319 We know the title, but there's not a lot of 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:45.300 light there for hardworking Australians. 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:48.770 The government continues to meet with tech giant OpenAI to 0:13:48.809 --> 0:13:51.330 get to the bottom of last week's cyber incident. 0:13:51.690 --> 0:13:55.190 I had a briefing from Services Australia this morning. They 0:13:55.250 --> 0:13:58.069 have all the technical information they need, but there is 0:13:58.110 --> 0:14:01.010 some further information that's still being sought. 0:14:01.130 --> 0:14:03.040 I mean, what we've seen just in the last week 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:09.080 is the first cyber attack by an autonomous AI agent 0:14:09.460 --> 0:14:10.880 on the Australian government. 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:12.940 And this is a new world, Kieran. 0:14:13.420 --> 0:14:14.440 Cameron Redden, News24, Canberra. 0:14:19.150 --> 0:14:20.650 I think he's got to say there it's the first 0:14:20.670 --> 0:14:23.450 that they've actually caught or been told about. I thought 0:14:23.490 --> 0:14:25.430 it would be the first. Let's get into all the 0:14:25.470 --> 0:14:28.340 issues now with News 24 political contributor Chris Ullman. Chris, 0:14:29.220 --> 0:14:31.360 I want to start with that digital duty of care 0:14:31.420 --> 0:14:35.420 legislation and those insights that I picked up on the 0:14:35.460 --> 0:14:40.060 weekend from the writer and author Michael Schellenberger. The law 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:44.160 actually has, I couldn't believe the words were right, sock puppets. 0:14:44.780 --> 0:14:46.989 It's written in there. It gives the government power to 0:14:47.050 --> 0:14:53.460 create these anonymous puppets fake accounts, these AI bots, and 0:14:53.500 --> 0:14:56.420 there's powers written into the legislation. It's all there. Couldn't 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:58.700 be clearer. I've looked at it all myself. You've got 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:01.180 to wonder why on earth they need this. The last 0:15:01.220 --> 0:15:04.800 time we heard about these bots online, it was Russia 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:07.660 and it was a big issue in the US election. 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:12.240 Yeah, Peter, it's not just the eSafety Commissioner herself. 0:15:12.300 --> 0:15:14.480 Obviously, she can delegate that power and she can delegate 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:15.700 that power to any number. 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:18.380 It would appear, of researchers and they are able to. 0:15:18.380 --> 0:15:21.920 Create any number of identities and they would be immune 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:26.260 from civil prosecution if sites did demand that people declare 0:15:26.300 --> 0:15:29.300 their identity and the eSafety Commissioner did not do that. 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:32.720 What about the job of the eSafety Commissioner on that site? 0:15:32.740 --> 0:15:36.180 There would be no way that site could prosecute her 0:15:36.370 --> 0:15:39.130 or her agency and I know that they'll come back 0:15:39.170 --> 0:15:42.000 and they will say that this, of course, is not unusual, 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:45.920 that there are other agencies of government which can essentially 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:49.340 work behind the scenes, that the police do it, that 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:51.800 they can tap phones and those sorts of things. However, 0:15:52.140 --> 0:15:54.740 there's oversight in those cases. I see nothing in this 0:15:54.800 --> 0:15:58.440 bill that does that. So they don't have to get 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:00.020 a warrant to do this. It can be off the 0:16:00.140 --> 0:16:03.720 eSafety Commissioner's own bat. There seems to be no oversight 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:06.200 at all. So I think that if this law does 0:16:06.260 --> 0:16:09.160 go ahead, what we need to ask is, well, how 0:16:09.220 --> 0:16:11.700 many of these can be created? Who gets to decide 0:16:11.740 --> 0:16:13.980 how they're created? Who keeps the records of them? And 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:17.090 what oversight is there of the eSafety Commissioner in this? 0:16:17.130 --> 0:16:22.330 And by the way, she herself criticised this practice before 0:16:22.370 --> 0:16:25.430 a House of Commons committee back in 2021. So I 0:16:25.450 --> 0:16:27.290 think a lot of questions to be asked about this. 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:31.140 Yeah, I think it's really disturbing and you make the 0:16:31.180 --> 0:16:35.290 right point. I remember working government and warrants being issued. 0:16:35.310 --> 0:16:40.090 There's a whole process, multiple sign-offs, there's judge oversight, there's 0:16:40.110 --> 0:16:44.590 a whole independent body inside government to basically audit our 0:16:44.630 --> 0:16:48.340 intelligence agencies beyond the veil to keep everything secret, of course, 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:53.420 but to ensure that only what is absolutely necessary gets 0:16:53.460 --> 0:16:57.220 the cover of the confidentiality we give government. But this 0:16:57.300 --> 0:17:01.490 is extraordinary. I mean, this is in a wholly different realm. 0:17:01.510 --> 0:17:04.950 And where is the reporting? Where is the oversight? Why 0:17:04.990 --> 0:17:07.649 do we even need them? I can't fathom that. I 0:17:07.670 --> 0:17:10.030 went back through the EM, Chris, and I can't work 0:17:10.150 --> 0:17:12.629 out the argument for them in the first place. 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:17.760 Well, I'm assuming that they'll say intelligence gathering and my. 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:19.760 Argument would be, well, who watches the watchdog? 0:17:19.780 --> 0:17:22.300 We can't just have any agency of government deciding how 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:25.100 many of these things it can create and imagine that 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:28.090 it might not at some stage be used maliciously and 0:17:28.150 --> 0:17:31.030 by the way I have no confidence in government's agencies 0:17:31.070 --> 0:17:33.689 anymore not to do their own harm and if anyone 0:17:33.750 --> 0:17:36.090 says where's the evidence for that well I point to 0:17:36.130 --> 0:17:40.270 chief medical officers during COVID who had lockdowns long past 0:17:40.330 --> 0:17:42.250 the time when any of that was worthwhile that was 0:17:42.290 --> 0:17:45.610 the best possible the best possible advice that they had 0:17:45.690 --> 0:17:48.190 to give government was very very bad advice and let's 0:17:48.230 --> 0:17:50.540 move on to the sex discrimination commissioner who has helped 0:17:50.580 --> 0:17:53.270 to redefine what is a man and a woman in Australia, 0:17:53.290 --> 0:17:55.990 which I think will do enormous harm to women in Australia. 0:17:56.010 --> 0:17:59.150 So I have no confidence in the agencies of government 0:17:59.450 --> 0:18:01.510 to do their job without doing harm. And if it's 0:18:01.570 --> 0:18:04.570 going to happen, I want to see someone providing some 0:18:04.690 --> 0:18:08.169 oversight and some transparency to what it is they're actually doing. 0:18:09.930 --> 0:18:12.850 Well, I reckon NewsPoll and the data in relation to 0:18:12.910 --> 0:18:15.150 One Nation, of course, we saw it today, 36% of 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:19.170 those in Queensland want Pauline Hanson as Prime Minister. She's 0:18:19.230 --> 0:18:22.469 leading the Prime Minister. 36 is the primary vote. This 0:18:22.530 --> 0:18:25.010 is right across the board, though. WA is strongly their way. 0:18:25.070 --> 0:18:28.770 New South Wales is headed their way as well. You know, 0:18:28.810 --> 0:18:32.169 the Prime Minister tries to, you know, pretend that One 0:18:32.230 --> 0:18:35.239 Nation is not a threat for Labor. Well, clearly it is. 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:37.619 The only thing that saves them at the moment is 0:18:37.900 --> 0:18:41.260 the vote on the centre-right is split between the coalition 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:44.280 and and One Nation. But Labor's primary is in the toilet. 0:18:44.780 --> 0:18:49.080 The PM's deeply, deeply unpopular. Couldn't even front the AFL 0:18:49.100 --> 0:18:51.800 grand final, as prime ministers do on the weekend. Yes, 0:18:51.859 --> 0:18:53.919 it was a bit about Kylie Minogue, but it was 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:57.030 absolutely about him not being able to stomach being booed, 0:18:57.130 --> 0:18:59.550 as he would have been booed by that crowd. I 0:18:59.550 --> 0:19:03.410 don't think Pauline Hanson is going to come off these 0:19:03.430 --> 0:19:05.270 sort of numbers. I think they're locking in. They're locking 0:19:05.310 --> 0:19:06.270 in for a long time, Chris. 0:19:08.300 --> 0:19:10.560 Well, she seems to be locking in around about 30% 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:12.399 of the vote and that's been held up and we 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:15.040 have seen it put to the test at actual elections. 0:19:15.140 --> 0:19:17.929 So this is a phenomenon that's not going to go away. 0:19:17.990 --> 0:19:19.650 I can't get over those numbers when I look, though, 0:19:19.690 --> 0:19:22.129 where the coalition is. That's my starting point, which is 0:19:22.150 --> 0:19:23.990 like a 13% vote in South Australia. 0:19:24.020 --> 0:19:24.840 You're joking, right? 0:19:24.859 --> 0:19:26.540 But we know that's the case because we just saw 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:30.030 the last election there. They signal some danger for the 0:19:30.070 --> 0:19:34.000 Labor Party, but they're an existential threat to the National Party. 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:34.600 And the Liberal Party. 0:19:34.619 --> 0:19:36.899 And when I've travelled through regional Australia, that's certainly the 0:19:36.940 --> 0:19:39.100 message that I'm getting, is that there's great fear in the. 0:19:39.060 --> 0:19:40.700 National Party there. 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:43.200 But there should be real concern inside government. We're a 0:19:43.220 --> 0:19:45.450 long way out from the next election. These numbers need 0:19:45.470 --> 0:19:47.990 to hold up in order to threaten Anthony Albanese in 0:19:48.109 --> 0:19:50.560 any way. But the closer we get to that... poll, 0:19:50.700 --> 0:19:53.920 as more Labor backbenchers start looking at their own margins 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:57.690 and their own seats, we know what happens. Nervous backbenchers 0:19:57.750 --> 0:19:59.490 are bad news for a Prime Minister. 0:20:01.330 --> 0:20:04.870 What about the Treasurer today? I mean, basically patting himself 0:20:04.990 --> 0:20:07.730 on the back that the deficit's gone from $ 28 billion 0:20:07.850 --> 0:20:12.300 to $ 22 billion. It's still $ 22 billion that it shouldn't be. 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:15.020 It should be in the black. It shouldn't be in 0:20:15.060 --> 0:20:17.780 the red. We've got debt at about $ 1 trillion. We 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:21.109 know that the borrowings that we had under COVID and 0:20:21.150 --> 0:20:22.689 added to by the government are only going to get 0:20:22.730 --> 0:20:27.369 more expensive as that money is refinanced. We've got predictions 0:20:27.410 --> 0:20:30.530 of a rate rise tomorrow. They're saying now two, maybe 0:20:30.730 --> 0:20:35.060 three more rate rises to come. That's already at a 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:38.460 15-year high if we get one tomorrow, Chris. People are really, 0:20:38.500 --> 0:20:41.850 really struggling. The reports I read this morning are that 0:20:41.940 --> 0:20:44.290 a lot of people are spending half of their income 0:20:44.950 --> 0:20:47.810 on their rent or on their mortgage. This is not 0:20:47.869 --> 0:20:51.359 sustainable when government is spending what it is and government 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:54.100 is driving inflation, not punters anymore. 0:20:56.410 --> 0:20:58.030 Well, Peter, I think you could say that so far 0:20:58.070 --> 0:21:02.669 Jim Chalmers' entire career is defined by victories over imaginary numbers. 0:21:02.710 --> 0:21:07.109 He's the Don Quixote of economics in Australia because what 0:21:07.130 --> 0:21:08.030 have we seen today? 0:21:08.090 --> 0:21:09.910 We've seen that an estimate. 0:21:09.530 --> 0:21:12.430 Provided by Treasury about where the budget would land came 0:21:12.470 --> 0:21:16.800 in $ 6 billion better than expected. It's still a $ 22 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:19.080 billion deficit. We still have $ 1 trillion left. 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:20.940 Worth of debt. 0:21:21.020 --> 0:21:24.409 Those figures have been getting steadily worse under this Treasurer 0:21:24.490 --> 0:21:27.010 and his intergenerational report shows that there's no sign of 0:21:27.090 --> 0:21:31.109 us getting out of this for the next 40 so 0:21:31.250 --> 0:21:33.909 even by his own numbers he is condemned, but he 0:21:33.970 --> 0:21:36.149 always picks some number out of the hat, which is, 0:21:36.710 --> 0:21:41.290 in the words of Kelsey, insulting to the intelligence of 0:21:41.590 --> 0:21:46.150 ordinary Australians. They feel the pain every day. They see 0:21:46.230 --> 0:21:48.530 the pain, what happens to their bank balances and the 0:21:48.609 --> 0:21:52.169 cost of living, the high electricity prices, the high mortgage 0:21:52.210 --> 0:21:54.580 payments that they have to pay, and they hear the 0:21:54.619 --> 0:21:57.980 rhetoric of the Treasurer and they measure the gap between 0:21:58.060 --> 0:22:01.100 those two things So is it any wonder the credibility 0:22:01.119 --> 0:22:02.600 of the government is falling? 0:22:04.380 --> 0:22:06.530 This is where I looked at the Compass polling today 0:22:06.550 --> 0:22:09.010 and I thought this is really telling, Chris. This comes down, 0:22:09.050 --> 0:22:12.230 I think, to not just reliability of power but the 0:22:12.310 --> 0:22:15.490 cost of power. When everyone had drunk the Kool-Aid on 0:22:15.750 --> 0:22:17.949 climate change and thought they could have action without any 0:22:18.030 --> 0:22:22.250 personal cost, you know, support for renewables was high. They 0:22:22.270 --> 0:22:24.790 were promised that they were cheap, that they were readily available, 0:22:24.810 --> 0:22:27.060 that they wouldn't do anything to baseload capacity. Well, we 0:22:27.100 --> 0:22:30.230 all know that's bollocks. People now, 90% of people now 0:22:30.270 --> 0:22:34.250 say we want transparency on the subsidies that are given 0:22:34.330 --> 0:22:38.310 to wind and solar. And they also now are almost 50% 0:22:38.310 --> 0:22:40.830 disposed to coal and gas, 49.8%. That's up from 21% 0:22:40.830 --> 0:22:43.540 only a couple of years ago. 64% of Australians want coal, 0:22:43.560 --> 0:22:44.620 gas or nuclear as well. This is a big change 0:22:44.859 --> 0:22:45.200 in mood. 0:22:58.859 --> 0:23:00.940 Well, Peter, what they want is what the government promised 0:23:00.980 --> 0:23:03.970 that they would get in 2022, and that is cheap 0:23:04.109 --> 0:23:07.620 and reliable electricity. The government went to that election promising 0:23:07.660 --> 0:23:10.429 that it had a plan to bring price of electricity 0:23:10.490 --> 0:23:12.369 down and what we've seen then is it's gone up 0:23:12.430 --> 0:23:15.030 and we've seen the same thing around the world. Wherever wind, 0:23:15.210 --> 0:23:18.330 solar and batteries come to dominate or become a much 0:23:18.410 --> 0:23:21.439 larger part of any grid, as night follows day, the 0:23:21.480 --> 0:23:23.060 price of electricity rises. 0:23:23.080 --> 0:23:25.160