On two GB at network stations. This is Afternoons with Michael McLaren.
Good afternoon, Thank you for joining us.
It is ten past twelve Tuesday afternoon, June three.
Hope you're well.
Looks nice outside today too, actually a bit cold, but blue sky is beautiful. One three, one eight seven three the number. If you'd like to be with us between now and three o'clock. You can send me a text, of course, at any time zero four six zero eight seven three eight seven three, and there's always email two GB dot com.
Click on the feedback icon.
It's going to be busy between now and three o'clock, but of course we put our callers first. I will later this house speak with Greg Sheridan, the foreign editor at The Australian.
I always enjoy being able to pick Greg's brain.
He's well plugged in on the issues of defense, obviously, and it's going to be about the issue of drones. It's not a new topic, but it's gaining I think, increased urgency when you look at how potent drones have been for the Ukrainian armed forces against a wealth here much bigger, better equipped adversary in the form of Russia. Now the epitome of all of this is what is
being described as Russia's Pearl Harbor. Over the weekend, a very sophisticated plan was hatched by the Ukrainians and drones that had been driven into Russian territory were elevated, used, exercised, whatever the verb you want to choose, and they went and attacked some of Russia's long range bombers that were just all parked all up and down the tarmac and
they just blew them to smithereens. So you're talking here about hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of drones, maybe in the low millions, destroying billions of dollars of Russian hard military equipment. Now, as Andrew Tillet writes in The fin Review, while Kiev thinks big by acquiring the cheap, the small and the many, Australia, by contrast, is persisting with expensive and technically complex, new clear powered submarines that
fingers crossed will be arriving here in the twenty thirties. Now, like me, Andrew Tillett is not against orcas he follows that up with this, He says, quote, this is not an argument against the Orcus nuclear powered submarines, but he does say the dilemma confronting Candra is that while the defense budget is increasing in response to the challenge posed by China, it is not rising enough to pay for what the military needs and wants.
Now, the British are aware and alert of this as well.
They're obviously close to Russia, but we're closer to China, and over the weekend, Britain's Prime Minister Labor Sirkis Starber said that Britain would radically change its approach to defense. They're not necessarily in the short to medium term going to make the army bigger, not stacks more boots on the ground or anything, but they're heavily going to be investing in technology, particularly drones, investing in drones and digital warfare, rather than relying on a much larger army to engage
in modern combat. Now, the thinking, I guess is that this is a much more cost effective defensive strategy. You've got a tight budget, they've got slow growth over there like we do, and they've got massive debts and deficits, and say, you've got to be sensible about all of this. But of course none of it matters if your sovereignty is going to be taken, so you've got to invest. This is the most important thing a government can do
keep its people safe. The armed forces do that, and as the ABC reports, Starmer has pledged the largest sustained increase to UK defense spending since the end of the Cold War. Now out here, after meeting Pete hegxas in the United States, the Australian government been saying no, no, we will determine how we do this. The Americans and say what they want, We'll determine our defense policy and they can go jump. That's basically been the rhetoric from
the Prime Minister. Well, okay, fair enough, but if the Americans took the same attitude, we all know that Australia would be open and defenseless. If the Americans said, oh, well, ook to can dance that tune, We'll just forget you guys and anything you want and we'll just go on our own merry way, well then we know we would be open and vulnerable to Chinese attack. So we've got to be careful in how we pursue the next decade.
In defense, there is always this overarching concern that because the Defense Department seems so inept at spending the money it's already got that just giving it more would be wasting more precious dollars without first going through the department than working out where the wheat and the chaff happened to be. However, if we just continue to talk and have examinations and white papers and that, we're never going to get anywhere. These things are medium to long term developments.
So the British are showing us I guess what to do in some respects. That is, start spending and spending now. And I would argue we've got to really lift our game in drones. I'll speak to Greg about that after one o'clock because it is a Tuesday. It is health and I'll speak to Helen. Gents use the CEO Musculo Scalital Health Australia. We've got a new phenomena. It's called
tech neck. Tech neck, and as the name sort of implies, it's the problem that we all get in the neck and the upper back as we spend most of the day hunched over a keyboard or staring into a phone. Now, I guess there's almost a bit of a connection here with myopia, with short sighted This we.
Spoke about that a couple of weeks ago.
The two probably go hand in g love in that constantly staring at screens means you're not looking long distance, and so that part of the muscle in the eye is not getting the exercise it needs, and we all become myopic. But at the same time, our spine is being manipulated by constantly being hunched over. So I speak to Helen about what we can do about that. I mean, I guess the obvious and easy answer is drop the phones and the computers for a while and look at
the stars. But that's easier said than done for some For travel, As I said to Mark, we're off the Lord Howe Island.
I've never been. I'd love to go.
It really does look gorgeous, but I've got a feeling it's not cheap when you get there.
That's my hunch.
But I don't know. I've not been. Family have been, and those that it was beautiful with a capital B. Gorgeous part of Australia, of course, But Lord Howe Island's the destination. You might have been, you might be able to give us some insights.
Take I went to.
School with a guy whose father was the doctor on lord How Island. He was a border at Barker for a while and his dad was the GP on lord How Island or one of them, and he used to say how beautiful it was. But anyway, look forward to that later on and later also in the final hour. Rowan Pike no stranger to the show. He's the former AFP and ABF officer who helped set up the Australian
Border Forces Tobaccos Strike Force. Now, I'm sure Rowan will agree with me that the catalysts of the problem we face now with illegal cigarettes, I would argue now dominating the cigarette market is the tax or the excise that applies to the legal product. Now, you've got a lot of people, We've been over this a thousand times. Finally
some politicians coming to the party. You would have heard chris Min's this morning with Ben on breakfast saying, you know, unless we deal with the excise here, it's like standing at the beach saying, you know, trying to hold back the tide. You're not going to achieve anything. And yet you've got the Federal Treasurer out there. Last night Jim Charmers, doctor Charmers saying, oh no, we're not going to do anthing about this. Quote Tobacco excise is an important public
health measure to encourage people to give up smoking. Yeah, oh yeah, that's doctor Charms. That's the intellect operating in Canberra. We've got to keep it going because it's helping people quit. Well that the quit line, as it were, has flatlined and people are not quitting anymore. What they are quitting is legal product, and they're now buying illegal product. So the only quitting now going on is of the legal product.
We are making petty criminals out of otherwise law abiding citizens in an inflationary cost of living environment where they're addicted to cigarettes. They're buying the cheap illegal product and risking a criminal record. Well I say they're risking a criminal but no one's going to be nicked for it, because the problem is so huge and it's all there,
it's all in everybody's high street. You see all of these packets all over the place, and the butts of all of the illegal cigarettes all over lawns and medium strips and gutters that they're everywhere, and nothing's done about it. Nothing, And so it's a problem created by government. But of course it's the federal government that control of the excise and the treasure is pretty clear.
He ain't touching it.
Addicted to the money more than it seems the smokers are to the nicoteaine. So I'll speak to Rowan Pike about what needs to be done, you know, I mean, the truth is he's the expert. I'm just the radio hack. But I think the truth is in everyone to agree with this. You can only arrest your way out of this.
So much.
Having created such a massive problem, we know what the catalyst is. The government, federal, with the support and the encouragement of the states, have to go and address the catalyst.
And that's excise.
I'm not saying you take it back to ten dollars a packet, but at the very least excise high baked into the future.
Budgets have to be frozen no more, no more.
You know when you when the packet of illegal a packet of legal cigarettes is what fifty dollars, let's say, give will take and the better part of thirty eight of those dollars goes to Canberra. I think you know, sensible people would say, haven't they had enough? Haven't they got enough? Clearly the answer from Canberra is no, so we'll look at that issue as well. Stay with us
one three one eight seven three. Now, just before we move on as well, I've got a report that the Fair Work Commission you would have heard this during Mark's program, have granted an above inflation three and a half percent pay rise. This is to two point nine million low paid workers from July one. It's going to kick in July one, so roughly a month from now, three and a half percent pay rise, two point nine million low
paid workers to benefit. What they've basically done, the Fair Work Commission has split the difference between what the employers wanted and what the unions demanded. The AC two U wanted a four and a half percent rise. They described that as affordable and responsible. Well, they could say that because they're not paying the bill. The employer groups that would pay the bill wanted two and a half percent,
saying well that's basically where inflation is. So the Farewell Commission basically doing what the government wanted actually, and that is a slightly above inflation wage rise. That wasn't quite as generous as what the unions had pushed for, but I mean, this is what happens in negotiations. Let's call the union the worker and the employer groups the boss,
and you know what happens. You go and as the worker, you go to meet your boss and you say, look, I want two hundred thousand dollars a year for what I do. And the boss says, you're not going to get that. He said, he is one hundred and ten thousand. He said, oh, I'm going to have to think about that. And you negotiate and you sort of get to a point that's agreeable for everybody. And that's really what's happened here.
So the extremities are either end to be knocked out in the middle ground's been found three and a half percent for two point nine nine million low paid workers kicking in the first of next month. Now, also, we'll keep an eye this afternoon on the traffic building city bound at the M Fivev's tunnel. Will Bottom, of course, has been across all of that throughout the morning. A rolled crane, a small crane, we believe in the tunnel
that's creating chaos there. There are diversions in place. Follow the signage, as Will says, and we'll keep you across that throughout the afternoon. As hopefully it won't happen fast by the nature of what's happened here, but hopefully by the time we're off air at three o'clock that situation can be rectified. Three one, eight seven, three twenty one
past twelve. Now, look, I wanted to sort of officially start today though by asking you a question I have asked different radio audiences in years gone by on other programs, and that is, what is it about soccer that attracts so many lunatic criminal fans?
What is it about soccer?
I mean the latest example of this was scenes in Paris and indeed across France over the weekend following PSG's victory in the Champions League final. And here are the numbers too dead, A police officer left in a coma, one hundred and ninety two injured, five hundred and fifty nine arrested, two hundred and sixty four vehicles set alight, twenty two police officers and seven fire fighters injured. I mean, heaven knows the cumulative cost of all of the vandalism,
especially in the capitol. And this is what happens after the home side wins. Imagine if they lost. And here's the strangest part, the game wasn't even played in Paris, let alone in France. It was across the border in Munich. And yet French authorities knew what was coming, and so they deployed and estimated five thousand, four hundred police officers
in what can only be described as an extraordinary security operation. Actually, I probably shouldn't call it extraordinary, because, especially in European football, such large scale security arrangements are hardly extraordinary than now stock standard necessities, certainly for big matches, because these sorts of marquee events seemed to out the worst. But the question has to be why why does this sport attract such tribal barbarianism when others don't.
Now some point to.
The racial or the regional origins of teams and how that then intersects with long standing historical animosities. Others to intergenerational hatreds that have incubated within the support a base of certain clubs and as it handed down the generation from father to son or whatever. Some psychologists, I guess, would theorize that a game where so few points are scored encourages a sort of tension to brew in the stands among the fans otherwise desperate to go and let
off a bit of steam. Look, it might be all of the above and then something else, But whatever the answer, the so called beautiful game must work out what to do about its cohort of not so beautiful fans.
Now, look, with all of that said, let me make this perfectly clear.
I am not lumping every soccer fan into the same basket.
Far from it.
When you look at the law of averages, the standard football supporter is a decent, law abiding type who rarely probably attends the game they watch it on the television, let alone a street party with a pocket full of flares. But to deny that soccer has a problem is to deny reality. Sadly, the events in France from the weekend are not an isolated situation, and they do stand in stark contrast to the sorts of celebrations that follow a rugby World Cup, or even a rugby League Grand Final, or.
A cricket World Cup or you name it.
And again that's not to pretend those sports have an unblemished record, but for whatever reason, their fan bases seem to be able to control their passions far better on average. Anyway, back to the situation in France. I guess we're going to have to wait for the inevitable police investigation to run its course here before drawing every conclusion. But interim comments from the police chief suggests that Paris may have in fact dodged a bullet, if that's possible to believe.
As he said, in most cases, those who were hell bent on committing violent acts were prevented from doing so. In other words, without that massive police presence, we would have been looking at a far higher death toll and criminal footprint come Monday morning. But equally, I think we should all assume here, and this is to be fair to soccer, that not everybody involved in the violence and
the criminality where PSG fans are indeed soccer devotees. Now, it'll no doubt emerge emerge with time that a good chunk of the thugs were what we'd call blow ins, as Captain Louis Reno of Casablanca Fame would.
Have said, the usual suspects.
France certainly seems to have a hard core subculture pulsating with angry gang affiliated young men that leverage big events like the Champions League Final to simply go and cause trouble. They gravitate to big crowds and they use them as cover, essentially as cover to vent their anger at the world. And as the chief of police said, clashes began as soon as the game kicked off, and in his words,
thousands of people came to commit atrocities. Now I'm not a soccer devotee, but as a sport lover, I find it hard to believe that a genuine supporter would think smashing a few shop windows as the opening whistle blew, was a good idea. So no doubt, hardened criminals were also thick on the ground, but they weren't the whole story. And I shuddered to think, as I said earlier, what Paris would have looked like come Monday morning if PSG had actually lost to enter Milan.
Instead they won five zil.
But leaving the events aside for a moment, let me ask once again what is it about soccer that attracts the worst supporters, Because it seems to Why the hatred, why the propensity to violence. Why is it uncommon for home and away fans to sit side by side in the grandstands of say Premier League match, whereas you just go up the road. Wigan and Hull supporters will mingle at a league game. Now you might have a theory if you do. I'm all is one three one eight
seven three. I'll get to your calls on all of that in just a moment. Back to the situation near the M five or actually at the M five tunnel. It's a mess and it's getting worse. Mark, you're there, are you?
What's happening?
Ah?
Yeah, I've just come past the Eastern Way and they've dropped it by foot directions now, so east and west. I know traffic on the east is nearly nearly back to Foreshaw Ride.
Jeez.
All right, so it's banking up really fast, eh yeah, all right, Mark, I appreciate that. Thank you for being our eyes down on the ground there. If you're around the M five, just let us know what you're seeing. One three one eight seven three. Of course we'll keep you regular traffic updates throughout the afternoon. But as Mark was suggesting, and we'll bottom touched on this earlier, this
won't just be an eastbound situation. Traffic management have just said that the motorway is also now closed westbound at General Holmes Drive. The M five Motorway General Homes Drive. It's now closed westbound. So this is all because of this rolled large vehicle or crane, whatever it happens to be. So the motorways closed eastbound. At the M five tunnel entrance. It's also closed westbound now that came through just a
few minutes ago at General Holmes Drive. Basically people are being told to avoid the area and use alternate roots. I'll keep you up to date throughout the afternoon as things happen there. One three one eight seven three Hayden, Good afternoon.
Caday, Michael, how are you well?
Thanks mate.
I do have a suggestion about soccer. I played soccer most of my life and I got frustrated with a game that you can play two forty minute halves and end up with a Nillel draw more often than not. As a forward, I believe it will be a complete game changer to push the offside rule back to the last quarter to make it a little bit more open, a few more goals, and at the end of the game, if the fans aren't hard fighting over the last little refs call, that could have changed the game for one.
I mean, that's a theory.
One I'm not an expert too, I'm not a psychologist, but there is and I'm not saying every soccer fan. I'm not saying every match, none of that. But there is a problem, and I mean to deny it would be to deny reality. There's a problem. I don't know
why it's there. You know, as I said, psychologists might argue, well, you know, when you've got a sport where you say you play ninety minutes and there's no goals, there's no opportunity for the people in the crowd to let some steam off like happens in other sports, and maybe all that pent up testosterone. But I don't know, I don't know. I think it's more complicated than that. Just quietly, but there's a problem and if possible, they should try to
address it. Alistair says, re your point about the Premier League fans sitting side by side, I can assure you nothing's further than the truth. Now, I said, Rugby league fans further north sit side by side if you can watch hul play Huddersfield or whatever that they're all mingling around in the Premier League. Oh no, the away fans are segregated. I mean I've seen it. I went to
a few Chelsea matches. I was like enough to be invited and stuck up in the members stand and get a very good advantage there at Stanford Bridge, and you could see behind one lot of the goalposts all the away fans and then there were spare seats and then rows of police and then spare seats or security guards,
and they were segregated. And the announcement came over the PA at the end of the match that the away fans had to stay put until all the Chelsea fans not only had left the ground, had left the metro station down the road Stanford Bridge. That gives you a sense of the fear that the authorities have that violence will break out if someone in that colored jersey meets someone in that colored jersey.
Out on the street.
Now, you know that doesn't happen at ly hard oval that doesn't happen, you know, generally speaking, in any other sport. I hear about ice hockey, but I know nothing about it. But beyond that, it just doesn't happen. So what is it with soccer? I mean, it's just it's not a criticized soccer. It is the beautiful aim and it's the most popular game around the world and for a reason.
It's extraordinary.
But there's a problem, and I'm not sure that too many people have tried to get to the bottom of it.
David Goday, Yes, thanks for taking my call. If you look at especially in Britain and all over Europe, in a town there might be a Protestant side and a Catholic site. In Scotland you've got Celtic which is the Catholic side, and they've got Rangers which is the Protestant site, and Rangers playing blue and Celtic playing green and white. And so consequently the fight is not so much what happened on the cricket on the pitch. It's the ancient
hate and you're see in a lot of places. Most of the English cities have a Catholic site and a Protestant site and they willow or even to the point where anybody from South London. I forget the teams in South London that they go and bash up the mob
from the north. They hate the Northernans. It's it happened in Australia too, but I mean like in this local soccer side there was a cycle Bonnie Rick White Eagles and they were a Serbian side and if they played the Croatian side there would be vallence.
Yeah, and that's and that's why the A League was completely created and revamped from the old Soccer League because all of the old ethnic rivalries that were built into the old teams. There was problems in the stands.
Well, I mean they had an elite at Eagles New Town or something. They were some people from alder That was all just ethnic, simple as that. I mean arf you like, art was the Italian scene. But I don't think you know, in some places they just really the ancient hatreds by brawling it out on the street. They're not interested in the game. They go to the game, they singing, one side singing air anthems, the other side singing their anthems. Liverpool sings You'll never walk alone, you know.
So it's it's under well, I won't say it's understandable, but that's what happen.
Yeah, that's part of the history that You're quite right, there's no doubt about it. And I think I said earlier, you know, whether this is just the manifestation of ancient hatreds being played out on a soccer pitch, and then afterwards, after the game, you get a few drinks involved. I suspect that's a big part of the story as well. But you know, I mean, those same religious divisions and regional divisions are ever in other sports.
Yeah, they are.
I mean some of the rugby comps. You've got Protestant originating sides. You've got Irish sides playing London Protestant sides, and they've got different names now, but that was all their origin. They're not belting each other up in the car park. So there is an issue with what the Europeans called football, which isn't anywhere near to the same extent. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. It does, but it's not to the same extent in other sports.
Now.
I don't know. I'm just bouncing this around and we're getting theories here. But maybe there is a greater sense of contact points being scored, all of other relief valves being pulled in other versions of football which aren't necessarily allowed in soccer or not part of the formula of the game, which helps relieve a bit of the tension that.
Otherwise might bubble up. I don't know. I don't know.
I'm not a psychologist, but that is an interesting conversation. Thank you, David, appreciate you call this just threw by the way. From the Transport Management Center, the M five East Tunnel is now closed in both directions due to that crane crash inside the tunnel. Westbound lanes of the motorway are closed from general Homes Drive. As we said earlier, city bound lanes remain closed from Bexley Road. The marsh Street westbound on ramp to the motorway is also closed
now as well. The city bound on ramp to the M five East from Kingsgrove Road is closed. Motorists are being advised to avoid the area consider using the D five D tour instead in both directions, okay, if you can use the D five D tour in both Emergency services and traffic crews are on site. Due to the nature of the incident. There is no forecast as to when all lanes will reopen, so we're going to be dealing with this for a while. But just to repeat the basics, the M five East Tunnel now closed in
both directions. The city bound on ramp to the M five East at Kingsgrove road has closed and the Marsh Street westbound on ramp to the motorway is closed. If you can use the D five D tour instead in both directions. Emergency crews, traffic crews are on site. They're at work, but because of the nature, we've got a rolled crane here. Obviously, it's very complicated. No forecast, no
forecast as to when all lanes will reopen. As soon as it happens or as soon as we know, we'll share it with you and hopefully we can do that before we.
Wrap up at three o'clock.
It's twenty to one, seventeen to one, just before we get to greg Sherion. A further update about the M five Fire Rescue New South Wales reporting they're now on the scene containing a large hazardous oil spill after that crash involving a crane and a truck on its side, so that obviously complicating the situation. Fire Rescue New South Wales on scene there at the M five tunnel. A large hazardous oil spill also part of the story. All right, one three, one eight seven three. Now back to this
situation of defense and drones. Yesterday we saw something pretty incredible. I was glued to the six o'clock news watching all of this come through. In this war between Russia and Ukraine, the series of drone strikes apparently code named Spider's Web. It took more than a year and a half to
plan to by kriche wasn't it defective? One hundred and seventeen drones used in total, hidden in the roofs of wooden sheds, which themselves were loaded onto trucks and then driven to the perimeter of the air bases across Russia that they were to target. And they did a hell of a job on the Russian equipment. The damage bill estimated to be about eleven billion Australian dollars, largely in lost bomber aircraft in the Russian Air Force. Now I
can guarantee you this much. The Ukrainian spent nowhere near eleven billion dollars doing that sort of damage. There is another example here of the potency, and I think the potential for drones being a central part of Australia's future warfare preparedness.
I wanted to speak to Greg Sheridan.
About this because, of course it comes on the back of a conversation between Richard Miles and Pete Hegseth. He's equivalent in America about what Australia should be spending and how much and by when in its defense. The British over the weekend labor government there Sir Kiss Darmer pledging to in a real way increase defense expenditure over the next three years and beyond, and drones again and cyber technology being a central part of the new approach in
Great Britain. Greg Sheridan, as you know, no stranger to the program, foreign editor at The Australian with us.
Greg, good afternoon, Good soon, Michael.
How are you.
I'm okay. Look, you're the defense expert. I'm the radio guy.
But I'm looking at this and thinking, look, surely, if we haven't already led the lesson, the images out of Russia over the weekend with what the Ukrainians did with drones should be a wake up call.
Well, we're absolutely right, But our defense circumstance at the moment is pathetic and the Albanesi government must rank with the Whitlam government as the worst government in our history for our defense capabilities. So we're spending two percent of our GDP on defense compared with the United States three and a half. Britain is going from two point three to two point five, but we'll get to three shortly.
Unlike Britain, Britain has independent, nucleared Terrance and surrounded by allies France, Germany, and so we've got no allies except the United States, where we're not surrounded by any other allies. And we face a vastly more formidable strategic competitor in China than Britain faces in Russia. Now, Britain is moving to drones, but the Alberanzi government has decided not to spend an extra dollar on defense. It increases defense spending in a nominal way with inflation, but at a tiny, tiny,
small increase on top of that. But all the money is going to pay for the Orcus subs. Now, I'm in favor of the Orcat subs, but they don't come along for the first of them doesn't come along for another ten years. And in the meanwhile we're doing nothing. So we have announced one billion dollar investment in drones. Wait for a Michael over ten years. Ten years now, Unlike every other military in the world, we have virtually no armed drones in our order of battle. We have
no missile defenses. All of our military bases, our air force and so on, they have no ground based missile defenses. All of our bases could be wiped out by drone strikes like the Ukrainians did to the Russians, or just by conventional missile strikes. They don't even have to be as clever as that. The Chinese could just destroy our air force on the first day of a conflict with
a few missiles. Because we have no missile defenses, we have no offensive drones, and we have no counter drone capability. Because the Albanezi government has decided that to win the election before the last it had to sign up to UCUS, so it's signed on for that minimum expenditure, and it's also signed up to these ludicrous hunter frigates which are going to come in another ten years. That's one hundred billion dollars over the next ten years, which will yeald
US nothing. We get nothing out of that in ten years. And meanwhile, therefore, because they won't increase defense spending to a reasonable level, we don't spend any money on anything else like drones.
I mean, the British Defense Secretary, I again remind people this is the Labor Party over there, John Healey, He said, no, quote, we know that the threats are increasing and we must act decisively to face down Russian aggression. Now, I mean, we've got politicians, as you know, Greg out here, who also acknowledge the increasing threat, but that seems to be where the rhetoric ends. The decisive action, as you said,
hasn't been forthcoming. I mean, I sort of get the impression that some in government think that all of the warnings about a deteriorating geopolitical situation is an invention of the weapons lobby or something and can just be ignored. Did you get that impression.
Well, that's that's a fair speculation, Michael. But I think it's even worse than that. Our politicians are Metaphorically, I don't mean this literally. Metaphorically, they're fat and lazy and stupid in terms of defense. They have grown up in a world where the Americans always take care of them, and they just think that all they have to do is go along paying their minimum dues to the American Alliance.
But they're absolute minimum dues. So we're only spending two percent of GDP on defense, and we're doing these orcus subs the first three of which we buy from the Americans, and then we acquire in tiny numbers these exquisitely expensive, highly complicated platforms, giant ships and som but in tiny, tiny numbers, so that you could never risk losing one in war, because then you'd lose your whole fleet. We've got three modern warships, their warfare destroyers. They're not they're
not great ships. They're not first division ships. They wouldn't strike a native fear into the Chinese. But they are modern capable warships. We've only got three of them. The rule of three in the navy means one is coming back from operations, one's getting refitted, and one is out on operations. Third means we can deploy precisely one modern warship at any given moment, so we won't do the
things that we could do to defend ourselves. Now we're a rich nation, and we could create an asymmetric strategy. We could purchase or manufacture thousands of missiles to have in northern Australia and so on, so that any navy that came towards us would be in a lot of trouble. We could purchase or manufacture thousands upon thousands of drones.
We make some of the drones that Ukraine users. Australian manufacturers do, but they can't sell any of them to the Australian Defense FORRSE because it is so schooled in the old mentality that it exists only to provide niche supplements to American expeditionary operations and that will keep the Americans sweet and they'll always look after us, whereas the Americans have been saying now for a long time, even before Trump, you allies have got to do a lot
more to look after yourselves if you expect us to come and rescue you in any emergency. Now, without the Americans, we are completely defensive. Albanesi can say, we'll do as we like, not what the Americans tell us. Well, imagine if the Americans went home and said, Okay, we don't have an alliance with you anymore. We're going home now. We would have no intelligence capabilities We've got the brilliant
ed husic. One of his smart actions as Industry Minister was to abolish the coalition's program to launch our own satellites. We're going to have low Earth orbit satellites of our own. We've got no satellites of our own, so we get every bit of military intelligence that we possess we get from American satellites. Now, if they said, okay, you don't want to be bossed around by us, you now to your own devices here, we would be defenseless. And Albanizi
is an emperor with no clothes. He's a poser, he's a fake. This is the worst leadership, mind you. The Liberals are no better. Their ten years in government were shocking, and we are at our nation where the equivalent of the Afghan government before the fall of Carbull. We just think the Americans will always look after us.
Hell of aage to do anything, hell of an image. We'll leave it on that point, Greg, thank you for your inside as always, Thanks Michael Greek Sheridan, Foreign editor at the OS five to one. Brilliant stummation there by Greg Sheridan, a lot of support coming in on the text line. Thank you to all of those saying that just really hit the nail on the head. He does it so well. Greg, back to the five situation just quickly.
I've just seen some images here of inside the tunnel, the crane that has toppled the oil spill, etc. It is a real mess in there, a real mess, and it does look as though some of the paneling on the inside lane this is sort of that that the prefabricated stuff that r along the edge of otherwise a concrete curve has been taken out.
It's a mess.
So this is going to take a long time to clean up, and looking at these images, I think it's going to take a lot longer than even I that assumed I may not be giving you the news by three o'clock that it's all good to go at the five. So I'm just studying these images. There's obviously emergency services there and people on the scene, but the oil spill is evident and the damage is quite substantive. So I can also see a lot of cars there with headlights on,
still stuck in the tunnel. They've got nowhere to go either, so I'm thinking all of the motorists in there as well. We'll keep you up to date throughout the afternoon. All right, we've got the news coming up in a matter of seconds. We'll be back into the second hour. A lot to do, including Tuesday health, and we'll look at this new phenomena of tech neck you might have it. Tech Neck will find out all about it. After the news.
It's now onto gb and network stations. Back to afternoons with Michael McLaren.
All right, let's get into the second hour. Thank you for your company on this Tuesday. Aiful day today, it happens to be as well, unless, of course, you're stuck in the M five tunnel and it's a mess, and just receiving notes here from people to say, look, we just have no idea when this is going to be rectified, and we don't.
We don't. It's a big situation down there with this crane that throlled. There's oil on the road.
I saw video earlier of the automatic fire extinguish A sprinkler's belting water out all over the place at the point.
Of the accident.
So it's going to take a long time to fix up. And I feel very sorry for all of those people stuck in the tunnel by truck. You want to want to be claustrophobic, and I'm sure they'll get the assistance they need as the emergency services are down there as we speak.
One three, one eight seven three.
Interestingly enough, on the situation of petrol, there was a report around today. In fact, this has just come out from who was at the ah Trible c and the retail margin at the pump between December to March, so the March quarter the retail margin has declined two point eight cents a liter. It's now fourteen point four cents a leader. It was leading into Christmas seventeen point two cents a leader. So the margin, the profit that they're making at the point of sale has declined. I guess
that's good news for you the motorist. But Jacob was just having a bit of a whip around out there about the status quo with the price for E ten around New South Wales. The cheapest in the state as we speak seems to be the Metro at Greenacre, and they often come pretty close to being the cheapest, don't they. One hundred and forty seven point seven cents.
A leader right now.
It was as of an hour ago for E ten one hundred and forty seven point seven at the Metro Greenacre. The most expensive in the state way out at Whitecliff's two hundred and fifty six point nine cents a leader.
Holy Nelly.
But closer to home there's still some difference in the price if you go to Dramoin two hundred and nine cents a liter there. I'm not sure which one it is at Dremoine, but two hundred and nine cents e liter for E ten as opposed to one hundred and forty seven point seven at the Greenacre Metro. And we are being told that the price cycle is on the way back up. And so if your tanks looking a little dry, maybe, if you're in the green Acre area,
maybe a good idea to fill her up. It does seem the price cycle, that wonderful, unique Australian invention that no one wants to copy, funnily enough, is ticking north one three one eight seven three. I just want to bring in Superintendent Adam Dewbree from Fire Rescue New South Wales obviously to give us the latest on the situation of the M five tunnel. It's closed in both directions, Adam, what's happening here?
Michael? It is quite a message the motor stat there already appreciating. So we've had a truck roll over on its side in the US bound tunnel, spilling quite a large quantity of hazardous oil. So fire is you you Southwardales has contained and cleaned that up. We've worked with the ENVIIRO teams from the tunnel operators a RMS. All
of that is safe and contained. But this crash has actually taken out the safety systems of the deluge system, the sprinkless system that operates quickly in the event of a vehicle fire. So to get that tunnel operating at least westbound by rescuing your South Wales, he's working with the operator there to get two fire trucks at either end, so in the event of a vehicle fire, because the sprinkless system is out to be ready at hand to respond. So we are working quickly to try and get at
least some traffic flowing westbound in the first instance. But we've still got a little bit together that the rest of the field automotives out there. Everyone's working together to try and get this traffic moving in one direction at least, But getting the crane out is going to be a very different story. It's a big crane and he's on each side, so a little bit of work to do there.
A little bit.
It might be an understatement i to speak, and it looks like a lot of so just to clarify obviously the westbound lane has also. The lanes have also been closed despite the fact that the crane has rolled over in the eastbound lanes. And the reason is that that fire safety system has been damaged when that affects both east and westbound lanes, right.
Yeah, exactly, and that's a critical component for the safety of the motorists getting through there. We do see a number of fires in those tunnels across the city. It happens, they're vehicles, they do catch fire. But these tunnels and the sprinkler systems that are installed is what keeps our
people safe when they're driving around. So we need to have a protection system in place before that opens up again, because the lasting we want is to let traffic through, and we don't have a fire protection system and all the toxics that comes off that to take hole causing, it's much much more catastrophic damage and injury to people. So but just rest the short everyone out there. We're working to get plans in place to actually get the traffic moving as quickly as possible.
Okay, So I am I right to assume by at some point this afternoon, hopefully by around the peak afternoon, that the westbound lanes will be reopened.
Yeah, that's what we're working for as quickly as possible to get that happening. Once it's clear and we have fire protection in place. I understand that's when the traffic can start to flow westbound, but as we said, the eastbound is going to be a different story because of that big truck on its side.
Are we're probably looking at tomorrow for the eastbound lanes.
Look, I'll let the people the RMS talk about that in their commanders because there is a lot of work because it's a it's a big truck which would normally outside would have another crane lifted up back on its wheels, but obviously a crane can't fit in there, so there's going to be some very ingenuitive work to get this one out.
It's going to be a real boondog or this one. I thank you for the update, Adam. I know you'll be back in touch if there's further developments. Appreciate your time.
Great thanks Michael.
Superintendent Adam Dewbreey there from Fine and Riskuing New South Wales. So the message there just to repeat. Hopefully the westbound lane will be opened by the afternoon peak. They're positioning fire trucks at either end of the westbound tunnel on the M five in lieu of the safety system. That the sprinkler system being damaged on the eastbound lane, which has affected the westbound So once the fire trucks are
in place, hopefully the westbound lanes can reopen. But as Adam clearly said, the eastbound lanes, and this is where that crane has turned over in the tunnel, that is a very different story. And the time expected to have that rectified is still anyone's guess. If we can speak to some experts that might be able to give us a guide, we'll let you know. But this, I'm hesitant
to say is a unique situation. But it's going to be very difficult situation because, as Adam said, a crane topples, you normally get another bigger crane in to get it back up on its wells. Well, you just don't have the space, the height, the volume in the tunnel to allow that, and so Plan B is going to have to be utilized.
We'll keep you up to date obviously.
One eight seven three the open line number one three, one eight seven to three. Just speaking of transport, by the way, I just I'm still trying to get my head around the development over the weekend, and it was a positive and a welcome development with the rail unions. It looks as though, you know, things are going to
be worked out there with that whole pay agreement. But I remember butting heads with Toby Warns from the RTBU on a number of occasions last year and early this year about their ridiculous demands which seemed to be immovable objects when it came to these pay agrees.
What do they want?
Thirty two percent pay hike plus one percent increase in super plus this plus that, And of course the government were never going to give it because the public didn't support it. It was uneconomical, it was crazy, crazy stuff. And yet Toby in others was oh, no, no, no, you know, this is what we think is right. And I'm trying to describe to him how a negotiation tends
to work. You know, you've got to expect to give a bit, and you in the same way, you hope the other guy, the one with the money, is willing to give a bit himself. So you know, imagine my surprise over the In fact, it was Friday, Clinton I think broke the story here on two GB that the government reached a wage agreement with the rail unions. Okay, well, Jeef,
Well they really rattled the tin, have they? Well, As it says here, this is The Herald's report, it abruptly ended a bitter and protracted industrial dispute that has repeatedly crippled Sydney's train network. The government proposed enterprise agreement with the combined rail unions, agreed to in the Fair Work Commission late on Friday, will deliver workers a twelve percent pay rise over three years, and they wanted thirty two.
And they've signed for twelve now. I was getting the.
Impression from Toby, although we wouldn't name the exact figure, months ago, that they are on the verge of getting about fifteen percent but wanted more. That was the impression I got. I can't say that's accurate, but that was sort of the ball park we started to hint and wink at in our conversation. Anyway, they've signed for twelve now, over three not four years. But nonetheless, I'm sort of left wondering, and I don't know if you are as well.
You know what happened here? Why?
The better part of I think in the end, nine months of chaos and threats and shutdowns and disruption and who knows how many billion lost in productivity with all of the mess.
For what for what?
Both sides really have come out of this looking completely.
Week and inept.
Now I know we've got a different transport minister. I'm not blaming mister Grahame. He's clearly solved this. The previous minister was unable to do so. But between the government and the unions, I mean, this has just been a shammozzle, all of that for twelve percent, just sort of you think, I mean really so, I don't really know what went on there. I'm glad it seems to be solved. I think the ETU were still sort of hanging out for more or something. But I'm not sure the whole thing
will be rectified and sorted. It's not to say the rail system is going to run effectively and on time. It's had its problems lately as we know, separate to all of this. But still am I the only one sort of scratching my head and wondering why why all that brinkmanship and who knows what else was going on when in the end the Union went for the twelve percent. I just it's the whole thing's bizarre. One three one eight seven three. Mark McKenzie's called in Mark's the sea
of the Australasian Convenience Association. Off the back of what I was saying there about that A Triple C report, Mark, good afternoon to you.
Good o Michael, how are you?
I will, but what's on your mind?
Make look that.
Margin that you actually quoted that the A Triple C reports on. They report on at every quarter. It's not actually profit margin. A lot of people misunderstand that this is the average price between what service stations pay for fuel, that is the wholesale price and what they the average retail price is so built up in that fourteen cent a leader cost is actually the cost of wages, the cost of leasing the site, the cost of electricity. So the profit margin is not fourteen cents a leter as
some a use, as you suggested. But it's a very common misunderstanding every time the atripleceed puts this report out. So I thought i'd just ring in and let you know.
I'm glad you did.
So let me just refer back to this and I'll use exact language that the a triple c use, which might be gobbledygook to people, hence why I tried to simplify it.
But they refer to it as the gross.
Indicative retail difference, which I think, when having had you explain, it makes a lot of sense.
Yeah.
So that's a difference because we have two benchmarks, Michael, which are reported to the market all the time. That is the terminal gate price, the average wholesale price, that is what it costs for you for a service station to get the fuel from a refinery, and then what they sell it for as an ambridge. And as you rightly said, I mean different retailers charged different prices, but it's that different, so it still includes that that figure includes all their costs. It's not just profit.
Okay, I'm glad you clarify that. Hey, why I've got you there, Mark.
Let me ask you about another issue which has been bubbling around, and that is this issue of cigarettes and illegal cigarettes. Of course, a lot of service stations sell legal, index taxed cigarette products. Have you and your members noticed to decline in sales as more and more people go and buy these illegal things from all of these disreputable retailers.
Yeah, Michael, it's one of the hottest issues in our industry at the moment. Our service station businesses are reporting have been reporting declines between fifteen and twenty percent year on year over the last two years. It's out of control. The illegal cigarettes are just purchased everywhere and they are really cutting the lunch of those businesses that are selling valid products.
I mean, obviously, we've had the State Premiere on with Ben this morning saying something's got to be done about excise. That's a federal call, and the federal Treasurer looks like he's blind and deaf to the idea. But if you had his ear, what would you be saying to doctor Chalmers about this.
Well, I think the key.
Thing we stay out of the excise debate, Michael. But you know, there is a big difference, and it's a very big incentive. But there are two problems. One, the penalties for people who sell illegal cigarettes are trifling. They're nothing near what they should be. And the second one
is there is no enforcement. So yes, you're collecting all this exercise, but if you're going to maintain the integrity of your tax system, then you should be ensuring that you're putting money into enforcement and if the federal government wants to keep the excise high, then my belief is they should be supporting the enforcement costs that the states have to enforce.
I'm glasu your phoned in Mark. I appreciate that.
Thank you all the best pleasure, Michael, thank you.
Take care.
Mark McKenzie see over the Australasian Convenience Association. Just to make that point again, when we talk about fourteen point four cents, that is the gross indicative retail difference. So as Mark quite right, the point that's not the margin. Out of that come wages and electricity costs and insurance and everything else. Right, So that's the difference between the wholesale and the retail price of fuel one three one
eight seven three. If you want to have your sol on anything this afternoon, Steve, good afternoon.
And time of the day to you, Michael. I been listening on off to this in five catastrophe with the crane and those poor buggers that are stuck in the tunne. I was wondering how they're dealing with bathroom breaks for these poor people.
That's a very good question and I simply don't know. I simply don't know, but the longer it goes on, obviously that the more that's urgent.
Pretty tough sitting in a car when you've had a cups of coffee a couple of hours before with it.
Yeah, absolutely, I mean obviously the safety of the safety of everybody's got to be bare amount. But you know, I mean, nature is what nature is. And if you're there in the car for I mean, who knows, at least people have been there almost two hours now. I think at least you know, that's just the nature of being a human being. At some point you're going to have to relieve yourself. So I don't know what the contingencies are there, Steve, if people can safely leave vehicles and be escorted.
So I have no idea, no idea.
I'm not going to speculate because I don't want to send false messages out if people are listening to the radio in the tunnel, but no doubt that will be a point of conversation in a lot of cars and a lot of utes, and who knows what's stuck in the tunnel as we speak. Thank you, mate, appreciate the call. Take care to stay safe. One three one eight seven three. The open line number more after this twenty six past one will get the latest news and weather shortly for you.
Just interesting note from Anthony going back to a conversation with Greg Sheridan and drones. So he says, I'm having a bit of trouble getting my head around buying drones for defense because he said the world's biggest drone maker seems to be China, and especially when it's been reported there are spy chips being found in all sorts of circuit boards, in a range of popular electronic products emanating from China.
Can you be sure if they were used against.
China that a signal wouldn't be activated to disable them. Well, look, I can't answer that, Anthony. I assume that in the United States, Taiwan, France, the UK, elsewhere that there would, indeed Australia, there would be enough capability to manufacture of drones independent of China. That would be my hope. If there isn't, by craiky, we better get cracking in that sort of a space. But this concern, it's a very valid concern. He goes way back in defense circles. I
remember was the fortieth anniversary of the Falklands. There were reports coming out of the UK Telegraph at the time that the Exercet missiles that the Argentinians were using to hit the British were obviously purchased from the French. And what the French didn't tell the British, even though they're meant to be close allies and this sort of thing, was that the French had inserted a kill switch into
the missiles. So the Argentinians had them and they were launching them and hitting British ships and killing people, and the French, technically, so the story goes, had the ability
to remotely disable them, but never told anyone. And the reasons seemed to be that they were also in negotiations with some other countries to sell exos set missiles, and they didn't want those negotiations and those potential sales to be scuppered by nations that said, we'll hang on if you can knock out their ones when they want to use and probably knock out our ones, So we'll buy missiles from somewhere else that don't have the remote kills,
which that was the theory. I can't prove it, but that seems to be the theory, and I don't think the French denied it. And so these concerns about foreign nations having some sort of ability to terminate the lethality of the weapons you may purchase remotely if it doesn't suit their interest. Where that weapon is heading is not new. It is not new. And anything the French could have done back in the was it the nineteen eighties, I think early eighties, wasn't it fuclans. I'd imagine the Chinese
can do to a power of ten today. Back to calls Pat, good afternoon, Yeah.
Good afternoon. I know that with the mv's tunnel and anyone that's stuck there and blocked and all that kind of scenario. You know, my heart goes out to you. I've just come past General Homes driving. They've clothes off the southbound going in there. So there's a big intermodal as you know at Port Botany. So all those trucks now are going down towards the stuff and using all the side streets. So traffic management and control have closed
off that. What they should be doing now is going to any of the ride works that are happening on arterial roads, small arterial roads that are closing off lanes. They should close the work off, get those people that are doing the work and just say listen, you've got to get off because you know the traffic's banking up and you know it's just flooding the streets. It's like
a rain deluge of traffic. And then when you go down the side streets to go where you need to go to, they've got traffic lanes closed off because people are doing works on the side of the streets. But you know, repairing a pothole or doing something. So the traffic management needs to say drive down there and go listen, close the works off. We need all the lanes open
so all this traffic can get through. It's no use just closing off the tunnel and expect all the traffic bed to go downside streets and backstreets and other small arterial roads because then there's works going on there. So all those works programs should be covered up, go off the road so people can use the roads. And that company, if they're liable for the incident that's happened, they should reimburse in those companies that have to shut down their program work.
That's an interesting I understand what you're saying, Pat. I appreciate the call that's an interesting point of view. You've just been around there, you're seeing what's happening. Obviously, you're closed down a main arteria like the M five east
and westbound. At the time being, you are going to have all the traffic disperse elsewhere, and so a lot of them will be following their SAT nabs and instructions and whatever, and if they're going into roads that have existing roadworks, then that will only exacerbate the situation on those terrestrial roads.
I take your point.
Look how practical it is to just shut down the works that maybe some of them are based off safety issues that need immediate rectification. I don't know, but I understand what you're saying. One three one eight seven three. Thank you for the call. By the way, read the M five crane crash in the tunnel. I'm told that you can now see some of the pictures of what's happened if you go to two GB dot com. So we've tried to paint a picture for you, but you can go and see the real thing yourself.
Now.
Just go to t GB dot com some images there and you'll get a real sense of the scale of the situation which is facing the emergency services and the engineers and everybody else who are going to have to try it somehow and obviously confined environment, get this crane back up onto its tires and somehow get it out of there. And when you look at it from a practical point of view, it does look like it's going to take a long time and will.
Be very difficult.
You've got that issue, You've got the oil on the bitumen, damages, damage to the side panels, the sprinkler system and the safety system a critical component of course, everything involved in the mix. It's a real mess down there on the M five tunnel. Let's all the rest of the use of course thereon Mars standing by high erin.
Hello there, Michael. And the M five East Tunnel will remain closed for some time after a crane tipped, tearing through the wall panels and a pipe. The sprinkler system needs to be repaired before cars are allowed through. Aaron Patterson has told a Victorian court of her distrust in doctors, as she admitted she was never diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
Unions say a three and a half percent pay rise for workers on minimum and award wages will have flow on benefits for small businesses, but businesses say it's hard to swallow because it's an extra cost, and the annual Emergency Services Blood Drive is launching in Sydney as stocks for some of the most common blood types sit at critically low levels. In Sport, England, players are using heated tents as part of their preparation the next years Men's
fee for World Cup. It's designed to acclimatize the players to the expected hot and humid conditions they'll face in the USA and Mexico. And there'll be more news at two o'clock.
On afternoons.
Oh where they are, update, We'll be here to help in unexpected weather. Nurmain Insurance a help company for the city. Today in Sydney partly cloudy.
In twenty are the temperature anywhere between nineteen and twenty one, depending on your postcode. Tomorrow's showers the top of just sixteen in town, maybe nine mil of rain that should largely clear away for Thursday, a sunny day in seventeen Canberra Today mostly sunny and seventeen Tugrinong is the same.
Cloud clearing tomorrow, but all of just twelve and then minus three will welcome you on Thursday will warm up to a top of thirteen once that frost clears in the morning and a sunny day Lithgo gooday through two lt partly cloudy in fifteen for you today Orange bit wet, thirteen nineteen for Maudjy a little less wet, Baptist dry and seventeen katomber fourteen spring wood twenty Today Tomorrow possible morning showers there maybe one mill of rain for Lithgo
nine the top and then anywhere between minus two and twelve depending on the time of the day On Thursday morning frost with then a sunny day to come, which sounds pretty nice. Speaking of Orange, by the way, report just through from New South Wales Police. They're appealing for information following an alleged assault and kidnapping at Orange. They say here that this happened last month around one thirty
am Thursday May fifteen. A man was sitting inside his blue MG sit down on Maxwell Avenue, Orange when he was approached by three men. Police were told the group threatened the man with a knife before they assaulted him and forced him in the back seat of the car. The group entered the car, they drove towards Wellington on Burundong Way before forcing the man to exit the car and driving off. Now a fifty four year old man contacted emergency services. He was treated by ambulance paramedics before
being transported to Orange Health Service for further treatment. He's since recovered which is good. But about six am the same day, so this is Thursday, May fifteen, Emergency services were called to Nanima Mission, that's Wellington following reports of the MG well alight. Fire Rescue New South Wales extinguished the blaze, however the car was destroyed. Officers attached to Central West Police District of commenceding investigation into the circumstances
surrounding the incidents under Strikeforce Collingwood. As inquiries continue, anyone with information or dash cam CCTV vision about the incident has erge to contact Orange Police Station or you can get in touch with Crime Stoppers, the number being one eight hundred triple three Triple zero. One eight hundred triple three, triple zero. But aside from the whole situation again knives allegedly involved. We're keeping told we're getting knife crime under control.
There some disturbing stories coming out this morning about some incidents involving knives allegedly and here's another one, so clearly there is still it seems a problem with knives in the community.
It is twenty five to two. We'll talk health after this. Great.
Have you with us any further update on the M five either westbound or eastbound?
I'll bring it to you as soon as I know. It's twenty to two. Who scoon full.
Of sugar helps them?
Lex go dun.
Leic, go down, go down?
Just a spoon full of sugar held a most delayedful well on afternoons talking health?
Okay, now, let me ask you this.
How many times a day do you find yourself looking down at your phone or leaning forward while you work on a computer or a laptop device something like that. It turns out more assies are finding themselves with what they call tech neck. It's kind of a catchy name as it sounds a tech related neck problem. Prolonged periods of working or looking at screens. It has affected individual's posture,
and it seems it could actually have long term effects. Now, the average person spends three hours and fifteen minutes or more on their devices that's daily, while others who may rely on technology for their work are spending up to eight hours on top of that during your standard work day, so it's the majority of the waking hours for some
people spent staring at a screen of sorts. Now, that generally affects your posture, and so the health specialists are waving some warning flags here because if people don't act now, it could have prolonged effects down the line, so much so that it's becoming the fourth leading cause of disability. Just think about that now. The question, therefore, is how can we prevent these issues from turning from what is
already bad to worse. Well, let's turn to the people who know a bit more about this than we do. Helen Gents is the CEO of Muscular Scleito Health Australia. Obviously, hence the name suggests they know a bit about this. And Helen's with me on the line. Helen, thank you for your time. I appreciate it.
Him Michael, how are you.
I'm all right.
I try to avoid the technology as much as possible, but you can't. You can't wipe it away from your life. It's the nature of the way we live these days.
So just how bad a problem is this? This technic? What are you seeing?
Well, Michael, I think you pointed out it's the fourth leading cause of disability globally at the moment. But a really good point around muscular scletal disease, or as they call MSDS, is that back pain is actually the leading cause of disability globally, and it's also the leading cause
of early retirement globally. So muscular scaletal health is such an important thing that is often overlooked in a lot of our health literature, a lot of the health priorities that our government has, and it is so very important to your overall health because, as you noted, these sorts of things can actually have really bad long term impacts with other comorbidities, and I'm talking cardiovascular dive. If you don't have good muscular scaletal health, you can actually be in pretty big trouble.
All right, let's just unpack that then. Okay, So someone spends eleven hours a day, let's say, bent over a laptop or a screen, and then they spend the rest of the time swiping left and right on dating apps, and they're scrolling up and down on TikTok. Their whole life has spent hunched over a device. How does that then get you to a point where other comobilities become particularly problematic.
Well, it's things like when you have muscular skeletal conditions like as you said, the newly coined tech neck. What happens is your posture is adversely affected. Your movement, your ability to get around and just go about your daily activities without pain is severely affected. And when you can't move and be active, then there are those other comorbidities that come into play. Your weight can be impacted, and when your weight is impacted, things like diabetes comes into play,
things like cardiovascular disease. So having good muscle, joint, bone health is so important to everyone. And as you said, spending you know, eleven hours most of your waiting day looking at computer screens, looking at telephones and having that adversely affect your posture and the way you can hold yourself and your muscle, bone and joint health, it's becoming a bit of a crisis.
Michael, seems to be okay now with that established, I guess the obviouscustion is what do we do about it? I mean, yoga seems to stretch and flex your muscles, bones and joints. Having done it once, or twice rather poorly. I mean, is that part of the answer. I mean, I've read the other day that adults are being total some are being told to embrace tummy time, tummy time like babies, get on your tummy and put your neck up in the air, that reverse of technique.
Well, I think, I think, as you rightfully point out, prevention is really important. So limiting your tech time is a good start. But obviously a lot of us can't do that for work, for all other commitments that we have. So there are some simple things we can start to introduce with our everyday activities. Ever heard about chair based exercise, Michael, I have yeap. Chair based exercise is a great way
to think about moving differently. Think about your posture, think about moving your arms, your legs, all's while seated, and you can do that in front of your computer. So introducing movement like that throughout your day where you have that break from looking at your screen, looking at your telephone and doing some really simple movements. And I'll do a plug for us here, Michael. On our free YouTube channel, we have a series of great share based workouts that
people can access whenever they want. From a five minute workout to a thirty minute workout, and they're a really good way during a work day to just keep yourself moving.
Okay, so check out that YouTube link.
Okay, So I mean I wonder if we've got to look at this a little bit, be a bit more conscious like we are when we go on a flight. You know, you sit down in an economy and you're cooped up there like a battery hen we're told be careful of DVT, get up, move around occasionally, do those chair based exercises to get the blood pumping, the muscles moving, and that sort of drilled into you when you get
on the long haul flight. I suppose these same messages haven't been drilled into us when we go for a long haul tech session at work, followed by all the social media you're at.
Home exactly you've spot on, absolutely spot on. And this is what I was saying about the fact that muscular ski legal health has to become an absolute top health priority. People need to be aware of how moving regularly, from simple things like share based exercise to walking around the block, just moving. If you don't like walking or walking's too painful, think about some warm water exercises. Get yourself off to one of the many pools around the cities that offer
warm water exercises. They're great for your muscular skillegal health and to keep moving and just be active, and that's the fundamental part of prevention and keeping good good muscle and bone and joint health.
All right, let me.
Ask you this about from an employer point of view, because they've got duties of care here. I mean, it's the role and they're paying people to do the role in and being hunched over a screen all the time, I suppose a legal duty of care that comes into play.
So we're speaking of chairs earlier.
Some workplaces have spent some money on quality chairs, standing desks, these sort of things for their office based teams. But do they need to go further?
Do you think?
What I would say first up is I'm not a clinician, so I'm not coming at this from a clinical perspective, but from an employer's perspective. I think anything that you introduce into the workplace you have to ensure has a solid evidence base to it, because there are a lot of things out on the market and a lot of people touting things that don't have the qualifications that they need. To have to tout solutions to muscular skeletal pain or
to ensure muscular scleedal health. I think what you need to do as an employer is make sure you are looking at the research behind what is being presented to you and making sure that is clinical and evidence based, hopefully with some significant clinical trials behind it, and that what you're implementing your team is understanding why you're doing it, what it's going to do for their muscular skeletal health,
and how it can actually make them more productive. Because you've got to admit, Michael, if staff is feeling a bit of pain during the day because they've been sitting too long, or their necks a bit because they've been looking at a screen, surely making them feel better in terms of their muscular skeletal health is going to improve their productivity as well. So it's a win win.
They can be a pain, You're quite right, But I shouldn't say I try to buy their love with cakes and things. I assume that's not the sort of rectification you had in mind.
Probably not.
I'm a big fan of cakes, I can tell you. But you've raised another really good point that it's not only exercise. It's also nutrition that's really important in this and there are a lot of foods that you can actually eat that help your muscular scaletal health. And once again another plug head to our website. We've got many recipes free once again on our website that help with lowering inflammation, help with improving bone density, all of those sorts of things, and they're actually really.
Delicious donuts on that list.
No, but I might work on that for you, might see what I can come up with.
You do something there that'd be wonderful. Helen. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much.
Thanks Froch.
I'll have a good afternoon you.
Too, Helen Jensen said, see of musculo skeletal Health Australia. It's an important issue. It's only going to become more important. We've got to deal with it. And maybe indeed you're already dealing with it in your own way. But as we go to the break, maybe we should all, if we're in our chairs, we should all just do the YMCA moves or something and just limber up a little bit. And I just spoken to Hell and I'm noticing there's
a bit of pain in the back and whatever. This wouldn't be the first time I've been described as a pain in the neck or the back. But anyway, it's ten to two people wondering about that YouTube site for tech nick. I think if you just stick into the YouTube search ready sit move six the number six, Ready set move, then the number six, you should get the relevant video. That's what I've got here, and there's a bunch of people doing their exercises.
It looks pretty good. Just to repeat the news about the five.
Now, obviously the eastbound tunnel is still a mess, but one westbound lane has reopened in the M five East Tunnel. So one westbound lane has reopened, but all the eastbound lanes remain closed. Due to a crane crash inside the tunnel, the motorway was closed in both directions, but one westbound lane has reopened. We'll keep you up to date with any further developments there.
Just before we get to the two o'clock news've got to ask you about Aldi.
By the way, I've got a press release here saying that they've just opened their six hundredth store in Australia. Now I find that kind of surprising. I know, Aldi have a pretty decent footprint, but six hundred Aldi's seems a rather significant number, doesn't it. So this is open in right in the act it opened on Saturday. It's number six hundred and as they say, they entered the market here in Australia in two thousand and one two stores I think it was Marrickville and there was one
near Bankstown Airport, wasn't there Sydney. From two thousand and one to twenty twenty five, they've gone from two stores to six hundred and they claim I can't verify this, there's an asterisk. I've got to read the fine print, but they claim eighty eight percent of the nation's population
now lives within twenty kilometers of an Aldi store. Now, I don't know too many people that will drive twenty kilometers in one direction if you're in the city anyway, to go and visit a supermarket, but a lot of people go. I mean I go to Aldi a lot, not for everything, but for certain things. I think the cheese is pretty good. I love the chocolate. I love the chocolate. I just don't tell my pre just guessed that. And you know, some of the Center Isle stuff's kind
of good. Some of the bread's all right, don't tend to buy too much meat and veg from Aldi. But the berries ck generally the grape, so I mean, yeah, you can pick and choose what you want. But the whole thing about having to pack your own groceries was introduced by Aldi first. I think they had that, I think before the self service checkouts at Wollies and Colds.
I might be wrong.
That's been part of the Aldi business model for a long time and it's taken some people a long time to get used to it, including someone who's at my local Audi the other day winging complaining about it.
But anyway, they're now at six hundred. News is up.
Next now onto GB and network stations, back to afternoons with Michael McLaren.
All right to our number three, thank you for your company, just repeating that news that came through from Steve there. In traffic, all westbound lanes have reopened in the M five East Tunnel, but all eastbound lanes remain closed due to that pane crash inside the tunnel. The image is upon two GB dot com. A lot of people saying don't we have things about overheights. My understanding is the crane was not over height. This isn't an overheight issue.
That's my understanding. This is a rollover. It doesn't seem as though any over height detector was activated or any damage to the roof of the tunnel per se. From what I can see side panels. Yes, and the crane has rolled on its left, I believe, but I don't think I might be wrong, but I don't believe there's anything to do with an over height vehicle at this stage. But just repeating the news. All westbound lanes have reopened
in the M five East tunnel. However, all eastbound lanes remain closed due to that crane crash inside the tunnel.
We have no.
Idea when the eastbound lanes will reopen. People writing to me off ere suggesting that is going to be a long time coming.
In fact, Gary's just called through. So, Gary, you were stuck in the tunnel, were you?
Yeah? I was so.
Were you heading westbound?
Now?
I was heading eastbound fairly early into the incident, I guess.
So let me ask you. How did you get out? Because the tunnel still closed.
I had to reverse out. So after a while the police came down and said to everybody they'll be reversing out. Obviously, the big B doubles couldn't do it, so they stayed on one side and motorius and generally anything small was just reversing out. But that was about an hour and a half after it all started.
Seeing there for about ninety minutes or so.
It's part of it.
Yeah. But the thing that I want to mention on radio, I don't know if it's been mentioned already, is as a private contractor, you've got to do risk assessments and work method statements for everything you do in life. And what I found in that tunnel was they say, tuned into the radio for announcements. So I did that for the best part of twenty minutes. Nothing came out of the radio, so you're thinking, well, what happen me up ahead?
And then finally the police walked through and I said to one of the coppers, I said, while am I geting announcement over the headphones or the radio or anything like that, he goes on, communications is down. I went, okay, So I said in the book, just biding my time. And then after about an hour and a half, I thought, there's been no announcements, no communication except we will be reversing out at some time, and I thought the muppets that run that tunnel, there's procedures in place when an
incidant happens, and that whole thing fell over today. There was no communication. If there had been a fire or a chemical incident or worse, nobody knew what was happening, and there was no plan in place and no communication. And for people that have to manage so many lives going through that title, that's disgraceful.
That's an interesting insight that you were in there for ninety minutes. When you say there were no announcements. This is through the PA essentially that activates on radios.
You go through the.
City whistlink here and it says low down, traffick ahead. That's sort of a thing you say.
Exactly right, yep.
You've got an overhead displayed that says tuning into the radio or words to that effect. But there was no PA announcement either through the tunnel or over the radio. And the COPR I spoke to said your communications is doubt. I went, okay, well that's cool, but you guys are walking up and down the tunnel telling telling people that we're going to have to reverse out. But if something happened, if a car sparked up down there, what surprised me was half the cars were still running for an hour
and a half. A lot of people turn their engines off, but if you get a car spark up, what's going to happen.
Then of course, No, they're very confined and tight space.
That is a concern. Gary, leave it with us. We'll put that to the relevant people and we'll endeavor to get an answer. I think you've raised a very interesting insight. I'm glad you're out, and I'm glad you're out safe, and I thank you for the call.
Just hang on there.
We'll just grab some details off here, just to make sure we can cross some t's and dot some eyes with the team out there as well. Gary appreciate that. One three one eight seven three.
Now on afternoons, it's time to go traveling.
Well, let's do it and for Tuesday travel today, we're going far out of Sydney. We're heading off to a beautiful, beautiful part of the world.
It's known as Lord Howe Island.
And if you've been there, and I have some family that have been there, they just rave about it. It is well it's sort of, what would we say today, instagrammable at the nth degree. One of the most beautiful places, most of the those beautiful natural landscapes of all of Australia, marine parks, flora, fauna, raret, the whole thing.
Now.
The island was first discovered back in seventeen eighty eight.
That was via a trip to Botany Bay on the HMS Supply and was claimed as a British possession back then, but thriving on an economy of Kentia palm trees, tourism then became the main focus of Lord Howe Island at the conclusion of the Second World War and since then, with the air travel and whatnot, it's flourished and it's been listed of course as a World Heritage Site of Global Significance because of the untouched nature of its forest landscape.
It is, as.
Anyone who has been there will tell you, a site to behold.
Now.
Tim Maxwell is the vice chairman of the Lord Howe Island Tourist Association, and I wanted to have a chat with him. He's on the line. Tim, Good afternoon to you.
Good afternoon, Michael. It's pleasure to be with you.
You have one of the great jobs of the world, because no matter how gifted you are, you don't really have to do anything because the island sells itself right I does.
Indeed, it's got a real natural beauty about it, and it certainly goes a long way into welcoming people of it to our little spot of paradise.
What's your connection? How far do you go back with Lord how island?
Well?
I go back a decent ways. My parents are actually managed to buy a property there in the year two thousand and ever since we've been I was going as a kid in school holidays and then since then we've launched a few businesses over there, and I just completely love it. It's such a special special spot. It never never grows old on me.
What's the population size?
So on Lord howim? Because it's a World Heritage area, there's a maximum of only four hundred people that can live on the island at any one time, and then for visitors there's a maximum of four hundred people that can be welcomed.
Okay, so one for one at any one time. There is the range of accommodation options available, that's my understanding, and they range from five star luxury through to something a little more simple, talk us through some of those.
Sure, So I suppose on the island you've got an incredible array of different operators that take people on adventures
and restaurants and things. But when it comes to accommodation, you've got a nice sort of varied amount of people that are putting on all sorts of different experiences, whether it be small sort of shock if you will, that you've got a really nice place to sleep, a kettle and a good sink, right up to real high end luxury where you know, you're celebrating the timeless nature of the place with you know, beautiful food and service and things like that.
I think I think people I know stated I think the name was Capilla Lodge.
It was that the Capilla.
Yes, yeah, indeed, yeah, Capella is a beautiful special.
Yeah.
No, it's it's absolutely stunning. It's looking at the two really massive, beautiful mountains called Mount Galler and Mount Lichbird. And you know, I think one of the really beautiful things, whether you're staying in one of the high end lodgers or one of the more accessible spots, is that you've got this access to this unrivaled nature that is completely protected legally through World Heritage and then also through lots of different initiatives to make sure it always remains as is.
Talk to me about some of those initiatives, because you've got this incredible piece of real estate there. World Heritage listed, incredible wildlife, not just on the island, some of the endemic I think to the island, but also obviously under the waves.
How is all of that maintained and protected?
Indeed? Yeah, I think first and foremost the government does an incredible job, whether it be in the waves with the marine parks authorities, or whether it be the Lord Highland Board which is sort of like our council, where they get funding and have coordinated initiatives to ensure that the environment stays. And so on the land, you might have the weed team, and the weed team has a
pretty awesome job. They go exploring throughout the permanent park preserve, whether it be the mountains or the valleys, and they're finding a noxious species, whether it be weeds that have literally flown in over the winds or through just travel and things like that, and they will go in and they'll literally weed the mountains of the permanent park preserve and then replant native plants, so it's a pretty beautiful job. They go to some pretty incredible spots and at times
they're dropped by helicopters. It's an amazing spot.
Okay, those two mountains you mentioned, I guess they're really the iconic landmarks of the at one end of the island, and a lot of people, my understanding is do hiking when they get to Lord Howe Island. The vistas from up on top must be very very special.
Yes, yeah, absolutely. I suppose for a guided walk up Mount Gower, it's rated as one of the best walks in Australia. I think it's top five indeed. And then you've got self guided tracks and trails that can be enjoyed all time of a year. But they're particularly beautiful in the shoulder seasons because it's nice and secluded and
you probably won't see another person. But it's of all sorts of abilities where you can really challenge yourself or you can for a really beautiful, leisurely fifteen minute stroll through the jungle.
Imagine the shoulder season. What's the best time to visit if you sort of like to be a bit alone.
Well, I suppose all times of year. You're only going to have a maximum of sort of one thousand people on the island at any one time. But there are particular times of year being September through till about before December, so September to November and then after after sort of January is over where you've got these beautiful shoulder times where it's not during school holidays. The weather is absolutely beautiful, the water is warm, and yeah, you've got this secluded nature to enjoy.
It's not that far from Sydney or Brisbane. I think Quantas used to do the flight, but that's changed recently, hasn't it.
Yeah.
Indeed, yeah, there was a tender that went out to Broad Australia to see who would be interested in servicing the route from Sydney to the island, and Quantus has worked together with the successful applicant being sky Trans and they're going to do a code share arrangement. So you can still book your flights through Quantas or sky Trans.
The frequent Flyer points and the lounge privileges will still remain if you're flying with sky Trans, the only difference being the operator will be our new sort of service in airline called sky Trans yeah, that's interesting.
Now I haven't been to Lord Howe, but I've got to get there one day. It's on the bucket list. Beautiful part of the world. But I've been to a couple of shall we say, remote or isolated places, islands around them here and overseas, and one thing that I do find is generally actually the food is very poor because they don't have the access to agriculture and farming
and all the fresh produce that we do. They don't have greenhouses and then traditionally not traditionally advanced farming and pesti side and everything, so they don't get the range that we do. And you know, sometimes when the potatoes run out, well they run out.
What's the story like on Lord.
How Well, we're extremely spoilt in a number of ways. Firstly, you've got the incredible fish that are surrounding us, So you've got beautiful pelagics like kingfish, trevalley and tuna at certain times of year, and dedicated fishermen that take also guests out fishing with them catch these incredible fish. And then and then sometimes while people are dining, they'll be walking beautiful tuna or beautiful kingfish through the dining room.
And then when it comes to produce and fresh ingredients, there are a number of beautiful gardens throughout the island where islanders will be making beautiful coslettice or herbs or these sorts of things, and restaurants will buy from the islanders. And then we also our family also have a business called the Nursery where we grow a lot of produce in glasshouses and greenhouses and in ground growing as well.
So there's beautiful produce, there's beautiful seafood, and whatever we can't get we get from really great regional producers of meat and proteins. But actually, just just recently on the island, Lord, how lambs have become a thing. And I've got to tell you that the lambs that are beautiful.
Just just on.
Is there any tension ever between the weed team as you call them, and those that grow some of these obviously non endemic things like coslet or do they look at the greenhouses, We've got to rip those up.
They're not from here.
Yeah.
Look, I think everyone on the island gets on in a beautiful way. We all live so closely the community on the island itself, where we're always rubbing shoulders and so whilst the weed team acknowledges that, you know, growing things is a necessary evil if it's to service beautiful restaurants or for themselves for good nutrient food, we all understand. We all get on and it's it's it's it's type net. But it's all beautiful and amicable.
Just speaking of that beautiful amicable community, I mean take Norfolk Island where I've been. I mean, they've got a strong connection to the Bounty mutineers and then they came from pitt Can and were given Norfolk by Queen Victoria.
And all that story.
Right Lord, how it doesn't have that foundation story, does it?
So?
So who are the families? How's it all come together? For the four hundred that live there at the moment? Great diversity, I'd imagine what do we have a sense of their backgrounds and their stories?
Yeah, there's there's an extreme colorful history, although a short history on the island, and you've got some foundational families being the Thompson family, the Wilson family and the Nichols and how they intertwined between each other over the years is never short of a story. But I suppose every decade or so there's a new layer of people that are either drawn to the island and live there to be a part of the conservation efforts or part of
the natural history, or part of just island life. That might have fallen in love with someone and started a family, And so throughout the years you've got these incredible foundation families, and then you've got all of these subsidiary people that have joined over time that I think everyone's extremely proud to be there, and everyone's sort of just living in this paradise, pinching themselves a lot.
Well they should be, because it is really one of the great inventions, sir lord how island When God got to work on that one on the day six or whatever it was, he did just out of interest. If someone's thinking, you know, sort of had enough of the rat race in Sydney or wherever I'm canber and you know, I'd like to live on Norfolk Island. I mean, obviously, the permanent populations kept at four hundreds. So when or how do any availabilities for permanent residency come up?
It must be pretty.
Rare, it is. It is very rare.
So to be not a waiting list or something, What do you do well?
There's there's there was actually an act, a legal act that got passed in nineteen fifty three that ensured that there would be a vibrant community living on the island at all times. And there's basically a rule that to be eligible to buy a house and live on the island, you have to have lived on the island for ten years or longer.
And so.
That makes sure that the people that are living on the island are there for you know, there for good if you will, And so the opportunity to buy land or to buy property comes up very very very very sparsely. So everyone's very lucky that's living there, that's for sure.
Well, the Maxwell's clearly did the right thing of the right time. Well done to your aunt, Tim, and well done to you. Wonderful, wonderful job. Thank you for all of that. And I think it's probably just wet of the appetite of others to get there, even if.
It's just as a tourist. Obviously, I appreciate your.
Time, Thank you so much, thank you for having me, and have an excellent.
Day you two.
Tim Maxwell, very lucky man, Vice chairman of the Lord Howe Ireland Tourist Association, you may have been there. If you have, I'd love to hear your stories. Time on lord How Island. It really looks gorgeous. One three, one eight seven three. Will catch up with Clinton straight after this.
It's that time of the afternoon.
Time to find out what's coming up on Sydney.
Now for the Serrato successor the turbo charged Kia K four kias on new small sedan GT line very unavailable. Now find out more about Kia's latest small car.
Here he is Clinton Maynard. Good afternoon, Hello Michael. After three o'clock.
This situation with the M five tunnel will still be an issue, obviously.
I think it sounds a commun issue well into the evening, at least for in one direction. So we'll keep across that throughout the next couple of hours. We'll also look at the ins and outs of the FU Work Commission's decision today to increase them in the WAH like three and a half percent thirty two dollars a week. I've been having a look at what you can buy for thirty two dollars a week. About three beers.
At the pub.
You could buy half a case of VB if you wanted to have some drinks at home. You could buy eight cartons of Sanitarium so good Barista.
Oat long Life milk for Woolies.
If you want to go to the movies, you could go and see Liloh and Stitch at Blacktown Events Cinemas actually houst Cinema's Blacktown twenty six dollars and you'll have some change.
You can't bring your kids because it's twenty dollars free.
So if you want to chock top squoozed in there, no, no, you can buy a pack of Maltesers, but you need to do that at Woolies before you go into the cinema, just to get it under the.
Thirty two dollars.
Or you could use the M five five and a half times be stuck in a traffic jam, but at five dollars seventy eight you could have five and a half M five.
Trips for your thirty two dollars.
That gives it some context, my Joe, I think at three and a half percent, it's a fair decision.
It's above in unions wandered four and a half in two and a half.
Basically, and we'll speak with both sides about the program to day. It's the question will be what effect does it have on inflation? Okay, there's the question, but what are thirty two dollars a week buy you? But what's the inflationary effect? Is that planned to the RBA's decisions in the coming months on interstrates as well, we'll get the latest from the Coalition. They've been having a meeting throughout the day and Parliament has now set about their
position on the workers' compensation changes at state government. Dairy prices are going up because the floods route will have around that and increasingly, whether you're a fan or not, more Australians are buying electric vehicles, but they're now encountering a problem.
It's hard to get them fixed. Oh yeah, we've covered that many times.
We're going to look at that as well, and straight shooters with that. Susan Temperman Holly Hughes. Today, Holly's actually cleaning out her office in Parliament House as her term is coming to an end. In the Senate, we're going to talk about cleaning out your office.
Okay, what an interesting topic. Thank you. Clinton.
Clinton is coming up straight after three o'clock. Just the other thing with the fair work decision is people have to also bear this in mind. Not everybody who's going to benefit from this is in a situation where both the husband and the y, for whatever the arrangement, is both on the minimum wage. I mean, we hear about, oh, it's thirty five dollars a week, and to cambuy you
this can buy there. Well, let's just say hypothetically that the wife is earning the minimum wage doing whatever she does, but the husband's out there working in a very well paying job. Combined the income is strong, and so you know, it's we've just got to be nuanced in how we look at these discussions, and indeed, the Fairwork Commission would have factored all of that into the broader deliberation they
landed on their decision today. But yeah, yep, sure there would be a number of circumstances where harby and wife are both on the minimum wage and so this is a great benefit to them. But in other circumstances this will just be a nice little learner on the side without necessarily affecting the weekly budget, as it were, one way or the other too much. It's horses for courses. After the news, we are again Aaron Margaret afternoon.
Good afternoon, Michaels. We've been hearing a driver who says he was duck in the M five East Tunnel for nineteen minutes due to the crane crash. Says communications were down and motorists didn't receive any updates over the radio system. The tunnel is still closed eastbound. A man's been charged with murder after a body was found at Croydon Park. A twenty nine year old Malaysian man has been stabbed
in his neck. The Fair Work Commission says stagnating productivity limited how much it could increase minimum and award wages. It's announced a three and a half percent wage rise for the nation's lowest paid workers, and the SEES has wrapped up its operational response to Mid North Coast and Hunter floods. More than seventeen thousand calls for help received, eight hundred
and six flood rescues carried out. In sport, Formula One champion Max Forstappen has stopped short of apologizing for deliberately ramming rival driver George Russell during the Spanish Grand Prix. The Dutchman says the move was not right and shouldn't have happened. There'll be more news at three o'clock.
On afternoons a finance update for Pretzel Wealth and finance for Trusted Financial Planning.
Just Google Blake went to Pretzel.
All right, let's go to Scott Phillips from the monthly Full dot com Dot you Scott. The minimum wage we're just discussing there with Clinton. It's going to go up three and a half percent. What benefit is this going to have on the average lower paid worker?
Michael, Yeah, this is the key one, right. We know about twenty percent of Australian employees are covered either by the minimum wage or an award, and that's what this is going to apply to, So about one in five Australians, about ten and a half percent of the wager's bill. And that makes sense, right, because we're lower paid workers. The smaller percentage of higher paid workers make up a
disproportionately large proportion of that bill. So of itself, as you rightly pointed out, now one's going to grow to someone on minimum wage, particularly after the last five years of inflation, getting a bit back inflation at the moment two point four percent, so a bit above inflation, which is kind of what we all are striving for. The real risk for inflation is going to come down to
whatever copycat or flow and effects this has. And this is kind of setting off the you know, the next conversation they one has with their boss, what's a pay rise as well? The award went up three and a half percent, So boss, how about you give me something too, And that's kind of the biggest financial potential impact on inflation. Wherever wages are greater than inflation, you want to make
sure the gap is made up with productivity gains. We've talked a lot about this over the past couple of months, maybe in a couple of years, and certainly the government says they're going to try and deal with this. But if you have wages that increase faster than prices and there is no productivity improvement, that must be inflationy. And that's the key one. So wages are important. And again for those people who are on the minimum wage or award wages, neither anyone's going to be grude some of
an increase. We've got to make sure is that across the economy we are becoming more productive and we're covering those increases with more output, not just putting up prices and hoping everything goes away. That's how you get into that price wage spiral on the end.
That's right.
We were expecting to have a good opening to the market today. Did that come through?
It did, and it went pretty well dipped again just after lunch, but back in decent territory at the moment, up four tenths of a percent. The your Lord's currently eighty six hundred and seventy three points. The AUSI dollar also higher by about a quarter of sixty four point six six USS.
Wonderful. Thank you, scottppreciate that. We'll catch you tomorrow.
Scott Phillips, their chief investment officer from the Motley fool full dot com dot you this just threw from police. A man will face court today charged with murder after a body was located at a home in Sydney Southwest yesterday just after five pm. Emergency services called to a home on Kembler Street, Croydon Park following reports of an alleged stabbing. You would have heard about this in the news.
On arrival, officers attached to Burwood Command found the body of a man inside the home with the stab wounds to his neck. He's yet to be formally identified, however, Police believe he's a twenty nine year old man. A thirty two year old man was arrested at the scene, taking to Burwood Police Station before being taken to hospital for assessment. Police established a crime scene and detectives commenced
Strike Force Buchanan to investigate the incident. The thirty two year old was released from hospital today before being returned to Burwood Police Station where he was charged with murder. He was refused bail and will appear before Burwood Local Court today. Just through from New South Wales Police. Lots of feedback about Lord how Island. Shari says it's stunning.
She's been there twice. Interesting note from Brett. He said, I've never been to Lord how but my great grandfather was actually instrumental in establishing the hospital there, doctor Cedric Balker b owk Er. He volunteered his time when he retired. There are places still named after him. Loved the segment. Thanks that's from Britt good On. You're brittin glad you
enjoyed it. Appreciate your feedback. While he says, my parents took myself and a younger brother to Lord Howe Island over Christmas nineteen fifty nine sixty and we flew in by Sunderland flying boat. It was an amazing thing and at the time I was just short on my twenty fourth birth. I've never forgotten it. Beautiful island, the Gray Nurse, sharks at Ned's Beach, everything there, he says, haven't forgotten
a moment of it. Someone said, you forgot to mention the time zone, Lord how one hour in front of Sydney, one hour forward of Sydney. That's true, it is stan. What's your Lord Howe Island story?
Good afternoon, Michael. Yes, I've got some great memories of Lord how You. Certainly you've brought them back. My first first time I went to Lord how was in nine and fifty two. Again I went by answered short. Someone had to catch the plane from Rose Bay at two am in the morning. That was the only way because they had to get the high tide to get into
into land on the lagoon. Had a great time, and I returned some fifty five years later when I remarried my second wife on Lord Howe in two thousand and six. So and I can remember, of course, on the first occasion I was a lot younger then. Obviously, Pimon Mount Gower. It was inducted whour. It was not actually a tour, it was really a hike, but it was great but great memories. And I've got some great photographs of Lord how.
Well, cherish those. Thank you for the cool stand.
Actually, somebody else Ian's just sent me not here saying I spent my honeymoon at Pine Trees and Lord how back in nineteen eighty six. The food was a that's from me, and thank you so beautiful memories coming through one three one eight seven three.
We'll take a break.
When we come back, I'll catch up with Rowan Pike will repivot back to this issue of the tobacco excise, the Premier makers and pretty strong comments with Ben this morning. I agree with the comments. Something's got to be done about the excise issue. I doubt it will, but I'll speak to row and Pike and get his thoughts. It's eighteen to three. Thank you for joining us. We'll keep you up to date right throughout the day. On TWOGB, considering the situation on the M five East Tunnel eastbound
obviously it's still closed. Westbound is now open again to traffic. It's going to be a while before this rolled crane can be rectified, let alone the oil on the bitchumen and everything else.
Now, just back to this other issue of tobacco excise.
Believe it or not, I spoke to my next guest just over a year ago to the day about this very issue, tobacco excise. Now, at the time, we knew the tobacco black market was growing and rapidly. Everyone could see main streets, every suburb, every town. More and more is tobacco shops opening up, despite the fact we're told fewer and fewer people were smoking. Just from a business point of view, it just didn't make sense. So something
wasn't right. The accusation is many of them are selling illegal cigarettes.
But not just them.
I mean I'm hearing reports from you that you buy them from butchers and green groves. I mean all over the place people, And the story the other day, think about delivery services delivering illegal cigarettes. I mean, for goodness sake, they're everywhere now. Speaking earlier today and I was glad to hear it. Chris Mens, Premier of New South Wales, is on with Ben and he was talking. Since haven't listened to Chris Mins.
My real fear here is a that this is just naked breaches of the law in every high street right across New South Wales. Secondly, you're asking, I think we're almost driving law abiding people who in every other aspect of their life follow the rules. The costs are so massive that they're being almost drawn into an illegal marketplace, which is not good public policy by any stretch.
Chris Men's they're speaking with Ben Fordham this morning pointing out the obvious that these incredible hikes in excise year after year bi annually, in many circumstances legislator by the federal government as the catalyst to the problem. We see now there's a cost to all of this for legitimate retailers.
Earlier in the day, Mark McKenzie phoned my program. Marks the CEO of the Australasian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association, So petrol stations and the like now they sell legal cigarettes, the ones with all the excites the tax, but it's having an effect because people aren't buying those anymore.
Have a listen to Mark.
Our service station businesses are reporting have been reporting declines between fifteen and twenty percent year on year over the last two years. It's out of control. The illegal cigarette just purchased everywhere and they are really cutting the lunch of those businesses that are selling valid products.
I wanted to bring Rowan Pike in again. He's a former Australian Federal Police and Australian Borderforce officer. He was part of the team that created the ABF's tobacco strike Team.
He's on the line. Good to speak again.
Rowan, Hi, I'm Michael.
We've been about twelve months between conversations. The situation's only got worse, and it seems at the federal level anyway, they just don't get it.
No, but very glad to hear what your premier had to say yesterday and this morning. Someone gets it and he's got a big, powerful voice and hopefully that changes the rhetoric he does.
Mind you being labor and the federal government's labor, it doesn't seem to matter. The man that really could do something about this, the man who holds the purse strings, the treasure of Jim Chalmers was asked, as you know, I think last night about this situation, about what Chris Min's has been saying, and he said, quote, tobacco excise is an important public health measure, to encourage people to give up smoking anyway. In other words, I'm not going
to do anything about it. It's not making people give up smoking anymore. The only thing that's doing is making them give up smoking legal cigarettes.
Right, that's exactly right. Perhaps well, I over fifty percent now of the market is illegal. Jim Charms as one of the people who is important in this argument, obviously the health minister, Mark Butler or the other and he's backed himself into a corner with his past comments saying that he won't change course. In fact, he's doubled down.
But I was pleased to hear the Premier say that his health minister will be going to a meeting next week pleading with the federal government to change their policy. So I think there could be a number of health ministers across the country. I'll be saying the same thing.
I think the Victorians are increasingly on board. So the two big states that have seen the light. I mean, this is an issue, isn't it a bit like immigration? The federal government control the inflow or whatever. It's the states that are left to deal with the mess on the ground. Here's you've got the federal government raising the excise.
They're the beneficiary of all the money, but it's the state governments on the ground, with their state health authorities and state police and state whatever, having to deal with the crime that is flourishing before all of our eyes.
That's right, And your premier doesn't want to be left carrying the bag being the open blame for the increasing crime problem on your streets. He realizes that it's going to take a massive investment in law enforcement to respond and to turn this chip around. And he's pointing the figure quite rightly at the federal government and they need to do their bit and take away some of the driver of this problem, which is clearly the excise.
Okay, just on that.
So, I think the sensible people in your top of that pile row and understand and agree that the excise is the catalyst.
It's now the problem.
It was certainly, without doubt beneficial in bringing down the rate of smoking when you made the cigarettes more expensive. A few people gave a lot of people gave up. It's now the point where it's I would argue, it's extortion really, and so it's now counterproductive. So what do we do? Do we freeze excise? Do we slash excise. What lever do we pull when it comes to.
Excise, that's a great question. Clearly we need to freeze increases going and review where we're at. I'm not a smoker, so I can't tell you what would attract me to the legal market as opposed to the illegal market, but that needs to be reviewed. Research needs to be done with the smoking market with that card rate and actually go to them and say what price will attract you back to the legal market, and that's significantly less than
what it currently is. But yes, we certainly need an excise to dissuade people from smoking, but it's just gone too far, especially in the last say five to ten years.
Well, no one's benefiting from the status quo. Excuse me, the status quo and even the Treasury if he wake up in Cambrill, would realize he's now not benefiting really compared to what he was estimated to be benefiting. I'll just plan a little bit more of the Premier Chris men speaking with Ben Fordham here this morning, because of course, if we don't do anything about excise, the other response seems to be all we just get more and more health authorities in there and they can go and try
to deal with this on the ground. Here's the premiere.
Gone from seven health officials to I think about sixty health bureaucrats who are responsible for policing and launching investigations into illegal tobacco. But it's a bit like someone's standing on a beach trying to stop the waves. It's so massive because it's occupying every second shop in the street. I've got health bureaucrats who I want running hospitals and managing the primary health industry, conducting criminal investigations into tobacco because the excise is so gigantic.
It's so huge. I mean premium means.
As writers in Hero, you can't police your way out of this when you've incubated and created the problem and you continue to make that worse by hiking excise.
Yes, I can pleately agree with everything. I'm in the serving fact, I think he's stole on my talking flights from my computer at some stage in the last few months. But yeah, no, and he's quite right. Health officials are not trained, equipped, powered, don't have the proper legislation to address an organized crime problem. It's a role for the plants.
And even then, as he points out, it'll take large numbers of plays, So I think he's actually heading towards a significant request to the federal government for resources in order to do with the problem that they have caused.
So often, the political response to any problem, though having created it, their answer is more money, but in a different direction to try to solve it without acknowledging they created the problem and dealing with it a source.
But we'll leave that as a statement.
Just finally, then, what do you recommend to all the political cadre out there that could do something about this? If you were running the show and you've got a great experience and longevity in this space, Rowan, what do you do? What do you do?
Well? What do you And that might be more than one answer.
Yeah.
Well, firstly, in relation of the exercise, the health ministers from each state need to band together and put pressure from that government to review and change that to a more balanced and meaningful level. We still don't have a national alicted tobacco strategy, so each state is doing their
own thing. In relation to enforcement. Queensland and South Australia are well ahead of the game compared to News at Lars and Victoria at the moment and they are trying their best and it's yet to be seen whether that's going to be totally effective, but at least they're having
to go. Certainly in New South Wales you've got the Parliamentary Inquiry is just starting to listen tobacco, so hopefully some sensible suggestions will be put forward at that and you'll be able to work out the best way going forward.
Great to speak to you again, and let's hope if we're having a conversation twelve months hence we can have it with some solutions on the table.
Thank you, Rowan, Thanks Mina well the best.
Rowan Pike, former AFP and Borderforce officer. They're very, very connected to the whole situation about tobacco. He was one of those that created the ABF's tobacco strike Team. Let's hope the people that can do something about this are listening to him.
I'll get all your.
Calls on that tobacco is show tomorrow straight out at the top of the show. If you want to give us a buzz one three, one eight seven three, mind you of the number, because quickly before we go time for Track of the Day. I've got a double pass to the Sydney Film Festival on the line. If you want to go one three, one eight seven three to the Sydney Film Festival, here's your question. The acting legend Tony Curtis, if he was still with us, he would
have been one hundred today. Can you believe it? He was born on June three, nineteen twenty five. Featured in hundreds of films, of course, But which nineteen fifty nine classic did he start in alongside the one and only Marilyn Monroe.
Here's a little song to give you a clue.
Hot town somewhere in the city getting burn credit, bend down, isn't it a bit?
It doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city.
All around people looking half dead are walking on the sidewalk in a matchairn night.
It's different.
Well, go on, all right, So Tony Curtis, he would have been one hundred today. In nineteen fifty nine he starting a classic alongside Marilyn Monroe.
What was the name of that film?
If you know one three, one eight seven three and you're off to the Sydney Film Festival, well that's it for us. Thank you Graham of Oberon, by the way, well done. The double past of the Sydney Film Festival is yours? The answer, of course was some like it hot the Sydney Film Festival fourth to the fifteenth of June. Get your tickets s if if dot org dot au. The M five East Tunnel still closed eastbound. Clinton will give you all of the latest