From the Sky News Center.
This is Paul Murray Live.
Thank you, Danika, and hey, good evening everyone. James Burrow here for Paul Murray Live tonight and all through the week. And yes it is a huge Tuesday night for you. But with Albanezy's trip to China, more fallout from that Treasury blunder and the new Parliament getting ready to kick off next week, Darren Barnett and James Ashby will be here to duke it out in a little bit. Plus we are going to have the one and only nod of Farage. So what do you say? Let's rip in
a shall we all right? So it's day three now of Albo and Jody's big six day trip to China, which breaking news. The Prime Minister seems to think is even more important to attend than Parliament. A little while ago, the PM was captured on an open mic earlier today.
Assume that's meeting for the first time next Tuesday, one week Hawaii. And so I'm here before Parliament has been scheduled. I think that can be taken as a sign of the importance of the relationship.
Tug the forelock a little more of their Prime Minister doesn't it say it all that that he thinks it's so important to go to China before going to Parliament's But you know what, even with all of that, it's not clear to me exactly why this trip is so important. I mean, today the Prime Minister met with Chinese President Jijin Ping. And by the way, why do we call him a president. It's like that applies to some sort of democratically elected official. But anyway, whatever, we'll call him that.
I watched though, after that meeting that he had with the president, the whole press conference the Prime Minister had after that meeting, and well, is there anything new? Did the Prime Minister have anything new to report? Has anything really changed with our relationship with China? I don't think so.
But that said, even if the PM has been serving up very little in the way of real meat on the bone of this or what's supposed to come out of this besides maybe some exchanges of business cards, well guess what, the press corps that he brought along for the ride has been doing their best to hold the Prime Minister to account, because today there was a startlingly robust and I think pretty punchy press conference, at least again on the side of the press pack and I
think at times the Prime Minister maybe even wished for just a second that he had the sort of control over the media that they have in China.
On the security side, did you think assurances that Australia would be better informed in future true about the PLA's navy in Australian waters.
Yes to the former. And secondly, in response of course it was president she said that China engaged in exercises just as Australia engages in exercises.
Can I just clarify on that answer that you specifically thought that the notification was really the issue that Australia had had earlier in the year.
I said what I said at the time, which was that it was within international law. There was no breach of international law by China, but that we were concerned about the notice and the way that it happened, including the li fire exercises.
There we go again, It was not outside international law. And I have to keep asking this question, why is the Prime Minister always so quick to defend China. Well, the press conference went on and the Prime Minister seemed to get a little bit testy as well when he was asked anything about any about any topic that didn't have to do with trade, which is apparently all he wants to talk about on this trip.
Your government's made clear it's concern about China's explained military build up. Did you see clarity on China's strategic or military intent and did you seek any clarity Would you gain any insight into China's plans for reunification with Taiwan?
The I reaffirmed on Taiwan, Australia's position of support for the status quo, on.
The military build up and what its purpose is, what china strategic and military aims are.
Well, you would be surprised if that was brought forward, And I'm not sure what you're getting out or what you're suggesting might be have been raised, So I'm not sure the context.
Well, your government's raised concerns about the military build up and the lack of clarity around what it might be used for. Do you feel confident that China is a force for peace in the region after this meeting or do you?
Well, what we did was we put forward Australia's position or I did, which is that we want peace and security in the region, that that is in the interests of both Australia and in the interests of China.
He really didn't like that question. You can always tell what he plays with his glasses and his mouth gets as ball because he's really annoyed that someone's asking him a question that he doesn't want to answer, but he had to. But of course he also put a little bit more distance between Australia and the US Prime Minister.
Our security partner, the United States regards China as its greatest military thing. Read I'd like you if you could to say, how do you regard China in terms of its threat and particularly has your view on the security threat changed as a result of your sitting down with the president on the latter.
No, it hasn't. We have strategic competition in the region, but we continue to engage in order to support peace and security in the region and stability in the region, and that's something that we advocate for. That's something I advocated for today.
Note the very clear difference in the way Australia regards China and China's plans from Australia now. The press also asked not one, not two, but three questions about detained Chinese Australian Yang Han Jun. But the Prime Minister batted those questions away. And as to the outcomes of this trip, well we still seem to be three days in, none the wiser.
You spoke a lot about the importance of increasing dialogue, building engagement between businesses. What tangible outcomes are you looking for, for example, with a free trade agreement from these talks.
Well, you see some outcomes this afternoon. I will travel back immediately after this for the leader's meeting with Premier Lee. But already what you've seen is a range of business to business relationships, if you like, coming forward. Some of those have been written about already on the free trade agreement.
One of the provisions, not unusually in the chapter the Chinese Australia Free Trade Agreement that was signed by the former government ten years ago in twenty fifteen following the Comprehensive Partnership that was signed also by the Abbic government, was as a clause in there for a review that will happen because the ten years has clicked in, so will engage in that.
Did that make any sense to you? Do you know why he's there? Do you know what's going to come out of this? I still don't really after all of that. Now, there was more to the press conference, but one thing is clear that Chinese government was very happy with the
outcome of all of this. Now, they didn't raise anything about US pressure over our stance on Taiwan, and according to the Prime Minister, they also said nothing about the port of Darwin either and strategically that makes a lot of sense for them, you see, because for Jijin Ping and the Chinese Communist Party, their aim is to draw Australia closer to Beijing and further away for Washington d C. They don't need any of those issues getting in the
way of that trajectory. And guess what, the Prime Minister seems more than happy to oblige on this. But frankly, I don't think this performance on his part is good enough. And it wasn't good enough either for Opposition leader Susan Lay, the Opposition leader earlier today was in Western Australia, and here's what she had to say.
Well, the issue of Australians that are detained in human rights and for Dr Jung, this is something that I would expect the Prime Minister to raise because it is of great concern to many Australians. Also of concern is the live firing exercises that took place around our coastline in February this year. That was not a respectful relationship in terms of not being informed the life firing nature and the way that activity took place. That should also
be raised. And the Prime Minister should speak frankly about the increasing influence that China has in the region and speak about the importance to Australia of the US relationship. And while I note that the Prime Minister is making this trip to China, we also note that he hasn't had conversations or been in the room with President Trump. And we want a strong, stable, prosperous region and pace through strength and returns.
Well said on the part of the Opposition leader. And while Albanez he did talk about doctor Yang and the live fire exercises, or at least he said so, who
knows how strongly he represented Australia's interests here. By the way, speaking of the Opposition leader, it was also good to see her firing up over that revelation in those accidentally released Treasury documents that the government is going to miss its one point two million house housing target and is going to have to raise taxes to get the budget into some sort of shape. And also how Treasurer Jim Chalmers said that he was well relaxed about all that.
Here's a bit of what she had to say there.
Measure relaxed about Australians paying more tax What has he got planned for them? It's a treasurer relaxed about the fact that we are not going to meet a target of one point two million more homes. For the young Australians that I meet every day, they deserve that dream of home ownership, and they deserve a government that backs in their aspiration every single day of the week, instead of shrugging its shoulders and saying it's okay, we'll take the easy way out and we'll just raise taxes.
Well indeed, and that was well said there, and I think they're getting their lines all nice and sharpened up for Parliament next week. But let's get back to the main issue here, which is of course Albanese's trip to China, because again, the Albanese way here is I think very dangerous in the long run for US, even if it seems superficially attractive in terms of trade and making money
and keeping the economy ticking. Over look, it's pretty clear to me that the Prime Minister has been duchess at every step of the way here by the Chinese Communist Party. Before the meeting. Today, the official China Daily newspaper, a mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist Party that is used to signal their positions to the English speaking world, they published an editorial that was entitled common Ground Prevails over Differences.
The editorial went on to say, quote against the backdrop of rising tensions between the United States and many countries because of the US administration's recent threat to levy higher tariffs on them from August first, Albanesi's visit shows that the Australian side has a clearer judgment and understanding of
China than it had under the previous Scott Morrison government. Well. Morrison, by the way, to his credit, laughed at off, saying quote having a character reference from the China Daily was never one of my foreign policy aspirations. But maybe not for Morrison. Albo is a different story. He doesn't see the trap that he is walking our country into. For him, he sees this trip as just business.
The fact that Senior Australian business people led by the Business Council of Australia have come here to Beijing as well as we're president in Shanghai, and in Australian businesses will also be engaged with us in Chungdu. Shows how important the economic relationship is and how the Australian business community regard this as an important relationship.
Well you see where this is all going here. I mean, this is this kind of weird values free foreign policy here that the Prime Minister seems to have that says, well, you do business with China, your security from the United States, those two things they don't have to come into conflict and a thing we find. But it does seem to me like business is driving the relationship with China, not necessarily those Australian values that Anthony Albanizi is so fond
of talking about. But this is a really difficult balancing act and we wait to see what more comes of this series of meetings yet. To me, just the fact that Albanizi even had to ask about detained Australian Chinese Yang Haan Jung, that should be a clue about the sort of regime that we're dealing with. They are not a free speech regime. They are a totalitarian regime. They are not a liberal democracy. And the fact that Prime Minister Albanesi was asked three times about this case should
also tell him something. Yes, China may be an economic powerhouse. Yes they may buy our green steel whatever that is. Yes, but its system, the system of the Chinese Communist Party is fundamentally different. Now I am not saying here at all. Let's be really clear here. I'm not saying we have any sort of mission or role or need to turn China into some sort of liberal democracy. That's not our business. That's not our concern. That's the concern of the Chinese people.
But the fact is that the Chinese government is imperialist and it aims to supplant the United States as the world leading power, particularly in the Pacific. And if that happens, I'm sorry, that just is not going to be good news for us, no matter how much green steel we think we can ship to them. Now, today things are happy, there's all this happy talk about business and trade and getting rich. But the fact is they may not always be. Remember COVID, Remember when we said we have to diversify
our supply lines. Recall that China daily invoked Morrison in response, and when Morrison had his fight with China during that period, in response, China issued a list of fourteen points of fourteen demands through the press, and they said at the time, this is how can you go bad? They said, at the time, China is angry. If you make China the enemy, China will be the enemy. And you know how our wine growers and our coal producers and so many other
industries suffered. And remember that among the grievances that China had against the government during that time, we're funding for quote unquote anti China research at the Australian Strategio Policy Institute, raids on Chinese journalists and academic visa cancelations, spearheading a crusade in multileaer forums on China's affairs in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Jinjiang, calling for an independent investigation into origins of COVID nineteen, Huawei from the five G network in
twenty eighteen, and blocking ten Chinese foreign investment deals across infrastructure, agriculture and animal husband as husbandry sectors. Sorry about that, but listen, this is what it's all about. These were demands against Australian sovereignty. This is what happens if you go against what the CCP wants you to do as a nation. They make these demands against our sovereignty. And make no mistake, things may seem fine in the here and now, and we may get some more trade out
of this, and that's all great. But China sees themselves in this relationship as they do with their relationships with other nations in the Pacific, whether it's the Philippines, Vietnam, anybody else. They see themselves in the driver's seat. We here in Australia, we're passengers. We are the junior supplicants in this relationship, at least as far as Jijin Ping sees us. Now. Watching the events in the last few days in the lead up to the trip, I have
to ask, does Anthony Albaniazi realize this? Frankly, I don't know. Anyway, Look, before we go, there's something else I also want to talk about very quickly, and that is the autopen scandal engulfing the former Joe Biden administration. Now you may have heard about this that for some time there has been a controversy over this device called an autopen, which can
basically replicate somebody's signature, in this case the presidents. And it has come out that this autopen was used to sign all sorts of things pardons, you see it there on your screen, orders, all sorts of different presidential instruments that would normally be signed by his own hand. And the issue is whether or not Joe Biden when he was president, legally signed then instruments such as these parties,
including thousands of pardons. Now, when President Donald Trump first raised the idea, and he did this a long time ago, that White House staffers in the Biden administration may have hijacked the auto pen and used it to reproduce Joe Biden's signature, it seemed like an out there conspiracy theory, designed more as a way to capture the vibe of Joe Biden's udderless presidency than a statement of actual fact. Yet, as I always like to say, today's conspiracy theory is
tomorrow's coming attraction. And now the autopen issue has gotten a massive airing in the very anti Trump pro Democrat New York Times, now getting out in front of what is going to be a rather big congressional investigation. Democrats have gone there and given the story, and they have said, on the one hand, the former president said he was
across every pardon an order that was signed. Yet when you read the article closely, it reveals that in many cases the president barely knew what was going on with many of these pardons, including some incredibly troubling ones that included grants of clemency's for Chinese spies and all sorts
of other unsavory characters as well. Biden's chief of staff Jeff Zietz, personally signed off on preemptive pardons for a number of people, including doctor Anthony Fauci, remember him, well, he had actually also been previously, you'll recall, the coordinator of the White House's COVID response during the cod pandemic,
So who knows about that. But despite all this, Joe Biden said, I made every decision, which is reassuring because everyone knows the politicians where the pastor president, and certainly not Joe Biden. Well, they never shame the truth in order to burnish their legacy. So the only reason the device was used, apparently was because he said, according to Biden, we were talking about a whole lot of people, a
whole lot of partons that needed to be signed. It, even as the former president, who was generous enough to give The New York Times a full ten minutes of his time over the phone to talk about the issue,
claimed to be across the issue. The Times account suggested otherwise, with it admitting that Biden's staff said the president didn't really make the individual clemency decisions, that the staffers executed the signings, were not present when he supposedly authorized them, and that in many cases these pardons or clemencies were
granted as part of simply broad categories. Cont the former president's claims to The Times, The paper reported that mister Biden did not individually approve each name for the category of pardons that applied to large numbers of people. He and aides confirmed rather extensive discussion occurred, and he signed off on the standards he wanted to be used to determine which convicts would qualify for a reduction incentence. Turns out,
the only parton Joe Biden did sign with his own hand. Well, that was the full part, and he gave to his son Hunter, something he had promised not to do on multiple occasions before the twenty twenty four election. So this is a fascinating story here, and we're going to see quite a bit more of it. Donald Trump, though, had this to say.
Look, Yodo Penn, I think is maybe one of the biggest scandals.
That we've had in fifty.
To one hundred years.
This is a tremendous scandal. The people on the other side of the Resolute Desk I know them, Lisa, the Hall Group, and they're no good.
There's sick people.
And I guarantee he knew nothing about what he was saying.
I guarantee you.
That may be so, and I think this is gonna be pretty big. But at the same time, it's hard to see how apart from further tarnishing Biden's reputation and raising more questions about who was really in charge for the four years of his presidency, anything here is really going to wind up changing. Now, don't go anywhere, because after the break, we're gonna be joined by Darren Barnett and James Ashby for some fired up Tuesday Night debate. Hey, welcome back to the program. We've got a lot to
unpack here. Thankfully, I'm joined by one of my regulars here, one Nation Chief of Staff James Ashby. James Ashby joins from Queensland tonight. James, I want to talk to you first of all about this trip that ALBINIZI is on to China and you're in Queensland, which is of course has a big exposure to China in terms of exporting resources.
But how are you feeling about the broader sense that this government is taking with China, that it's all about trade and nothing else, and that we can separate the very different values in our between our two systems. What did you make of the way the Prime Minister conducted himself today.
Well, it sickens me to see Albanesi embracing gigiping while okay, Harvey Bay's got their while watching happening at the moment here off central Queensland. Because we've got the Talisman Saber operation just happening about fifty to one hundred kilometers north of me. We've got effectively we could be running commercial ships out of here for effectively what I would call Chinese spy watching ships. You know, that's what we could go and visit out of our waters, not the whales,
forget them. Chinese spy ships is sitting off out coast and Albaniz. He thinks that he's in the good company of a friend over there in China. I don't see that We've got thirty five thousand troops training for something very serious in what I think will happened within certainly my lifetime. China's made it very clear they want dominance across the globe and.
Australia is part of that.
So you know, the bloke he's embracing is the very man we're probably going to go to war with over the next few years.
Well, yeah, and I just said, you know, as I said to my editorial a few moments ago, I really feel like the Prime Minister is kind of walking into a trap here, is being so flattered and being told, you know, you're wonderful. You get us the previous guy, Morris,
and he didn't get us at all. And I would have thought that being praised in the China Daily, which is basically the kind of official mouthpiece for the CCP, that would be ringing alarm bells and saying, hey, hang on, maybe we're getting a little too cozy here.
Well, Scott Morrison put it quite bluntly today, he never aspired to appear in that newspaper for obvious reasons. It is a mouthpiece of the communist China propaganda m and that's precisely why no Australian should be proud of that. Alban Easy on the other hand, he's bought thirty copies and intends to send it to the Canberra frame its he wants it in every ministerial office. That news article,
it's not something to be proud of. Look, I understand the relationship Australia has to have for trade, but getting cozy with China when they've made it abundantly clear that they want world dominance. They're prepared to buy favor in countries just off our coastline here throughout the Pacific regions, and in actual fact they're trying to buy their way into this country.
We had to pass legislation in twenty twenty one.
Scott Morrison, to his credit, discovered that China was trying to nuzzle its way into Australia with the Belton Roade initiative,
something that the Victorian government had signed on to. And I think unless that legislation had passed on a federal level blocking the Belton Rode initiative, I think other states probably would have taken up borrowings from what is DMed a developing nation, and yet they've got more than one point two trillion dollars invested in loans across the globe to desperate nations who can't borrow from other parts of the world.
Well, yeah, that's exactly right, James, and I just want to bring in now former Labor advisor Darren Barnett. He's also joining us this evening here. Darren, we've seen the Prime Minister in China. He's been praised by China daily. He seems to be rather enjoying the flattery and thinking that he can keep this all about trade and not the different value systems that these two governmental systems hours
of theirs have. Are you a little concerned? And I know that you're coming from the labor side, but do you think the Prime Minister needs to be wary about walking into a trap of flattery here?
He does. That's true. Look, I think it was a very kind of glorious day in terms of prestige and pomp and ceremony and the like, so there is a danger of that. I note that in his press conference there are a couple of questions came on human rights matters. There are a couple about other behaviors of China, whether it be their live fire exercises in the team or c for example. Strangely, the port of Darwin apparently did
not come up during the conversation with Premier See. However, the trade relationship is important and it's difficult to get the balance right that I know. James spoke of Scott Morrison. He did have a very strong view on China. But the downside of that there were some trade tariffs and sanctions put in place on various industries and it's taken a few years to unwind, so it's a difficult path
to walk. I think Anthony Albanezi actually I thought he did pretty well in his press conference today, to be honest. He coped very well with the questions. He seemed in control of it. But equally these are the questions about human rights and other military matters. Those questions won't go away.
Yeah, no, they won't. And you know the other question, of course it's not going to go away, is how prepared are we for any potential future conflict chat Defence Minister Angus Taylor had some words today about our defense spending. Let's have a listen to that.
Anthony Alberineze has put himself in an impossible position because he's not worth spending what is necessary to make sure that we have the defense force we need for what he had himself has said is the most challenging strategic environment since the Second World War.
And James Ashby, I mean, he's right. And if you even if you take Donald Trump and his demands for the increases in defense spending out of the equation, your pretend he didn't exist. You know, there's still the whole Defense Services Review that Labor commissioned last year, which has a whole swag of things that we need to be
doing that we're not doing. And yet I find that there's this real reluctance on the par of Labor to admit that even we should be doing what their old review said they should be doing.
It's funny.
This is a government that has no problem increasing year upon year the ndies by eight percent, and yet cannot come to terms with the idea of raising the defense of this nation with a mere three percent. It is something I just scratched my head over All the time they find money for everything else but not defense.
They feel as.
Though, that we're going to have these friends like America and.
The UK come to our defense.
I'm not so sure America will be there if China does strike. I certainly, you know, I can't blame President Trump for suggesting that we have to review our spending.
Three percent is.
A small amount of in comparison to some of the other cost blowouts that we're seeing across the country. And at the end of the day, it is for the protection of every single person in this country.
Well, and you know it is true too. You know again, I always say sometimes when there's these contentious matters, don't think about Donald Trump, think about the broader situation here. Presidents at least as far back as Obama and probably before that, have all been concerned about allies, particularly NATO free riding off the United States not spending enough. Darren Barnett, you know, is there a concern here that we're not doing Again, take Trump out of the equation, pretent he
didn't exist. If Trump didn't exist, would you be in favor baby of saying, yeah, actually, two percent, that's too low here because there is this deteriorating security situation in the Pacific.
Yeah, I agree with you. I think you will see an increase in defense spinning. I don't think anyone can who's not inside the tent can reliably put their finger on number, but sure, I think it will happen, particularly given the AU have gone to five percent, it's gonna happen. I can understand why they wouldn't have made that announcement just before going on a trip to China. So I think in the fullness of time, you'll say that number increase. It's just difficult to say what that number will be.
Well, yeah, of course they did have the budget there that they could have had a bit of a chat about that too before the election. But anyway, let's put that one aside for the moment, because we all seem to be in furious agreement. But I don't think we're going to be in a furious agreement over this story which has just broken on the Australian website. And there's
a body called the Administrative Review Tribunal. It is the successor to this thing called the AAT and it is this kind of hearings venue and a lot of things have decided. There are a lot of immigration cases, a lot of other sort of governmental matter is quite important matters.
They've got a new head in this new body that Labor replaced the old body with, who turns out to have been a volunteer for tlmp K. Cheney has said all sorts of things online about Scott Morrison, calling him a blank wit and said the Liberal Party are a bunch of misogynists toe rags James Ashby. You know, they said that they were getting rid of the old Administrative Appeals Tributa because this was some whey that Conservatives were
given jobs to each other. This seems like this is a complete stitch up where they are now giving this whole new Administrative Review Tribunal over to all of their pals on the left. Am I wrong?
No, You're not wrong at all.
You summed it up really well that the way that this AERT is stacked is no different to the way that they accused the Coalition of doing it under the aat one slight acronym change there. But at the end of the day, these positions are determined by the Attorney General, it's taken to Cabinet, and Cabinet.
Just rubber stamps it.
This woman has clearly had some form of relationship with the Labor government. She says she was a former liberal, but it's like Matt Kean saying he was, you know, he's under the wing of Anthony Albanez in these days, some liberal.
So that's how it happens.
But the art quite literally for a lot of people at home, they've probably never even heard of this organization. They overtime, overturn ministerial decisions, and so you know, the importance of this organization is there to try and get rid of, in particular bad buggers who are in this country. You know, they could be illegal asylum seekers, or they could have committed.
Crimes while here and we under the.
Laws have the right to kick them, our minister has, but they can appeal and they go through this organization, and they're the ones that are keeping so many feral individuals who shouldn't be in this country here. That's purely what this organization does. And this woman is an appointee of this labor government.
Yeah, that's the thing that I'm concerned about, Darren, is that, as James Ashby said, this body does review a lot of immigration decisions. I've seen a lot of the cases that go through there, you know, and a lot of the people who go through they claim asylum, and they commit terrible crimes, and then they're allowed to stay often.
And I feel there's a concern here that even if this woman says she's not anti conservative, the bias of this body will go towards applicants, towards people wanting to stay, towards people we don't want in the country. And how is this any better than whatever they claim was going wrong with the old Aaight?
I'm not aware that there's any sort of demonstrable bias in the new body, But I agree with James, and I agree with you.
That furious agreement tonight, guys.
I agree on you in part. I agree that it's a bad look that punishing one mob because it's too far leaning one way and then going doing the exact same in reverse, that will leave a bad taste in the mounds of voters and the public. That is absolutely true. But I think the bigger cautionary tale here it's a bit like a few years ago when there was an
SBS journalist who express their own view on Twitter. If you're going to be working for a body tied to government, don't say silly things, don't call people names, don't And even if you hold that view privately, private views of private views, but you should not expect to be in a government funded position. If you start calling people names like that, it's not acceptable. And whether it's either pub
test or a parliamentary test, it's not good enough. So people need to lift their game if they want those types of jobs.
Well, yeah, look, I think that's right, and I think that if it's some sort of thing where you're going to be impartial, like in a judiciary type of thing, you especially shouldn't be doing that sort of thing. Gents, before I let you go, another fascinating story here. You're both political strategists. I want your opinions on this. Here Giselle Capterian who was going to almost be the new Liberal member for Bradfield. She fell at the last rule by twenty six voter to Nicolette Bell. She is going
to appeal this to the Court of Disputed returns. James Ashby, do you think this is a wise course for Zell Capitarian and the Liberals or is this something that they should just let go and try harder next time?
Reminds me of Maxwell Smart mister, maybe that much. Look, she's obviously got a case. Otherwise you wouldn't go to the High Court. It's the Court of Disputed Returns. I've obviously got some evidence that they want reviewed by the High Court. Look, time will tell. It will be a very fast outcome this. It's not going to take months. It will be heard very quickly. So I wish you're
all the best of luck. But at the end of the day, you can miss out on these seats by one or two votes, and sometimes the recounts can turn it all around. And that's precisely what's happened here. So look, I'll leave it up to the courts.
Darren, what do you think very quickly? Why I here to take this off.
It's already we've had teams of scrutinies. Go I have all the votes a couple of times, I'd be very surprised if there's got to be a change in the result. But well, if I've just lost by twenty six votes, I'd probably have a crack at some sort of review as well.
Fair enough, and there are some fives and some bases they say it could be going one way or the other. James Ashby, Darren Barnett, thank you so much for your time this evening. Great to see you as always. Now stick around, you're not gonna want to miss what's coming up next. We have none other than the legendary Nogal Farage joining me live from London right here after the break.
Good time for the man who's never borry.
Welcome back to the program. James Morrow here sitting in for Paul Murray Live. And it's a great honor for me to be in the chair tonight because I'm pleased to say that I am joined now by none other than Reform UK leader Nago Farage. Nigel. Great to see, it's been a lot long time. Great to see you. Want to have a chat about a lot of things here tonight, But one thing here is what's going on with President Macraw of France and President Trump of the
United States. Because it seems that while President macrn was given the full royal treatment on his recent stage visit to the UK, dining with the King and parading through local towns like some sort of visiting royalty and even getting to deliver a speech to Parliament, well it appears that when the President comes by soon he has been
given a bit of a downgrade. He's only he's not going to be able to address Parliament following Macron's much more shall we say, bountiful trip, Nigel, this seems a little bit of an embarrassing treatment here what happened in the special relationship?
James had a very good to talk to you again. Yes, I mean Macron was here like an emperor, I'd say, an emperor an open top carriage sitting next to the ca through the streets of windsor grand dinner, as you say, addressing Parliament, and then right at the end of press conference at which he admonished us and said, how dare you vote for Brexit? You stupid people. It's making you poorer, it's making your borders more open. I mean literally lecture
us in the most astonishing way. Yet the Donald, who's back on his second visit, will be stuck down in windsor he'll get to spend loads of time with the King. But that's pretty much about it. It tells you everything
you need to know about the globalist labor government. They might be nice about Trump in public because they want to avoid punitive tariffs, which has worked to a certain degree, but basically Kirstarmer wants us back in the European Union, back as part of the whole Davos international set, and really his behavior towards these two says it all. And America is our most important ally. Without America we are defenseless. And yet labor just don't seem to understand that.
Well, they don't seem to understand that here in Australia either. It does seem shocking to be given the buddy buddy image that here. Starmer tried to presented the G seven the other week in Canada. But I want to ask you about this, Nigel, because apparently you say you're going to push for Parliament to be recalled in September to let Trump come and address the MPs. What sort of response are you getting to this oture?
Yeah, well, Regular address both houses of Parliament. Clinton address both houses of Parliament. Obama addressed both houses of Parliament. And this is a president any second term. So Parliament is due to go into recess on the sixteenth of September. Trump arrives on the seventeenth of September. Not very difficult. I would suggest to keep parliament open for one extra day. I've made my views on this very clear. I'm awaiting a response from the government. I'm not holding my breath,
but I'm awaiting a response. Yeah, I'm waiting a response. Then at once it Yeah, it's look, I doubt it will happen, but it's wrong.
Well, I think you're right to push for it in any case. And another thing though, I noticed this in the headlines here because I saw this video going around social media of a resurface clip of a labor mp claiming the UK sho accept refugees until the saturation point. Now this has been going on. Have a look at the scrab here. Twenty thousand is not enough, thirty thousand is not enough.
Seventy seven percent of the population say we cannot take immigration at current levels saturation point. I'm sorry, we simply can't accept countless millions.
Does it matter if we have to wait another week.
For a hospital visit current accident and emergency crisis that we've seen this winter in our hospitals.
I thought this laborer lady, really, is this how they think it doesn't matter if you have to wait for you know, a hospital because somebody has just come out from overseas. Seriously tell us about this. This must be why reform is doing so well at the moment.
Yeah, it doesn't matter. Your taxes go up. What's the problem you have to wait another week for the hospital. What's the problem A foreign gang steals your kid's mobile phone. Don't worry about it and don't say anything otherwise you're a really bad human being. I mean, they are away with the fairies, these people. This woman, Rachel Maskell is a Labor member of Parliament for the Ancient City of York. And I think you saw in that video, you know,
the two visions, what I think, what she thinks. And I think, as you say, that's why reform at the moment is doing really rather well, because what we represent is plain common sense.
That's the sort of thing that we could use a bit of here in this country. Nigel. But before I'll let you go here, another story here about you know, because I say to everybody in Austorry that the UK is like the early warning system for everything in Australia and we just need to pay attention and not do
this stuff. The Center for Social Justice think tank the UK, has reported that now people who are on the full whack of benefits in the UK, they get twenty five hundred pounds more per year than somebody who's actually going to work every day on the minimum wage. No wonder the UK's economy is slowing without any productivity or incentive to go to work.
Yeah yeah, I mean two massive problems. Number one, we've frozen threshold which people start paying tax and therefore, yeah, being on benefits, on disability benefit is better than working on minimum wage. That's absolutely crazy. The other thing is a million more people are on disability benefits, which means you've got a bit of depression and you've been diagnosed on a ten minute zoom call with your local general practitioner. We are and let me say this, we are over
diagnosing mental illness. We are taking issues like mild depression, taking issues you know, such as things that are wrong in your personal life, and we're classifying that as mental illness. We're telling people they're victims, We're putting them on disability benefit and they'll probably never work again. And I'm not underplaying the seriousness of genuine mental health problems. But it's over diagnosis ADHD in kids, you name it. It's a disaster. So please learn from.
Us, Nigel. Is the over pathalization of absolutely everything. We have very similar problems in here in Australia. Nigel Roger, Thank you so much. Always a pleasure to speak with you. Great to see you here. Now, everybody stick around because after the break, I want to be back with a final thought.
Good evening.
James Mara here is sitting in for Paul very live, and wasn't that fun having Naja Farage here? He is always a hoot. Now I want to just bring you this quick thought about this story that's been making the rounds before we go. And you know the old expression, well, happy wife, happy life. There's a new variation on that,
of course, it's happy wife, happy Ukraine. Now we've all heard about Donald Trump changing his position on valium reputin Russia, giving aid to Ukraine and threatening Vladimir Putin with one hundred percent tariffs if in fifty days he doesn't settle this business in Ukraine and make peace. But the rationale for this and why he changed his mind, that's pretty interesting, and as I'm going to show you in a minute,
it has a bit of historical president President. Here's Donald Trump saying why he changed his mind on aiding Ukraine and putting sanctions on Putin.
My conversations with him are always very pleasant. I say he's not a very lovely conversation, and then the missiles go off. That night, I go home, I tell a first lady and I spoke of Vladimir today. We had a wonderful conversation. She said, Oh really, Uh, another city was just headed. So it's like, look, he's uh. I don't want to say he's an assassin, but he's a tough guy.
It's funny if it wasn't so serious. It sounds almost like a kind of a sitcom there, you know, donaldon Melaia and the White House making policy. But here's what I thought was really interesting about this. I was watching that clip today and I said to myself, this feels like something I've heard before. And it turns out, in fact, this is not the first time this sort of thing has happened, that a first lady has had such profound influence on foreign policy. Back in Night nighteen ninety nine,
Hillary Clinton remember her well. She revealed the reason why she started speaking to her husband Bill again after that Monica Lewinsky affair, when they had endured eight months of marital silence. According to a biography of Clinton published by Gail Sheehy, that year, Hillary resumed talking to her husband only when she phoned him and urged him in the strongest terms to begin bombing Serbia. The President began bombing within twenty four hours, and the marriage, to whatever extent
it was, was saved. Funny how history works. And here's the late debate