From the Skying Center. This is Paul Murray Live, Good evening, Welcome to the show. Paul's having a quick break tonight, but no worry, he'll be back here in the man Cave with you as usual tomorrow night. I'm Steve Brice. I'll also see you tomorrow night with Shari Markson. Look. I hope you had a great weekend coming up. I've got a tail for you of two cities. Two cities we all know, just an hour's flight apart, or a nine or so hour drive up or down the hum Highway,
depending on which direction you might be headed. But right now they could not be more different. Also, as we head into the second week of the new parliamentary sitting, Yes they're back in Canberra tomorrow. The issue that is dogging Anthony Albanisi and his government, I reckon it's got
a lot worse. Today when a senior cabinet minister ed Husicky's in Cabinet on the front bench, he admitted that Palestinians trying to get to Australia from more torn Gaza are being given visitor visas, not refugee visus because and this is a direct quote quote, they were faster to process.
Why visit a visus though, because they're faster to process, Refugee visas take longer, and given what's happening right now and the dangers presented, the view was to try and get people out as quickly as you can.
Well, isn't that the very problem the oppositions trying to highlight here hurried visus being granted to people from Gaza who might or might not be Hamas sympathizers. Now, Coalition front bench of Michael Sukha was onto this. He was on Sky this morning and you'd imagine this is a again going to dominate Parliament this week. Posing I think Suka was posing what I consider to be a pretty
valid question. He asked, was this a slip of the tongue from Husick or was it a deliberate reveal to allow the government to argue this week that these refugees are short terms and when the conflict's over, they'll need to go back to Gaza. Well, i'd make the point go back to what now. Gaza is a bombed out disaster's own Here's what Sukhar said in response to the Heusick admission ed.
Husick seemed to bow the cat on that so they could bring them in more quickly. He said that explicitly. Now,
I don't know if he said that accidentally. I don't know if he was given talking points to say that, or whether the truth d just slipped out, But basically what he confirmed is we are circumventing the proper process to ensure the integrity of our migration system and ultimately to ensure the safety of Australians by having an expedited process that we know for a fact means some people have arrived here with no face to face checks.
Michael Suka nailing it there. I mean, the opposition's clearly concerned about the security aspects of these rush us. We order all be concerned about that, and they're right to make the point that Labor is playing to its Muslim constituency to try and shure up votes in any upcoming election, whenever that might be. But I would also issue just here a cautious warning to Peter Dutton and his crew,
including people like Suka, don't lose the site. And you've heard Paul Murray say this over and over and over again, don't lose sight of the fact that in wider Australia, voters are much much more worried about paying for their mortgage, paying for their petrol and grocery bills, and paying for the cost of gas and electricity than they are about gaza and visas. Now I'll raise the gaza issue with our guests tonight. We've got a great couple of panels
coming up. One Nation's James Ashby, Christy McSweeney, Garth Hamilton and David Limbrick. But first I mentioned this at the start of the program tonight. Australia's two biggest cities by population and area, obviously our Sydney and Melbourne. Now Melbourne is already or about has already overtaken Sydney on population, and it's headed staggeringly, in my view, in ten years time,
to have eight million people or more in that city. Now, there's always been friendly rivalry and not so friendly rivalry between the two places. I mean, I've worked for a long time in Sydney, I've worked for a long time in Melbourne. Now Sydney is seen as flasher, more spectacularly beautiful and a truly international destination, while Melbourne likes to paint itself as the sporting and cultural capital of Australia
a little classier than its northern rival. I've never worried about such trivia, but something very different has happened to blow all that up today, and Melbourne is still suffering in my view for the longest COVID lockdowns on the planet, enforced by Dictator Premier Daniel Andrews and now led by Decinda Allen from the hard left is with a little exaggeration, Victoria and I live there is a debt ridden mess. Now this is where my tale of two cities example
comes in. Here and right now, as of tomorrow, the example of how Sydney has wrought ahead of a bust that ask Melbourne comes to life when Sydney's Metro City Southwest project springs to life. Now it was first conceived back in twenty twelve. Yes it's late, and yes it's over budget, but guess what from tomorrow trains trains, remember trains, They will actually run, carrying people from the northwestern suburbs
to the city and further south. And in the reverse order, many of the passengers might even be public servants ordered back to the office by Premier Chris Men's a couple weeks back. I'll have more of that in a second. But the twenty one billion dollar project, Stage one includes two eight hundred meter long tunnels dug under Sydney Harbor, an engineering masterpiece. Now these tunnels will carry forty five
driverless trains. Now, these trains are going to run every four minutes at one hundred kilometers an hour through six stations, with passenger protecting glass panels along the fifteen point five k of tunnels so that passengers don't fall off the tracks in front of these driverless trains. Starts tomorrow tomorrow. Yes it's late, Yes it's more expensive, but it sits
with the renovated city stops like wind in Central. If you've been to them recently, they're magnificent and it actually does what it was designed to do, move huge numbers of people from distant outer suburbs to city hubs to get to work. Fancy that enjoy the experience.
It'll be a major change for Sydney. It'll be a big step forward, and I want to congratulate everybody that's works so hard on bringing this major project to fruition. It's a huge piece of infrastructure for the state. So the Metro team I know are excited about the opening date despite its delay of a couple But we're here today.
Chris Ben's who I think does an outstanding job in your South Wales. Now, compare the historic first trips that people are going to take tomorrow, and they're predicting the first trains by the way, I'll head off in both directions from Sydneham and from the Northwest at about four fifty eight in the morning. Compare these historic first trips tomorrow with Melbourne's suburban rail loop. Now, that was a project that was originally conceived under the boot of Daniel Andrews.
It's costed at fifty billion dollars. Originally they said we could build this thing for fifty billion dollars. Now believed although no one has seen a business case, can you believe it? No one has seen that. It's costed at an eye watering two hundred and sixteen zero point seven billion dollars, and Stage one alone has costed at forty billion. So you've got Sydney Stage one twenty one billion dollars
and trains running tomorrow driverless underneath Sydney Harbor. And you've got Stage on one Melbourne at forty million running from Cheltenham in Melbourne southeast to box Hill. Now, this has been described as a trip from somewhere no one wants to go to to a place no one wants to get to. It's always been a political project. It was designed to win labor seats along that particular route. It's political,
not practical. It's pork barreling, not public interest. Worse, there's no business case, and the federal government labor as it is, is withholding funding through Infrastructure Australia because they won't produce a business case for this massive project. And remember, by the way, the Reserve Bank Governor Michelle Bullock has said that state spending on infrastructure is driving inflation, which makes
your trip to the supermarket more expensive. Now Premier Allen is wedded to this thing, even as members of her own government urge a pause or better even a cancelation because Victoria cannot afford it.
But if our ambition has to some extent exceeded the capacity of the industry to deliver it, well, that's a matter that we need to recognize and to be upfront with people about.
That's tim palace. He's been treasured for ten years. States broke busted economy. He had to rush off to New York on an emergency trip to talk to the ratings agencies, so the ratings of Victoria economically were not downgraded. Now think about this for a moment. Sydney tomorrow trains running tunnels under the harbor. Imagine what a feat that was. One hundred kilometers an hour they go at driverless trains. I'm not sure the unions are all that happy about that.
They run every four minutes. Melbourne a hole in the ground that will make the state government broken than it already is. What a contrast. But it doesn't stop there, this tale of two cities. Take public servants working from home now. A week or so ago, Chrismins, who I mentioned before in New South Wales, said, look, enough's enough. All of you public servants in your tracksuit pants at home wearing your rug boots. You've got to go back to the office, not tomorrow, but straight away.
This is about building up a culture in the public service that's about teamwork, a common and shared sense of purpose, as well as mentoring the next generation of young public servants coming through. We've made this decision after long consultation, but we think it's absolutely essential for the future of the public service in New South Wales to have people who join it who can work with their colleagues in a face to face manner.
You see the logic there from Chrismins. There's not much point spending billions of dollars on a fast train or fast trains at great expense to the taxpayer if people aren't using them to get to work. Not only did he say get back to work, but he said get back to work by tomorrow, not next week, not next month, tomorrow. Compare that with Victoria, and you will not believe what I am about to tell you. Not only did the premiere of Victoria just Cinda Allen rule out ordering anyone
on the public payroll to do anything. In fact, she said that she was happy that they went to work three days a week. She said she supported the current do as you please for Victoria's public service. We then learn, and this is where it gets nonsensical. We learn at the weekend that the public servants of Victoria with their latest EBA, their work agreement, they get a four percent and you'll pay increase every year for the next three years. But there was an extra sweetener put in there that
most people until the weekend had forgotten about. It's locked away in that deal. Now, don't choke on your Sunday roast if you're still eating dinner. Fifty four thousand Victorian public servants, we'll each get number here. Victorian public servants will each get a cost of living one off lump, some payment of wait for it, five thousand, six hundred dollars. How would you like six hundred dollars as a one
off cost of living expense? Wouldn't that go a long way to paying off part of the mortgage ury electricity bill. This is at a cost of Victorian taxpayers, by the way, in excess of three hundred million dollars. It's staggering. And again it's not good economics. It's just good politics when you think it through. Who's going to vote out of state government that keeps handing out free money? And this from a mob who are broke and in danger of having their credit rating ripped up? In New South Wales
are relatively sensible. They don't do everything right, but are relatively sensible center right government as opposed to a hard left ten year Victorian government plunging their state into bankruptcy. I ask you compare the pair, well, you just don't believe it, can you. Let's get into this first with my panel tonight. Joining me now James Ashbury, chief of Staff for One Nation, and Christy McSweeney from PR Council. Welcome to you both. Christy, let me start with you.
Will you aware the public service in Victoria? Fifty four thousand of them we're going to be handed at five six hundred dollars check each of them paid for by you and.
I, Steve, I absolutely was not aware of that, So thank you for brilliant to light. And as someone who lives in Melbourne and has lived in Sydney as well for well over a decade, I will take your points and I'll raise you another one. Let's just compare Docklands to Barangaro. Let's have a look at what Sydney's been able to do with what was traditionally and previously a train a rail yard compared to what Melbourne's been able
to do to populate Docklands. And of course your points about the public services, well, the hard left Victorian government here is absolutely beholden to public sector unions in a way that the New South Wales government's successive governments are not, and I commend Chris Min's It's not very hard to vote for him at the moment. Is it for getting
the public servants back to work? And another point I want to raise, he might be seeing what's coming down the line with governments being directed not to utilize consultancies of the Big four so much. He wants to build a public service capability. He wants the public servants to do what they're supposed to do to curb the spending that state governments have outsourcing what their public servants should do to Big four consultancies who are ripping off the taxpayer to the nth degree.
James, welcome to the man Cave on this Sunday night. When you think this through, I mean the previous Labor opposition in Canberra used to scream about what Scott Morrison and the former Morrison government we're doing in terms of pork barreling. You know, they talked about car parks that were funded to be built in railway stations that never got built, or if they were built, they were in
electrics that they wanted to win. But the Victorian Labor government is doing this on a bigger scale than I think we've ever seen in Australia that ridiculous suburban rail loop is across a bunch of south eastern suburban Melbourne suburbs that they want to either retain as labor voters or get people to vote for them in those seats,
and they're giving out cash to the public service. I mean, if you're in the public service and the government's sending you six hundred dollars in one hundred dollar notes in an envelope in your bank account, you're hardly going to vote them out, are you.
No?
Exactly right, I find that extraordinary five thousand dollars bonus at this time of the year when everybody else is doing it tough. I know a whole lot of people sleeping along the Rocky riverbank tonight that would love a five thousand dollars injection here in Queensland, that's for sure. But you know, this is a state that in effect, if they are a business, they would be trading insolvent, that's how in debt they are, and there is no
recovery rate at the moment. I think a lot of people out there in business would love just this never ending blank checkbook that the Victorian government seem to have.
But these rail projects right.
Across the country, not just in Victoria, but take for example, the Inland Rail are causing significant headaches for governments. Federal government can't get their act together on this one either. Mind you, when you compare the two projects. Inland Rail as a sixteen hundred kilometer rail track that's been built at a cost of thirty billion dollars, it's still years off. They're only about a fifth of the way through. But
again it's creating problems. This is the rare link from Melbourne to Brisbane, and rail is definitely a great way to get people around, way to get more cargo around the country as well. But these cost blowouts just seem to be astounding. And Victoria you take the cake, you win the prize for the biggest blowouts. It's just extraordinary, no wonder. I was at the Emmy Park Markets today, Steve. I ran into more Victorians here today than I've ever
run into before. They're migrating north. You can keep your lefties down there with you. We'll take all the conservatives here in Queensland. That's all I.
Say, no doubt about that. James Christy, you know that. I mean, look I'm agnostic here. I love both Sydney and Melbourne, and I come from Adelaide, so I love
all three. I've never lived in Brisbane. But when you come to Sydney and I'm in Sydney obviously in Paul's man cave tonight, when you come to Sydney and compare it directly day on day with Melbourne, Melbourne at the moment is covered in graffiti, it's got a war going on with It's Melbourne City Council who don't know what they're going to do, and the policies of the people trying to get elected are just insane. And Nicholas Reese has come up some mad power our idea that I
can't understand. But you go to the two main train stations Christie in Melbourne, Flinders Street and Southern Cross Station. Compare those to I don't know if you've been recently, the Central station in Sydney where you get the Airport train that also Melbourne doesn't have and never will have. Or you go to Wynyard Station where it opens up into Barangaroo that you mentioned. The two places are like light and shade. There's no comparison anymore.
It's incredible isn't it. I'm like you. I'm from Western Australia. As you know, I lived in Sydney for over a decade. I've lived in Melbourne for over a decade here too. I love going to Sydney. Sydney viewers won't realize that. You know, if you come to Melbourne, you can't tap your MasterCard or your Visa card at a train station and get on a train like you can in every
other global city in the world. You have to have what's called a mikey, which was so badly managed by the previous labor government that they had to pay compensation to the mighty system administrators because it doesn't work properly. So you can't do any of those amazing things that the New South Wales government. And I will give credit to the previous New South Wales Labor government, but of course it was almost wholly implemented by Victor Dominello the
Department of Customer Service. With New South Wales Transport, this incredible global transport system, digitally integrated that you have running in New South Wales Melbourne is like a communist historic utopia, lover's paradise. The trains are not flash they don't really run on time. It's gritty, it's bleak. The infrastructure is certainly not beautiful and dazzling like we see in Sydney.
If you like that sort of thing, perhaps that's a new it's a Victoria ad And as I said, I live here, I love it.
But goshhocking real estate agent.
We can stick we could stick on the number we can stick on the number plates. Victoria the graffiti state James. Katie Gallagher is out today saying she's not going to reign in states like Victoria over all this infrastructure spending, although clearly it's contributing to inflation. She said, quote the Treasurer, and I don't really tell other administrations or other governments how to do their job. Hello, James, Surely the federal
government's going to say to Victoria, guys, you're broke. What the hell do you think you're doing?
Well, this is the problem you've got.
These EBAs been drawn up by the state governments here that are paying lollipop people traffic controllers one hundred and eighty thousand dollars a year.
That is adding to the inflation.
Let alone some of the government policies that labor have rolled out in previous governments as well. NDIS comes to mind straight away that is definitely feeding inflation.
In fact, we've got issues here in.
Queensland where the NDIS has taken people away from jobs. I was only at the Endeavor Foundation the other day where a lot of those people that would have previously worked in the Endeavor Foundation now I've got these ub NDIS packages, So they're off to the movies, they're off fishing, they've got their carers there and they're adding to this inflationary bubble.
Because it's just it's not worth working these days.
You can get one of those packages and you're encouraged to go and spend copious amounts of money. We've got some people on packages well over a million dollars. Some people are using sex workers, others just going to the movies and doing trips wherever they tend to like to go.
So all these things are inflationary.
They've been stimulated by federal government as well as the state. So Cadi Gallagher does have something to answer and she should pull her head in.
Christy. Let's talk about the immigration debate. There was an interesting article in the Australian Inquirer section this week about how much traction Peter Dutton's getting out of the visa and immigration debacles for Labor. Dennis Shanahan, who have got great regard for He's written that Dutton has been demonstrating a superior strategic sense, a fearless confidence in his political judgment, and a sense of leadership security in a team that
may lack talent. They'll love that, but has grown to trust Dutton's instincts. Shanahan, right, is Dutton and I did make the point both of you. I'll get your comments on this. I did make the point at the start that I think they've got to remember as Paul Murray keeps reminding them that the number one issue still has to be cost of living. I think you'd both agree with that. But what do you think, Christy. Is Dutton making traction on the immigration argument?
He is making traction. It's really interesting that Labour's had edge husic out the member for chiefly which includes Western Sydney suburbs such as Bankstown and Mount Drill, which have a significant population of people who are very likely to fall into the viewpoint of supporting the Free Palestine movement, and certainly those electorates are targeted for the Muslim Voice Party should it get its administration together in time and pose a threat to the Labor Party. That's another argument.
But they've had husic out saying we gave people visitor visas because they are easier to process. As you mentioned in your editorial, Labor sees that comment as an electoral asset. They see that as something that's pitching to their base and pitching to their voters. They think that was a good comment to make, whereas the Coalition sees Dutton's line
as an electoral asset as well. You've got a situation where both parties are five for barely thirty percent of the middle voting, and they are both thinking that they are onto a winner in terms of their political strategy. I think Dutton is edging ahead of Labor. He seems to be continually one step ahead of the Prime Minister. He has demonstrated a number of convictions now first the Voice, then certainly falling into pro Israel and supporting the Jewish community.
Now he's taking a hardline stance on the Gaza issue and the immigration issue. All of this adds up to someone who's strong has values as conviction, and we're seeing that in poll after poll after poll he's edging out the Prime Minister in those categories. So yes, it is working. It is an asset and the coalition certainly is falling in behind him.
James, I think you'd agree with this. I mean, you know, the Ghazan Palestinians. Let's put to one side the more broader question of immigration, the people that I speak to on a regular basis, where we've got this housing crisis and where you know, the roads are clogged with cars and traffic and them, and it's almost impossible to get around parts of Melbourne and Sydney. I think the broader immigration question is fertile ground for Peter Dutton as well.
I hope he's not too timid in talking about Okay, we've brought one point five million people into Australia during the two years of the Albanese government. Can we not just put a pause button on that for a while and reset and get ourselves back in some sort of normal, normal immigration numbers.
Well one nation.
I've certainly been calling for a moratorium on immigration for some time now. Pauline Hanson Malcolm Roberts both been very strong on that fact. Unfortunately for both parties. They've been too tempted to use the racist card in the past.
But Peter Dutton, to his credit, has caught up and understands now the pressure that this country and everyone who lived within it, whether you've come to this country of recent times or you're born here, we are all feeling the impacts, whether it be the long waiting lists to get see a doctor or get into the hospitals for elective surgery, even just the traffic on the roads. But
Dutton here has supported previous humanitarian programs. Keeping in mind that we've taken in eleven thousand Ukrainians, Dutton certainly didn't put up any defense to that. We've certainly taken in some Afghans as well following the takeover by the Taliban, and for good reason too. Those people certainly assist the Australia when we were over there.
But he's got a very sensible point here. You cannot vet.
These people that we intend to take in some three thousand people within one hour, and keeping in mind the Americans haven't taken in many at all. Last year after the conflict started, took in just fifty six and we're taking them in on these effectively tourism visas unchecked and there is no sense, according to the Albanezy government, of sending these people home, and as you rightly pointed out earlier,
to what home. It's all been destroyed. But we are not the country, we are not to be the dumping ground of the world. Every time a conflict takes place, Australia just can't cope. We're not coping now and we're not going to cope if we take these three thousand or however many. It ends up being under the Labor government.
And Christie, I think you know, if you're struggling to find a place to rent or struggling to find a house you're going to afford to buy, and you look at the fact that places like Egypt and Jordan and Saudi Arabia are taking none of these Palestinian people they live in that region. I just don't quite understand unless there's a direct and very strong family tie that people, that we would be taking those people. I mean, James
is quite right, we don't want to be. I mean, it's harsh to say a dumping ground, but you have to query why are the countries around that region and not taking those people themselves?
Well, and at the same time you have to query it. As James made, the point of the Coalition has a very good track record on humanitarian assistance for populations fleeing war zones Kosovo, Afghanistan, Ukraine, certainly Syria. All of those people were verted, checked, processed in a third country. And as you were saying, a lot of critics of Dutton's to say, but her mask controls Gaza. They're not letting people leave Gaza, so it's very difficult for those people
to be processed in a third country. That is a point made after the fact of the government issuing tourism visitor visas. They're very quick to do it. It's been going on since October last year, and now questions are being asked, well, what's the vetting and security process? Does it align with our previous intake where we took people from warzones. No, it doesn't, it's not comparable. The government has questions to answer and that debate needs to be had.
Paul always asked you for a bold prediction. I won't give your mind because I might undercut either of you. But James, what do you think the big story is going to end up being this week?
We're going to go back to this whole immigration issue. It is going to be the Achilles Heel for this Labor government. It's why they're losing votes. It is why they're going to continue losing votes. And as we see a probable security risk to Australia, that's the security measure we've been put on the footings of Australia now sits
at a probable terrorism attack. It is just going to add more fuel to the fire and I think a lot of Australians are going to fear the unchecked numbers of these people coming into the country under the Labor government.
Christy, what do you reckon?
I agree with James. Immigration is a strong point. National security is a strong point for the coalition. I also agree with you to Steve Less about the specifics of Gaza. As you say, Australians are concerned about inflation. They're concerned about their cost of living. That is the number one issue. But this issue will play bigger to immigration and national security, which will continue to see Dutton I think accelerate above the government.
Yeah, they're concerned about cost of living and lesser of Victorian public servant about to get a five six hundred dollars check to I've set the cost of living, which would go a long way to fill in the camp.
I like Vitel, I feel like an idiot for employing people and running a business. I could just stay home three days a week and get my check from Justinja Allen.
Yeah, stick your rug boots on and work in front of your laptop. James Ashby and Christy McSweeney, thanks very much for joining us tonight, Coming up after the break, Coming up next, Labour wants to pay wants us to pay a sun tax, whatever that might be. Stick around. Welcome back, Steve Price in the man Cave tonight. Paul Murray,
be back with you tomorrow night. I must say I'm almost tempted to ride that new Sydney Underground train tomorrow one hundred klimeters an hour through the tunnels under the Sydney Harbor. Driverless sort of worries me. I'm sure it's all been tried and tested, but driverless at one hundred k now anyway? Welcome back, joining me for our second panel of the Night to Night. Liberal MP Garth Hamilton and Victorian Libertarian Party MP David Limbrick. Great to see you. Both, David.
Just to you first, I compared at the start of the show Melbourne and the Victorian Government's going to have a forty billion dollar hole in the ground between Cheltenham and box Hill where no one I even know as ever wanted to go, and Sydney's going to have It's going to have forty five trains running at one hundred kilometers an hour underground, fifteen k of track, glassed off station platforms, all up and running tomorrow. The difference between the two places is stark, isn't it.
It certainly is. This SRL project is very you know, it's a multi decade thing that they've got here. They've allowed for the workforce to have this jobs for decades and decades with no real business case. I got briefed by government advisors in the last term of parliament and they were talking about all these fluffy things about wider
economic benefits and this sort of thing. But I'm not convinced, and I you know, my position is they should be looking at how to get out of these contracts in the cheapest way possible.
Well, a ratings agency might force him out of it when you think about it. I mean Tim Pallace the Treasurer there had to rush off to New York to beg that the rating agencies didn't downgrade them. So we'll see where that goes. But we've had Katie Gallaghan talking about ridiculously today Garth that state governments are not adding
to inflation. Well, I revealed at the start of the program, and this story was broken in the Herald Sun on Saturday, that Victoria's fifty four thousand public servants are set to receive a one off five thousand, six hundred dollars. Yes, they'll pay tax on that cost of living bonus. When millions of people are living hand to mouth, paycheck to paycheck, unable to pay their mortgage. I mean, how can a government just dole out money like this.
Well, they can do it because it's not their money. Look, Steve, you know the best thing, the best cost of living relief any government could give Australians right now, is to reduce their spending, as simple as that. That's the thing that's going to have long term impacts on inflation in this country. That's the thing that will help most people. The thing with inflation, Steve, is it doesn't bear down
evenly on the economy. The people who are getting hurt the most, people on fixed incomes, low incomes, and renters, be they young people trying to get on the property ladder or people on pensions who are renting. I mean, those are the people who are getting absolutely hammered. Instead, we've got what fifty six thousand public servants are going to get a big chunk of Victorian taxpayer dollars to help them through. Look, tell me that's not going to
be spent in this environment. We're seeing that. We're seeing that, you know, people are still spending the money that's coming through. That will only further drive inflation. This is a terrible thing, Steve.
It reminds me Garth a little bit of when Kevin Rudd was handing out money after the global financial crunch, and you know, suddenly good on Jerry Harvey, but sales in widescreen TVs just went off the shelves. They couldn't get enough of them because you know what people did, they didn't pay down their mortgage. They went out and spent it on household things that they could get. I mean, I presume the public servants are going to do the same thing that they're not being told. How they have
to spend it. They can do whatever they want with it.
Well, of course they can. And look I was in Perth at the time. I remember everyone getting a second jet ski over there. You know, that's where the money all went.
But we can see this.
With savings rates, and that's what savings rates have been exhausted over the last couple of years. All the money that people put aside during that COVID era, people have been spending and they're still spending it. And there's absolutely nothing to suggest that that behave is about the change anytime soon. Why would it, steve you know. Unfortunately, this
is what labor governments always do. They think the answer is spending more of your hard earned money, and they try to sell it as if it's them doing something. Now it's tax payer money.
David as a Victorian sitting as an independent in the Parliament. When you see this, I mean, this is just labor buying votes, isn't it. I mean this is one of the greatest pork barreling exercises in the history of Australian politics. They say work for the government will and this payment. I should point out to people that you can be a public servant earning up to two hundred and forty thousand dollars a year and you're getting this five six
hundred dollar payment. It's not means tested at all. And it was reported at the weekend that public servants who have subsequently left the public service after that EBA was agreed to are still going to get the payment. David, how the hell does this happen?
Well, they've already agreed to the EBA. But I've got an idea on how they could fund this without charging taxpayers more and without borrowing more money. They need to cut back the size of the public service dramatically, and in the past they've voluntary redundancies, which which I don't like voluntary redundancies because that means that all the really
good people go. But I've got a different idea. The people that want to the public servants that want to work from home, let them stay at home for good.
That's a very good policy. I think I support that. I mean the contrast between Sydney and Melbourne, where Chris Mins goes out and says, not only do you have to get back to the office, you've got to go back tomorrow, whereas the Victorian government says are now you can stay home, work in your tracksuit pants, in your ug boots, and come back when you like, maybe work three days a week. Garth. I want to talk about a hidden tax. Have you heard of this sun tax
that's been called being whacked on households who've switched to solar. Now, the energy advocates say it's madness. They're accusing energy companies of trying to charge people for generating their own electricity. So I think, as I understand it, the way this works is if you want to feed back into the grid from the electricity that your panels are generating, then you're going to be charged for that.
Yeah, look, this is extraordinary. Do you remember I'll just start off with this duge. You remember when Albo promised that our energy bill is going to go down by two hundred and seventy five dolls.
Do I ever?
Well, here we are two and a half years in and they're still going up. Geeze missed the mark there a little bit. But look, follow the money on this one. The providers lose money during the daytime when people's solo feeds back in. They want to find a way to recoup that. But at the heart of this, Steve at the heart of this, and there's the mining engineer and me coming out is the idea that we're just going
to switch everyone over to a battery. Everyone's going to buy a battery, and it sounds great.
Problem is for us.
To produce enough of the materials that we need, you know, lithium, cobalt, to nick all these sort of things. We need to create another three hundred minds in the next twelve years now to give you some kind of idea of what that is as well. Over that number, but that's a conservative number. We've got about three hundred and eighty active minds in Australia right now. So we need to duplicate Australia's mining sector, and not just the bloke's holding the picks,
if that's how you imagine mining. I'm talking all the engineers, the surveyors, the people running the trucks everywhere. We need to duplicate that just to match this. And then, because batteries have a life cycle of however long, we need to continue that process that rate from now into perpetuity.
So there's this great fiction at the heart of this thief that we're just going to switch everyone over to these magical batteries that at the moment we can't make that don't exist, and look there's no way that will reach the rate required to produce that material.
Well, as an engineer, I was going to ask you and do these batteries exist? And if they do exist, who's making them, where we get them from? And how much? If I want to presume, i'd strap it onto the side of my house somewhere like a gas water heater or I can't use gas in Victoria, sorry, electric water heater. Do these things exist?
Look, look at the quality of them at the moment. Doesn't that's a problem. But I'm sure there'll be some carpetbagger out there trying to use that Future Made in Australia fund to sell the goal on how they can make them.
Will there ever, I mean, that's going to be routed like you've never seen. David. I mean, I don't know what your view is on this race to renewables, but it seems to me that Chris Bowen and Anthony alban Easy just keep preaching this stuff hoping that somehow magically it's all going to appear, and yet they're way behind on all these projects. We're shutting down coal mines, people's electricity bills are going up. What do you think where
are we going to end up with this? In five years ten years time.
We'll end up with blackouts and huge electricity prices. What we need in Australia is to have a flat market so that we're not subsidizing particular technologies or prohibiting particular technologies such as nuclear energy, and we have the cheapest, most abundant energy available to consumers. Because we're running industries out of town, we're forcing households in the debt, We're forcing them to pay these huge electricity prices. We need
cheap electricity and these are net zero targets. We should be abandoned. Australia is a small player in the world. We should not be carrying the burdens of the rest of the world on our shoulders. We should have been putting Australia first and doing whatever it takes to get the cheapest electricity for Australians.
Yeah, well said, I agree with you, completely, sticking with you, David. There in Melbourne, those scenes yesterday got a police officer allegedly assaulted speakers at a women's rally, had eggs and water balloons thrown at them. The Women's Action Group had organized what was called a Women Will Speak event Victoria's State Parliament's steps. They were then met by a counter
rally by pro transactivists. The Transliberation Rally say their motivation is to fight against ongoing erosion of women's rights in all of Australia. All they did was intimidate them. That was very ugly stuff.
Well, we've seen this going on for years now and it's absolutely disgusting. What we saw at last March was a bunch of women that tried to speak about legitimate issues regarding women's rights, around sports, around gender, medicine for children. And we saw at that one more Deeming was assaulted and we saw all the fallout from that. And then yesterday we saw another MP assaulted by a missile. This was Bev MacArthur. She got up and spoke at this
rally yesterday. When we have members of Parliament being assaulted with missiles, we have to call it what it is. This is violence for political ends. It's terrorism and what's happening here is absolutely out of control. We need the premiere of this state to make a decision. Is she going to stand up for women or is she going to side with these people that are attacking women who want to speak.
This is absolutely wrong.
Also the leader, the leader of the Opposition, needs to make a decision. Is he going to stand up for his member of parliament that was assaulted yesterday or is he going to remain silent and throw her under the bus?
Well said, I agree with you completely. Stay with us, folks. We'll be back straight out to the break. Welcome back to steep Price in for Paul Murray. The Royal Report coming up after us at the top of the hour, and I can tell you Paul will be back here in the man Cave tomorrow night joining us tonight our panel. And we have Garth in Brisbane. I think at the moment, David in Melbourne, I just want to quickly talk about
some bike lanes and then get onto Kevin Rudd. I've lived through the bike lane destruction of the CBD of Melbourne like you have David in Sydney. Here they're going to spend seventy million dollars building more bike lanes on some of the city's busiest roads. But it's been pointed out the whole program is based on inflated numbers of cyclists. Now, I was in the CBD of Melbourne yesterday during the day walking across those bike lanes. I saw two people
on bikes in about four hours. David is ridiculous.
Well, they've got a fantastic bike infrastructure, but like I don't see a lot of people using it around the CBD. And frankly, the CBD is a terrible place to ride your bike. The main problem being pedestrians just walking out in front of people. It's terrible to drive your car as well. Look, I don't know that it's actually helped
help things much in Melbourne. I think many motorists would prefer more parking and more space on the road and pedestrians that didn't just look at their phones and walk out in front of traffic and cyclists for that matter.
Garth, whatever you do, don't let it happen in Brisbane. If anyone has the idea up there, you talk to that David Chris O Fooley and tell him it's a fool's paradise doing that. I want to talk about Kevin Rudd Garth, one of my favorite people. It's been reported today that he's having a wonderful time over there He's paid a Channel ten journal and an opera singer twenty
four grand each plus air fares out. Kevin and I haven't always seen eye to I actually sent a letter to the editor of my paper, The Herald Son about a year and a half ago now described me and I take great pride in this the greatest non entity in the history of Australian journalism. It's not bad coming from a failed PM. Look. I looked at these expenses. They're not over the top, but I'm not sure that's what we should be using the embassy for, is it.
Well, Look, I've got to admit I was at the embassy only about a month ago. With the American shape of commerce.
I think it was. You know, there's one part of this, Steve.
I think we all agree we want to see America's politicians, they're business leaders, people who influence their economy in the Australian Embassy. We want them there to meet with our folks, to establish a good relationship off and Americans don't have that broader view outside their own country. So we've got to really use that embassy to sell our story and to reinforce that relationship we have with America and I think.
Most people accept that. I think that's a good thing.
But look, when we're in a cost of living crisis, some of these embellishments are a little bit hard to take. And I take your point. Someone else to come in and be an mc at a function of the embassy. Kevin, that's your job, mate, You're the ambassador, you are the star of the show. Yeah, I'm sure you could have saved this, what fifty grand plus flights on those two together, just doing your job.
Well, Joe Hockey, who's going to co anchor our coverage of the Democrat Party convention on Tuesday. I mean, as in his job as ambassador, David, one of the things he did well for Australia was to cozy up to Donald Trump, went and played golf with him a few times. I think he got the tennis court there redone Kevin spending twenty four thousand dollars on a barbecue, want to be a hello.
Look, I mean you know these Yeah, it sounds like a pretty fancy barbecue and like you know, I'm sure taxpayers raised their eyebrows at this, but it presents us with a bit of a dilemma though as well, Like you know, If this is what it costs to keep Kevin right in the United States and out of Australia, I don't know. Maybe it's worth it.
That's a very good point. That's a very good point. Here is ed husick. He was trying to defend this today. I don't know how, but here he is.
If you look at how effective and energetic Kevin has been as an ambassador, people can pick out certain expenses. I'm sure that in terms of our presence in different parts of the world where we do use our presence to be able to bring people together, we try to do that in the most appropriate way possible.
Yeah, well that's good, But I mean this also is a bloke, Garth, who has said some very nasty things about the men that might be the next US President, Donald Trump. So maybe he's just having a whole bunch of parties to get them out of the way before perhaps he gets asked to leave the country.
Well, look, he's certainly got his work in front of him after his comments about mister Trump. Look, one thing I will say what was clear is he is working hard. There are people going through that embassy, and I thought that that's a reflection on the embassy staff as well. And I want to point that out, Steve, It's not just Kevin. There's a team there that are actually doing a hell of a job. They're probably having to catch up for some of Kevin's comments in what they're doing.
But look, this has got to be the relationship that we throw everything at. You know, right now, you look around what's happening around the world, all the trouble that we're seeing, the economic troubles, but both of our countries are having this is the relationship that matters.
The most, absolutely right, and we'll be watching that Democrat Democrat convention in Chicago with great interest. David Lindbrick and Garth Hamilton, thank you very much for joining us tonight. I appreciate it. I must say I am very tempted to go and jump on the one hundred kilometer an our driverless train on Sydney's new train tracks tomorrow, just to show how good Sydney is compared to Melbourne. The Royal Report coming up next