From the Sky News Center.
This is Paul Murray Live.
Good evening, and welcome to the program. James Borrow here is sitting in again for Paul Murray Live tonight, and thank you for your company. Now we've got another huge show tonight, all killer, no filler carline. Marcus will be here with an exclusive you're not going to believe about some of the junk Sun teachers shovel in the classroom. Also Michael Kroger, Michael Danby, James Ashby, tons of debate, lots of swampy Joe and tons of fun along the way.
And you know what, speaking of swampy Joe, I just checked before we came on air, and for better or worse, Joe Biden is still the President of the United States. Whether he remains so tomorrow is anybody's guests. Now, shortly, I'm going to be joined by Sky News US political analyst and former to the US Joe Hockey from the Republican National Convention, and he's going to talk about that amazing speech Vice presidential nominee j d Vance gave. And by the way, let me give you a little sneak
preview of that. Here there was a beautiful moment when Vance introduced his mother, whose troubles you will be familiar with if you've read his book or seen the movie. H'll billy elogy, and he introduced her to the crowd. Have a look at this.
I'm proud to say that tonight my mom is here, ten years, clean and sober.
I love you, mom.
Beautiful stuff. And I gotta say that even moved this jaded soul a little bit. And again we'll talk more about the policy meet that was in the speech a little bit later, but first let's get to Joe Biden, because my god, what a twenty four hours he has had. So here's where we are to bring up speed. Around mid morning today, Australia Time news came through that President Joe Biden had tested positive to COVID after he used
that as an excuse to cancel a speech in Nevada. Now, a statement from the White House said that the president was experiencing a very mild case of the virus. But you tell me if he looks here like a man who's just got a case of the sniffles. Here's Biden arriving in Delaware, having trouble making it down even the short steps of Air Force one. Now, why has he gone to Delaware? Why is he isolating at his beach
house and not the White House? Well, it could be because there are none of those pesky public visitor logs, so we can't see what doctors or who else may be dropping by the visit. And watch this here. Now, this is tricky vision, but if you can see through the glass of the limo, it appears that the President also needed a fairly serious amount of help getting into his car. But look, Joe Biden doesn't just have health problems.
He's also got political problems too serious ones. Everyone is telling him to go, get out, don't run for the White House again, But he seems determined for the moment to stay, which is why everyone who's been telling him to go has now been calling their mates in the press and telling them what they told the president. Senate House Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, whereas we'd like to call him a New York schmuck Schumer is the latest to add his name to the list. A report in the
American ABC earlier today told us that quote. According to multiple well connected Democrat sources, President Joe Biden's support from elected party leaders is crumbling as one person who has been defending Biden publicly since his debate performance said Wednesday, Biden is going to see the whole house of cards
come down soon. A knowledgeable source close to both men tells the ABC that Schumer had a blunt conversation with Biden making the case if it would be best if Biden dropped out of the twenty twenty four presidential race. And then there's this, and this has many people, including myself, wondering if Biden is in fact looking for an off ramp. Biden told be Et television that well, if there was
a medical situation, maybe he'd consider going. Could there be something more to this case of COVID than just the sniffles?
If I had some medical condition it emerged if somebody, if the doctors came to me, said you got this problem, that problem. But I made a serious mistake in the whole debate. And look, when I originally ran, you may remember it, I said I was going to be a transitional candidate, and I thought that I'd be able to move from this just pass it on to someone else.
Interesting, and for all the people saying that Biden is being obstinate, others are saying well, he may in fact be maybe considering moving on.
Talking to a senior Democratic advisor tonight who is telling me this, he said he believes the president is being quote more receptive to these calls of concern. He goes on to say this, the private conversations with the Hill
are continuing. This advisor tells me he's being receptive, not as defiant as he is publicly, goes on to saying, talking about Vice President Kamala Harris, who initially he wondered how she may fare in a campaign should it come to that, told now he's asking questions, saying, do you think Kamala can win?
Well, you know the old saying if you have to ask the question anyway, Now, who knows. There's a lot of contradictory stories coming out. But does this mean Joe Biden might stay on as president until the election and then hand it over. And perhaps more importantly, there's another question, which is, if Joe Biden is not capable of running for president again or doing another term, what makes him so capable to stay in the most important job in
the world, the one with the nuclear codes and all that. Now, look, these are questions we all may have to grapple with in the days and weeks to come. But look to get a sense of how bad things are, let me leave you with CNN's Van Jones, who I think has just written the obituary of the Biden administration.
A bullet couldn't stop Trump. A virus just stopped Biden. You've got the nominees of this party getting their butts kissed. Biden's getting his butt kicked by his own party. The Democrats are coming apart, the Republicans are coming together.
Pining me now is Sky News US politics analyst and former Australian Ambassador to the US, Joe Hockey. Joe, thanks so much for coming on tonight from the Republican National Convention. Before I ask you about JD Vance's incredible speech which he just delivered, I want to ask about the Democrats who have stolen a bit of the spotlight from the Republicans with reports that Chuck Schumer and others have conveyed views that Joe Biden needs to step aside and let
somebody else run the race in November. What are you hearing and have you spoken to any Democrats about what the mood is on that side of the aisle as far as o'biden continuing in the offices.
Well, as I've been saying for a few days, senior Democrats have said to me that there is a high level of despair amongst Democrats about where the party is at and the refusal of Joe Biden to stand aside and give Kamala Harris the nomination. It is getting to an extreme point. The tide is going out on the
Democrats rapidly. Internal polling by the Democrats, which they are now leaking everywhere, is indicating that a whole lot of states, including Virginia and New Hampshire, are coming into play for the Republicans, when just a few weeks ago though there
was no chance of Republicans were there. And it's all coming back to the fact that eighty percent of Democrat voters think Joe Biden shouldn't run again, and the overwhelming majority of Americans feel incredibly saddened about Joe Biden's degenda, cognitive health issues, but at the same time recognized that he's just not going to be around for four years and they want a reasonable alternative to Donald Trump.
Yeah, no, look, I think that's fair enough. But let's go now to the convention. JD. Evans earlier wrapped up a speech which I think represents a huge realignment generational and politically of the Republican Party. He talked about NAFTA, free trade, globalism. Let's have a little listen to a bit of that.
We're done ladies and gentlemen catering to Wall Street. We'll commit to the working man. We're done sacrificing supply chains to unlimited global trade, and we're going to stamp more and more products with that beautiful label made in the USA.
As people remark to me around here, the fact is, who would have thought that someone who grew up as a hillbilly would end up on the stage as a potential vice president of the United States. It really is a rags to Richard's story, and it's a great story and it's going to appeal. But having said that, James, I want to be clear, Donald Trump doesn't feel the
need to have someone tokenistic as vice president. He wasn't focused on color or gender or whether they're from as he might have been in twenty sixteen with Mike Pence. He believes he's got the nomination and he's he totally understands how to win this election. He brought on JD. Evans because he's a believer in Trump two point zero.
Well, this is a really interesting thing, Joe, is that we've now seen him not go for some moderate to try and balance a ticket. This seems to me to be a real realignment of what the Republicans stand for. You know, forty years ago it might have been the party of free trade. They might have backed in and after which JD. Evans criticized piercely as being part of the reason why his community in Ohio lost so many jobs, you know, free trade, all of these things. The fact
that JD. Vance is thirty nine, and he pointed out the fact that he has been alive for less time than Joe Biden has been in politics, which I thought was a powerful kind of passing. The torch moment represents a real shift of the Republicans away from the Party of Wall Street, the party of capital, to being the party of the workingman, which the Democrats seem to have abandoned.
Well, one of the old Salts here at the convention said to me that the last time a union figure is significant as the head of the Teamsters addressed to Republican Convention was for Nixon way back more than fifty years ago, and when he spoke he seemed to have some recollection of that. The fact is that people are still talking about having the head of the Teamsters speak at the Republican National Convention yesterday, as we were joking, maybe John Secker had turned around an address a little
body convention in Australia. I mean, it's so ridiculous, right, so, but it does illustrate that the Republican Party under Donald Trump is reaching for a whole new constituency, and that constituency has been abandoned by the Democrats. They're the blue collar workers that they don't want to hear about you know, people's pronouns and about you know, gender transfers and all
these things. They just want to live their lives and have the opportunity to keep a job and all their dreams can be delivered in a prosperous and safe and secure nation. That's what they want. And they feel that they are abandoned by the Democrats. And along comes Donald Trump and he reaches out to them, and not only is he fighting for them, he also is bringing along
a team that is speaking for them. And you know that's a powerful message at the moment, targeted directly, you know, states like Wisconsin, Philadelphia, and Mission and really those three states are the key ones at the moment, and it's pretty clear that the chid Evans is going to have a very significant role campaigning in those states.
And Joe I thought also there was a really interesting bit of the speech where we talked about immigration and about how America welcomes people to the American family, but that they do it on their terms. Let's have a little listen to that.
America is not just an idea. It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is, in short, a nation. Now it is part of that tradition of course that we welcome newcomers, but when we allow newcomers into our American family, we allow them on our terms.
Well, it sounds very similar to the bipartisan policy position in Australia, where we want to control our borders, we want to stop I legal immigrants, and we want to have immigration, but we want to have sensible levels of immigration and good immigration. That's the point. You know, the policies of the Republican Party are not much different to Australia, and certainly they've been very contentious immigration policies and so
on in the UK in their recent elections. If we know anything is when people feel as though you don't control the borders, then they don't believe the government is giving them the security they need. And last year, sorry, in the last four years, eleven and a half million illegal immigrants have crossed from Mexico into the United States, eleven and a half million. Last year alone, over three hundred thousand unaccompanied children were sent across that border. So
there is a crisis. Australians wouldn't cop it. Whether they're liberal or labor or national or anything, they wouldn't cop it. We don't even cop one boat or two boats, let alone having eleven and a half million people come illegally.
Yeah, just unbelievable, unbelievable numbers. Joe Hockey, US politics analyst and of course former Australian Ambassador of the US, thank you so much for joining us on Pulbury Live.
Thanks very much, Jimes, thank you.
Absolutely fascinating scenes coming out of Milwaukee. Right now, now, let's bring in our panel where we now have former Victorian Liberal Party president Michael Kroger as well as here at the desk, Sky News senior reporter Caron Marcus, Thank you guys both for joining me tonight. Now I want to stick on this Biden thing for just a little bit here. And we did have that hint from Joe Biden that he could use his health as an excuse
to withdraw from the White House. Just we'll play a little bit of that grab just just aget here.
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if the doctors came to me and said you got this problem, that.
Problem now, Michael, I mean, you know, just even you almost needed subtitles to listen to what he was saying there. But this is a huge call. Is the first indication that that real stubborn I'm going to stay in no matter one who comes, you know, saying it's time to go, I might actually go. What do you think of this? What do you make of the politics of this, Michael.
Well made As you know, I've been saying for weeks, Biden's not running. He's going to withdraw. Between now the nineteenth of August, which is the start of the Democratic Invention, Biden will announce he's withdrawing. He's not going to withdraw because of COVID. Obviously, if he's got something more serious, that's a different story. But this guy is not running. There is zero chance that Joe Biden will be the
Democratic candidate at this election. And someone should tell all those people and then all those American commentators who say, oh, he might be. This is happening in Schumer saying this, No, it's over. It was over weeks ago. This guy's not running. He will stand down, and there's a ninety percent chance. I think that Kamala Harris will be the cadate. She'll do a lot better than people think. By the way, but if an election's hell tomorrow, Trump wins three twenty
four to two one four. He wins by more but one hundred college votes. I don't include North Carolina because that's a Trump won one of that. But Trump wins the seven swing states. He wins Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. He wins all those seven. He wins by more than a hundred college rights. The Democratic Party know
that this is it was over weeks ago. Someone's got to tell Joe and Jill because they're about the only two that I don't know it's over, but he's not running.
Well, Carolina. This is fascinating to me though, this whole idea that in an American democracy where Americans elect the presidents and it's not a parliamentary system where the party room can go and rule the leader. Is there something a little bit undemocratic about this idea that behind the scenes there's pushing out somebody who's the sitting president.
And apparently Donald Trump is the real threat to democracy, right. I mean, if it was Australia, he would have been out the door within like twenty four hours. I have no problem our parties have no problems with rolling leaders. But look, I think I wouldn't say it's undemocrat undemocratic. I think there has been a lot of pressure obviously behind the scenes, as well as people saying on the record now increasingly that they think that he should reconsider
his re election bid. People have been quite forthright about that, and that's part of I guess, a country which values free speech and where people have a right to express their opinion, even if it's the leader of their own party. What I will say is that I think what Biden's language has been lately in interviews has been extremely telling. Think about what he said during the first interview after that disastrous debate where he said only the Lord Almighty could get him to stand down.
Now it's a mere doctor. Now.
I know a lot of doctors think they're God. But that is a step down, isn't it.
That is a little bit there. But Michael, let's talk a little bit about sort of what comes next here, because there has been reports that the Democrats are going to push back the time when people go where the delegates go to cast their official votes, to push it back to the convention. So it seems to me that
there's a couple of factions involved here. There's some people who want to just anoint Kamala Harris, and I agree with you that if she did stand, she would do better than people think, particularly in the suburbs with suburban women. But there's also a group that wants to throw it open, I think, at the convention and have the messiness of an open convention. Who's going to win here, the back room boys or the delegates on the floor.
You know, the backroom boys are going to win and go. Of course, they can't have a they can't they can't have an election on the floor. Look for a whole host of reasons. It has to be Harris. She's the ranking VP, she's a black woman. But the most important reason why you know, stick with me here, James, The most important reason while she'll why she would get while she'll get the nomination, is this, the Democratic Party leadership is so incredibly weak. It's so no one's actually running
this show. We've got Congressman here, We've got Track Suma there, We've got George Clooney, an actor there. I mean, no one's running it. So to them for them to coalesce around anyone but the vice president would take them six months. So she's the ranking figure, she's got two hundred million dollars in the bank. They've got nothing, and she'll run. And the establishment wouldn't have enough power, time, energy, prestige, you know, moral authority to coalesce behind anyone else. That's
why it'll be Harris. The only, the only, the only alternative. That is, if Michelle Obama says she's running, Harris would probably step down for Michelle Obama. But I see no evidence at all that Michelle Obama wants to run. You would have seen some leaks, some indication, but there's absolutely nothing. So I presume she's not running so they can't have a contested election. Biden is going to announce that he's
standing down. He will do that before the convention, which then means that they can have her as a coronation as the only candidate. I think that I'll try and do what the Republicans have done with Trump. It's a coronation. They won't want a buddy mess on the floor of the convention where Gretchen Whitmar and Kavin Newsom and her and whoever else. That would be a catastrophe for the
Democratic Party. So that'll annoyed her. She'll anounced she's running a few days after that, everyone else announced they're not running, and she'll get the nomination out of pose. That's what's going to happen.
Now, Caroline. I want to get to your exclusive in a moment about prohamas propaganda being shown in a Sydney school, But before we get to that, I just want to ask you. You know, we showed a little bit of jd Vance there. I thought he was incredibly impressive, and I thought that it was incredibly because two things. Number one, he's thirty nine so he's really young. So this generational
change number two. He was talking about the nation and the family of a nation in a way that I don't think I've heard a politician speak in a long time, And even in Australia, where immigration is a big issue, I don't think we talk at all about national family and the way that we work together in that sort of way. What did you make of that?
I think he's such a strong pick, and I've really enjoyed hearing a lot more from him and about him in the last few days because there were so many other names mentioned as possibilities and so many other ways he could go which and a lot of people who really had a lot going for them. But perhaps you know, to pick.
A fellow white male.
I think it's kind of like a strong It's strange, but these days to have two males running on the ticket is almost like wild because you almost have to pick just a diversity pick.
But when you think about.
It, jd Vance does represent a lot of the forgotten.
Correct people of America who are Trump's.
Base, and who are people that feel that they've been really let down by Biden's immigration policies and economic policies and that's who he really is speaking to. So I think it was a really clever, a clever, confident pick.
And I think it's interesting because I think what we've seen now is the Republicans picking up all the people that Democrats have lost now that they've gone and become the Party of Wall Street and pronouns and all of that. No, Caroline, I want to stick with you for a second. Tell me about this really bizarre and disturbing story that you've uncovered at a Sydney school. Here. Tell us about this, Caroline.
I think it's just another example of yet more political ideology and indoctrination creeping into school. So what is a public school on Sydney's northern beaches called Davidson High School and a new teacher there has been introducing very contentious material.
I mean it's I've watched the video.
It is a pro Hamas socialist propaganda video and the outfit that made it as a YouTube platform that says its purpose is to promote education from a socialist perspective.
It was a sixteen minute video shown in.
A commerce class for year ten students about international law which accused Israel being a genocidal apartheid state hamas as
being resistance resistance fighters and the idea. Other ideas that it approached was that Israel was deliberately executing children and that it was starving the entire Gaza strip and other crazy ideas, also saying that even even having a go at Joe Biden for basically allowing the genocide to happen, and that no American leader, American leaders can't be trusted, that they all lie.
It was real anti.
West socialist propaganda. So what's happened is a Jewish family has pulled their star student daughter out of the school life so she was forced to listen to this rubbish and the teacher sent them a worksheet asking them to talk about the Gaza Jenis side and another video of CONTENTUS video.
They pulled the daughter out. It took two weeks.
And US to start asking questions for an investigation to finally be concluded. I can reveal on the show tonight the teacher will not have any more disciplinary action taken against him. They did say that the material was inappropriate, but the Department of Education said it's code of conduct which makes it clear that teachers cannot bring in political their personal political beliefs in the classroom was not breached because there was no malice intended.
Come. Ah, this whole thing with the code of conduct. We've seen this before time and time again. And this is why parents need to and grandparents need to be
involved with and check out what they're teaching in your kids' schools. Now, Michael, want to move on to another subject with you here, because labor has a new excuse not to go anywhere near the nuclear power program that Peter Dtner the liberals are pushing and they're seeing now and explain this one to me, because they're concerned that eleven thousand farms near the proposed potential reactor sites may may may just may be exposed to radiation if and that's a big if,
if there was ever a nuclear leak. Now, I don't know. I just find Michael Kroger this sudden concern for farmers and the impact on their land by labor where they're shoving transmission line, solar powers, wind farms, all of this stuff across agricultural land, prime agricultural land. It's a bit, it's a bit sort of much, isn't it, Michael Kroger.
Well, at least they know farmers still operate in this country. How many since the body ever met a farmer? Would not would they have ever been to Have they ever been to a mine? They ever been to you know, any of the minds in Western Australia or Coeensland. Look this, this is embarrassing, right, this is this is like the three headed fish they try to couple. This is really childish. This is in people, this base argument. I mean, they've
had nuclear power plants in France for decades. Seventy percent of the electricity in France comes from nuclear energy and they have had that for decades. So I mean, this kind of argument is puerile. It is schoolboy stuff. It's embarrassing that labor are running these lines. And you know they've had this ideological opposition to uranium mining and nuclear power ever since I went to Union in the nineteen seventies, and they they just can't get it out of their head.
They've always hated the mining industry, but they've had a particular hatred of uranium and nuclear energy and it's just embarrassing, it's humiliating. If you've got a good argument, do it on, do it on you know, unproven small modular reactors or the cost and the delays involved. Stick to that. But to run these types of arguments, it's it's just humiliating and you can't treat people are complete idiots. And that's what top of argument does it It insults the electric mate.
Well, I think you're absolutely right, but you know there's more stuff coming out here too. And The Nightly is now reporting that a group of corporate giants, including two mining heavyweights, pleaded with the Prime Minister back in March to amend Labour's Nature Positive Plan, writing we estimate that the reform could it is likely to lead to billions of dollars in lost investment and tens of thousands of jobs lost in Western Australia alone. First of all, Caroline,
I'll start with you on this one very quickly. Tell us about this Nature Positive Problem plan and what are the problems with it for industry.
Well, clearly industry thinks that it would lead to a big loss in the number of jobs and revenue, which is yet another example of the government shoving these types of environmentally green policies down people's throats without thinking of the bigger picture. Are people going to be able to keep their jobs, especially in places like Western Australia. Are they going to be able to pay their power bills and have any money in their pocket at the end
of the week. And they're more interested in just pushing green policies because they're trying to get to these targets just at any cost.
And I mean, this nature positive program is justice seeing where they're going to try and you know, make the environment, you know, put everything through the environmental lems first. And I don't know how they can get any business done because Michael Hancock, Prospecting Hancock Prospecting chief executive Gary Court and Rio Tinto boss Simon Trant signed the letter. These are huge names, Michael and Albaniazi has essentially ignored them. I mean, what does that tell you.
M.
Well, mate, what we're seeing here is the socialist left leader of the Labor Party tenure Plibas because you're also in the socialist left, You've got you haven't got much distance between the socials left of the Labor Party and the Greens, and gets dragged to the left on all of these things because that's sort of his natural home, his natural inflation does sit there and say, well, you know,
basically I agree with all this stuff. So it's another example of the You know, this is another example of the inner city activist elites who have an unlimited agenda of demands for change. Have been using the environmental issue for forty years. Once one thing's been achieved, they keep going to the next one, the next one, the next one.
It's an unending agenda. It'll never stop, right unless you put draw a line than sand and say no more, no more, which is one of the reasons they hate Trump because he's a line in the sand type of leader. But Albow just gets dragged. He's he's weak, he's insip it on this stuff, and he basically agrees with it. That's why he's pushing back against Hancock, Prospecting and everybody else.
Yeah.
No, it's terrible stuff. Dow want Michael Calin stay where you are, don't go anywhere, and you don't go anywhere either, because after the break, the latest from the loons on the left, you're gonna love this. The Greens are now demanding that labor override the RBA. Now, I mean, come on, that is a one way ticket to hyperinflation. Banana Republic territory. What are they doing about economics? Coming up next, Welcome back to the program, Pal Murray Live. James Borrow here
sitting in for the Great Man for our Thursday night panel. Now, let's get back into it with former Victorian Liberal Party president Michael Kroger and Sky News senior reporter Caroline Marcus. Let's kick things off with the Greens, and they're outrageous, economically illiterate, basically communist request. Thank you, Caroline. Yes, to
override the RBA and their potential right hags reat hikes Caroline. Now, I'm the last person to throw my support behind Labor's budget, but overriding the RBA, this is well, come on, I mean, we're going to completely make the bank political. Wasn't the whole point of the reform that we've gone through the last century to make the RBA independent for very good reason?
Yeah?
Well, and still the Greens say that cash rate decisions are inherently political. But I think if I'm going to trust anyone, it'll be with the honchos at the RBA over the great brains of the Greens economic policy makers, because I would not trust them anything that comes out of their mouths. I would say, do the opposite when it comes to the economy.
Yeah. I mean, Michael, look, there is something to be said that there has been lately an element of politics I think injected into the RBA process, which I think is a little bit unfortunate. But I mean, like the Greens are so illiterate with everything else. They want to introduce rent caps, they want to have price controls on all sorts of things. Imagine if they had their say in monetary policy, we'd be finished.
Oh that'd be great, you know, James. For me, the bigger issue is this. The bigger issue for me is this. The opinion polls show that the Greens get ten to fifteen percent of the vote around this country, generally speaking, nothing in the country because they're broll sensible, but in the city, of course, the young, woke, et cetera, et cetera. The ten to fifteen percent of Australians want to vote for these people is a really worrying sign for our
country and our future. I mean, these people are economic hooligans. They're anty Israel. There are elements of them that hate the Jewish community, as we've seen. They don't condemn Hamas. They're anti American, they're anti British, they're anti NATO, they're anti Ansys, they don't like Anzac Day. They never honor Australians men and women who have gone to war never. They don't care about farmers, they don't care about small business, you know. They want extreme agendas, in relation agenda and
all these other other work policies. I mean, these people are fruitcakes. Ten to fifteen percent of Australians want to vote for them, So it shows you that there's a lot of work to be done by Liberal and Labor and One Nation and the other parties. Because boy, that's a worrying sign that so many people want to vote for this political party who in the modern ear are just an obscenity.
Mmmm.
I think people a lot of people still just associate Greens with the original environmental aims that they had. And there are a lot of young people who were concerned about the climate and climate change and have had a.
Lot of this stuff shoved down their throats.
For years and years, but they're not seeing the bigger picture with the Greens. And I know some of their policies in terms of rent are popular in some inner city areas where young people aren't able to get into.
How I can tell you, but I don't think they're seeing.
The bigger picture with the Greens, who have moved so far away from being just some ezy environmental cults.
Well, let's not forget.
Let's not forget that the Greens are basically the successor to the Communist Party of Australia and after the Berlin Wall film, many of the people in the CPA fell into the Greens and that became the successor party to the Communist Party of Australia. So it is no surprise that they want to have this statist sort of economics. And I can tell you something, by the way, having lived in New York for half my life, where they
did have rent control. That is an absolute disaster because once people get into apartments they never leave them ever, and it creates a whole housing crisis for everybody who's not lucky enough to have one of these grandfather's apartments, grandfathered apartments. It's a disaster. But let's move on to New South Wales, where the Men's government has been accused of and Caroline, maybe you can explain this phrase to
me here carbon colonialism. I bet there's more than just the alliteration in that saying that New South Wales, New South Wales greenhouse gas emissions reductions proposed by the federal government would actually result in higher global emissions. Can explain this to me here.
I can't explain it because I don't really understand. Everything is colonialism these days, like chess is colonialism apparently because the white pieces go first over the black.
Uh.
Yeah, I don't know, Okay, all right, racist, everything is imperialist, everything is colonialist.
I don't know.
I think they put like a clever term on it, and I'm really.
But Michael, one of the things I think that people are talking about here is saying that, you know, well, if we're going for these hard targets here, we're not going to log sustainable forests here, then logging is going to be done overseas and things like that. Essentially, this argument, I think that comes from the idea that if we don't sell people our cleaner call that we have in Australia, they're going to burn dirtier, dirtier call for mine's overseas.
I mean there is a little something to that argument, isn't there.
Yeah.
Well, look, if you the Men's government, miss fellow, Men's was going well until this, and then I mean, if you export all of the hardwood timber, you know, to another country and then you have to pay them and import it from there. I mean, is that we've got hardwood timber plantations in Australia. Is that good for Australia to do that? I don't think so. I mean, I just don't think so, and believe it on. You still need timber to build things. You need timber to build houses.
So if you make timber more expensive by having to import it from overseas, then is that good for housing? Is that good for the housing sector? I don't think so. So these extreme policies, I mean hardwood timber, there are plantations, they wait for how many years for them to be to be mature, They harvest them, they log them, they use them, and then they rebuild them, they replenish them. And we've had a lot of that in Australia. Do
have a lot in Australia. So if you want to outlaw hardwood timber plantations and harvesting, well that's that's a recipe for disaster. And you know, yeah, we'll make Indonesia and these other countries colonial bases for the future and then they can have those arguments.
Yeah, I mean fantastic. And this all just sort of reminds me of something that my friend Tim Blair at the Daily Telegraph says, which is that nothing green ever works. And I think this is a great example of that. And you know what else is a great example of this, Caroline, is this idea that Chris Bowen has. Some people call
him blackout Bowen, some people call him Casanova Bowen. You can call them whatever you like, just don't call them a cab, especially if it's not electric, because he says that now what he wants is that we're all gonna have EV's and they're gonna charge up and then at night they're gonna be a battery, so that when the grid is failing because it's not powered by useful things like gas and nuclear, that's gonna, you know, let it run their dishwashers at night. Caroline, how bonkers is this policy?
It's off the charts bonkers.
First of all, not as many people are buying EV's as they hope, because we don't live in the kind of country where evs are without the infrastructure in place, at least a smart investment.
To be fair, people aren't buying them in the US or Europe as much as they used to either.
Well, yes, and I mean only recently we were discussing on Sky News how more people are buying hybrids and that's not good enough for all the greenies because it's
just not enough. They want us to go for ev But having to charge your car for what is it, twelve hours more than that just to be able to drive it anywhere, how are you going to have any power left over to run your refrigerator and your dishwasher at the end of the day, can barely run your car after charging it for hours and hours and hours.
Thank you very well, said. Now we've got to take a break here, but before we go, I want to get Michael Kroger and Callen Marcus your winners and losers of the week. Michael Kroger winner and loser this week?
Well JD Vans for obvious reasons. The loser of the week is this American news channel called MSNBC. Oh John Foxville channel six ' one to two, want to see a bunch of fruitcakes? Go on to that station. I was watching it today and I'm thinking these people can't be serious. This woman was on saying Biden recovering from COVID is the same as Trump recovering from the attempted assassination attempt. And I'm thinking what I mean, it is
a fruitcake station. If you want to have a laugh and see a whole lot of people who are actually living on in a parallel universe, turn on MSNBC. It's it's a very funny. It's very funny, and they take themselves incredibly seriously.
So after you.
Finish ship, come back here to Sky News. So Caroline, you're a Winner's.
Like a broken record because when I was on last week, I said winner Trump, But how how can it not be Trump? The guy survived an assassination attempt with a turn of his head. I think he is the winner of the year, or century, maybe millenia, I don't know. Loser, I mean, Biden would be the easy one to go with. He's been knocked over by a glorified cold it would look like. But I'll say for more local relevance, cefm AU and everyone within the labor movement who's pretending that they had.
No idea, no idea, thugs at all, have no idea a legenda anyway, Thank you so much. Bugger crowd to Crown, Marcus appreciate that. Now, don't go anywhere. We will be right back after the break with our panel discussing Labor's latest nuclear scare tactics and what could they possibly come up with. Now you're not gonna want to miss it after the break, Welcome back to the program. James Morrow sitting in here for Paulburry Live. I'm joined now by former Labor MP Michael Danby and One Nation Chief of
Staff James Ashby. Gentlemen, thanks so much for joining me on the program tonight. I want to get stuck into this topic here where I was really surprised to read this story where a bunch of psychologists and mental health organizations are saying they are a against this idea of banning social media for people under sixteen, saying it risks alienating young people in that oh, well, you know they need to learn how to do it otherwise. Now it
seems to be Michael, this has a bit art. It's a bit almost like saying, well, maybe kids need to learn how to drink Martinez when they're sixteen, because you know they're going to have to do it when they're twenty eight. What do you think Michael.
Social media has had an absolutely toxic effect on Western societies. It's not to stay. There are not some aspects of it that are good for the sharing of information, But TikTok is a Chinese government supported propagandaam It may not be obvious to young people if that's what it is, but really it's going to be taken more seriously. I hope the Trump Vans teams stick with selling it to an American company that would take out that pro Beijing algorithm.
But all of it. They are not merely platforms Jones, as you know, they're publishers. We should in every Western country reclassify them as that and treat them as the same as newspapers. You wouldn't be able to write the fametory, homophobic, mad sex stuff that appears on Twitter all the time. If you wrote it to a newspaper, you'd have to give your name an address.
And James Ashby, I mean, what do you think about this, because of course, you know, with Pauline Hans, you've done some phenomenal stuff that goes out on social media, you
know the please Explain cartoons, which we all love. But the question I also have is about the regulation if you start to regulate it, do we start to lose some freedoms beyond what Michael is saying about, you know, not saying so this defamatory or whatever, but actually about you know, being able to publish stuff anonymously that could be classified as misinformation. It's actually correct.
I think the biggest issue is social media, and ask any business owner, they'll say that it's been responsible for the lowering of productivity in the workplace. It's highly addictive. I know myself. I can get carried away on it just before I go to bed, and you stay up for hours. Time just gets away on you. So for a lot of these kids, they don't realize what it's doing to their own mental health. Again, it comes back to giving the power back to parents to be able
to say enough's enough. But I know of people who've said to me their own daughter at the age of fourteen, has called the police because the parents have confiscated their phone off them. Right, this is the sort of behavior that parents are putting up with, and when coppers turn up on the doorstep and say, listen, you're probably better off giving the phone back to the kid. We're taking the power away from parents to be able to parents. So of course social media is toxic. Banning it. I
don't know whether that's the answer. I think it's the easy way out, but it's not going to work.
Yeah, hey, look it's a tough one. James. Want to stick with you just for a minute here, because Liberal Party strategist Tony Barry from a Redbridge pulling he has warned that Australians are losing interest in Labor's renewable energy dream. I would say as a warn, I think it's actually probably good news and are becoming skeptical of the fancy the government is trying to sell. You know, in Queensland you would see tons of this because of course is
round zero for a lot of the renewable stuff. Is this what you're seeing on the ground.
Well, we saw the dot com bubble verse many years ago, as you remember, and maybe we're about to see the energy or the green energy bubble burst as well in coming time. Because you're right, very few people are starting to back the renewable projects that the state government and federal government have backed, simply because it's costing people money.
If you want to go down this green dream path, expect your power bills to continue going up, and isn't it funny though, just prior to an election everyone gets a thousand dollars chipped into their bank account by the Queens end government. Why because they know it's hurting households and they think that by giving people reprieve for one quarter of a power bill is going to buy them votes. No people know what's happening. It's una continued, I think worst.
And the high these targets go, the more it's going to cost.
So you're spot on there, James asked me, Michael, I wanted just to ask you the question about saying. We spoke a lot about the convention and Trump and JD Evans earlier in the program. A lot of positive feeling around JD Evans, But I want to ask you about some concerns you have about Taiwan, Trump and transactional foreign policy. Just briefly explain that to.
Us, Well, Trump has all the Taiwanese has got to spend more on defense. I'll translate some of the articles for Ambassador Natus Run. You have to tell this to Elbow, Kevin, don't bludge on the Americans. Trump has said to the Taiwanese like you said to the NATO. You can't spend total on your own defense and expect America to be your insurance policy. Let he find out about what little
we spend and how ineffectively on defense in Australia. Ambassador Rudd through to inform Albo about the Zeipgei coming from Trump and vance the Taiwanese only send two and a half on defense. I've been there three times. I always thought they were a bit light on Yeah, they better lift their game or they're like they've already done in NATO. Trump's threat flash time. But they've got a problem, and we've got a problem too.
I think, Michael, you're absolutely right that we've got a problem because Trump or no Trump, we do not spend enough on defense and our defense procurement is an absolute shambles. Now we've just got a little over a minute here left on the program. I'm going to ask you both your winners and losers for the week. James Ashby is starting with you. Big winner, big loser.
Well, the biggest loser is the Queensland Labor Party twenty six percent of the primary vote. Oh that's terrible. Biggest winner. The hard work from Pauline Hanson, Malcolm Roberts has earn't us a big like in our approval writing across Queensland and thirteen percent of the primary vite. That's strong.
Michael Daan's just got thirty seconds left, give me a quick Winners and losers.
The head of a secret service in America who said her agents can't go on slope roots. Ah, yes, yeah, very athletic they are. And the big winner is Sky News with Ambassador Joe Hockey, your American program and Alish Nielsen Adam Creighton. The American coverage you get on this network is far superior to the vastly over funded ABC. It's amazing. In fact, you can learn act more about American politics.
Game.
Thank you for the great plug. And by the way, I'll be on tomorrow night eight pm with the US Report with all the news of the convention. The Elite Debate is next