The sky Setter. This is Paul Murray Live. Hello, Happy Sunday. Lots to get to today. If I look particularly relaxedus.
Because I had that wonderful few hours in the garden. It doesn't matter what you do when you're out and about. It's lovely to do if you had the chance to do so in the sunshine in the past couple of days.
But it may well be short lived.
Now in Victoria, there has been a very quiet drought that has been rolling on for some time with Victorian farmers, in fact, so much so that we read today in the Sunday Herald Sun several that a severe drought is already starting to hurt Victorian farmers. And obviously we're only sort of on our way through spring. We're not in summer yet, and Victorian farmers are facing a serious drought, with some already forking out hundreds, yeah, hundreds of thousands
of dollars to feed their animals. Not enough rain is predicted in spring to get them through to summer. Now, there's a couple of sheep farmers in Harrow, and that's Michael and Jane Craig. They say they've had to spend more than four hundred grand to bring extra feed in for their animals due to the lack of reign in recent months.
They warned that as well.
It cost, they could generally only endure one in every
twenty years. As Michael says, Mother Nature occasionally likes to remind us who is in charge and so so it gives us an opportunity at the start of the show, at the start of the week, before we get distracted by everything from here to the United States and beyond, to remind you that there is an opportunity to help the farmers of Australia, like the ones in Victoria or maybe the ones in your state, because you always have an opportunity to help them out through the good people
of Rural Aid. Now Rural Aid have up on their website which is a donations dot rule ai dot org dot are you donations dot rural aid dot org dot are you a chance to donate money but more importantly to donate a haybal. It will cost you about fifty dollars if you want to. But when people are spending four hundred thousand dollars to keep their stock fed and alive to get them through spring, and what looks like a dry summer. Every little bit help, So if you can please jump on and give them a hand.
That's it.
There is a fair amount of rain that's apparently on its way, a rain bomb, which means an awful lot very quickly is on its way a little bit later in the week's gone is weather, and our dear friend Lucy Polkinghuon has plenty to say about what might be on our way.
Now.
This rain band will continue moving eastwards throughout the week, increasing that cloud cover first of all from Tuesday onwards for the east of the country, then bringing those cooler conditions and showery weather as well. So in fact, eighty percent of Australia is likely to see some kind of wet weather from this event as we head into next a week.
All right, figures cross it's out of the way for Grand Final or preliminary final days if your team is involved. But more importantly, as you just saw with Loose, there there will be a little band which will come across rural Victoria. Please help them out.
Rule aid dot Org. I've got au.
Now let's get to Queensland because this is going to be my focus for the next little while. The Queensland election getting rid of a terrible government, an awful premiere, and taking on a machine that knows how to win, no matter how bad those politicians are. Now Stephen Miles, thankfully, according to every pole that we see is looking like you said in for the Exits, no matter what giggles he wants to put up, no matter how he literally puts on like the joker at the end of eighty
nine Batman glasses, don't hit me, don't hit me. He's got the Marone's hat on. Oh please, don't vote me out on one of you. Well, it looks like it's going to happen. Newspoll.
What a thumper this is.
Is it time to change a government, give somebody else a go, or re elect the government? Just twenty nine percent of people, obviously mostly labor voters, so the government should be re elected. Fifty seven percent of people say it's time to give somebody else a go, which is excellent news. They don't know number at fourteen. Now, let's imagine again, is put that to fifty to fifty. Obviously
the re elected number is nowhere near fifty. So that's a very good signal of what hopefully is coming its way towards the end of October Queensland first few days than in the American election. Imagine how the world could change in just one week for the better. When it comes to the preferred premier, of course, the race is between the current Premier, Stephen Miles, the potential and most likely future premier David Crucifully.
You know which one. I back on this and have for years.
Miles is preferred premier thirty nine percent. Kruci fully is at forty six percent. Obviously you want to be in David's position on Steven's position because again you take uncommitted, you imagine it breaks fifty to fifty, it still does not get Miles anywhere near to the fifty and will
put Crucifully up and over the top. As for the actual vote by party, now I know that the further north you go the options start to change, where place is like one nation and the Catter Party become a lot more live options, sort of from Rocky all the
way up. But the ALP down the best part of ten points since the last election were a primary vote of just thirty percent, up by six and percent, the LMP at forty two percent twelve percent, the Greens ever so slightly up that will affect labor seats in the southeast. One nation is up by almost a full point now to eight percent. Others, including the Catter Party, is basically where it was at the last election, which brings us to two party vote which has virtually flipped since the
last election. The LNP at fifty five is up eight point two. The ALP is down by the same number to forty five. Queensland, you are going to hear a lot of scare and drama coming out of the Labor Party, pretending that every idea the Liberal Party has is the sky is going to fall in and they're going to try to bring up the ghosts of government's way, way, way,
way long ago. You know, and I know how badly this government has performed on youth crime, how badly they have performed when it comes to the health system, let alone the education system.
And I could list a whole lot more. They deserve to go.
They deserve to go last time, but COVID saved their backside. May that not be the case this time? And everywhere in queen they vote as hard as you can in the opposite direction of this current government. They deserve to go. They deserve to be crushed. They deserve to lose as many seats as possible. Let's start with the premier seat and work back from them.
Now.
For the past a few years, we have of course been building the cat about how big Australia, despite the fact that every single opinion poll tells us is not what the Australian public wants.
We get it anyway.
Last week I told you we cracked twenty seven million people thanks largely to the number of people which are being brought into the country. About nine hundred and sixty four thousand people. That's the net migration take away the people leaving. Have a look at the people coming in a million people in just two years, just two years of this government. By the way, that number is over a million once who actually have a look at everything from June twenty twenty two on.
Believe it or not, our O'm being strangely kind to the government.
Now we know that this is because treasury demands more people coming in. More people, pay more taxes. More people keeps the country growing ever so slightly. But more importantly, it's able to through pay as you go taxes. The number one source of revenue for the federal government for them to be able to say, look at us, we're amazing.
We have a budget surplus, but of course the baked in spending the ideas of this government guarantee that as soon as that money runs out, probably in the next twelve months or so, it is budget deficits for the next twenty five years. Judith Sloan is the excellent economics writer at the Australian Newspapers.
She wrote a great column which I.
Had the chance to read over the weekend, which is the immigration numbers they are just too high.
The intake is still too high.
The existence of multiple open ended visa classes and the Department of Homed Affairs effectively acting as administrators rubber stamp basically subject to ministerial discretions mean the numbers entering the country each year are largely unconstrained. There's nothing standing in its way.
This is the.
Subject to This is subject to the speed at which the public servants can process the application. She had more to say to my mate Sherry markson last week.
They say, oh, this is essentially a supply problem, but it is actually both a supply and a demand problem, and they have allowed the population to grow too rapidly and the people. I mean, it's not their fault, but people coming in need somewhere to live, and there is no way the private sector, even under the most flexible and ideal arrangements, could have built a sufficient number of new homes to accommodate those numbers.
This is the problem. Too many people, too quickly, too few homes. Not enough places in our ambulance. There's literally not enough places in the back of those ambulances, let alone the actual hospital bits. That's our issue every time on this particular subject. Well, as you know, there was a promise that by this time this year it was all going to be different. Now, anywhere else this would
be referred to as a broken promise. But of course you couldn't dare say that about the greatest prime minister of all time, ministers that has put around them. Well, today the Treasurer while trying to lay the booting to any and everyone but himself, trying to pretend that there's going to be a magical.
Fix to inflation.
By the way, even if inflation goes up by less this month than last month, it's still up, which means prices have increased every.
Single month since this mob came to power.
Well, today he admitted that migration will be higher than forecast. I love the way that this is not described as a broken promise. Remember December they promise to cut the migration number. September the number has not been meant. That would be called a broken promise or in grim Jim's case, this garbage.
Well, first of all, those net overseas migration numbers showed that in net overseas migration is coming down. It has already peaked in the past and it's been coming down ever since, and so that's important. And also those numbers are from before our new migration policies ticked in on the first of July. They predated that. So those are a couple of important caveats.
Please please, there's block a million people on their watch, a million people. Before they came in, there still wasn't enough room. Rental accommodation has been difficult to find, let alone an affordable place to live. You add a million people to every single version of every single queue in Australia, everything gets tougher. It means that the scarcity of something means people can charge more for it.
This is all part of.
The overall picture in and around cost of living. But of course they wouldn't dare talk about any of that period Uton bad, Pedioduton bad.
Right.
Meantime, the number of people who are trying to become refugees in Australia, people who are lodging asylum claims, has hit the highest number in multiple years. In fact, in the financial year just gone twenty five, two hundred and ten people claimed asylum in this country, you can see, way higher than the year before, the couple of COVID years, but even higher than it was towards the back end of the liberals time in power. Oh, nothing to see here, right,
nothing to see whatsoever. The problem is, we do see it, you see it. It's why I give you the data. Data, wins, arguments, spin and distraction is how they play.
We deal in the real world.
Of course, the Prime Minister overseas again. Airbus elbow up off and running. Very important reason he had to be not in Washington but in Delaware.
This weekend was a meeting of the Quad.
Which of course is Australia, the United States, Japan and India. Now this is a bit of a sign about either how bad Biden is doing or how.
Little the meeting actually mattered.
He held it at his house, not the White House, not Camp David, but his house in Delaware. Literally, there's somebody else scarpering out the front door. I asked for your caption to this photo, which appeared in the Australian newspaper today. There were some very funny and sometimes very mean reactions to it. I'll show you what you came up with as the description of this photo in a moment or two's time. But let's pick the Prime Minister up yet again being caught lying. Oh sorry, Porcy Pie,
I'm sorry misinformation, Sorry mistruth, Sorry inaccuracy. Sydney is about to get a second airport. Both sides of politics agreed with it. It has been being built over multiple years, little cost biddings dollars, but it will apparently employ thousands and thousands of people and everything will be amazing. Now that's said, there is a little bit of detail that was made when the Prime Minister held a press conference at the under construction airport.
The news was.
Arena Bay will soon be within reach from Badgery's Creek. In a major coup for the new Western Sydney Airport, Singapore Airlines has signed on as its first international carrier. It's a big win for the project, which has already added Quantas and Jetstar for domestic flights.
Now the Prime Minister, when he was the Shadow Transport minister's supported this. He's always backed in the idea because he doesn't like the planes that are flying over his electorate.
I'll get to that in a moment or two time.
But of course he was there high visit everything to pretend that this is a major step forward that you can fly from Sydney to Singapore overnight.
This is a vote of confidence in this airport. I've certainly seen the plans for the airport. It's going to be the best airport in Australia in terms of modern infrastructure, in terms of the way that baggage handling occurs, the smooth transitions through the terminal. Because it is a new airport, it's using up to date technology that will help to drive productive at this site.
I wonder if one of his two private planes will take off from there or whether they'll still remain where they currently are. Well long lead up, here's the punchline. There is no deal. What he stood there and announced as a major step forward is a major vote in
confidence doesn't exist. Reporting this weekend from among others, the Daily Telegraph, Singapore Airlines has the federal government over at barrel because the Prime Minister in the infragrat in Infrastructure Minister Catherine King announced to the company was the first international carrier to sign up to the airport before a
deal had been signed. No commercial contract on the frequency of airlines and the fees involved have been announced before the major announcement was made a couple of weeks ago by the Prime Minister, a move which critics have handed the negotiating power of the.
Foreign airline rather than our own country. Nothing to see here.
For her part, Bridget Mackenzie, who is the coalition's infrastructure spokesperson, has accused like of jumping the gun, saying that Australians know more competition in the aviation industry is needed, requiring more than a press release.
But while we were putting.
Together this one for you tonight went back and saw the original Channel One reporting from a couple of weeks ago, and one of the people who talks up the tourism industry formerly the retail industry, she said this this is.
All about options for the traveling public and for the working community and for the agricultural sectors. So the capacity of this airport to operate twenty four to seven will be a great outcome across the board.
Yes see, that's the dirty detail about this airport that all of its proponents never really want to address. The Western Sydney Airport will be open twenty four hours a day. It means that the noise will be twenty four hours a day over Western Sydney. Now, back when he was a local MP in the opposition, ed Husick opposed it because there would be noise over places like Mount Druitt. There will be noise over places like Penrith in the
middle of the night. Now, if you say fine, fair enough, people have always known an airport was going to be there. Then could somebody please explain to me why the rules are different for the other Sydney airport to make sure that there's no noise over the Prime Minister's turf of the inner West of Sydney.
You see, there's a curfew.
That means there's a limit about what time they can fly in and what time they can fly out. So in Albow's world, you can sleep in peace because there'll be no planes flying over you in Western Sydney, where labor in peace may well be shaken by the Muslim vote. Apparently at this election. I guarantee at the next one, aircraft noise will be the number one issue in Western
Sydney that will threaten labor in peace. Meantime, this week, expect there is going to be yet another decision from the Reserve Bank about whether they are going to make those more rates even higher, even tighter, because the Prime Minister and his idiot Treasurer, well, they have refused to actually do anything about the Australian economy rather than just turning around and pat themselves on the back for how amazing everything is, despite the fact that, as you know,
while the overall economy is not in recession, there is a per capita recession, which means you and I, the workers, the citizens, the self funded retirees, we go backwards.
The Reserve Bank.
Of course, in the United States, it made a decision to cut interest rates last week.
Do not expect that this week in Australia.
It's actually high inflation that is really causing trouble for people, and it's causing trouble for the most vulnerable. If we don't get inflation down. It's bad for everyone, absolutely everyone. If inflation doesn't come down, then it might be that the best medicine is in fact that we have to end up putting more restriction into the economy.
Extraordinary.
By the way, don't take it from me that there's most likely not to be a cut. Here are the four big banks speaking of the Sydney Morning Herald. All four of them say nothing's going to happen at this month's vote. However, we'll see what happens maybe towards the end of the year. Westpac says we continue to expect the Reserve Bank to hold rates next week.
They say it's not going to happen.
Till February next year, thanks the Commonwealth Bank. Well, it says that recent strength and the employment growth had pushed out the bank's expectation of a rate cut from November to December. Thanks ALBO, the National Australia Bank. They don't expect anything to happen until May of next year.
May of next year.
And that's just for the first of potential cuts that are going to be taking place. And the A and Z they expect the Reserve Bank will retain much of the hawkish language in the August meeting and it's communication since put simply nothing till.
February next year.
Now, have you sitting down, because I've got some data for you that is going to win any and every argument about a you better off than you were three years ago at the upcoming federal election. To a third of the country that is paying off its own home, another third that is trying to potentially pay off an investment property because that's what people rent. So basically two thirds of the Australian economy absolutely linked. Higher interest rates
means higher repayments. Yes, for some it does mean higher savings. But have a look at this Channel nine. They put this together where they had to look at the average monthly mortgage repayment. Now, the average mortgage in Australia is somewhere between five hundred and six hundred thousand dollars.
Now you may go.
Sorry, that's because yes, there's lots of units, there's lots of units in regional areas.
But still here's the number worth having a look at. Right, the average.
Monthly repayment in twenty and nineteen was the best part of two thousand, eight hundred dollars, right, give or take about two thousand something a loo. Where it is today, it's four and a bit. It's five and a bit. It's four in a bit. It's four and a bit. It's three and a bit. It's three and a bit. It's three and a bit, it's three in a bit. It's way back up to four and a bit close to for those people, almost double what they were paying.
What was the promise the bloke made before the last election?
What was his promise, by the way, Oh, that's right, it was too that the labor government will lower.
The cost of living.
The reality of a labor government is it's basically almost doubled for some people the amount that they are paying off their mortgage.
Oh but it's all okay.
It's going to slightly come down by maybe a little bit maybe in May next year. Punish them for the way they have run things, not the way they promise to run things. Now, I was the first here to build a cat about the not Misinformation Bill, but the censoring of the Internet bill. You know how much time I've spent talking about it because I think this thing is fundamental to a free and open democracy. Now they're going to try to say that the media is led
off the hook. Well, it's not really about the media. It's about social media. It's also about independent media like certain websites or podcasts or YouTube videos that you might like to watch that may well push back against the official word of the government, the narrative. Now, remember we've seen the federal government used this power in the past when.
It wasn't as explicit as what.
Is being put forward in this piece of legislation, which remember is the second attempt to get this thing to take place. Literally thousands of posts on social media that challenge the COVID narratives, well, they were of course censored. Among those were memes about Daniel Andrews. That's before they had this legislation. So imagine what might be about to happen, or in my view, will happen, should this piece of
legislation make its way through the parliament. Now, of course they say it's all about their favorite m.
Word, misinformation, misinformation, misinformation, the misinformation which is there so misinformation.
But the reality is that there is already very clear laws in Australia about discrimination and about defamation, about inciting people to violence, about trying to overthrow the government, all of which deserve obviously to be policed, no question. But the idea that the facts among which that I have just shown you here that may will be reposted somewhere else on the Internet will be ruled by a lefty think tank at the behest of the government to be
misinformation because the government says otherwise, should frighten everyone. For her part, Michelle Rowland was here on Sky News today and she has a challenge to anyone, including myself, who does not like what is currently being put forward before the Parliament.
She says, read the bill.
Well, let's be very clear. The Coalition can't have it both ways. They've got on their public website at the moment a commitment to introduce legislation to tackle half for missing disinformation, and at the same time they're going out there saying basically that they don't support this. I suggest that the member of Parliament there reads the actual bill. I suggest that he understands precisely what the scope here is when it comes to missing disinformation.
Well, the member that she casually refers to, by the ways the Shadow Minister, no respect given to their equal and opposite number. No, No, they're just unfit. Well, have read the piece of legislation. It's a shocker. Any attempt by this government to go down this path is going to cause major problems. Matt Canavan also has read the bill because he's going to have to vote on it, because he sits in the very chamber that will help
negotiate or otherwise knock it back. He was on Outsiders this morning, and I agree with every word he said.
There's been a remarkable reaction on social media to some of the things I've been doing and others have been doing on this bill. So we need your help too. It's not just a don't just rely on politicians to save you. That's not a winning strategy in my experience.
Absolutely. All right, now, let's talk about America.
But I will try to dial it back a little bit until we bring it back towards the election time. But there's so much info every day, I've got to tell you about it, right. The latest one here is that the Fox News pole tells us the number one issue for voters, and this, by the way, is a.
Poll where Harris is apparently leading.
They say that high prices are still the single biggest motivator about who they're going to vote for, which brings us to one of the weirdest things I have seen in politics. Now we know that there are town halls, and there are town halls. Now there are candidate forums, is what they often get referred to here in Australia,
where they're often run by lobby groups. They know who every person is in the room, they know who the host is, they know what questions will be asked, and worst case scenario, no one in the room is interested in hearing anything up but a positive answer from their favorite politician.
But then there are actual town halls.
These are formal, serious events, like say the People's forums that we run each and every election, where the media organization turns around and tries to find a polling company to try to find legitimately undecided voters and they get to ask whatever questions they want of the two candidates. Kamal Harris, of course, we know, does not want to actually expose ourself to anything but already committed Democrat voters, which is why she had a town hall on her
own website, not on television, on her own website. Where Oprah Winfrey, who of course has been backing Democrats her entire media life, but certainly has been out and about as a Democrat after Obama put his hand up in two thousand and eight. So let's not pretend that she is an honest broken year She is literally you know, like when you watch some of those TV advertorials, it's like, so, tell us more about this incredible product, really, and how could I save more money for my family?
Well, believe it or not. Even in the tightly.
Controlled nonsense that is still available on her YouTube page and produced, of course the appearance of interaction with the public rather than an actual interaction with genuine random members of the public, she couldn't even follow the script if there was one. This was a question that was asked of her by a couple who clearly you can tell want to vote for her. Watch in particular the face of the bloke here.
We really would love to know what your plan is to help lower the cost of living?
What?
Why do you go wrong?
But watching me, I don't have an answer for this? Can you see that? Can we roll again? Watch her face?
Watch how frightened this woman is about answering a question in a scripted forum that is a advertorial because she has no answer on this, We.
Really would love to know what your plan is to help lower the cost of living.
Ah Wow.
Leading in the polls inevitable according to the five point thirty eight model. Well, it's her answer to the scripted question. In the scripted room. They should frighten everyone again. Keep an eye on the blocure when they start to take shots where the wife is trying to be impressed and he's slowly not because this is a buffet of word salad.
Yeah.
First of all, thank you both for being here, and yours is a story I hear around the country as a travel and in terms of both rightly having the right to have aspirations and dreams and ambitions for your family and working hard and finding that the American dream is for this generation and so many recently, far more elusive than it's ben And we need to deal with that.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Now come over here something to show you, you know how the way that Kamala Harris was so amazing in that debate where she sort of was side eyeing Trump the whole time and all of that business, well, we thought that we should get Kamala Harris to review Kamala Harris's word salad for example.
It's a crying shame. I mean, my heart breaks for this community. You know, there were children, elementary school children.
Who it was.
It was school photo day.
You remember what that's like going to school on picture day.
I'm with one of the Kamala's there, the one who's not talking. And what about finding joy?
There are sometimes when your adversaries will try and turn your strength into a weakness. Don't you let them? Don't you let them. I find joy in the American people. I find joy in optimism.
Now, Kamala, what do you think of Kamala saying a lot of words but nothing about you know, safety.
I mean, you can go back to Ohio. Not everybody has secret service. And there are far too many people in our country right now who are not feeling safe. I mean I look at Project twenty twenty five, and I look at you know, like the don't say gay laws coming out of Florida. Members of the LGBTQ community don't feel safe right now.
Really really four years of that place.
But of course, for those in the media who are boosting her up, like this lady on MSNB.
Say she's one of the hosts who you know, if.
You watch the promos. It's all about educating the audience and let's learn more. But if you want to know anything more about Kamala Harris well to chokes on you.
It's not too much to ask Kamala say, are you for a Palestinian state if Hamas is going to run that state?
Okay? Yes or no?
And let's say you don't like her answer. Are you going to vote for Donald Trump?
No, I'm not.
I'm not going to vote.
Not running for perfect, she's running against Trump.
We have two choices, and.
So there are some things you might not know her answer to.
And the little.
Tree is a substantive answer on real questions facing the American people on inflation, immigration, foreign policy, basic things that we used to expect presidential candidates could answer.
Okay, then I would just say that did you ever play the game?
Would you rather?
Because that is what voting for the president is.
I know I'd rather do, which is just hear what she actually is planning to do. But her whole campaign is to pretend that she doesn't have to say what she's going to do, because then she'll be measured against her own lack of performance. Because you see, she's been the co pilot of the American government for almost four years now. She is not running against the incumbent Donald Trump,
she is the incumbent. The fact that this person is surrounded by people where she can't even get the fake advertorial right, I'll give you the tip.
Five years ago.
One of the great honors of my life was to be able to interview an American president, which meant I got to go to the White House, which meant I got to see the Resolute desk, which meant I got to go into the Oval Office and breaking.
News, Kamala, there's no teleprompters in there. Quick break back with more here on.
Paul Murray Life.
Thank you very much for watching.
Hey, before we get to our panel tonight, newspole has just dropped in the Australian newspaper.
It remains fifty to fifty at the two party preferred.
Labour is down on primary to thirty one. The LMP is up on primary to thirty eight. Remember, if they have four in front of it, they will win an election. So as we've seen before with the Redbridge Polly, it's not just a minority government, but potentially a minority government that could run in either direction. Green's ever so slightly up to thirteen percent, one nation down ever so slightly, the six Independence and others currently sitting at twelve percent.
So your preferences matter more than ever before, and they matter at this election. So if you want to go somewhere else, that's fine with one. But two, I say, pick who you want to be the next or current prime minister of the country. One may agree, one may disagree with what I've just said, but let's get to them anyway. James Ashby, of course running for one nation. He is doing so in the seat of Keppel in Queensland and that upcoming queens An election. And Linda's got
us free of all responsibilities but professional and personal. But of course we all know she's label who bootstraps. But I want to start with something not quite as national as these things, quas International as Quad meetings. Interestingly, today The Herald's Sun had an interesting piece about the number of potholes that are turning up all over Victoria and the expectation is that there will be even more of them turning up as the rain bomb comes in the
next little while. Now, Linna, I'm going to start with you the Australian government at all three of its levels gets more revenue than ever before. All right, the share of I know, we've had our discussion about where the local council gets enough forver blah blah blah, but all three levels have more money than ever before. They also
have a lot more to spend than ever before. But what does it say about the fundamental failure of the system and how it has been designed that it is Russian roulette whether a road will or won't have a pothole in it that will or won't damage your car.
Well, a great introduction, but I don't agree with much of what you've said. I mean, we fought very hard as a local government sector when I was the National President up until very recently to ensure there was a real focus on funding and that it came particularly from the federal government. You're right to say, Paul that local government's attract about four percent of the nation's tax take, so in reality the Commonwealth government collects the overwhelming majority.
And we were successful in getting Catherine King and Christy mcbaying to double the amount of Roads to Recovery funding that would go to local government from five hundred million to a billion dollars over the forward estimates. There were also really significant increases in black spot funding, in heading funding. So look, the funding is increasing, let's be clear about this. But also, of course, like everybody's household budget, the costs are increasing and the number of potholes are in many
areas increasing because of the weather. Now I'll get.
We're going to say climate change in potholes.
We'll get lots of abuse for this, but it is true that it is the case that rain bombs, more severe weather, climate change means more potholes, and they're expensive to feel.
But as we have discussed in the past. Right, sorry, James, I promise.
You you're getting ready to go and you're getting on in thirty seconds.
Right.
But Linda, my issue has always been right, which is that I understand that local council needs to have a library, it needs to have a child GISs and it needs to have a swimming all of those things, right, But it also turns around and offers jobs for like one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to people to work on their website or community outreach or diversity offices.
My point is, if you literally don't have.
One hundred and fifty thousand dollars to fix the potholes. How do you have fifteen hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the diversity office.
Well, look, if you don't have one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to support the childcare, then the people who go and fill the potholes can't go to work because they've got no childcare. We saw these kinds of things opening up during COVID and they were really problematic.
So look, the.
Communities need support. What's happening in Sydney is different to my lovely friends in Alice Springs. You've got to fix the potholes. But I want to say these councils need more funding to do that. But it was good for the government under lay about to double the funding for roads to recovery.
The climate change in potholes. James, how will that planning your pun?
Yeah?
Well, I have to admit New South Wales roads are probably the best on.
The East coast.
Queensland dreadful, Victoria not as dreadful, but they're getting worse and you know that the figures speak for themselves. What I found amazing in that report too, is the shelf life of a road is ten years. I didn't realize that, and so therefore they need resheting or ripping up.
And starting again here in Queensland.
You know, for those Victorians who think they'll flee Victoria for better roads in Queensland.
Don't bother. We're worse again.
But when you're paying five million dollars a kilometer to produce roads, now single lane roads here in Queensland, right across the country, this is These are figures that came out in a Senate inquiry in our federal parliament. Five million dollars per kilometer per single lane of road. It's disgraceful where the cost is going. The other point, too, is we are now collecting the most amount in excise that we ever have before.
Fifty point six.
Cents for every leader you put in your car. You chuck that in plus gst on top of it. There's no excuse the money is there, except the fact is that money goes into consolidated revenue. It is not specially dedicated to our roads any longer.
Bloody are such a great point. Any government that actually turned around and offered a bill to quarantine that money, it'd be interesting to see which share way the major parties voted on it. I would be surprised if they went anywhere near it. So let's again talk about renewables
and renewables in regional Australia. Interesting here to see a story on the ABC the past couple of days about the hate plane and about the frustrations that many people have in that part of the world that they're promised the world a great economic this, that and the other.
An investment.
They end up with a logo on a footage Jersey and there's some reports. Again we're focused very much on Victoria to Night, but still in the Golden Planes wind farm, the little bits of the wind farms are actually now starting to break off and people are being told don't go anywhere near the actual blades.
So yet again the bush gets screwed.
So the comfortable people in the cities, particularly the teals, can feel better about themselves.
James, sorry, my.
Bad, Paul. I can't wait for this.
You know, Arriott and a Kubra must be out there right now suggesting they're going to make new hard hats for the farmers out there, buggy wide brimmers. They're going for hard hats that'll be the new brand release by both those companies if they had any sense about their marketing team. But as a pilot, I know what this means. Delamination of a propeller effectively, and that's what these are,
just giant, big propellers. If that happened on an aircraft the same way as it's happening on brand new wind turbines, you'd fall out of the sky and you'd kill people.
One after another. So I hope that.
Aviation are looking at this seriously and do not allow propellers to be made out of the same factor as these wind turbines.
You know, the old slave labor in China, which of course is building many of the renewables.
Look at the facts.
But again Linda here, oh, this is just part of the cost of transition, isn't it. A few things will break along the way.
I don't think that's right. There's got to be standards.
Of course, we worked really hard to get the current federal government to undertake the Dire Review that was the review into the social license of energy providers, particularly renewable energy providers, and one of the recommendations out of that, which we were really proud the government accepted, was to have some standards for renewable energy developers, because let's be really clear about this, you can't have shonky operators in the market, and so those changes are coming into force
and that is going to be really important. But let's also be clear. In Victoria the government has just taken the next step for twelve offshore renewable energy wind farms. There's been a whole lot also approved in New South
Wales off shore twenty k's offshore in the Illawara. These kinds of projects are going to make a huge difference to people's power bills, and in Hey you'll see great local effort to negotiate the conditions so that local people within twenty k's of the farms are getting one thousand dollars back on their power bills every year. They're getting local jobs for decades to come. These are really positive beneficial, economic and environmental outcomes for the community.
I would love to know if you live any near where near one of these things, is that your experience of it?
So me an email polotskunes dot com. That doing you quick break back with.
More predictions for the week ahead, and I want to talk about a solution to noise complaints. I know big small everything. That's the joy of what.
We think is the best show on telling Glad you're watching it every now and then.
And this is the reason why I should follow the Facebook page right where I'll put up a photo that is a news story of the day, and I'll ask for your caption on it. The best ones I'll try and show on the telly. This photo is of the Prime Minister and a parent living President of.
The United States.
This is when they were hanging out at his house today, and I asked for some of the best captions. Many I can't read, but these were cute. Mark says the latest postcard received from the Prime Minister having a great time here at Madame Soussos.
I think that's fine. Julie Moore says, which one's the ventriloquist.
I like that.
That's clever.
Angie Housin says, I put my head close to Joe.
I can hear the sea.
Alistair says, Albo nomics meets Biden nomics. The voices you can hear in the background, of course, either the great James Ashby and Linda Scott.
I thought all of that was very important to hear.
Now, people are very funny they are.
They're very funny and as you know, sometimes going to be a little bit cool. By the way, the cartoon that is up now with Paul and Hanson that James is very heavily involved in it's all about misinformation, is very clever. It's the censoring of the Internet stuff, James.
I think they're pushing it uphill here. But when the hill often involves the Greens who want to shut most things down, or Doormat Dave or you know Lamby who's already said that people like must should go to jail, there is still a path for this nonsense to actually happen.
Yeah.
Do you know what I found most concerning about that interview with Michelle Roland today was the fact that she admitted that this bill that was originally put up with the Liberal National Party. I might just say when they're in government, they may be against it now, but Labor, you know, banging on with.
The idea this has got to go ahead.
But she said in that interview today that this bill meets out international obligations. I'd love to know what those international obligations are and who's requested this?
Is this coming again from the UN?
You know, these are the questions that need to be fleshed out better.
So there is going to be.
Much debate in the Senate because obviously one nation will not be supporting this by the sounds of it.
Matt Canevan said the same thing about the NAW.
But we've got to get to the crux of where this bill originated from and why the hell are we following.
The paymasters over at the UN or someone else.
Internationally as to why this has got to go through it very dangerous bill. You've said it, so many other people in very loaded positions have said it. I know that our friend sitting there at the panel with you is probably going to disagree.
But the reality is this bill should not be.
Passed, Linda. Why should it be passed?
Look, I'm proud not to be on a unity ticket with Elon mask I've said that before. I think it's a good side to be on. Right, this guy is spreading disinformation and misinformation by the day. It's harmful. This bill seeks to find billionaire companies for putting out in the public arena. Seriously harm put disinformation and disinformation.
We'll turn around and say so many of the posts.
A video of this conversation that's rubbish. It's defined by an independent government regulator, which already has job of defining and regulating this kind of misinformation in pay per form. All they're doing is lifting that and essentially saying you can't have harmful, hurtful disinformation and misinformation on the Internet. And I think most parents would say, good. I don't want my child being exposed to this stuff. It's dangerous and it should be regulated by governments.
A couple of fun months before we're done.
I think Virgin is another one of these airlines that's thinking about letting pets onto planes.
Now.
I love Virgin, I'm not going to. I love them, right, and you know I always like to support them because the other one not amazing. However, James, I don't want them. I don't want pets on planes, right like I get it, and the emotional support the Internet, I don't want it.
Right. Whenever you've been lucky enough to fly around America, you know what this is like. Somebody's bringing on their emotional support. Ard varg I don't want to. I want to. Kids are baud enoughing.
I got to, Yeah, we got to welcome, Yeah, we get welcome to country and dogs on planes, and it's a real trifecta. If you get sat beside the big fat bloke who oos is over in your seat two, you know that's me.
I just want to meet your emotional support advert. I'm so for the spring, your dog and your cat on planes, you're only allowed little ones. They're so cute. I just sit there like patting the dog.
Yeah, that's fine, But then the yapping starts.
And if you watch a movie, you get to chat to the person next to you get to pat their cat. I could make it tamala, you know, catch it, but I won show you so good I love it.
Go over, I can say, is yeah, look again, I love him. Good luck. But here's the thing, right, let's imagine where like.
In row thirteen, right, Okay, you're on one side, I'm on the other. Imagine poor James walks in and goes here are my options. I've got this fat bloke on one side and Sheila with a cat on the other, and I'm going to miss thank you so much.
Oh and I'm paying more because it's surging, because I'm flying to watch my team play.
Who would you choose?
James, You'll sit here.
I agree with this bloke but I'm not going to talk to him because he's leading over and I'm definitely not going to agree with this lady.
Now, every now and then you'll.
See a story pop up about noise complaints, and it's always a version of the same thing. Right, building that's been there for decades. Person who has moved in, not decades ago, blowing up about noise that comes from building. Okay, pubs, clubs, bowling clubs, you name it, right, I've got a solution, Linda, tell me, if this is legally possible, all right, why can't we grandfather it in to say existing structures cannot be complained about by anyone who moved in after the structure was built.
Look, there is a possible way to do that. I've got a lawyer, but I councils can do this. And this club in Marrickfield is in the Inner West Council. They've done so much to protect live music. This club. I know it so well. It's a beautiful community club. It's been there for decades. It runs incredible community activities. And what's happened is the neighbors have circulated a bit of paper to all the local residents who have said you know, please lodge your noise complaints like this stuff
does shut down community clubs and live venues. And it's so disappointing to see one or two people because usually that's all this is. It's one or two people making
a tiny complaint. We had the famous example a couple of years ago in Surrey Hills in the inner City, where the Green Senator Lee rih Annon was complaining about play Bar, a club underneath her office that only played gigs at like ten o'clock at night, and she was repetitively making noise complaints about a club belower office at ten o'clock at night and saying she couldn't get work done. It was ridiculous.
So, James, again, my thing is local people in regional Australia go hang on what. I'm not really able to push back against a wind farmer Asola farm, but somebody's able to blow up about a pub that was built twenty years ago.
Yeah, a little bit of tolerance goes a long wi.
I don't know what it is, but by today's standards, have we lost a great deal of tolerance out there? Or what I know you're talking about in Queensland about the fact that you pass on by law. Well, they've done that in Queensland with farming. So if a new housing estate's gone in beside a farm and then neighbors start to complain about dust or whatever might be going on at the farm, tough luck. You moved in after that farm was already established. You've got to live with it due diligence.
Now I've got.
Twenty seconds betweens, five seconds each, Linda Bold prediction.
Mates once running the AFL Grand Finals. Such a good week for Sydney. We're going to beat all those Victorians and the Queenslanders go the monke.
Did you the Red and the White? All right, are you? James?
Jim Charmers.
He's just said that they've allowed whoops more people into the country, so population growth is going to be a hot topic this week.
Bloody.
Thank you guys, do appreciate it. We'll see you all again very soon. Thank you very much. Our show for tonight Royal Report coming up, and don't forget be here each and every night, nine o'clock Eastern for Paul Murray Life