Live on Sky News.
This is Sharry.
Good evening and welcome to the program. Caleb Bond with you for the rest of the week. Well tonight, the Greens admit they were never a Green party and instead just a group of extreme left radicals. Might take on that in a moment. Also tonight, Australian journalists caught up in the chaos as Iran launched its attack on Israel. Or your Mendez will join me live from Tel Aviv. Plus what's next in this new phase of war? Terror expert Greg Barton coming up shortly and a clear winner
in the one and only vice presidential debate. But did it move the needle? The Australian's Adam Crichton live from Washington a little later. Now, if you want to know who the Greens are, just ask them. I've previously lamented that the Greens have morphed from an environmentalist party, you know, tree hugging and all that carry on, to a socialist, extreme left crack pot outfit, and the federal government has
been trying to suggest the same thing. Recon This was the Prime Minister Anthony Albanezi last Monday.
So Adam Bant has changed the way that the Green's political Party operate. They don't talk about the environment anymore. They talk about some extreme agenda they seek to divide.
A few days later, on Thursday, Environment Minister Tanya Plibosek told our Laura Jay is much the same thing.
I don't think the Green's political Party are the party of Bob Brown anymore. The idea that Max Chandler may would spend more time defending John Setka and the bikey infiltration of the CFMU than he spends defending the environment, I think tells you all you need to know about the modern Greens. I just don't think this is a party of environmentalists anymore.
She then repeated the same lines that afternoon on two GB.
In recent years, what you've seen is it's not the party of Bob Brown anymore. It's not a party of environmentalists anymore. It's actually a party of I think you described it as anarchists. I don't get some of the positions they're taking really are completely contrary to things that they've stood up for in the past and argued for.
Clearly, this is a message that the government is trying to drive that the Greens have moved away from environmentalism into wacky territory because they're worried, particularly in the city MPs like Albanesi and Plibasic, that they are under threat from the Greens. And I'm sure a lot of people do look at the Greens and see the same and go, well, they're a greenee party and worried about climate change. That sounds good enough for me. But it seems I was wrong.
They haven't changed. They were never just an environmentalist party now. They were formed from an amalgamation of green groups from across the country and Bob Brown, best known for farting against dams and forestry in Tasmania, essentially built the party that we know today. And he told the Sydney Morning Herald today that the Greens haven't changed at all. It's
actually labor that has somehow lurched to the right. He said, quote the electric accept that the Greens are the best party for the environment, but what I'm seeing now is the electorate seeing more and more that the same applies for social justice. It's an evolution of understanding. The Greens haven't changed or abandoned their aims, They've just evolved. Brown went on, Anthony Albanzi is turning out to be the least environmentally minded labor prime minister in a long time.
It's a bit tragic that even Tanya Plibersek, who hasn't turned out to be a strong environment minister, is having the ground cut from underneath her repeatedly by the Prime Minister. He even said Albanzi was quote sounding like a right wing National Party apparachik.
When he talked about the Greens.
The Greens of today are, according to Bob Brown, still the Greens of his day, the party of Max Chandler Matha, who appeared at a rally in support of the cfmy U in August after the Union was accused of being overrun by bikies and other criminal thugs, where people waved signs showing the Prime Minister with a Hitler mustache calling him alber Nazi, the party of Marine Feruki, who pulled off this pathetic stunt in the Senate just a month after the October seven terrorist attacks on Israel.
You are not condemning Israel. You refuse to call for an immediate cease fire. Well, we are not going to sit here and watch you bat yourselves on the back for doing nothing. Welworths are not going to stop war crimes. Today we bring the people's protest into Parliament.
Free Free Palestine.
Thank you Senator Faruki, Minister Farrell.
That was a statement, So.
Order order Senator Hanson.
Later that month she stood next to a sign that said keep the world clean and showed the Israeli flag being thrown in a bin. The Party of Jenny Leong who invoked Nazi era anti Semitic propaganda. Their tentacles reach in to the areas.
That try influence power, and.
I think that we need to call that out.
And expose it.
The party that is so shortsighted that it thinks freezing rents will somehow magically help the housing crisis instead of encouraging fewer people to invest in the housing market, whether that be putting existing houses up for rent or building new ones for people to rent in the future. In fact, if you go to their website, they name six big policy platforms. The first two are freeze rents and interest rates and stop supermarket price gouging. Then we get to
an environmental policy, stop labour's coal and gas. Then end the invasion of Gaza dental and mental health into medicare, and free union tafe hover over the hour plan tab on their website and the first thing, listen, it isn't about the environment, it's truth and Treaty where they say that sovereignty has never been seeded. All of this far left, economically illiterate policies have nothing to do with the environment. And Bob Brown, the renowned environmentalist, says this is still
the party he led. The Greens are a stalking horse for radical left wing socialist ideology cloaked in environmentalism, and if we take mister Brown at his word, that was the plan all along. A lot of people still think of the Greens as a green party, but they're not. They don't want to be, and they never intended to be. They're not going to correct course back to an environmental party.
This is all part of the design and that might come as a bit of a surprise to a lot of people who got involved with the Greens two or three decades ago to fight for the environment. They should just be honest, rename themselves to the socialist party, watermelons green on the outside and read on the inside. To keep calling themselves the Greens, I think is fraudulent. And if we end up with a hung parliament next year. They won't just have labor over the barrel on the environment.
It'll be the most extreme socialist stuff you can imagine. They haven't changed, They've just ridden on the coattails of environmentalism long enough and built up enough support to finally drive the radical agenda they want, and Bob Brown has admitted it.
Now.
The New South Wales Police are going to the Supreme Court to stop pro Palestinian rallies on October the sixth and seventh. Monday will be the first anniversary of the October seven terror attacks on Israel, the biggest single slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. Of course, now there will be a protest on Sunday the sixth and a vigil on Monday the seventh.
Is what we are told.
So the protest organizers followed the correct procedures in advising the police of their intention to test, but the police believe, given the dates in question, that they cannot be conducted safely and want to stop them. Both the Human Rights Law Center and Amnesty International have today called for the police to withdraw their application to the court, claiming it would inhibit the right to protest. The Palestine Action Group is organizing the events, and their spokesman Josh Lees, said
they would go ahead regardless of what happens. He said, quote, if we need to, we will fight this in court, and we are confident actually that we would win this in court. Even if we were to lose that case, we would go ahead with our protest, no regard for the law and their vigil on October seven, the day that one one hundred and thirty nine people were killed
by Hamas terrorists, is not for those victims. It's for people who've been killed in Gaza since Lee said, it's outrageous that the authorities would attempt to ban people's right degree for their loved ones and family members who've been killed forty two thousand of them in Gaza, nearly two thousand in Lebanon. Now, No, what is outrageous is that you would take the day of a terror attack that emanated from Gaza and then use that to protest against the war that it created.
This shouldn't even be a question.
It shouldn't be a matter of whether you consider yourself pro Palestine or pro Israel. It shouldn't matter whether you oppose the war. To hold a protest on the day before the anniversary of the terror attack, and a vigil on the anniversary of the terror attack, but not a vigil for the Jews in Israelis who were killed on that day is repugnant and inflammatory. You have the right to protest, and you should always have the right to protest.
You're allowed to protest against the war, and they've been doing so for a year. I will defend your right to protest if you do it within the bounds of decency. You don't disrupt other people's lives, no matter how much I might disagree with you. That's just the way things ought to be. But holding rallies on October six and seven is not protesting. It's a slap in the face to the innocent people who were slaughtered on October seven and their families. It is the glorification of terrorism, pure
and simple. The organizers knew exactly what they were doing when they planned this. It's divisive, it's inflammatory, and it looks for all the world like they are supporting what happened on October seven. The support and glorification of Islamis terrorism cannot be allowed in any way. It is disgusting, it is dangerous. It has the potential to incite violence.
You can't claim to be protesting against the loss of civilian lives in Gaza when you won't even let Jews and Israelis observe the anniversary of the slaughter of the innocent friends and family in peace. Dare you hijack such a horrible day? You can protest any other days of the year. Why choose October the sixth and seventh unless you support what happened.
Nearly a year ago.
Anyone who rocks up to these rallies next week, regardless of the decision of the Supreme Court, should hang their head in shame. Joining me now is former Labor minister Graham Richardson and Scarne New's contributor Gary Hardgrave.
Gents welcome, rich O.
What do you make of a ground coming out today basically saying the Greens are still the Greens that I led all those years back then?
I think I think that's rather pathetic. I had a lot to there with Bob Brown way back when, and there were Greens involved, but they've been gradually pushed out of the party. It's now the hard left party of Australia. It's got very little to do with saving trees and everything to do with an agenda that most Australians would find to use the word you just use repugnant.
But shouldn't we take him at his word?
Gary, I mean, he's essentially admitting here that they never were just a Green party. They're an extremelyft party. They now have enough support to do it without particularly worrying about getting the environmentalists offside.
Look, Caleb and rich are great to be with you both. Let me say that the Greens are exactly what they were always set out to be, and that is internationalists. They don't actually care about Australia. They're trying to take on Western civilization. Kill at Stone dead. They've used the environment, which rich O and I we were all on a unity ticket. We care about the environment, but we actually care about our way alive, and we care about our freedom.
We care about the civilization has delivered us thus far.
We're going to have a debate about things.
But these people don't want anybody to have anything to say except them.
And it is an internationalist.
It is against countries like ours, it's against our civilization.
These people are the stalking horses.
They are, as rich I said, the extreme left of Australia and anything extreme is bad and we've just got a much more egalitarian approach to the world than these people, and everything you've said, Caleb is spot on.
I'm really pleased to be with you tonight, well up in.
Your state of Queensland, Garry.
Of course, we saw today that Stephen Marles, the Labor Premier, says he would actually do a deal with the Greens if it to secured him government again. And you know we always hear leaders say, oh, we won't do any deals with anyone, but you can bet your bottom dollar that if Anthony Albanizi is steering down the barrel of forming government or not on the Greens of what stands in the way, he will do it and that will
be dangerous for all of us. Now, going back to what I was talking about before, with these pro Palestine protests, there's a woman today has been charged after allegedly waiving a his Bala flag at last week n's protest in sid The police said that the nineteen year old handed herself in because they put out photographs of are imploring
her to come in and do so. And I mentioned before these idiots who are planning to protest on October the sixth and seventh in Sydney, even if the Supreme Court tells them not to, Richo, how could anyone possibly rock up to a quote unquote pro Palestinian protest on the sixth or seventh of October without being there to essentially say that they support the slaughter of Jews that occurred on October the seventh.
But they very actively do support that slaughter. That's what's so terrifying to me about all of this. These people have no problem sitting back and actually agreeing with the death, the gruesome death of hundreds of people. I mean, I'll find that just bizarre. How can you do that? No civilized person can possibly do that.
As I said before, Gary, one of their organizers, said, if we need to, we will fight this in court, and we are confident actually that we would win in court. Even if we lose that case, we are going to go ahead with our protests. Now, assuming that the Supreme Court says that this cannot go ahead, the coppers should be down there on the weekend rounding up every single one of these people and putting them in a cell.
And if there is anyone there who is.
Seeming to be in support of October seventh, who is here on a visa. As far as I'm concerned, they should be sent packing.
Yeah.
Look, and even if they've got permanent residency, you can make a temporary and you can deal with those less substantial visas pretty fast.
They should go.
Look, I think people have come to this country to cause this trouble right now, And Cayleb, I think some of the organizers are heavily influenced by foreign agents who are now living amongst us. It's pretty simple. They are attacking Western society. These people don't care about how laws. They are a law under them, so they'll do everything they can. And look, I defend people's rights to free speech, but you've got to have responsibility for it. And the taste associated with this is really.
Wrong, Calyb.
This is not a pro Palestine thing, This is not a pro Gaza thing, This is not a pro Muslim thing. These are terrorists and supporters of terroris who are taking us on.
We've got to take them on. And this is many criticism.
The Prime Minister is kind of all over the place, you know, and if you don't know where you're going anywhere, it will take you there. That was what George Harrison's saying years ago, and I think that's kind of where we're at. We are leaderlests on this stuff. We need to sharpen our result to stand up to this nonce.
Here here now, the NDAs Minister Bill Shorten has put out this long list of unproven therapies and alternative treatments that are now going to be officially banned from the National Disability Insurance Scheme. We knew this was coming. But amongst the things that you won't be able to claim sex work, cuddle therapy, whatever the hell that is sounds
quite nice, crystal and tarot card reading. You won't be able to get vapes anymore, though you know, you could just go down to the local tobacconist and by an illegal one, because that's what Albo wants you to do. Sidekicks have been taken off the list. You won't be able to go on holidays, you won't be able to gamble your money, you won't be able to get tattoos. I mean, you know, rich Oh, I'm glad that these
things have been struck off the list. But the extraordinary thing is that they were a there in the first place, and be that they were allowed to stay there for so damn long.
Yeah, it's pretty I look at things like that and you wonder, how could it have ever developed into that? I don't understand in this country in particular, this is just so foreign and so alien to our way of life?
Why would will let it go by?
And Gary, of course, when you look at the unemployment statistics at the moment, you look at all the jobs that have been created in the last quarter or so, most of those jobs have been created in either aged care or the NDIS. So employment's not as good in this country as we think it is. We're essentially just propping it up through this massive government scheme that is totally out of control. This is a good start, but my god, there's a lot more work to do on the NDIS.
Gary, Well, look, let me say I chair us an advisory group for an NDIS provider, so I'll put that up front. And what I know is forty two billion dollars of taxpayers funds used to be distributed to state governments. It's now in the hands of individuals to purchase things that are prescribed as suitable for them and their particular disability and their circumstance. Right, So that's the theory behind it. But look in practice, some of these providers have done
some pretty ordinary things and I think it's great. I think any legitimate NDIS provider would welcome what Bill Shorten has done here.
And it had to be sharpened up, it had to be tidied up.
This is meant to make a difference for individuals, and the fact that some are exploiting it, well, look that's what happens.
But government's got to crack down. And good on Bill Shorten for doing.
It, I say, indeed, I mean, it's just so out of control it's not even funny. The nrama came out today or the insurance chief came out today and said that batteries in electric vehicles should be tested as part of road worthiness tests. She says that it'll help quell driver fears that their cars you won't suddenly combust and hopefully make the rest of us safer, which she thinks
will ultimately lead to a higher uptake of evs. I'm not so sure about that, but Julie Batch says that it should just be standard if your car is being assessed for road worthiness. I think she's right in so far as saying that Richo. We know that these lithium ion batteries can be extremely dangerous. Every second day we sort of seem to see a fire caused by them, whether it be a car or an electric bike, or.
A vapor or something or another.
I'm surprised they're not assessing this stuff already.
I think we've had a concern about this for some time, but for some reason, we've not been very good at putting legislation in place to protect ourselves. And this is one thing you need to be getting protection from. You know these things are dangerous, that the lithium batteries are not stable, and there's been too many examples. It's not as if there's one or two. There's examples right across the board of these things blowing up. Well, I don't want them blow up anywhere in near me.
I don't blame you, nor do the Chinese Gary, which is a lot of these cars are coming out of China. Now there are hotels and apartment buildings and whatever in China Gary that are now banning evs from being put in their underground car parks because they were a dole joints going to be set on far.
Yeah, I think there's enough lemons and bombs on the road already. We don't need a few more.
But look, the other thing about it, kayleb, is that some of these cars are so done heavy. I don't know whether some of the structures that we're expecting them to go into iron I mean, could you imagine some of these car parks that are rated for a standard internal combustion engine car and then you've got something going to be two and three times here there and hundreds of them in a car park. I'm just saying to
you there's a lot of consequences to this. These batteries in these cars bloody heavy, and I don't know whether some of the structures are actually built for it.
Now.
Not a structural engineer, but I just simply say there's a lot of aspects to this rush.
To these evs we need to look at.
Yes, indeed, just very quickly, Gary, before we go. Your Premier Stephen Miles said today that he'd start a publicly owned electricity retailer if he wins the election, which is highly unlikely. But the funny part of it is that the energy generation is already owned by.
The state government. I mean, what a hair brained idea.
Yeah, Well, we used to have state owned butcher shops in Queensland one hundred years ago, so anything is possible. It's a very big state. It's decentralized. We want to try and do things. Look, I understand what they're trying to say, but the pitch is this putting a government controlled and government owned a retailer into the mix. Well, they've already got one north of Gimpi all the way through the rest of the coins and there's only one provider.
I don't know.
They're going to have government competing with government, so the whole thing's like a thought bubble that's suddenly going to swallow them whole.
Whether they win or lose, I don't know.
They're competitive enough, and you know, two horse race, one of them's got to win.
We'll see.
Yeah, well they want to win power, that's for sure. Gary Hardgrave, Graham Richardson, thank you for your time. Well, a new phase of the war in the Middle East has begun now that Iran has launched about two hundred rockets against Israel. Now, most of those missiles were shot down by Israel's sophisticated air defense system, the Iron Dome, but it's believed that some of them were able to hit the territory and the Australians Liam Mendez and Yoni Bashan were caught up in the chaos.
Have a look at this.
Right there.
Well, that's going on for us, said four years coming, missiles all the way, Cars are pulled over on the side of people on the stomachs. We come on.
This freeway has come to the side, approx. Me one hundred and two missiles, one hundred and two.
Hundred and two.
Incredible scenes that I'm joined now by Liam Mendez live from Tel Aviv. Liam talks through what you went through today or yesterday.
I should say, good evening, Caleb, thanks for having me. Well, my colleague Yonni Bashan and I we've been in Tel Aviv for the last couple of days. We're here in the lead up to the October seventh anniversary, which is approaching, and we were just out in Tel Aviv when we are received a notification that there was a terrorist attack
happening not too far away from our location. So we started heading there and then after that is when we started receiving a few more alerts telling us that essentially Iran were launching an attack. Now this was an attack that we'd been notified of a couple of hours earlier, at about three pm. My Yonnie had received a bit of a heads up on this, and so we were sort of anticipating it a little bit, but we didn't
really expect it to be this large. It was almost two hundred rockets, some of them with these were ballistic missiles sent from Iran into Israel.
I suppose this is not foreign to people who live in Israel. It's certainly not the first time they've seen this in The Iron Dome does a great job.
And I know Liam that you're.
Not afraid to put yourself in hairy situations, but what was going through your head as you were taking cover?
I mean, yeah, that's ry.
We've all seen footage of the Iron Dome, but it's quite an extraordinary sight to be seeing it in person. You see these they look like flares, but these are little rockets going up into the into the air and intercepting these these missiles that have been sent over by Iran, and it was it was quite surreal to watch this interception. It's something out of Star Wars, and you know, I think it was just we sort of got into this mode where we just wanted to capture exactly what was
happening on the ground here. You know, we're very lucky to be here, to be able to tell the stories here and bring these stories to our raiders.
Lea Mindez, keep safe.
Thank you for your time, and you can follow his reporting in The Australian. He is a gun young reporter and following that attack on Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin nittan Yahoo has warned it was a big mistake.
He's vowing to retaliate. Have a listen.
Iran made a major mistake this evening and it will pay for it. The regime in Iran just doesn't understand our determination to defend ourselves and our determination to retaliate to our enemies. Sinwar and death did not understand that in Australia and Musen did not understand that, and I guess there are those who do not understand that in teh Run.
US President Joe Biden has also offered his support.
The attack peers to have been defeated and ineffective, and this is testament Israeli military capability and US military.
Make no mistake.
The United States is fully, fully, fully supportive of Israel.
Let's get some expert analysis. I'm joined now by dec University Global Islamic Politics Chair Professor Grigg Barton. Greg is this essentially a declaration of all out war?
No, okay, I'm not yet. It's thankfully well short of that. Strangers that may seem. It still seems to be the case that neither Israel nor Iran want in all out war.
Israel would have the better of Iran.
Iran and for its bluff and blusters, looking more like a paper tiger. But the trip now is to manage what happens next. There has to be some sort of retaliation as a promise and has.
Said without escalation. I mean, the.
Struggle against his Bulla is going to tax all of Israel's resources. That doesn't need to be dealing with Iran at the same time. And Iran can't afford to get drawn into something bigger. So let's hope they find an off ramp for this.
Will you say Iran can't afford to get drawn into too something bigger? What would it look like for Iran if this did escalate?
Well, the worst case scenario is a regional war with direct strikes in Iran, which would be which can certainly devastate the regime, but it would come with a tremendous civilian casualties.
You know, most Iranians loathe this regime.
They're stuck with it. They have no choice. They know that it destroys their country. You know, they live with the difficulties or economy every day because of this regime. Let's hope that become victims of it. If this regime takes them mental lar Irani vulnerable. It doesn't have the defense systems to affect itself against aerial assaults if it comes to that, So it knows that hopefully that's enough to defer it from going further.
Now, of course, all of this has been triggered by Israel's incursion into living On because they want.
To push back his bla.
Hezbilla, like the Hooties, is funded by Iran. Iran has seen. It's a warning shot, if you want to call it that, for Israel trying to push hez Balah back.
But where to from here?
For Israel, they're not going to give up on this, and nor should they. If this continues, not only Lebanon but Iran.
How far could they go?
That's a really good question, you know, one of the reasons that Iran is feeling or the euragim I should say, it is feeling that it's lost face.
It has to do something. Hence the missile strikes today.
Is the assassination of Ismail Hania important to them, not so much because they care about Ismail Hania, this former Hamas leader, but because it happened in a Islamic revolutionary guards called VIP guest house, where it appears a explosive device was planted a well ahead of time, which means that their intelligence structure is being penetrated by the Israelis.
And of course that's now been brought home that the Israelis penetrated the intelligent structure of his buller, probably because of his boy's involvement in supporting the Basha all aside in Syria. It gave them a chance to really get deep inside their social networks obviously their supply chaines as miss all of the pages and the walkie talkies, but also to locate the precise location of the bunker huss and Ustraller and senior lieutenants were in and take it out.
So that must be very chilling for the Regiamentehran. So on the one hand, they want to respond and show themselves to be strong. On the other hand, they fear going too far and you know, perhaps finding that there's more pre planted explosive devices or targeted assassinations on senior leaders.
Greg, thank you so much for your time still to come. Victoria's housing crisis ranked the worst in the country.
I'll tell you why shortly.
Plus, the last debate of the US election had everyone talking.
So who won it? And will move the needle?
As Americans prepared to head to the polls, Washington correspondent Adam Crichton will join me to break that down next.
Don't go away.
Now.
I'm sure like me.
You had your popcorn out this morning. May be a sneaky beer as well. You know, it's twelve o'clock somewhere because the vice presidential nominees faced off for their one and only debate, which will probably be the last debate of this entire elect So Tim Waltzon JD. Vance spent ninety minutes clashing over the Middle East, abortion, in the economy, but the most entertaining questions when both candidates were asked about comments they'd made in the past.
Have a look, Senator Vance. In twenty sixteen, you called your running mate Donald Trump unfit for the nation's highest office, and you said he could be America's hitler.
Sometimes, of course, I've disagreed with the President, but I've also been extremely open about the fact that I was wrong about Donald Trump.
Governor Walls, you said you were in Hong Kong during the deadly Teneman Square protests in the spring of nineteen eighty nine, but Minnesota Public Radio and other media outlets are reporting that you actually didn't travel to Asia until August of that year. Can you explain that discrepancy.
I've tried to do the best I can, but I've not been perfect, and I'm a knucklehead at times.
Indeed a knuckle hit.
I'm sure lots of people might agree with that. And then when it came to fact checking, he happed the JD. Evans by the way he wasn't having it. He pushed back by explaining why the moderators were wrong.
Take a look for our viewers, Springfield, Ohio does have a large number of Haitian migrants who have legal status temporary protected Laura, thank you, Senator. We have so much to get to.
I think it's important to turn out of the economy. Thanks Margaret.
The rules were that you got we're going to fact check, and since you're fact checking me, I think it's important to say what's actually going.
On, Mike Drop.
I mean JD events wiped the floor with Tim Waltz. He was composed, he was calm. He easily dismantled the attacks leveled by Waltz and at times the moderators. He just looked like he knew what he was doing much more than Waltz did, which is probably not a surprise because Vance does a lot of interviews all the time, including with lefty media outlets, so he knows how to deal with their attacks. Well, I'm joined now by The Australian's Washington correspondent Adam Crichton. Adam, what do you make
of my assessment? I think JD did a really good job today.
Yeah.
Look, I think at one hundred percent I agree with you spot on there. I mean it was a very good debate for JD.
Evans.
I mean I think he probably exceeded expectations. I mean lots of people are saying that you know that Tim Waltz was at an unfair advantage, but I mean, remember he is twenty years older than JD.
Evans.
He's had a lot more experience as a politician, so he should have done better.
But I mean he had a lot of clangers.
I mean you highlighted one. I think another one that needs to be mentioned, and I really felt sorry for Waltz is when he accidentally said that he'd become friends with.
School shooting Well, you mentioned that, Adam Marrion, you mentioned that. Let's I've got the clip here, let's play the clip here is Tim Waltz.
You previously opposed an assault weapons ban, but it only later in.
Your political career did you change your position.
Why?
Yeah, he's set in that office with the Sandigog parents. I've become friends with school shooters. I've seen it.
Oh no, so painful.
It was terrible, terrible, terrible, And of course that's gone viral. I mean, of all the statements in the debate, that's the one I think that people are going to remember, especially if they've been using social media. I mean, Donald Trump even took advantage of it. Certainly, I think the ninety minute debate has given Republicans a lot of confidence in this fifth week out from polling day. Certainly that's the case whether it actually moves the needle, it's probably
not going to. I did note that in those few snap polls that CNN RN that CBS ran, they asked people if the debate had changed their mind, and only one percent of people said that it had, So I think by this stage a lot of people have made up their mind. But nevertheless, it was a great night for theirs. It was a good night for Republicans, and I probably think Democrats were thinking. Some of them would have been thinking, I wish we had have chosen Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania.
But anyway, yeah, I'm sure.
They were going to say that as ordinary as Tim Woltz was, I was watching that debate in part thinking, imagine if these two were the presidential nominees. Because the debate they had today was not a slanging match. It wasn't a personality contest. They actually debated the policy. You didn't have the personal attacks you had between Trump and Barden and then Trump and Harris. They actually had a lot of common ground and conceded points to each other.
It was conciliatory politics, and I was watching, going, my god, this is what has.
Been missing from US politics for a long time.
Yeah, look, certainly, that's right. I thought exactly the same thing. It was really HARKing back to a different era. And I suppose it's a basis to be confident for the future of US politics once the Trump era passes. I mean, I also had the thought that really Advances are better candidate than Trump, or has I thought? But you know, I mean, he's certainly, I think, at least a future president in the making.
And you know, he had a very good night yea.
Indeed, look and if Trump doesn't get up in November, you'd have to think that in twenty twenty eight they'd be looking very seriously at Advance after that performance. He is just polished and professional and young and everything that I think the Republicans need to be looking towards.
Adam, thank you for your time.
After the break, China's blunt message on Taiwan in Adelaide, that story coming up, plus the renewables row is heating up as Labour and the Coalition prepare for the looming election. Tonight's political panel joins me next. So much more to get through tonight, So let's get straight into the political news of the day. We're meant to have a panel, but to Liberal MP Andrew Wallace has sort of disappeared into the ether somewhere, so we'll try to get him back.
But in the meantime we're joined by Labour MP Daniel Molino. Daniel the Herald Son is reporting today that detectives are on the hunt for eight activists who were allegedly involved in that violent Landforces Expo protest or Day Days of protests that we saw in Melbourne last month.
This is the bastion task.
They put out the photos of these people in the hopes that someone might recognize and let's hope they are found and if so, that the police press charges because what we saw on those days, things being thrown at police, horses, etc.
Was horrific.
Oh hi, Caleb, and thanks for having me on look. I totally agree that there's something contradictory and in a lot of ways ridiculous about undertaking very violent acts in trying to argue for peace, and what we saw at those demonstrations and some other demonstrations has been really over
the top. And as you identified, we had dangerous liquids thrown at horses, marbles thrown at horses, violent acts against the police and others, and I think it's imperative that we do find people that have not only undertaken actions that fly in the face of what they're arguing for,
but that in cases are illegal. And I might just add that this is something that I've raised on this show before that my electorate office has, in fact, like a number of other electric officers, has been subject to violent actions, smearing by paint and broken glass.
And similarly, it's very.
Important that people who undertake those kinds of actions are held to account.
Well, if they're not held to account, they just continue doing it. They get away with it. It's a bit like the crazy eco activists who keep blocking coal trains and things like this.
I mean, you know, they do it.
They vandalize a building, they glue themselves to the road, whatever it might be. They go off to court, they get given a four hundred dollar fine, and then they go out and do it again the next day. I mean, an example needs to be made of these people to say, if you try this on, we ain't going to take it.
Well.
I think one of the messages that comes through in some of these protests, and one that I agree with, is that there are rules in war, but ironically, there have got to be rules in the way that we undertake debates in our community. There have got to be rules in public protests.
Also.
If we don't abide by basic rules such as not being violent, such as not intimidating people. If we don't abide by those kinds of rules, it threatens our very civil society, It threatens democracy. So I think we have to set up basic rules. I think all of us agree with freedom of speech. It's absolutely foundational to our society, to our ability to express ourselves, to the strength of our democracy. But there have to be rules as to how we engage in debates.
Now we do have Andrew Wallace back with us, but we only have the audio at the moment. I want to get into Jim Charmers, the Treasurer. He's pumping up his economic record to say its frankly a wild claim that the coalition government would have run up fifty five and a half billion dollars worth of deficits instead of surpluses. He's told The Australian that if he had banked around forty percent of revenue you upgrade the average under the Abbott Turnbull Morrison years, his budget would be.
In the red.
But Andrew, I'm not sure it's entirely fair, given you have to take into account COVID.
You're a spending is it?
Well, Caleb, I just don't think anybody can believe what Jim Charmer says. I mean, this is the guy that constantly talked about the coalition government allegedly ringing up a trillion dollars worth of debt. But we know that that was a bold faced lie because it was nothing like that. It was closer to five hundred billion dollars And of course that is a lot of money, but it's half of what Jim Charmers went to the last election. In fact,
he's even been talking about it since then. But it doesn't take into account the enormous spending that the then coalition government had to do to bring the country out of its worst economic crisis is the Great Depression during COVID, and it was Jim Chalmers.
That was encouraging us to be putting.
More money, borrowing more money to put into the economy. So you know, it's a bit rich for Jim Charmers to be coming out and saying this.
Now, Daniel, your response, Oh, look what I'd say first and foremost is I think it's really important in these debates about surpluses and defasts just to remember we're not trying to achieve surpluses for their own sake. Here, they're not an end. Why we're achieving surpluses is to try and put downward pressure on inflation, which is critical to getting to the point where we can see interest rates fall.
And I just wanted to say that Michelle Bullock, who appeared in front of the committee that I chair, has reinforced that the surpluses that we're delivering have been helping with that. I think the point with the savings of the uplift is simply to make the point that the surpluses that we've delivered in the first two years were on the back of identifying savings but also banking a very high proportion of the fiscal uplift, and that was
responsible economic management. And I think that's the core point that's being made indeed.
But Michelle Bellot did also say that some high government spending was one of the contributors to inflation. So yes, banking a surplus mean means that there is less spending, but spending could go down further. I think is part of the point here as well.
In your state.
Though, Victoria's so go on, Daniel, you're going to respond there with no, that.
Was me cann So I was just going to say, in relation to that point of Daniels, the Labor government wants to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
Here.
It's doing everything it can to drive into the ground the mining and resources sector. Without the mining and resources sector, Australia's Australian's quality of life.
Will suffer dramatically.
So I think that the benefits that have been bequeathed to Jim Chalmers as treasure of this country have in no small part been as a result of the great work of the mind industry. And that's I just don't know how he or the Labor government expect to be able to continue to provide the sort of services that are striving and demand when they do want to kill the goose that laid the golden neck.
Now, two things to get through very quickly here, Daniel. In your state, Victoria, you've been ranked the worst out of all the states when it comes to tackling the housing crisis and the Allen government's refusal to wind back property taxes has seen industry confidence.
Plummet in the sector.
It's put to me by people in Victoria who own property that they feel like they are an enemy of the state. Very quickly, Daniel, what's your response to that.
So just don that I saw some of the commentary around that today and look, I did see some commentary from the Property Council, for example, in an article that got a bit of coverage. I mean, I would also say that I agree with commentators, including the Property Council, who say that this is really ply side issue. I'd note that the Property Council have also come out and said that it is really important that we get measures
in place like Bill to Rent. The Property Council backed in the half as a really important supply side measure, so they've actually been backing the work of the federal government. And it's very frustrating that we have two bills in the Senate stuck with the opposition and the Greens playing political games and stopping measures which I think go right to the heart.
Of this issue.
And quickly before we go, Andrew, there's a Chinese diplomat has warned that the Taiwan question is at the core of Beijing's interest.
He said the.
Family reunion is not complete without all family members, including Taiwan. This is South Australia's Consul General Lee Dong. He made these comments at a Chinese national dinner that were hosted by Premier Peter Malinowskis thirty seconds Andrew.
He stood up at a dinner.
That the States put on for him and told the state how things should go.
Well and if he he had his way, that the Labor Premier in South Australia and the Prime ministry of this country would be dancing to the tune.
But look, I was in Taiwan in April.
They are a very important democracy, one of our largest trading partners, despite their relatively small size.
It is imperative that.
We continue to support Taiwan as a free and open democracy. And I think we need to be pushing back both against the hyperbole of the Chinese government in relation to its desire to want to reunify Taiwan by force if necessary.
Daniel Molino Andrew Wallace, thank you for persisting and thank you for your time. Well, whose energy is cheaper? That's the latest argument between Labor and the coalition, So they try to Sway vote as ahead of an imminent election. We'll get into all of that next.
Now.
We saw a US government report earlier in the week which said that energy generation and transmission costs thirty seven percent less when renewables and nuclear are combined. Will Chris Bowen hit back rather predictably. Sorry, today, you said that if the Opposition ever gets around to doing their day job and releasing honest costings, that it will be clear that renewables are cheaper than nuclear every time, the cheapest form of energy anywhere. Apparently, Well, let's bring in The
Australian's Environment editor, Graham Lloyd. Chris Bowen's just dismissed the report out of hand. I think it's a bit premature.
Yes, good evening, Caleb, Well, certainly. I guess the question is has Chris Bowen read the report, and he probably should. It's something from the US government, it's an official report and it certainly shows that on their analysis that agrid that has a large base load power supply such as ours, will be cheaper if a portion of that is replaced with nuclear energy to back up renewables. It's something that
the Opposition has been talking about. The report lays out a lot of the arguments they've made about using existing infrastructure, having a higher paid, better jobs in a nuclear industry and other things. But the import of it is it really demonstrates how serious the Biden administration is in really working up the nuclear industry, both in terms of large scale nukes, the small modul reactors and microreactors, which.
Are all in development.
They are all some way down the track. What they're saying is that they will get progressively cheaper as more of them are developed and put into production. So the government is looking at ways that it can encourage the role out of these things to bring the unit costs down. And once they're fully established, there's a hierarchy of comparison there and with carbon capture and storage will be the cheapest, nuclear will be the next, and then fully firmed renewables
will be more expensive than them, both slightly. So Australia in a long term planning would be wise to look at this very closely. It's something that's happening in the UK, it's happening in the US, it's happening in Europe, and things are moving and the projections are that costs will come down, but it will take time, We've.
Only got fifty seconds gram but I think it proves once again that nuclear at the very least should be on the table. But the federal government refuses to do that, I think out of pride because they don't want to be proven wrong.
Yeah.
Well, certainly they're out of sync with what a lot of other large countries are doing, and we should at least have the option.
Well, absolutely, and the fact that they don't even look at it is a disgrace. I think, just very quickly though, why doesn't the coalition just come out with the numbers. They must have the numbers by now. Why can't they just give us the numbers and put all of this stuff to bed and effectively shut the government up.
Well, I think the numbers they're always going to be open to dispute or contests about whether they're the right numbers or whether they're not. I think the coalition has to have a much more detailed plan of how it will fund and implement these things so that there's some security about what they're saying is correct.
Graham Lloyd, thank you for your time, and that's it for me for this hour. I'll be back in one hour at ten pm for the late debate. Don't miss it. I'll be back at eight o'clock tomorrow for Sharry again. But up now, the Great Paul Murray