Live on Sky News.
This is Sharry, Thanks Andrew and good evening. Yep, it's a massive show tonight. Kevin Rudd begs the Trump administration to cut a secret deal on Tariff's. My sources say he's citing the election. Our exclusive in a moment, plus my revelation today that a Chinese spy ship is circumnavigating Australia's south coast. Well Albanese's weak response as the coalition questions want intelligence.
It's collecting this group has made big news.
More on that coming up.
Nine hold into court today over the secret recordings where journalist Nick McKenzie admits to breaching his own ethics in the war crimes case against Ben Robert Smith. The Victoria Cross recipient's parents make an emotional plea, and Albanze finally responds to the outcomes from our Sky News Anti Semitism summit, but his letter firms he's not going to implement a single one. Alex Driftin will be on the show a bit later to respond to this disappointing but not unsurprising news.
Plus who will.
Dial Lee back in a hung Parliament? Well, she'll tell us live tonight now. As I said this is a big show. It's the first official day of the election campaign and these exclusive stories from day one are exactly what you can expect from our journalism every night of
the campaign. You won't get them on the ABC or any other network, so make sure you're watching here at eight o'clock every night and first tonight, Yes, the election campaign is on with Peter Dutton kicking off in Queensland, then Western Sydney on the weekend and to Margo in the Newcastle region and tonight back in Brisbane with my mate Paul Murray. The Prime Minister started in Dutton's seat of Dixon in an aggressive sign he was coming after
the opposition leader. Over the weekend, Albinizi also went to Bundenberg the Bell where the seat of Eden Monaro, and he was in Perth today. Now Peter Dutton enters this contest from behind and against the grain of history. The last time a government lost after one term was in the nineteen thirties, nearly a century ago.
Buddies in with a chance a good chance.
Although the polls have tightened, with Albenizi now ahead in news poll, but it's only a one point lead and ahead as preferred prime Minister in the Herald's Resolved Political Monitor, but Freshwater's poll in the finn Review still had the Coalition ahead just at fifty one forty nine two pp.
Now there's a long way to go.
It's still just under five weeks until polling day, and the scrutiny of Albanesi's monumental broken promises and lies is only just beginning. The Australian reports today that Albanezi promised before the last election that there'd be two seventy five dollars off your power bills, and of course it's a promise no one can forget.
Deducing power prices by two hundred and seventy five dollars one hundred and seventy five dollars a year. There'll be reduction for households of two hundred and seventy five dollars.
At the time.
The Prime Minister or Albanizi then said that this promise was based on the most comprehensive modeling ever undertaken.
This as good policy, but we made sure we could back it up with the most extensive independent modeling ever carried out for any policy by any opposition ever since federation.
And he repeated that promise again at a press conference.
Prices will be loud, the modelings out there for all this, we need independent modeling by reputex the most extensive modeling for any policy by any opposition since federation.
Well that was a total lie, because now Albin Ezi is walking away from this modeling, claiming, no, it couldn't be trusted, it was undertaken by someone else.
It's reputexas modeling.
Excuse me, you took that was what you base your policies on. It's Reputex's model ownership of that modeling. It's reputexas modeling. From that time, you don't support the modeling anymore. This is you walking away from that modeling.
It's reputexas modeling based upon the circumstances at that time.
Well, this is simply a true reflection of Albanese's own character, his disregard for the truth or accountability. Another example today, he stood in front of a Medicare sign and claimed that medica would only be safe under his government, but not under Peter Dutton.
This is a choice this election. It's a choice between labor, building Australia's future and strengthening Medicare and a coalition led by Peter Dutton that wants to cut everything except for your taxes, a coalition that will cut medicare as sure as not.
Follows day now our Monday panelist who's going to be on the show tonight, Cameron Milner.
He writes this evening.
In The Nightly that he was personally in the labor back room when they first, in his words, cooked up Maddie Scare in twenty sixteen, and he's going to speak about that on the show tonight. But he notes that Alban Easy is now in a brilliant mood.
He's flying.
He thinks he's going to win this election easily.
But the poll's show this is what Cameron Milner writes, These poles show Albo might be suffering from a case of premature election, peaking too early, with so long yet to go in this campaign. He says, it's still early days.
And let's not forget Albo's best campaign week in twenty twenty two was when he had COVID, only the company of Toto and an excuse not to be a nightly reminder of why voters detest his presence, and Biona then goes on to say that he really hopes for the Labor Party's sake that Albanesi doesn't condemn the party to being a one term wonder through his self harming actions yes to the Albow Voice, Copacabana retirement purchase, Quantus upgrades
and Nathan's Chairman's lounge membership or mark Labour down due to his insipid weakness in government from everything from Beijing to Trump and actually fighting the cost of living crisis.
Well, indeed, but.
Albanzi has repeated the many Scan lie several times since Friday. He stood at press conferences, He's waived the Medicare card around, claimed this was under threat. Yet as far as I've seen, no one has properly called him out in this. No one has pulled him up and said, actually, Prime Minister, where is the evidence that the coalition will cut Medicare? Albaneze's claim is knowingly unethical and untruthful.
It's simply a lie Dutton.
Everyone knows that Dutton has no plans to scrap Medicare now.
The tactic was still successful in the past.
It reduced their loss in twenty sixteen, and we just have to hope that surely voters can't fall.
For the same lies yet again.
Okay, let's turn to some of our exclusive stories tonight, Kevin Rudd's secret push for tariff exemptions plus a Chinese spy ship circling our coast. Like in tonight reveal that Kevin Right has been begging the Trump administration to give Australia a reprieve on aluminium and steeled tariffs, arguing specifically that this needs to happen before the election.
He's also been.
Seeking to have Australia exempt from the Liberation Day tariffs by offering a deal that involves giving America a guaranteed stake in Australia's critical minerals. Now, Trump has said that April the second is Liberation Day, when he plans tougher trade tariffs that are hit America's largest trading partners.
We are we have Liberation Day, as you know, on April second, because and I'm not referring to Canada, but many countries have taken advantage of us the likes of which nobody even thought it was possible for many, many decades, for decades.
The renewed push for tariff exemptions comes amid the Albanzy government's panic about the election outcome and It follows out downing revelations that Trump wouldn't take Albanese's phone call. Now Kevin rad Australia's Washington ambassador, is understood to have been actively trying to get tariff exemptions over the line before the May third election. There's no love for Rudd among the Trump administration. His past comments calling the President a village idiot, among.
Other insults a well known.
But Trump has also rebuffed Albanese's repeated requests for a phone call, and this was highly embarrassing for Albanesi.
He tried to deny.
This completely when I first broke the story, but then was forced to reluctantly confirm that he couldn't get another call with Trump when he was asked about it a week later. The Prime Minister Anthony Albanesi has not managed to schedule another call with President Donald Trump, despite trade tariff's due to take effect in just eight days.
We have continued to put in a request for another discussion with President Trump.
Are you disappointed that requests to have second phone calls with Trump couldn't be fulfilled?
Friends should pick.
Up the phone, shouldn't They? Web engaged Web engaged, including through writing, including at senior levels.
Of the government.
And again when I asked the Albanezi government about this story today, once again a denial. A spokeswoman for Penny Wong said it was not true that Rudd has cited the upcoming election during negotiations. They said, the claims from your unidentified source are fabricated and untrue. Well, we can
take that with a grain of salt. Perhaps Kevin Right is right and he never said that, But Peter Dutton at least believes he'd have a better working relationship with Trump if he were elected Prime minister.
It's obvious that Anthony Aubernezi and Kevin Wright have had a shocker. The Prime minister can't secure a phone call a little at a meeting with the President of the United States, and how on earth can an outcome be negotiated if the President won't even take the prime minister's call.
I've mentioned this before that sources close to the United States president say Alban Easy is viewed as an anti Trump, left wing globalist. But despite the rocky relationship between Trump and the alban Easy team, I'm told that a tariff exemption could happen this week, and this could be the liberation day tariffs or an exemption on steel and aluminium.
As I mentioned, it's understood that the alben Ezy government has been working on a deal to have Australia exempt from Trump's tariffs in exchange for access to critical minerals. If this is granted, it would be in spite of Rudd and not because of him. It would be a reflection on the enduring Australia American alliance and not because
of any work done by the Albanese government. In fact, the United States under both the Biden administration and now Trumps, have been disappointed, to say the least, with Australia's foreign policy positions. This includes Albanesi CosIng up to China and also Australia's voting record at the United Nations, which has been against United States interests, particularly on Israel and the Middle East. Now, the US was already growing agitated with the Albanese government on both China.
And Israel, and that was under Joe Biden.
Relations are now even more out of step under Trump, and China is reasserting its dominance in our region. Earlier today, I exclusively revealed on the Sky News website that a Chinese government sponsored deep sea research vessel is circumnavigating the southern coast of Australia. It's a path that's tracking a similar route to our deep sea submarine cables. Now, this Chinese vessel is understood to have a dual purpose. It's
got legitimate scientific research while it's collecting intelligence. It's therefore considered by national security experts to be a spy ship. Now Here was Dave Shama and Chris Kenny Show and Asby's Michael Schubridge speaking to Kieran Gilbert about this question earlier.
This is not an innocuous research vessel.
This is undoubtedly doing hydrographic research that's an exercise in intelligence gathering.
There is no distinction between civilian and military research from these Chinese vessels, so everything that it collects will be passed to the People's Liberation only.
The Chinese ship called Tanso Yihow is currently the coast of South Australia and it is with it Australia's.
Exclusive economic zone.
Now this follows a similar route to Australia's submarine cables, which it could be mapping, or it could even be signaling that it has the capability to cut the cables.
Now.
Journalists asked the Prime Minister about this after my story went online at his press conference in Perth earlier today, and he tried to brush it away and just move on quickly.
It's been in New Zealand on a joint research operation and this isn't the first time that a similar vessel has been around the Australian coast. It occurred in twenty twenty for example, just to give one example. Australia, as you would expect, is monitoring this.
But it's the Chinese ship's ability to drop a mini submersible that can reach up to ten thousand meters below sea level.
It's the route of concern.
I mean picture that ten thousand meters below sea level. Now again, Albanezi was asked about this point today.
On this research vessel.
It's come back for a second time. Do you know it's different?
So do you know what it is researching?
What have you done to protect our undersea cables from any monitoring or sabotage and have you communicated anything to the Chinese government about this?
What we have done is we continuing to monitor it. We won't for obvious reasons, broadcast everything that we're doing but we're keeping an eye on this as we do as we do well avents.
What does monitoring actually mean?
What it means is that the Australian Defense Force are monitoring what is happening. It's going from New Zealand, we expect it to go around to China around that way.
So the ship was in Wellington on a legitimate joint exploration exercise with New Zealand, but instead of taking the most direct route to China to return, it is instead going around the Australian coast and maps show it has traveled through the Tasman Sea between New Zealand and Australia, then the bas Strait and is now off the coast of South Australia, a similar route to the one taken by the Chinese warship last month after its live fire
exercises off the coast of the Tasman Sea. Now Shadow Home Affairs Minister James Patterson told Peter Kredline earlier that what this Chinese ship is doing is nothing like Australian ships in Chinese waters, as Albanese claimed, now.
Non Australian vessel is engaging in deep seabed examination in the territorial waters off the coast of China. We don't even have these sorts of vessels, so to compare the two was a false moral equivalence and the slur on men and women of the ADF.
And the comparison or the excuse that Albanezi gave is absurd. Australia is helping to enforce freedom of navigation exercises.
In international waters.
While the Chinese ship is in Australia's territorial waters. It's a distinction that Albanese just isn't smart enough to understand. First the Chinese warship and now about a month later, a possible Chinese spy ship is circling our nation. No matter how Albanezy tries to downplay this, it's a highly concerning sign of aggression from the communist dictatorship and once again it highlights the Prime Minister's limp response and weakness
in the face of hostile nations. Now a week ago today I played you this explosive recording of nine Star reporter Nick mackenzie claiming he'd engaged in unethical behavior during the Ben Roberts Smith War crimes case. He claimed he'd breached his ethics by obtaining part of the Victoria Cross recipient's legal strategy from his ex wife and her friend. Here were those devastating comments, again.
Breaking us on his leadership to you respected you, No, I shouldn't tell you.
I've just preached my.
Ethics in doing that.
Like this is where like this is to really se positioned.
Now if they knew that and pet to.
You that I can.
And this related to Nine's defamation case against Robert Smith, where the allegations of war crimes were found to be substantially true. Now after our revelations, Robert Smith's lawyers launched a bid to have those findings overturned and for there to be a retrial. Well, there was an initial hearing on this in court today.
The decision in mister Roberts Smith's appeal was yet to be handed down. Now it's up to the court to decide whether everyone will be dragged back inside to be questioned on this fresh recording.
Ben Robert Smith's parents Len and Sue, who were in court to show their support.
I was very concerned, as I said, that's about all we can say at the stays given the court because now has to deal with it.
And they also told Sky News in a statement that their son had been the subject of vilification by Nick mackenzie and nine. They said the audio recordings were extremely concerning on a number of levels. These include questions about what legal strategies of Ben's was mackenzie referring to, and how did knowledge of them affect the conduct of the case before Justice Bisanko.
Worryingly, that might.
Be impossible to know. The issue is whether or not it resulted in an unfair trial. Now, Lenn Robert Smith, Ben's father, is a former Justice of the Supreme Court of Western Australia. He said there were questions too about what privileged information or material Ben's ex wife, Emma and her friend Dannielle.
Scott told mackenzie or gave to him.
Further, if mackenzie was prepared to speak to Person seventeen as he did on the recording, did he have similar conversations with other witnesses, If so, who and what did he say to them? Now McKenzie won major journalism awards for the reports accusing Robert Smith of war crimes. The Walkley Board has released a statement saying they'll discuss questions about whether or not this affects Mackenzie's Walkley award at
the next board meeting. They said a question about reporting by Nick mackenzie relating to a defamation trial would be referred to the next board meeting in mid April, in line with standard operating procedure. It's devastating for the Nine network that this recording of their most celebrated journalist is public, where he's openly confessing to.
A breach of ethics.
The network still hasn't properly answered questions about this, beyond saying they defend their journalism. But now this will likely come under intense scrutiny at the federal court when mackenzie himself could be called to give evidence. All right, a busy show tonight to discuss. Let's bring in form a Speaker of the House, Bronwin Bishop and Sky News host Joe Hildebrand.
Welcome.
Now let's start with the story about the Chinese spyeship. How weak do you think Albaneze looked in his comments there tonight.
Bromin pathetically weakened.
Indeed, as I watched him pick up a baby and cuddle it, trying to get I guess some sympathetic reaction, it just screamed to me that Albanizey had no care in the world about that future of safety of that child. To say that he'd prefer that the that that ship wasn't there was just to me asking the question, what sort of deal did China's handsome boy do with the Chinese Communist Party in order to again sell why and lobsters.
What other deals have been done to ensure that whatever messages come out of China on their version of we Chat or whatever it is they have to the Chinese diaspora in Australia. What sort of deals have secretly been done. I watched him cuddle that baby and I thought, what a hypocrite. You have no care at all for the future of that baby's safety.
I did not say that connection.
No, there was a lot of.
Sounds like they steal the baby and sell it to the Chinese Communist Party.
Know, Joe, that was not the point. If you cared about the future of that child, you would care about the future of this nation.
You would start buying drones.
And use them so you could properly track. When he said the idea of his tracking track it because we haven't bought them, that's why. So if he said they're monitoring how are they monitoring them. There are all sorts of things that are so wrong with the defense policies of this government that I am quite justified in saying that he has no care for the future safety of that child.
So you would like to buy drones and one of the ship. What else is he meant to do? Is he meant to jump up and down?
He's meant to.
Have a proper defense policy. You're not to say.
It's okay baby.
Not to say that he's doing the same thing as was carefully laid out those earlier interviews, that in fact there's some sort of moral equivalence with us being in the South China.
See moral equivalents.
Well, you're Prime Minister, I think so, and you're going to try and stick up and you've got you've got a very difficult case.
Let's see's response here or.
Different the fact that matter? I mean again, I don't know. Obviously I would rather this ship wasn't there, as well, I would rather the Chinese warship wasn't doing Li Fi.
No, it's absolutely not earlier.
I know I read it because I read the news and he said he'd rather not be there. But again, what is the alternative apart from jumping up and down and saying, I mean, do you want China to put the bands on our exports again? Do you want? You know, are we going to pick a pick a fight with China when we don't even know how secure our treaty is with the United States of America under Donald Trump? You guys support I mean.
I just what what? What?
What is? Actually?
What is?
Actually?
You've got an ambassador.
Begging, begging that's something to be done in Australia's interest.
What on earth?
What on earth?
What on earth is the ambassador in Beijing doing to say, get out of our waters?
Where is that or the prime? And I'm not going to tell anybody what they're going.
To So you think that they're here because this giant ambassador hasn't said to Beijing, please don't sing.
That's not the point I'm making a response.
Chinese al response to the Chinese warship was very weak. In fact, what is Sait even claim that he had been given notice of the live fire exercises when he wasn't given notice, So that weak response shows that he's not standing up for Australia's interests, And then it invites China becomes more emboldened in the face of that weekness.
Surely it's weaker to say I had no idea. It was a complete surprice of me. Of course, you want to be able to project strength. Of course the Chinese are doing things Clandesteinley which we don't want them to be doing. And it is a spy ship.
Why was it called the Handsome Boy.
You've got to be able to count.
Right, there is Chinese propaganda, but you don't believe what comes out of the Australian government.
What I'm saying, I am saying, Shoe is you've got no right to see that what Alberanzi is doing is in the Australian's interest.
So.
Legitimately having secret talks with Beijing. Exactly, he has no secret deal because you implied I want to know a secret.
I want to know what has started to resume.
I didn't mentioned.
But if you start, okay, if you start buying our lobsters lobsters you mentioned, but it is if you start again, you can send out spires the.
Prime Minister Song the Chinese Communist Party.
You think he's having secret talks to the Chinese? Comment they're handsome about letting.
A handsome boy our prime minister, I am saying against Australia.
I don't think saying this. She's saying, play.
The exactly what for me? You said? What boxes? You said?
Exactly talking?
You said, what did he promise them during getting out?
Next?
Yeah, it begs the question, let's not yell.
She's saying there's been acquiescence that we've seen Albanezi repeatedly fail to publicly stand up for Australia's interest. That includes when navy divers have been injured, when they've been nar Let me finish well. I think what she means is that there's been silence and acquiescence, and that this has.
Seen baby he was holding. I mean that's she was.
The baby's future.
She meant, he's not worried about that baby's future that he was holding it.
There's been a lot of baby.
Maybe that's secret talks.
All right.
And on that note, Brahma Bishop, Sorry we didn't get through more topics.
Very much, always a pleasure so much.
All right.
Now we were speaking about the Australians front page earlier where Alban easy you know, claimed that the modeling was accurate.
Now he's walking away from it.
Well, let's bring in the journalist who wrote that story, The Australians Chief Political correspondent, Jeff Chambers. Jeff, do you think voters are looking at this broken promise and just thinking.
This is this is typical?
They know the Prime minister promise that that energy would be turned in seventy five dollars cheap, and now he can't even stand by the modeling behind.
That, Hi, Charry, I think what's even more concerning obviously that the price reduction of two hundred and seventy five dollars by mid twenty twenty five this year was repeated at nauseum by labor ministers and the Prime Minister. But there was another additional one hundred and ford dollars that was apparently supposed to be saved between twenty twenty five and twenty thirty. And when my colleague Greg Brown put that to the Prime Minister yesterday, he just blamed it
all on reputects the people that did the modeling. And I was there in December twenty twenty one when Anthony Albernezi and Chris Bowen released that modeling and they declared it and we had that in the piece today and We had a video in there that it was the greatest modeling that any opposition had ever done since federation. So they picked that modeling up and ran with it
very hard. But the other element to it, Charry, is that it underpins literally all of Labour's energy and climate change agenda, so forty three percent admissions reduction, the big one which is eighty two percent renewables penetration, which Chris Bowen is still not walking away from these targets.
They're not on track.
For those and it might be convenient to walk away from such modeling and to criticize the Coalition for not having their own numbers. But I think a bit of pressure should be applied as to what Labour's now going to do.
Jav, I want to ask you to read on the latest news poll today did have alban Ezi slightly ahead, but he shouldn't be doing victory lapse just yet.
No, the poles are really close, and I've said this before on your show.
They're going to move either way for either leader. Now, obviously there is a bit of pressure.
On Peter Dutton to really put his head down, and I know some in his own ranks have sort of looked at his petrol policy from last week to half fuel excise and thinking, well, it's all good to head to the factories and the big industry visits.
They're all very.
Important, but you know, maybe you sort of double down on what you're trying to sell. So you know, there is a bit of consternation in Coalition ranks, but for Labor they shouldn't get too confident. They're clearly very confident either way. They've got a very slim margin in terms of their current majority, and I think even people in Labor realize that they're going to lose seats and it just comes down to how many they lose and how many the coalition can pick up.
Yeah, it's always a question of mathematics. And look, the coalition's targeting around twenty seats and the outer suburban area.
So that's their strategy.
I mean, what strategy do.
You think Labor has, apart from just winning the message of the day and trying to limit the swing.
Yeah, I think as an incumbent, a first term incumbent after all ten years of Coalition rule, and then you have these global factors Donald Trump, and on Thursday he has Liberation Day and tomorrow there's a.
Reserve Bank meeting.
I think they've picked this date because you've got two got two weeks of school holidays, two to three weeks of school holidays Easter and Anzac Day, and.
Then you've got two weeks of pre pole at the end.
So they've tried to really narrow this contest and put the pressure on Peter Dutton to really roll out his policies at a really tight three week window.
No true, in the school holidays, I mean people go away, they tune out from the daily news agenda, So you know, I guess that'll be like the period when Albo had COVID and we didn't see him for a week, much like Joe Biden when he went into the bunker a couple of elections ago. All right, Jeff Chambers, thank you so much for your time, So much more to come on the show tonight. Alban Easy fails to commit to even one recommendation from our Sky News antisemitism sum At
Alex Rifchino join me later on. Plus, who will Independent dially back in a hung parliament, I'll ask her after this.
Quick break welcome back.
Well, we saw that Independent MP Rebecca Sharky came out today publicly and said that she would support Peter Dutton if there's a hung parliament.
In my view, the Teals need to.
Be transparent as they claim to be and firs up publicly tell voters who they plan to support if there's a hung parliament. Well, let's ask one true independent, the independent MP for Fowler Dially Dian. Great to see you again, so let's get right into it. Who would you support in the event of a hung parliament.
First of all, I don't want to be presumptuous. I mean I have to win the election first, and if I am privileged enough to win the election, of course I'll sit down and negotiate with whoever got the most when they you know, at the election, we don't know which of the parties will have, you know, the numbers of more MPs. That's yet to be you know, the results still to come out on election day.
But that's how you decided whoever has won the most seats if there is a hung parliament, whoever's won the most seats, that's.
Who you would sit down to negotiate with.
Yeah, that's right. So we have to wait to see the results.
Don't know who's going to win in terms of most numbers, not win, but you have the numbers, then we sit down, negotiate with whichever leader and hopefully it will be you know, for the benefit of the community in Fouler.
Voters do deserve to know the answer to this question, don't they, from all independents, who they would support if there is a hung parliament or a close outcome.
Yeah, look, I understand that's what the voters would like, but it's really hard to gauge into, hard to predict, hard to see that crystal ball in terms of who will have the most seats at the election. And as we all know, this election is going to be quite interesting. It's going to be very complicated, and which is I think it's a good good. It doesn't look like anyone will have the majority, which sounds like that's the case, but that.
Means that whoever have the most numbers of seats will know.
That they have to focus on the issue at hand, which is the cost of living issue. And that's what I'm going to be driving for. And like I said, look, I don't want to be presumptuous, Shari. It's really it is my first term to get re elected and I need to focus on my community in making sure that I win this election.
I don't take anything for granted.
And of course Fouler the seat arena only has a one point four percent margin, so we'll be a battle to hold on to it. You've said the policies on cost of living could.
Sway your decision.
So how do you compare Labour's tax cuts that come in next July with the Coalition's petrol price reduction.
Well, I actually when I first got elected in May twenty two, that first twelve months, my questions to the government and to the Prime Minister Albanzi and his Treasurer was around bringing back reintroducing the fuel excise tax cut, which I know that under the Coalition they introduced it during the COVID era, which really was.
Very helpful for those that were driving.
And I kept on calling for that fuel excise tax cut that would alleviate a lot of the costs for families, especially in Fouler and Southwest Sydney, because a lot of our community here.
They drive petrol field cars.
Many of our famili's owned an average three to four cars to drive, you know, kids, grandparents, parents drive themselves to work, and so think that's a very common sense approach, and also it will help pensioners who will not benefit from a tax cut, or who are not working will
not benefit from a tax cut. Students who don't have that income thresholder will benefit from a tax cut, So there are more people that will actually have the benefit of the few excise tax cut that was announced by the opposition leader as opposed to a one percent tax cut by the government which won't come.
Into effect as you mentioned to after July. You know, I think fifteen months time.
All right, but Dalley, I really appreciate your time in the show and appreciate you being upfront and actually willing to have this conversation with voters.
So thank you very much for that.
All right, Still to come, Alban Easy fails to commit to a single recommendation from our Sky News Anti Semitism summit. This is the Greens blame Israel for her muss executing Palestinian protesters.
I'll speak about all of that with Alex rif chin Lay.
Plus Cameron Milner's prediction that Alban Easy might well be suffering from a case of premature election.
You'll joined me after the break.
Welcome back.
Well, it's the start of a five week election campaign.
The parties are basically neck and neck. This election could go either way or to discuss a regular Monday political panel, Scott Morrison's former media advisor Andrew Carswell and Bill Shotton's former chief of staff Cameron Milner and Cameron, I have to say I know you and no the Prime Minister basically more than anybody else in your column tonight in the night they will be no different because you say he's celebrating from a premature election.
He is on a high.
He does think he's going to win.
His overconfident, isn't he He is.
He's effervescent at the moment.
But it's only going to be one way traffic from here and that's what Labour strategies are really worried. He has definitely peaked too early three days into thirty three day campaign and that's going to be a problem for him to sustain it from here. So that's a real problem for Labor. But these poles also show, despite the headlines that it's still a hung parliament, that Labour's best option is to be one seat short Shari, and that's still not good enough in this election campaign.
The polls do show that there has been this slight however slight it is two percent or so recovery for labor Andrew inside the coalition, how worried is everyone by this shift back to Albanezi in the polls.
I don't think there's any concern Shari. I think was what happened at the weekend was entirely expected. The coalition have had a pretty rough couple of weeks. So they had a very good week last week in getting their messaging right in and around the budget and the budget reply. But before that you had a period of two or three weeks where they were off message. There was z ill discipline, they made stumbles, they threw some balloons up in there to try and get an interest. It was a messy
kind of couple of weeks. So they were expect in this little blowback. But they're coming up at pretty high I mean, it was only four five weeks ago that we were thinking, hang on, they're getting pretty close here, and they still are close enough, if good enough, and they should take confidence in the fact that there is a massive, massive number of soft voters out there. It's in the order of forty percent. They're going to leave it. We're not going to go. It's the biggest I've ever seen it.
And as I said, they're going to leave it late.
They're not going to go early like the decideds will. They will leave into the last week and go bang bang bang in that last week. So it's all to play for.
I find it so hard to understand that there could be soft voters because you've got these two completely different political leaders with different policies that you could argue that never has there been such a policy contrast going into an election. You think back to two thousand and seven and the policies between John Howard and Kevin rud were so similar apart from some of the values.
Cameron, what do you think?
Well, I agree with Andrew and I was only speaking to Tony Barry at Redbridge tonight. I mean their latest poll on Friday had forty five percent soft vote. This is unheard of, unheard of, and I put it down to kind of the lyrics of Pearl jabs better man. This is about a girl who wants to leave her bloke but can't find a better man. That's the dilemma
that voters have got right now. They know how bad Elbow is, they know what they're lived experience with elbows like but they're not yet convinced that Dutton's the better man, and that's the dilemma for voters. I think once soft voters lock on to this election, once they focus on the policies and the Coulton is going to get some policies out there to be fair, then I think it could be an avalanche of votes for the Coalition because there's there's so many undecided voters out there.
Shari.
I think the thing that I have noticed over the past few days, Andrew, is that the Prime Minister, as frustrating as he is, he has the lines ready to go, you know, the lines about Peter Diden wants to cut everything except your taxes. He's got these very clear messages, whereas I've noticed that the Coalition does and have those same slogans which we know work, we know stop the boat's work.
For example.
Do you think the retail messaging needs to be sharper from the coalition?
It does, Sharon.
I think it will get there. I mean, this is the first time Peter Darton has faced an election, has faced the rigors of an election campaign which are extreme, so getting and staying on message, he'll get better and better as the campaign goes along, and that needs to occur, and there's there's still some loose moments of the creeping and that's to be expected. I mean, you can't look down on him too much for making little missteps here
and there. They'll be hind out and when it really matters, at the end of the campaign, he'll be fit and ready to go. But you're right, and how been easy? I mean he is sharper I think at the moment. And he said he's had the benefit of having a campaign behind him to really work out what works and what doesn't work, and so far he's doing an okay job.
I mean, it's interesting, it's not it for it.
I was just going to say, it's not about election. It's not about getting being right by election day. Andrew pre Pole starts two and a half weeks before that, so it's only three weeks until people start voting. I mean May three is when voting stops. So the colation is going to get their act together.
Yeah.
No, it's been a lot of decideds vote though in pre Pole, where whereas the software usually leaves it until the last week or so.
Yeah.
No, it's really interesting now we saw because often in an election campaign, you know, a conversation that one of the leaders will have on an FM radio station in the morning will then be the main story for the day.
We saw that today when Peter Dutton was asked whether he wanted to live in Canberra or Sydney and he kind of gave an answer about not staying in the camera bubble and instead living at Kuribilly House, and then Albanizey came in and criticized him for this, saying he was already measuring the curtains, you know, overly confident Andrew. You know, how do you think voters react to this sort of quabble from the leaders.
I think it looks poorly on Alberanezi more than anything, and it says a lot about him as a person as well, Like he was very keen to say that, oh, I stay in Canberra and I need to be close to the cabinet suite. I need to be close to the National Security suite. And that just shows that he's craving this power. He loves his power, he loves being there over his dominion. But the thing he didn't kind of communicate is that there is a cabinet suite in Sydney.
You can do those meetings in Sydney. There's a National Security suite in Sydney, so there's no real difference in terms in terms of location. I think it was just a cheap shot.
We saw that Albanezi was in Perth today. He said it was his thirtieth trip as Prime Minister, which is about ten visits to West Australia every year, so it's not even one a month, so it actually sounds more than it is. But he pledged two hundred million dollar upgrade for a Perth hospital. Cameron, this shows how critical WA is to this contest.
How do you think it's playing out at the moment.
Well, I think we've talked about this, and Andrew Carsle I think wrote about this. I mean there's three seats in the West that would have been lost even with the landslide state voting vote that Labor received at the last day election only a few weeks ago. So the West is critical. Quest is crucial for Labor to hold and at the moment it looks like two to three seats are potentially in the lost pile with no gains, so he really has to do what he can in West Australia.
Yeah, all right, it is indeed just very quickly because we've got to get to a break. But Andrew, how many seats do you think the coalition will pick up in w A.
I think the coalition pick up two seats, but none of them from Labor. I think they pick up Curtain, which is a til seat, and I think they pick up Bullwinkle as the new seat. It's a real battle contest to see whether that fifty to fifty kind of contest in teeny goes either way.
It's pretty tight.
And now but Easy was of course speaking about his you know, he felt he was confident in Bullwinkle Today see Andrew Kazwa, Karra Milner and Cameron love your article tonight and even love even more the fact that you are getting on Albanezy's nerves so much.
The only Labour figure to speak out.
Thank you both for your time.
Now after the break, why Albaneze should hang his head in shame? He hasn't agreed to a single outcome from our Sky News antisemitism summit, plus Hamas's reprehensible revenge at least six executed after protests against them in Gaza yet Adam Bant finds a way to blame Israel. I'll talk
about this with Alex Ripchin next. Welcome back. Now, you recall that the whole purpose of our Sky News Andti Semitism Summit was to bring together the brightest minds in the nation across all fields to come up with tangible
solutions that would actually address anti Semitism. There were fifteen recommendations at the end of the day, and they included putting anti Semitism education in the national curriculum, putting Holocaust education back in the national school curriculum, more public awareness.
And advertising campaigns.
A judicial inquiry into anti Semitism at universities. There were many others, including changes to the Migration Act, others that affected national security, not allowing anti Semites into the country. Now, Alex Rifchin wrote to both Peter Dutton and Anthony Albanezi asking them if they'd endorse these uncontroversial, quite sensible and rational outcomes from the summit. Peter Dutton responded saying he would endorse every single one that fell under the federal
government remit. But today Alex Riftin received a letter from the Prime Minister, a three page letter where he failed to endorse a single outcome, and let's bring it now to discuss Executive Council of Australian Jury's co CEO, Alex Rifchin.
Alex, what is your response when you receive this letter?
I was thoroughly disappointed, Shari. As you said, it was a very long and comprehensive response from the Prime Minister which he very passionately and I believe very sincerely condemned anti Semitism as an evil and as something on Australian and listed the government's measures to date in combating antisemitism.
But as you point out, when we hosted this summit, it was with a very clear intention of purpose, and it was to move the conversation beyond platitudes and easy self evident condemnations and to talk about the solutions, to come to grips with what's happening in our streets and in our country. To talk about things like the need for judicial inquiring to campus antisemitism, to talk about the Migration Act, to talk about the ideological rigidity that occurs
in cultural institutions which contributes to anti semitism. All of these things schools, public campaigns, and the fact that the Primeister said so much in that letter that totally ignored what we actually asked of him, which was to consider the action plan, what aspects of the government would endorse and what aspects had a problem with. I don't open up that conversation, but instead it was all missed in time, and I think it's a missed opportunity. It's totally disappointing.
There was a chance to achieve genuine bipartisanship and political consensus around anti Semitism, and I think the Primister's missed that opportunity.
And you know, your use of the word bipartisan is a good one, because our summit was bipartisan. We invited both sides of politics, gave both sides an equal voice, you know.
And I just think back to that mother.
Who was on Q and A.
Asked Albanezier question.
About anti sevmentism on Q and A a few weeks ago, and he said in response, we've done everything the Jewish community has asked of us.
Well, here you had.
The Jewish community sending a letter say these are fifteen things that would actually make a difference, and he just won't even consider them.
And you mentioned platitudes.
In my view, that letter was purely platitudes, so disappointing, Alex.
But you know we won't stop.
Neither you or I will not stop campaigning on this absolutely. Now, I just want to talk about the brave Palestinian protesters who've come out against Hamas. Now we've seen them protest on the streets.
Have a quick look.
Now in response, Hermas has executed six Palestinians. They've also been public beatings, and among those murdered was a twenty.
Two year old o I al Rubai.
He was beaten and tortured, only to be later dumped on his family's doorstep.
Alex, this is grotesque.
No question about it, Charry. And what's happening on the streets of Gaza, it poses a real dilemma for the Proplsian movement, which you and I know is really aciously anti Israel and pro Hamas movement for the most part, because what's happening in Gaza shows that Hamas is overwhelmingly responsible for the part of the Palestini people, which goes against the propaganda of the Palestinian movement that Israel is the root of all evil in the Middle East and
all suffering for the Palestinians and indeed the world often speak about how the removal of Israel will be a great step forward for world peace. The other problem posed by these protests is that it's very clear that the sort of freedoms that Palestins are now enjoying to be able to march and voice their opinions and express themselves as they wish, the sort of freedom that israelis cherished and enjoy every single day, are being granted to them
by virtue of Israeli military power. It is the near destruction of Hamas that has allowed these freedoms which the leaders of the Palestine people would never entrust to their own people. But Adam Bant and those who reflexibly condemn all of this, they are so wedded to that ideological position of Israel being uniformly and unequivocally and unavoidably evil, but they can't look at the facts. Mcgrod and I can't express a scheric of solidarity with these braces who are being brutalized by Hammon.
We're out of time, Alex, thank you very much, and here I can't wait for this. Paul Murray with the Peter Dutton pod test