Sharri | 4 September

Live on Sky News.

This is Sharry.

Well, good evening and welcome to the program. I'm James Macpherson filling in for Shari. Coming up tonight, a reality check for labor as Australia's economy grows at a snail's pace. But Jim Chalmers, well, he's more concerned about playing the blame game. I'll discuss today's GDP figures shortly. Also tonight, the latest push to crack down on social media giants in a bid to protect our kids. But is there a hidden agenda. I'll ask child psychologist Claire row about

As a side note, the.

Gay community in Israel, Enjoy writes not even afforded in many Western nations. But let's not allow facts to get in the way of contempt for Israel. Perhaps our ambassador in Iran, Ian mcconval had been drinking the quiz for Palestine kool aid. The photo of mcconval wearing purple and sharing purple cupcakes was posted on the official Australia in Iran Instagram account in support of Where It Purple Day now?

Who knew that was a thing in Iran?

I suppose you've got to trust our diplomats to know their audience. The Instagram post was helpfully captioned in Persian so the locals could read it. It read celebrating were It Purple Day with a splash of purple in every corner and some delicious cupcakes made with love. Today and every day We're dedicated to creating a supportive environment where everyone, especially LGBTQIA plus youth, can feel proud to be themselves. Let's keep championing diversity and inclusion for a brighter, more

Maybe purple's just not his color.

The Iranian minut My History of Foreign Affairs strongly condemned our embassy for promoting homosexuality, which it described.

As abnormal conduct.

According to Iranian news agencies, our officials were told the content published by the Australian Embassy is insulting and contrary to Iranian and Islamic tradition, customs and culture. Well, this news will surely come as an enormous shock to all those protesters we see on the streets of Sydney and Melbourne madly waving their rainbow flags alongside Palestinian flags, as if they were natural bedfellows.

It seems gay rights.

And Palestinian rights are linked, but only in the fertile imaginations of those who enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. Now, this, of course raises an awkward question for the LGBTQ community in this country. How do they reconcile their support for Iran's proxy hamas with Iran's anti gay laws. Iran is happy to accept the support of gay activists on the streets of Sydney and Melbourne, but won't accept even a gay cupcake on the streets

We'll wait meanwhile.

Federal Government Minister Murray Watt told the ABC he was upset by the Iranian reaction to our purple cupcakes.

I am concerned to see this reaction from the Iranian government to the activities of the Australian Embassy. We're very proud about the fact that our embass is promote Australian values internationally. And I'm very keen concerned to see an overseas government seemingly take action against an Australian embassy that is upholding Australian values.

To write, mister Watt, you learn a great deal about the values of a nation by listening closely to what comes out of their embassy. Speaking of which, it's exactly a month ago that our government summoned Han's ambassador to Australia to explain his social media post calling not for wear It Purple Day, but for wipeout Israel Day.

Cupcakes not included.

Iran's ambassador wrote that wiping out the Zionis plague out of the Holy Lands of Palestine happens no later than twenty twenty seven now. Prime Minister Anthony Albanesi said at the time those comments were abhorrent, hateful, anti Semitic and had no place in Australia, well unless you're at one of those pro Palestinian marches that happen every other weekend.

But hang on a second.

When the Iranian ambassador posted that Israel Israel should be eliminated, wasn't that just Iran's embassy promoting Iranian values. We value tolerance, they value the wiping out of Israeli's.

In the Middle East. It's called diversity.

And yet the Albanzi government continues to insist that Israel has to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas, which, as they know very well, is nothing but an extension of Iran, whose spokesmen here are openly touts for the elimination of Israel. I'll tell you what, support for a Hamas controlled Palestine

Now?

To be fair, the seventy four kilometer journey wasn't only to deliver a cake. Stephen Miles also announced a new fence would be built for Bunderberg East State School if he wins the next election.

Now did it never occur to the premier.

He could cancel the cupcake flight and use the money spent on avgas to give the kids offense.

No no, his office explained.

The government had already leased the private jet, so it didn't cost taxpayers anything.

To fly it north. Well, where can I lease this plane?

I want to take my kids for a no cost flight to Port Douglas.

What does it run on?

Solar or maybe it was a translink plane and so the fare to Bunderberg only cost fifty cents.

It might be easy fodder for tabloid newspapers, but it would have cost more to hire a car for that one leg, and the other legs could not be completed by another transport mode.

Amazing.

So when Queenslanders refuel their cars, they need to take out a second mortgage, sell a kidney. But when the Premier is questioned about using a jet to deliver mudcake for a mate, well that's.

Just fodder for tabloid journalists.

Talk about arrogant and what about all those jet emissions. I thought we're in the middle of a climate emergency and that Stephen Miles was a climate champion.

For the United States. Vice President Al Gore has offered his congratulations to new Queensland Premier Stephen Miles. The well wishes came after the new premier pledged an increased towards greenhouse and gas emissions target by twenty thirty five, ahead of net zero in twenty fifty. Mister Gore took to social media saying I know there's more to come and hope his leadership inspires others across Australia and around the world.

Oh, mister Miles, climate leadership is inspiring all right. He floats high in the sky above. He floats high in the sky, rather far above Queenslanders, who are well, of course beneath him. They're expected to drive an EV that's barely affordable up the Bruce Highway that's barely maintained. Now, I know what you're thinking, How clueless is the Queensland Premier. How could he not know that this doesn't you know,

Now?

I was going to tell you tonight that Australia's economy is growing at a snail's pace, but that would be unfair to snails. Data release today confirms the economy is growing at its slowest pace since the nineteen nineties recession outside of the COVID pandemic. New figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show GDP rose by zero point two percent in the June quarter and by just one percent over the last financial year. Que the political spin from Treasurer at Jim Chalmers.

Without government spending, without growth in government spending, there'd be no growth in our economy at all, that is primarily health spending. This vindicates the approach that we took in the budget and it frankly torpedoes a lot of the free advice that we got at budget time to cut harder and harsher.

Well, let's take this to our panel form of Victorian liber Party president Michael Kroger and former Labor Minister Graham Richardson. Gentlemen, thanks for joining me.

Michael. Let me start with you.

Whatever Jim Chalmers says, however he spins this, this is a big reality check for labor, is it not?

It certainly is. But look, I think Jim's hopelessly out of his depth. He's a commentator, you know, he's just watching the train go by the truth of The matter is this, there's no productivity growth in this country, which is one of the main ways of you know, growth in your economy. Immigration has been far too high, which adds to aggregate demand. You've got a pro union government, and we've seen all the pro union changes to help the unions stay alive, their anti business.

But the worst thing of all is this.

You know, Chalmers talks about a strong economic leadership. If you look at the budget papers twenty twenty three and twenty twenty six, government revenues federally, federally go up seventy billion seven zero bi in, but government expenditure goes up one hundred and thirty five billion. They're in the budget papers. They're spending sixty five billion dollars over their three year period,

Will fall over.

And that's before you add in all the state government added expenditure. So the Reserve Bank was right when they politely said to the governments around this country, if you stop spending, we might get somewhere with interest rates. But the economy is running far too hot with all your spending, and that's exactly what's happening. This guy's hopelessly out of his depth. I mean, you know, he's worse than people say. He's the worst since Wayne's Wine. He's much better than

Richard, let me go to you.

Household spending is down, business investment is down. Only government's spending is up and keeping the economy out of recession. But record government spending can't prop up the economy forever, can it?

No? Not forever. You have got a hope that it gets a return. It hasn't got that return yet, but I guess Charmers is hoping that return comes soon.

I reckon he's got every finger crossed. Meanwhile, Chalmers has been royally told off by John Howard for blaming his economic woes on the RBA's interest rate hikes. Writing in The Australian, John Howard said there's little argument that the Albanezy government has lost control of expenditure. By his opportunistic and quite disloyal remarks, Chalmers has diminished himself, not Bullock, that's Michelle Bullock from the RBA. Michael should Charmers be embarrassed by these comments?

Well, of course he should be. When John Howard knows more about the economy than almost in the Australian alive given the fact that he was true to runder Malcolm Fraser's government then Prime Minister for almost four years. I mean, Chalmers, this is a politic blacked by the way. Let's make no mistake about this, James. The Labor Party leadership have decided, how do we get away from the fact that been

Right.

So you've seen my friend Stephen Conroy, You've seen Craig Emerson, now you've seen the Treasurer. You've seen other Labour figures coming out blaming the Reserve Bank. This is a political act to try and take the heat of the government and blame the Reserve Bank Board. You know, I think four or five of whom they've appointed.

It certainly seems that way, Richo, based on what we've seen for the past two years. Let me ask you this, why should Australians have any confidence this government knows what it's doing.

Well.

I think there are so many fronts where the government has shown it's done it's doing well. The trouble is on the front where you know these kinds of judgments are going to be made. Labor's just a bit soft and so it's suffering at the moment because of that. But I think, you know, Albow and Charmers between them will work that out. They'll sort it out, we'll move on, the economy will stay solid and labor will win again.

I like your optimism, Rich, I really do. Hey, at least the Coalition.

Are committed to generating wealth rather than squandering it. They've promised to approve the Beleague in New South Wales gold mine if they win the upcoming federal election. Have listened to Nationals leader David little Proud, he's with Senator just Into Price earlier today.

I can tell you that while this is the biggest issue in town, this is also the biggest issue for the resource sector right across the nation. Unless Minister Plebisac wants to come out and publicly give the reasons, then ultimately this company has done all that they've been asked of. Minister Plebisac has a lot of answers to give for the questions that are being asked by this community.

Michael, is this a smart move from the Coalition?

Yeah, of course it is, and they're absolutely right. I mean, what a farcical decision. This is embarrassing when we're a first world country. So Tanya Plebsik makes this decision, it's secret. She can't tell us why she's made it. The land owners in the area, the recognized traditional owners, are saying it's gumf and she because she's never run a business and there's no idea about how a mine operates or geology operates. Simply says I'll move the tailings dam somewhere else.

Of shareholder dollars to these projects.

And having them ki boshed at the last minute for unexplained reasons by people who the traditional owners have never heard of. It makes a laughing stock of this country, a laughing stock of the minister and a laughing stock of the government.

Well, Richo, here's the thing I can't understand about this whole fiasco. Tanya Plibasek has blocked the project on cultural grounds, but also says cultural grounds prevent her from explaining the decision.

To block the projects.

So how can the government expect people to be okay with that kind of communication or lack thereof.

I don't think you can ever expect it to be okay if you don't explain what you're doing. So I'm not going to try and defend that one.

You can't all right.

As I mentioned at the top of the show, Queensland Premier Stephen Miles.

Let's go to Stephen for a moment.

He's been forced to defend himself after catching an eleven minute ride the Border government jet from Harvey Bay to Bunderberg on Monday. In case you missed it earlier here, he.

Was generally we book it by the day. Any additional costs apport fees would be highly negligible. We had a significant traveling party, including members of the media. In order to hire cars to go to and from a location, we have arrangements that we generally try to avoid the jet flying without passengers.

Now we're not one hundred percent sure why he needed to get to Bunderberg so fast, seeing as a drive would have only taken about ninety minutes, but we do know he surprised a local MP with some mudcake for his birthday. That same afternoon, Michael Stephen Miles dismissed critics of his flight as tabloid fodder.

Is that fair? Goodder, James?

I think the less time we spend on this show, or any show on skuy talking about Stephen Miles, the better I think.

Succinct. Rich have what about you?

It's like nothing, there's nothing to be going, there's nothing to be going.

Well, it seems to me, Rich, Stephen Miles has given up on any pretense of being sensible. You don't pull stunts like this in the middle of a cost of living crisis, let alone fifty days before an election.

What's wrong with Stephen Miles?

I don't know.

I'd have to agree it's not the most intelligent decision I've seen made, and I don't understand how you defend it, so I'm not going to try. I mean, it was just dumb.

Rich.

Oh, that's two from two that you've not attempted to defend tonight.

You can't defend it. You can't defend the indefensible.

Really, let me go.

From Rich, RICHI I read rich O, you're working for one of those lobbying.

Businesses or one of those businesses.

Would there be a position there for Stephen after the Ober election? Stephen miles much you could take him on.

Michael and RICHI, I appreciate your time tonight, Thanks so much for joining me well. University of Sydney Vice Chancellor Mark Scott copped a grilling in New South Wales Parliament estimates earlier today over his handling of the pro Palestinian encampment that was allowed to exist on campus for two months.

Students have reported quote, I do not feel safe on campus and actively struggle to learn when faced with the reminder that people are openly allowed to call for my death in the next room. How does that help the psychosocial safety of students?

Well, I'd want to see the specific nature of that. I cannot find a jurisdiction in the country that has banned the use of those phrases.

I'm enjoined now by New South Wales Liberal MLC Susan Carter.

Susan, thanks for joining me tonight.

You were the one delivering most of the blows in estimates today and I want to go through some of the specifics in a moment, but just generally, what did you make of Mark Scott's responses to your questions today?

Oh, James, it was very, very disappointing. The university talks about the importance of empathy about free speech, but doesn't seem to have actually heard what the Jewish students and Jewish staff members have been saying about the effect of the encampment and about the effect of the protests on the just their feelings of personal safety.

One of the first questions you asked was about the ongoing support that was given to staff and students. And Mark Scott radloff all the things he had done in the wake of October seven, But do you think he answered that question about whether or not targeted and ongoing support was necessary to make sure Jewish students actually felt safe on campus.

Did he answer that question adequately?

He never answered that question, and in fact he kept talking about communication and a lot of very high level things. But it was interesting when I tried to drill down and say, okay, you talk about safety escorts, does that mean that a student who felt unsafe would be able to have an escort to take them past the encampment, past the real locus of where they felt fear and anxiety, It appeared to be simply, well, we made sure everybody

Well, you mentioned those safety escorts that were provided for Jewish students, but no one from Sydney University could actually say today whether those security escorts were ever used or if indeed Jewish students knew they were available.

Absolutely, and frankly, I think it's a fairly token response to what was going on at the university. You had an encampment of students who were making it uncomfortable, if not impossible, for Jewish students to go in a whole area of their own campus to walk to their graduation, to walk to lectures.

You had a.

Situation where the nanoscience hub and lecture theaters in Castlaw were being locked down because of safety concerns and to suggest that when you're dealing with, frankly, what was a climate of violence, that an appropriate response is to say, well, we'll get somebody to walk you past the worst bits of It's it's hard to see that that is actually real targeted action that would support Jewish students to feel safe in their own place of learning.

Right, here's the part of the hearing that really annoyed me. I couldn't help but.

Notice there was a lot of pushback from Labour MLC Stephen Lawrence, who seemed very concerned that your questions were provocative. Now, this whole topic is provocative, and speaking of provocative, Jewish students were expected to put up with provocation. But Mark Scott said at the Estimates hearing, well he's got to be protected from it.

It looked very interesting observation. James, and I think one of the most upsetting things about well two things. The safety of Jewish students and their feelings of anxiety and fear and not being safe is the most important thing. But the other thing really goes to the nature of what a university is. University should be places where we are encouraging students to respect each other to disagree well, as the former Vice chancellor used to say, and to

Before I let you go, I want to ask one more question. What did you make of Mark Scott's response to questions about the presence of has Butteria on campus?

Have a listen, I.

Would say about woodsbort Teria, as it's a question perhaps for Parliament in some respects if this was a declared terrorist organization that was illegal. If the Parliament had declared putsbert Teria an illegal organization, then of course they would be banned from campus. They are not. There was no mechanism in the sense for us to stop them being on campus as they are not a banned group.

So essentially he said, you know, yes there were radicals on campus, but not my problem.

Look, this was just buck passing. Let's reflect from a moment. James his but Teria are on record as saying that it's fine for a man to discipline a woman with violence. They say that the moral problem or the moral curse of the world is to be found in the Jewish people.

Now do we.

Actually need a law to tell us that that philosophy and that those statements are unacceptable and that if there are people on campus who are espousing those views, they should be unwelcome in a place of high learning.

Just absolutely unbelievable.

But thank you Susan for what you did today and for making those points. Job well done and I appreciate you joining me tonight. Well after the break, Big Tech put on notice as the E Safety Commission works to protect kids from the harms of social media. Plus new details leaped over Anthony Albenze's backflip on the LGBTQ census question.

All of that coming up in a moment welcome back.

Social media platforms are under pressure to hand over crucial data on the number of children using their sites. The E Safety Commission has also given Big tech players such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok thirty days to reveal how many children have accounts and how they enforce their own age restrictions. Now, the minimum age limit is typically thirteen for these sites, but as we all know, there are plenty of kids younger than that who are on

Yeah, well, of course they do, James, because that's more eyeballs and more brains to addict to their product, isn't it. So what people need to understand is these you know, billion dollar tech companies literally employee thousands of people in places like Silicon Valley where their only job is to work out how to tweak that platform to keep you on it for longer. And you know, like they say, if it appears to be free, then the product is you.

So that's great for those companies they're getting new customers. But talk to me as a child psychologist, and I mean we've read ad nauseum about all the problems that this is causing. But I mean, how bad is it for our kids?

Yeah?

I sound pretty doom and gloom when I speak about this, but I have been for the last decade now.

It's not just James, the.

Content that they see online, and we know that that's just unfettered a cess.

Pit of inappropriate material.

You know, like I've said for a long time, we underprotect our kids in the real world, you know, overprotect them, sorry, and we completely you know, underprotect them in the online world. But what we forget about as well, it's not just what they're seeing online, but it's what they're not doing when they're online, and we're talking like four, five, six, eight hours a day.

You know, they're not.

Socializing they're not talking to each other, they're not getting outside, and so you know, it's it's literally you know, the hours per week and month that add up that are taken away from what previous generations would be doing of eight nineteen year olds, which is having a.

Play based childhood.

And there's you know, importance in a play based childhood for developmental outcomes for children. And it's literally parts of the brain I think with children now that are changing before our eyes, and that comes down to things like impulsivity, patience, attention, creativity, the ability to self entertain. Parents would know that with kids these days, they're just losing all these cognitive abilities.

Okay, so the government is going hard on the big tech companies. They want to know how many kids are using your app and what are you doing about it? But would these companies even know how many children are accessing their apps and creating accounts?

How would they even know this?

Well, they won't.

That's exactly what I thought when I read this, James. I'm not against data collection at all if it informs good policy making and decisions.

But as we know, as you said in your introduction, you've got to into.

A date of birth on these apps, that is thirteen years and above to get an account. And so of course what kids do, and sometimes their parents for them, is they just enter a fake birth date. And so I can't imagine that these companies have any data, reliable data on the amount of kids that are under thirteen

So you raise a great point.

What do you say to people who argue this is overreach on the part of the government. It's mum and dad, not Mark Zuckerberg who should police their children's internet use.

Yeah, well, on face value, I would actually agree with that, but I think parents face two main problems. The first one is if the children are already on these apps, they are addicted.

And I don't use that word lightly.

I have seen the most loveliest of children become manipulative, aggressive, lying, clinically depressed and withdrawn as they literally struggle from their dopamine withdrawal symptoms of being away from these platforms.

It's shocking.

And second of all is that the pressure parents are under because everyone else has it, and so they don't want to exclude their child, they don't want to ostracize them. They're all having their conversations on these platforms.

And so I do.

Think, and I've said this for a long time, this problem could be solved tomorrow. And I think parents have no idea about the power that they have in collective action.

We don't need every kid off these apps.

What we need is a couple in each classroom, and we need a movement by parents to say, look, not everyone in the class has it. Actually you know that there's half a dozen of you who don't, and so you know you're not getting it. And I think legislating that will actually give parents the confidence to say, no, it's against the law, you're not having it. So it's more about giving parents the confidence of having that discussion in their family home, because I agree.

Actually, I think it does come back to parents.

Clear we've got to go to a break, but just very quickly before we go, this is one more question I want to ask you. Some people say the government isn't really concerned about kids. They're using the protection of kids as a trojan horse to introduce the digital ID.

What do you say to that.

Look, both might be true.

I don't think that the government is not concerned about kids.

I think the lobby groups have done really well.

I think government and opposition are concerned about kids. Whether that is now also simultaneously an opportunity to soft launch or test digital ID.

Is a discussion that we need to have. But I think that's a whole other topic.

And I actually don't think that you know, being careful about bringing in digital ID. I don't want that to delay what we should do so now, which is just about social media and let's discuss the digital idea down the track.

Clairo, always good talking to you, Thanks for your time tonight. Well stick around because after the break, the Prime Minister racks up a multi million dollar expense bill and you won't believe what he said to defend himself. I'll play you that next. Okay, So we've still got lots more to get through tonight. Let's get straight into it with our political panel Labor MP Daniel Malano and LNPMP Andrew Wallace.

Gentlemen, thanks for joining me.

Now we've got more details leaked over the Prime Minister's mishandling of the proposed LGBTQI questions in the census. Insiders have told The City Morning Herald that Anthony Abenezi personally found the questions about gender identity complicated and then made a captain's call to dump them entirely. But then, of course Labor MP's publicly disagreed with the decision, so he made a second captain's go call to include one question.

Provided it is appropriate.

Daniel is confusing as a question on gender identity might be. I can't imagine it being more confusing than the government's handling of this issue.

All Hi, James, and thanks for having me on look. I think for me, the core issue here is that there was serious consideration into the inclusion of a new question, a new question into the census which would deal with sexuality. Know, this is something that our party has said that we wanted to include in the census for a while. But look, there are some sensitivities with a question like this. One is how much detail do you include? But also do you make it compulsory or do you make it opt out?

What happened, I.

Think is that the Prime Minister clearly had some concerns around the original draft of what that question looked like, and then there was a whole lot of feedback from the community but also from members of my party expressing concerns around the possibility if they're not being a question. And in the end we've landed in a position that I think is the right position, at a common sense position.

I reckon you're right, Daniel, the government probably did land on the right position. But gee, there's a lot of turbulence. It was a bumpy flight getting there because I mean, as you said, the Prime Minister promised this would happen. Then he had concerns and seems to have panicked and said no, no, we're not going.

To do it.

Then he got feedback which wasn't complementary, changed his mind again. So it just goes to this narrative of a government that can't quite get anything right.

And Andrew, here's the other problem.

The City Morning Heralds say they spoke with three members of Cabinet on the condition of anonymity, of course, regarding how all this played out. So cabinet leaks would be a worry for the Prime minister, wouldn't they.

Absolutely, this government, this cabinet is leaking like a sieth.

I tell you what, this Prime Minister can't hold a position on policy from one day to the next.

You've hit the nail on the head. I think it's extraordinary. I can't remember the last time that a sitting Labor PM effectively got rolled.

Not just by his backbach, but rolled by his front beach as well. You know, there was a lot of disquiet in the Labor Party about this and effectively the Prime Minister has done an absolutely u.

Turn in the space in twenty four hours.

But you've hit the nail on the head, James, and that is disunity is death and where you've got three cabinet ministers that are now briefing against the Prime minister.

That's pretty severe stuff.

Well, let's stay with the Prime Minister for a moment. He's defended himself after the Daily Telegraph revealed his three point eight million dollar expense bill, which included a one hundred thousand dollars taxpayer bill for private COMCR bookings and a two point five million dollar expense for his staff's travel. Now Here was his response to all of this earlier today.

I've seen that analysis that comes out regularly. If they think that the Prime Minister of Australia should drive themselves around, they should say that I'd rather do that. Frankly, in today's world, we need security and we need these things to happen, and I think Australians know that.

It was an interesting response, Dan, You're rather than try and deal with any of the issue, it was more just you know, what do you expect me to do?

Well?

Look, one thing I'd say is that, and I'm sure Andrew would have experienced this as well and any member of Parliament. Look, people are doing it tough for the minute, and frankly, I think no matter what aspect of parliamentary expenditure you raise with people, they probably would find it jarring at the minute, whether it's any of our salaries, or whether it's expenses on the building, or whether it's our travel.

So look, I get that.

When you tally up a lot of these numbers, people out in the community do find it all a bit jarring.

But what I would say with the PM, but.

I'd also say this about the Opposition leader, about senior people in the cabinet and the Opposition the shadow cabinet, is that I think rightly there's an expectation that the PM and the Opposition leader are working hard, that they're

Yeah, I reckon, you're probably right.

When things are going badly, it doesn't matter what you do, you're going to cop criticism. If he travels, he's spending too much money. If he doesn't travel well, he's not fulfilling his duties as Prime Minister.

And that's the problem.

When you can't get anything right, everything becomes a problem. Let's return to today's headline. Story Australia's die economic growth. Government spending contributed just contributed zero point four percent to the Dune quarter outcome, clearly propping up the GDP. Daniel, this is not sustainable at all. But let me go to Andrew for a second. The sixth consecutive quarter that our economic activity declined on a per capita basis.

Well, James, this reminds me of the time back when I was a young fellow, when I was building building business in the nineties. Tough times back then after the recession that we had to have according to Paul Peting.

And here we are back there again.

We've seen the sixth quarter of negative growth, point two percent of growth over the last quarter. Look, this is dire times for the government. It doesn't seem to be able to take a trick, and that's essentially because of its own doing. You've got Jim Chalmers out there trying to blame everybody by himself, is at war with the Reserve Bank. Governor, is at war with the Productivity Commission. The only thing he's not at war with is inflation.

People right now. Cost of living crisis.

I talk to a lot of people every day, as I'm sure Daniel does as well, and so many people are talking to me about their inability to be able to make ends meet.

Even people who are on really good incomes.

I'm coming across now, which is unheard of on the Sunshine Coast, people who have mums and dads two incomes, both working and they're having to sleep in their cars with their kids.

I mean, people.

Are really really doing it tough, and they're doing it tough because.

Inflation is not abating, and inflation is not abating.

Because this government has got the wrong settings, the wrong policy settings in place.

But you can't tell Jim because he knows all what to do. Apparently.

All right, Well, Daniel Andrew, thanks for coming on the program.

Appreciate it. We'll stick around.

Coming up, we're going live to tell Aviv as the UK's arms suspension leads to a diplomatic row with Israel. Israeli MP Sharon Haskell joins me in just a moment, well Hamas continue to taunt grieving Israeli families, not content with shooting hostages in cold blood to stop them being rescued. The terrorist group has released a third video from one of the six hostages murdered last week.

Now, I'm not.

Going to show you the clip because unlike Hamas, the rest of us respect human dignity. But the video features twenty five year old Uri de Nino, who is shown accusing the Israeli government of abandoning him and his fellow hostages. The propaganda vie ends with Hamas threatening to kill more hostages and the ominous warning quote time is running out.

For effect.

The Hamas media team included sand running through an hour glass.

Classy.

Let's cross live to tell Aviv now, where I'm joined by Israeli MP Sharon Heskell. Sharon, thanks for being with me. These hostage videos are beyond cruel. What's been the reaction to them in Israel?

Well, it's absolutely heartbreaking. I mean the families of the hostages, not just the six who were executed and brutally murdered, but more than a hundred hostages were being held in the dungeons of Hamas, being torture, starved, abuse physically and sexually.

So that's now the big question. How do we get the rest of the hostages home? Prime Minister Benjamin Netanya, who's already under a lot of pressure to bring about the ceasefire deal? But how do you make a deal with people who use hostages to make propaganda videos before shooting them in cold blood and then the next minute, oh, let's negotiate a ceasefire.

Well, you know, the Americans, with the Katari and the Egyptians have been sitting around the table for months now trying to bring into youal and look, I sit in the opposition. I've been criticizing time after time about many many things. But we have to say and we have to see it upright. Nataniao said yes to a deal a few months ago. Nataniao said yes for the deal that's on the table right now. The American called it

Speaking of allies, and we've only got a short time left. But the United Kingdom has drawn heavy fire over its incomprehensible decision to suspend thirty of its three hundred and fifty arms export licenses to Israel, and this move was made apparently because of what the UK government called a clear risk that the equipment might be used to commit serious violations of international law. We've just got a short time left, but what's been the action to that in Israel?

So our alliance to defend freedom transcend any single government. And it feels like the labor government in the UK actually betrayed Israel. They betrayed their allies. We are fighting the front war of radical Islam against Western civilization and during these difficult time we really need our allies free democracies in Western civilization. But we leave in freedom to stand beside Sharon Sean.

I've got to leave you there, but thank you so much for your time. That's all of my time gone, But please don't go anywhere. Coming right up is Paul Murray