Live on Sky News. This is Sharry.
Well, good evening and welcome to the show. I'm James Macpherson filling in for Sharry. Coming up tonight. Labor busy trying to put a good spin on yesterday's grim economic news as a new poll released just hours ago shows Peter Dutton on track to win the next election, an entire industry on a knife's edge as Tanya Plibasek pussyfoots around another major decision in her environment portfolio and is the answer to declining educational out and this declining educational
outcomes a return to old school teaching methods. The amazing nap Plan results achieved by a group of Catholic schools suggest that's the case. Kevin Donnelly will join me shortly, and Jews targeted a game by protesters, this time outside of major Sydney synagogue, with worshipers forced to barricade themselves inside their synagogue for their own safety. I'll have the
latest on that disgraceful episode with Alex Rivchen shortly. But First Treasurer Jim Chalmers today publicly backed Anthony Elbanezi to continue leading the Labor Party if they win the next election, and that public backing should ensure the Prime Minister enjoys anything but a merry Christmas. Whenever your nearest political rival is publicly backing you, it's a sign you're already in trouble. I mean, if you weren't in trouble, there'd be no
need for people to say that they back you. And if you are in trouble will your rivals are only backing you until they're close enough to stab you in the back, which is why Albanzi's election catchphrase is all sorts of wrong. And my government has always been focused on making Australians lives better. The number one priority of my government is to continue providing support.
My message is we have your back.
Do you really believe Anthony Albanesi has your back or do you feel like Anthony Anthony Albanese needs to get off your back along with Chris Bowen, Penny Wong, Andrew Giles, Tanya Plipasek Ed Husick and Tony Burke.
That's a lot of monkeys.
But back to my point, do you really think ALBINIZI believes Jim Chalmers has his back? He's Jim Charmers on ABC Radio earlier today.
My expectation, and my hope is if we do win the election next year, that Anthony Albanezi serves the full term and runs again. That's what I would expect to happen.
Okay, he expects and he hopes.
He might have added wishes and praise that Albanezi will be leader if they win the next election. Expect, hope, if not exactly terms that fill you with confidence. Charmer's unassuring reassurance came after the Age newspaper ran this headline, if Albanezi wins the next election, he should celebrate, then step aside. Now bear in mind this isn't the evil papers,
this is the Melbourne Age. Nicky Sava wrote, and I quote Albanezey succeeded brilliantly, certainly beyond his wildest imaginings and that of his friends, to become leader then prime minister. He should count his blessings then gracefully relinquish the job. In other words, no one, not even his friends, ever thought Albinezey was much of a leader, and they're still amazed he's the prime minister.
And that was the kind version. She went on to say.
The more drastic view, which has been bubbling away inside the wider Labor family is that he's lost his mojo, his judgment has deserted him and if he can't summon the discipline to shape up, he should ship out before the election to allow someone else to take on a rampant Peter Dutton AlCH that's from the friendly media. So there was Jim Chalmers on ABC Radio helping to pump up his ailing leader's mojo.
But one of the things that we'll be taking to the Australian people is a sense of stability, a sense that we've got an economic plan.
Oh my goodness, Labor is going to take a sense of stability to the Australian people.
Where are they going to get that from?
Is he talking about the electricity grid that's not exactly stable at the moment. Maybe he's talking about interest rates. They're pretty stable, as in immovably high. Immigration is also stable at record numbers. Government spending is stable at record highs. Forgive me, but things are terrible and we promise to keep it stable.
It's not exactly a winning pitch.
Imagine an airline pilot telling passengers as they plummet towards the ground, we're going to crash but don't worry, as we plummet to the earth will be giving you a sense of stability as well as a sense of stability. The Treasurer promise to PM would give Australians a sense that we've got an economic plan, not a plan, a
sense that they've got a plan. And then Jim Chalmers generously gave all the credit for the sense of stability and the sense of a plan to Anthony Albanezi, which gives me the sense that Charmers has the PM's back in the same way the PM has ours.
We're rolling that out in difficult times. We're helping people where we can, and that's a tribute to Anthony's leadership.
Wonderful.
We're rolling out a sense of a plan in difficult times and helping people, you know, where we can, and it's all thanks to Anthony's leadership.
Very helpful, Jim Charmers.
I certainly anticipate and expect and hope that if we win the next election that Anthony will be around for as long as possible.
Anthony Albanesi has been in the lodge two and a half years and he's already run out of gas, a bit like the country. Actually a report out today by Frontier Economics predicted residential gas customers would face price rises of up to two hundred and ninety dollars because supply of gas is so short. That comes after yesterday's warning by Manufacturing Australia that looming gas shortage threatens tens of thousands of jobs.
It's so bad we're now getting to.
The point where we can't afford to even make bricks in this country. Australia's number one home builder, Metricons, said the cost of making bricks, which like the manufacture of most things, requires gas, has gone up two hundred percent in the past six years, and that's making houses more expensive, which is making the housing crisis a greater crisis, which is why we need a little more than a sense
that the government has a plan. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, building costs are now on average thirty five percent higher than in twenty nineteen, and the major cause of that is high energy costs. But of course here's the crazy thing. The gas shortage that threatens to cripple and already hobbled economy is not a gas shortage at all. It's a refusal on the part of the government to access the abundance of gas right beneath our feet.
The government's decided that gas is evil, too many emissions, and so we can't access any more of it. Seventy percent of what we do access is sold over sea, leaving the domestic market hopelessly short. But instead of opening new gas fields can't do that emissions. We export gas overseas and then pay to import it back at a higher price than we sold it.
Call it elbanomics. And by the time we bring.
Back to Australia what we've shipped out of Australia, what do you think has happened to emissions? We've created more than we otherwise would have. So it's a whole lot of pain for absolutely zero gain. If you're getting a sense that the government's plan makes no sense, then that's not the sense Jim Chalmers intended.
But your senses are good.
Having demonized call disparaged gas and discredited nuclear, here's the plan. Canberra's trial shows evs can provide backup power to grid in blackouts and emergencies.
That's right. We can power Australia by.
Getting motorists to donate unused electricity from their Tesla's Now you know Jim Chalmers says they have a sense of a plan because that sure ain't an actual plan.
Here's a plan.
I will end a devastating infleetion crisis, immediately bring down interest rates and lower the cost of energy.
We will drill, baby drill.
Peter Dutton should drill, baby drill. That should be his election catchphrase. Would you vote for Elbow to have you back or for Dutton to drill baby drill. He made a good move today pledging to scrap the government's planned Port Stephens offshore wind farm if elected.
Our economy can't function on intermittent part time power. We need strong base slow power. Anthony ORBERNEI is about an ideological pursuit of one hundred percent renewables in the system, which will drive up the power prices of ordinary Australians.
Well, that's a really good start. Next, pledge to scrap the bands on accessing our abundant.
Resources of natural gas.
Then pledge to restart coul fired power stations until nuclear power is ready. Do that and everyone will be happy. Australians will have cheap, reliable energy. Peter Dutton will be in the lodge Anthony Albanezi will be enjoying retirement in
his four million dollar beach side mansion. It's on a cliff top, so he'll be safe from sea levels that will be warned will rise the moment Dutton takes office and Jim Charmers will lead the Labor opposition from where he can continue his political career, but without damaging the country any further. Now that's a plan that makes sense. Let's hope Peter Dutton is sensible enough to do it.
Well.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers is working hard to spin some positive pr out of yesterday's grim economic data after the Coalition slammed Labour's record spending, which is driving inflation and keeping interest rates high.
Here's Peter Dutton, families are going backwards under this government.
Inflation remains high and therefore interest rates will stay higher for longer.
Why.
Well, the Reserve Bank Governor has made it very clear. The government continues to spend money in a wasteful way and that's holding up inflation for longer. And that's why interest rates will stay higher for longer.
And here's the Treasure's measured sensible reply.
So we get a lot of free advice from our political opponents and from their sicker fans and suck ups, that we should have some kind of slash and burn budget with radical austerity. That's a recipe for a session.
That sounded to me like a man under pressure. Not as much pressure as Anthony Albanezi, mind you, and not as much pressure as every day ossie's trying to pay their bills. But that was a tetchy response. Let's bring in a very relaxed and calm Perth Mayre Basil's emplas and LNP MP Andrew Wallace Basil Jim Chalmers has promised the mid year budget won't be a major cash splash. But what happens to our already weak GDP figures if we don't have the government's wreck spending to keep propping us up.
Well we know where that'd be, don't we. And he's getting cranky, the Treasurer. And cranky means and he's normally pretty mild mannered. That means all is not well, or certainly the attention that he is under an Australia's financial position. He is bearing the brunt of responsibility for it as he should.
He is the federal Treasurer.
We know that.
Productivity is down. We know that Australian's standards of living have fallen off a cliff.
We know that household bills have.
Gone up, and we know that the Australian federal public service has grown by around about twenty five thousand people in Labour's period. So this spending is not the right way to address the Australian economy, and sooner or later it is going to become a major problem.
It's already at that point.
And frankly, if they're the sorts of responses that the Treasurer is giving to sensible, well meaning questions, well perhaps it suggests he's out of answers.
Yeah, it certainly suggests he's out of his depth. Andrew.
The only sector of the economy that's growing is the public sector. Has Basil pointed out, the Commonwealth public services grown by twenty six thousand permanent staff since Labor came to power. The Commonwealth now has three hundred and sixty five thousand employees with an annual wages bill of thirty seven billion dollars and guests who pays for that? If you guessed you and I you'd be correct. This government is building bureaucracy while business just dwindles, isn't it.
Let's right, James, and thanks for having me on. Of course this is true to form for all labor governments who always believe in big spending, big bloadd bureaucracy. We have had an explosion of public servants working in Canberra, and of course we've had more than a million immigrants coming into the country and really that's the only thing that has kept the economy on life support rather than
being a stone motherlers dead. But when I get around and talk to people in my electorate and everywhere else in Australia apart from Canberra, people are doing it very, very, very tough. The cost of living on families has been so incredibly significant with now the National Account figures that were released just a couple of days ago identified now seven consecutive quarters of negative growth. It's the longest period in Australian history of negative growth for households and it
really just demonstrates how tough people are doing. But if people are in small business, they're getting a double wham because not only have their cost of living significantly gone up, but the cost of doing business for small business gas electricity, insurance, they've all gone skyrocketing as well.
Yeah, well I got problems everywhere.
Who would have imagined back in twenty twenty two that labor might be a one term government and the part of the reason for that would be, can you believe it?
Salmon?
Labor heavyweights have worn the Prime Minister that if they shut down salmon farming in Tasmania to save the Manguin skates so beloved by inner city Greens, they won't have an office to return to after the election.
Basil.
It's not like the PM doesn't have enough on his plate right now without adding salmon, of all things to it.
Haven't got many, right have they?
And there must be some soul searching, even if it's not audible, or even if it's not conversations that they're having allowed, they must wonder to themselves, how did we get from where we were nearly three years ago to this point where we're hanging in by a thread and the latest opinion polls we know what they're suggesting. I think there's been such a contrast in styles from the leaders. We know that Peter Dutton have said this many times.
Not trying to win a popularity contest, trying to win an a let and his philosophy about achieving that has been stand for what you stand for, make it clear, be big and bold and let the Australian people make their choice. And by contrast, the Prime Minister has been flimsy and wishy was She been on some positions, been off others and hasn't been able to get one to stick.
So there is a clear contrast. We're going to have an election in the first half of next year and right now Peter Dutton really starting to look like a winner.
Andrew Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek isn't exactly helping. She's made a mess of the mcphillamy gold decision and now she's making a mess of Tasmania's salmon industry. She's put off for decision about the industry until after the election, leaving more than five thousand people who rely on the industry for their livelihoods in limbo. I mean you just can't lead like that. In fact, that's not leadership at all.
No, absolutely, and I agree with all the comments that have been said tonight. So are you know those five one hundred workers that stand to lose their jobs in Tasmania and the salmon industry. And you've got Tanya Plubisek who is consistently trying to appeal to the inner city elites in Melbourne and Sydney and really not looking after and also in my electorate as well, the fishing industry.
That the damage that she's caused in my electric in fisher Weather, the largest wild court tuna fishery on the eastern seaboard of Australia, and she has locked up so much of the fishing grounds that we're seeing unprecedented numbers of boats that are no longer going to see because it's just not viable for them anymore. So it's not just salmon in Tazzi, it's also tuna around the East coast of Australia and that's because of Tanya.
Put seat well Andrew.
With all of this, it should come as no surprise, or maybe it does. I don't know that polling released just a couple of hours ago has Peter Dutton on track to win the election next year. The Redbridge poll, released just as I said a couple of hours ago in news Court Papers, projects the Coalition ahead in sixty four seats, ahead of Labour on fifty nine, with fourteen seats remaining too close to call.
Basil.
I remember when the experts used to assure themselves that Peter Dutton was unelectable. Is this a case of cometh the hour, cometh the man, because all of a sudden Peter Dutton's got his nose in front.
It feels that way, doesn't it.
And you know, I think often in observing Australian politics, no opposition leader ever really looks like a premier or a prime minister. But then when they are, they quickly bed in. And I think that's the relationship that Peter Dutton is enjoying with the Australian population at the moment. I mean, they see him for what he is. He doesn't try and be something that he's not. He makes his agenda and his philosophy is very clear.
He sticks to.
Them and he has given the sort of conviction leadership forward as an option for the Australian public that they are looking for.
And when you contrast Anthony.
Albanese's style over the last three years, nice enough, fellow, good bloke.
I think he is a genuinely good bloke.
I think he's a good, honest, decent Australian. But he hasn't got the politics right in this three year term. And by contrast, the option that Peter Dutton has put forward strong, bold, this is what I stand for. People have a choice and at the moment I'm not surprised to see the polls leaning his way.
Neil Andrew just quickly.
Labor have said that at the next election they're going to target Peter Dutton's quote unquote unlikability. But it's the shine that seems to have come off elbow that's the real problem, isn't it.
Yeah, Look, I think Peter is appealing to people because of his strength. I think that the Australian people are looking for strong leadership right now.
What they've seen.
Over the last two and a half years with the Prime Minister has been utter ineffective, weakness and the way that he has been totally distracted on things like the voice when average Australians and small business is doing it so tough with the cost of living. They haven't concentrated on basics like getting the fundamentals right, trying to assist our economy. Our economy is going backwards at a great
rate of knots. People are doing it tough and people are comparing the weakness of Anthony Albanesi with the strength.
Of Peter Dutton.
Look, I don't want to come out this early in the blocks and say that you know we're going to win the next election. I'm not going to say that because it's a herculean task that waits ahead of us. We has only ever been one term one one term government in Australian political history at a federal level, and that was back in nineteen thirty one. We need to
win twenty one seats to win you're already government. So it's a herculean task and Peter Dutton is up to the job as and we will support him every step of the way.
He's certainly making all the right moves at the moment. Basil Andrew, appreciate your time tonight, Thank you well. Catholic schools in the Act captured national attention this week after they achieved remarkable results in this year's napland tests. And guess how they achieved top results. They went old school.
The Catholics ditched the modern education fetish of student led learning, whatever that means, and they got teachers to actually teach, and they got kids to repeat key concepts over and over and over again until they were certain they had learned them.
Fancy that and it worked.
Teachers teaching kids learning and concepts being committed to memory. What a revolutionary idea, and that, of course is the problem, isn't it. It is revolutionary, but it shouldn't be, but it is to discuss. I'm joined by author Kevin Donnelly. Kevin, thanks for your time tonight. Just before we get into all of this, tell us about these schools and how well they did, because the turnaround for some of them was quite dramatic, wasn't it.
It is very much James. And when you look at the schools, the Catholic schools in the Act, but other schools in Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Adelaide, those primary schools in particular where you really do have to learn the basics in terms of reading. What they've done over the last five ten years, a lot of them is to get rid of this progressive New Age approach to reading called look and guess, where it's all about pretty well making
it up. And these more successful schools have gone back to what in the old days were called phonics and phonemic awareness, which is about learning the structure of the alphabet, learning about particular words, found them out in terms of valves and consonance, and how to put that together, so
it becomes automatic. I mean, back in the day when I did teacher training many years ago, and I did it I was an English teacher, we were told that learning to read was natural, like learning to listen or talk. But learning to read is actually very unnatural, and it has to be structured, it has to be explicit, and it has to be well taught.
So do you think these results will put an end to those progressive fads and experiments that we've seen become all the rage recently, or is there a reluctance to change amongst the teaching fraternity in schools.
It's complicated. I mean, the reality is many teachers who have gone through teacher training over the last ten twenty years have not been taught this approach, whether you call it phonics, whether you call it direct instruction or more explicit teaching. So a lot of teachers already in the classroom are going to have to be retrained. And that means, in fact that faculties of education and some are doing it now, whether it's Latrobe University or the Australian Catholic University.
They have moved towards this more effective approach to teaching and learning. It's going to take time. It's not about money, and the teacher Union, the Australian Education Union are wrong to argue the best way to improve results is to put more money into it. We know that doesn't work. What has to happen is we need to look at more effective teaching and learning and that will take time. There's no denying that, but it's a good thing. The real crime here is that we've had generations of young
people over the last twenty thirty years. And I and others warned about this thirty years ago, that we've gone down the wrong track. The problem is we've had generations of young people go through a school not being able to read, in fact illiterate. So it'll take time before we can rectify that.
What I want to know is if the results are so stark and it's so obvious that a return to how we used to do things is in the best interests of every child's education, why does the government not insist that this is done immediately. You say, well, teachers have to be retrained. Fair enough, retrain teachers, but I mean governments fund schools. If the results are so obviously better with the old methods, why is it not mandated
in every state for all schools. If you want your funding, you will take steps to go back to learning as we used to do, rather than with these new fads that clearly a producing less than optimal results.
The problem here is that and I was an English teacher, as I mentioned, for eighteen years, and the Australian Association Teaching of English, they've been pushing this progressive New Age agenda over the last twenty thirty years. So a lot of those academics who are responsible. The Australian Education Union is another one, they've been pushing this idea of what they call critical literacy, get away from teaching standard English
or for its venetic awareness. You've got these organizations that have been very influential, and it will take a very strong education minister federally or state and territory to actually fight against these entrenched organizations that have spent the last thirty years creating the problem. So it's going to be difficult. Jason Clare, the Labor or the federal Minister ALP, He's tried to tie the funding. Whether that will work, I don't think so.
What you need is a.
More route and branch change in terms of teacher training, in terms of helping teachers who are already in the classroom, and also teaching parents and people. Forget that this literacy begins when children are two or three or five years old, before they go to school. Teachers are there, they can do their job, but they have to have young kids coming to school who know about what the printed word is. Parents need to get them off the tablets, off the computer screens.
They need to.
Shut it down, take it away, give them a picture book. Actually get their children to understand. But the printed word, it is more important than spending time on in the digital world.
Yeah, Kevin Donnelly, you make a lot of sense. Thanks for your time tonight. I really appreciate it.
We'll stick around. Still ahead.
Caught on camera, Sleepy Joe zones out while meeting with African leaders. And next, more ugly scenes as pro Palestinian protesters target Jewish worshipers at a synagogue in Sydney.
That's up next, Welcome Back.
Jewish Australians were barricaded inside Sydney's Great Synagogue last night after a noisy and aggressive pro Palestinian group decided to protest on the street right outside. Just think about that, our fellow Australians were unable to safely leave their place of worship in the Sydney CBD because of people protesting about a conflict happening on the other side of the world.
The so called activists protested outside the place of worship for nearly three hours, calling for sanctions against Israel and chanting from the River to the Sea, which everyone knows very well is a call for the extermination of the state of Israel. It was ugly, it was uncalled for, and for Jews in the synagogue it must have been terrifying. And once again our police failed Jewish Australians while allowing those who sought to intimidate them to run unchecked.
Have a look at this.
Police do nothing to remove the mob chanting in sindiory slogans right out the front of the synagogue. But when a Jew holds an Israeli flag outside of the Jewish synagogue, police move on the Jew for exciting the mob.
The world go.
Go You're going back and your goway. I would have thank Pagan I you no need to be here.
I cannot believe that, no need for the guy with the Jewish flag to be outside the Jewish synagogue. What about the protesters? Why are they there? The police just allowed them to continue. I suppose they weren't breaking any laws. But seriously, when you see things like that, you just wonder what on earth is going on. I'm joined now by Executive Council of Australian Jury co CEO Alex Ritchen Alex.
The mob claimed they were protesting against an event being held at the synagogue by the Israel Institute of Technology. Was that a fair enough excuse to camp right out front of the synagogue?
Certainly not.
But the event that they were protesting was the anniversary the one hundredth anniversary of the Technion University in Haipha, one of the great institutions of higher education anywhere in the world. And the reason they were protesting that first, it's a symbol of Israel, but also it stands for everything that they fear and hate. So the Techniom was founded in nineteen twelve by Jews in Heifer. But the protesters would have this, believe that there were no Jews
before nineteen forty eight. Twenty percent of the students that go to that university are Arab Israelis. They would have us believe that Israel's in apartheid state. The techno has produced groundbreaking research, particular Nobel Laureates in molecular biology that have changed the way that we look at diseases. But the protesters would have us believe that Israel's a force for evil. Are not good. So the institution represents everything that they fear and everything that I want us to know,
which is the truth of Israel. It shows again that this is a protest not against any political cause. It's a protest against values, against decency and basic truth.
So Alex just explain to me.
For the people who were inside the synagogue, I mean they couldn't come out the front door because I mean, one Jewish man across the other side of the road stood up so much commotion police moved him on. So all the people inside the synagogue, the protest went for about three hours. Were they able to get out and get home happened?
They had to wait it out. They were barricaded inside the synagogue and they were advised by police that wasn't safe for them to leave. We've seen over the last fourteen months and in countries around the world, what these mobs can do when properly aggravated and inside it. It's a dangerous situation, and that's why the police were so keen to remove the one Jewish individual. We look at that as a case of bizarre police and the fact they targeted the Jew rather than the mob that threatened him.
But ultimately they were concerned for his safety and it was easy to remove him. But it shows the menace and the harm posed by these mobs, and that's why for three hours the people inside couldn't even go about their lives. And the fact that you have people in this country in this time barricaded inside synagogues, unable to go about their lives at the mercy of mobs, it's shameful.
It's absolutely outrageous.
Speaking of outrageous, I want to turn to today's shocking news with Amnesty International accusing Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Now, Amnesty took it upon themselves to do an investigation and released a report yesterday. Should NGOs even be getting involved in investigations like this.
It very much depends on the NGOs and their expertise, and whether they arrive at these issues with credibility and good faith. Amnesty certainly does not. Since two thousand and one, Amnesty has been at the forefront of the NGO war against Israel. It was one of the leading groups involved in the Urban Conference where the boycott, divestment and sanctioned
BDS movement against Israel was formed. The following year, it was responsible for spreading the libel that Israel had massacred five hundred people in Jenin, where no such thing had occurred. For years and years and years, this organization has produced phony reports that have done nothing but spread greater lives and greater harm targeting Jewish individuals and the State of Israel, and they receive government funding. They're still viewed as being
an impartial, credible organization. Last year they attacked Ukraine and accused them of war crimes. This is an organization that, much like that fellow travelers in the far left, oppose democracy and sided with autocratic, tyrannical regimes wherever they can, so whatever they say, usually the opposite is the truth.
Peter Dutton has said what so many of us are thinking when it comes to Labour's stance on Israel. Have listened to his comments today and.
You've got the Prime Minister who's been the leader of the left in the Labor Party for twenty or thirty years. So in a sense you shouldn't be surprised by the position. But the government went into the last election saying that there would be a bipartisan position in relation to Israel. And it's not just about the Jewish community, not just
about Israel. It's about civilization itself, and it's about the values that we have as Western, as Westerns and as a culture that's worth protecting and defending.
Alex just in the time we've got left, talk to me about that last comment by Peter Dutton. We all know that this Labor government has betrayed our alliance with Israel and Australian Jews. But Peter Dutton says that this is not just about looking after Israel. This fight is about Western civilization. Just quickly, what does he mean by that.
Well, he means that Israel is a democracy similar to ours in terms of the form of government, the pluralism of the society, the rights for women, LGBT people. It stands up for basic Western Judo Christian values for basic humanity in the post Enlightenment era. The enemies of Israel, the organizations and states that wish to destroy it, are the very enemies that we're fighting here in this country as well, that have fought all over the Western world.
The Ranian regime prescribed terror organizations like hazblan Hamas they hate Israel not because of what it does, but because of what it is, which is the Jewish state and what they view as the Islamic world. So when Israel fights, it's fighting not only for its own sake, but it's fighting for the values of the West, including in this country.
And that's why when Labor takes these positions hostile to the Jewish community in Israel, it is betraying not only certain constituencies and certain segments of the community, it has betraying the very values of this country.
Alex Ripchun, it's always a delight to speak with you, and I appreciate you taking the time out tonight. We'll stick around because coming up fresh drama for former Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews. I'll let you know where he's no longer welcome. And consumers face another energy price hike, but Peter Dutton has outlined his plan for wind farms if elected.
All of that in just a moment. Welcome back.
Plenty more headlines to get across tonight, so let's jump straight into it with my panel, Liberal Senator Holly Hughes and Sky News commentator Jason Morrison.
Welcome to you both now.
As I said at the top of the show, the renewables debate has well and truly fired up again.
Unlike our energy grid.
Peter Dutton promised to scrap the controversial Port Stephens offshore wind zone if elected. That comes as residential gas customers are staring down the barrel of price increases of around two hundred and ninety five dollars, which reminds me of a figure, wasn't it two hundred and seventy five dollars we were promised to our electricity bills would go down.
By Holly, I want to start with you. It's just insane that a gas rich country like Australia is going to have to import more gas while moving forward with these renewal projects that aren't even going to provide the reliable power we need to live and make things that none of this makes any sense at all. Can you make sense of it?
Absolutely not, and I don't think anybody can. I mean, this country is literally floating on gas, yet somehow or other, we're now having.
To import it.
And to be honest, every other windshare program other than port steamens, as far as I can tell around the country, has already been canceled by the developers those offshore win short programs because they're not financially viable. So I would put that there are minutes, if not days, until someone imports Stevens in that project actually pulls the pin.
I feel for the labor members.
Up there who don't support it, yet they're being bombarded by Chris Bowen and his renewable only Chrisade. If you look at down Coley and Merrill Swanson, none of them are renewable zealous, yet due to labor carcus rules, start being bombarded by Chris Bowen. I mean, it is just
insanity on steroids. But there isn't a person in this country who thinks that the renewable only approach that the Bowen and I'm going to say the Bowling government because alban Easy seems to have another leadership at the moment when it.
Comes to the energy space, it's the Bowen government.
And you know, when Casanova Bowen's in charge, we know we're all in trouble.
Do you.
I thought things were rugged, but when you start talking about the Bowen government, Ge, you really make me scared. Holly, you might not sleep tonight, exactly, Jason. The fact is many of the people who live in these areas where these offshore wind farms are going to be, they don't want them either, So why are labor forcing this on people who don't want them?
It's extraordinary that the proposal is for these to sit off the coast of the Hunter in Australia's second most richest coal environment. It's like an insult to injury kind of situation, and that is the only way you can look at it that. I think a lot of people have figured out now that a lot of this is not really about the environment.
Hasn't been for a long time.
It's been about forcing change, social change. Well, can you think of a bigger one than that than shutting down the industry that sustains this region and giving them the big two fingers salute the great up yours off the coast with the wind farms and they're doing this and it is almost like this is the sort of sickness in Bowen's head that started to be poured out in policy. But what we're seeing here is something that it won't
provide the baseload. The Hunter provides the baseload. Queensland. Thank god for Queensland. Queenslanders, thank you for being generous with your energy, because New South Wales would have none tonight. We rely on you every night to keep the lights on because dim wits like Bowen and Matt Kean before have progressively shut down a very reliable industry in.
Coal in the Hunt of Alley.
It's our advantage and we're destroying it. And we're destroying it for what reason?
Really? What reason?
No one can come up with the answer, We say the environment.
I thought you were going to give me an answer.
I find out, but of course there's no answer that question, is there?
I want to go there is an answer to that question.
The people that aren't benefiting are the people who were convinced to invest in renewable energy, and they're about the only Australians and unfortunately a lot of offshore investment, they're the only ones doing well at the moment are those that have continued to invest in this renewable pipe drain and it's every day Australians that are being forced to pay for it. And even those Australians are brought into solar panels.
On their roof are now going to have to pay for excess energy that they put it into the.
Green during the day.
So you know, everyone other than most big renewable energy investors are going to be forced to pay for this.
You make a really good point, Holly.
I want to transition from wind power and renew to US if I can to golf, of all things. Two governing bodies, the Ladies' Professional Golf Association and the US Golf Association, have updated their guidelines so that men identifying as women need to have transitioned before they hit puberty in order to be eligible to compete in women's events. Now, I got to be honest, I don't understand this. Does that mean a man is a woman if he transitions before puberty, but he's not a woman if he transitions
after puberty. That would mean gender is a fixed biological reality with puberty rather than chromosomes as the rule.
Right, we have a whiteboard for a second, I've lost this already well, I.
Mean most of the life.
It's so hard to understand wholly this idea of measuring testosterone levels so that we're fair to women but still accepting of men who want to be women. It's just a cowards way of avoiding the obvious, which is banning biological men of any description from women's sport, full stop.
Isn't it.
It's part of the total obliteration of women in all their capabilities and special things that make us women. They're all trying to be overridden. But the reality is women do not want biologically carry the same sorts of physical strength as men do. Even the most unfit men do not are stronger in many ways than very many many fit women. It's just biological. But this is the thing. I'm not personally a supporter of puberty blockers to children preating.
I think it's a very, very dangerous route to go to.
Yet these sports are now saying they will only allow people to participate if they started their transition pre puberty, which is long before eighteen. But look, just as an aside, I played in the Commando Cup the other day tennis. Darren Chester was my partner. We were playing a couple of comadoes in mixed double. In tennis, we played golf, tennis, sevens.
And rugby, touch and rugby.
Sorry, and no one thought the greatest injury of the day would come from tennis, thank you very much, with a full body slam on the court that had nothing to do with men versus women, but just blind competitiveness. But you know this is the insanity or it I know I will never pay a sport at the same physical stream of a male and to try and put them up against us at any stage is just an insult and part of the eraser of women.
Holly, you alluded to something really important that I wanted to ask you about, Jason. This ruling by the golf associations, doesn't it just almost risk encouraging people to transition younger, which of course has all sorts of problems associated Well.
Only if a six society doesn't wake up to itself and realize that there's probably a better way to handle this, and that is to kind of encourage kids to give it a few more years to think about.
Look, I know what you're saying.
I think that's a byproduct of a decision that is part of a much bigger madness that's going on in society. I mean, the straight out thing here is that we fell off the rails here when we thought it was a wise thing to start encouraging and pushing children to it, when we start empowering school counselors to be able to work around parents and encourage children to explore these things as opposed to doing what society is kind of always quite well done, and that is try to sort things
out inside families until they can't be sorted out. The moment you start to families out of the equation and traditional arrangements out of the equation, you end up in chaos. We are in chaos with this sort of thinking and the fact that we even have to be worried about the byproduct of doing something that's so damn logical letting little girls play against little girls and girls and women being able to play against women, and just know that's how it works.
The moment you start.
Screwing that thing up, you've really missed things up. And we are so close to that. And this is a little bit of common sense, logical stuff that's going.
On Nowah, you're right.
Hey, quickly, just in the time we've got left in Victoria, the state's most despised premier. Dan Andrews has been blacklisted from another pub.
It's not the first time.
It's also been blacklisted from golf courses and so on and so forth.
Holly, I know a lot of people.
Don't like Dan Andrews, but is this good that we start blacklisting politicians who we didn't agree with from general places in the community or do you think it's fair enough?
Night, Look, aren't they building a statue to him? I thought Dan was getting a statue. I don't know. I thought it was all about iconography.
And you know, there's a golden statue of Dan Andrews about to appear.
Somewhere in Melbourne.
Melbourne is a shadow of former self and it actually breaks my heart. I used to love going down to Melbourne, the lame ways, the activity, the things that were going on down there. It's died, and it died under Dan Andrews. But I'm not a big fan of the ban. It's not the way that I would normally go, but I think it is well within rights of businesses.
He did everything he fundamentally could kill them off during COVID and he's unprecedented world shattering, record shattering lockdowns.
If they don't want him in there, whatever, you know, stand up, he might catch a freaking cold or something.
That's the argument that they're using.
That he destroyed business, so why should he dine at their business.
I want the statue so the pigeons can do what Australia has wanted to do to him for a while.
Jason, We've got to move on. I appreciate you joining me.
Coming up, Sleepy Joe lives up to his name as he meets with leaders in Africa and Donald Trump's pick for Defense Secretary Advice to Fight, vows to fight like hell to keep the job. As former Trump rival becomes favorite for the role. Kosher Gartera joins me in just a moment, welcome back.
Well.
Last week, President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden, who was facing jail time for gun and tax convictions.
But not only.
That, the pardon applied to any and all laws Hunter might have broken over the past ten years. And he did this after repeatedly promising that he wouldn't. No one of the Democrats, like Chuck Schumer, don't want to talk about it.
Question, yes, do you agree with some.
Of your Democrat college see that President Biden's part of Hunter Biden was wrong or unwise.
It's a personal interest ahead of duty.
I got nothing for you on that.
Well, of course he doesn't want to say anything. It's impossible to defend the indefensible. Democrats were left to deal with the mess after Joe Biden issued the pardon and then fled the country. While awkward questions were being asked at home, Biden was en Goola meeting with African leaders and well, they don't call him Sleepy Joe for nothing.
And it just through such much my shoes and innovations, Dutch Africa's agenda twenty six to three willn't be realized.
I think mentor people would services.
But we're also from Lord, shared prosperity and immulusive growth across the.
Em What does it say about Joe Biden's usefulness that no one bothered to wake him up. Let's bring in Sky News contributor Kosher Garda Kosher. I know it must have been boring, but it couldn't have been that boring.
He is bringing new life jeans into that moniker Sleepy Joe, which Trump came up with. It's really interesting they're forty seven days left. He still does hold the most powerful office in the land. On the one hand, it looks like he's just phoning it in, you know, hanging out at the beach, falling asleep and some tour in Africa at the last minute. On the other hand, he's actually wasting no time and seems to be using every last minute of his remaining forty seven days with the pardon.
As you mentioned, there's talks of other preemptive pardons he might be doing. He's still pushing all sorts of aid packages to Ukraine and other hotspots that go against certainly the vision Trump has proposed. He's still nominating judges and getting them confirmed, working with the Senate. So there's a lot whether it's he or his handlers that are actually pushing through in the day's remaining. But on the surface at the same time you see this juxtaposition which is quite interesting.
Yeah, well, Koacher, I can't imagine he's pushing anything through at the moment.
It must be his handlers.
But you mentioned he's considering more pardons now. Politico has reported that they are considering issuing preemptive pardons to key figures like Anthony Fauci, Liz Cheney, Adam shift so that Trump can't come after them, since when we're preemptive pardons a thing I've never heard of that until just now, have you.
No, you know, this is a boomerang effect of the law fare, now that infamous term that the Democrat apparatus really waged against Trump and his supporters. And we all know this, the ninety one counts and the felony counts and the four cases and the multiple indictments and all the rest of it, taking him off the ballot and everything else. His associates having sort of prison sentences for
misdemeanors and all of that. They are concerned. And when you push the across the rubicon or push the overturn window that much the way they did, there will be turnabout that is fair play. And they are very worried that this new Trump and the second term is going to be a different man because of what he has been through, and he might go after prosecutions for people who did commit crimes were in the past, and they did, and whether it was Hillary Clinton or other people in
the past. And I think this is now the land that we live event where the criminal justice system has just really been exploited so much, and these are just all the downstream effects of it. They fear turn about and therefore these preemptive pardons you might be a new thing.
You Well, I would have thought a preemptive pardon is pretty much an admission of guilt, So it'll be very interesting to see how all that plays out. Kosher Garden. That's all I've got time for tonight, but thanks for joining me.
Stick around.
Coming up right now from the man Cave is the one and only Paul Murray