Live on Sky News.
This is Sharry Good Evening, Big Show tonight. Liberal politician Holly Hughes blasts the Coalition campaign for failing voters and she unloads on Angus Taylor.
She'll be on live tonight.
Also on the show, our scoop that the Nine network paid a key witness in the Ben Robert Smith case seven hundred thousand dollars in hush money to stop her going public with allegations of misbehavior against Nick mackenzie. This bombshell revelation tonight is the latest in our ongoing reporting and we'll have all the fallout from the federal election.
Minique Ryan has now.
Retracted her winning Coupyong as final vote counting continues, and Adam Bant could lose his seat as the Greens face a well deserved wipe out. All of that coming up, but let's start tonight with the recriminations and fallout from the look.
The result was a shock.
Not one polling company predicted the size of this win.
Nor any commentators.
In fact, the only person in Australia who came close to predicting this shock result was Albin Easy himself. Now he thought he'd win majority government with eighty plus seats under his belt, but not even he thought he'd win eighty six or eighty seven seats, as Joel Fitzgibbon told Chris Kenny earlier.
Not made Chris, not Peter Dutton and not Anthony ALBERSI. I think the Prime Minister has made that point himself. No one saw this coming. The U GUP poll looked like an outlier to me. Happy to say how I was wrong.
Now Labour holds eighty seven or so seats in the coalition thirty nine, although this will change slightly as final votes accounted. Now, the story behind the size of this election win is actually not Albanesi's popularity, because Labour's primary vote only picked up by two percent or just under from the last election. Thirty four percent of Australian's voted Labor. The story is the monumental collapse in support for the coalition.
In total, four point six eight million Australians voted Labor and four point three two million voted for the coalition. So that's primary votes. So it's a Labor primary of thirty four point eight percent and a Coalition primary of
thirty two point one percent. Now that's a record low for the coalition, and of course these numbers will shift a little because votes are still being counted and some seats are having a recount, but after preferences, that takes the final two party preferred figure for Labor to fifty four point six percent and Liberal forty five point three percent, and it's a swing to Labor of two point six percent on a two party preferred basis.
Now.
Columnist and former Labor State director Cameron Milner makes the point in his nightly column tonight that there's lots of blowhard analysis and over the top age of albow headlines, but despite the two pp vote, Labour's primary remains at historic lows. It's only the complete collapse in the corresponding Liberal primary that delivers the statistical anomaly. And he says that Labour won in seats it never even campaigned in
some that Albin Easy didn't even visit. And I'll speak to him about the reasons behind this when he's on the show later this hour.
But the reasons for the.
Coalition's collapse that this election aren't difficult to ascertain. I mean, it's what we've been speaking about every night. There's the Donald Trump factor, there's the Liberals Week campaign, Labour's demonization of Dutton and their lies, poor policies from the Liberal Front like the work from Home policy, Labour's scare campaign on Medicare and the six hundred billion dollar cost of
nuclear and more. Now, the Liberal Party's polling by Freshwater predicted a whin of sixty four to sixty six seats. As I said on Saturday night, they also predicted reducing labor to minority government. Now, there's no doubt about it that polling was diabolical, It was wrong and it contributed to how bad the campaign was because Dutton was driven by the polling when deciding which seats to campaign in
and where to spend money. Just Enterprise set on air earlier this evening that this polling played a big factor.
There's a lot that we have to reflect upon as the coalition to determine where all our mistakes are. I mean, obviously polling was a huge one, following the polling that were presented to us without looking at alternative polling as well.
The work from Home policy, even though it was just meant for public servants, it was rejected by most families who didn't know that Labour said it would apply to everyone, and most families do incorporate flexible working into their schedules.
They thought they'd all have to go back into the office.
Now I'm told Jane Hume, with the support of Angus Taylor, are the ones responsible.
For that policy.
Now.
I said on air on Budget Night.
That it would be electoral suicide to oppose Labour's tax cut.
Yet that's exactly what the.
Coalition did the very next day. It was never a good idea. Labour also ran a tough scare campaign against the Coalition. It worked, it was effective, Yet the Liberals took a kinder, more honest approach to Labor. Now everything here that we're talking about that other commentators have spoken about tonight, it's all pretty obvious.
It's not rocket science.
It's the fundamental basics of politics that the Liberal machine should already know. And so the reality is that it's the Coalition that has let Australia down because Australians who didn't want to vote for Labor and their radical agenda felt they had nowhere to turn. Everyone who was involved with this coalition campaign at the senior level, from party directors to the pollsters, should now explain why they deserved
to keep their jobs. They should be on notice because this is one of the worst results for the Liberal Party in Australian political history. Reduced to just a small grouping in the Parliament, it's a humiliating result and the Liberals now have no obvious leader. They're firmly in the
wilderness once again. Dante and Angus Taylor are the two front runners for the leadership at the moment, but neither could credibly claw back some forty or so seats in just three years, which means most likely this is now another a two term proposition for Labor, so six years ahead of Labor governing now. When Parliament sits, there will undoubtedly be arrogance from the government benches, despite the fact that Labour's primary only ticked up by one and a
half or so percent. The Albaneze government will view the landslide red wave as a vindication of their radical agenda. They'll overreach now, They'll go too far with unpalatable policies that they began in their first term. This shouldn't be the message they take from the election. It wasn't that
Australians loved their agenda. It was that they couldn't vote for the Coalition, as The West Australians editorial states, today government ministers will now be prone to thoughts of invincibility as they dust.
Off their policy wish lists. The editorial says this.
Election was ultimately a rude rejection of a woeful opposition. However, this result will confirm in Albanesi's mind that the past three years have been brilliant, stable and inclusive and the critics of it are one hundred percent wrong.
Well, that would be a bad take.
Labour portrayed Dutton as overly negative, and in response, the Coalition campaign tried to soften his image, both through his tone and language.
Well, isn't it.
Ironic that Labor painted Dutton as nasty? But in the end he went too soft while Labor ran the tough negative campaigns and spoken disparaging terms about.
Dutton and it worked.
Of Course, in hindsight, it was a mistake to try and soften Dutton's image and soften the messaging because it meant softening the attacks against Labor which are necessary in election campaigns. And of course this campaign was also a matter of timing. Had it been held in November or December, the outcome may have been different. The voter sentiment swung rapidly as it did in Canada. Now, if you at home voted for Dudden, it's not the case that you
were wrong to do so. With the exception of the Herald and the Age, every national newspaper editorial endorsed him above Albanese's left wing agenda and mismanagement of the economy, and for all our Jewish viewers, this result was disappointing. It's a government that failed to tackle or even care about anti Semitism, and it sacrificed a community for political purposes.
And I've got to be truthful.
We can only expect further when it comes to hostility towards Israel from the Albanese government, because it looks like the Greens will have the balance of power in the Senate, potentially led by the anti Israel marine Feruki. One silver lining is that Green's leader Adam Bandt is struggling to hold onto his seat of Melbourne and there's a recount currently underway.
But when Albinizi inevitably.
Goes too far, as he's prone to do, I can assure you we will hold them to account every step of the way. Now the nine board is under pressure to explain what it knew about a secret payment to a key witness in their war crimes case. Now, this is a major scandal. Nine paid a key witness in the Ben Robert Smith defamation case seven hundred thousand dollars in hush money to stop from going public with allegations of misbehavior against journalist Nick Mackenzie, now Nine's own witness
in the Robert Smith case. They claimed she was a domestic violence victim sent explosive emails to Nine threatening to tell the court that the media company had unlawfully obtained his privileged legal strategy. She said she had an audio recording of Mackenzie and other evidence as proof. In response, sources told me that Nine paid the witness, known as Person seventeen, seven hundred thousand dollars under an agreement with
a confidentiality clause, buying her silence. Now, this payment was made not long before Robert Smith's appeal against the network began, and it prevented the downing allegations from being raised in public and potentially forming part of the appeal.
The email from this.
Woman and she'd had an affair with Robert Smith, her email was sent to nine executive Tory Maguire an Executive Council Lreena Alec in March twenty twenty three. She wrote, and I'm quoting, there is a mountain of evidence of Nick telling me what these women were supposedly saying prior to giving evidence, which does not align with what Emma has now said on oath. How do you explain that I also know these women were passing on confidential and privileged information to Nick as far back as mid to
late twenty twenty. What are you going to do when all of that comes out to the judge? What are you going to do when all of that comes out to the judge? She wrote that in an email to nine executives. She also claimed there'd been a behind the scenes corrupting of the process, and she said in an email, if you have to lie and cheat to win, then
you shouldn't be playing the game at all. So this witness of Knights claimed in emails to nine that she had relevant information to the court, and instead of dealing with the allegations, Nine paid this woman hush money. There are questions now about whether the information should have been brought to the court's attention Now the unfiled statement of claim made by Person seventeen also includes the allegation that
Mackenzie had obtained Robert Smith's privileged legal strategy. Now, this was the audio recording that Person seventeen had, along with other evidence.
Daniel d let's go yet again, you quote the movies such as myself. They came actively.
Breaking us on his leadership to you respected you lived the miss piece, and yet we're not learning about we anticipated most of it.
One or two things.
Now we know every syst in which she's helped.
But the point there isne.
Told you that weished to say, like you know, we've got this and and they're not hostile to year despite your worst views.
They're not.
I shouldn't tell you.
I've just preached my ethics in doing that.
Like this is where like this is the leadership position.
Now if they knew that, impety knew that.
Now after we broadcast that recording in March nine, then demanded that Person seventeen repay the seven hundred thousand dollars hush money and even threatened to sue her despite the fact she was their own witness who they claim was.
A victim of domestic violence.
Now, the latter from Nine's legal counsel, Lorena Alec, accused Person seventeen without proof of leaking the audio recording to Robert Smith and us at Sky. It says, the nine Group requests that your client refund the settlement sum in full within fourt in days. If payment is not received by Monday, the seventh of April twenty twenty five, the nine Group will commence legal proceedings against your client for
payment of the debt under contract law. Now, Person seventeen sent a return legal letter rejecting the allegations Nine made and denying that she'd leaked the audio. Now it's not just the audio recording that leads Robert Smith in his legal team to believe that his privileged legal strategy was unlawfully accessed by night. Telstra records showed that his email account was accessed one hundred and one times by his wife,
Emma Roberts close friend Danielle Scott. Robert Smith says that one email from his lawyer was flagged and read when he opened his email account, and his ex wife, Emma, has admitted that she'd allowed her close friend Danielle to access his email accounts, but claimed that it was only.
In relation to their marriage breakdown.
But it's also emerged that Nine had access to emails about Person seventeen. So we know that Ben Roberts Smith's emails were accessed in relation to his marriage in relation to Person seventeen, and this raises the question whether they
were also accessed in relation to other areas of the case. Now, Ben Roberts Smith has claimed that Nine's lawyers subpoened specific documents that they could only have known about with unauthorized access of his account, and his attempts to prevent him of Roberts from disclosing confidential information failed at the time of the trial. However, further examples emerged in court last week that Nine was being told in advance about aspects
of his legal team's strategy. Now, a text message from Danielle Scott to Nick McKenzie made it clear that she had information about what Ben's lawyers were.
Planning to do in advance. Here is that text message.
It says, heads up MAA that stands for Monica Allen, who's Ben Robert Smith's lawyer.
Heads up, Monica Allen.
Is going to write to the CDPP and notify them that your tweet is a breach of the Family Law Act. They are also going to apply to the Court for a restraint preventing any further publications of that nature being made. They are also going to make a second further application not to disclose any further material to the respondents fairfacts
from the Family Court. Now, you don't have to understand everything that's in that message, but what you have to understand is that that is Danielle Scott tipping off Nick McKenzie. The ben Robert Smith's lawyer, Monica Allen, was about to write to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions about his tweet. Robert Smith's lawyers had sent him an email that included
this precise information. Danielle followed it up with another text that said always better to be on the front foot, I say, and know what they are planning, and then she wrote that mackenzie owed her two beers.
The court heard last week about Robert.
Smith's serious concerns and mounting evidence that his privileged information was unlawfully accessed by nine. Nine's lawyers told the court that no such information had been provided. Nine was warned about this allegation by Person seventeen in several.
Emails and legal letters.
That's what I'm reporting tonight, and instead of dealing with this potential misconduct, they paid her seven hundred thousand dollars in hush money. The payment was made in January twenty twenty four. The chair of the board now Catherine West, was a director at the time the payment was made.
And today I put questions to the nine board asking what they knew about the allegations from Person seventeen, and whether there'd been any internal investigation about the issues they raised, and why that hush money payment was appropriate.
Nine have not responded.
Adding to Nine's arrogance is this comment mackenzie allegedly made to Person seventeen. It's included in the unfiled statement of claim when she was concerned whether she could trust Nick McKenzie, she says, given he wasn't a member of the Fairfax board, McKenzie allegedly said.
To her, I am Fairfax.
Now this entire matter looks like a financial cover up to protect the reputation of one of their top journalists. It's concerning conduct given that Ben Roberts Smith appeals was about to start, and it's a corporate minefield for the media company. Not long after its reckoning over sexual harassment
and toxic culture. I'm going to be speaking with vindicated veteran Heston Russell about this issue shortly, and I will continue to investigate this topic because, as I've said before, if dirty tricks were used to bring down one of Australia's, if not Australia's most decorated soldier, this is a matter
that's firmly in the public interest. And Heston Russell's coming up shortly, but for more on the election on Saturday, Let's bring it now Tonight's political panel GXO Strategies director Bill Shorton's former chief of staff Cameron Milner, and Scott Morrison's former advisor Andrew Carswell.
Great to see you both. Look, this election was a shock. We were both on the you were both on the show last week.
None of us predicted this massive majority for alban Easy. Cameron's starting with you. You've written a brilliant column tonight. I just referred to it earlier in the show. What's your main takeaway from this result?
Well, I think as the week went on, everyone realized that Albany is going to become Prime minister. It was either going to be a majority or minority, and I think what's happened is that Middle Australia decided they didn't want the Greens, the revolting Greens, to have the balance of power, so they plumb for Labor. And the reason why I say that is that Labour only won seats in Middle Australia. They were the outer Easter and Sobers, the Perth Metro suburbs, some of the ones in Sydney.
In fact, Labor had massive swings against in his own heartland. Labour's standing to lose five safest seats at this election. So Middle Australia, who hate the Greens, don't stand for their politics, didn't want them to balance of power, voted for Labor, holding their nose probably while I did it. But in the end that was enough to get Albo
the number of seats. But I think that was the big shift at the end because at the end people realized that Dunton wasn't going to get their albow was so might as well have a majority, so at least we'd have the Greens in the power, in the center of power.
I mean, we can sit here tonight and say Labour's primary was still among historic lows thirty four percent, even though the coalitions is truly diabolical, which I'll get to that in a minute, But the reality is, with eighty six or eighty seven seats, it doesn't matter what their primary is. Andrew Albanize is going to take this as a mandate to basically do whatever he wants.
Well, he certainly will shahurry and he'll ignore the pain that has been caused in the last three years because he wouldn't. He can't see that anymore. It's been kind of washed away by this result, So expect the Hebrews to come. But on the flip side, I think this result you've got to get back to the core reasons why we saw the result that we did on Saturday night. And I think Australians were deeply angry and frustrated with
the Albanizi government. But that anger and frustration wasn't enough to overcome the fact that they had a major hesitation with Peter Dutton. I mean, you can't paper over that fact that the coalition had a deeply unpopular leader into an election. And you know, yes the campaign was terrible, Yes the ads were bad and they were late. Yes there was a one man wrecking ball named Donald Trump
that interrupted the campaign. You can lay all those excuses out, but you can't paper over the fact that Peter Dutton was unpopular as a leader, and I think that really weighed on that vote. And Australians were very happy to be convinced, given the pain that they'd gone through, But by the end of that last week they just weren't convinced.
And it's interesting because you know, we've been analyzing the campaign, but ultimately Labor had framed.
Peter Dutton for most of his career.
They'd called him I mean, I don't even want to say it on air, but they called him potato head.
They'd called him Voldemort. You know, they had.
Framed him as a racist in the nastiest possible way. And this is long before he even became opposition leader. So Cameron, you know, perhaps it was almost impossible to change voter perceptions of him when he already had that image in Australian's.
Except he won the voice campaigns, so he did have a win in the midst of this situation. Four months before polling day, he was in the box seat. He'd actually done the job at the demolition on Albanese's recording government on cost of living. He'd done the job, but he didn't do his policy team to do and I think Angus Taylor is the biggest, biggest person to be blame for this. They didn't do the policy work. They
didn't have an answer to the problem. So they asked the question, which is are you better off for the three years ago and didn't have an answer for the next three years. So they failed the basic politics one oh one on the policy front.
I mean, Andrew, you were working for Scott Morrison ahead of the last election three years ago, which was a devastating loss in itself, and you know the Coalition was reduced to some fifty seven fifty eight seats at the time and that was considered a crushing defeat and Scott Morrison was blamed.
For that for being unpopular.
But now when you think the Liberals sitting on around thirty nine seats, I mean, this has got it now.
There's no look. Other people have said to me today, you could whin.
You know, the way election cycles move at the moment, things can change so quickly. It's not out of the question they could win in three years time. But you'd have to say that's extremely unlikely. Almost it is out of the question.
Yeah, it's extremely unlikely and six years will likely be it, maybe even nine, who knows. We saw that certainly after Rad Gillard Rad. But really, and someone said this the other day, the Liberal Party has a lot of soul searching to do, but they've got to find their soul first. And you can make the argument that the Liberal Party has walked away from its core values. It's not Australians
that have walked away from conservative conservative economic values. It's not Australian households that have walked away from classical liberalism in the John Howard kind of mindset. It's the Liberal Party. They got up and walked away from it. They chose to prioritize other things and not the cost of living, not building a stronger economy. I can't believe I didn't hear the phrase stronger economy or stronger economic growth through the entire campaign. I heard little bits on cost of living.
But it's a misaligned priority and Australian's just just looked at it and turned the volume down. Mmm.
And it's interesting because Cameron, by the same token, the Federal Labor Party isn't what a lot of traditional labor supporters say that it used to be.
It's not a centrist party, it's not a reforming party.
It's a blank bonde. I mean this bloke is middle management. He's actually not governing. I mean he's managing day to day issues. Press conference, her press conference there. This bloke is not a labor prime minister. I mean he might call himself labor, but it's in name only. Sharik and Hawk, Keating, Schiff Lee Whitlam, they were labor reformers. This bloke is a performer, not a reformer.
Great line, great line, Cameron. All right, so where to from here?
Andrew Carswell, who do you think could be the best leader of the Liberal Party now?
Does it even matter? Is it not even worth talking about?
Well, whoever steps in is basically a placeholder for six years. They won't be the next Liberal prime minister. I guarantee you it's a long way to go six years in opposition. Really, the job now is to steady the ship and, as I've said before, find the soul of the Liberal Party and get things back on track and plug in with the voters that have just abandoned them, the voters in their traditional suburbs that turn their backs on the Liberal
Party this campaign. So I think it is either the three is Angus Susan or you might have a Scott Morrison that comes up the middle in Dan teen who knows. But I think one, two, three of the combination I think would be in safe hands in terms of steadying the ship and getting it ready. And then you have to think about next generation. It needs to be the next generation of leaders that take the Liberal Party into the next election and beyond.
Yet, of course Andrew Hasty has confirmed that is not running for the Liberal leadership. He says he's got three young children, but it's not the right not yet, not the right time for him as well, and that you know, this will be a bit of a marathon. Just to end, Cameron, all of the polling companies got this wrong, except for you gave was closest at the very end.
But otherwise all of that, yes, yeah, yeah, oh look they do.
And polling is not exact science. And I mean I don't blame the Pulses because I think the trend was right. I mean they picked that Albanese was leading this campaign. He was going to become Prime minister. As I said in the article today, I think Middle Australia just decided to vote for certainty, reject Trump and give labor working majority rather than leading the extreme Greens have the whip hand.
All right, Cameron Milner Andrew Carswell, great to see you catch up next Monday. All right, let's return to our exclusive that trouble is deepening for Nine after our revelations at the network paid their own key witness seven hundred
thousand dollars. Now after I break this story on the Sky News website yesterday afternoon, it has shocked the legal and media industry, and despite attempts by Nine to shut down reporting of their hash money scandal, it has been covered on the front page of the West Australian and on seven.
News tonight reports tonight Nine paid Person seventeen seven hundred thousand dollars to stay quiet before this recording was leaked, where Nick McKenzie admits, I've just freasing that this is where like this is, according to Sky News reporter shar Remarks, and Nine now reportedly demanding the huge payment be repaid or they would sue Person seventeen again.
Nine has refused to respond to my questions about this matter. Now to discuss joining me our former Special Forces commando Heston Russell Heston, you fought in court.
To clear your name.
What's your response when you see a scandal like this, hush money to keep a recording quiet?
Well, what a mess sharer? And for me it's I think the last time I spoke with you about sanctimonious journalists who get up there and are willing to hold the measuring stick to others. Straight away, we had Nick Mackenzie double back and say that he hadn't breached his ethics. We had nine immediately issue a statement saying they stood by and there's been no ethical misconduct here. Where is
his measuring stick? On these ethics? And how these journalists being allowed to conduct these actions in order to throw Australia's most decorated soldier under the bus and try and scrubb all the rest of it under table. So I think the nine board has a lot to answer to the Australian public and this question of ethics and how journalists like Nick mackenzie, award winning senior journalists all the rest.
I don't know if you were able to watch some of the Arthur Moses cross examination this week in the Federal Court where Nick mackenzie for the first time admitted that he read the nine Code of Conduct. This is what is occurring. We're having these job He said he hadn't that he'd never read it before, never had to be the first time, sitting in the witness box under cross examination the Federal Court was the first time he
admitted that he'd read the nine Code of Conduct. So we have journalists pursuing this story, trying to throw Australia's greatest, most decorated soldier under the bus, without any leash, without any bridle, and without any assumably ethics to frame what they're doing. And this is the result.
So you just mentioned that that you think the nine bod does have questions to answer about this. Why do you think that's the case and what would you like to hear from them?
I would just like to know if they were aware that all of this is occurring. I mean, there's seven hundred thousand dollars that's being paid, there's all these emails and exchanges, and instead of the truth being put forward in a case that's meant to be about the truth, there seems to have been steps taken to silence this person and not to face the facts of some of the dirty actions that have been taken.
Just generally speaking. You know, she was Nine's witness.
They made claims about her that weren't proven in court relating to domestic violence, but then they now have threatened to sue her.
What do you think that says to their treatment of their own witness.
Well, Charie nine also brought in witnesses from Afghanistan and all the rest to this case. For me, this is the pile of dirt we're looking at. I want to see how deep this hole is and how far it goes. And again this is my issue coming back to.
What we gain. No suggestions have been made in.
My personal opinion and hester Russell's personal opinion. I would love to see where the rest of this goes.
There is now mounting evidence that I outlined in some detail at the start of the show that maybe not everyone might have been able to follow because it is quite complicated, But there is mounting evidence that Ben Roberts Smith's emails.
Or parts of them may have been accessed by others.
What do you think, you know, how much of a breach of this to have your emails accessed against you in a court case?
Well, Again, a lot of this goes back to what we've spoken about, the fact that this is a civil defamation case. If this was a criminal case being brought against Ben Roberts Smith for war crimes, how with these actions would be Canadi's criminal actions. And these people have a lot more to answer to. So I'm so interested to see where the line of ethics, the line of legal conduct comes into play here. And you just feel.
Strongly about this because of what happened to you, your own personal experience fighting to clear your name.
Agreed, My personal experience of what I'm seeing now with Ben goes to show that there are elements of austral and media who are happy to throw the rule book of ethics out the window when it comes to trying to pursue Australia's most decorated people who went to war and fought for this country and fought for these rights that were meant to be defending in our.
Courts well out of time.
But I just want to remind everyone at home of something you said to me when you first came onto an interview a year or two ago, and you said that fighting.
The ABC was worse than fighting the terrorists. It was so hard for you to have to come up against that.
It was such an emotional statement when you made it, and it's really stuck with me because as journalists we do have a huge responsibility and you know, other people's lives are at stake.
Thank you very much for joining me, pleasure, Thanks for continuing with the Sharry Now still.
To come, we'll bring you the latest on account in Manique Ryan's seat. Adam Bounce too.
Plus Liberal politician Holly Hughes won't hold back when she unloads in the coalition campaign and she'll talk about what happened to her in the lead up to this election.
She's next. Welcome back.
Joining me now is former Liberal Senator Holly Hughes. Now, Holly, you have been waiting to do this interviewed.
Do you want to.
Disrupt the Coalition's campaign? But you do have a lot to say about how the Liberal Party treated you.
Now, viewers love you.
You are a strong woman, You've got strong values. How do you feel like you were treated by the party?
There is a you know, everyone talks about this problem with women, and you know, I've really struggled that I hadn't felt that personally. I'd always been really well supported by men. But I think what was particularly difficult was oh, well we've got rid of you, but don't worry, we've got another woman. And I think to all women, that's really quite offensive. It's, you know, we're not all the same. We do bring different skills and talents and merits to
the roles. And it was quite dismissive in the sense sort of you know, well we've got one set of overas and now we've got another, so what does it matter? And I think that was really demeaning when that was the response I was getting from people that you know, I should be fine with this because it's another woman. And I remember walking out of the pre selection and you can, as you can imagine, it was a pretty
unpleasant experience. And I was walking out with my husband and the state director and this I know his name, one of the party members literally came and stood right in front of me, right at my face and sort of almost yelled at me, well, I hope you're going
to stay on the ticket at number four. And it was it was bullying, and it was rude, and it was quite intimid and there are I think just too many people that think that it is okay to behave that way, and that you know they're invincible and are able to do whatever and say whatever they want to do.
So, just to explain what happened, you were dumped from a winnable position on the Liberal Party Senate ticket instead another woman was put there instead.
Who was supported by the hard right.
At the part of your history, your track record, your experience.
I mean, I had fourteen years on our state executive, eight or so years on our federal executive.
I've worked in every campaign since two thousand and two.
It's behind this who made that? Who do you hold responsible for this?
Well?
I know Angus Taylor was sending text messages the night before encouraging people to vote for Jess Collins rather than me. So when colleagues go against each other like that, it makes a very unpleasant experience. So you know it, I said to Peter Dutton at the time, I thought it was a maneuva for leadership aspirations in the future by Angus, by Angus. And you know, maybe just the one small joy I have is I'm still there till June thirty.
So while we're in the party room to cast the ballot, and you.
Have heard over the past few weeks that there were leadership maneuverings going on even during this campaign.
I got a phone call today from someone who was a very senior person within the organization at the federal level, and they had received a phone call they were saying two to three weeks ago encouraging her to get behind sporting Angus for leader. So that was two three weeks before the election was finished.
And I was horrified when.
The numbers were being done someone Taylor, and I didn't hear about it at all during the campaign.
You know, that wasn't something I was privy to.
I understand other people have now said that they had heard certain things, but this was a phone call I got today.
So before you know, while Dartin was still leading, while he was still traveling.
While he most senior nomic person, you know, should have been doing everything good to fight with alongside Peter Dutton.
And look, this is what I was told today Augus Taylor.
Was doing the numbers for.
Wasn't the point call didn't come from Angus, but it came to support Angus.
And I mean that is.
I've talked to you since I've lost my pre selection till the to the election you know, very much on message, stayed within the team. And I am a liberal and I'm still very much committed to liberal values. But I think the behavior of some of the people in that party room is absolutely reprehensible. I don't think they were supportive of Peter dunt. I don't think they did the work, and I think they were more interested in their own future political ambitions and they were.
Any wedding selection.
You know.
I think that shows from the policy vacuum that we saw.
So do you have a view, just finally before we go, who should be the new leader?
Well?
I heard today that apparently Angus Taylor and Dan Tee and are going to have a ticket together.
And I got to say, is a party that clearly has a problem attracting the votes of women.
I'm really not sure putting up too.
Probably a little bit more than middle aged white guys who are both known to be in the hard right of the party as leaders, are going to say to
the Australian people, we've learned any lessons at all. I mean, I think if you were one of those people that was involved in the monkey pod lunches that used to occur personally, I think they should probably head back to the monkey pod and stay there for a while and let some of the other people who want to really get back to Liverpool putty values and being able to articulate those to the Australian people.
We were out of time. We're going to go. But is there a name you want to mention?
Oh?
Look, well, Susan Lazy, the only woman who's running. She works incredibly hard, she's incredibly smart and I think she do a great job.
There you go, Holly thinks, thanks for much for your time.
All right, still to come the Trump effect, how the US president has flipped multiple elections on the head at Adam Bounds on the verge of losing his seat, plus the count in coup youong, that's after this quick break.
Welcome back, right, let's.
Turn to where Adam Bounce sets up to and Minique Grind's too and joining me out with all the intel. Daily Telegraph journalist James Willison, Sky news host Joe Hilda Brand welcome hello.
And if there's any glading, Joan, I want to know about it. No, no gladstage brutal on because I won't go.
I know there's a lot of very.
I'm not going well at least where you know we're almost all in black. Yes, all right, so James tell us, tell us about Minnie ryan Sea because she said she won this. Now she's had to walk that back.
Yeah.
I think she came out way too early and accepted that she had won this. But at this stage look the latest count and this was updated from what I can see at about eight o'clock, she's ahead of Amelia Hammer from the Liberal Party by about nine hundred and ninety two votes.
It's come back in.
Obviously the libs of being helped by postal votes. It's the same with Zoe Daniel. She's just in front by about ninety five votes in gold Stein. But in fairness, when you look at the other TiAl seats, particularly in Sydney, and this was part of the Liberal Party's problem. They were desperate to win back either Wentworth or mckiller, and I think Wringa is going to be too tough. Instead, all three seats have been dominated by Allegraspender, Zali Stegel and doctor Sophie Scomps.
I think it was the closest was always going to be Coo Young and gold Stein, so both of them no final outcomes as yet there's a recount, correct, But.
I think in fairness though with the redistribution, the redistribution helped the Liberal Party a lot like it did in other parts, and it still hasn't got them close enough. So Monik ran it's going to be testing. But I think from what I can see, she's in front. Yeah, by about nine hundred and ninetywo votes.
That's still only ninety five votes separating Tim Wilson from Zoe Daniels. Amazing, all right, Joe update us on at about seat of Melbourne where he's fighting total.
Yes, that's an interesting it looks I think he's in a world of pain. I wouldn't have thought that, maybe even just twenty four hours ago. But so the two party preferred was at about fifty two forty eight. But the AEC has now gone back and is basically recounting all those preference flows. So presumably one of the scrutinies there has said, hang on, this doesn't this doesn't look.
Right, or it's probably Adam Boundchi's demanded that recount.
It might be the Greens to say, you know, no, we've got to go back and look at this again. But the AAC is definitely you think so, because if you're winning, why would you demand a recount?
Right?
But anyway, the recount so they now only counted I think about two out of forty five polling places. It's only on the day votes that they've got up to as well, it's about six thousand votes that they've recounted, and so far the Labor candidate is ahead by about sixty four percent to about thirty five percent. So the margin is everygrader obviously that is with it just over
eight percent of the vote counted. However, one of the things that was these all votes on the day and I haven't yet checked the booth by the word.
But the and that will be you know what, we might know tomorrow if not the next day.
Yeah, and the pre pot they count very quickly. But the prepolts and postals have been favoring Labor and that's been the problem. So once they start counting those.
Again, that would be one silver lining. If Adam batt loses history against as well, and you know what the people so yeah, so tell us which Green and Peace have lost?
This is so Max Chandler Matha is gone. The other Brisbane MP, Stephen Bates, is it gone as well, and huge swings against them. And I think people were smart enough to wake up and realize that the Greens were one of the big problems for the government and the country in this term of government by blocking legislation around housing, by slowing everything down, and so we may as well have in those areas, I think voters, we may as
well have a labor majority. But also in my view, they spent way too much time on the issues in the middle eat and I think they were far too aggressive in that space. And you saw signs all wrong Sydney for you know, with the Greens saying, you know, sanctioned Israel, and they ran on that campaign. I don't think people bought it.
I really think they rejected that on the weekend, which is one good outcome.
But Joe, they will still have control of the Senate and this is highly concerning because again they will be able to make those left wing, radical extremist demands recognition.
Yeah, so it's interesting. So the Green's actually increased their primary vote over all across the country, but didn't increase it where it matters, which tells you how good they are at politics, which is to say, absolutely useless. But look, it's always a concern having the Greens in the Senate, but the Labor Party can work around them. It's tried to work around them with the coalition before. Perhaps the chasing Coalition would be more prepared to work with the
Labor Party to sideline the Greens. And there might also be other I mean, it's interesting to see what happens with Jackie Lambi. There may be an extra one Nation senator who knows. So there are probably pathways that Labour can get around the Greens, and Labor has shown in the past that he is prepared to just say few to the Greens and not I mean, Labour hasn't computiate.
How late were you out celebrating with your mate al Bow Saturday at night.
It was a very very modest night because I had to go back early and get up and do Sunrise next morning. But it's fair to say that I did see I did see the AM dial in the morning. I think there may have been a few celebratory text messages and a few selfies that went around late at.
Night, and a lot of talk about leaders and all that.
For now, Look, the Liberal Party will not win an election again unless they get rid of some of the people that were behind this campaign, the people that you don't even know about.
And in Sydney there.
Were seats they tried to buy, and the Labor Party like ben Along Paramatta and read the Labor Party has smashed them despite the Liberals doing posters, flying in candidates and all that, and voters were smart enough like bringing candidates from other parts into tears. Yeah, well no, but the candidates were some of them had been there for a year or two years. They weren't locals, whereas the three local Labor and Peace had really done a great job.
But there's another issue as well, and there's been talk about the the Brethren, the religious set and obviously look no issue in terms of religion, but there was a lot of volunteers that were there in those areas, yes, and I don't think that helped pick.
That up again, right, James the list joke, Good to see you right after the break.
How the Donald Trump factor impacted on the election? Koshergata, would you owin me next? Well, let's bring in our Sky News contributor, Koshergata. Kosher Donald Trump completely flipped the Canadian election, and now he's being blamed for at least being one factor in coalition's crushing defeat.
How is he influencing elections? What's his global trend? Now?
He is definitely a factor. The Trump effect Schariazu and others have termed it is real, especially as it relates to trade policy and tariffs, which just allows one hundred days kind of came out of nowhere. We always knew he wanted to do it, It came out of nowhere, and it does inject a curve ball in the national discourse and the framing of the election for sure. However,
in my opinion, I wouldn't overstate it. I think he's becoming a little bit of a fall guy for people who have failed in their electoral prospects to point to. That's human nature. He does not affect the fundamentals of the internal aspects and affairs of other countries, which is cost of blimming and immigration and energy policy in the culture wars and all of that. So I think there is certainly a blueprint on the plus side that he has shown about how the right can really take those
issues by the jugular and win. And there is a wide open playing field for those that are able and willing to do that because there is a swath of the elector that wants it. However, insofar as the trade and tariff issue, that's one thing where he definitely played a factor.
It's interesting because there was this global movement away from woke ideology at the time that Trump was elected, but now because of the uncertainty and the chaos that he's presented, you know, it seems that people are sticking with incumbency.
As you say, at least that's one factor.
So now Albanezy spoke to the US President today, and then the President has also come out and said that there should be one hundred percent tariff on movies made outside of the United States.
Tell us about this, Yeah, so this is another category where you Trump has his baseline view of ten percent terrorists for every industry, every country, and then he has sort of carve outs where there's less or more. And the movie industry, in particular Hollywood, it is a big industry economically, but it also punches above its weight in terms of the culture and the influence it has on the culture. It is no friend of the right or
of Trump. He's very well aware of that, and they sort of have had this carve out or this easy pass is how He frames it where they can go make movies abroad, get huge taxism status and other benefits from that. All those jobs that go into making movies go to those other countries, and he's just trying to
bring that back home. Hollywood is the epicenter of it is in the United States, and so by putting these tariffs in place, he's trying to incentivize movies to be produced and made much more back in the US.
Yeah.
Now, finally also wants to reopen Alcatraz.
Way here tell us about this.
So Alcatraz, of course, I was actually just in San Francisco last week, famous from the mafia era offshore like just off the Bay of San Francisco prison cell. It doesn't have huge capacity. I think it has something like three hundred beds, and it was closed down in the sixties because it was mismanaged and not financially viable. He's talking about or toying with the idea of reopening it. Certainly it read the US needs extra prison capacity because
there's a lot of criminality and illegals. But more so I think it's the symbolic value of that that he is the master of. And there's this framing going on about how bad the illegals that are being deported and detained and deported are or aren't. And I think he's looking at that as a backdrop that would help in that battle of the framing that's going on right now between him and the media.
M data right, Kushia Dada, thanks so much for your time.
And I remember years ago being on a ferry in San Francisco and going past Alcatraz and having a look at it. So there you go, it could be a reopened way hearing a right. That's all we've got time for tonight. I'll be back here at eight o'clock tomorrow. More fall out from the election. There'll be more stories about Ben Robert Smith too, so make sure you tune.
In tomorrow at eight. Here's He'll Murray