Lately the gentleman.
Welcome to the late debate.
And welcome not only to the late deboat, but to twenty twenty five, the very first late de boat for twenty twenty five. I'm Kel Richard's nice to have your company, thanks for joining us, and with me on the desk we have fox as Sky News contributor Evelyn Ray and the host of the fire at Will podcast, Will Kingston. Guys, welcome to the program. Let me ask you this question. Is it possible for a Minister of the crown to hold a media conference without all the right flags in
the background? Apparently not? And will twenty twenty five be the year in which China finally fulfills its threat to invade Taiwan? Those stories coming up a bit later. But firstly we begin as every news bullet you watch today began with those big fireworks. I mean, it's great television, isn't it. And everyone raves about the Australia, the Sydney fireworks and how brilliant they are every year, how brilliant they were this year. But were they watching the nine
o'clock fire works on ABC television? Your answer might have been I have some reservations because Before we were allowed to see any bangers making big bangs and sparks, we had to listen to a welcome to country. Have a look at this.
Hello everyone, and welcome to Sydney's fabulous New Year's Eve celebrations here on Gaddigl and nearby lands.
Welcome to Gatigol country. This always was, always will be Aboriginal land.
So apparently the fireworks don't happen on our land. The fireworks happen on someone else's land, and we have to be reminded.
Will I think I'm breaking the fourth wall with the audience here. There are some stories you can rinse and repeat every year, and the woke fireworks as a January one go to and we will get it next year and the year after that. We know the ABCS can always do this stuff. But what I would like to say, and I think this will be a theme for OS show tonight, is for everyone else, for everyone else who.
Is in the ABC. And I'm going to be indulgent. I'm going to go go direct a camera for this.
If you're a CEO, if you're a celebrity, if you anyone who doesn't work in the ABC, you're free.
You don't have to do this stuff anymore. People are sick of it.
People are over it in terms of the Indigenous Digitus affairs stuff. They actually care about, real things that matter to people. They don't care about this symbolic nonsense. Guys, I'm so sick of this, but I think everyone else is as well.
What do you think?
I think it's bizarre, Evelyn at a firework show, we have to have a welcome to country just lesliem strange to you.
Well, considering all the other places we've had to have a welcome to country, I don't think it's that's up.
I can't even open.
A can of soft drink without needing a welcome to country.
You know.
I have some friends of mine who were telling me that they had to go to.
Their kids end of year school assembly.
And I'm sure parents at home are feeling PTSD just mentioning that because they are very long, very protracted. But my friend was telling me that every single speech that a teacher or someone of authority within the school had to give, a separate welcome to country had to happen. So I'm talking dozens of welcome to countries within one school assembly. And this is the level of stupidity that we have allowed, Like you said, will like, no one's
holding a gun to our heads. We don't have to do this sort of stuff, and I think it's about time we stop caring when.
They call us that ugly our word racist, No, because it's not. You know, Australians are not racist. And I'm sure.
There might be a few bad apples there, but it doesn't mean the whole bunch is bad.
But as a country, are.
People's head the gun being held to our heads? Is you either acknowledge you are national people, you're not a nice person.
No, I don't think that's the case anymore. I think the gun is well and truly back in the whole style. I think now, apart from a few loonies at the ABC and some of the really woke, ideologically corrupted institutions, I think we're past this. I think I think, at least in respect to this particular sympo gesture, will you both think past it?
But it is still happy. It's still happening last night.
But it's how people are responding to it that is changing. Back in twenty twenty twenty twenty one, in that peak madness period.
People were being quiet, people were.
Too scared to say anything, whereas now I think people are going, well, you know what, this is a bit of a nonsense.
I think that the Voice referendum was a really good thing to boost people's confidence and it allowed people, you know, regular Australians who normally would probably remain quiet on these matters and go, you know, I'm not going to get involved in politics. I'm going to enjoy my football, my beers and et cetera. I think having majority of Australians overwhelmingly say no, it wasn't just no to the referendum, It was no to these woke ideologies.
It wasn't necessarily heard because what we actually saw last night was at the nine o'clock displayed something called calling Country, and it was full of these kinds of messages. Have a look, I'm glad.
To see last president. Future whoever you are listening to gap up, change ways, the change, change ways.
Change.
Change the future.
So if you listen to the words all the way through the fireworks, we were being well, I think the word is lectured. Weren't we being lectured?
Yeah, we were being lectured.
But again the ABC is, as the ABC does, who cares that the bigger issue I think is that people now are calling this stuff out. I was flying in from Heathrow to Sydney and Quantas still does this nonsense. And when they did the welcome to country as we were landing in Sydney, which should be a really great time for returning Aussie, you get that welcome to country and there was an audible groan that went across the economy.
And that encouraging an audible.
It really was, it really was.
It gives you a hope for the future, wasn't.
That is a sign of how this is changing.
But I flew on a domestic flight. I mean, why would they have to do it on domestic flights Melbourne to Sydney. We've got to welcome the country arriving. We were still in Australia folktionally, we hadn't left Australia and we were being welcome to Sydney and there wasn't have grown. I think people have just got used to it, their blas about it, they just ignore it.
Well, maybe the difference is that I was coming from an international flight where people haven't just been given this every two seconds, and then when they heard it, they're going, this is just silly, it's not on.
But I think something is changing.
I think maybe I'm just hopeful at twenty twenty five something is changing.
Yeah, I definitely do think something is changing, and I think that you know, it is encouraging when you see things like that.
But I think the.
Problem that we're having, unfortunately, is that even though majority of Australians behind the scenes are saying no, one, we're seeing things in the plane like you did, these things are on mainstream news and they're indoctrinating our.
Children, and children are very vulnerable.
Children are very impressionable, and that's where if you win the hearts of your children, you've won the future.
And so I think even though behind the scenes.
We're all sort of collectively saying no, it's important to win it from the front because what the children are seeing is so important and the message that we're sending them because they're our future, and that's what matters.
You see signs that this is changing in the community.
Oh absolutely.
I mean I'd love to bring up a story about Woolworst actually for example. So I think it's all under the same umbrella of that insatiable beast, which is this woke you know, identity politics, and I think it was a little while ago Woolworst actually came out and said, you know what, we're going to actually ditch all of the Australian Day merchandise. And there was actually like a really large collective backlash from that, you know, the power
of the people. And because of that, Woolwors have actually now reversed their decision to ditch selling it. And a Woolworst spokesperson actually came out, I think it was only a couple of days ago, and they said, we will be celebrating Australia Day as a team and with our customers.
Isn't this wonderful? I mean, this is great news.
Isn't it like that we're actually seeing power of the people. We're seeing people make a public you know, cry out that we're sick of this, and then a corporation turn around and change it. But I guess the question that I have with all of this is is it enough?
Kel?
And do you think that Woolworst or big corporations like this, do you think they've learn't from their mistakes?
Well, they lost their CEO last year and one of the reasons that he went was because of the outcry over their decision last year not to carry Australian Day merchandise if they thought there wasn't a profit in it, there's not a problem with that. They just put it in one quarter and whoever wants to buy I can buy it. Instead of which they announced they were not carrying Australian Day merchandise. That's a kind of moral posturing.
It's saying, aren't we good people. We're nicer than the rest of you because we know Australia Day is a really bad idea. We think it's probably actually an invasion day, and it's really divisive, So we're on the right side. That's what they're trying to say.
Yeah, but I think with these corporate stories, it's worth thinking about where this is actually being driven from in the organization. So if you think about three layers of a business, and you've got the kind of sea suite, you've got the front line, and then you've got middle management. It's not the sea suite who's driving this stuff. All of them are old white guys who've never heard of work politics, and it's not the front line. They want to work hard and then get home to their families.
It is this middle management layer that have generally jobs that don't matter, that are trying to make themselves more important, like the marketing managers, like the HR managers, and they're the ones who are now suddenly being called out because when you see this wooly stuff, when you see this stuff with Jaguar, for example, where it's not resonating with customers, they're suddenly being told, hey, guys, I know that you want to make your job more significant, You've also got
to make money at the same time. And I think that's the area that we need to hone in on when we're looking at these work corporates.
I think that in America they've done a really good job with their marketing with certain businesses.
I look at bud Light.
I'm not sure if people at home are aware of this, but they used certain marketing techniques for bud Light, and majority of Americans said no, and they almost sent this company broke.
You know, the people. What's the power what people can do with these sorts of corporations.
But you know, with this Woolworth story and the Australia Day story, I think it's really important for us to remember that it's not just about you know, business is doing things I think the whole Australia Day debate is a really important one to have because we can see its evolution over time. We can see how it began as changing the date to abolishing the date, to now you're ashamed if you want to be Australian, and.
It's sort of like this, like I mentioned before, this.
Insatiable beast that's always hungry, always thirsty, always out for blood, never satisfied, always wanting more and more and more.
So I guess my question is.
If we continue to push back like this, do you think that we can finally put this insatiable beast to bed? Do you think that there's a point where Australians can be loud enough that we can end this, or do you think that we've just sort of begun the process of undoing all of it.
I don't think we've even come close to losing Australia To Day. You can't rewrite history, you can't pretend the things that happened didn't happen. It actually was the fact that the flag run up on the twenty sixth of January seventeen eighty eight. By eighteen eighteen, the day was being celebrated as anniversary Day, but later in the eighteen hundreds it will celebrated as Foundation Day. From nine to
oh one it was celebrated as Australia Day. It always was the day when Western civilization arrived in this country. Not the birthday of Sydney, it's not the birthday of New South Wales. It is the birthday of modern Australia, which incorporates everyone. It incorporates the Aboriginal heritage that here, it incorporates our migrant character, it incorporates our British foundation.
All of that is bound up in Australia Day. So it's real, it's genuine, and sooner or later, people who are running these kinds of ideologies get bitten in the bum by reality, don't they.
Yeah, they do, unfortunately for our audience.
So I think they're going to be subjected to this awful Australia Day debate for most of January, so I will spare them more of that.
But I think there's a broader question that we're getting to.
Here, and that is is the whole woke movement past its peak? And I was reading as a cracking article from my friend and spectator colleague Linel Schreiver in the Times from the UK Overnight where she was positing the question is the woke movement over now? She said, in one respect, there are really positive science. You can see the corporate depart DEI departments are shrinking. You can see that the podcast bros are now speaking out for common sense.
You can see that three preferred pronouns are dropping out of emails.
All that sort of stuff.
At the other at the same time, when you can see that quote on the screen, we yearned to put this rank idiocy behind us. So I worry about jumping the gun because it is so entrenched in the institutions. My question team, and I'll go to you first, kel E. Are we past peak woke or is this a battle we're going to be fighting for some time.
We've actually been saying we're past peak work for a while and it's going to be hard to tell and only the stories in the future will be able to tell us. But the shines are looking good. I mean, I think in Australia we had a vote on identity politics when we voted on the Voice referendum, and it
was do you want to divide Australia boteity? Do you want people to be separated into different groups based on their family tree, or don't you And we said really firmly and clearly, sixty one percent to thirty nine percent, no, we reject identity politics. That's a fairly strong rejection of woke. So I think there is a tide running. I'm not sure that it's gone far enough yet, but I think there's a tide running.
Evelyn said something earlier when we were talking when we were talking about Australia Day, and she said that it comes back to the kids.
Now.
My concern is that you look at the curriculums in Australia at the moment, you look at the university sector and they are absolutely ideologically corrupted. And the thing that really frustrates me is whenever the left gets into power, they do their darndas to basically recalibrate the curriculums to promote a black arm bound view of history, to putting in a particular view of the world. Whenever the right gets in, it's a lais a fair, she'll be right made approach.
That's why I'm.
Worried that we're going to be fighting this battle for some time, because I no matter how well adjusted you are as a kid. If you go through twelve years of this stuff, it's going to be pretty hard to come out and not have that world view.
There's a reason why if you have a look at all of these woke ideologies, all of the evil, all of the really depraved things that are going on in the world, there's a reason why they always go for the kids. And the reason is because one, they are vulnerable, they are impressionable, and if you win the hearts of children, you can basically win votes in the future. And there was this amazing study that was done on mainstream media.
I think it was Channel ten maybe, but I could be wrong.
But they it was psychologists looking at children and they threw them in a room and they were watching the behaviors of these children over a period of.
Time, and.
Psychologists and whatnot found that by the age of five, children form loyalties outside of mum and dad. And if mum and dad haven't won the hearts of their children by the time of five, once they hit school years, they start forming loyalties with peers, with teachers, and with ideas,
and that's a really scary thing. So essentially, the results of these studies were that you've got five years to win the loyalty of your kid or whoever you're outsourcing your p parenting to, whether that be a school, whether that be you know, daycare, whatever you're outsourcing parenting too. If you haven't won the loyalty of your kids, be prepared that. You know your kids are going to get loyalties to these things. And you're right, curriculums are plagued with horrible ideologies.
You know.
It's filled with Marxism, as filled with the climate stuff.
You know.
I'm a huge advocate for homeschooling. I think homeschooling in Australia is becoming a lot more mainstream and there's a lot more resources out there, and I think it's fantastic because sometimes it's the only safe option.
I pick you up on that because I understand about the whole work curriculum stuff. But how do you then mitigate against the fact that schools still do provide a social education for kids.
There are so many studies that show that kids who at homes would have absolutely no disadvantage with socialization.
If you actually look at the.
Studies, they do more better in employment and are more successful with having a.
Relationships alternative, and that is a lot of grandparents now stepping up to the plate and saying, yes, we're worried about what's happening in stage schools arms us.
We don't want that to happen to our grandchildren. We the grandparents, will pay the fees so they can go to a private school. Some of them are smaller, community based Christian schools, some of them are the long established and far more expensive school. That depends on the grandparents. I can see right now there are grandparents watching who are nodding their heads saying, yes, that's our role as grandparents.
We pay the fees so the kids get to go to school where there is a more traditional quality education without this kind of ideological component. That's an option.
It is an option.
And I think the lovely thing about that is that there's also a crisis of loneliness amongst many older early people in this country. And if you can get that sort of connection between younger people and older people, you're killing two birds in on Stone.
I'm all for it.
You should see how good homeschooling.
Is for that. Well, just say, grandparents are in fact playing a different role in society than they used to play. I wasn't all that close to my grandparents, but grandparents in our generation, the baby boomers, we are now spending a lot of time with our grandchildren and very involved in their lives, and a good thing. It is too now. Annika Wells is the Minister for Age Care in the Albanese government and she had to give a media conference today.
Fairly straightforward, you would think, no problem with that. But she started and then suddenly discovered three important flags were not there. Behind her mad panic, she had to stop. The flags had to be put up and start again. Take a look, sorry, the flags and contrastsos.
Even what I supposed to do?
Well, look, it's just.
You can't see the toys straight islander.
Just bring it into the left to bed and bring the Australian one a time it closer to you.
Thank you, prefect.
Yep, okay, all right, right?
Doesn't that make you feel better? The Aboriginal flag goes in the middle, and then the Torres straight island flag is put up, and finally the one national flag, which is legally the flag of the name, goes up at the end. Why do we need will why do we need three flags?
When you see it done like that, it is actually really funny. Initially that annoyed me that story until I saw the clip and it's just fascicle when you look at.
Like it looks like Michael Scott from the Office, like a scene from that are they're walking around.
The thing is that is really irritating is that it's not the Australian flag in the middle. It's the I think it's the indigenous flag in the middle, and it's almost like the Australian flag is an afterthought. And again this is symbolic stuff. This is not bread and butter issues. But I think Darton has been very clever in selectively picking up on some of these issues because the vast majority of people in Australia now it irritates them. Is it going to change their votes or is it a
vote deciding issue? Probably not, But like the whole Trump thing, it adds to the vibe. It adds to the vibe that this is stuff that people aren't tolerating anymore.
And I think he's been very clever.
And in fact, there was an attempt by the Albanuzi government to say this is appalling. I mean, Peter Dutt not prepared to stand in front of all the fas and then they did a bit of public opinion polling and discovered the vast majority of US reliance thought it was a wonderful idea to just have the flag that our Amsacs, our diggers fought under that behind the Prime Minister and nothing else. It is the right move for damake, isn't it.
It certainly is. It's the right move for all Australians.
I mean, one flag, one group of people, one nation. And the problem when you have multiple flags is I mean, I can't stand under the Aboriginal or Torres Straight Islander flags because.
I'm not of those people.
But what can an Aboriginal, a Torres Straight Islander and an Australian like myself stand under. We can stand under the Australian flag all together, united as one.
And that's the beauty of our flag.
And when you have these different factions within one nation, it is incredibly divided. And as one of the oldest playbooks, you know that, you know if you wanted to divide a nation and then you can conquer them, and that's exactly what they're doing. They're sending out messages that we are all different, we are not the same.
I agree with that. With one nuance.
If an indigenous athlete wants to run around the track with an indigenous flag over their shoulders, fine, that's your decision, Go for your life. But it's when the government or the opposition is actually making this part of state policy that's where it becomes problematic. And that's why again I think Dun's been clever to say as a country, this is not on.
To understand how bad it would be. Imagine this. Imagine at an American official government event, anything other than the American flag, the stars and stripes, was out the front. You can't imagine it, can you. They would never allow it. It wouldn't happen, So we shouldn't allow it to happen either. And I know most people are on side with that when it comes, certainly, I'm sure you are. They just go overseas now because China has never militarily been stronger
than it is right now. And we keep hearing that this might be the year that finally Xixinping fulfills the promise he's been making to his people four years now that he will take back Taiwan, an independent nation of twenty five million people. President Jijinping says no one can stop China's reunification. He said, the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are one family. No one can sever our family bonds now. No one, he said, can
stop the historical trend of national reunification. Now. Whether he's got his history right or not is a questionable thing. Taiwan was the island of foremost off the off the coast of China and never was part of mainline China. So it is an independent nation, has been for a long time now, and for it's been a democracy for a long time now. And there is a commitment by the Americans to defend Taiwan if Taiwan is attacked where
in the Anzas Treaty. So if America decides to respond militarily if Taiwan is attacked, then does that commit Australia sending whatever forces, whatever support we can do. Does that mean our relations with China end up in an appalling mess because China decides to take military action. Could twenty twenty five be that kind of dangerous year? Will it?
Could?
I think this is something which the West has there head in the sand about. Je has said this is going to happen. He's told his military generals that he wants to be ready by twenty twenty seven. I think that sort of timeframe is more likely, but I don't think we're taking this threat seriously. The one nuance I would say about this whole thing is I don't think this is necessarily a boots on the ground invasion. I think it's something closer to an economic blockade, and I
don't think the response is necessarily a military response. It will probably be the Trump style economic tariff, economic warfare or cyber warfare that he's been floating. But the fact remains this is probably the most serious threat that not enough people are talking about.
Yes, we're not talking about we're not thinking about it, and yet we keep We've see him during last year, we saw incursions into Taiwanese airspace repeatedly by Chinese military aircraft. I mean, are we likely to actually see a war in our region that Australia becomes involved in twenty twenty five.
I really hope that we're not, And I think the reason why we're perhaps not talking about it more it is because there's wars going everywhere in the world at the moment and people are sick of war. I'm sick of war. I'm sick of, you know, wanting to be.
Involved in wars, particularly as a nation.
I think what makes things like this really difficult is the fact that we're allies with different people. And I mean you only have to look at World War One and World War Two to see how alliances are literally shaped like so much, particularly a.
World War Two.
And I just think, to be honest that the US and Australia, like, we're not the whole monitors of the world. And I do think to a degree we have to be very careful. And I'll just finish this point. I know you want to look very desperate to say something will but I just want to make this point. Our number one alliance should be America. We've been in a military alliance with them since the fifties. Without them, we have no hope against China. So that's a very important
relationship that we need to hold on to. But I will say this, whilst China is a communist nation, not a democratic nation, and whilst China, you know, is, I wouldn't say our friend or so I think we need to be very careful because China have built concrete islands just north of the Philippines if they wanted to, they could go there and send bombs that would hit our shores over here.
Not only that, I think that we would tread very carefully due to our trade agreements with it.
I don't agree with any of these, by the way, mind you, but stupidly, our politicians have set our country up so we're not self sufficient, so we rely on these stupid things like this. So I just think we need to be really careful to not warmonger, to not try and get involved in wars like this, and perhaps wait in our wisdom as a nation to see what happens. I hope that when Trump comes into power.
Our treaties won't always let us wait. If a treaty is.
Activated, well, maybe we need to reassess our treaties.
Well, if we've signed a treaty, we're committed to it, and when the treaty is activated, it's activated. It's a bit too late then to say, oh, well, we weren't too sure when we signed it.
We didn't really know all the times changed, Like you can't like if you have one treaty like I think his history shows that this isn't the point.
This isn't the point. There are two things we need to consider.
Number One, there are just wars, and there are wrong wars, and going into the Middle East in the early two thousands was a waste of time, and that was obviously.
The wrong decision.
This is the right war in the area of the world where there is a small democratic nation that is being bullied by a dictatorial, authoritarian, awful regime. The Chinese are not our friends. They are our greatest geopolitical foes. Make no mistake. They are an awful, ugly master us.
Well, no they're not.
No.
A lot of people are saying, well, that's not what I'm saying.
That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is they are greatest geopolitical foes. Even if you don't agree with me on principle, the practical side is we cannot.
Afford to let them invade Taiwan, and there's there's war.
And there's one very simple reason for that, and that is that Taiwan has ninety percent of the world's semiconductors manufactured in that country.
If China takes.
Control of that, then your iPhones won't be available by the time that is over. Maybe every single the world would be glad come on, sorry, but the modern world runs off those semiconductors and unfortunately were about five or six years behind being able to manufacture those in the West. If that happens, that is catastrophic for the Western So this is.
A real big problem for Australia.
Involved who are living in a democracy twenty five million, roughly the size of Australia. They have a democracy, they have freedom. We saw what happened in Hong Kong. China came in with the end of the agreement with the United Kingdom and they took over Hong Kong and they signed the thing called the Basic Law and they said there will be to one country, two systems. They just
broke the law. They ignore that there is no freedom in Hong Kong now and people who were campaigning for freedom and campaigning for liberties were people who are now in prison these days in Hong Kong. The same thing would happen to Taiwan. And we need to decide whether we as a country are prepared to sit back and do that. But Trump is a bit of a dove rather than a hawk. Would he get involved.
Well, the short answer is I think he would. But whether that is a military intervention is an interesting question.
Do you think He's mere presence is an I think.
Much more so than Biden.
Absolutely right, and I think we were talking about this earlier in the week. The concept of strength of deterrence through strength is really important to look.
To what happened with Russia and Ukraine as soon as Trump came in exactly.
So I'm much more comfortable that the Chinese will not intervene in Taiwan with a Trump presidency compared to a Harris presidency, and I hope.
That happens so that we in Australia don't really have to get involved, because, to be honest, I think for a really.
Long time, like a lot of the Shans.
Particularly like political parties like One Nation, have been saying we need to stop relying on countries like Taiwan for making conductors so that when something like this happens, we're in a better position to put Australia first.
But I would tell Paul enhancement is not easy to make semi conductors. We're not going to be able to do it in Broken Hill anytimes.
We have an incredible country with a lot of people, with a lot of resources, a lot of space, like we have so many capabilities.
In the short term. In the short term, when it comes to twenty twenty five, we need to decide, I know.
But we we can have to talk about it now so this doesn't happen again.
You can't do it in the long term either. I know that the world is getting more isolationist. I know that we need to put Australia first, But we can't completely ditch the idea of trade.
We can't completely ditch that.
It should be limited and it should be used with discernment.
Sure, I agree, but I just don't think we say let's do everything in Australia and she'll be right.
It's logic though, like we could potentially get into war with like so many different nations across the world because we go, oh, well, we need this, Like at some point in time we have to go, yes, that's really horrible that the poor, you know, people in Hong Kong have had to suffer. That that's awful.
But you know, my family and my kids come first.
I agree, I agree, But if there is one war in the next decade that we think is the right water to fight, then this is the one.
Well it could sound a bit bleak and you can feel it's a little bit bleak. You shouldn't, because I think we agree that the fact that Trump will be in the White House is more likely to make other people nervous. Other people think again, now, looking ahead to twenty twenty five, how much does life go to cost you in twenty twenty five. We'll talk about that right after the break and welcome back to the late to boat. Now all of us care about our local GPS, our
family doctors. They matter a lot to us. Is there a risk that there won't be enough of them to go around, that we will run out of GPS. We'll take a look at that in just a moment. But firstly, the economy. Now it's interesting I say the word economy and almost instantly and see your eyes glaze over. The economy. We're not interested, but it's actually about how we live. There was a headline that I saw that said about
what twenty twenty five holds for the Australian economy. The headline said what twenty twenty five holds for the Australian economy in terms of property prices, rents and the cost of living, and all three of those things matter to us now I'm going to try to explain something that I would normally not do on isaiad Ross Greenwood beside
me to explain the hard words. But the Australian Bureau of Statistics has just released figures saying that the Australian economy grew by zero point eight percent in the twelve months up until September. Now, that is the slowest and lowest rate of growth since the nineteen nineties. In other words, our economy is growing very slowly. But at the same time, our headline rate of inflation is two point eight percent,
and what's called the underlying rate of inflation. I think Ross calls that the trimmed mean because he uses big words like that. Our rate of inflation is three point five percent. That's inflation up here, that's the growth of our economy down here. That means things are going to be difficult for those of us who live in this country. Things will become more expensive, harder to access, and more people will be struggling. Will what's the as you look
a here, I mean you've got an economics degree. When you look ahead at twenty twenty five, it'll be a tough year, won't it.
Yeah, it will be tough yere as I said. I never said I was a good economist, but I think before we.
Look at what the year ahead will be like, I just want to say, how did we get here?
Yes?
And the thing that really annoys me is that so many of these problems are entirely self inflicted.
The growth issue.
We've had the opportunities for serious economic reforms in this country for over twenty years, and no politicians have had the courage to do it. Not since how it's gsts anything seriously being done. We keep cheating growth by importing more and more people, because that's a great way to get top line GDP growth without really making the economy
more productive. You add on something like net zero, which is just an easy way to hamstring your economy and particularly raise energy prices, and it makes you wonder are the politicians genuinely interested in the well being of our people or are they interested in potentially something else same thing. By the way, it's happening in the UK, it's happening in all of Europe. This isn't just an Australia problem.
And it really just makes me a bit depressed that when you will see Trump come in this year and we'll see the handbrake go off that economy.
It's going to be very stark. The difference between the.
Question either of you about this, do you think that COVID was the final nail in the coffin or do you think that how our governments across the West Europe, Australia, New Zealand do you think the way that they handled COVID has played a huge part in why we are suffering so bad now?
Like what came first, Well, COVID made them spend more money. And when government spending rises, that creates a problem in the economy, doesn't it, Well, yeah it does.
But also COVID got us comfortable with the government solving all of our problems.
You know, in the past, the government.
We provide limited services to the people, they collect tax and then that would be basically the remit of the government. But then in COVID we got comfortable with the government then becoming the income with actually giving us money.
It was easier to stay host the governments to pay you than work.
It was easy.
And I don't think and in fairness to our politicians, I don't think we.
Have got our heads out of that headspace.
We need to say, you know what, the government isn't there to provide money. The government is there to in a very limited capacity, which means over the next five years, if we're going to be serious about our economy, we need to cut back spending. You know, Abbat tried to do it briefly, and you know what, yone in Australia revolted. And so maybe I wonder do we need to have an economic catastrophe before people take this seriously.
Maybe we do.
Maybe it will be as bad as that. But let's have a look at what the politicians are the same. Because our treasurer is doctor Jim Chalmers, and he's talking about what he's doing in his budget in order to make things better for you this year. Take a look at his budget boosters. He says, these are the things which have kicked in on the first of January, a
huge tranch of things that he's brought in. A fifty percent wage increase for age care workers, youth allowance as our study increases, the pharmaceutic got benefits scheme co payment has been frozen. It won't go up there. We could go on. They're a list of about a dozen things, all of them involve the government spending money, and that means there's more money in the economy chasing the same amount of goods and services, and that means that inflation
continues to rise. Where we are constantly told by the RBA, by the International Monetary Fund that it's government spending that's causing the problem. Where at the moment we're in a kind of a rut that is stopping us from getting ahead, aren't we?
I think so?
And I mean to be honest, I think every day Australians at this point in time just want to know, Okay, we're in a rut. One, how do we fix this? And two who's going to fix it? Because at the moment we just got so many empty words from politicians.
We have the Treasurer.
Saying, you know, we've got better days ahead, you know, while he's got sweat, you know, cascading down the side of his temple. You know, people do not believe the lies that we're being spun. And I guess the question as well is are people going to be gullible when it comes time to election?
And I think we've.
Got to stop voting, you know, based off like this loyalty to one party, like who's got the best holicies, who's.
Going to get us out of this rut.
I don't think it's necessarily gullible as much as politicians with courage and persuasive ability. So I was speaking to John Anson, former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia under the Howard government, the other day. He was telling me, you know, on this topic, do you think the Howard government had a mandate for debt reduction? Do you think that was something that was necessary popular? Cutting back spending, actually doing
that hard budgery work. Of course it wasn't. It's not popular when you're taking money away from people.
He had to.
They had to make the case, Howard, Costello Anderson. They hit the trail and they said, this is going to be painful, but we need to do it for these reasons.
It will be better for the country.
And it's that sort of political leadership that sadly has been lacking for the last fifteen years, and that is why we find ourselves in this position now.
James Carvill famously wrote all line for Bill Clinton during his first election campaign, and the line that he wrote that Bill Clinton used when he was competing against George Bush Senior was it's the economy stupid. Will that be our federal election in twenty twenty five, Will it wud be a fort and one on the economy?
Yeah, the short answer is yes, because it's always fort and one on the economy.
Carvill was right.
You know, you saw this in the US recently where all of the abortion stuff, all of the identity politics staff got a lot of media attention, but really it came down to inflation in the first two years of the Biden government, and it came down to people feeling like they'll pay more for goods and services than what they once did. That's what Trump wanted. Money speaks, and these Brillians are feeling the same way. Now.
The interesting thing, and I know we.
Discussed this earlier in the week, but Australias are feeling like the economy is in a bad position. But we also traditionally have not punted out first term governments.
So it's a question of.
Whether or not that traditional trend will endure or whether the old maxim that it's the economy stupid will endure.
There are people we've trusted in the past, so just John Howard and Peter Costello, who were economic reformers and who ran a very successful economy and handed over a budget which was not in deficit, it was in surplus. Now they came out today and they were in the newspaper. There was a headline saying that John Howard and Peter Costello have lashed Anthony Alberizi and Jim Charmer's budget mismanagement. Basically, they're saying that they described Jim Charmer's budget as being
out of control. So is this going to be the issue on which people decide who they choose as their next perime.
I think it will be.
And like I think at this point in time, people just want to be able to feed their families. People want to be able to you know, put a roof over their families' heads and have nice things, like you know, we are our first world nation, and this is a huge thing because it's quite terrifying to think to have another four years of this, you know, like we have
for such a long period of time lived. I guess by necessity we're not really prosperous like we once were, Like you know, we've sort of spent you know the last part of our you know, few years of life just trying to make ends meet.
My question is this is like the sporting team that's relying on the thirty eight year old five eight to just kind of guide them around the field. Why have we still got Howard and Costello trying to make these arguments. I haven't heard Dart and I even Angus Taylor making any really coherent conservative right wing economic arguments lately.
Why do we still have the.
Kind of the greats making these making these making these arguments.
Actually, I think Angus Tayler has been dealing really well with the stupments put it by Jim and for the last six months has been making a case quite strongly. So I do think he's cutting through. Yeah, I think he is. And what we need from people like Peter Dutton and Angus Taylor is something concrete that we can believe. I mean, if they said we're going to knock off the fuel text because that will make life a bit cheaper for you, we would understand that, and we'd say, Okay,
that's a good thing. That's a good reason for now. We need to hear something like that, Surely we.
Do, and it needs to be messaged in a compelling way. So you said yourself when we were going to this topic. Kell that people's eyes glaze over when we talk economics. That's why you need Without a doubt, the greatest modern communicator in Australian politics was Tony Abbott with short stop the boat style messaging. We need to hear that. And that's my concern with someone like an Angus Taylor is I haven't heard him cut through with that type of messaging.
Okay, well we'll see if he can do it. One of the issues that is playing into this is immigration. We've got a huge problem with cost of housing. Whether you're trying to buy a house, whether you're trying to rent property, there's just not enough to go and that's because there are more people than there are houses. Because the immigration rate has been under the Alberanese government for
the last three years just extraordinarily high. They did promise in the last budget to cut it back, but they haven't got back to the lower numbers they claim they would get back to. Now Peter Dutton is saying he
will cut back immigration rates. Peter Dutton's pledged to slash immigration as the best way to these the pressure on housing and suggesting that this is the issue that could in the end decide the outcome of the election in twenty twenty five, if he can come up with a good argument saying I'm going to cut back enough immigration so that the housing will become available for you. For the Australians living here who are looking for housing. We
worry about our children, We worry about our grandchildren. How will they ever afford a home? Is this the issue that matters the size of immigration that's coming in.
I think that immigration across all western nations is the hot topic at the moment. I think it's relevant to America, it's relevant to all of Europe, to the UK, and to Australia. And you know, you've got to ask the question, like everybody seems to be flocking to us, you know, and at some point in time we have to say no, and we have to put our kids, and we have to put our family and our nation first. And I
think that this is such a pivotal moment. I think this was a huge part of Trump's win in America because he basically said he's you know, all of the illegal immigrants that came in, you know, via the border when Biden was in was out of this world, like it was out of this world, and that was a huge thing that he leaned on.
And as soon as he was, you know.
Was elected, one of the first people that he employed in his you know, defense and things, came out and gave this amazing speech about how he said he's.
Going to clean up and deport and get them all back.
And that was a huge thing, and I think a lot of people were like, why can't somebody do that for our country. Everybody was looking on and going, we need that for us because I want I don't want my kids, and I'm sure people at home don't want their kids having to compete.
With the globe, you know, for for a house or for a job. It's that simple.
But we're not talking about quite the situation that Trump faced because we're not talking about illegal immigration. These people are coming he illegally by the Alberica government.
Yeah, well, thank god for the Howard and Abbott governments where they actually got illegal immigration under control.
You can see how.
Were in island. That's the only reason we have an under correct government is so weak. If we were like America, sure.
Sure, But the bigger issue again for us is legal just the size. But the thing is the size. It is the sheer size.
Look, immigration is the central issue that will define politics for the next decade around the world.
I put up a post a poll on.
Twitter the other day and I said, what is the greatest threat to the future of Western civilization? Is it debt, is it identity politics? Is it uncontrolled mass migration?
Or is it war?
And I think out of three thy five hundred responsors it came through at about eighty percent for migration. This is something that people are really feeling. But it's not just the economics. It is the cultural cohesion thing exactly that I think is something and if to be honest, having come from the UK, it is the UK is considerably worse at the moment, but Australia is trailing and I think I'm worried particularly, and the elephant in the
room is immigration from fundamentalist Islamic countries. We saw what happened after October seven. This is not the type of immigration that we saw in the sixties and seventies. This is a very different world we're living in and I think that's the thing we need to actually have the courage stub to walk well.
In your poll that you mentioned, you mentioned a few like economics, you mentioned war, and you mentioned these I would hazard a guess, and I would say my opinion would be that unchecked mass immigration would actually be the catalyst for those.
Other problems within a nation.
If you get that under control, I think you have a far better chance of getting those other things under control.
There would be less war, there would be less conflict, the culture will be cohesive.
I think it comes down to a question of what is a nation. What defines a nation. Is a nation an idea or is a nation something else? And I believe a nation is something else than just an idea.
And JD.
Vance, the vice president elect in America, actually gave a speech about this, and he's on the same page as I would be in that you.
Know, a nation is a nation. It's not an idea.
It's a group of people all living under one culture, one sort of idea, and that America is not an idea, and that it should be taken more seriously. And I think that we in the West need to take on that attitude that.
Needs to become an issue in the election. We need politicians who can give us persuasive accounts of what they're going to do, what they would actually do. Once they're in office. Let's turn to that issue that I raised earlier of our family doctor, our local GP. There's express there's concern being expressed, fears that Australia may in fact have a GP shortage. And the reason is a lot
of the doctors around now are getting older. Australia may face a GP Shortage's figures reveals almost ten percent of doctors are now aged over seventy. But that's not the end of it. The National Regulator now wants to introduce health checks for doctors who are aged seventy and over, so some of those people who are older doctors, they
may be knocked out of practicing. And this, according to the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, would be another regulatory burden unnecessarily imposed on the general practice profession without evidence of supporting effectiveness. And I have to say, I think will that's a nonsense idea. People are healthier longer. Doctors know if they're healthy or not, if they want to practice as doctors, let them practice as doctors.
Sure.
The real question is why aren't there enough young people coming through to actually become doctors. And here's my I guess instinct it's always been a very, very appealing profession. I think it is because our education system is no longer fit for purpose and there are less kids who a smart enough to actually be doctors. And as a result of that, there are less capable people coming through a lot of people who.
Fifteen year course and kids don't have attention spans for that sort of thing.
The potentially potentially, But I think it's always been a very appealing job.
It's always been a very prestigious job.
I think unfortunately see education, basic literacy and numeracy is going backwards. I think that comes out in how you're seeing April Bank doctors.
I know three doctors and some of them go to church with me, all GPS who were laid off because they chose not to get the vaccine. There's three more gps for you, you know, if you're that worried.
Yes, So we actually need to get rid of the nonsense of compulsory vaccines now coming up in just a moment. We need to take a look at what's going to happen in the future. I want to have a look at the predictions for twenty twenty five and work out what advice we would give Anthony Alberzi, if you've had an opportunity to sit down and say one quick piece of advice, mister Prime Minister. Here it is, what would
it be? Think about that? Back after the break? Welcome back advice for Anthony Albernizi from US three in just a moment. But firstly, since nineteen seventy six, the Lake Superior State University has been putting out each year a list of banished words, words that have been abused, misused, overused, or just a plane irritating. And just a few hours ago they released their twenty twenty five list of banished words. Here are the words they want banished from everyone's vocabulary.
Cringe as it makes me cringe. The whole world seems to make someone cringe these days. Game changer? How often can you change the game without everything changing? Era the Taylor Swift word dropped. Movies and books are not released these days, they're dropped. That dreadful iyk y if you know you know, which apparently is another one of those texting bits of shorthand that they use. Sorry not sorry is a sort of half hearted apology where people pretend
to apologize but then take it back. Skibberty is a totally meaningless word used as a kind of noise of approval by young people who don't know any better. One hundred percent is being used instead of people saying absolutely. They expressed agreement in the past saying absolutely. Now they're saying one hundred percent. We don't use anything anymore. We utilize it and period. Because it's an American list, we
would say full stop. It's an irritating word at the end of a sentence, so stop using it full stop. So what words would we choose? What would we pick us as a word or phrase that you would like to ban from the English language at least for the next year.
Very easy, d e I Diversity, equity, inclusion done, finished in the bin.
Okay, that's gone.
Well, we'll go from an initialism to an a acronym and I'll give you GOAT. I'm so sick of whenever a half decent performance is put in from a sportsman, like a jasperate boomram, they're suddenly called the ghost or the greatst had that last night, I lie saying.
And it's come.
And that's why I'm saying we need to banish it, because now we've ended my vocabulary.
It's wrong trender young Will has actually put the kaibo shop.
Although I actually think John Howard is the goat of Australian politics, I will back that up.
And what I'd like to pick is not a single word, but a phrase doing it tough. I've had enough of hearing Jim Chalmers as our treasurer at telling is we're doing it tough. We know we're doing it tough. We're the ones doing it tough. Okay, We're going to sit down and spend a minute with Anthony Albanezia, Prime Minister, and we're going to say, mister Prime Minister, we have a very quick, one sentence bit of advice for you, and it is please.
Evelyn repent and say christ Is King. That's the only hope you have.
What's yours world?
B bold, have some guts and put one bold reform out there. Don't just kind of like wander into this mediocre defeat.
I probably agree with it, but be bold.
Give us something to actually really engage within this country.
The word you're looking for as leadership, give us here.
You're here.
And the one word that I want to talk to the Prime Minister about is the word important. Now can you please pronounce it properly, Prime Minister. It's got a T in the middle, not a D. It's not pronounced important. But every time you say it, you say important, you do a glotti stop in the medial tea and can I tell you it's irritating a whole lot of people, so you're tell them to get practice it important after me Important. It's not hard. You can do it, so
give it a try, Prime Minister. There you are a bit of guidance for twenty twenty five. And thank you for being sharing our company on this the first edition of the Late Debate for twenty twenty five. Thanks to Evelyn and to Will and to you, and we'll see you tomorrow night.