General, Welcome to the wake bade.
Good evening.
Thanks for joining us.
I'm James Macpherson with Liz Storer and Joe Hildebrand coming up. Kamala Harris is back unburdened by sobriety, or at least it seems that way. I'll show you what I mean later. Plus, when we look at the papers, The Australian has got an interesting front page tomorrow, labour's links to Chinese Commenist Party aligned property developers seems Elbow and Penny Wong have been whining and dining them. Plus the unusual excuse some public servants are giving for not wanting to go back
to working in the office. All of that when we get to tomorrow's headlines. But I want to start tonight by looking at the incredible footage of New South Wales police Inspector Amy Scott giving chase to the Bondi stabber through the Westfield shopping center last year before taking him down. The footage was released this afternoon by the coroner. There's
the incredible bravery of Inspector Amy Scott. Not only that the courage of about a dozen men who joined her in pursuit of Joel Couci, who by that stage had already stabbed sixteen people. Have a look at this incredible footage that was released today. You'll see here that Inspector Amy Scott is coming up onto the fifth level of the shopping center, and look at all the men she's accompanied by. Listen, Joe. These were passers by who found out what was happening and ran with the police officer
as they chased after Joel Cauchi. Joel Couche, remember, had a thirty centimeter knife. There he is. There, he runs past a shopkeeper who is told by Amy Scott quick get back behind closed doors. Then she tells all the men who are with her stand back as she's ready herself, and you'll see in a moment the stabber runs toward her. She braces, and the footage cuts out just before she shoots. She fires three shots. The first shot hit Joel Couci, the second shot hit him again, the third shot hit
a pop plant behind him. But it demonstrates the bravery not just of that police officer. She told the inquest that she thought for sure she would die. She didn't have a protective vest, she didn't have a partner with her, though she did, as we saw have a dozen passes by who all joined her in pursuit. But quite incredible bravery and good on all those men for joining with her and standing up with her in that moment.
Absolutely we know the bollard men.
We knew of them the weekend that this happened, those guys grabbing the ballard, trying to prevent him from getting to another level. Now we see that so many more men were ready to charge into well they didn't even know what, I don't think at that point, but they would have known that at least one lone stabber was on the loose. They see a they say, we're with you all the way, and they're charging into the line
of fire with her. So it's just wonderful to see this kind of heroism amongst everyday Aussies who were just there to do some shopping. Little did they know that that day would call on every bit of guns they had to ensure the safety of the rest of the people in the westfield that day.
It's an extraordinary thing. Like when you look at that loan cop there, who is literally the thin blue line, as thin as a guests. So I know, as we say,
no protective vest she thinks she's going to die. Thirty centimeters is a very very long knife, and it is very very difficult to shoot someone when they are moving very very fast, charging and charging at you, and to be able to hold your nerve and hold the gun steady and resist every impulse in your body, every instinct in your body to get out of the way, to be able to stand that and think, right, that's it. I'm going to die, but I have to get this
shot off. And again she also has because when the actual moment comes, it's not the you know, she has an obligation to also defend and protect the men standing behind her. As much as they are there to sort of a sister, she has to protect them from that guy running at her as well. So it's just this incredible moment in time where she has literally all these lives in her hands.
The other part of that novel, just before he returns towards her and runs at her, there was a woman with a baby in a pram and Joel Couchi had turned his attention to that woman. She's not shown in the vision. She's out of sight and Amy Scott yells out to get the man's intention. She mouths the word run to the woman with the pram and that's when Joel Couchi starts running back towards Amy Scott. So she invited him to come at her rather than the woman with the baby in the pram.
Incredible bravery indeed, and goodness knows have happened if she hadn't done that.
Like you say, Joe, every.
Single cell in your body would be screaming run the other way. But she knew she was the only one with a weapon that could defeat this guy.
It's just incredible, incredible footage.
And also you can't be in your right mind as we know that Joel Councy wasn't to charge at a cop like that. You had to have got in that person's armed they're able to take you down.
And yet that's what he chose.
You.
It was only six meters away from her when she got the first shot off. When you think of a man running as full pelt.
Again, terrifying, you see how that's right? Yeah, it just things like this, it's so chaotic and they just make no sense whatsoever. I mean, this is a guy who just should have been on his meds and for whatever reason he wasn't and we'll get to the bottom of that at the end of this inquest. And you desperately need something to try to attach some meaning to just
horrible random events like this. And I think what Amy Scott did was actually give the community and give the nation something to kind of sort of hold on to, to help make sense of what is really a completely senseless act. And so I think she actually performs without getting to touch you feel about it, but I think she actually helps a whole kind of community in Sydney, in the Eastern suburbs, but also a whole nation thing.
You know what, the world's not just not just a sort of terrifying place where you can be killed at any moment, because there are people like her who've devoted their life to.
Say and how police get a lot of criticism, but thank god for police officers like Amy Scott.
You're here an absolute hero.
Well, after some last minute hiccups that threatened you do raile it again. The US and Ukraine have today signed off on the highly controversial and very much anticipated minerals deal. Now, just last week, Trump was blasting Zelenski via his truth social platform, saying this was ridiculous, it was taking way too long.
It was at least three weeks.
Late, and Zelensky had to sign it immediately.
Immediately being in capitals, as we.
Know, is Trump's preferred method imation. But it appears that the meeting between the two leaders, which took place at the Vatican over the weekend around the Pope's funeral, must have worked a treat.
The US did not budge on their terms for this deal.
They demanded that all aspects on the table be agreed to by Kiev, and that did indeed happen today, his US Treasury Secretary Scott Besant saying that this is very much hoped this is the first step in the right direction toward negotiated peace in Ukraine.
At last, here he is I.
Am glad to announce the signing of today's historic economic Partnership agreement between the United States and Ukraine, establishing the United States Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund. Today's agreement signals to Russian leadership that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine over the long term.
And as Trump is well known for, he is counting his chickens, saying peace is nigh and you have me to thank for it. Here he is talking to an ABC reporter and.
Montez of me.
I do believe that he's willing to stop the fighting, don't begin.
He wants to say anything. Vladimir Putin wants peace.
I think he does.
Yes, I think still.
I was not happy what I saw Putin shooting missiles into a few towns and cities, and that was not something that I like seeing, and I thought it was inappropriate.
Inappropriate, that's a bit of an understatement, but it's Trump. And of course he couldn't finish the interview without pointing out the yes, this is all thanks to me, as opposed to Biden, who couldn't even climb a flight of stairs.
Do you think the reputation of the United States has gone down under your presidency? No, I think it's gone way up, and I think we're a respected country again. We were left at all over the world. We had a president that couldn't walk up a flight of stairs, couldn't walk down a flight of stairs, couldn't walk across the stage without falling. We had a president that was grossly incompetent.
You knew it.
I knew it, and everybody knew it, but you guys didn't want to write it because you're fake news.
He never misses an opportunity to slip that knife in, does he, even while he's doing an interview with the very platform that he's trying to d platform. But is this the beginning of the end of the Russia Ukraine War?
Well, to be fair to Donald Trump and Ibas, I don't think he was calling just Ibas a news fight news. I think he was calling everybody's fight news. But look, it could be. I mean, this is the thing with Trump, you never know, and this is why the people think he's all able and he's a monster and he's got some sinister plan to take over the world, or he's a fascist. Who's going to say Democrats crazy left? Is
you know anyone? But they're wrong. But also people who think that he's the messiah and he's got a quick fix that's going to solve everything. Equally, so it's Trump, it is Trump, and he will go all in one way, and if that doesn't work, he will go all in
the other way. And like Winston Churchill famously said during World War II when he was trying to get the Americans into the war on the Ally side, and they were sort of holding out, and someone said, you know, you're worried that the Americans aren't actually going to come to party. Is no, no, no, The Americans will always do the right thing after they've tried everything else. And that's kind of like what Trump did. He goes, no, no, I'm just going to tell that'd be a putin to
stop bombing. And then he doesn't. He goes, oh right, it turns out he is an asshole. And I'll go back and talk to Silenski.
What I want to know, Joe, and you're a good Catholic, so maybe he can help me out with this. But if this does bring about peace in Europe, does Pope Francis get a sainthood because this would be a mirror that he would have performed. After all, it was at his funeral. That's right that Zelensky and Trump sort of smoked the peace pipe, because it was last February when Zelensky went to the White House and it looked like, for all money, Trump would never deal with Zelensky and
the whole thing was just absolute mess. But they got together in an unscheduled meeting before the Pope's funeral.
That's exactly right. I'll have to I'll have to get pope's final miric. I'll have to check canon law. But do you actually have to perform the miracle in your lifetime or can you do it? I thought it was a lifetime and one behind the grade.
There you go.
I think you're right. So we'd have to find money in his lifetime. But an interesting fact aside from whether, of course Pope, of course Pope Francis should be sainted, because he's a saintly man, but one of the key bulwarks of the Ukrainian claim to national nationhood is that it's got it's really its own sort of really weird church called the Unit Church, which is kind of like halfway between Orthodox and Catholic, and so it's it's a national church. It is like the National Church of Ukraine.
So it's not like the Catholic Church which is sort of everywhere or Protestantism or whatever. It's kind of like the Church of England. So it's Catholic, it belongs to Ukraine. It's just in Ukraine. It dates back to the Kievan russ period, which is when the Russians and the Ukrainians argue over you know, who really started as Kevin Norris, so, as you know, was Russians in Kiev. That's why you know, Ukraine and Kiev have always been a part of Russia.
But there is this particular church, it's only in Ukraine. It's called the Unit Church, and it is Orthodox. It has an Orthodox mass, but it is affiliated with the Vaticans, so it is in complete communion with the Vagant so it is considered as part of a Catholic Church, although it acts as an Orthodox church, and that makes it unique, and it makes you uniquely Ukrainian. Therefore, Ukraine has a unique national identity that proves that it is an independent country.
So the logic goes, so there you go, there you go.
Well you expect that, did you on a Saturday Ecclesiastical Lessons.
Day?
Welcome Australia.
Well, Trump's trying to win the war, or help Zelenski win the war in Europe. He's also trying to win the war at home against violent, criminal, illegal aliens. And of course Trump was elected on a promise that he would get rid of especially illegal aliens who'd committed crimes from the country, and he's been pretty successful But what's curious is the way the White House are advertising their success.
Have look at this, They've been putting on the White House lawns, posters advertising arrested illegal alien, then a photograph or a mug shot of the illegal alien who's been deported, and the crime that they had committed while in the United States is listed there as well. Stephen Miller, who's from the Trump administration, says that they are absolutely committed to keeping on expelling these violent illegal aliens.
Those sanctimonious, pompous jerks in the left wing corporate press refuse to cover any of these crimes, refuse to interview or cover any of their victims, do not demonstrate an ounce of human empathy for any of the suffering that Joe Biden's border invasion, the Democrat Party's border invasion, has
wrought on this country, and so the White House. So President Trump's White House has forced brilliantly these outlets to acknowledge these crimes, to acknowledge these atrocities by putting these posters, these mugshots, and their criminal histories right behind them as they stand there and do their shots every single day.
But it's not that easy to get the mainstream media to acknowledge that Trump is doing a good job expelling these volunt illegal aliens, because well, he look at the way see Ann Covetant.
The Trump administration is approaching its first one hundred day mark with a full court press on the issue of illegal immigration, and they really don't want you to miss it. So they subtly and teastfully dacked the White House North line with dozens of yurid signs featuring photos of people that the Trump administration claims are in the country illegally.
CNN said because the names of the illegal aliens were not on the signs, they couldn't confirm that they were actual criminals who'd committed the crimes alleged on the posters. Therefore, they blurred out the images just to be on the safe side. Funny though, is they didn't blur out the image of say, Kyle Rittenhouse, who famously was lampooned by CNN when he defended himself during the Black Lives Matter riots. CNN and outlets like them simply hate the truth, and
you get the idea they hate Americans. They're more concerned about protecting the identities of murderers and rapists who, in addition, didn't have any right to be in the country than they are about telling the truth to the American people they're supposed to.
Serve artily bizarre.
It all depends on the narrative you're pushing, mac, but the irony of their By doing that, they're actually proving why the Trump administration has gone to these lengths to let the American people know we're hit. Now one hundred daymark, here's one hundred of the worst that we have so far gotten our hands on illegal aliens who have committed the most heinous crimes in our country.
We have arrested them. What CNN has also done.
Basically by making that move saying, oh, well, we couldn't verify it, you're pretty much accusing the Trump administration of just whacking up photos of people that may or may not have been arrested, may or may not have been guilty. I mean, what a thing to accuse them of. What though they've just made it up, They've photoshopped these people
or for whatever ridiculous reason they think. Here's James Blair, White House Deputy Chief of Staff, again explaining why the Trump administration has done this and why they will continue to do this because unless they do, the mainstream media in America isn't gonna.
Why do you want people to see that? Why do you want the press to see that?
Well, look, the mainstream media, as you know, Brian, doesn't want to cover this story. What we've done is get violent criminals and other low lives on the street. It's literally a murderer's row here on the line of the White House. And these are people that we've taken out of the country since we came into office.
This is what people voted for. And if the media isn't going to cover it, the Trump administration is taking it into their own hands. And I love that they deliberately set this up where they know all the reporters come to the White House to shoot their stories, so they've got these in the background no.
Matter where they try to stand to do.
Their reporting on the White House as happenings that day.
It's absolutely genius, Joe, It is genius.
And I was actually trying to scrutinize all the crimes that these people were accused of or convicted of, and they're all pretty bad. Like I kept thinking, sooner or like, there's going to be like you know, robbery, jaywalking, pickpocketing, and they are all literally murder, rape, child sex offenses. So it's very I don't know how you I make a case that these people should be allowed to claim asylum.
I think, you know, there's we've got enough rapists and murderers in our own society without putting up with more. I think there's any huge argument for bringing in good people. That's another story. But the fact that CNN didn't even say criminals or ravens or murders or you know, people accused of alleged They just called them, just said these are the people that John Trump says that they've detained
and deported. It's well, they're kind of there because of one particular distinguishing characteristic, Like if they were all, you know, they're all women, would see them the people, if they were all, you know, elder with as the people, if they're all, you know, if it was black lives matters, Oh, here are all the people who have been randomly killed
by police. It just seems very like the willful ignoring of the entire point seemed to be quite literally, well, they might as well blurt out everything you.
Would think CNN with all of their reporting resources could find out fairly quickly. There's only one hundred people. They've got to verify these photographs matching the name.
And well presumably the White House to just give them a list exactly they want to get it out there.
We'll staying in the US. Tim Waltz, Kamala Harris's running mate at the last election, explained today why he was her running mate, and in doing so inadvertently explained why the Democrats not only lost the last election but will continue losing elections.
I knew I was on the ticket.
I would argue because we did a lot of amazing progressive things in Minnesota, the improved people's lives. But I also was on the I could, quite honestly, you know, because I could code talk to white guys watching football fixing their truck during that that I could put them at ease. I was the permission structure to say, look, you can do this and vote for this.
Code talk and permission. There's a man who knows absolutely nothing about men. But I suppose when your signature move is jazz hands, and remember he tried to load a shotgun with his groin, and then of course he's nicknamed tampon. Tim because of his penchant for putting tampon bins in boys toilets in his home state of Minnesota. It was probably a weird choice to try and appeal to white
guys who like sport and trucking. Weirdest of all was imagining that his primary value was that he was white and a male, rather than say his experience or his.
Ideas or out of the kind of identity politics I could get behind.
That is why the Democrats will be out of office for a long long time. If there's still thinking that's the difference, imagine thinking that men need you to code for them or give them permission to vote for a black woman. White blokes who loves sports and trucks don't need code, They just need plain truth. And the truth is that Tim Watz was never the guy to appeal to the average American bloke.
Indeed, and the fact that the average white guy living in America who does love trucks, who does love sport, would find an affinity with a guy like Tim Waltz, like they literally were.
Like, Okay, well we've got a black.
Woman running for president, so we're going to get a middle aged white guy as her.
VP running mate.
Tick that box identity politics for the win. I'm sure people will find him really relatable. He's the white guy to find relatable and be like, yeah, I'm going to vote for them because I see myself reflected in this absolute bumbling fool. Remember Tim Waltz is the guy who called himself a knucklehead.
I will be the first to tell you I have poured my heart into my community.
I've tried to do the.
Best I can, but I've not been perfect, and I'm a knucklehead at times.
Tell us something we don't know, mate, I mean, my.
Goodness, it's a very it's a very sort of typic. I despise it, but it's a very sort of typical new progressive left as opposed to just good old fashioned, you know, of the people, by the people, for the people. But where there's there's this idea that elections are kind of a game, they're kind of like an algorithm, and that if you and you can listen the way they speak,
listen to the way get Up speaks. For example, in its campaign strategy went in BOMBARDSI with emails and tells you how we're going to donate, and if we just get six dollars here and six dollars there, and you know, you listen to the way they were Obama team, and they did it very effectively, but talked about the ground game. I mean they did that effectively because I had a
candidate who could actually connect with normal people. But this idea that I'm the sort of Rosetta stone for for you know, straight white, middle aged mass and men who make up you know, the vast majority of the sort of middle American rust belt states that we need to win. You know, I know how to you know, I know how to communicate with them. How about just being one
of them? How about this being normal? And there's just after the election, there was a big push on by some in the Democrats, sadly not the side of the party that I think Tim Wilts and Kamala are on, but where they said, what the hell are we doing? We have screwed up everything. We need to get out. We need to go to the gun shows, we need to get out there in the four wheel drives. We need to you know, we need to actually get into
the community we are. We've got to stop, you know, hanging around in all our cool sort of East Coast you know, salons and brunch spots talking about how we can you know, secretly communicate and use people as vessels to harness these people and we've got to get out there and live among them. How's that for a good idea?
It's an amazing idea. I mean, regardless of policies, Liz, who is the average bloke in the US can to identify with Tim Wiltz or jd Evans.
Well, I think we have our answer in the election results.
I think we got it loud and clear.
Well.
In terrible timing for the Dutton campaign. We know that the Labor Party has been trying to tie him.
Very hard with the oh he's so Trump like brush.
Today some undercover reporters poosing as prospective clients was speaking to Chris Lasovita, who was a veteran Republican strategist, and he thought it would be appropriate to tell them, again, not knowing they were undercover reporters, that he had in fact advised the Dutton campaign before it all kicked off earlier this year.
Here he is, I.
Was in Australia two weeks ago helping the Liberal Party there on some of their structural issues that they're they were having with Peter Dutton and see things somewhat seemed to be moving in the right direction. There.
Can you imagine imagine the labor camp at the moment.
Being like, see, we told you.
He's even getting firsthand advice from one of Trump's chief teams strategists. We told you he was basically the Australian Trumps.
It's terrible time.
It actually was someone in the labor camp who sent it to me. So yes, they are very much doing that. But it is interesting is that because there's a whole lot of this. There's all these sort of postmortems coming out about what went wrong with the Dutton campaign before the election has even been held. So you know, usually the definition of post bortem is, you know, after death. In this case, the patient is still alive and they're
trying to figure out what killed it. But one of them, I think clearly is that there was a sort of echo chamber around Dunton. There was a lack of communication between Dutton and his office and campaign HQ, although of course there are plenty who are blaming Campound, HQU and the rest of Shadow Cabinet whatever whatever, whatever. But you know, if indeed that's true and they are taking this sort of advice that you know, everyone wants to see public
servants being forced back to the office. And you know, if you're stand in front of Australian flag, everyone I'll vote for you, or if you're crackdown and welcomes to country, that's what's going to get people in the final vote swinging behind you. Story kind of checks out, maybe, Well, poor.
Old Angus Taylor and Jane Hume were trying to announce the Coalition's costings today, but the issue of Trump, of course, came up and they were asked about the Coalition getting advice from Trump's strategists.
Been interested in some political advice from someone who's on a very successful campaign.
Well, I've not been partied.
I think campaign teams and campaign teams talk to each other all the time, particularly center right campaign tams from.
Right around the world. This would not be an unusual thing.
It's not something that as up would be a part I think Jane Hume is right, they get advice from all over the world with sort of like minded political parties. Nothing to it, but it seems that people do think there's something to it because clearly it's worked against the Coalition.
Yeah, that's right, and it comes up in all the research. And also, I really like Jame Hume. I don't want to have a crack at it. But Angus Taylor, again, this is an election in which you are trying to distance yourself from Donald Trump or anything to do with it. Angus Taylor has just said, oh, look, we don't know anything about that. You know, I wouldn't know. Move on.
And as he's about finished, Jane hum then jumps in and says, oh, yes, parties meet with each other from other parties, from different countries meet with each other all the time, so like they've just sort of been stopped and moved on. But now suddenly she's kind of admitted that they did meet with each other. And that's and
again I don't want to go Jane. I do love you, Jane, but it seems to me just an example that we've seen time and time again front benches contradicting themselves on policies, backflipping on policies where they're just not either often not agreeing with each other or not agreeing even with themselves from one day to the next, and again from whichever side of politics you're on. That's just a really, really sloppy campaign, and I'm not the only one saying that they're
a whole bundred people. Stand before we move on, though, I very quickly want to say I've been obsessed and changing the phone about Pope Francis and whether or not, Oh you've become a saint? Right, so, because I thought, I think you have to commit the miracles when you're alive. So it is you get audited after you die, but then they go back through your life and they say, right, have you have you done any miracles? And if if
you do two, then you qualify for sainthood. And yes, okay, Zelenski and Trump met at Pope Francis's funeral after he is dead. But who did the invite list? If Pope frances was the one who invited them both, i'd like them that would count one down, one to go? Could anyway I'd like to apologize to everyone in the controller
room for that. I probably right up. Let me write a long Prime Minister Anthony Albanesi has not ruled out raising taxes amid debarcle decade of sorry sorry, I just assumed it was debarkle, A decade of deficits and soaring debts. Let's up listening to the grad This is Anthony Albanese saying whether or not he will categorically rule out any new taxes. Do you undertake not to raise any taxes?
Well, what we've got and it is our policies out there for all.
To see, So you won't raise any taxes.
So that what we've got out there, Andrew, is lower taxes.
See that answer was so assured, so completely cut and drive, so black of why he said yes before Andrew Klenell had even finished answered asking the question, how am I what more of a rule out do you need? People?
Of course he has to leave open the option of increasing taxes because it's been such a spendethon in the lead up to Saturday that how else do they pay for all of this stuff? They spend and tax and I'm not sure they know much else.
No, Well, the government only has your money. It doesn't have anybody else's money. And they love driving up that debt, don't they.
I mean, we're about to reach a record levels of debt here in this country and we can thank the alban Easy government.
Which saving your life no standards.
Of saving our lives.
COVID's in the past buddy, if you're trying to make a COVID.
Reference, not your livelihoods, your your ability to put food on the table. I believe taking it rain.
A little less.
There would be even less were it not for the government's fiscally reckless.
Est not ruling out any tax cuts, and it seems increasingly so that labor aren't ruling out a return of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament. Yesterday, Penny Wong left open the possibility that it could be brought back. She speculated that in ten years time we'll all be wondering what the fuss is all about. It's almost inevitable. She implied that the Voice to Parliament would at some stage be resurrected, and today a second senior government minister hinted that the
Voice would return. Have listened to Anika Wells, she's the Minister for Aged Care.
The Voice in the form that we took to the referendum is gone. We respect the opinions and the votes of people. They made that very clear. But we're always looking for ways to help First Nations people and for that policy to be tangible, incredible.
The Voice in the form it was presented at the referendum is gone, but of course that leaves open Joe the possibility there could be a voice in another form. Labor could legislate it. Now, either they are going to do this, and they're so confident they're going to win on Saturday, they've decided, you know what, we can start just dropping hints about this so that when we do do it, we can't be accused of being secretive about it, or they are every bit of sloppy as you claim the coalitioner.
Yeah, I think it's the latter. Unfortunately, so there is not that there. I can guarantee there is no secret plan to bring back the Voice, and it is unfortunate that a couple of ministers have not been careful with their language and have been trying to sort of have a bit of a bed each to ways because they don't want to seem like they're heartless on Indigenous affairs and they've just given up on it, so they say, oh, no, we're not doing the voice, but don't worry, we're going
to do lots of other really good stuff. They haven't been clear and clear and sure and firm enough in the way that they have said that, so you know, I've had conversations with the newsroom about you know, crazy SURMOUNTI commosations, so you know, editors saying, you know, well, what does she mean by you know, in the form that you know, in the form that it went to the last election. Is it in the form? And everyone's saying, right, so there'll be there will be a voice, but not in the form that.
It was either in the constitution or was legislative, the two forms that were pretty But.
We don't know, We have no idea what she actually means by that. I actually suspect it's just a bit of a word sout. She's saying, well, I know this is a bit of a words out, because there is no absolutely no way there's going to be a voice. I have privately been assured and against at a time when I when I was saying, well, how about we do this, how about we do that? Privately being assured by the most senior office holders in the country, No, we are not doing that.
People assure you that we'd get a two hundred and seventy five dollars rebate from our Christy increase on Errold.
They did not, And if they had, I would have said, for the love of God, don't put a specific.
Number on it, but a Liberal party are already putting out as of tonight adversements fifteen seconds featuring Senator Price warning people that this is on the agenda. She says, we rejected division once, we can reject it again. Could this be a last minute gasp of hope for the coalition lease?
Well, I don't think so, because, as Joe has said, ad nauseum and Australians in every poll a test, the number one issue going to the election is cost of living. And when it's hitting your hip pocket as hard as it is now, all the culture Wars stuff does go out the window. People are going to vote for what they see is the most feasible way forward. How much is it going to affect me monetarily? That's what it boils down to. That's what will decide this election. Absolutely
black and white done. But before we go to an ad break, there has been a polling room with assault at pre Pole at a seat in Pakenem in Victoria. This is the federal seat of Latrobe, I should say, but the incident took place in Paknam.
As we know, Prepole can get.
Pretty heated, but those are usually verbal stouches, not physical However, someone rocking up to Pakenham to vote today took great exception to the trumpets of patriots advertisements which included that they were going to should they be elected, to make sure that there was record cuts to immigration. This guy decided to take matters into his own hands by getting physical.
We were built on multiculturalism.
Yeah, these ads aren't. Who are Australia's about?
My goodness? Very heated.
Indeed, let's hope nobody is taking notes and decides to behave similarly. But something that always gets me whenever people make that illustration Australia.
Was built on immigration.
There is a vast difference between today's immigration and the settlers of the past, which were very.
Much Anglo Celtic.
That's from where they came and gave their blood, sweat and tears in order to build what we now know is modern Australia. I hate it when people try and draw that similar It's not. It's completely differently. But you were going to say something, Joan, isn't.
The point that what how can you be there saying how dare you have these posters there? How do you have these corfully to This is not what Australia is about, But Australia is about kicking the shit out of election volunteers because you disagree with them. Like, is that what Australia is? I mean to represent Australia and you uncultured brute, I'm going to kick you? Are you not being progressive enough?
I gotta be honest. When I saw the fight, I just figured that was a guy who had just gotten sick of trumpet of patriots spamming his phone with those text messages that would finally had enough reckon. A few of us would identify with that. We're to go to a break. When we come back, we look at what's making news tomorrow, including the unusual excuse some public servants are giving for not wanting to go back to working in their offices.
That's going to have it a month.
Okay, let's take a look at what's making news in tomorrow's papers, and Liz. The front page of Tomorrow's Australian has a story about the Labor Party's links with China.
Indeed, what are you doing the week before the election? Well, let's read PM Wong Diane with CCP friends tell us more Labor has courted Beijing backed property developers and senior figures in the Chinese Communist parties foreign influence arm in a pre election push to secure Australian Chinese donations and
lock in the community's votes in key seats. The Australian can reveal Anthony Albanesi celebrated his birthday in March had an intimate lunch with the Chinese Building Association of New South Wales, which has close ties to state run construction firms in China. It goes on to say that Foreign Minister Penny Wong enjoyed Yamcha in Brisbane last month with ALP donor Peter ZiU Zeng, the president of a Chinese cultural association linked to the CCP's United Front Work Department.
When is labor going to get a clue that now's not a good time. You've got Minister Claro O'Neill and doctor Monique Ryan now both being investigated by the AEC. They've got a task force onto it regarding this CCP linked Hube association that was helping them with volunteers for both of them campaigns. And now we've got this on the front page of the OS less than forty eight hours.
Yeah, but they did. It was in March though they didn't go. They went out to dinner this week.
Sure, but it's it's timely to let people know.
Now, that's why the Australian did it.
There's at least ten seats where Chinese votes are crucial to the outcome. And of course.
Chisholm put that column along pretty well read chist.
He's a handsome boy and he's an example to the world leaders as to how one also the US alliance with their Chinese.
Very fine man according to US Dave McDonald canders who doesn't need a couple of pandas you know, it's a black and white issue.
Very very friendly.
Now onto more election related matters, and the cans Post is actually right in the center of Australian political history. Here experts pretty close race in Far North Queensland seat like hard like Art candidates, see how they do that. It's actually like heart, but they say like hard because it's like they're going hard.
We get it, we get it.
Like Art.
Candidates put infrastructure on health at the forefront of their election pledges, but political analysts say it won't be enough to sway the undersided voter. Likehart is held by the OLMP by three point four percent margin, but with the imminent retirement of long standing MP Warrant Nch, the seat
has become one of the most marginal in Australia. Central Queensland University Senior History in Politics lecturer Joe Collins all good first name, said, both sides of politics that recognize the need to improve infrastructure and healthcare in far North Queensland. So the interesting thing here is that as the of knows Warren Inch is so, incumbency in a seat is usually figured to be worth about two or three percent. So just the fact that you've been the local member,
people know your face, You've got your stationary allowance. You can stick in their letterboxes of you, you know, hugging cops and signing things and digging ditches and all that stuff. Ch is that on steroids. So he was an enormous personal standing, enormous personal popularity. Is seen as a bit of a maverick, so he wasn't just a party stourge.
He often did his own thing. He often stood up to the party, especially on gay marriage, I think, and also in the when he voted against Malcolm Turnbull for Peter Dutton, he wrote on the ballot this is for Brendan Nelson and I just like that personal touch that speaks to me anyway. So Warren ench has held this seat pretty much NonStop for the last twenty billion years.
The only time he lost it was in two thousand and seven in the rud Slide, which of course was the most seats that Queensland had ever delivered the Labor Party, and that was because they had one of their own in Kevin Ryd Kevin O seven. So with him gone that three point four percent if we're saying two to three percent for a normal incumbent, let alone someone with a huge personal popularity who's been around for ever, who knows well.
In twenty nineteen, Scott Morrison pretty much begged Warnich to stay in partner and contest the election exactly because I knew if Warnich wasn't there that seat would probably fall. It looks like it may well fall on Saturday. Let's go to the front page of tomorrow's Herald's son. If you're sick of Peter Dutton and Anthony Albanezi, well you don't have to worry about what they're saying. You can
read what their partners are saying. The men we know and Love says the headline Leaders partners write exclusively for us. I've got a question for you, Joe on this one. Curly Dutton and Jody Hayden are writing for The Herald's son, do you reckon they would sit down with their laptop and write the words themselves.
So you're implying that to.
Be honest, that you're betting someone does it for them. They would give it aersonal touch.
Would be surprised that there would be someone who would look over a sort of polish it and make sure they weren't saying anything ridiculous, like you know, you know, Curately doesn't saying I think working from home is wonderful. I've been doing it for twenty or you know, JODI's saying, you know, these tax cuts are pathetic. I couldn't even get a cup of coffee. So they'd be someone who goes through it, make sure they're not saying anything that goes against party policy or is too hot or too
out there. But no, in most I don't know in this exact case, but I know in big things like that this that are seen to be either personal or that are seen to be really really important, politicians take great pride in being the ones who actually do it themselves. So if you take example the apology to the Soul and Generation that Kevin Rudd did, he wrote that himself, and he wrote it himself in a way because he knew he had to write it himself, do you know
what I mean? Like he wrote it himself because it was important that he wrote it himself, and so he wrote it himself. It doesn't matter whether the words would have been any better or worse than if someone else had written it, but he knew it was something that for posterity was important that the Prime Minister actually did themselves.
And I suspect this would have been the same thing, partly because I think they probably would have had a bit of fun and enjoyed doing it, and partly because if it had it turned out that this was that there was any sort of ghost writer involved in this,
the whole thing would have been blown up. But I just if we could quickly, very quickly, I'm sorry to show the whole front page of the Herald Sign if we can draw it back up again, just the way that the picture splash goes with the splash splash downstairs, You've got a picture of the opposition leader with his wife and the Prime minister with his girlfriend, and the giant headline X texts and tears people.
To pay attention.
It's very important line between those two stories that people might want to pay attention to.
Just quickly, we've got the Newcastle heralds here we all know. Premium Men's last August issued an edict that all the state employees were to get back to work. Oh you public servants know, more of them working from home?
Nonsense.
But now these guys reckon, they've got nowhere to go.
Offices out of space. The splash reads.
Public sector workers say government officers in the Hunter do not have the room to accommodate all staff.
After the New South.
Wales premier directed workers back to the office, hunting government employees for a lack of office space could be costing the region jobs and say vacant positions are being advertised outside the area without the option to work locally. But the government predictably has denied its Hunter officers have issues, saying there is quote.
Enough desk space to meet the needs of staff.
End quote credibly.
In order to go back to the office in August last year. That was nine months ago.
Time.
And also, I bet he did it and he didn't have to come out two weeks later and say we're terribly sorry about that, we got it completely wrong product, because that's how do it. Sensibly did a measured, considered way. Now, So I just love Christman so much. I know Liz does too, so I feel like I'm speaking for both.
Wow, Wow, what is this difference?
Let's go to Gold Coast Bulletin now, and this is just an amazing little story. It's the tiniest little postage stamp of a story on the front page, but I just can't get enough of it. Fire Brigade Staffers thirty eight K fraud. It says a former secretary and treasurer emptied her volunteer Fire Brigade bank accounts into her own for quote, personal and financial reasons unquote. A court has heard. What are the reasons?
Are they?
Their personal and financial being that I wanted the money.
I did it for altruistic reasons.
She ableited guilty and will be sentenced on July.
I thought it would be safe for mike account.
Why did you take all your money from this bank account and put it in your bank account? Oh, financial reasons?
When you go to a When we come back, Kamala Harris is making speeches again. God help us. We'll show you in just a second. Well, Kamala Harris is back, unburdened by what has been and seemingly unburdened by sobriety. Who saw that video from a couple of weeks ago, the one of the elephants at the San Diego Zoo during the earthquake.
Google it if you've not seen it. So that scene has been on my mind. Everybody's asking me what you've been thinking about these days.
Well, as soon as they felt the earth shaking beneath their feet, they got in a circle and stood next.
To each other.
I was going to say America dodged a bullet, but I reckon they dodged a nuclear missile. Remember they were marketing her. She's going to bring joy. Could you imagine four years of that kind of joy?
I don't know. I was captivated by that. What happened? Actually, they got in a circle. I'm on the edge of my seat. Now we'll never know.
Joe, it's there's got to be some kind of neurological explanation for this, without a doubt, without a doubt, and she like, So imagine people say, you know, people say what you been thinking about this whole time? And I say elephants, like she's brain damage? There is something actually not like what is going on? And yes, I presume all the elephants, you know, hug each other and they by by by joining together, they stay strong in turbulent times. Okay, I can tell you that, I can tell you the
rest of them. What does that help? How does that do anything?
How does that make anything better? What are we all going to do?
Imagine they could have had Kamala Harris and Tim Watts leading the free world.
Can you imagine though, we would have had endless entertainment. Speaking of entertainment, ten year old Duper Wallace from dub Chair has taken the gong for second year running for the best goal screecher.
Yes, they actually.
Hold championships in Belgium every single year and he's won twice in a row. And here's why, we're told he faced shift competition this time from his seven year old sister Shelby. Bit of sibling rivalry there, but he is more than passionate about goals. Get this, he's trying to save them.
Guls are amazing, birds, but they need our help. They are in decline, so we must learn how to live alongside them.
I do think Cooper Wallace is overestimating the passion the rest of the Brits probably have.
Do not eat chips around that kid. That's it, from us to the ground, coming up gas The Rid Penny Show. Good Night,