The Late Debate | 10 February

Late General, welcome the Late Bay.

Well, good evening, thanks for joining us on the Late Debate.

I'm James Macpherson with Liz Staorra and Caleb Bond coming up tonight. South Australian police arrest a scooter rid for not wearing a helmet and then discover that's the list of his crimes.

We'll bring you that story a little later.

Plus, when we look at the papers that our energy crisis goes from bad to ridiculous, Australian states now importing gas from overseas in greater quantities, and a new cemetery opening on the Gold Coast is exactly what you would expect a Gold Coast cemetery to be. We'll get to all of that when we look at what's making news tomorrow. But first, councils right around the country are jacking up rates,

And if you thought that was bad, they're North Sydney.

Well they raise their rates by can you believe it, eighty seven percent.

Now, as if that's not bad enough.

While councilors are crying poor as justification for these outrageous increases in rates. They're wasting huge amounts of money on overseas junkets for counselors and staff. Let me give you just four examples. I could give you dozens, but here's four. The City of Sydney Council they sent a couple of staff to Canada for a carbon neutral summit.

Tell me how that's going.

To benefit the rate payers in the City of Sydney. They also sent council members to a cycling conference in Belgium. Well, I guess the city of city does have a lot of bike lanes these days. Maybe that's what that was for, not to be outdone. The Canterbury Bankstown Council, Well, they sent a delegation to a leadership dialogue event in London. Now, as part of these junkets, they have to produce a report to council evaluating what benefit they derived for ratepayers.

And get this, their.

Reports said, quote unquote the leadership dialogue event provided valuable insights.

That's pretty vague, but this one is my favorite.

The Paramatta Council they sent staff to the Netherlands for a library conference because there's a lot that we can learn from those in Holland about how to improve libraries for the people of Paramatta. Now, altogether, it was about seven million dollars spent over the last financial year by Sydney councils on overseas trips, which might not sound like a lot, but how do they justify that in a cost of living crisis? And you notice it's for things

You'd think they would at least cut.

Back on some things like, oh, I don't know, going to Belgium for a cycling conference.

No, that's the most important bit. Surely you know that, James. I've actually had an idea though.

As you've been talking you mentioned the you know, mowing the lawn at the local park summits and the fix the pothole summit.

If no one.

Else is doing it, I'm going to host it right here in Sydney, and I'm going to get people from all over the world to come to Sydney for these conferences. And I'm going to make a mint while they do it, because why they hell not If they go for bloody library conference, I'm sure someone will come for a pothole conference if it means they can go for a junket

I going to say that in the genteel parts of Sydney, in the Inner West.

But they spent twenty grand or just over twenty grand, sending three staff sorry to a sister city in Ireland. And they also spent thirty grand going to the UK, China, South Korea for summits and delegations. Now to this, the Council said, delegations from these cities visited Blacktown in return, providing economic benefit and raising the profile of our region among their communities.

Well, I'm really glad to know that.

You know, perhaps the three people who came from Ireland to visit Blacktown obviously boosted the economy so much while they were over here. And all the people in Ireland, from what I've heard, they're all just raving about Blacktown. These people have gone back saying you won't believe this place when you types for Blacktown. They're all walking around Ireland talking about it, the UK.

Where else do they go? South Korea, China.

Brazil, we've left out Brazil, the.

Polical Forum and the only thing they want to talk about is Blacktown.

I reckon that was money well spent.

If it puts Blacktown on the map, it must have been absolutely extraordinary. Taken from someone who used to be a city councilor myself. There is literally zero justification for any of these junk kits. And I'll tell you why, because this level of government works like every other level of government, and that is the MPs in this case, the councilors that you have elected, they don't know much.

Okay, they are your representatives.

But the people who draw up plans, the town planners per se, they're all back.

In the wings.

Much like we constantly complain it's the bureaucrats that run the country, because, for example, the treasurer in Victoria has asked her treasury members please stop using economic jargon. I can't understand what you're sagging. These people aren't the experts. They are elected representatives. But the people who actually know what they're doing, we hope, are behind the scenes in the bureaucracy working for the Department of this, the Department of that, the Department.

Of everything else. So particularly with.

Regards to things like, oh, cycling tracks in Bildrum massive conference, you would never send the councilors anyway, because they don't know a flying fig about cycling tracks. How many of them should there be? How can we do this in an economic way? But also saving on space, et cetera, et cetera.

And so on.

You would send the people, the town planners in charge of how many cycling tracks you have in your little patch, You would send them over there if you were actually serious.

And then, of.

Course we all know you can attend anything via zoom these days, especially since we're all so mad about being carbon neutroll. There is zero justification for this, and as a moral quandary during a cost of living crisis, this is something that wouldn't even trouble a child. Do I spend tens of thousands of dollars of the rate payers cash on me having a great time in Brazil or London, Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands? Or do I stay home and just tune in online?

Gee?

I wonder what I want.

To know about all of this is, you know, we have a local government minister here in New South Wales, as we do in every state. What does a local government minister actually do? Because Ron Holing is the minister here in New South Wales, he was asked would he hold a independent productivity review into how these councils are spending their money? I mean North Sydney County. So that

That was the extent of his action.

He made a comment, but he declined to implement a review of how this is happening. I'm just wondering what does a local government minister actually do well?

He was wrong.

You weren't expected to be spent one I know exactly.

I'll tell you what local government ministers do.

They sit around in fear.

Of what councils will do to them if they ever try to take their power away.

I mean, the councils.

Forget, and often we forget that they only exist by virtue of the state government. That the state constitutions allow councils to exist. But all the powers that councils have sit in the local government at or whatever the equivalent is.

In each state.

And that is something that the government or the Parliament can change it any time and take powers away or give powers to council for them to execute. The state government tomorrow could completely new to the councils and say no, actually, we're going to take over the running of parks, and we're going to take over the running of bins being emptied and swimming.

Pools and libraries, et cetera.

That is within the powers of the Parliament to do that, but they're all too scared to do anything about it because the councils do actually have a lot of money behind them, and then they'll launch a campaign against the state government and it'll be on for young and old. They just don't want to rock the boat, which kind of raises the question, what's the point of having a local government minister in the first place.

There are a law unto themselves. Just let them be a law out of here.

If you're in.

Leadership to lead, if you don't want hard decisions, get out of leadership and let someone in who'll make the calls.

Speaking of being in leadership to lead, unless you're living under a rock, you would have heard the President Donald J. Trump has announcer sweeping twenty five percent tariff on all aluminium and steel coming into the United States of America.

Here's his rationale.

Any steel coming into the United States is going to have a twenty five percent tariff. US Steel was one of our great companies, and through a lot of stupidity and bad government and also bad management of the company, it lost that luster. But it's going to gain it back, and tariffs are going to help. Tariffs are going to make it very successful again.

Now, of course, is the big deal here in Australia because we sell hundreds of millions of dollars of both steel and aluminium to the States every single year. But don't worry everybody, alban Eese, he's got a call scheduled with Trump and he's going to get it sorted.

I have a discussion with President Trump scheduled and I will certainly keep the House and the Australian people informed. After that discussion.

Compelling and rich. My confidence is shot through the roof.

But really I'm not worried about this because Trump announced similar during his first term and in twenty eighteen Australia was like, yeah, but not us, right, right and fair enough, we were given an exemption.

We are mates.

So I reckon that this was one of those sweeping Trumpian announcements that he does like to make, because good lord, does this man know how to make a headline he's there on Air Force One, he's talking to the reporters, he's putting his foot down, pedal to the metal. The world collectively gasps and that, of course the details come out later, and I don't think we've got anything to.

Worry about it.

I think you underestimate the work Joe Hockey put in back in twenty seventeen or whenever it was that Trump announced these tariffs the first time, because Joe Hockey said, he did really leverage that idea of where mates and you should grant special favors to Australia. The difference this time is that the ambassador we have in the United States hasn't sounded off regularly on Twitter about what a moro on Trump is.

Albanezi himself is the.

Prime ministers grudge.

Tho Trump, and I'm not sure they can pull the makeship card this time. When they're on record saying such terrible things about Donald Trump, he's disinclined to listen to them.

In addition to that, it's.

Quite unbelievable that America is our most important ally we've seen justin Trudeau had the good sense to make a trip to the US to sit down personally with Trump for Anthony Alberezi, who has had one phone call with Donald Trump since his election and is not scheduled to meet personally with him until after the election, which probably means Albanezer will never meet personally with Donald Trumps dereliction

And the U S. President.

He should have been there in person smoothing the water so this would not be an issue as it now is.

Don't think this comes down to bad blood between.

The like, so I don't disagree with that point that's in Albaniz. He should should have already been over there to him, He should have been at the inauguration. As far as I'm concerned when it comes to Rudd, I mean, the rabbit will hit the road here and if for whatever reason these tariffs are slapped on us and kept on us, then.

That will probably be the end of Rudd.

But it's a It's a strange one with Rudd because he is actually respected by quite a few Republicans for his knowledge on China. So as much as Trump has personal beef with him. He is actually in favor with quite a number of Republicans, including a. Vivik Ramaswami and Marco Rubio, etcetera, who've publicly talked in support of him because of his knowledge on China and the knowledge he's been able to supply to them.

But Trump, every time he's.

Slapped the tariff on someone so far, like last week it was Mexico and Canada, he did it because he wanted something in return, and so they then come to the table with something in return, and all of a sudden, the tariff has gone.

So even if it's not just simply.

A matter of we'll wear mates, therefore it won't apply to us, surely we'll just throw them a bone and then that the tariff will be gone. I can't see any circumstance in which you would possibly put these tariffs upon your allies and then there wouldn't be some kind of out to get around.

It, because that really would be blowing up.

Ties that don't need to be blown up. If it means we give a concession to the US, then it's a win that Trump has and that's how we operate. I mean, he's not using tariffs simply to punish other countries for the sake of punishing other countries. He's been using tariffs to get something out of them. So if it means he gets something out of a whole bunch of countries, now I say, well, hang on, we don't want this to happen.

Then he's won.

He's got something for the United States and all so continued with the importance into the US.

I don't see what the problem.

May well be a good point, but this is a

Tell you what if I was done I would have picked up then done. Can you just make this phone call an absolute burning dumps the fire of a disaster. Then when I get in, we can just pull these.

Tariffs right out.

Like I wouldn't be surprised if this is some sort of electoral ploy, because Trump knows we got an election coming up, and he knows should this phone call go well, alban.

Easy will be chess out.

I've saved the day, Australian alimenium and Steele's.

In safe hands, ladies and gentlemen.

I told Donald Trump where to go, and that will be a massive win for him.

So should Trump, for.

The sake of the exercise, simply say no, I'm keeping them in place for whatever reasons, and then the Dutton camp be able to say, well, we've saved the day, We've we've broken this deal, so what you want is a coalition government and these tariffs will be bye bye. Friendly countries do that kind of stuff all the time.

Is it election interference? Absolutely? But they've done it before and they would do it again.

I just want a recording of the phone call between alban.

Easy and FAM.

Was it Andrew Peacock and Jeff Kennett who had a phone call in the nineties on like a party line, and it was the dumbest thing to do, right, remember like car phones, and they were on a party line, so anyone else could pick up the phone and listen to your conversation because there was only one line. And it's Kennet and Peacock, who was then leader. I think

Would you believe it? I mean, of all the.

Things that Jim Charmers should be worried about right now, you wouldn't think he'd be going after Australian brewing companies. But here we are in twenty twenty five, steering down the barrel of an election and we talk about, you know, taxes on beer.

Et cetera.

Clearly the government is worried about it because at the start of the month, as happens every six months, the excise on alcohol went up. Now the excise is applied differently to spirits, beer and wine. Wine gets off all lighter than beer and spirits do. You would have seen the campaign being run at the moment via bunderbererg Rum talking about the fact that sixty three percent of the cost of a bottle of bunderberg Rum is tax that

It's too expensive.

People aren't buying beer anymore. They're certainly buying it in less quantities than they used to because they just can't afford it. We are in a cost of living crisis.

Please throw us a bone.

So the Treasurer Jim Chalmers has picked up the phone to the a Triple C and said excuse me, Can you go off to the brewers and tell them that they might be in breach of consumer law for tilling tax payers exactly how much tax they are paying.

This is a quote out.

Of the paper today that industry groups were shocked to receive letters from the Age Triple See last week warning them of their responsibility to not misinform customers about the impact of the twice yearly tax hike, just days after mister Charmers had written asking the watchdog to investigate his concerns.

That beer drinkers could be misled.

Now, mister Charmers, or doctor Chalmers as I should call him, I'll get letters and complain from his department. Probably if I don't say that properly. It's been saying, oh, this is just one sent on top of your pint of beer. Who cares about one cent on top of the pint of beer? Well, Richard Adamson, who's the head brewer at Young Henry's Brewery, rightly points out that we're getting this crazy situation where beer is just getting out of the

That is where we are at with this government.

I mean, clearly they're actually a bit rattled by it that the message might get through that here in Australia we have the third highest beer tax in the world. Just let that sink in for a moment. They index it every six months. It is absolutely ridiculous.

And the idea that the.

Consumer watchdog would tell brewers that they're out of line for pointing that out, I think is a joke.

It's a stupid fight to pick.

I mean, Queen Victoria famously said give the people cheap beer and you'll never have a revolution.

And there's something to be said for that. Labor meant to be the party of the working class.

You would think in a cost of living crisis, they could, as you said, Caleb, throw people a bone and at least, you know, take a little bit off the cost of beer. So people can at least enjoy their misery in this country. But in addition to that, it does show the glass jaw of I mean, Anthony Albanesi's glass jaw is pretty famous.

Maybe saying their prayers.

God like from you guys, Jesus, you really want to get some good news? Yeah, indeed, Well this is just a money making exercise.

Everybody knows it.

And this is something that Caleb would call an essential service, bloody oath. Indeed, under this government, Australians have probably drunk more alcohol then under any other.

No, I can't say that. Please don't quote me on that.

Now you need to, that's the point.

But it's never been more expensive and with this indexing nonsense, where's the end of it, Where's the end of it? It is only ever going to climb and climb and climb.

We don't want to live in a country.

It's not a free country if you can't afford to have a pint after knocking off work.

Let's be real, it's just true.

I mean, Caleb, I think you are the most passionate proponent of I would love to see you as an MB on topics like this.

You could win an election.

Yeah, you could win an election on We are going to slash passionate.

We're going to slash the text on beer.

And I've said this before that if I was running, my policy platform, or one of my policy platforms, would be that all of these syntaxes tobacco, alcohol, et cetera would be slashed to the point that the government is regaining the money that it spins on the health effects of those products.

Right, because that's only fair.

If we are paying public money into public hospitals to pay for people who are suffering the effects of tobacco, alcohol, et cetera, Sure we'll get the money out of them in tax that they specifically pay the users of that product pay for every dollar they make after that is simply because the government says, well, because you're doing something that we deem to be a sin, you should have to pay more tax than everyone else. The smokers and drinkers of this country are heroes.

I mean they are.

They are the lifters, not the leaners, because people like me who pay that tax every single day are putting more money into the coffers of the government to prop up this country than anyone else.

We are doing our bit.

We're doing more than our bit to support this country.

If I see someone light up a fag, I'm going to go and give them a slap on the back and to say so.

Deeply thank you for your support.

The country that's got a Victoria for a moment.

The Victorian government, I think the only thing they're good at is proving they're not very good at anything. And his episode two hundred and eighty six of that story. There's been a lot of wars between criminal gangs in the state of Victoria, particularly fighting over elicit tobacco.

One hundred and thirty fire bombings.

Just in the last couple of years, eighty people arrested thirty seven million dollars worth of.

Illegal tobacco, sees it's a problem.

People are sick of having fire bombings happen in the Melbourne CBD. Who would have thought, well, last November, the Victorian Labor government made a big announcement. That's one thing they are good at. They're very good at announcements, just not much good at the follow through. They announced last November that they would start a licensing system for retailers to sell tobacco and therefore if you didn't have a license,

The hell would you biolize it? And if you're an Leegal tobacconist, you just carry on worry about it later.

David Innell, who's the CEO of Master Gross's Australia said, and you can hear the frustration in his quote. I've been in public policy for thirty two years and in my view, this scourge of illegal tobacco is the biggest policy failing of all that time. The state government hasn't engaged in any meaningful way because it doesn't have any answers.

It's a complete mess.

You could actually take that quote, Liz and apply it to pretty much anything in Victoria and it would be true.

Everything is a mess.

As I said, this is example eight hundred and twenty seven of Victorian government is crap at everything.

Absolutely, And let's be real, they don't actually want to crack down on any of this. They make billions of dollars of tobacco in this country every single year. They don't want to actually make it harder, I don't think. But there's public outcry and so they say, oh, well, we're clamping down and you've got to have this special license.

The cheap chop chop.

Seriously, all of these tobacco shops and if you live in Inner Sydney, you walk for five minutes, you've passed five tobacconists like they are absolutely everywhere, and they've got the legit smokes in there as a front basically because nobody's buying the expensive stuff these days. It's like over fifty bucks for a twenty five pack.

I mean, it is utterly ludicrous.

I think we have, we must have the most expensive cigarettes in the world here in Australia. And then you've got the people crowing about the fact that in the year twenty three to twenty four, revenue from tobacco in this country is down to nine point eight billion dollars, which is a far cry from its peak in the year nineteen to twenty twenty, which was over sixteen billions. So they say, aha, Lok, it's fallen significantly, to which I say, no, you've just made it so ridiculously expensive.

My opinion anyway.

It's that if you're going to make a system this ridiculous with your licensing and your pricing and your excise and your syntax, people as they have throughout time immemorial, simply find a way around it to circumvent all your stupid tape.

And get their cigarettes at a reasonable price.

And this is the thing, and I know I prattle on about this all the time, but you compare the packet of the price of a packet of daries in the US compared to here, right, the average is about twelve bucks twelve US bucks over there here it's about forty odd dollars, right, And the smoking rate is negligible. The difference in the smoking rate is negligible. So it's not the price that's causing people to stop smoking. Because

Bad for you.

That has worked, but those who want you smoke will continue to smoke. And if they can't afford to buy the legal product, they're going to buy the illegal product.

And then the illegal product.

Funds underworld figures and crime gangs and bi keys, etc. Who then use that money to fund rape and murder and sex trafficking and all this sort of stuff. The government has created this market, and you're right about the excess going down, Liz, because the rate of smoking has been going like this for years, and at the same time, the revenue from the excise was going like that because they were just jacking it up and getting more and more money out of the people who were still smoking.

I mean, it is so lucrative.

You used to think of gangs getting around dealing in illegal drugs, Well, they don't deal in illegal drugs so much anymore. They deal with what is actually illegal products, just in an illegal form because the government's not making any tax out of it. They got so greedy that the tax they're getting has actually gone down.

I mean, when have you ever heard of that happening?

And to point out exactly how bad this is for local business, which is what the master grosses et cetera. Are complaining about with how this scheme is being rolled out. I've spoken to the CEO of a supermarket chain in Victoria and he told me the revenue they have lost from the loss of sales in cigarettes as the tobacco wars have taken off in Victoria is about ten percent.

Of their total revenue.

And you think of what ten percent buys you in terms of staff and staff hours, et cetera. That's a huge chunk of your revenue that has been lost to criminals because the government centrally handed them the matter.

So the crime gangs carry on as per normal in Victoria because the Victorian government cuts sort this mess out. But I'll tell you what the Victorian government can do. They can organize for a North American football game and played at the mc gene, which Liz is called bread and circuses.

That's what they.

Are, one hundred percent.

They're always good at the bread and circuses helps you not to notice they're vast ineptitude to the United States now, where we know that Doge is busily fossecking through all federal employees seeing where they can.

Cut the fat.

And part of that process has to has been to offer all federal employees, regardless of where they're serving, a buyout, an eight month buyout.

So instead of saying, Okay.

We're going to figure out who needs to go and we're going to fire you forcibly, they've started by saying, hey, if you know you're useless, leave now do our jobs for us.

Leave the ship. Rats.

Well, three federal unions have gotten together saying we represent this people and this is an ultimatum.

That is unlawful. We're not standing for it.

So just hours before the deadline to say yes, I'm in I want that buyout, hours before that deadline was to occur, a federal judge has come out and says, these three unions have bought this case.

I'm pressing pause on the deadline.

While I decide whether this is allowed or not. So there's a lot more federal employees sweating it out over the weekend saying, actually, this offer is still open to me. Doge was hoping that this would clean out five to ten percent of the entirety of current federal employees. They served in the Biden administration, So naturally you want to get rid of as many of these inept buffoons as you can. Sixty five thousand of them have already accepted

Of them took our offer. We're getting rid of sixty five thousand morons, yay, And now it looks like it could be thrown out.

It's a brilliant way of getting the trash to take itself out, right. I mean, they get rid of all the dead wood, by which I mean the people employed under the Biden administration's DEI policies.

They create an.

Exit ramp for people who don't like Donald Trump and would just be a blockage in different departments serving in his administration. So they give them an easy way out. Plus they're going to save a bucket load of money. And on top of that, if after this Trump then goes and makes and then fires a whole lot of people, then you can always fall back on the fact we offered eight months pay if you took a redundancy and you declined to take it in eight months redundancy is

Lots of them, lots of them.

I remember last time we talked about we talked about some public service story here right, and a bloke wrote to me, that's right, it was a sorry about South Australia. They have this waiting room basically of public service employees who don't actually have a job to do at the moment, but for whatever reason, they can't be sacked.

So they're sitting there on full page, just waiting for a job.

And a Bloat wrote to me and so this is not just happening in South Australia. This is happening Inydney as well. And he told me about this place somewhere in Sydney where all of these public servants who are waiting for jobs go and they receive training and first aid courses and all sorts of.

Stuff, and they're like they were advertising for a.

Manager to manage these people who don't have jobs. This is how the public service runs here in Australia. You be sure it's what's going on in the US as well. But the Union wants to be careful because the union is challenging this in court on the basis that they don't think the government would be able to give the payouts that these people are owed because the budgets aren't short up yet. Well, if they managed to quash this deal, Trump is just going to go through and sack them all.

And they're going to get no money.

So I'd be careful about going after that one.

Wouldn't you be angry at your union, sit.

The workers and then you're like, no, no payout for you. You're just going to get sacked. Now.

You'll remember in the election campaign last year that Kalala Harris, in the very few interviews she did, one with sixty minutes in the US where they edited her answers to actually bake her sound smart. Here's an example of just one of the instances where they did that.

But it seems that Prime Minister Netanyah who is not listening.

Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.

But it seems that Prime Minister Netanyah, who is not listening.

We're not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.

Now, wonder Dtya who wasn't listening, and that's what he had to listen to. But Trump's had a few legal wins lately. He got fifteen million dollars in defamation money out of the ABC because a presenter said that he was liable for rape. He's got twenty five million dollars out of Meta settling a case that he brought against

Of the interview that they did, and they.

Have found so many more examples now of where they edited it to basically make Kamala Harris sound smart.

So he's like, I'm going for gold here.

Now he's accusing them of election interference, et cetera. He's brought another Republican in who says he's been damaged by the interview, et cetera. It's just fantastic to see.

And the parent company, Paramount looking at settling this case, which would be an incredible admission. Since it's over election interference, they should have a situation where unedited interviews must be available online whatever goes to air. When it comes to political interviews and the lead up to an election. You can see the unedited version if you want. We'll go

We'll get to that in just a moment. Welcome back.

Let's take a look at what's making news in tomorrow's papers, and I reckon we should start with the Gold Coast bulletin because this is a great Gold Coast story.

Incredibly, this is affecting the state of the nation.

We're dying to see you.

The splash reads mausoleums pearly gates in glam New Cemetery. The Gold Coast is getting a new symmetry with capacity for eighty thousand souls who wrote this.

Their souls are gone at this point.

It's just the carcasses who will enter through pearly gates adorned with angel wings. We want to create heaven on Earth on the Gold Coast, says owner Richard Douce. I mean most things on the Gold Coast. Forgive me, if you're watching from the Gold Coast is rather ghost. I went there a couple of years ago, and I was just like, not my guid to count.

Okay, I'm more of a.

Hippie child at heart, but gosh, so much ghoshness.

Everything is very flashy and amazing.

And now I'm picturing this cemetery with actual pearly gates with wings. Also rather ironic if you're a horrible person and you're definitely going to hell and they're just like, oh, wel you made it to our fake pearly gates.

At least well, they'll have the best looking corpses in the country on the Gold Coast.

Open casket, every single one of them.

Haush on the Gold Coast though, sure if you're hanging around surfers paradise, But as you go further south on the Gold Coast, it's actually quite lovely.

I've got to say, though.

This cemetery is in Pimpama, which you know people in Pimpa mar who claim to live on the Gold Coast. It's a bit a stretch, not the Gold Coast. It's not Brisbane. It's it's kind of neither here nor there.

So that's where you can afford a plot.

I mean, they're not going to be given up Prime Beach land then.

Go up to Tambourine Mountain. It's quite lovely up there. But I can't say that.

This is where I want to be buried. We're having this discussion the other day group of us. A made of mine has said that. And he's got lots of cars and he's got a big garage for them, and he's got an inspection pit, and he said he wants to be dropped in the inspection pit when he dies and concrete it over the top of Now, I'm not sure whether that's legal or not, but I rather like the idea.

That's his little place he wants to be lived there.

I'd be quite happy to be just be dropping on the ground in a tree sapling bothered on top of me.

I suspect you buried.

However, your life, Well, if you are going.

To sell the property and someone's going through one day and helves this body doing in the concrete.

And the coppers will be called in, I suspect be some issues.

But you know what, do what you want. You can actually be compacted. If you mated, you can be compacted into a diamond.

Now, and I rather like the idea because the need people can wear it. Yes, exactly, so you could.

Be set in a ring, and so I could just live forever on someone's finger. And then you know, my great great great great great granddaughter will go on her first date and the boy will say, oh, what's that ring?

And she goes just my great great great great grandfather. I think that'd be hilarious, Melb.

You know we're not going to last that long climate change.

Oh true, true, true.

Let's go to the Daily Telegraph tomorrow. Speaking of not lasting that long, we hope these people won't last that long.

They need the doge to go through here.

Northern Beaches Council is paying millions more on staffing costs than all three of the former councils.

That were merged to create it.

How good The revelations come two weeks after council has voted to slug residents with nearly a forty percent increase over three years in their rates, with angry rate pays calling on the New South Wales government to.

Step in to prevent it.

They spent nearly forty million dollars more on employee costs in the twenty twenty three twenty four financial year that they did ten years earlier.

It's just insane, okay.

Amalgamations are meant to deliver efficiencies. If they're done properly, they should deliver efficiencies. How do you possibly increase your staff.

Bill employee costs by forty million?

That's just employee is Their use of contractors went up by four hundred and sixty one percent from fourteen million in just.

A couple of years ago, six years ago to seventy four million dollars last one hour year.

So that amalgamation not providing great value for ratepayers. But since when we're ratepayers getting great value for anything. The Adelaide Advertiser has a sad story typical of our times here in this country. Gas import plans amid shortage. Important gas could soon be flowing into South Australia and Victoria as part of a plan to fast track new gas supplies amid looming shortages. Now, the irony, of course, is that we have gas shortages, but we also have an

One hope, I mean, so far this is well, they're finalizing a takeover, but one hopes that this kind of thing is what wakes up enough people to the arter tragedy taking place.

I mean, I actually love Trump's tariffs.

He's like, look, our steel works are suffering, so we're slapping tariffs on everybody else's so ours can get back on our feet and the demand for our steal will go through the roof, especially here at home. I'd love

Million, our half billion hole.

The state budget deficit has blown out by half a billion dollars and is expected to reach one point three billion in twenty twenty four to twenty five, the second worst result on record. Odd new Treasury figures show the Treasurer, Guy Binett, blamed the sixty two percent increase on the federal government because.

That is what you do.

That's what you do if you are a state or territory treasurer.

You always blame the Feds.

For half a billion half a billion dollars, but our budget blowout.

So how bad is it to be an host?

State government blames the federal government, The federal government blames Vladimir Putin.

And we're just left sitting here saying, no, well, I guess we just have to pay not responsible. I mean, that must be what they're playing down a treasury. Because we had the story the other day from the front of the Canberra Times where where it's basically exactly the same thing that's happened in the Act, where the budget is blown out by basically two thirds or the deficit

I mean, they can blame it.

On the Federal until the cows come home.

But your job, if you are.

The treasurer and all the people sitting in your treasury, is to be on top of this stuff. And even if it is because of a lack of money coming from the Federal commandent, you're meant to be able to know this stuff. He's going and then you go, oh jeez, did know that was going to happen?

And it was within the last six months. So six months.

Ago they said the deficit is going to be seven hundred and ninety two million. Here we are six months later, just a five hundred million more.

Five million extra.

It's fine, it's fine, everything's fine.

Is the Fed's fault.

It's just one of those things. We're going to take a break when we come back. South Australian police pull over a scooter rider for not wearing a helmet and discover that was the list of his crimes that's coming up in just a month. Well, a lot of people around the country watched the Super Bowl today. Liz dressed in the colors of the winning Super Bowl team. Well done, you'll nod to American football. But Canada is the anthem that's got a lot of people talking.

Did it was because John Batiste? Apparently he's a Grammy winner. I've never heard of the.

Bloke, but he decided to jazz up quite literally, the Star Spangled banner.

Have a listen.

Ya, you see bad at.

What's a roundly we appel nastily.

Now, look, there are lots of songs you can jazz up or pop up or rock up or whatever it might be. But surely the national anthem is just one that you leave alone so you can sing along with it. And by the way, when for one hundred and twenty seconds you could bet on the length of the national anthem sung at the Super Bowl and the betting line was one hundred twenty and a half seconds, there were all these people up in arms about whether it was over or under, et cetera.

So that there are.

Some songs that should just be sung the way they're supposed to be.

From Christmas carols especially, you want people to sing all everyone's like, I want to sing my anthem, and then he comes out with this whatever, No one can sing along. They're all amped to sing their anthem. It would have been awesome to see that many thousands of people on their feet for the anthem.

Nor ruined it really quickly before we go.

Funny story in South Australia, police were patrolling just randomly eleven a m in Woodville when they noticed a forty three year old guy riding a scooter without a helmet. Now these police were in plain clothes, so they stopped the guy on his scooter and were chatting to him about, you.

Know, not wearing a helmet, need to be responsible.

When in the middle of that chat, a woman walks up and asks the scooter writer if he can supply her with some drugs like he's done previously. Well, evenize all knowledge of the woman, but the woman persists oblivious to the presence of the police. The police then think maybe we ought to frisk you, and they allegedly find drugs all over him, then go back to his house and he's got a taser gun in his home as well. Turns out, if he just bought his helmet, he would

Good Night,