General, Welcome to the Lait Debate.
Welcome to the Late Debate.
I'm Caroline Marcus, joined tonight by Sky News contributor Joe Hildebrand and political commentator freyer Leitch. Tonight, we start in Sydney, where there's been another sickening anti Semitic attack after a synagogue in the city southwest was vandalized with at least a dozen swastikas the words free Palestine and a reference to Hitler.
And the community has had enough. You know, they're furious, but this is being allowed to happen, that this is what we are becoming as a society, and we keep hearing this can't be normalized.
This isn't who we are.
But once something happens over and over again in a fifteen month sequence, perhaps it is who we are.
Perhaps this is what we have become.
But we need to change the course that the society is on, because to have one segment of our community fearful to practice their faith, to congregate in the House of Worship, it's a bliight on our democracy, on our humanity and our multiculturalism.
It's starting to feel like groundhole day. Yet again, we're seeing how anti Semites are exploiting the Palestinian cause to spread a borrn Jew hatred across the country. And once again, Freya, this is not any about any kind of legitimate criticism of Israel. It's about anti Semitism, pure and simple. It needs to stop. And I think it starts at the top with our.
Leaders one hundred percent.
And this claim that it's it's just anti Zionism, all these activists in history, it's all the protesters. It's not really about Israel, it's not really about the Jews.
It's just anti Zionism.
We only have an issue with Jews when they want to go to their homeland. That's our only issue. No,
this proves it. It is anti Semitism. You cannot. I do not believe that in the twenty first century you can draw the distinction between anti Semitism and anti Zionism, because when you say Jews do not deserve a homeland, when you say Palestine, free Palestine from the river to the sea, you are condemning the ten million Jews that live in Israel to death, and you are saying any other Jew around the world, you do not have the
protection of your homeland anymore. And that is in itself antisemitic, and so these attacks it does feel like groundhog day. We have an antisemitism crisis in Australia and we're hearing all this talk from politicians, yet nothing is changing. And I fear that these people, these anti Semites, are being emboldened by a government that refuses to unequivocally back in Israel when they are Ana, when they vote against Israel in the UN, when they give their time to these
Palestinian narratives. All they are doing is emboldening these anti Semites who want any reason to hate Jews.
Jo Afrea is one hundred percent right. You couldn't say it better than myself, quite frankly. And the factor is eighty or ninety percent even of Jews are Zonus. So when people and in this case, I mean there wasn't even Zionus used as a code word.
It was just blatant anti Semitism.
But people know that they're attacking Jews when they make those sorts of remarks.
It's kind of like saying I'm not anti Jesus, I just hate Christianity. Yeah. I think the problem here. I think there have always been anti Semmits Semites, and we has always been anti Semitis in Australia, and I've covered it in the past. Of the view it used to be restricted to white supremacists and neo Nazis and skinhead groups, the sort of people who stoked division during the Kernulla riots. And I've got to know some of them fairly well.
They've got some pretty heavy chat rooms. But these guys have now found allies. They've found allies in politics. They've found allies in sort of shop front politics, if you like, instead of the sort of the dark web where they used to, you know, organize their little hate field barbecues where you bring a plate and talk about the Aryan race conquering all again and subjugating Jews for their blood libel.
And they have found it in the extreme left. They have found it in a group of people, hardcore extremists, and I think they do not actually represent the mainstream left. And I think you'll see at the next election just
how much this issue comes to buy it. But people who are throwing around words like genocide, which is most commonly associated with the Holocaust, which was the greatest genocide ever perpetuated in human history, and which would not have happened if there was a Jewish homeland, if there was an Israel in Nazi Germany and the Second World War. The fact, the reason why all those Jewish people were slaughtered throughout Eastern Europe in particular and Genesis, they had
nowhere else to go. They had nowhere else to go. You know, if you're a Christian, there are countries where you can go, where you can find refuge from people who share your faith. If you're a Muslim, the same thing. The Jews had nowhere to go.
And so the thing I.
Would take issue with what you've said, As you've said, it's people. They're not representative of the left. I would argue that, unfortunately it has. It does represent a lot of making perhaps not the heart, the heart the right, perhaps not your right.
Fact the activist, the act. Certainly the activists left himself.
He was caught on tape my colleague sharing marks and showed this on her program many times. He was caught on tape years ago at one of these from the River to the Sea protests, yelling into a megaphone, and his actions as Prime Minister has showed where his heart really lies. I mean, I do think a lot of it is domestic politics. At play and wanted to appease Western Sydney voters and others in high Muslim areas.
But h electorates.
But I also think it is at the heart of who he is and the fact that our Prime minister and Foreign Minister make these decisions that essentially reward terrorism that in terms of moving towards recognizing a Palestinian state, just further emboldened this type of disgusting anti Semitism that we're seeing.
Definitely, and I think so labor at its core, not all of them. There are some great defenders of Israel in the Labor Party. I mean, and this is the thing. They're a dying breed of labor politician, they really are. There are far fewer labor politicians now that support Israel than there were a couple decades ago, and that probably is the ascension of the woke left in labor ranks. But I think the bigger challenge for Albanesi now is
his core is anti Israel. But now he also has huge constituencies that are anti Israel because they are dominated by Muslims and so on. This synagogue was also written a la wakba, like, we can't ignore that fact. There is also Joe talks about white supremacist anti semitism, but we're seeing a rise in Islamic anti semitism as well, and so I think we need Muslim leaders to step up now and denounce this and say we don't support that.
But I think there really does seem to be a vacuum of leadership in the Muslim community as well, and it's pushing labor further and further into this kind of corner where they have to appease huge communities, but those are the same community potentially supporting antism.
I don't know who committed this attack, obviously, but it did happen in a heavily Muslim area of southwest Sydney, and prays right, there were the words ala akba with Hitler on the same wall. We don't know who wrote them. But I think when our leaders like Anthony Albanizi talk about equating, they always mention anti Semitism in the same breath Islamia.
That's right, and they are completely they are completely different things, because anti Semitism actually abscribes to an entire fake conspiracy theory about a kabbal of Jews running the world and protocols and design. When people say there's not a phibe that okay, fine, they don't like Muslims, but they like them. They don't like them for reasons that are you know here on earth.
If you like that they I think that is much too widely.
Sure, there have been attacks on Muslims which are horrendous, but so many much of the time the criticism might be about the ideology.
That's right, but is that's right? So if you say, say someone's Islamophobic, maybe it's because someone's read the Koran and there's a lot of really weird, nasty stuff in there, and so they said, right, I don't like this, this this religion is violent or whatever, blah blah blah blah. But again, that's at least someone who has read the Quran. Anti Semitism is not caused by people who have read
the Torah. It's caused by people who have read the protocols of the others desire, which is a completely fictitious that's right. It's like it's like being you know, it's like being anti Christian because you've read the Lord of the Rings and you think that's the Bible. Like it is. So again, it is different to other forms of all the forms of races have been prejudiced or whatever. Bad bad, bad, bad bad. But this is a particular form of prejudice
that is extremely specific to one particular group. And it dates back not just to the Nazis and all their crazy stuff or to you know, Russia where there was all this stuff. There were broadcasts and fascist Spain about this sort of stuff and what the Jews are doing and how they lost the lost Germany World War One. It goes back to medieval times where you know, it was you know, Jews were having secret rituals where they would steal your babies and kill them. Okay, now again.
Sounds very much like a Candaeo on podcast, But this is exactly right.
Like so it is not that this is not just kind of you know, being anti Chinese or saying, you know, we've got to shut the door, there's too many immigrants here. This is complete insanity of people who have cooked up this idea that there is a secret society of evil, subhuman reachers that are running the world. This is this was Hitler's thesis. This was his lesis we've seen you, that's right, and we see where at least, and it leads to swastikas in Muslim neighborhoods and Muslims thinking, oh,
these Nazi guys, they hate Israel, we hate Israel. We're on the same side. And then left the extreme that's right, it's nuts, and the extreme left by using words like genocide, like apartheid, you are justifying that hatred and you are justifying that narrative of this evil group of people doing evil things because oh well, if it's genocide, then they're just as bad as the Nazis. Oh well, if it's apart they're just as bad as the white South Africans,
the Africans, and so it. So when you know person X, whoever it may be, thinks, yeah, I'm going to go and paint some swastikas on a synagogue or I'm going to fire by the synagogue, they think they're doing the righteous thing because their actions have been legitimized by people on the activist left who are saying it's okay because Jews are the new Nazis, so whatever you do to them is okay. You're not a terrorist, you're a freedom fault.
Look, I'm a curious agreement that there's a huge problem on the far left, but I think it goes beyond that and into our current government and mainstream problem is that because we've had we have people like Tony Burke and Ed Husick who skirt around the edges of that and may not use the words like bright eye, but they appears those people.
What has happened in the Labor Party over recent years, unfortunately and tragically, if you care about it as much as I do, is that it has been always is the sort of most extreme and loudest activists will be the loudest voices in the room, because that's what they do, right.
So they come in, they come, they take over some of the branches, some of the inner city branches, the left wing branches, and they're jumping up and down about Palestine, and so the party machine, which isn't actually all in on this stuff because they're far too sensible things all right, Just to shut them up, we'll change the wording on this, you know, on this national conference place which labor governments ignore all the time, They never pay any attention to it,
and it doesn't matter. This is something that's just been bubbling over. We'll just do this word and to shut them up. They'll then back aucust which is exactly what happened, and that's what we actually need them to do. Then something like October seven happens, and suddenly you're kind of caught in the headlights with your pants down, because just before this happened, you actually passed this motion that set the party just a little bit more against Israel, or
at least that's percent. And so you've done something that you think is just a token thing to shut up these loudmouth activists who won't be quiet. But suddenly you've actually done something substantial without kind of meaning to it. And the problem is, and yes, it is true that the people on the right of the party who would normally be the most vocal supporters and the people who would stand up to these nutters are actually the ones
in the suburbs with most of the Muslims. Because the people in the right of the Labor Party who represent the actual working class, who represent the actual sort of battlands. And then that's right, So you've got this. The problem is you've got this kind of and I think the Muslim voice thing. I think that will hopefully just fizzle
out and die. But you do have this big problem where you know you've got all these horrendous affluent, tertiary educated inner city activist wankers who are shouting and jumping up and down, and the sensible people who had stopped them are the ones who've actually got the Muslims in their community, many of whom are suffering and have connections
over there. But again, it is hard for them to kind to be as vocal as they probably should be or we would like them to be, because they're constituents who they're obliged to serve among the people who have family members and community members are so that is the whole problem.
It goes beyond that when people like our Education Minister Jason Clair doesn't take action on Palestinian encampments where Jurish students and staff feeling harassed and are harassed because they're worried about their constituents and their seats.
That's unacceptable.
But look, let's move on to another very similar topic. Sadly and Victorian Police Minister Well he's blamed the cancelation of an ice hockey tournament in Melbourne for causing unnecessary alarm to the Jewish community. Ice Hockey Australia canceled the April event, which would have included an Israeli team.
Citing safety and.
Security concerns, Victorian Police Minister Anthony Carbines wrote to the Ice Hockey Australia President Ryan o'handley, warning, in the absence of specific advice, that there was a threat to your event.
I believe your actions have caused unnecessary alarm in the Jewish community.
It is not acceptable to throw in the towel just because people might protest the participation of Israeli athletes.
Freyer, I was.
Actually heartened by the statement, and it came from a Victorian labor minister, which I feel that they have not been strong enough there, in particular in Victoria.
But look, it doesn't even seem.
Like this was the case where the organizers of the event were capitulating to protesters.
It sounds like there was no actual threat and that.
They just jumped the gun thinking that they would preempt any sort of possible hatred.
And that's a terrible precedent to search.
It does seem very strange and where does that leave Israel in the world sporting stage. I mean, we did see what happened in Amsterdam, the Netherlands a couple of months ago. It was like a full scale twenty first century pogram of Israeli football fans, and so I understand why these sporting codes would be very cautious around how Israeli's participate in sport. But the answer is to up the security and say stuff, you we're going to have
israel participate. The answers are say, oh, okay, we're just not going to We're just going to cancel the whole event like it is extremely weak. But then on the other hand, I do I mean, I don't think we can fully absolve this minister or the Labor government of responsibility because the fact that any sporting is asociation is even considering that they have to ban a competition where Israeli's a present because of security and safety in Australia
in the twenty first century. I think that is an embarrassment and a national shame.
And we've seen this.
Israeli's are scared to come to Australia as tourists. Jews are being harassed when they're here on holidays like that is crazy and we should all be a shame that we've let that happen in this country. Having said that, the answer is not to cancel everything. The answer is to double down and stand up to the protesters. But maybe if the government had done that, like fourteen months ago, we wouldn't be in this position.
A very good point. The Victorian government has helped set the sne exact.
Organizers feel that they have to do this, So you're absolutely.
Right, although I'm calling absolute bollocks on this. The idea that the organ we have to do this for the safety of the Jewish actually one booth. This is the excuse that people use to advance cancel culture every single time. It is excuse they use to capitulate to extremists because they are either scared or because they are secretly on their side. What was the excuse that you know they use at Sydney UNI when the academics were attacked by
all those protesters. We had to barricade them. We had to lock them in a room for their own safety, because of course we couldn't actually stop all these feral protesters.
And tell them is academicsctly.
They had to lock them. They had to lock them in their for their own safety. What happens every time someone controversial is invited to speak, and you know, there's a venue set up and suddenly the venue says, oh sorry, we had to cancel whoever it was, Milly and novels. Whoever it might be controversial their own safety.
Controversial right now means being Israeli or even justly. I covered a number of stories this year on Sky News in which comedians even were canceled that were just because they were Israeli from a venue, shovel Cinemas to name it.
Australian University made a very surprising decision last year to cancel a talk They said it was postponing it, but they hadn't set the new date yet with an Israeli academic who had actually worked on bone fragments from October seven because they thought it would be too controversial at the Australian Catholic University.
But this is the whole problem. We have a mob that wants to shut down silence and use coersion, whether that's through targeting businesses, institutions, violent protests, and they want to shut down Jews. That is what happened in the nineteen thirties in Germany and that is what is happening in Australia today. This is how it starts boycotting, targeting the religious institutions, targeting schools, boycotting businesses.
Making campuses unsafe.
This is the exact playbook that was followed in the nineteen thirty and it is happening again in Australia today. And unless our government and our politicians stand up to this and take real action to shut down these protesters, they are complicit. Anything other than total action is complicity and is allowing anti Semitism to flourish.
Right, and you talk about nine thirds and talking about the very specific kind of prejudice that people have against Jews that they would never tolerate against any other ethnic, eth no religious group. Imagine if the US government, Imagine if the US Olympics team had said to Jesse Owens said, look, Jesse, you're probably want to sit the Berlin Olympics out mate with the furor. Don't worry. We're not on Hitler's side, but we just can't guarantee your safety. Just imagine that
conversation taking place, and again he comes over. He shows the Nazis just what their superman theory really means, and it stands up to them. But that could just as easily that no athlete less safe in human history than less Owens until of course Munich got great history. Germany does.
But again, imagine if someone had actually said that. I imagine if someone had said to the Munich athletes, the Jewish athletes at Munich, the Israeli athletes at Music so, oh, well, yeah, they probably shouldn't have come because you know, we couldn't keep themself, Like, is that really what we're doing now?
No one would believe it would be possible, And yet there's such a different standard applied when it does come to the Jewish community.
It's amazing.
Look, let's move on to the Californian wildfires because it's still such a huge story and they have now claimed at least ten lives and burned more than twenty seven thousand acres. But already the focus has turned on who to blame, and Hollywood celebrities are fast turning on the
Los Angeles mayor and the liberal governor, Gavin Newsome. Buffy star Sarah Michelle Gella tagged the mayor in a post, reading, City of LA you want everyone to evacuate, yet you have complete gridlock and not one traffic cop on the roads helping, while actress Sarah Foster wrote the Mayor of LA and Gavin Newsome, resign. Your far left policies have ruined our state and also our party. And celebrity trainer Jillian Michaels wrote, leadership in California is beyond negligent. This
is completely unacceptable. It's funny, isn't it. Hollywood A leaders that usually the ones lecturing the rest of us with their liberal politics and progressive attitudes.
But the minute it's.
Their own homes being compromised, everything changes.
Freya, that's so true.
I mean, maybe this will finally be the thing that swings California back to the Republicans. I'm not sure. I think this might be their moment where they all wake up and realize actually being run by a bunch of woke leftist idiots is a recipe for disaster. But having said that, the celebrities are right in a sense that these fires are the result of complete government negligence. When Gavin Newsom got elected as governor in twenty nineteen, on his first day of taking office, he promised to tackle
the bush fires. He was gonna He's really going to tackle the wildfire crisis. Well, what has he done over the last five years? He cut the bush the wildfire prevention funding by one hundred and fifty million dollars. That doesn't sound like the kind of action someone who's ready
to tackle the wildfires would take that. And then when he was asked about how much backburning they'd done, and this was before the fires, he overquote, he overestimated the amount of backburning by six hundred and ninety percent.
How do you get that wrong? So clearly they're living in laala land.
They're too focused on the diversity of the firefighters to worry about the actual fires. But it is ridiculous, and it is embarrassing for California.
It's amazing. And again it's just how quickly something turns. How quickly a group of people turned when suddenly a problem that was on someone else's doorstep that they were jumping up and down about is suddenly right on their doorstep. And you have all these people say, suddenly, your far left liberal polsies like, yeah, you are ruining California and you are ruining the Democratic Party. Thank you very much, Sarah. But how many.
Were in college?
Where where you were there? Where were you five years ago?
Stood up at awards ceremonies and preached to the rest of us and demonized people who supported at.
Least George Cloy helped get rid of by it. I don't know what the rest of them do, but again it is, it is absolutely astonishing. Hopefully it will be a wake up call, but again it is. It is like, I don't know that the height of it, like the kind of like on now you're up. Now that your mansion in Pacific Palisades has burnt down because of this incompetence that everyone else had seen for years and was
jumping up and down about for years. This is now now now that it's your house that's on the line. Now you're upsets.
You think that'd be able to put themselves in people's shoes a little bit better anyway, Look, it's it's not just celebrities who are red hot with anger at California leaders. Check out this clip and watch what happened when the Californian governor was confronted about the fires.
Governor, I live here, Governor, that was my daughter's school.
Governor, please tell me what you're gonna do, but I'm not gonna hurt on my promise.
I'm literally talking to the President right now to specifically answer the question of what we can do for you.
And your daughter.
Can I hear it? Can I hear your call? Because I don't believe it.
I'm sorry, there's literally I've tried five times.
That's why I'm walking around to me.
Why is the president not taking your call?
Because it's not going through? Why I have to get self service?
So let's get it, let's get it.
I want to be here when you call the president. I appreciate I'm doing that right now.
Why was there no water in the hydrants? Governor?
That's all?
Literally?
Is it going to be different next time?
It has to be To get her on the Sky News reporting team go on an excellent what we call bounce in the industry. Look, Freyer, California has the highest taxes in the US, and its leaders, as you heard that still can't ensure that the fire hydrants have enough water in order to address an actual emergency. I mean, why are people paying such high taxes? This should be a government's and a county's number one priority is keeping people safe.
They're paying the highest taxes for third world infrastructure in what like imagine if Australia we're in the peak of bush fire seasons, the half the country's burning, and we go to our fire hydrants and there's just nothing coming out, Like the fighters don't even have enough water, and there are a whole bunch of other issues with the water pressure up being high enough reservoirs. There is literally not
enough water to fight these fires. And part of that has been because people within the government, within the Democrats, have been on about environmental conservation and we've got to save the fish, and so they haven't been topping up the reservoirs. They haven't been building new reservoirs. There is like a forty year delay in the pipeline of new dams that are yet to be constructed, and so what
do you expect to happen? Finally, the poor decisions of a misguided, woke government are catching up to them and it's too little, too late, and all this stuff. Oh literally, I'm on the phone with the president right now.
It's like, come on.
And then when he comes on, he wasn't literally.
On the it's just here, I'm on the phone to the president because I've got that reception. If I did, he fully would have answered.
He was really caught also, and that's.
Why I'm walking around. You're getting into a van, mate, You're getting into a car, Like, clearly you weren't just wandering around. You're walking away from the lady who was chasing you, and you had your guy and you're about to get into the car. So again it just oh something.
She caught him out completely red handed.
There.
Look.
Meanwhile, an old tweet from the La mayor has come back to haunt her. Karen Vass was in Ghana when the fires broke out, but awkwardly, she'd attacked another leader for being out of the country during a natural disaster. She wrote, Ted Cruz fleeing Texas in the middle of a deadly crisis is part of a larger pattern of the GOP abandoning folks in a crisis. We need to build a movement to kick them all out. Joe and fairness.
She did come back when the fire started, while Ted Cruz left in the middle of a winter storm, and I think she.
Had That's right, and she had left before that, she had left before down. But yeah, again, no, that's right. And that is why I was criticized, you know, by my own beloved bosses, not at this network obviously, but for not going harder against or not going hard at
all against Scott Morrison when he went to Hawaii. On hold, I'm like, you just wait and see and and sure enough, you know, every single other person, every single other politician who happens to be anywhere but the middle of ground zero when there's any kind of disaster, is going to
get the same treatment. And you can bet your bottom dollar that if they were political opportunists, and if they were going for the lazy personal kicks, that they would have been right up there slagging off Scott Morrison because he took a holiday.
And so you know, I think the difference here is that she's she's a target because she cut the budget.
Is that the hydrants were empty, that she cut the budget for the fight. Now, look again, I have been in many budget lockups. I know that savings have to be made, but I, for the life of me, cannot think if you were going through every single agency, in every single department, line by line, thinking right where can I cut costs? I would think that the fire department would probably be last on the list. That is the
last place you want to cut corner. See if you could find a few savings, do we really need all that water? Come on, we haven't had a fire for like three.
But the worst part of it is she cuts seventeen and a half million dollars from the California from the budget for fire department, but she gave it to homelessness programs, a homelessness crisis that the Democrats have allowed to flourish. If you go around the streets of la like, homeless people are everywhere. They have a drug crisis, they have a crime crisis, homelessness crisis because law and order is breaking down in Democrat controlled California. So she's stripped the money on.
A Pacific pal size and communities.
From a fire budget to give it to the homelessness crisis that her administration has caused. And now she's freaking out. Oh this was all just climate change in the wind, like, come on, come.
On, now here is one hot take to the wildfires that no one saw coming. Former New South Wales Australian of the Year dang Adut has made a series of disturbing social media posts celebrating the.
Disaster, calling the destruction of the US.
And declaring his support for Hamas he posted yesterday, I am glad the weather forecast is hell for you. I hope you burn burning children in Gaza. Why shouldn't I celebrate you being burnt by godfire. The post follows several other concerning comments that Dang made on social media last year, including I am now a pro Russian and Hamas until the day I die.
I am Hamas now look fray.
This is obviously quite alarming coming from someone who only in twenty seventeen was being recognized as such an upstanding member of the community that he was our estate here in New South Wales's nomination for Australian of the Year and our pick.
I don't know what's behind this.
I sense that these posts is so unhinged that there might be something else going on here, but clearly it's it needs to be called out.
I hope this guy has had a mental breakdown, because anything short of a complete mental breakdown does like this. This is just absolutely inexcusable to say I am her Mass now you know what her Mass does.
You know what they do?
They pro gay people off buildings, They rape women, they murder babies, they kidnap people, innocent people and babies.
They burn people.
Yes, exactly exactly, so to say I am her Mass now I support Hermas and Russia until the day I die. What the heck, and then to wish death upon innocent Americans just because they're Americans. And by the way, why are you hating America, the leader of the free world, the country that is going to restore peace to the
Middle East because they're actually strong on foreign policy? Like this is so unhinged that I hope he's had a mental breakdown, because I can't possibly comprehend this post if he actually is in his right mind, that is very deeply concerning. And surely his new South Wales Citizen of the Year has to be stripped from him off the back of this.
What do you think does it need to be shipped?
I think, I mean, I think all these gongs and you know, who should get him? Who should strip him? I think, you know, I think that's almost sort of neither here nor there. I think I think Freyer is right, and I think clearly this is unhinged stuff. But again, you know, and I think and hope, well, I do hope this is a result of some kind of metal breakdown and not things that he's actually thought about and think. But again, it just proves it so so many times
again and again and again and again. He hasn't had a complete metal breakdown and then just started spouting his own unique theology that has just sort of erupted from his head. You know, he hasn't started just coming up with random stuff. He's not. He's not, you know, he's not doing kind of random word association. You know Kat
Pompomer's typewriter. He is repeating almost verbatim, the same tropes and the same talking points that are parroted by the extreme left and the extreme right, because guess what, they all join up. That's why, you know, Nazis in the Greens both want to eliminate Israel. And he's just spouting
all this stuff. And that is what happens when you have people out there who are fueling these kinds of narratives and talking about, you know, the US is backing a genocidal monster in Israel and children are being killed and blah blah blah, and this is the only thing that matters. And you know, you strip away all the context, strip away all the history, and you just go on
and about this and you get hysterical about it. And if someone is susceptible, and if someone is one of those people who is mentally susceptible to ideas or is having a breakdown, or something's gone terribly wrong and they're looking for some kind of something to cling to, something to give their life meaning, or something to create understanding in the world, which is often what happens when people having mental breakdown. You're sort of at sea and you're
almost like trying to grab onto a life jacket. And this is the sort of bollocks stuff that hard left and hard right activists construct that people then just seize upon, and that these are the sort of people not dang God willing, but you know again, these are the sort of thing that loaners, you know, people who iss target people who you know, something's gone horrendously wrong in their lives.
Maybe their wife's left them, or maybe they're trying to prove themselves they're a tough guy to the gang that they just joined or whatever it is, or maybe they're just losers who can't get a girlfriend and they're going to think I'm going to show them. These are the profiles of people who become loan with terrorists, and these are the people who Isis deliberately target and they target it the.
Expected kind of.
Recall God he has to have, like.
There's no way he can continue to hold the title of New South Wales Australian of the Year, while saying he supports a terrorist organization. He also said he could thrash Dutton and Albanese in hand to hand combat, Like what if.
He's still working as a lawyer. I think perhaps that needs to be looked at.
Would probably be saying I think your I might want to change representation.
Well perhaps, but look, I unfortunately have seen quite a bit of this commentary around the past couple of days online which is as sewer as we know most of the time. You know, this idea that this is somehow revenge this natural disaster. But what's been happening in the Middle East which is very disturbing, But these people exist
out there. Look, let's move back closer to domestic politics now, and Peter Dutton has hit backer claims by Anthony Albanezi that he, not the opposition leader, would be better placed at forging a productive relationship with Donald Trump Now. Mister Dutton has called the comments comical. He's pointed to I call them delusional.
Last time he's pointed awesome.
Pointed to the labor governments split with its US ally over Israel and the PM's past statement that he was scared of mister Trumpeter dun And said, it's comical for him to now say trust me with the US relationship when his own government has split with the USA on key votes at the UN, and we've seen little evidence of him engaging and influencing the incoming Trump administration in the national interest, which is a real concern.
Afraya, I mean, I think it's really not a.
Hard peak of who Trump would get on better with. I mean, what do you think Dunin or alban Izy?
Is that even a question? I mean, it's so embarrassing.
Who which media advisor Let Albo say that he was better placed to handle Trump, because it is embarrassing. He has abandoned the US in the in the UN, He's now siding with dictatorships and people who hate the Western world because he is misguided on Israel. It is completely fascical to suggest that he would be better.
At handling Trump.
Trump respects stray, he respects conviction, and he respects conservative values.
And he only doesn't respect people Joe who've also had to go at him in the well.
Again, Trump is very magnanimous, it is very forgiving, and there are that many people like I love Trump now. I just think he's amazing to watch. But you know, certainly I would have said things in the past that were saying that Donald Trump's incredibly dangerous, or he is deluded, or you know, because if you take.
That, you're not a world leader, You're not an Australian leader.
Trying to work.
I'm very influential, very influential Sky News contributor. But again and again JD. Vance said, you know, like a lot of people first time around with Trump, nobody saw it coming. Everyone thought the sky would fall in. It didn't, and
everyone thought, actually, maybe he's got a point. And also, I think a lot of people, and this is the camp I fall into, saw that the reaction to Trump was so hysterical and so ridiculous, and there were elements of the American left that were so completely nuts that in a way you needed someone like Trump to either a keep them in line or just keep the kick of the nuts. Because it looks like so much fib Yeah.
It does look low fun coming up.
Australia's top diplomat in the UK backtracks on plans to ditch Australia Day and Walid Ali declares woke is dead.
That's next welcome back. Well.
The Australian High Commissioner to the UK has backflipped on plans to snub Australia Day, hours after Peter Dutton said if he was ashamed of our National Day, he should get on the next plane home. Stephen Smith will now attend the lavish Australia Day gala dinner in London on January twenty five, though his plans for the day itself are still unclear. Free you literally have one job as a diplomat, and that's to represent your country. It's not
to be divisive, it's not to be highly political. Why on earth did it take our opposition leader for this guy to make a decision that should just be common sense.
Exactly, you're not there to represent yourself. You're there to represent Australia. It's not about your personal views on Australia Day. What is the National Day? That's the question. It's January twenty sixth Okay, you go to the gala then, like that's the end of discussion. I think it's just embarrassing. And this was, keep in mind, a political appointment by Albanezi and so clearly he's just rewarding one of his
woke left wing friends. And also my other problem with this, it's clearly this guy is living in La La Land and didn't get the message that woke died back when Trump got elected. And we've seen Woolly's backflip on boycotting Australia Day. We've seen Australia Venue Co, who have hundreds of pubs, they backflipped on the boycott as well.
We saw sixty five percent of Australians jove bot No, we had the referendum against this kind of identity politic.
This is amazing. So Savid Smith is a leading figure of the West Australian right. So it's not Albo's. It's Albo who's on the left.
Now.
I made that he's now a very sensible centrist.
You're alone.
It is a lonely position. I hold it nonetheless. But this is just so funny. So the quote that the statement just makes no sense whatsoever. Right the statement they've explained having oh yeah, oh no, we haven't backflipped at all. But he says, quote, the High Commissioner has now been able to rearrange official travel plans in order to attend the Australia Day Gala dinner on Saturday, twenty fifth of January.
It's getting closer for the purpose of delivering a personal message from the Prime Minister to the dinner.
I'm glad he could find time as well.
Should just say, given that clearly Albo has delivered Steven Smith a personal message that he now has to stay in London to deliver on Australia Day, I'm pretty sure that personal message was something along the times. Sorry you're doing so what's that? Oh you are staying in London frustruction? Yeah I thought so, mate, Yeah, thank you very much. Just it's but again his we still don't know what he's doing on the actual day itself.
They're not opening the hike.
No, it's a Sunday and so that's it's a matter so what. But this is the thing. So they're saying that they couldn't do it on the Sunday in London because there weren't that many people around. It's just it's a city of twenty million people, like it's a global it doesn't no Sunday training. It's like maybe he thinks it's.
Perse I think exactly.
Maybe he thinks he's still there now you know woke is really dead when even Walid Ali declares it to be so. The Project co host, who once described terrorism as a mere irritant, has penned a piece for Nine Papers in which he muses about whether twenty twenty four was the year woke politics finally died. And to that I say, yes, it was an amen and about bloody time prayer exactly.
Ah, it is about time. But my favorite thing about this article. Firstly, it was almost incomprehensible. It felt like I was reading a second year arts paper at university head Sorry, we'll lead. And my second issue with it was he didn't actually get to the point of declaring whether it was dead. He mused, this is he said, it's too messy a debate with too many fuzzy terms for me to.
Enter here in full.
So he doesn't want to actually enter the debate terms. Well, what is he confused about? He can come on Sky we can clarify it for him, because it's pretty simple. People do not want left wing politics shoved down their throat twenty four to seven. And then he drew this analogy with Midnight Oil being this like cool rebellious band that even John Howard likes. The difference between midnight oil in the eighties and woke politics today is that woke
is the establishment position now. It is no longer the cool counterculture. It is the establishment that has shoved down your throat being conservative. We are the cool counter culture and we're based were theysed.
You can't join the court.
I knew this. I knew this time would come. You can't say I am the establishment.
No.
Look, I think my leaders has come to the party, and you know, a little bit later than some of us, but it's you know, like there is absolutely no question. And having spoken to a lot of people, like you talk about the Labor Party, so like I speak to a lot of people in the Law part I'm not
technically a member myself, but obviously do love it. But and there were just all these people who hated what was going on, hated identity politics, and they all it sounds like we sort of were like sort of AA were like a sort of secret support group for each other. But everyone sort of thought they were alive. And I
was going around saying, this is ridiculous. If we carry on, you know, they they so I'm an objective journalist, but if the party carries online this and I was seeing all these alarming signs and the sort of stuff that was doing online and coud campaign, you know, but and you're never going to get elected again? What are you doing?
And there were all these people I spoke to, Yes, we've been saying the exact same thing, or we thought the exact same thing, but we were scared to say anything because people would accuse us of be you know whatever, transphobic, you know whatever, the islamophobeic, whatever the latest thing is.
I don't know. And then you see with someone like this is before Chrismins became premier, and obviously I thought that was one of the changes that absolutely it became leader of the party, which is obviously something that I thought absolutely needed to happen, and a lot of people
in the party did and that did happen. And just look at the results, like, just look at how people, mainstream people, even conservatives, embrace a sensible, centered labor leader and seeing his praises, he's got conservatives singing the praises of Christians, including he has been compared to anyone who has a whiff.
Of what It's pretty low by I have to say, but he has been quite.
Okay all of the album You Found Girl.
Video of Donald Trump chatting and laughing with Barack Obama has been going viral online as the political foes appeared to get on famously at the funeral of former President Jimmy Carter.
What were you talking to Barack Obama about him?
It did look very friendly. I must say we had a little different philosophies, right, but we probably do.
I don't know.
We just got along, but I got along with just about everybody, and that we you know, we met backstages, you know, before we went on, and I thought it was a beautiful service. But we all got along very well.
My favorite part is when Kamala Harris turned around and glad, and then she turned back and Barack Obama seemed to be waiting for her to turn back before he continued Chuckley.
Yeah no, And she didn't even acknowledge Biden when he walked in. It was just like blank stairs ahead. And you know what, this is what America needs. This is healing, This is unity.
This is so good.
Jo I just I love Barack Obama. I think he is the cream of the Democrat crop. And this just proves that he was incredibly gracious when he handed over power to Donald Trump in twenty sixteen. He was, of course one of the leading figures who was saying, we have got to get rid of Biden, and frankly, we've got to get rid of Kamela too. Obviously, I think Michelle was that his pick biased, but again, he is one of the very few sort of sensible people at the top of the Democratic It's.
Nice to see them getting on so well.
And that was really boring, Fay.
It was a bit boring, and in the fact that Trump is not the enemy to democracy that Barack Obama and so many in the party seem to make him out to be.
Clearly if they can get on so well.
Look, coming up, the Late Debate goes International, the segment that picked the interest of Late night host Stephen Colbert. Stay tuned, Welcome back.
Well.
If you watched it this week's Late Show with Stephen Colbert, you may have recognized the opening of the program. Kim Jong un has further asserted his authority over North Korea by banning hot dogs.
The leader claimed the humble snag.
Is too western.
Greetings comrades, today, I am outlining the imperialist meat tubes film as hot dogs. They are a culinary tool of the American capitalist stooges.
Plus, why is it that hot.
Dogs come in packs of eat and hot dog buns come in packs of.
Tent comedy gold? There there was a lot more of it. I recommend you go back and look it up. I mean, Joe, I know you're a little bit jealous that you didn't.
I just can't believe the one night I'm not on the show and you end up on Stephen Colbert, because and the worst part about it, that's right, you would have made the funniest thing on Stephen Colbert. I can tell you that for a seat.
Now, finally, before we go, The Australian newspaper has been nominating its own contenders for Australian of the Year, and today's nominee is the Voice himself, John Farnham, for his visceral honesty in recounting the abuses overcome and for being a part of Australia's musical history. Freyer, do you have a nomination for Australian of the Year, to not to put you on the spot already?
Mine would probably be Nathaniel Bezolich.
I believe he's.
Been on Sky I did the first interview.
Yes, Vampire Diaries actor has millions of followers on Instagram and post October seven, he spent like six months in Israel. He was documenting everything on the ground and now he's used his platform of millions to his own personal detriment to spread awareness about antisemitism, to stand up for Israel, and I think he is a shining light that we need.
Received so many death threats, yeah, process and still stood from Joe.
How about you? And you can't say.
Yourself oh in that case. The one the people that get me to tear all the time is I do Vini's staff and I do salos, and every time they bring together, they bring out someone who is usually a homeless person who they've helped, and almost invariably they then go on to become a volunteer and to help others. And every single time I end up just bawling my eyes out and so iry to tear up. It's talking
about it. So it would just be one of them, one of those ordinary people who've never ever heard of, who just does it.
They're the ones who deserve it.
Mine would be Inspector Amy Scott. She rushed and stopped the Bondo Junction attacker in his wake of terror.
Now that's it for tonight.
Coming up next is The Royal Report with Caroline de Bruce sookernight