Welcome late base Loo.
Good evening. I'm James Macpherson with Liz Storer and Caleb Bond. Coming up tonight a new sport to be launched in Melbourne where people compete to see who's the best at doing nothing. I'm sure you could probably think of a politician in your area who might do very well in that competition.
We finally found one that Caleb's grew it at.
In this sport. Lose please what you think I do?
Xactly?
Oh mudy to the slander on this show already.
We'll get to that a little later. Plus when we look at what's making news tomorrow. Revelations in Tomorrow's Career Mail that the man responsible for Queensland disaster recovery went on holiday just as Cyclone Elfred was approaching the coast, and The Australian's got a news story reporting that Donald Trump refused to take phone calls from Anthony Albanezi before imposing tariff's on Australian Steel and Alia Mignon. We'll get to all of that when we look at tomorrow's papers.
But first, billionaire Clive Palmer has been taking out newspaper ads across the country. Let me show you one of the ads he's been taking out. It reads simply, there are only two genders, male and female. Uh huh, well no, not quite Q outrage. Apparently you're not allowed to say that in this country anymore, not even as a paid advertisement in a newspaper. Publishers of the Newcastle Herald have issued an apology for printing the ad and have promised
to remove it from all of their digital platforms. The managing director of Australian Community Media, Tony Kendall, that's the organization that publishes the Newcastle Herald, said we support freedom of speech and the diversity of views. But there's the hint, Liz the but but on this occasion we let our readers and our staff down, which begs the question how exactly did you let your readers down by allowing a basic biological truth to be printed in your newspaper. It
begs the question what should the advertisement have said? Should it have said there are three genders or seventy two genders? Maybe the Newcastle Herald would enlighten us as to how many genders it's permissible to postulate. He said further that the advertisement saying there are only two genders didn't meet the Newcastle Herald's values, which begs the question what are the Newcastle Herald's values? We already know they don't value freedom of speech and diversity of views, because the moment
you trash those things, they are no longer values. By definition, values are things you stick with, but if you can ditch them for convenience, there's certainly something other than convictions or values. We also know they don't seem to value truth in reporting, because no matter how someone identifies or how they feel, the fact is there are only two genders,
male and females. So for the Newcastle Herald to say, sh, we don't want our readers to know that there are only two genders makes you wonder what else are they hiding from you in their news reporting. But it wasn't just the Newcastle Herald. Journalists at the Age newspaper in Melbourne wrote a letter complaining to management about the newspaper running these advertisements, saying that it wasn't right now. Of course, they're obviously been pressured by a group and upsteps to
the plate. The Transgender Victoria Organization, a lobbying group for transpeople, chief executive Son Vivian said trumpet of patriots. That's Clive Palmer's political organization should retract this campaign and apologize or acknowledge they will have our blood on their hands. That's
a pretty serious thing to say, and with respect. It seems to be implying that transgendered people are so mentally fragile that even the suggestion that you know what, no matter how you identify, there really are only to genders is so shocking to them that they would be driven to potentially self harm. If that's true, then these are people who need serious help rather than simply having newspapers ban Clive Palmer advertisements.
Kaleb well I thought the vast majority of transgender people were either men who wanted to be women or women who wanted to be men. So most transgender people are operating in the same barner as the rest of us anyway, right, And this is the typical thing they do to try and shut down debate, to say, well, if you talk about this issue, you will cause harm to us, and
therefore it is not up for debate whatsoever. We had the same thing, of course, during the same sex marriage pleversite, where we were told that having a vote on whether the same sex marriage should happen in this country, would be deleterious to gay people and they would self harm, et cetera, et cetera, by which they mean, we can't talk about these issues. And once you say we can't talk about and well, I guess we can do whatever
we want. That's ultimately what they're getting at. It is frankly pathetic to come out after you've published the ad. So you've taken Clive Palmer's money, so yep, yep, Well we'll take your dollars to put the ad on the front page of the paper. That's gone through the sales department. It's certainly gone through the editor of the Newcastle Herald and every other newspaper that has published this. I've worked in that side of newspapers as a chief of staff.
The front page is looked at in its entirety by the chief of staff every day. It's looked at in its entirety by the editor every day. They know exactly what is going on the front page of the paper. And obviously, at no point was an issue raised internally about any of this. No one thought there was a problem. And then all of a sudden, the staff and a few other people crack it over this and say, oh, well, no, sorry, sorry,
we believe in free speech. But I mean if you say I believe in free speech, but it generally means you don't believe in free speech. Here we are in twenty twenty five, where someone cannot spend their own money to print an obvious fans on the front of a newspaper without getting in trouble. Stop the bus, I want to get off. We have hit the point of no return, haven't we.
And here at Sky we play an ad of suwellin saying there's only two genders. So we'd like to say to everyone, we're not sorry whatsoever. Can you imagine just ten years ago telling people that in ten years time you will have major media outlets like The Age apologizing for publishing what is known as a biological fact, just a pure biological fact, And here we have them pandering
too a tiny minority. I'm sure many in the LGBTQ community actually couldn't care less, but it's always the tiny minority amongst them that says, no, this gives us hurty feelings. And these guys capitulate, like I always say, every capitulation to the left embolden z it, which is why you must never apologize.
When you're not in the wrong.
And neither the Newcastle Herald nor the Age is in the wrong. They were supporting diversity of views, they were supporting freedom of speech. The only apology that's owed now, since we're doing apologies, let's start stacking them, is to Clive Palmer and the trumpets of patriots, because you have quashed their views and their freedom of speech. But tell you what, this just gives more media attention to Clive's
new party. Well it's a rebrand really, which can only be a good thing because all publicity is good publicity in this game.
Indeed, I think Justin Timberlake probably said it best when it comes to these matters. Yes, Timberland, Sorry, I mean you can kind of tell, can't you, that my vein of music is not along these lines. You know. I sort of drive home to the strains of Classic FM that they don't call it Classic FM, or they call it ABC Classic. And I'm sure if you listen to Classic FM anytime, you'll know they're constantly going on about
the Aboriginal land that this was all done on. I know they don't run ads on the ABC, but they'd be apologizing too if they'd run such a thing. While we're talking about matters of workness, let's talk about Disney now. We told you last month about how they were the latest big business to say that we're going to undo most of their DEI policies. It's amazing what Trump has been able to do since he became president. But there are some things that you can't undo, like multimillion dollar
movies that you have already commissioned. But they've sniffed the wind and realize there is a problem here. Now next week there is a new version of snow White coming out, and unlike most Disney films, it won't be an animated one. It's actually got actors and actresses in it. Can I say actors and actresses anymore? That would be to deny there are many other genders. I suppose let's just call them people who act. Maybe. Anyway, They've got this new snow White film coming out and there are a few
problems with it. Let's start with the fact that originally in Snow White, there is a reason that snow White is called snow White. It's because her mother, the Queen, says that she wishes that she had a daughter whose skin was white as snow, lips as red as blood, and her hair as black as ebonine. Of course, later in the story, her wicked stepmother, the New Queen, says, you know, miror Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all? At age seven, snow White becomes
the fairest of all. She is white as white as white. So this is where we ran into our first problem, because this is the girl playing Snow White.
I mean, you know, the original cartoon came out in nineteen thirty seven and very evidently, so there is a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her.
Weird.
Weird Rachel Zegler clearly is not the fairest of them all. She is Hispanic, she has Colombian heritage. They've also decided that we can't have the seven Dwarves anymore. Instead they have seven people of varying heights and ethnicities and god knows what else sexualities, et cetera, because you know, we've
got to be all inclusive now. So knowing that there's a bit of trouble here and it's not really the snow White that anyone remembers, Disney has now decided that instead of the full court press red carpet premiere that they would give to a film, they're going to have a watered down version. It's going to be very quiet event.
Only select media will be able to attend. Instead of the stars of the film walking down the red carpet to the premiere, talking to all the members of the press and having their photo taken, there's only going to be about four reporters there because they know no one wants it. Isn't it rather unfortunate that all this money they've spent, you know, all the diverse boxes have been ticked.
They've realized that people don't actually want to watch a Disney film to see snow White, who's actually a Hispanic woman who basically, you know, cans the idea of snow White in the first place. Oh, you know, Prince Charming, how dare he be involved it? The whole thing is a joke. And the best bit is that they know it. They actually know it. That is why they're not having a full on red carpet. Finally they've realized what's going on.
Disney are about to run full speed into the New America. This will be the first time that a movie studio has launched a movie hoping nobody notices if only they could lock snow White in the castle. This, I mean not be the fairest premiere of them all. The first trailer to be released on YouTube clocked up one point four million dislikes and the second trailer that was released clocked up nine hundred thousand dislikes. That's before the movie
hits the cinemas. And it wasn't just the fact that the movie itself, as you said, Caleb has got all these woke elements, but Rachel's Zeggler, who plays snow White, she decided to insult most of the audience who would go and see this. Speaking of Trump supporters, she described them as a deep sickness that has infected the country. So when you've got an actress who's insulting the audience combined with a woke movie, you can almost be guaranteed that this is going to disappear at the box office.
And Disney having such a low key premiere just rinks of embarrassment. They're embarrassed to be putting this movie out in the current environment.
And it's the shareholders who have been pushing for them to ditch this DEI nonsense. So we did report last month that they'd ditch two of their DEI programs because gues what DEI does nothing for the bottom line. In the last quarter of last year alone, Disney's streaming platform lost over seven hundred thousand subscribers. That's just in three months. That's how badly these guys have been noseediving. As of March last year, over the previous two years, Didney Disney
had lost over one hundred billion in market caps. So these guys have been in free fall for years now. They know DEI doesn't pay. The shareholders have been screaming about it for quite some time, and they're finally getting some traction. But just to remind you of how deeply embedded and accepted this kind of pushing LGBTIQ agenda, pushing DEI agenda to your kids through the screen, how acceptable
that was at Disney. Check out this clip from twenty twenty two of executive producer LaToya Revenue, executive producer at one of the Disney shows, telling you how hard she was going pushing queerness and other gender theories onto your kids.
The showrunners were super welcoming Meredith Roberts, and like our leadership over there has been so welcoming to like my like not at all secret gay agenda, and so like I feel like I felt like it was I mean, like maybe it was that way in the past, but I guess like something must have happened in the last like like they're turning and around, they're going hard and then all that like momentum that I felt like that sense of I don't have to be afraid to like, let's have these two characters kiss.
Let's in the background.
Like I was just wherever I could, just basically adding queerness to like the if you see anything clear in the show around them. But like I just was like no one would stop me.
And they're loud and proud about it. You'll notice that reimagined tomorrow, little insignia in the corner there. That's one of the DEI programs that as of last month, Disney announced that they'd be ditching because they can't muzzle their stakeholders any longer. The shareholders are saying, we're not getting return on investment right now. You guys have to turn the ship around.
And who's watching, you know, the basic and generally wholesome entertainment of Disney to get that kind of message. It's not what the consumer wants, which goes to the point that's why they've been hemorrhaging money. Rachel Zegler says that the reason snow White is called snow white in this version of the film because of course she is not white as snow is because she and her family go through a snow storm and survive the snow storm, and so it's a mark of her resilience. That's why she's
called snow white. I mean, they're just completely rewriting the whole point of why snow White is snow white to make it somehow PC in twenty twenty five. There's nothing wrong with the basis of snow White.
I got to say, my kids have got Disney Channel, and when you see what Disney have done the Star Wars, is any surprise what they're doing the Snow White. I mean, the writing was always on the walls. They have destroyed the Star Wars Frederick.
Indeed, and as little wonder, critics of this film that they haven't even seen yet are calling it off white and the seven pronounds to the UK now where this government is not letting up on its relentless campaign to censor speech. It's just unbelievable. Every week we bring you some absolutely unhinden story from the UK of the latest person who's been arrested on some trumped up charge. Well, now the Parliament's decided that what they need is a review of the definition of Islamophobia.
They've already been told.
That their current definition is far too broad. But Angela Rayner, the Deputy PM, has put together a working group to one hopes not broaden it even further, although that's exactly what Brits are bracing for.
She says.
This group will advise the government on how to best understand and quantify and define prejudice, discrimination and hate crimes against Muslims. Alongside drawing on their own expertise, members will engage widely to ensure the definition accounts for the variety
of backgrounds and experiences of Muslim communities across the United Kingdom. Now, in two thousand and eight, the common law offenses of blasphemy and libel were abandoned in the UK, so a lot of people paying attention right now are saying, excuse me, are you bringing that back? These essentially a warm up to some sort of blasphemy laws, particularly with regard to the religion of Islam. But they say, no, we've had unprecedented levels of Islamophobic this and that, and this is
how we're addressing it. And to the British MPs and those across the bord with a lot of sway in the UK, I say to you, do you think maybe rubbing it in people's faces is not helping your cause? Just weeks ago we saw the first if Ta dinner hosted at not only Westminster Hall by the Prime Minister but also for the first time in Windsor Castle, with a lot of Britons then saying, excuse me, our King is supposed to be the defender of the faith, the
Supreme Governor of the Church of England. What are you doing inviting three hundred and sixty Muslims into Windsor Castle to host them for their ifta dinner? And of course both these dinners also saw the heralding of a call to prayer for the Islamic faith. Ankhm, you know, imagine being a brit seeing the Islamic call to prayer echo through these bastions of British history, centuries of British culture.
It is just unbelievable to me that they then want to claim, oh, we've got to do all this work to combat supposed Islamophobia in the UK when you've got leaders who aren't helping, you don't force people to accept something or like something by as leaders of the country seemingly just saying oh, well, well, I'm accepting it, so you have to accept it.
We have to celebrate it, we have.
To This is exactly what actually gets people's backs up backfires.
The problem is they want to outlaw Islamophobia, but they don't know what Islamophobia is, so they want to outlaw something that they are still trying to define. The previous definition that they're now refining was back in twenty eighteen the Labor government defined Islamophobia as thus, get out of this Islamophobia is rooted in racism. I'd stop there for a second and say, Islamophobia has got nothing to do with racism. Islam is a religion. It's not an ethnicity.
You've got followers of Islam in Australia, Indonesia, in Africa, in the Middle East. It's not a race. And that's one of the big problems in trying to deal with conversations about Islam. You get accused of racism when talking about a religion. It goes on to say, Islamophobia is rooted in racism, and this is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness. So now you've got to define what is muslimness. So the whole thing is fuzzy.
Here's the You shouldn't be able to discriminate or be untoward towards Muslims because Muslims are people, right, So you can't discriminate against people. But Islam is not people. Islam is an idea. It's a religion. It's a set of ideas about the meaning of life, and you must be free to critique, criticize, and if you want ridicule ideas, particularly ideas that try to prescribe the meaning and purpose
of life. It doesn't matter whether it's the Christian religion, whether it's the Hindu religion, whether it's the Islamic faith. All of those ideas should be up for debate, and the debate should be vigorous and as willing as you wish. The other problem here, of course, is that Islamists want to islamize society, and therefore you've got to be able to talk about which parts of Islam you are happy with, which parts of Islam you don't like, which parts of Islam.
If you say that you're afraid of those things, you ought to be able to say it, because if a group of people are trying to islamize society but you are banned from saying anything about it, well, I mean, that's not fair on anybody, and the same would apply to every other faith, charity for people. But clarity around ideas well, how much.
Of the doctrine of Islam is inherent to muslimness, how much of what is written in the Qur'an is inherent to muslimness, if that's the definition that they're using at the moment. And this is the absurdity of the way in which people talk about Islamophobia, because often, and this is what we've heard, of course, since October the seventh, you talk about anti Semitism and in the same breath
people talk about Islamophobia. But they're very different things because of because anti Semitism refers to an ethno religious problem, not just the religion itself, whereas, of course there is no one who is ethnically Muslim, you are just an adherent to the religion or not. But it's so obvious what is happening here. There is no need to fine Islamophobia because Reina herself said, define prejudice, discrimination and hate
crimes against Muslims. Well, they're the definitions already. There were readily available definitions for prejudice, discrimination and hate crimes. They can apply to anyone, not just Muslims, not just Christians, not just Jews, everyone. We have definitions for those acts already. There doesn't have to be a specific term for Muslims,
which is of course Islamophobia. But the UK six point five percent of their population is Muslim now as a proportion of their population, that is more than double what we have in Australia. It is the second largest religion in the UK, as it is the second largest religion in Australia. But it exists in far larger proportions twice as much in the UK as it does here. And
in London fifteen percent of the population is Muslim. It's the same as was it last week or the week before when we were talking about at the start of Ramadan, where King Charles and Queen Camilla were packing up dates to send them off to break the fast, et cetera. It is a show to what is a large Muslim population in the UK that we want your vote. It's as simple as that. They are pandering to a population that has moved into their country and now they're like, well,
we've got to do something about it now. And their answer is not to go, okay, well we should all be equal under the law. It's to say you should be special under the law.
And we see the same dynamics starting to play out here in Australia. It's the Labor Party in the UK that are pushing to define Islamophobia so we can protect Muslims from discrimination, et cetera, et cetera. And that's not out of a generosity of heart, it's out of a pragmatic understanding that there are now Muslim parties appealing to Muslim constituents and if the Labor Party aren't seen to
be doing something, they'll lose all those voters. We see the same kind of dynamics playing out here in Australia with our Labor Party and seats in Western Sydney. So it's a big thing. And of course the big worry is that laws to stop Islamophobia will become de facto blasphemy laws, which are prevalent across Islamic countries, where you're not allowed to criticize the Islamic faith at all on
threat of severe punishment. And the fear, of course, is that we'll end up with the same thing and you're just unable to have a rational conversation about religion in any form. Let's come back home and talk about transport in Sydney. If you're a Sydney cider, I'll tell you what the last couple of months were. Hell. If you're
trying to get to work via the train. Industrial action meant that there were non stop rolling strikes only ended when the Fair Work Commission said that the train drivers had to go back to work and the rest of
us got to get back to work as well. But it's going to come up again, this time not with heavy rail, but with Sydney's Metro because Metro workers at the end of August will start to negotiate for a new and prize bargaining agreement, and already the union is threatening that if they don't get pay rises, there'll be strikes. Now you say, well, what's new about that. Here's what's interesting about it. The Metro, which the government spent billions
of dollars on, is amazing. I catch it regularly and there's no driver on these trains. They are driverless trains, and our state government spent billions on them. But last September, the Men's government, in a sop to the unions, agreed that these driverless trains should have at least one driver on the train. Now, of course, driverless means you don't need a drive them, but the unions wanted someone on
the train anyway. So the Men's government said, Okay, we'll have a driver on the driverless train, but we won't call them drivers. Will call them customer journey coordinators. Now I'm not sure what a customer journey coordinator who's meant to be driving a driverless train does, but I have seen them on the Metro and they basically just stand there. The Men's government agreed that the Metro would not operate on most lines without a customer journey coordinator. So now
here's the situation. Driverless trains that after an agreement with the union must have a driver. And so now the union is saying, if we don't get our pay rise. Well, we will remove our drivers from the driverlest trains, without which you can't drive the driverless trains. The Sydney public are being taken for absolute mugs and have been sold out by the Labor government.
How sorry, I just failed to understand how you can't drive a driverless train without a driver on board. I mean, supposedly these What did you say to our customer.
Customer journey coordinator?
I mean, what the hell sort of job is that? I'll be a customer journey coordinator when I leave sky at night. Sounds like a pretty good gig to me. But the idea that you can't drive a driverless train without a driver is nonsense. They're supposedly there so that in the case of an emergency, you know, I don't know, the thing stops working. They could manually operated, but they don't need to be there, so how are they going
to stop the network? Presumably what they are suggesting is that the people who remotely operate the trains, I don't know, we'll all walk off the job so that they can't run the trains. If you can't run a driverless train without a driver on it, you've got a problem. It's as simple as that, we build something that should be efficient and usable, and it.
Is bloody efficient.
The Metro, I have to say, it's brilli. In peak time, it runs every four minutes in both directions. Don't have to worry about when one's going to be there. You just rock up to the station, you get on. It's always on time because of course it's not reliant on a person or anything. The doors open for a set period of time and then they close and then the train takes off. It is the best thing in the world, except when, of course, you interfere with an automated system
by putting people in the middle of it. They just shouldn't be there. Why did the government ever accede to the idea that you should have drivers driving driverless trains? I just I can't make logical.
Unions had them by the grulies, like this is nothing new. We see this. It doesn't matter which sector it is.
The unions get head up. And it's so.
Funny when it's unions versus a labor government. It's like, you guys are the same entity, basicly, and yet they take them to task. And what are the labor governments? Do they fold because they work in tandem with each other, even when it looks like they're fighting, and no, they're not going to get their way this time. Guess who ends up getting their way because the city grinds to a hold without the transport, Without the public transport system,
it's simply a musk. So they know they're going to fold. And even though.
You are right, it makes absolutely.
No sense to anybody talking about the fact that drivers.
Trains can't drive without drivers. It was inevitable, and here we are this is what unions do. I just can't get it. It reminds me what if happened to you know, bellboys in the lift right, because of course they used to operate the lift for you. Why didn't they do a similar union deal. We've got automated lifts that don't require someone in there to press the button for you.
Why didn't all the blokes working in the end girls working in the department stores get the union on board and say we must have someone in the lift to operate the lift in the case of an emergency.
Once we get driverless taxis, I'm sure there'll still be a driver.
Exactly, we'll need a driver in case goodness, I can't believe that this is real. But here we are. While we're talking about transport. I'm sure you've noticed, as I have, that airline travel has gone to the dogs, particularly after COVID. It just felt like the service provision went through the
floor and the prices went through the roof. It's really hard to justify, but of course that's what happens when you have a heavily regulated airline sector, regulated by the federal government that favors the players that already exist in it. You'll remember, of course, the story last year of Qatar,
which wanted extra into national flights into Australia. Federal government said no. Of course, Quantus lobbied heavily for that, because if you don't have other players in the market, it means existing players like Quantus get to have more flights, and then they can dictate the price of those flights and they make more money. It's a pretty simple concept. It's the same reason that Rex fell over on the domestic level because they tried to break into the capital
city market. But of course the federal government decides when they can fly and who they can fly, etc. So they give them slots that no one really wants. To fly in and all of a sudden they fall over, and then the price of your tickets go up on Quantus and Virgin and Jetstar, et cetera. Well, Quantus is going to do you dirty again. They have decided that the value of your Quantus Frequent Flyer points is going down. For what reason, we don't really know, except that they
just want to squeeze more money out of you. It would seem this is reporting in the Osterday from Robin Ironside from August fifth, a business class reward seat from Perth to London will require one hundred and fifty one eight hundred points, which is up from one hundred and twenty six thousand, five hundred, while a first class seat will cost two hundred and twenty seven eight hundred points instead of one hundred and eighty nine eight hundred plus
taxes and carrier charges. That is quite a significant increase of twenty percent increase in the points you need to spend. It's the same at the domestic level. It'll be five percent more on points for a premium seat or fifteen point percent more sorry for points on an economy seat. Why I mean inflation hasn't gone up by fifteen percent
in the last year. Last I checked, inflation has been going down, and yet we are told that we must pay more points, which you can collect by flying with an airline or spending with your credit card, et cetera. I mean, it's just another way in which the service provision of the major airlines is going to the dogs. It used to be about service. You know, you'd be proud to fly Quantus because it was the national carrier. And you know, I feel good as an Australian flying
on an Australian airline because it's got the best service ever. Well, most people I think playing internationally now disagree with that. They get better service for least money elsewhere.
The problem with Quantus is they make you feel like they're doing you a favor by allowing you to grace their airline. I caught a Quantus flight the other night from Brisbane and it was boarding at seven twenty five. So, being the efficient traveler that I am, I arrived at the gate right on seven twenty five. When boarding starts, there's no one at the gate and there's a sign that says final call. I said to the lady at the gate, I said, how can it be final call.
It says boarding seven twenty five. I'm here at seven twenty five. How can it's a final call? She said, you look like a regular traveler. You should know better. I said, good, Evan, sorry, she said, it looks like you travel regularly. You should know better than to turn up at this point.
How dare you turn up at the time it says on the timetable.
Though, that's called Quantus service. But the good news is they've just announced, despite this mass of jacking up of points required to get a flight, that they're introducing a side sell it as part of your meal on international. So serious, serious, it was a creezing other week.
I don't want side gallan the other way.
Everyone who can afford to fly Quantas anymore. Anyway, I cannot remember the last time I flew Pontus, and that hasn't been because they've been scrowing over the Australian people for ages.
Now.
We've been talking about all the COVID nonsense and that these guys haven't been my carrier for ages and they're not going to become it. I'm a I'm a virgin girl all the way now, and gosh, it's still very hard to rack up points. The amount of points that this was talking about. It's like who flies that much that they get half that many need the credit card.
Get on the credit No.
Thanks, before we go to a break tonight to the US really quickly where Doge has done a number on USAID as we've been talking about, but really freaky reports coming out of America today saying that they've been shredding papers. They had an entire staff get together to shred papers for an entire day. If you take the word of
Mike Ben's, former Trumps State Department official. He tweeted, this is a five alarm fire right now as we speak today, USAID is shredding and burning the contents of the agency's classified safes, the key information needed to reconstruct the history of USAID's weaponization both at home and abroad. This must be stopped now. The White House Secretary came out and said, oh, nothing to see here. This is just normal, you know,
when we shut things down. State Secretary Marco Rubio announced yesterday that they were shutting down on eighty three percent of the US AID program. So she's a saying, oh, nothing to see here, this is just what happens. But as I've told you countless times us AID is a front for the CIA. This would be so many dirty secrets being.
Shredded by right now.
And while some people found that announcement by the White House reassuring, I'm just like, no, not at all. What do you want to hide because it's clearly too dirty to air in the public light of day.
I don't know. I'm on the fence with this one. Maybe or maybe when you shut down an apartment, you do have a lot of files that have got personal and private information.
Okay, your knowledge of CIA history is obviously pretty genuinely, I have read so many books about ciaos throughout the.
Worst of the worst, Operation mocking Bird, paper Clip, mk Ultra, the fact that this thing was functioning as a stronghold of ciaops throughout the world. I'm telling you now the papers that are being shredded so that things that would forever ruin the public's trust in such departments will be lost to history forever.
If that were true, would it not be in the interests of the Trump administration to keep those and expose them? Isn't that the whole modus operandi in the boast of the Trump.
Administer five not at all because they were in power just four years ago, So how many of these things were they aware of then and did Actually, they.
Weren't aware of any of these things then, which is why they've taken such strong action.
Now, these projects would have been long running, they would have been.
Well aware of them.
And then there's the whole This continuing resolution that's just past the House is very, very interesting because the Trump administration has basically just voted to continue the spending levels until September, continue the exact same spending levels of the Biden administration. So a lot of people have a lot of questions right now when you've got USAID papers being shredded and the White House is telling you are nothing to see here.
That's fine.
The place was so corrupt.
We've shut down eighty three percent of the programs, but all the shredding that's happening, nothing to see here. Meanwhile, this massive continuing resolution has been passed by the House and it will pass Congress because obviously the Republicans have the majority in both houses. People are saying, hang on a minute, and also, where are the JFK files, Where
are the Epstein files? It is early days, so I'm not putting a stop gap, yere, But I am saying a lot of people are already getting a little bit antsy about especially this continue resolution, saying, well, all this stuff that you've been saying about Doge and all this money that we're getting back because we've shut down all this stuff, is that just smoking mirrors now, because you've just admitted that until September of this year, you're going
to be keeping up the same spending levels. So there's a lot of interesting questions to ask right now.
We'll be watching that space. We can go to a break when we come back. Great story in the front page of tomorrow's Career Mail, the man responsible for disaster recovery went on holidays right as Cyclone Alfred was hitting the Queensland coast. All of that more in just a moment. Welcome back. Well, Queenslanders are pretty much over the disaster of the cyclone. But there's another disaster brewing, Liz, this time for the guy who was in charge of the recovery.
This guy cannot keep his job after this.
Surely.
The front page of the Korea Mail reads recovery boss flew out as Alfred hit. Holiday is a disaster. The man overseeing Queensland's disaster response and recovery headed off on a holiday as tropical Cyclone Alfred smashed southeast Queensland. The Inspector General of Emergency Management Alistair Dawson received approval from Police and Emergency Services Minister Dan Perty to take leave from last Sunday as one hundred kilometer per hour winds
felled trees and flash flouting worsened across the region. The article goes on to say mister Dawson was appointed to the three hundred and fifty six thousand dollars a year roll by Palichet back in twenty twenty. Sources told The Courier now mister Dawson had left the country, but his office refused to reveal his whereabouts and said he was
on approved leave so wasn't even elsewhere in Australia. This guy is in some go go for cabana, like I don't know, bringing a feed up on a beach, smoking Turbans cigars in the baha.
Maybe he went to Hawaii, but like you've got one job, you are employed really on three hundred and fifty six k to be the bloke who oversees natural disaster fund relief, recovery, et cetera. And you know, natural disasters don't happen that often. You know, every now and again they come through, and then when what happens, you're not there.
Wait, cut him some slack, right, If his job is disaster recovery, he doesn't have to be back until it's over because it's oh, oh, I see, you can miss the actual event.
Right.
And on a second point, if mister Dawson is going to lose his job over this, surely mister Purdy should lose his job because Perdy is the one who approved the leave. It's one.
When did he approve it? He may not have known about the cyclone at all. This could have been three months in advance.
Well, then you remove approval, You say, dude, have you seen the weather?
Maybe so, but if you're on three hundred and fifty six K, you'd think you'd have the foresight to go, hmm, maybe not a good look while people are having their houses flooded and rooted, that I bugger off overseas when it is my job to be dealing with all of this.
It's not a good look. Clearly they were hoping no one would find out.
Yeah, well they did read the room, buddy. This is what goes on with public servants because they think they are above you, as do many politicians. Let's go to the front of the US tomorrow, where it says misleader of the free world. Australia is bracing for a second round of Donald Trump's punishing tariffs, as Anthony Alberizi and his minister's slammed the unjustified duties on steel and aluminum
and accused the US President of misleading the government. Mister Trump swept aside the nation's free trade agreement in seventy four year alliance to impose the twenty five percent tariffs, paving the way to further hits to key industrial sectors in the next phase of his global trade war. He stopped taking the Prime Minister's calls. It would seem as well, look, you know, I understand why from our perspective, we would
be upset about this. But you also have to consider that Trump was elected on an America First model, and so he wants to put his country first, and so he slapped tariffs on everyone. So you know, it's not like he's just coming after us. He has done it to everyone because his aim is to build up industry in the United States. I do wonder, though, if we acceded to his request that we increased military funding to three percent of GDP, would this tariff maybe go away.
The story here for me is not the tariffs, though no doubt the tariffs will hurt people here in Australia. But the story really is the relationship between the Albanezy government and the Trump administration. And by relationship, it seems there is no relationship. Kevin Rudd clearly is not on the nose with Trump. Albaneze he can't get Trump to take a phone call. The Trade Minister Don Farrell, despite saying he would go to America with his contemporary there,
ended up not going to the United States. There doesn't seem to be any relationship at all, which is unbelievable when you consider the US as our major ally, particularly in defense.
Indeed, another story on the front of yours tomorrow ALP's sixteen billion dollar study in winning votes. If anyone knows how to do it will.
Be the Labor Party.
Two thirds of the sixteen billion dollars in student debt cuts promised by the Albanezi government will likely go to people in seats held by Labor, the Greens and Teel Independence, leading to accusations the promised twenty percent reduction is obviously designed to win votes. Well, that does seem pretty obvious, doesn't it. I mean, is there anything a government does that isn't designed to win votes? Of course, and to vote grab as if we need it to be told that.
Yeah, I'm absolutely shocked by this revelation. Who knew? Of course the Labor government knew exactly what they were doing when they announced this policy. And of course students desperately need this relief so desperately that Labor will introduce it, but only if they win the election.
Of course, let's take a good policy like Marbo, says another story on the front of the Odds landmark high Court decision finds native title is property. The Albanezi government is bracing for a nationwide wave of compensation battles with Aboriginal groups after the High Court rule native title is property are finding predicted to be as significant as the Marbo and with judgments that led to the modern era
of land use agreements with traditional owners. Basically, the case has found that where the government interfered with land in the form of mining, etc. Where freehold is that or native title is then extinguished because that the land has been used, that they now owe compensation to land that has been now called native title. It would open the gates surely to billions and billions and billions and billions.
Of dollars worth of claims.
Endless, utterly endless. When you look at this map of native title across Australia, if that it's now property depending on certain boxes must be ticked to qualify. I mean this article is talking about as far back as nineteen sixty eight regarding a box site mine. I mean, this would open up an endless, endless amount of court cases tying up the courts, and you'd think with this precedent they'd just be laughing all the way to the bank. Whoever wants to mount the rest of the claims.
Yep, absolutely, we're going to go to a break when we come back, and you spot to be introduced in Melbourne where competitors compete to see who's the best at doing absolutely nothing that's coming up in this tonight. If you're holding a conference on AI and needed a guest speaker, is who do you reckon? You would definitely not have as a guest speaker.
Somebody thought it was a very good idea to get Kamala Harris to attend and address the crowd of what you can only imagine is sweet brainiacs, the tech guys, the geeks, the nerds that run everything behind the scenes. And he's just a little snippet of her address to these incredibly smart people.
So we did door Dash because I wanted Doritos, and it was they were about the red carpet.
Part was a bombster and.
Nobody wanted to leave to go to the grocery store.
So it was door.
Dash And I'm thinking about this about so I was willing to give up whatever might be the trackings of Kamala Harris's particular fondness for nacho cheese Doritos for the sake of getting a big bag of Dorito's. As I watched the Oscars.
The self immolation with this one is just astounding.
It never stops. She's talking about innovation. Supposedly door dash was created twelve years and that's her example of innovation is that she ordered Dorito's on door Dash. I think she ordered something other than Dorito's, and it may be in liquid.
For well, I certainly think that America dodged a bullet. That's the takeaway from that. Hey, not me, not Caleb. I'm not sure about you, Liz, but I'm sure there would be viewers watching who find test cricket incredibly boring. But compared to test cricket, I'll tell you what, there's something in much more boring. If you want boring sport, it's called space out and it's being introduced at a
festival in Melbourne in June. The idea is ninety minutes and contestants have to challenge one another to see who can do the most nothing the best and so contestants sit for an hour and a half. They're not allowed to smile, laugh, speak, check their phones, or fall asleep, and they're judged on who has the most stable heart rate and crowd favorite. This sport is being introduced to Melbourne in June. Who can do the best nothing for
the longest? I reckon there'd be some city cow exsellers who might do very very well in that competition.
Politicians. Isn't it just called meditation? Like when did it becomings? And they just want meditation?
So nice?
What do you get?
I've got no idea, what do you get more done in your record for doing nothing. That's it from us stick Around. Coming up is The Reader Penny Show. Good Night,