General Man, Welcome to the late play.
Well good evening, Thanks for joining us.
I'm James Macpherson, with Liz Storra and Caleb Bond coming up tonight.
The Dublin Zoo have a unique.
Strategy to teach an orangutang how to care for its young.
We'll talk about that later.
Plus when we look at the papers, the latest nap plan results are out bad news for parents and even worse news for students. Plus the Victorian government, Renegg's on a plan to raise the age of criminal responsibility. We get to all of that when we look at tomorrow's papers. But first, the government unveiled a new digital ID today that no one is asking for and that promises to help us do what we're already doing without government interference.
The government is calling it the Trust Exchange, which sounds a little or wellyan when the government asks you to trust them and wheels out bill shorten of all people to do the asking, well, that should be a big red.
Text is something brand new and world leading. It is not a wallet, nor an app nor ID, but rather it is a secure means by which to exchange with a third party who you are, your identity and what you can do your Credentials Service. Australia is partnering with other government systems to develop texts to give Australians the ability to verify their identity and credentials based on official information already held by the Australian government.
So the idea is you go to a club or a hotel and scan a QR code that connects your information on you GOV with the third party's computer system verifying your ID, or you could just you know, pull out your driver's license. The government's spending eleven point four million dollars and collaborating with that trusted partner Google because
we know they're trustworthy to develop the Trust Exchange. Now this comes as lab prepares to officially launch its digital ID on Decet first, with Katie Gallagher today assuring Australians were still bloodied and bruised by what governments did to them during the pandemic, that we can trust the government.
We have been very clear.
It is a voluntary system, it is a safe system, it is a secure system, and it's simply a means of verifying yourself in a way that gives you control of your own documentation.
Voluntary, safe and secure lizid trust the government with all of your information.
Never.
I mean, this is truly a backflip from the usual motors upperande of the government.
Right. So normally with.
Every policy, with every new law that they come up with, the strategy is first, we've got to make the people want it, right, so we talk about whatever the case may be, so that the people are crying out for a solution, and then we the government say, oh, that's so terrific. Is a solution that I prepared earlier and always wanted to roll out. But now that the government and the media has done a number on you, the public, and you're crying out for it, now we look like
the saviors. Every single time you have a measure like this which increases people's reliance on the government while increasing the government's power over the people.
That right there is the access of evil. That is where you go no bad policy.
We do not want it. And as much as they keep saying, oh, it's totally opt in, if you don't want it, you.
Know, vote with your feet, I hope we do Australia.
I hope this ends up being an absolute burning dumpster fire of an idea. I hope they waste every single million that they spend on it because the takeup is so low. But the plan seems to be here that the corporates will then take this on.
So Bill Shorten.
Talked about at the press conference today. Telstra and Google have welcomed the opportunity. Tell you know the one that got hacked just like five minutes ago, and hundreds, hundreds and hundreds it was thousands and thousands actually of their customers had their data. It was a massive breach and everyone was up and arms about it.
So again to.
Us the experts, I'm sure it'll go don't find this time. But they're trying to convince us now that oh it's so onerous producing your license, isn't it. Don't you hate traveling with a passport? What a peski passport?
These things aren't onerous. Nobody has asked the government for this.
So instead of convincing the people like they normally do, all there's a massive problem and we need to fix it, and the people cry out for it, and then.
They say, oh, oh, here we go, they're.
Instead just introducing this measure and everyone's sat there going, hang on a minute, we don't want this. We already know that if the government wanted to access a lot of information on us, they can at the click of a button. They've got your passport, they've got your driver's license, they've got you jaywalking three years ago.
At the intersection of this and that. But what this is going to do is.
Usher in an autocratic, technocratic type government. Where As we've heard Edward Snowden and so many other whistleblowers over the years talk about this is talking about getting all your information in one spot them, or you use that digital ID, They've got everything on you with just using whatever number you're given as a digital ID.
And this is truly.
Nefarious at a time when we're seeing people in the UK or a three thousand of them just last year arrested for a post that they've made on Facebook. So keep in mind their capacity now to store your data, collect everything on you, how you're spending your money, what you're spending your money on, your life location, when you're spending that money. Therefore, you've got your values already spelled out. The power this gives them to control you as an individual is unprecedented.
No government should have this much control.
I want to say when Shorten was talking about we're going to develop techs. My first thought was, well, the Adelaide Crow's great Taylor Walker has already scored six hundred and thirty nine goals for the Crows. We don't need to develop him at all. You've woken up finally shortened. He's a Melbourne man. I'm sure he understands he's AFL. But it's interesting here because it does potentially fix one problem.
And that one problem is that if you go to a club or something right and you have to give your license over in order to enter it, you've got private companies that you know, we don't know what sort of rules and regulations they have around collecting that personal information, so that there's a problem in the system where that could be hacked, stolen, et cetera. And so what they're saying is this is a if you are code that you'll be able to use that verifies your identity without
necessarily giving your identity to that business, et cetera. Fine, I understand that, but what that means is then centralizing all of that data in one place with the government. So sure, you might be concerned that the club that you've given a copy of your license to could be hacked or someone at that club could go through that data and steal it and use it for a nefarious purpose.
But you then set up a system that basically says to anyone, well, if you want shed loads of data and personal information, this is the one place to go and steal it from. And it opens up the possibility that the government is then tracking where you are going, because if you are using a government system to prove your identity at a club or a pub, or an airport.
Or whatever it might be.
If you're going for a rental and you need to prove your identity to a real estate agency, etc. The government could then potentially track every place where.
You have used that.
So we go back to COVID, where we had QR codes that we were cemant to use I use the word meant advisedly there to check into certain venues because they were doing contact tracing, et cetera. And we were told, don't worry, that's all water tight, that data is not going to be used by police or anything. But we saw in WA that that check in data was accessed by police in some cases for criminal cases that were as minor as you know, a scuffle on a party
strip on a Saturday Night. Like, we're not talking about murder and rape. We're talking about.
Pretty low level crimes.
That the Western Australian Police were accessing that data to make their job easier. And so if you're handing it, yeah, so if you're using that government system, it opens up the possibility that those cookies are being kept and that a law enforcement agency or another government agency may want to use that for its owner at another time. So, yes, you plug the one hole of the danger of personal
information being stolen by a third party. But you've then concentrated even more personal data with an even bigger.
Entity, the entity that rules your entire life.
And we're say, yes, that's going to solve the problems of personal privacy. I don't think so.
And of course you've got the development of a digital idea at the same time that they're working on a central bank digital currency.
A blind Freddie can see.
You put those two things together and you get a situation where literally you are at the mercy of a bureaucratic whim who can cut you off immediately from all sorts of things, including your ability to spend or to use carbon. And we've already seen in justin Trudeau's Canada that they just shut down or froze people's bank accounts
because they protested against government policies. So it's inch by inch, little by little, but there's enough people ringing alarm bells, and yet the government just keep pushing through.
And the original.
Legislation for the digital ID was rushed through the Senate with barely an opportunity for anyone to even speak to it, which should be another red flag that when the government won't allow any debate on an issue, they know that it's something that should raise objection.
And it's the same as last week we're talking about a story.
It was the International Airport at Abu Dhabi where they're going to introduce facial recognition that means you can move through the entire airport, through security, through your gate, etc. Without ever having to produce your passport or your visa documents, etc. Because all of that will already be collated and they'll be able to tell who you are by using a camera that scans your face and then suddenly has all
of this information in front of you. And on the face of it, a lot of people will go that makes my life easier, and so they buy into that because it feels like it's a more convenient system. But every time you sell off a little bit of convenience, you're selling someone else your data. And as we always say, if the product is free, you are the product. You are the thing they are tracking because your data is
so damn valuable. And while we're talking about craziness from government, let's go to local government.
In Queensland. The Mayor Tom.
Tate, the Mayor of the Gold Coast, that is Tom Tate, has been investigated by the Office of the Independent Assessor, which is sort of a governing body that looks over and assesses misbehavior within councils in Queensland, and has found that mister Tate committed misconduct. He was discriminatory by describing a new counselor as a ranger.
Can you believe it?
It's you can't call someone a ranger anymore. Now. All of this started from a post that was put online by John Paul Langbrook, who is an MP on the Sunshine Coast. He's a mate of this new councilor, Joe Wilkinson, and he was just pointing out that another ranger has been elected to the Gold Coast Council because he replaced another ranger who was the former councilor for that board, and then Tom Tait, the mayor, jumped on board and said, oh yeah, another ranger, so.
And so so.
He was then questioned about this at a press conference, where he again used the offending word ranger.
Oh I don't know as a wranger, so what can I say? It doesn't matter diversity. Bob Lacastro ran. Bob Lacaster's opposition ran on diversity. In Bob's words, he was on stage, he goes diversity. I don't know if anyone noticed that he is black. So we've got diversity.
Here, you know.
I think Owen Jones, retired counselor, he was a ranger. You lose one rang again another ranger? What the hell? That's what the Gold Coast all about.
Seriously, who could take issue with that? Lose one ranger, get another ranger.
I thought it was fine.
And by the way, Tom Tator's evasion descends himself, so surely he has a free bass to say whatever the hell he likes about anyone. He certainly would have faced a lot more discrimination and racism in his life, particularly as a child growing up in Australia. You can imagine the slurs that would have been thrown at him. But he calls someone a ranger and the Office of the Independent Assessor has gone after him. They've now referred it
to the Council and suggested that they discipline him. He has said that he will fight any action they try to take. And it's worth noting that the councilor Joe Wilkinson himself has said that he is a quote unquote proud ranger. He was never contacted by the Office of the Independent Assessor about this complaint. It was an anonymous complaint that someone else put in saying that the use
of ranger is comparing redheaded people to a ranger. Tang's And we know the situation where a pub investigatory body in Queensland has spent public money looking into a mayor because he called someone a ranger and the ranger in question wasn't even offended.
Do me a favor. This is the culture now.
The person who's supposed to be offended doesn't even need to be offended. In fact, he wasn't even asked about it. But somebody else is up in arms about it, and once their day in court and we're now.
Honestly, if I was a rate payer in the Gold Coast, I would be up in arms about this too.
What kind of nonsense are you spending our dollars on? Thank you very much during acrost of living crisis. No less, we're supposed to be concerned about this.
I'd love to.
Hear from a coalition of rangers say, is this offensive? Do you find this offensive? I personally adore rangers. I literally cannot see a natural ranger in public without walking up to them and being like, you are a god among men. Sixteen year old finishing his slurpy at Machers with his mates being like thanks.
Because I just think it's incredible.
You're red headed mail and your fancy Liz storer.
See this brilliant color of hair, and they're just like represent you can't miss them. I would be proud as heck to be a ranger. And that's exactly what the counselor in question has said.
The big question for me on this story is are you still haing to call people like a copper top?
Is that okay?
Wellinger?
The Office of Independent Assessor found that they found four things. Number One, ranger means a ranger team, so effectively, you're calling someone a monkey.
I literally never put that together until tonight.
Thank god we have the Office of Independent Assessor to make such decisions. Second, they found that the term ranger is associated with discriminatory feelings, so now they're ruling on the feelings of an anonymous person.
Who we don't even know. If they were present when this was made, they certainly weren't offended.
Third, they found that the use of the word in this context was not funny. So now the Independent Assessor are ruling on what is funny and what is not without even asking the person who was the subject of the word. So the other funny thing about this is the Independent Assessor found that in twenty twenty one. So they went back three years and found Tom Tait has previous form because three years ago he made a joke about Chinese people, saying you wouldn't want a cat near
them because Chinese people might cats. He apologized for that, said it was inappropriate, but the Office of Independent Assessor said, ah, you've got form. You've been saying naughty things previously got through.
His Asian man who made an Asian joke.
But the fact that you said something three years ago or not influenced the independent assessor's decision.
He doesn't even have a digital ida yet, and they're able to be like, there's that thing that he posted three years ago.
I mean, this is just utterly this is the laughing stock.
This is absolutely everyone in government at every level, state, local, and federal, should just be like, can you not do these things? Because it just makes us look more of a joke than we already do.
The person who made the complaint should be charged with being a public nuisance and you should not be allowed to make anonymous complaints, especially like that about public officials, because essentially you put them through I don't know how many well, this complaint was made in April the press conference, so presumably it's been months that Tom Tait, who's supposed to be running one of the largest cities in the country, our tourist capital, he's been dealing with this rubbish. God
knows how much money's been spent on it. Find the anonymous complainte and send them the invoice.
You can't even call a ranger a ranger anymore. I mean, look, this is you're if you're the complainant and you're watching something for your ranger Ranger, Ranger, Ranger, Ranger, Ranger, right the way.
There's no way the complainant watches sky. Let's be honest, if they were a skywatcher, they'd have far better things to do with their time.
To the US now, where Elon Musk has.
Had an interview with Donald Trump on his platform X. This was literally a live phone conversation that everybody in the world got to listen into.
But it was a bit late going to air on.
X because they had a massive cyber attack against their servers. Someone didn't want this conversation going live. Here's Elon Musk explaining at the very beginning of the call why it was a bit late.
Sorry, guys, We unfortunately had a massive distributed nail service attack against our servers and saturated all of our deadlines. As this massive attack illustrates a lot of opposition to people just hearing what President Trump has to say.
The combined views and subsequent conversations following that phone conversation that everyone could listen into already has over one billion impressions on X, far reaching reach that obviously someone didn't want these guys to have. Here's a reporter prior to this conversation asking out the White House Press secretary.
This conversation's going to take place.
We're worried about misinformation, disinformation by two of the most powerful men on earth.
What are you guys going to do about it? Are you going to go? Are you going to do anything about this?
Elon Musk is slated to interview Donald Trump tomorrow tonight on X. I don't know if the President's going today. Feel free to say if he is or not. But I think that misinformation on Twitter is not just a campaign issue, It's an America issue. What role does the White House or the President have and sort of stopping that, or stopping the spread of that, or sort of intervening in that.
You've heard us talk about this many times from here about the responsibilities that social media platforms have.
How scared are these people of a simple conversation between two men that we can all listen into. I mean, do me a favor. European Commissioner Terry Bretton literally took to X prior to the conversation to warn everyone. He said, with great audience comes greater responsibility, as there is a risk of amplification of potentially harmful content in connection with
events with a major audience around the world. I sent this letter to Elon Musk and there was this letter the size of a Gutenberg Bible, expressing his concerns over what may or may not be discussed during this conversation. Elon Musk quickly treated this meme from Tropic Thunder. He said, this is what I really wanted to say. Back to Terry Breton. You can read that for yourself. So Elon Musk obviously is not taking any of this nonsense, and
thank goodness, these conversations are taking place. The reason why Elon Musk wanted to have this conversation is he said, you know, in all these interviews that people see with Trump, and they're normally quite hostile interviews, you're not seeing the real person. And given to me, he's a real person that I have conversations with, not every day, but by the bye, I want them to see that kind of Trump. And how just talking for a couple of hours, which they did,
you see a different side of someone. And they talked about a plethora of different of issues plaguing not just America but the world. It was incredibly entertaining. Who wouldn't want to be across that? And yet somebody, a great many somebodies really wanted to shut this down because dialogue is the enemy.
If you're a lefty, you don't want dialogue.
That's why deplatforming and cancel culture is their motto, because they just can't stand for people to actually come across as all actually quite reasonable.
The crazy thing about this is we've been repeatedly told now for years that Donald Trump is the threat to democracy, and you've got White House reporters saying, is the Biden administration going to shut down the Republican nominee so that nobody can hear him? And yet Trump, of course is
the danger to democracy? And what about election interference when you've got the European Commissioner warning Elon Musk, We're going to be listening to what the Republican nominee says and will take action against you if you don't stop him from spreading disinformation.
But I agree with you. It was nice to sit.
And just hear a long conversation. And it was a I guess, a soft ball interview. It was a bit of a mutual admiration society a conversation.
It was an interview.
They were chatting.
Yeah, and the other thing it highlighted is that while Kamala Harris hides away from the media and won't do any interviews, Donald Trump's willing to sit there in front of the entire world for two hours and free lance
on whatever they want to talk about. My favorite part was at the beginning Caleb, where Elon Musk is having a major fanboy moment and he's talking about how he decided to endorse Donald Trump after he saw his courage at the assassination attempt where Trump, having been shot in the air, stood to his feet and raised his fist, and Elon Musk is saying, I.
Was so inspired. How was it for you? And Donald Trump goes, well, it wasn't pleasant.
And this is what they're really worried about, is humanizing Donald Trump.
And we've played some clips.
Recently of a pro golfer who went out and played around with him, and they filmed some clips of him on the golf course. And it's seeing Trump away from the rallies and away from the political campaigning and being himself that they are scared of because people might look and go, oh, actually, Donald Trump's not that bad of a guy after all, And.
Certainly here in Australia.
I don't know whether it's the same case in the US, but certainly here in Australia we have a tendency to look up to leaders who we can find relatable in some sort of way.
It's why Bob.
Hawke was so successful, because you could see a bit of yourself in him. And what they're worried is that people will look at Trump and go, actually, he's not the megalomaniac that we've been told that he is. He's relatable, he's a human at he can have a good conversation and a laugh on whatever, and that they'll go, well, actually, maybe I am willing to give him a go. Find it so absurd that we talk about misinformation or disinformation
being spreading. For heaven's sake, if they're going to start going after politicians for spreading misinformation or disinformation, there won't be a single politician.
Left in the world.
But they will stop at nothing to try and to stop Trump from having these opportunities. And this is what they have been doing for the better part of a year, all those stupid law fare cases, the trumped up stuff about the hash money trial, on and on it goes, right, and I don't know why they keep doing this kind of stuff in this case and alleged de dos attack
to try and stop the interview from going ahead. Why they keep doing this stuff because every time someone tries to stop Donald Trump from either running or having his say, it works in his favor because people look at it and go, well, if they don't want me to hear from him, then why don't they want.
Me to hear from him.
They keep shooting themselves in the foot with this kind of attack.
It makes no sense.
My other favorite part of the interview where he's talking about meeting with Vladimir Putin and Trump warns Putin he must not invade a Ukraine and or else Trump will you know Rick Havoc? And Putin says no way, and Trump says way way, which is a high level diplomacy right there. Trump also spoke about a channel to the bit of Ronald Reagan, actually promising that if he's reelected, he will create an iron dome for the USA.
One of the things we're going to do is we're going to build an iron dome over us.
You know, Israel has it.
We're going to have the best iron dome in the world.
We need it, and we're going to make it all in the United States.
What's interesting about that is that it was in nineteen eighty three that Ronald Reagan promised that he would build They called it star Wars. We will shoot incoming missiles down from out of space. Everybody mocked it, interestingly, including Joe Biden at the time, said it was a stupid idea. Thank god, the Israelis didn't listen to Joe Biden. They actually successfully built an iron dome. It's worked well for them, and so it's interesting that Trump brings that idea back
with everything that's happening in the world right now. Biden Israel, it's an interesting idea and one that I think people should support.
Why wouldn't you, Well, Israel has a land mass of just over twenty two thousand square kilometers. The US has a land mass of over nine point eight million square kilometers. I would love to And also the operation costs. The building costs are huge, but the operation costs of the iron dome, which obviously in Israel's case, is worth every
cent and then some are extortionate. For a single battery that powers the iron dome, you're talking about one hundred million dollars just in manufacturing costs, and for every missile that they fire, it's tens of thousands of dollars for all those incoming barrages that they get that the iron dome then fires up and kills them in mid air.
I love it.
It's the most sophisticated piece of this missile weaponry on the face of the earth.
Tats off to the Israelis. Who else could pull that off?
But I'm just not sure that this is fully ecosted or fully.
What are those things that Trump comes out with and you're just like, buddy, really, I'm not sure.
Well, Reagan came out with it.
You've got two TV stars who became presidents who both championing this idea.
I reckon it's interesting, it is fantastical.
Well, you know, good luck to him, is all I can say.
You should call it a nation building project. If you call something a nation.
Building project, then you can get away with basically anything right. Sticking in the US, Time magazine went to Kamala Harrison asked her for an interview for an upcoming profile, and Kamala Harris said no, which he said to basically anyone who's asked her for an interview. And I've been a journalist for most of my working life, and generally the rule has been that if if you ask someone for an interview and they say no, you blackball them because
they have something to hide. If you don't want to play the game with me, then why would I do anything to support you. But Time magazine nevertheless has come out with a gushing front page.
Take a look at this.
This is what they are putting out about Kamala even though she won't even cooperate with them as being described. And you can say, look at that image. They're oh, she looks like Barack Obama. She's about to sweep in and take over the US. I think the headline on the front of the magazines is it's her time. I mean, for Heaven's sake, you could not be more gushing, could you. And it's worth noting as well the comparison between Trump and Harris when they have put both of them on
the front page. Take a look at this side by side in you can see there what they are getting at. And this has been round criticized. As you can imagine, David Hogg, who's a gun control activist in the US, is no elections come down to vibes, and Carmala has got the vibes right now. And this is the point, this is what they are driving towards. We talked before
about humanizing Donald Trump. What they are trying to do here is humanize Kamala Harris in a certain way and lord her because anyone who's actually watched her recognizes that she's a bit loco.
But you know, if we build her up enough, if we.
Build her up, surely she'll be able to get over the line.
Others have carried on.
Joey Mannarino on Twitter said, here's the new cover of Time magazine. They worship a woman, as I said before, who refuses to even talk to them. Absolutely ridiculous and absurd.
And this is the thing.
I cannot think of any other politician, candidate, etc. Who could so roundly ignore the media and yet still get the complete support of the media. Generally, if you go for an interview with someone and they refuse, like it's full court press against them, You've given them the opportunity to have their say. They've refused to have their say, Well, we're coming for you now, but instead for Kamala it's a protection racket.
I remember many years ago, someone gave me a twelve month subscription to Time magazine, and I was so excited. These days you could not pay me to read Time Magazine, although because we were talking about it tonight, I.
Guess I was paid to read it, and I did.
So you don't have to a three thousand word essay which could basically be summarized as vibe, TikTok, and vibe. They described Kamala Harris's a cross between Beyonce and Obama, and they said, and I quote, she's pulled off the swiftest vibe shift in modern political history, because politics is all about vibe shifts. They said, she's dominated TikTok and she's campaigning in a fight for the future, without describing what that meant. But they did say also, she was
a quote Jedi master who's been underestimated. But when people underestimated her, they didn't count.
On get this Liz.
Her ability to create viral memes and to eye roll at Republican weirdows.
Wow.
They said.
She's been endorsed by celebrities such as Charlie XCX Who's that?
And Megan the Stallion.
I had to ask my nineteen year old boys who are these people? They also said a union leader has called her, quote a bad ass woman, which raging endorsement.
I didn't know. John Secret endorsed to Kamala has Let me.
Give you a few more highlights.
They said, elections come down to vibes, and Kamala has got the vibes right now.
And the Time magazine three thousand words.
It finished with a thirty nine year old woman interviewed to make the final comic. This is where they land right and they interview this woman, which is they found her. She was wearing a childless cat Ladies for Harris t shirt which qualifies her to speak, and she said, quote, the whole vibe has just shifted political I read it.
I think political analyst Rob Smith put it well when he said, in three weeks, the US regime propaganda media transformed Kamala Harris from a national embarrassment to an iconic and transformational politician while not even pretending to know or care what she believes.
Absolutely incredible.
The White House Press Secretary asked by a reporter to just name some of Kamala Harris's achievements.
Do you think the Press secretary could do it?
What does the President see as the vice president's biggest.
Achievement during their time in pat office together.
So look, because they've been partners, those achievements have been done. Certainly, those historic unpresident achievement have been done together. I'll say this, the President believes in the vice president leadership, her temperament, her experience, and he is and he has said this himself. One of the proudest decisions that he made in twenty twenty was selecting her as vice because he believed that she can go on day one and you've seen that. You've seen them do that together on day one of
this administration. That doesn't change. I'm not going to parse out anything from here.
Of course, she couldn't name any good yea because there are none. Kamala Harris has been touted as the most useless VP in the world in the history of American politics.
She's wildly unpopular. But it just goes to show.
Once the media machine kicks in, everyone just gets on board.
That's what they do best.
And haven't they done a number on a lot of people in America. But to a very unusual staous We've now got our former Prime Minister Paul Keating in a stoush with Speaker of the House Nancy.
Polosi over what you ask. Well, he had this to.
Say regarding Taiwan the other day, the A B. C. You can probably pick up on where he put a foot wrong.
What this is.
All about is the Chinese laying claim to Taiwan, and the Americans are going to say, no, no, we're going to keep these taib when these people are protected even though they've got they're sitting on Chinese real estate. The Chinese real estate is part.
Of China, is part of Chinese.
Say so, Taiwan is not a democracy standing alone. No, No, Well, Nancy Pelosi wasn't taking a.
Bit of it.
That's ridiculous. It is not Chinese real estate, and he should know that Taiwan is Taiwan and it's of the people of Taiwan who have a democracy there. I think that was a stupid statement with or I have no idea about Keating, but I think it was a stupid statement to make. And I don't know what his connection is to China that he would say such a thing, but it is really not in the security interest of the Asian Pacific region. For people to talk that.
Way must be a very cold day in Hell.
We're agreeing with Nancy Pelosi.
Somebody helped me out, but Paul Keating wasn't taking her rebuke sitting down. He then puts out a statement saying.
This from the former leader of the US House of Representatives, who went in a regulously indulgent visit to Taiwan in twenty two, very nearly brought the United States and China to a military confrontation for the first time since the Second World War.
Both our countries believe it is in no one's interest for Taiwan to be subject of some sort of violent takeover.
That said, I make this clear in public comment.
I represent the national interests of Australia, not the national interests of the US, nor indeed the interests of Taiwan.
Are you sure you're not talking.
About representing the national interests of China?
Wells statements, Sir Pelosi says the you know, I don't know what connection that Keating might have to China that would lead him to make these comments. He's he's spent thirteen years on the China Development Bank, which is wholly owned by the CCP, so you know, maybe he did have a connection to China that would lead him to make these comments, and the fact that he continues to make these comments even he's not on the payroll anymore, but he continues to shill for China. He says, it's
in the interests of Australia. Mate, have you not realized that we're in the Pacific region and that if China advances on Taiwan, we are going to be dragged into war and it emboldens China to come for other Pacific nations that surround us. The bloke's gone mad.
I just thought in a fight between Paul Keating and Nancy Pelosi, it's a shame that there has to be a winner.
So we're going to go to a break.
When we come back, we look at what's making news in tomorrow's papers, including bad news for parents the nap Plan results.
Talk about that in the moment. Welcome back.
Let's take a look at what's making news in tomorrow's papers. Will start with the latest nap Plan results that are being reported across most of tomorrow's papers. The Adelaide Advertiser has a great headline nap Plan fail upper case commas bamboos or kids can't use grammar reads The headline students reading skills have gone backwards, with Napplan testing showing they are also struggling with basic grammar such as the proper use of commas and capital letters. The results don't make
for good reading. Four hundred thousand children, according to the latest results in grades three, five, seven, and nine need catch up tutoring, with a third of them classified as developing, which is a nice way of saying they haven't yet reached minimum standards, So a third of children in grades three, five, seven, and nine. The results find that boys are twice as likely as girls to start high school with being functionally illiterate,
and ninety percent of Indigenous kids. Here's the key living in remote communities. So it's not ninety percent of indigenous kids, but those in remote communities failed to reach minimum standards. So Jason Clair, the Education Minister, is going to use this as a stick to demand that schools, in return for funding, get back to teaching phonics, get back to having regular tests for maths, which might be a good idea, and what they're calling results based education making idea is revelatory.
This reminded me of part of the conversation that Donald Trump had with Elon Musk was regarding education, and he was laying into the fact that they're ranked.
Thirty ninth in the world.
This is the United States of America, ranked thirty ninth in the world, and they spend more per student than any country in the world. And I think we have a similar situation and here in Australia, because we've never spent more on education than we do today. We have thrown more and more money on it year in year out because the results just.
Keep getting worse and worse.
We've talked about the fact that kids leaving year twelve have not got proper sweat, spelling or grammar. They're still all thumbs when it comes to the basics. We keep throwing more money at it. Nothing seems to be changing. And Trump was talking about the fact that he wants to give education back to the States, so then it would create more of a competition between the states who's educating their children better.
When we talk about this stuff, we are.
Literally talking about the future of our country. These kids are our future leaders and they're not being educated properly. And I think it's not just simple things like going back to phonetics.
Yes, thank you very much.
That is very necessary, but education across the board has gone downhill year in and year out. Aren't being educated properly. Parents are putting their trust in the state, and the state just keeps failing.
There's no funding issue. There is a curriculum and mechanics issue, a teaching issue, at content issue, and for years and years, at the behest of the AEU, the Teachers' Union, we've thrown more and more money at it, and all you end up with is a more expensive, failing system.
It's the same system we had before.
It just costs a lot more than it used to cost. And I mean, you've got kids now at school, young kids who can't read and write, but they can tell you what a welcome to country is and that they live on stolen land, like they're learning this stuff before they learn the basics of reading and write and adding up and multiplication, etc. And all of this business about them not knowing how to use correct grammar and they don't get capital letters and apostrophes, etc. It's because of.
This online trend.
And I don't know some of you may have seen it online. I don't know why it started or where it came from, but it's a real thing. Online now to not use capital letters at the beginning of a sentence. There are no proper nouns. You don't use apostrophes, commas, etc. It's all just sort of some blomonge of language. Which
is the greatest argument. Get your kids off the internet, take the devices away, put a book in front of them, send them out to play with their friends and their brothers and sisters and learn things in real life instead of relying on online all the time. It is poisoning
the minds of these children. And by the way, if you try to teach your kid to read and write before they go to school and they rock up to school with some ability, the teachers get shirty about it because they've got kids that can't that they then need to teach, and they also have to deal with these kids that also have ability already. The whole thing is obsud.
That was the issue that we had.
We were homeschooled for three years because we were living in country Victoria, a little town called Kayabram shout Out. And when my mum decided we moved to Perth and mom decided I'll send them back to school. The school didn't know what to do with us because we were leagues ahead of the kids in our age group, especially when it came to English, not so much algebra.
That was on suit. But yeah, that's that's a real issue.
So you do the right things by your kids, say, you do have them reading books and so they learn where apostrophes go because books are well written, so they understand apostrophes here, commas there, this is what starts with a capital. And then they go to school and the teachers are like, well, don't have any time for you, guys, because I've got to spend it all on the ones.
That are way behind.
It's an unfair system. To the front page of.
The CANS Post.
Now team CANS thirty thousand dollars retreat councilors bond at luxury beaches resort. Get this, rape payers, rate payers have forked out thirty thousand dollars for CANS counselors to attend a two a team building event at a five star resort on the Northern Beaches where they developed a quote refreshed vision end quote.
For the region. Are you kidding me? I was a city counselor.
We never went on retreats, much less at five star resorts.
But maybe they would argue that they need to be refreshed in order to come up with a refreshed vision.
I thought the.
Election campaign, you give your vision, what do you need to then go.
Away at a taxpayer or rate payer expense.
There's nine councilors in can so at thirty grand. If my naplan tests served me well, it's about three three hundred dollars per counselor for a two day.
Retreat to be jolly refreshed, drifreshed. We're expecting an incredible vision for cans.
I dare say at that cost they were well refreshed because they consumed quite a few refreshments during that retreat. We must be up to reason seven, four hundred and eighty nine now to abolish councils. They keep mounting. Let's go to the Canberra Times. Where can you believe they're looking for Canberra's next top model. A modeling agency is searching for Andrew Barr lookalikes. He's the Chief Minister of the Act for what are assumed to be Liberal Party
attack ads before the Act election. The Chief Minister called the search weird and creepy. The modeling agency says we're doing an open casting for Andrew bar lookalike for a political ad campaign. If you know someone who looks similar, please have them email. Clear images, no sunglasses or hats to be worn now, James, I reckon, if you go to macas every day for the next five weeks, you may actually be able to size up for this job. If you just sort of beef up in the face
a bit. You've got the stubble, you've got the sort of thin hair on top. I reckon you could be perfect for this. I'm just trying to talk you up, Jane.
Next you be calling me a ranger and I'll be making an anonymous complaint to HR about you. What made me laugh about this is they've described the search as weird and creepy, channeling a little bit of the Kamala Harris campaign there into the actam have.
These guys not heard of? AI? You can get it for free. You can make Andrew ba say whatever you like. Just get a nap. It's on your phone.
Come on, all right, we're going to go to a break. When we come back.
The Dublin Zoo teaching its orangutang to look after its young, employing thirty women to help in the process.
We'll talk about that in a month. Welcome back, all right.
The Dublin Zoo lives they had a problem with their orangutang and came up with a unique way to solve the point.
They did so.
This particular orangutang had given birth to a baby in twenty nineteen and twenty twenty two, but both those infant orangutangs had died because she seemed to have a problem with her maternal instincts. So Dublin Zoo came up with a roster of thirty women thirty mothers to take turns coming into the zoo and showing this rangutang how to breastfeed.
Check it out.
Wep, No, we.
Don't have any footage of that.
Maybe it was a bit too you know, to late night TV to show you.
That steman from the zoo, said Madure, who is.
The orangutang was extremely interested in watching the women feed their babies through the glass, even mirroring some of their actions. Lizzie Reeves, who was a lactation specialist who got involved with this, was quoted as saying, a lot of women said, look, and orangutang doesn't wear a T shirt, So they whipped off their t shirts and their bras, so Madure could.
Literally see everything.
Norah Murphy, who was a first time mother taking part in this training exercise with Madure, said, you are going from being a mother yourself to trying to help a mother to be. You would be talking to her saying, look, this is what you are meant to do.
What our heartwarming.
Trying to show madere look when your baby rides, this is how it's done.
The bit of the story you left out, though, Liz, was that this orangutang was refusing to breastfeed because someone had called it a ranger and so it had made it to the public contempt. But before we leave you tonight, you might have heard that the Federal government's religious discrimination bill is dead, and that I say good. But the reason for it, apparently is social cohesion.
We provided.
Legislation to the coalition a long time ago, now months ago. One of the things I've spoken about is the need for greater social cohesion. And the last thing that Australia needs is any devisive debate relating to religion and people's faith. Agreement hasn't been able to be reached because there's been no suggestions from the Coalition of amendments.
And we know the Prime Minister does not like divisive debate because of course the Voice succeeded.
Didn't it.
Well, the last thing we need is a fight to protect the rights of Christians.
Gee, that would be a terrible debate.
By definition is divisive because you need to have two opinions like in order to That's the whole idea of the public square.
Exactly. That's it from us, stick around. Coming right up is the Reade pendenty Show.