Leens.
Welcome, wait to pay.
Well, good evening and thanks for joining us for a brand new year. On the Late Debate, I'm James Macpherson with Liz Storer and Caleb Bond. We've got a lot coming up tonight, including another day another seventy nine million dollars wasted in Victoria. Can you believe it? Of course you can. Turns out there sobering up centers are sitting idle. You'll be shocked at just how much taxpayers are paying per night, per person to use these things. No one's
using them. When we get to the papers, Anthony Alberanezi is not that excited about meeting Donald Trump. In fact, he hasn't even set a date for such a meeting yet. And the Canberra Times reports that more than one point five million Australians has delayed seeing a doctor because of rising prices. All of that when we get to tomorrow's news. But first, it's no surprise to anybody that Victorian police
are having trouble recruiting new officers. I mean, I can't imagine why who wouldn't want to be part of a highly politicized police force that goes around arresting pregnant women in their pajamas for naughty Facebook posts like they did during the pandemic, And who wouldn't want to spend their weekends babysitting pro Palestinian mobs as they marched through the CBD chanting support for terrorists. So recruitment is a bit of a problem in Victoria for the police, but it
turns out retention is just as much a problem. Numbers of Victorian police are moving north to Queensland, lured by massive incentives of cash and other riches to get them to work in the northern state. The Herald Sun reports that the ranks of Victorian police are under siege, with Queensland's force revealing that their twenty thousand dollars cash bonus and relocation incentives are successfully alluring recruits from down South.
New data released by Queensland Police Service revealed Victorians were among the most keen recruits after an advertising blitz for the Sunshine State hit Melbourne in October. Now all of this at a time when local police job vacancies continue to rise. There's one thousand and eighty six vacancies for police in Victoria. That's up from oney twenty six, just a couple of months prior, Liz. I know it's a tight job market, so obviously there's a lot of competition
for people in every industry, including police. But I'm surprised that you would need incentives to get out of Victoria. I mean, the economy is so bad. Plus the L ANDP government they're going tough on crime, you know, with their adult crime adult time. If you're a police officer frustrated by the lack of support you're getting in Victoria, with a bit of extra cash, it wouldn't take much to lure you north where you're going to get some support.
No.
Indeed, and this is the beauty of Federation, right. It sets up a competitive market for these essential services. So if you're a nurse, if you're a police officer, if you're any number, if you're an ambo, the list goes on. What a lot of people in the private sector don't appreciate is the public sector don't get to just put in for a pay rise. If you were a nurse in this state, that is your wage. If you're a
policeman in this state, that is your wage. So these states get to set up bidding wars basically because these are the essential services.
That all of us need. Who is giving me a better bang for my buck here?
And I'm not surprised to learn that Queensland is like, hey, yeah, no, we're doing very well out of Victoria.
Of course, this is.
Very concerning for Victorians who are seeing their own youth crime spree take a very stronghold in their streets as well as we all know at the moment, the Victorian police are lobbying the broke Victorian government for an extra dollar or two as well, because once the nurses got it,
it sets off a chain reaction. The police so far haven't had any success, which just adds to the perfect timing of the Queensland L and B government saying, Hey, while you're getting nowhere with your pay dispute with the Victorian government, how about you just move up here. We've got way better weather for one thing.
And you can hardly begrudge the coppers asking for a pay rise when they've seen the compatriots in other parts of the public service get a pay rise.
Exactly, how can you.
Justify a pay rise for nurses and then say that the coppers don't get one, all the ambos don't get one, all the fieries don't get one.
I mean, if you can to.
Open that floodgate, the water is going to flood through.
We did right, And they've been in.
Dispute, the coppers in Victoria with the government for some time. You've been down in Melbourne over Christmas period and you saw.
The writing on the police.
Police are graffitiing their own police vehicles protesting against the government.
I saw this during the Spring Carnival when I was down in Mellow. This is at the front of the Flemington Racecourse. You know, we'd like to buy donuts, but labor as peanuts. I thought that was hilarious. When you've got the public service standing up against a labor government, you know something is wrong.
To say it was they not least so in Melbourne. I saw ambulances had officers had graffited their own vehicles in protest that lack of government support the police. Of course, it doesn't say much for morale amongst your public servants and especially your frontline workers when they're using their government supplied vehicles to protest as their only form of protest against the government, who.
Were during the pandemic put on the front line and in many times used as shields when it came to protest, like literal police were used as shields between the people and the government. Essentially when people were trying to say.
We shield we had fired rubber bullets on an armed citizens.
Indeed, but they were requested to do that, but they were put forward during the pandemic. You've got to go and do the job for us that we as politicians certainly wouldn't do, whether it's walking around wards full of COVID patients, etcetera. Of course they want to pay raise
and then you talk about the health. I mean in New South Wales where we're sitting tonight, psychiatrists are threatening to walk off the job is only would you believe in New South Wales and the public mental health system, there are only three hundred psychiatrists right, so if you're trying to rock up to a hospital in Sydney tonight with some sort of mental health episode hoping to see
a psychiatrist, the chances are slim. Some two hundred of these psychs who are asking for it should be said, a twenty five percent pay rise, but they're paid less than the public psychiatrists in every other state, so again no wonder they're coming through and saying, well, everyone else is getting a pay rise, why can't we get one? Two thirds of them are now threatening to walk off the job. Now, the public will not.
Walk off the job to resign. They're not going on strike.
Because they can go to the private sector sent more, a lot more. Public mental health system in this country is in absolute disarray. And the stories that have been told to me by people who work within the system about the cases that rock up to public hospitals, and I'm talking the most extreme stuff that people have or have attempted to do to themselves, and they rock up to a public hospital and they cannot see a psychiatrist. I mean, what sort of health system do we have
in our first world country? If a we can't pay our doctors properly to do the job to the point where they will walk out, resign on mass, and then you don't have a public health So.
You've got two thirds of state psychiatrists threatening to quit completely.
Well, they have actually already resignation, walked.
Off on the twenty first Minister response have already resigned.
The Minister responsible is on holidays in Japan, so she's not present to sort this thing out, and public hospitals are putting extra security on because they don't have psychiatrists to deal with people, so all they're left with is guards to stand up the door. It's just an unbelievable place.
This is one hundred and ten percent the men's government's fault because this has been boiling for quite a while.
Now.
One hundred and forty psychiatrists here in New South Wales already resigned, so the build up has already been extreme.
That's an extortionate amount of.
Such a very essential service and also very limited. No state has psychiatrists coming out of their coming out of their ears, so this is a precious resource. And they after the one forty left, the two hundred or so remaining have been so flat strap. That is what has
driven them to this mass resignation. I'm good friends with someone who is a good friend of one of these sites here in New South Wales, and they were asking them, don't you feel responsible knowing that people could even die, they could take their lives because you guys have walked off the job, to which this person responded, the system is so broken already. We have decided as a collective, if that is what it takes to wake up this government to ensure that this just doesn't go on in perpetuity.
You've already got people not getting the care that they need. If that is what it takes, that is what we're going to do. Because a lot of people have just read this and said, oh, it's hard to feel sorry for someone who wants a twenty five percent pay rise.
They are paid very well.
Again, they're a precious, rare resources exactly, but what they were asking for didn't even put them on parity with the other states, where they can get well over more than one hundred k what they're currently earning here in New South Wales. So all they were really asking for was their dues. The Men's government has consistently proved to be completely tone deaf, and so you do wonder who among us would do any differently.
I think about these stories. I always think the government was going to spend twenty five million dollars on a flag pole on the Harbor Bridge. So we can't afford mental health, but a flagpole for the indigenous flag, Oh, we could do twenty five million.
Novel is just obscene, particularly in the middle of a mental health crisis that we know we're facing in this country that the government state governments can spend money on all of these ridiculous things and they can't stop up the money to have an operational public health system. And wonder our countries in tatus And when we're talking about the public surface, let's go down to my old state of South Australia, where, far from having troubles with being able to get public service.
They've got too many of them.
Now I suspect these people don't work in the health system. In fact, the people we're talking about here most of them worked, or I should say used to work in the Department of Transport and Infrastructure. They have in South Australia one hundred and eighteen of what they call x SESS public servants who sit supposedly in what is referred.
To as a waiting room.
Now these are public service and these numbers are basically doubled in the last four years, from fifty one in twenty twenty now to one hundred and eighteen in twenty twenty four. So these are people who've been put off work. I don't know their jobs have been made redundant, or their roles have changed, et cetera. But for whatever reason they can't actually be sacked from the public service. So they are told, you just go and wait for us to find a job for you to do. Meanwhile, you're
on full pay. I mean, how good.
Does this sound? Where do I get one of these jobs?
One hundred and eighteen of them, ninety four of them have not worked for at least nine months. I mean they've been at home on gardening leave. I don't know, they've been on caravan holidays.
Doing whatever they want all week nine months, at least on full pay.
Now, the average public service in South Australia gets ninety five and a half grand every year. Now, of course average includes teachers and nurses, so that drags the average down. So if we're to assume that you've made it to a level where you basically can't be sacked, you're probably well into the one hundred thousand dollars mark, and you're twe hundred and eighteen of them in South Australia alone.
And I'd hate to think about the rest of the country sitting around doing just waiting for a job.
And can you believe it?
The government said this is to quote the Advertiser. Government officials say excess employees who for a variety of reasons are surplus to requirements but still have a job undertake different tasks. This has previously included helping with the COVID nineteen response and minor maintenance worm.
So they're just sitting there waiting that life paying.
Barry, Barry, we need someone to put a liquor of paint on the front of.
The hospital today.
Reckon, you can do it. Seriously, I love their definition and excess employees. A staff member who is surfl surplus to requirements but still has a job, Well, how do you have a job before surplus to requirements? This would never be tolerated in the private segment. Mismanagement and these public service that's not a problem.
That's money.
That's may money, and that's the problem. They've never had their own business, so they've never run a business, and they've never had to spend their own money or put their own capital on the line, and so you end up with wastage like this.
And yet you should.
Be using the taxpayer dollar even more sacredly than you would if you were running your own business, because at least then you're only throwing around your own money and taking risks. This is everybody else's hard earned cash, and not just the disdain with which they tried to explain this away, like South Australians are just stupid flogged who are going to be like, oh yeah, so they're access to requirements.
But they've still got a job. They didn't explain it at all.
You've got one hundred and eighteen bums not in seats doing absolutely nothing on full pay. But everyone in every single state knows that the number of excess employees when it comes to government are a lot higher than that. I hate to be the bearer of bad news.
What am I saying?
I love it when it's about government, but this is we learned last year that one in five workers in Australia works for the government.
Now, if you're essential.
Services, if you're a nurse, if you're a policeman, if you're an ambo, if you're one of those guys, thank you.
You run the country. You are the backbone.
We literally wouldn't be alive without you. I'm talking about all the people who are sitting in these bloated government departments that we know are doing sweet jack all with their nine to five. It used to be that when someone was in the public service, we knew that they were actually paid slightly less than the average person in the private sector, but they also did slightly less as well.
Since when have we not heard someone say, oh, I work in the public sector and we all roll our eyes, right, But nowadays everyone knows these guys have never been paid more to do so little.
And the next time you hear the government boast about how they've got unemployment down. Yeah, they've got unemployment down by having a waiting room where they pay people. Try it around. But I'll tell you what the economic figures look fantastic.
It's the doll bear in mind, in mind they're on fifteen percent super public servants as well.
I don't know, or actually it's probably more.
Because it used to be when it was ten percent in the private sect, was fifteen and what's it now twelve odd percent in the privacy, So it's probably seventeen percent in the in the public sector now. But I used to sit we're talking about Adelaide. I used to go to a cafe regularly in the city in Adelaide, and without fail, every day at roughly three pm, there
was a public service building next door. This same group would always come in and they'd sit there for about forty five minutes and have a coffee in a chat.
I thought, hang on a minute.
So you've probably had a one hour lunch break earlier in the day. You probably had morning tea and smoko, and now you're coming in at three o'clock and you're sitting here for forty five minutes gates bag and having coffee, and then you probably go back to the office and do fifteen minutes of emails and get on the bus.
And go on.
What do you say at parties when people say, so, what do you do for work? I'm an excess employee. I am so important that.
Even when they have no work committed, do they They just want me to hang around They.
Cannot part with me.
Well, Mark Zuckerberg's that Meta has decided that they are joining the list of companies that are trying out the DEI policies. Diversity equity inclusions suddenly doesn't matter anymore.
Now companies have kind of made this cool of late.
McDonald's done it, Starbucks has done it, Walmart, Ha's done it, Ford Harley Davison.
The list wears on.
So Mark Zuckerberg thinks, well, I'm going to get onto this too. So I'm announcing to everyone that I too, am ditching my DEI policies. Of course, I personally don't buy this for five seconds. This is the same guy who just last week told everyone that, despite insisting for years that Facebook wasn't censoring free speech, that Facebook is
now going to stop censoring free speech. This is the same guy who allegedly stole the very idea of Facebook from the Twins, who then successfully sued him for sixty five million dollars. This is the same guy who admitted just last year to colluding with the Biden administration. He admitted to doing their bidding. He outright admitted to participating in mucking.
Up the campaigns.
This was election interference straight, and he stared down the barrel and told everyone so. This guy is so desperately in need of a pr revamp and image revamp. He's even presenting himself very differently these days.
Physically, he's grown his hair around. He's talking to Joe Rogan.
About how actually masculinity is a good thing.
Of all things to talk about.
It's one thing to say we want to be kind of like welcoming and make a good environment for everyone, and I think it's another to basically say that masculinity is bad. And I just think we kind of swung culturally to that part of the kind of the spectrum where it's all like, Okay, masculinity is toxic, we have to get rid of it completely. It's like no, like it's both of these things are good.
He said he's done with culturally newted aspects of corporate America and is now helping lead the charge saying we need masculine energy.
And I'm riding it all the way to gold.
Seriously, who is falling for this? We all know it's the Trump effect. Guys, lectus fingers. Dark it up in the air. The winds are changing, and now he wants to be in the cool club.
Would he be saying this if Kamala Harris had won the election. Absolutely not. He's of course sucking up to Donald Trump. The irony is, if he had an ounce of masculinity, he would not be sucking up to Trump. He would stand on his principles that he's a Democrat. He hates Trump, he hates all that Trump stands for, and he wouldn't have that haircut either.
You mentioned that right because you mentioned it before. He's had a total image. Even look at what Mark Zuckerberg used to look like.
I mean, it looks like an alien. And suddenly now he's got the curly hair and he's got the chain out over the top of the T shirt.
He's trying to look cool.
He's trying to put himself forward as though he's cool. I think he's actually a bit jealous. I mean, look at him there. I think he's a bit jealous of Elon Musk.
Now massively, there's a positive side to this though, right because we wonder how big will the Trump effect be if someone like Mark Zuckerberg is going to go to such extreme lengths. He's been on Fox and Friends, he's talking to Joe Rogan. He must have hated that. Internally, He's appointed a Trump official to his board. He's appointed a high ranking Republican to be his global affairs chief.
He's given money to the Trump inauguration.
And if he's going to all of this effort to try and ingratiate himself, it just tells you how afraid the left are of the influenced Trump will have and that many of them believe we better get on board otherwise we're going to go the way of bud life.
And this is why the election of Trump was so important. You know, whether it's Trump or someone as it doesn't matter. It's what Trump brings to the table, his leadership that has turned the culture almost president again.
Right.
But if you were thinking, oh, who's running in the United States, you're not thinking about Joe Biden. I mean, he's already met with every world leader basically except for Anthony Alban Easy, He's met with Maloney, he's had a Trudeau came to well.
Before accident.
And he doesn't want to meet.
But Trudeau came down and kissed the ring to try and smooth the waters over. He has been far more of a president than Biden has been in four years, in the two odd months he's been waiting to become the inaugurated president of the people.
Have to be careful here because obviously there's going to be a lot of victory marches over the next four years of the Trump term where things like this happen. These giants of the left seemingly come and kiss the ring. The point is, never forget their true loyalties, never forget who they really are, and that is weak, weak men.
The irony of listening to.
Mark Zuckerberg talk about true masculinity. You are the week kissed, week kissed person on the planet that you would see supposedly change all your deeply held virtues and convictions.
You clearly don't have any.
And that is what every single one of these corporates has done. Yes, we can view it as a victory, but they are simply doing it because they don't want to lose money. They don't want to lose customers. They are trying to appeal to their base. They have not had to come to Jesus moment. This is not revelatory in any way. It comes down to the bottom line. So, like I say, just do not forget who these people really.
That is the funniest bit of all of it, of course, right, because all of the useless idiot lefties have been running around all these years saying, well, of course we're right, because the corporates agree with us as well. And this is the zeit guys to sit the corporates. I'm sorry to break it to you, we're only ever doing it because they thought it would make the money. They didn't give a toss about DEI and making sure they had more Asians than white people and more gay people and straba.
They couldn't give a top.
All they care about is that money is flowing into their coffers. If they think they can do something that will make money come in, that is what they will do. And that's all they were ever doing. They never actually cared about your diversity.
And it's beautiful to see how Trump is fooled by any of this. I love the way Trump has invited Kevin Rudd and Pennywong to his inauguration. All is forgiven. No, no, no, he just wants to give them front row seats to see him do exactly now, as nothing would be sweeter talking about trying to understand people's convictions and where they stand. The Catholic Church is proving a little bit confusing. Last year they started to bless same sex couples, though said
that was not an endorsement of same sex relationships. The Pope last year complained that too many homosexuals were entering seminary used an Italian word that was roughly translated. He said, there's too much faggotry in the Vatican, and of course everybody picked up his violation of woke language codes. Rather than addressing the issue that he was trying to point to is that the Church believes homosexuality is a sin, and yet there's all these homosexuals in the seminary that
was last year. This year, the pope is trying to win friends from people who will never be his friends. But he said this that they're going to approve gay men as priests, but they'll be barred from quote, flaunting their homosexuality, which CALEBN Liz begs the question, what exactly do you define as flaunting homosexuality before you answer that, because I'm sure you've got an answer, But let me
review what the Vatican have said. They've least a sixty eight page guideline specifically directed at persons with homosexual tendencies who approach seminaries or who discover such a situation during their training. So the Vatican has said the Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary and to Holly orders those who practice homosexuality present deeply rooted homosexual tendencies or support the so called gay culture.
So you can have homosexual tendencies provided you're.
Not two.
One the word I'm looking for.
Camp, camp, camp, as long as you're not, mister Humphreys in are you being served?
Then you're five. I can't.
I mean, I thought it says that those who practice homosexually. I didn't think you were allowed to practice any form of sexuality. If you were a priest, you take a vow of celibacy. And what they're essentially saying is, look, you know, we don't necessarily want gay people, but we'll put it in the context because they're saying, if you have homosexual tendencies whatever exactly that is that they must grasp its significance quotes unquote in the global picture of
a young person's personality to form an overall harmony. I don't know. This sounds like the stuff you read in those corporate modules you have to do about not bullying people and not sexually harassing people, et cetera. But they're like, oh, well, we'll look at it and go look if there's something here that doesn't really fit the doctrine of the church. But we're desperate enough to get some more priests will let you in any way. I mean, do you believe
it or don't you? Surely it's as simple as that. I'm not a Catholic, but Surely if you believe in the doctrine, you believe in the doctrine.
Or you don't exactly.
I mean, it is that simple.
And all my actual Catholics out there, we have got to take back the Vatican.
Seriously.
We all know Pope Benny should never have resigned, chosen by God resigns. I mean, explain to me how that works. Pope Francis has been a blasphemer in my humble estimation, since the day he was elected.
For crying out loud, last year, he.
Decided that popes could bless not pope's priests, sorry, could bless same sex marriages.
I'm like, mate, have you even read the Bible?
I mean, I remember having this discussion with Joeyldebran one night live on air, and he said to me, with Storra, are you saying that you know more than the Pope.
I'm like, Joe, I'm as surprised as you are.
Yes, it turns out I do. For crying out loud, we are now talking about black and white biblical principles. You don't need to read fifty and cyclicals. You don't have to go through the ancient Catholic texts of no no This is straight out of the Bible, very black and white.
No question marks whatsoever.
I have a degree in biblical studies, so I can read it in any language you like. Unfurl the dead seas grolls. I'll walk you through it. And these people in the Vatican have decided, oh no, this is perfectly fine. Now you will even be able to practice. You will be sworn in as a priest. You will be able to administer the Holy You charrest while being just gay in priests.
And the problem is the role of the church is to preach what they believe is God's word, whether people accept it or not. They're there to communicate it, not to win a popularity contest. So the pope here believes obviously that this will ingratiate him with a section of the community who might otherwise be very critical of the Catholic Church. But count to five and they'll be saying, how could the Catholic Church suppress the natural urges or
tendencies of people by allowing them in? But then saying, but you must not be your authentic true self. So the very people he's trying to impress will be nailing him to a cross. Five minutes from now because they won't appreciate this sop to the LGBTQ culture. Meanwhile, he's alienating all the Catholics who believe in biblical truth because no one now.
Knows he did that a long time ago. He lost them a long time.
I've told this story before, but a maid of mine who's been a lifelong Catholic, he was the treasurer of his local Catholic church for twenty odd years, is that he'll never darken the door of a Catholic church again. Whilst Francis is pope because he's too woke, he's just had it up.
You can't do it anymore.
And I would say, again, as someone without a dog in the fight.
To whom are you preaching?
I mean, if you're saying we need more people, because I don't know, that's the only reason I can think of that you're doing now.
They don't.
It's not like oh to wa'ts the point drastic point point.
Is popular, and this pope has always been about trying to have the crowd applaud him and it never works.
And Jesus was about the very opposite. The Gospel is a short synopsis. He is like sob the crowd like, if you like the approval of the world, whatever you do, don't follow me.
Jesus literally said that. And the point of this everything he does is eat whether.
People watching agree with the Church or not. The point is we want our institutions to stand for what they believe in, rather than you know, always sniffing the breeze and think I'll go in that direction. Mark Zuckenberg has done exactly what the Pope did, all the same thing. They sniffed the breeze. Move with that instead of standing by conviction, we need politicians, We need priests, et cetera, et cetera, who have the courage of their con.
The Trump effect hasn't made it to the Catholic Church apparently, but one more place you imagine, I know, can you imagine? But the Trump effect is playing out here in Australia. But because it's not the Trump effect here, it was basically the voice effect. I said earlier on the Shari's program tonight, the greatest thing that Anthony Albanezi ever did for this country was setting up the.
Voice to fail.
Because by the voice failing, it gave us the ordinary Australians a voice to say what we actually think the things we've been thinking for so long about the direction of this country, especially when it comes to things like Indigenous affairs, that we don't want to be welcome to our own country anymore, that we are actually happy to celebrate Australia Day. And new polling from the IPA has found that people are more ready now to say that
they support Australia Day. Their poll last year, and they've been doing this poll for years about how many people support Australia Day being on January the twenty sixth. Last year it was sixty three percent of respondents said it should be on January twenty sixth. This year it's sixty
nine percent. Now, I suspect that there are a lot of people who've been sitting on the fence for a while because they feel like they can't say what they actually think, because you know, in polite company, when I go to my dinner parties in Wallara or Balmaine or somewhere, and I can slack Balmain now because I live there amongst all the inner West lefties in Sydney, but oh I couldn't possibly look, you know, maybe we should change it from January twenty six Now they're like, no, don't
have to hide this anymore. I do actually support Australia Day, and thank God for that.
Twenty twenty four.
I think was the year that woke started to die in this country, thank heavens. And we're starting to see the results of that, including the Opposition leader Peter Dutton saying that if he were to become primetill later this year, he would enforce councils holding citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day, which, of course, as we know, they have been canceling.
Would we reinstate the requirement for councils to hold citizenship ceremonies on Australia You bet it'll be done the first hundred days and it will be a sign of pride and nationalism in our country. I want us as a population to be united.
Now.
I don't know that might have been a bit of policy on the run there, because if you look at Michaulia Cash after he said, if he sort of turns all that's good, that's good. I don't care if it's policy on the run, because it's just common sense and we're starting to see a return of common sense.
I don't have to hide.
The fact I like Australia Day anymore. And it was the same last year, of course, when Woolley said that they weren't going to stock Australia Day year, and it felt like a real turning point where after years and years and years of being beaten over the head and told oh, you can't suff at Australia Day, on January twenty sixth people just sort of unashamedly came out and said, actually, no, we do like Australia Day. And I reckon last year Australia Day had a real reinvigoration.
I think we owe you know, Woolworth's vote of thanks. I think we owe some of our elites like Ray Martin, who famously said if you don't vote for the Voice, you're a dickhead. We owe Ray Martin a great vote of thanks. Those pit for support for Australia Day to
rise six percent in twelve months. I mean, I think those guys should just keep on going, keep slagging off about colonialism, keep hating on Australia, and watch support for Australia Day go up and up, because people have had a gutful of it, and we've seen these pro Palestinian protests every weekend in our streets and people are literally watching our country fall apart before their eyes. And people are saying, we want to get back to the things that unify and unite us when I was a kid.
Maybe not when you're a kid, because that was much more recent. But Liz, you're a bit older than Caleb, not quite as old as me. Australia day you go to the beach and you'd wave your Australian flag. No one was protesting, no one was going on about it, no one was toppling statues. It was a much better time. And think people want to get back to those times where we just all were Australian. We all enjoyed it, we're all proud of it.
Yeah, you're celebrating the present day. But I've got to say this is such a gift to Dutton this year because you've got the Trump administration roaring from the other side of the world. We've seen populous leaders take the Netherlands, take Italy, take how many other Argentina, So many of them are coming back into the West.
Canada is about to change.
We're watching this in real time unfold in France and Germany. As people say we are sick to death of this nonsense. Most of it is driven by far too higher immigration, and that has given birth to this resurgence of nationalism in people who still love their country and want it back, and that.
Means more votes go to the more.
Right leaning major party in any number of these countries. And I think that this is Dutton already has the playbook for his campaign written out for him, and he's already playing it beautifully. This is what people want and we all know democracy in a nutshell, it is majority rules. Whoever has the most numbers gets elected and they get the power. And this guy is very much on track.
I think if he keeps up this kind of rhetoric, that's the first time I've heard an Australian Prime minister even use the word nationalism for far too long.
Thank you Dutton. That was music to my ears.
Just before we go to a break, I think we've got time to show you a quote from one of the fire chiefs in LA. Of course, everyone's aware of the situation in Los Angeles, those catastrophic fires that have killed what was it twenty four people now dead, huge numbers of homes and property destroyed, and of course there's been failures on multiple levels, but I'm just got it. Before we go to a break, show you this clip
from the LA Deputy Fire Chief. Now, this is Christine Larson, whose job with the LA Fire Brigade is equity and human resources boss. Have a listened to her and ask yourself. Many wonder they've got problems with fires in LA and rescuing people haven't listened to this.
You want to see somebody that responds to your house, your emergency, whether it's a medical call or a fire call, that looks like you. It gives that person a little bit more ease knowing that somebody might understand their situation better. Is she strong enough to do this? Or you couldn't carry my husband out of a fire, which my response is he got himself in the wrong place if I have to carry him out of a fire.
I just had to show you that because we've spent so much time tonight talking about Wokery and DEEI could you believe a deputy fire chief in a city like Los Angeles says it's really important if you're caught in the burning building that the person who comes to save you looks approximately like you. Otherwise you'd want to send them back to the fire truck and say you've got someone who's a bit more sort of you know, representative of.
Beer bed or you're not carrying me out of this fire now?
Like serious?
And people blame climate chain for the devastation.
Is you've lost everything in this fire, right and guess who comes to comfort you now? On top of everything you've got to put up with Megan Markl. I mean, is there anything this woman can't make about herself?
Police?
This is the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral, the baby at every baby dedication.
Here she is in the thick of it, making.
Sure everyone knows that she Megan Markle has arrived on the scene to hand out well hugs, maybe some maybe some money would be nice. I mean, are you going to put any of that.
Shiggy where your mouth is or are you just literally.
Here to hand out hugs because you're a famous personality so people must care. I mean this absolutely did my head in when you look at the level of the devastation. I haven't seen any actual movie stars or rock stars come out to behave like this, But no Meghan Markel, Meghan Markle, He's on the scene.
If my house was destroyed in the La fires, I would rather deal with the looters.
Than you know what that fire chief should have said. I don't lift a man mate.
We're going to go to a break. When we come back, we'll look at what's making news tomorrow, including Anthony Albaneze very vague on when he might get around to meeting with the President elect. And news that one point five million Australians have put off going to the doctors because it's just too expensive. All of that when we look at the papers in just a moment, Welcome back to the program. Let's take a look at what's making news in tomorrow's papers. We'll start with the Herald's Sun, which
has got a pretty alarming story. As they're splash. It's an exclusive Alarming figures reveal hundreds of Victoria Police members investigated for alleged rapes, sexual harassment and family violence. Dark Side of the Force, reads the headline. The article says Victoria Police is grappling with accusations of sexual misconduct in its ranks, as hundreds of members face internal investigations for
alleged rapes, harassment and family violence. The force's sexual offenses and Family Violence Unit has investigated about six hundred and eighty of its own offices during the past five years. Now, the report continues inside the paper. We don't have access to that. We've just got the front page for tomorrow. But six hundred and eighty Victorian police serving police over the past five years investigated by their own task force
over things as serious as rape and domestic violence. Man, that's going to shake your faith in the police force.
And do you get stood down while you're being investigated?
I mean if you are.
Literally you are the government's muscles supposed to be exacting justice on the streets and you yourself are under investigation. I'm sorry to say it, but this reminded me of the stories that we were made aware of when I was studying criminal law at u SID And you learn where the cops earned this nickname by some of pigs. And that's how people, certain people, usually people from the wrong side of the tracks, see them, because these stories are something that you go into depth in criminal law.
And I swear especially our lecturer was just trying to make defense.
Lawyers out of us. All don't work for the crown, become.
A defense lawyer like me, so that was kind of this person's bent as they were lecturing, and I was aware of that, but stories like this just bring that back to mind, and I'm like, my goodness, And as I always say, when nearly any story comes up, you know that whatever makes it to the press is really just the tip of the iceberg. If that's how many cases that they're aware of, how many of them aren't. And this is just one state, how many in the other states?
What the hell? And who puts them?
As you're talking about earlier that you know, the Victorian police are in such a pickle at the moment in terms of staff numbers.
If you were the.
Police commissioner, you'd probably feel retis to tell anyone to buzz off while we investigate, because if you start losing more and more numbers, you end up in such a position.
But you're being pulled in one.
For us, the Victorian Police commissioner, I'd be taking a trip up north to Queensland.
I'd be taking.
Twenty grand and I'd go there much less problems. Palatial palace costs is the other interesting front page headline in The Herald's son jetting jet setting rather Former Treasurer Tim Pallas slug taxpayers more than six hundred and fifty thousand dollars during a decade of luxury travel in the top job. Now this is the former labor Victorian premier who resigned in December, leaving his state approaching one hundred and seventy
seven billion dollars in debt. But it turns out just a month or two before he resigned, he spent seventy two thousand dollars on a farewell tour of Britain, France, Italy and Spain. And just before that, he spent sixty six thousand dollars for a fifteen day trip to the US and Canada. Get this, exploring strategies to tackle debt. Of course, he resigned just weeks after that lightning trip. Great service to the Victoria taxpayer. Can you believe it's.
Tim Pallas not heard of the Internet? Here's this amazing thing now where you can go online. You can read pretty much anything you want anywhere in the world. Heck, you can even talk to anyone you want, pretty much anywhere in the world about things like I don't know.
Economics and how to tackle debt.
It's like if you've got to get on a plane to go overseas to work out how to fix the problem that you created by spending lots of money to go overseas. For God, the treasurer of Victoria, what do you need to do going to Britain, France and Italy. You're not running their books, are you? I mean, for goodness sake, if Pallace was running their books.
I think that's been kicking him out, deporting him.
What does a treasurer need to be doing that force so serious?
If you dosn't to the front page of the Townsville Bulletin.
Now you've heard of flying doctors. Check out flying coppers. Five foo cops target city new thirty two million dollar flying squad to crack down on crem's. A specialized state flying squad will soon be deployed in crime hotspots of Queensland at a moment's notice. With Townsville suburbs set to benefit from more eyes in the sky, I mean, that's pretty cool.
I know that they have incentives for.
People to go ruural, much like they do for rural teachers, etc. There's certain areas people just don't want to work for rather obvious reasons, Townsville being one of them. I imagine if you're a copper, quite a few crime problems.
But now they're just literally gonna parachute him in. It sounds pretty epic.
It's actually a great idea for a state as vast as Queens And they used to have seventeen police on this fly in squad. They've bumped it up to fifty eight because of the increased L and P funding. So if you've got a place like Townsville that has a sudden crime surge all of a sudden, you can bump up police numbers by fifty eight. These especially trained officers could come in to address a specific thing good for the community, a helpful local police. I think it's a good move.
Sounds fantastic. I can't believe no one's thought of it earlier. To be perfectly honest, let's go to the Olds tomorrow, where it says crucial face to face with Trump. It'll be a journey to the summit. Anthony Albanizi has pointed to the Quad leaders meeting that could be months away for.
His possible first face to face.
Meeting with Donald Trump, as former Foreign Minister Julie Bishop cast out on how long Australian Ambassador to the us. Kevin Rudd will last funny about that. But he's got an invitation to the inauguration and the Prime Minister doesn't. I mean imagine saying oh, we'll meet at the Quad in a few months when he may or may not even be Prime minister. He knows why and this is the problem for him, right. He knows he's steering down the barrel of an election. He is very much in
election mode. Darton's very much in election mode.
He can't afford to.
Go overseas at the moment to say that, you know, I won't be here on the screens in Australia. I might lose my prime ministership. You can't even go to one of the most important events in the world. Yeah, that worry.
And he's saying maybe at the Quad. The court hasn't even been scheduled yet, so he's literally just making stuff very quickly. The Canberra Times have got an interesting store in the front page. GPS call for larger rebates. The Peak body for doctors is calling on the federal government to lift Medicare rebates to address rising out of pocket costs that disproportionately affect act residents. As the Albanezy government, of course ramp up a pre election scare campaign warning
of coalition cuts now the camera. Time also reported that about one point five million Australians did not go to see a doctor in the last twelve months because they couldn't find anyone who bulk bills and so couldn't afford to pay the gap. So that's pretty concerning, but even more interesting when you consider that Labor, as the paper reports, are ramping up this scare campaign against the coalition. They're not doing great on health themselves. We're going to go
to a break when we come back. The Victorian government started a sobering up center for drunken Victorians to give them a bed for the night. Turns out no one's using it, but Victorians are paying a mozza that's coming up in just a moment. Well, Victoria continues to amaze the public. Drunkenness used to be a offence in Victoria, but then the Labor government, in their wisdom, decided drunks don't need to sell for the night and to find. What they need is love and a warm bed. Provided
that taxpayer expense. They stripped police of the ability to erect people for being drunk in public and instead ordered police to take people to taxpayer funded sobering up centers. They built three of these centers at a cost of seventy nine million dollars over three years. So how do you reckon they're going? Do you reckon people drunk on the streets say, oh, look, we'll go to a sobering
up center run by the government for the night. It turns out, on average, two point nine people per night are using the sobering up centers, which Liz means that on current trends, victorians will be paying twenty five thousand dollars per person per night to have a government funded bed so they can get sober. I reckon the politicians who came up with this were themselves in need of a sobering up center.
They were drunk at the time.
No, but honestly, what drunk have you ever been privy to? That is like, you know what, I'm going to take this.
Opportunity stop being drunk.
But they're not so that they can't what look up on the website?
Where are these centers? Where's my nearest one? Maps it?
Maybe catch an uber or stagger there themselves, like have you not met any drunk people? They are not going to do that, my goodness.
Oh and like public drugon when was the last time you heard of someone being arrested for public drunkenness drunken disorderly? But hacky, you're making a dickhead of yourself. You're going to get picked up by the Hea.
You're disturbing the people.
It wasn't even a problem in the first place. But the Labor government of Victoria has lots of solutions to problems that don't exist. Speaking of Victoria, the Victorian Trades Hall rocked up to Peter Dutton's quasi campaign launch yesterday with that three eyed fish who saw of course, when Dutton first said that he was going to bring nuclear
energy to Australia, he's the image here. Remember that we're posting Labor MPs, etc. We're posting photos of this thing online saying oh, this is what's going to happen if you have nuclear energy. Albanezy todd to take that stuff down and this is what the Victorian Trades Hall reckon is going to win the election for Albanezi.
Again, I say to them, keep going, let's have more of this three.
I fish stuff, because if you think that's gonna work you've got another thing.
I just love the fact they're dragging around a toy made of petrochemical perfect. That's it from us, good night, but stick around. Coming up in just a moment, it's the Reader Penny Show.