Lately.
General, welcome to the Late Debate.
It's great to have your company on the Late Debate. I'm James Macpherson with Caleb Bond and freyer Leitch coming up tonight. An Italian museum displays a crystal encrusted chair with a sign do not sit on it. It's very expensive. Will you know exactly what happens? Will show you a
little later. Plus, when we look at what's making news tomorrow, Defense Minister Richard Miles admits what we all know in the event of a conflict between China and the USA, Australia will be involved, which begs the question what's the government doing to prepare? And on the front page of Victorian papers tomorrow the government they're announcing tough penalties for criminals who boast about their crimes online.
All of that a.
Little later, but first, reading people's minds, well it's the stuff of science fiction, right, Well, don't be so sure, because researchers at Sydney's University of Technology are currently working on a way to do it, using MRI scans to measure brain activity in response to specific words, and using AI to map patterns in the brain. They believe reading minds is pretty close to being a thing. And as always, all of these things are predicted by the Simpsons.
I know you can read my thoughts. Bart. Just a little reminder, if I find out you cut class, your ass is mine. Yes, you heard me, I think words I would never say.
I know you can read my look boy, yum yum yum yum yum yum yum yum, yom yom yom yom yom yom yom yam.
Now, if the researchers at Sydney's University of Technology are successful, there's some great applications for this.
Doctor's hope that it.
Will help, for instance, stroke victims to be able to communicate. Business people are hoping that we'll be enabled to operate devices such as laptops by simple thinking. But Freyer and Caleb, there are always downsides. Can you imagine advertisers would be salivating what a thought of knowing the very words to use that will trigger your brain. They could advertise directly to you and have you buying things without you even
realizing why you're buying it. And I imagine an overly enthusiastic police minister wanting to use this technology to have alleged criminals self incriminate by their own thoughts. Caleb, surely our brain should be the final frontier of privacy.
I'm not convinced this is a good idea.
This could be exceedingly dangerous.
I'm totally on board with the medical applications for this people who are nonverbal. I mean, you know, in the same way that we develop cochlear implants for people who are deaf, extraordinary technology that allows them to hear. If it can assist people in a medical way, I think that is totally justified in that research should be done. And of course Elon Musk has been getting on board with that with his neural link chip.
That he wants to do.
But once we've developed that technology for people to use for medical purposes, you can bet your bottom dollar unless there is regulation in place that prevents it from being used for other purposes, it will be used for other purposes.
And there are people who will voluntarily want to.
Hook themselves up to things like this, to have computers read their thoughts, to have chips implanted in their brains that essentially mean they don't have to think about anything because the computer chip can tell them exactly what they want to know at any given time without having to put fingers on a keyboard or open your mouth to
talk to a text to speech situation. Right, I mean, there are people who will want that, but just think about the implications of doing so, and the most dangerous thing about it all, and the reason I think that that application should be banned altogether, regardless of whether or not you're willing to take the risk, is imagine if people have these things hooked up to their brains, particularly chips, and a nefarious actor in another country, let's for instance,
call them China, manages to hack into the systems to which these chips connect, Imagine what they could start doing to people's brains. Honestly, that is dangerous and silly and we shouldn't allow.
But you could make the same argument about all sorts of new technologies. And the reality is that it looks like these brain computer brain interfaces, which is what they're called, will be commercialized within the next ten to twenty years, and I personally would love to have one.
I mean, think about it.
We've gotten through Chinese, I think, so, We've gone from it's not a Chinese tip China. We've gone from having computers now we have wearables like Apple watches things like that. The next logical step is further integration of technology into our person, which would be a brain reading computer essentially.
And yes, there are some security risks, but.
That's the case with anything, and the potential benefits for all grinding in intelligence productivity.
It'd be great if I.
Was to sort of instruct my kids as to what they should study if they were a bit younger than what they currently are, I would totally advise them to go into ethical law, that sort of area in human rights, because as AI evolves, ethics is going to be the number one issue. And as always, ethics comes after these things are invented, after they're commercialized, and then people think, oh, hang on a second, what about the consequences. I would be okay with this if they would pause and say,
all right, what are the implications. Let's put things in place now, because you know, the right to your own thoughts could become the number one ethical issue of the next couple of decades.
Yeah, and the point you raised earlier about if you get charged with the crime, for example, could the police then subpoena the records of your brain activity to determine what you were thinking to establish intent, or where you were or what you were doing. I mean, the implications of this are assive and rather scary, but I do think it's also quite an exciting technology.
I mean, you know, it was to more than two years ago now when Elon Musk and another big hitters Steve was the co founder of Microsoft big hitters in the AI world, came out and said, we need to have a moratorium on development of AI technology now and seriously think about the.
Regulation of this before we go any further. And that hasn't happened. I mean, we're going head first into this stuff.
You remember Biden famously put Kamala Harris in chap Oh, I know, right in the age of AOL and her seriously, I mean she.
Said, you know, you know what AI is. It's two letters ah And she actually said that.
But you know, if your phone gets hacked, your computer gets hacked, you can chuck it in the bin get rid of it. If your brain gets hacked, well, thinks are somewhat more difficult. Some people who may wish they could have their brains hacked, they could learn a thing or two. Apparently, is jen Z though a new reporter's
come out done by you GAV. They did a serve for Westinghouse, of course, the manufacturer of white goods, and perhaps Westinghouse commissioned this to approve to gen Z why they need to buy their products, but will leave that to one side. Some of the results of this survey are extraordinary, though YouGov was looking into the household competency of people aged eighteen to thirty home economics. I suppose
we used to call it. That's certainly what they called it when I was at school anyway, which wasn't all that long ago, But I don't know what they call it for the kiddies now. But according to this survey, Australians aged eighteen to thirty, nearly half of them feel unprepared to manage chores. Seventy two percent feel burdened by adult responsibilities.
Or we're all burdened by adult responsibilities.
I mean, thirty percent have never mowed a lawn, probably because they've never lived in a place where they've had a lawn they could mow. Twenty six percent have never paid all their own household bills, so presumably they're leaning on mummy and daddy to help them out with that.
Cut the strings, will you please?
Twenty five percent have never had a whole week of cooking at home.
I mean, I don't know that.
They must be earning a lot of money these people. Twenty four percent have never cleaned an oven. Forty five percent don't know what to cook day to day. Get a cookbook. The rest of us have done it. Fifty one percent skip meals multiple times a week, presumably because they haven't been able to work out what to cook. I mean, get on TikTok for heaven's say, you can find cooking videos on there. Thirty eight percent eat out
or have take away multiple times a week. And look, I'm guilty of that, but it's because I can afford to do it, and I like eating at nice restaurants.
But if you're doing it because.
You can't work out or don't know how to cook, there's something you need to do about that. Thirty nine percent take dirty clothes to their parents. I mean, how hard is it to use a washing machine? Which brings me to the next one. Seventy three percent, so they have ruined clothes by not washing or drying them properly.
Read the instructions.
People don't they teach literacy at school these days, and seventy percent regret not learning more home management before moving out. And I'm not surprised having gone through all of those statistics. What is wrong with people eighteen to thirty of which I am one?
I mean, I left home. I managed to work out how to cook, I managed to work out how.
To use a washing machine. I managed to work out how to clean things. I don't particularly enjoy doing it, but you know you've got to do it every now and again. I think this is a a We've become victims of our own circumstances, right, And part of this is the parents, and part of it is the kids. We now live in a world where we're constantly distracted.
So once upon a time, things just had to be done and you had no real choice about getting them done, and you weren't constantly distracted by your mobile phone or a computer or one hundred other gizmos around the house. So if the kids were bored, mom and dad said go and mow the lawd or do the dishes, you found a way to occupy you time. And generally that
was stuff that had to be done. But because of all these conveniences, we now have the dishwashers and the washing machines, and the lawn mower that you don't have to touch. It's an automatic lawnmower, all the other stuff. We don't even know how to do things anymore. So parents are not passing skills on to their children because they're busy and they've got other stuff to do in an economy.
That's going backwards.
And then the kids go out into the big bad world, and when they actually face the prospect of having to do something, they just sit.
There and look at their phone instead because it's easier.
That The statistic that most flawed me was thirty percent of young people have never mowed the lawn.
What are their parents doing? The reason you have kids is so that you don't have to mow the lawn.
Get them out there doing it.
As a couple of things to this one is I think a lot of parents treat their kids like their friends or their mates. And warning to parents, if you treat your kids like friends, you'll end up raising your grandchildren yourself, as your kids won't know how to be parents. But the other thing is necessity is the mother of invention. Right, you don't know what you don't know, and it's when you move out of home that suddenly.
You realize, oh, how do you do that?
Well, we all figured it out ourselves, and your generation frayer, will figure it out themselves as well.
That's what you do well.
I mean.
The other factor here to consider is that the rate of young adults still living with their parents well into their twenties has almost doubled in the last twenty years. So not only are parents coddling their children, not teaching them these skills to be self reliant, but young people are barely even getting the opportunity to use them because they're staying at home with their parents for so much longer, and so really I think for our generation, adulthood has
really been delayed significantly. A lot of these milestones, moving out, getting married, having a family, they're all.
Being pushed back now by about twenty years.
You know, the average age people got married border House had children was their early twenties. Now it's their mid thirties. So it does raise some interesting concerns. But also on a similar note with regards to children, it's not just young adults that are struggling, it's young kids as well. The Australian early development census is conducted every three years. They survey around two hundred and eighty thousand children and fifteen thousand teachers, and those kids are in their first
year of full time school. They're assessed across five domains of physical wellbeing, social, emotional, language, general knowledge, et cetera, et cetera.
And what is really disturbing is the rates of children who.
Are considered developmentally vulnerable is at its highest level since two thousand and nine, and it's gone up significantly since the survey was last conducted three years ago. Now, some of the theories are pandemic, kids not being socialized, they're not going to pre school, but it is very concerning and one of the one of the startling statistics was that apparently one in ten kids now struggle to get along with others, so they can't control aggression, they can't self regulate emotion.
If that's how they're.
Starting school, those issues tend to only compound.
How are they going to learn properly?
And if they can't learn properly, they're going to cause even more of a trouble in school, and then how are they're going to operate through the rest of life.
I think there's no doubt the pandemic is responsible for quite a bit of that, and Education Minister Jason Claire pointed that out what depressed me Caleb was then Jason Claire said, the answer is more preschool. Send your kids to preschool because that will teach them to be emotionally resilient and be able to manage their emotions.
And no, no, it's not preschool.
The answer is parenting. And I think for parents it's not just disciplining behavior. I know my kids had behavioral issues, but the thing that always concerns me more than their behavior. Because a boil, throw a ball through a window, that's going to happen, But it's the attitude that you've got
to discipline and teach kids to regulate their emotions. If you let kids throw tantrums, if you let them start to allow their emotions to go out of control and don't discipline that, you end up with very unruly teenagers.
Then you end up with a crime crisis, and then you end up with victoria.
Yeah, and I think we should be clear as well that the children we're talking about here, for the most part, children who weren't that affected by COVID, is that the children who were most affected by COVID were the ones who were already in school and were forming their friendships and bonds and then sort of had that cruelly ripped away from them. So they're kids who are sort of going into high school now. Are any into high school
that suffered the most through that? We're talking about kids who were born basically just before the pandemic, really, and on that count, it's not so much the pandemic, which is what Jason Clair, the Education Minister, is blaming this on, because it's easy for him to point to something over.
There and go, ah, you know that's the fault of all this what's going going on here?
And I will preface it, I am not a parent, so before you come at me for giving you parenting advice, I will say that I am not a parent, but I do dat a child psychologist, so she has some idea about this stuff because she sees it all the time. You have a world now where children have devices all the time and they are trained to have instant gratification.
You press a button and something happens. And so when you get into a classroom and things are run in rather a different way and you have to wait for the teacher to tell you what to do, and you have to wait for other students to catch up to where you have got to, or maybe you're on the other end of that. Every now and again, children haven't learned how to deal with these things. We mollycoddle children these days. We don't give them any responsibility or independence.
We don't give them the opportunity to learn how to deal with problems in life.
I mean, it's not all that long ago.
The five or six year old would get on their bike in the school holidays and bug her off for a few hours and Mam would say, be back home for tea.
Doesn't happen anymore, Oh, we're too scared kid's going to get abducted.
So we take all of these rights and responsibilities away from children, and they don't learn how to actually interact with the world and regulate themselves and deal with when things go wrong and they fall off the bike and mom goes, well, that was a bit silly, wasn't it.
That doesn't happen, ah, You like, the kids just don't learn how to deal with the world. And then we are surprised they.
Go off to school and they can't regulate their emotions or how to operate in a social setting.
We've done it to them, unfortunately, Yeah, we absolutely have.
I want to get your thoughts guys on a new law in California where one particular government area is making it effectively illegal to be homeless. What they've decided is that if you're a homeless person and you've been offered not once, but three times the options of various accommodation, and you decline that offer, then it will be possible
for you to be jailed. Pam Foley from who's the Vice mayor of San Jose said, we can't expect to adequately treat mental illness, addiction, or unemployment effectively if someone.
Is living outdoors.
Stable shelter, whether through intram housing, safe parking, or safe sleeping sites, not only connects people with critical services and job training, but ultimately paves the way towards permanent housing. Now, in this particular district, there are nine hundred and three known people to be homeless. Of those nine hundred people, about a third of them reports psychotic conditions. So a lot of these people, not all, but fully a third
of these people are mentally unstable. Living on the streets it's in the interests of the city to clean up these encampments that you can see on your screen, which are not only an I saw, but as you can imagine, would encourage crime. They're not safe spaces. So it's in the interests of the city. But I would argue it's also in the interests of people to remove them from
living on the streets. It might sound inhumane and freyer, it's been argued it's in humane to lock people up for being homeless, But if.
You've got people who repeatedly refuse.
Accommodation, then I think it's inhumane to leave them on the streets, particularly if they're drug affected or beset by some sort of mental illness exactly.
And they're calling this the responsibility to shelter. And also keep in mind they're not going to be arrested if there aren't enough beds available, So they have to have rejected shelter three times and there has to actually be a bed available for them. So I don't see I think this is a very valid consideration. And I also think the other factor is, I mean, you just can't have these sorts of permanent encampments that are cropping up, not just here, but around the US, and we're seeing
it a little bit in Australia. Obviously, we have a genuine housing crisis and there are many people who simply cannot afford to put a roof over their heads.
I'm not talking about.
Those people, but I'm talking about people who choose to live on the streets, and.
That is quite a common thing.
A lot of the homeless people you'll see, especially around Sydney, do have temporary shelter, do have council housing, but choose to be on the streets because they prefer it. They have mental health issues, they don't like their neighbors, a whole range of issues. But is it really the responsibility for every other citizen to have to compromise their.
Safety put up with this in their streets. I don't think so.
It does seem a bit harsh, but I think they're cleaning up the streets and it's good.
I think it's a balancing act.
Insofar as if you've got large encampments, there's clearly a problem. You can't have a public park just turning to a homeless center essentially, so you have to do something about that.
I understand that if you have a mental.
Health issue that poses a risk to the public, then you ought to be detained on mental health grounds anyway, So nothing to do with whether you're homeless or not. And I think in today's world we not to do that because we're too scared to admit that some people have mental health issues that is dangerous to them and other people, and we wait until things go really bad.
So I think that's more than just homeless people.
There are lots of people with mental health issues that ought to be detained for their own safety.
But there are a lot of people who choose to.
Live on the streets and not necessarily in encampments because the other options they have are awful. And my father has worked as a council gardener for most of my life in a capital city and has dealt with homeless people through his whole working life and knows them and talks to them every day because he sees.
Them every day.
They live in his park on benches or whatever. Most of them are generally harmless people, and when he says them, why do you live here, I'll say, well, they come along and they offer me some accommodation in a hostel or some joint and I go into this hostel which is full of drag addled people and they steal all my property and whatever, so I don't want to be there.
I'd much that's rather as dumb as it seems, live on a park bench than with a roof over my head, because for whatever's reason, I don't have a lot of money, and this is where I've ended up.
If you're not causing.
Any danger to anyone, and you're not in the way, and you sort of pack up your stuff in the day and go about your business, I don't particularly.
Care leave them alone.
If you've got large encampments, I understand the need to move them on, but the mental health aspect is the biggest one. And if they're people who are a danger to society, don't matter whether they're homeless, they should be in a funny farm.
So I agree with you. The mental health aspect is a big one.
And if you've walked through a major capital city in this country, I'm thinking particularly Melbourne and Sydney, which I have even during the day. I'm not just talking about at night. It's shocking the number of people who are clearly mentally unwell, who are doing all sorts of weird things, saying all sorts of yelling out, all sorts.
Of weird things. It's a major problem.
And I think if you've got people who have been offered accommodate, I take your point that sometimes you might find accommodation that is just for whatever reason, you're better off on the street. But if you're offered not one, not two, but three options and you decline all of them, there has to be a point where governments say, you know what, we can't have you on the storde.
And the other thing as well.
In Australia, I don't know what it's like in the United States, what this system is over there. Have a look at the waiting list for public housing in this country. I mean the last check I know in South Australia alone, which has only got two million people, they had a.
Fifty thousand head weight for public housing.
And this is people who obviously, you know, can't afford to buy a place on their own and are desperate for something and they just.
Can't get hold of it. What a terrible position we find ourselves in. And onto a.
Well should we call it a strange story out of Victoria, where a lot of strange stories seem to come from Trinity Grammar, a very prestigious school in Melbourne, decided that they would have a Pride Week assembly.
Apparently they do this every year. Now I don't know why an Anglican.
School is having a Pride Week assembly, but go they choose to do this, and they have a keynote speaker who comes out every year, and this year it was a bloke by the name of Basim Kurbitch. He's Palestinian, as you can see there from the kefia around his neck. He's a pride activist and he came along and gave a pep talk to these boys about how it's okay to be gay, etc. And the point of this is to apparently promote diversity of thought and sexuality.
Et cetera.
But during the course of this talk, he talked about various things, including that you should visualize your goals, and he encouraged students in the room to look up visualize your goals, which many of the boys in the room then later did, which led them to his Instagram page where they found, and I'm sorry to subject you to this, they found a video of him putting a sex toy in his mouth under a task called quote unquote a dildo hand job challenge, not words.
I ever thought I would be reading out on this program, But there you go.
I mean, what on earth is an Anglican school having a pride assembly in the first place, but inviting a chap along who posts that sort of content on social media, surely knowing that boys would go and look up his social media and then share this stuff around the school.
What is it that you lead into my school?
Well, the Anglican school, I'll tell you how they invited this chap They rang the government funded Pride Center.
Who recommended this guy.
Well, I mean, obviously you'd call the Pride Center if you're an Anglican college charging our parents forty two thousand dollars a year for your year seven to ten boys who were in this assembly to be part of Pride week. The Pride Center said, not our fault. We weren't asked to vet the speaker's social media. You were just asking
us who would a good speaker be. And so the school blames the Pride Center, the Pride Center blames the school, and the boys are rather upset and their parents, prayer are furious.
I mean rightfully.
So one of the parents said, I pay good money to send my child to a Christian school, I expect them to uphold Christian values. I don't see how having an annual Pride assembly is really upholding Christian values. And then the other serious question is that you've got a Palestinian Arab Pride activist who has repeatedly criticized Israel for their record on LGBTQ issues while worshiping other Arab countries, including Gaza. It's like, mate, how do you think LGBT
people are treated in Gaza? I mean, Palestinians are actually able to seek refuge in Israel if they're gay, because they're treated so appallingly under Hamas and the Palestinian authority. But of course that wasn't given a look at it, and none of the parents seemed complaining about that.
The other thing in this the school, when you invite a speaker to come and give a presumably, as you said, it's a speech about well, it was actually about different forms of love, so that was the topic of the speech. But when you get the speaker rock up wearing a kefia in the current environment, now wear a kefia if you want knock yourself out. But when the speaker at the year seven to year ten boys assembly comes.
Wearing a kefia. Wouldn't you, as a school principal or deputy say.
We might be going into an dangerous territory. It would be a hint, wouldn't you would think so?
But why I just can't get my head around why they would want this fella or anyone else to come and talk about pride to a Christian school in the first place.
I mean, you know you can do it all in about twenty seconds flat.
Stand up and say, look, the Bible has its teachings about homosexuality, but love thy neighbor, etc. Do unto others as you would have done under you take any more than that. You don't need to have someone come in and give a lecture in a Christian school about being gay or whatever or whatever.
These videos are that he puts.
Up online like you can do it in ten seconds flat to tell people treat other people nicely.
It's as simbil as that isn't it.
It is so outrageous and just another example really of how schools and our education system has become so ideological and politicized, even at elite Christian schools, but also down in Victoria.
Another very disturbing story.
A sixty two year old man has been brutally beaten by a former immigration detainee freed under.
A High Court decision.
This was the allegedly he was allegedly beaten, I should say this was under the NZYQ decision, where one hundred and forty nine detainees were released after the High Court found it was unconstitutional to indefinitely hold people in immigration to ten. A number of those free detainees have allegedly gone on to reoffend and commit further crimes, and this
one just today is absolutely abhorrent. A poor sixty two year old man just going about his day was brutally beaten on the sidewalk, allegedly had his head kicked in by this release detainee.
How many more lives have to be.
Destroyed because of Labour's incompetence They bungled this entire process. Labor had the opportunity to issue preventative detention orders.
To take these people back in.
This alleged detainee who allegedly stumped his head in, also had charges laid against him over taking off the ankle bracelet and violating his visa conditions. Those were dropped there have been just moments after moments when Labor could have rain taking control of this situation, and they failed to, and now it looks like someone has died.
The former detainee charged with this crime was previously arrested for removing his ankle bracelet, and of course the High Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to require people to wear those sort of tracking devices. I would have thought, if you're the government and you think we've released someone in the community, we've asked them, we're an ankle bracelet, so you're not at risk. They remove that at the time unlawfully. Later on the High Court changes that decision.
But the government wouldn't they say, this is a person who clearly doesn't want to follow the law, and Labor passed legislation to be able to redatain.
People who they thought would be a threat.
If you are blatantly just flying in the face of court orders or government instructions, such as wearing the bracelet, wouldn't you think this is a person who's not going to abide by the law, let's redetain them. To the best of my knowledge, they haven't redetained anybody. And as he said, for one in five now it is I think of these former detainees have gone on to commit fresh crimes.
As labor have allowed them into the community.
Yeah, and this bloke acident, let's not call him a bloke, Let's call him a scumbag, because that's what he is. Was jailed for domestic violence for a year. That's how he then ended up in detention in the first place, and he pleaded guilty to that offense and then said that he didn't do it. So I think we've already got a taste for the fact that he doesn't have
a great deal of regard for the law. So notwithstanding the crime that he is now charged with, he's not the sort of bloke that should be in this country. But we know the decision that the High Court made under NZYQ. So the way we get around that is that the government came up with laws that allowed them to redetain people that they thought were a risk to the public. And to my knowledge, they've not used those laws once. What was the point of coming up with
those laws if you weren't going to use them. We thought it was going to be about protecting the public.
You didn't do it.
Now we have a charge against a detainee for and horrific crime.
I mean, these things should have been dealt with a very.
Long time ago, and they will come up again, and they will come up again, and they will come up again. But I don't think the federal government particularly matters at this cares sorry about this matter at this point.
I'm sure they don't.
And reading this story today, I almost yawned because it's become so familion.
We've heard this story so many times and.
Yet it is absolutely outrageous every single instance speaking of government's bundling crime and trying to control it. The Victorian government have come up with another hairbrain scheme to tackle the crime crisis. They're going to make it illegal for certain criminals or gangsters to use more than one phone and to use encrypted services the policemen. To Anthony Carbines said today, any criminals who think they can dodge the law with multiple phones can think again.
In two months, that's right, not now, not in a week, not in a month, but.
Two months from now, the Victorian government will legislate so that police can remove multiple phones from people they deem a threat. In terms of organized crime, this smacks of the machete law that was instituted by the same government just recently.
It's got some great similarities.
Firstly, they instituted a ban on machetes that will take place in September. Of course, they quickly ran through a little bit of that legislation a few weeks ago after a machete attack in a shopping center. But again, the Victorian government may badly needed laws that will come into
effect a little later. It begs the question, if the Victorian government are so tough on crime, why didn't they do this years ago, If it's not right to allow gangsters to have multiple phones, and they only just realized that yesterday rather than a couple of years ago. And of course, do we really think that gangsters, when told by Victorian police you can only have one phone, or will remove your phone completely, will not five minutes later arrange for another phone.
I'm sure they will.
But the point of the law is that you can then doll out a higher punishment for having the phone.
It's the same as far arm prohibition.
Orders require trust in Victorian courts to actually uphold the law.
Well, sure, but having a law. Having a law is better than no law as far as I'm concerned. It's the same as far arm prohibition orders. I mean, you can't tell me the around people walking around, and they have FPOs across the country. Every state has their own version of them. You can't tell me the around people
with the FPOs not owning guns. But if they get caught with the guns, they will face serious penalties for doing so, so that the point of the law is not necessarily to prevent them in the first instance from getting the phone, because they can run the risk of getting the phone if they want. But if they are found with a second phone, we can hit you with a heavy penalty.
And I think that's fair enough.
Notwithstanding the fact they could have done this yesterday, or they could have done it five years ago, or they could have done it twenty years ago, because of course Victoria was the home of Underbilly right, there are many points at which they could have done this. But as far as I'm concerned, they shouldn't be allowed to have phones at all. If you've been proven to be a bikey gangster, whatever, go the whole hog and ban them from having any kind of communication to us.
Well, that would be the ideal, But the problem is, as James said, how on earth do you do it. You can just walk into any Apple store and buy a phone. So do we now require people to have identification to prove that they're not a criminal when they buy a phone.
I mean, you just can't do that.
You need ID to get a simcar, don't you.
Yeah, well oh.
Yeah, But the problem is you can do online messaging forums that are often encrypted, and that's how a lot of these organized crime gangs are really being operated.
Now yeah, well we'll see how they go.
I take your point. Whatever you do to crack down on crime, fair enough. But for the Victorian government, and they've been doing a lot of this, they've been grand standing tough on crime, tough on crime because clearly just senta Ellen knows this is a massive issue, and so all of a sudden she is all about being tough on criminals.
And I just think anyone who buys this, I mean, you know, well.
They'll be buying more phones'll be what they're doing very quickly.
Before we get to the break, they're changing the rules for the Reserve Bank when they make decisions about the interest rate for the first time ever. Now this has been agreed to by the Treasurer and the Reserve Bank Governor Michelle Bullock.
They will reveal the vote count.
It won't have names next to it, so it's not going to be ratting anyone out for the way they voted, but we will for the first time be able to see what the actual vote was, whether to keep the infstrate on hold or to move it up or.
To move it down. I think fair enough.
Anything that is done to promote transparency and in a way of looking at the way the system works, I think is a good thing.
It's good for us to see whether or not these.
Are unanimous decisions or ones that were very close, because it gives an idea of how the RBA works, and I think that's earning a good step.
I think the risk here, though, is that we have seen repeated moves from Jim Chalmers to.
Restructure the RBA.
In fact, the reforms he's introduced are the most radical since the RBA was created. And these reforms all sort of lead in the direction of removing or whittling down slowly their independence through more hand picks to go onto the board. And also he said that putting union members on the board of the RBA is not a controversial proposal at all, and other economists are actually saying this reform doesn't go far enough. We should list names as well of how board members voted, which I think sets
us down even further. This path of politicizing the RBA, and we've already seen a bit of that in the election. Chalmers does not want to take responsibility for inflation. He tries to blame the RBA, and this will entrench that.
Think when Jim Chalmer says this is not political, this is about transparency, you can be sure it's political.
We're going to go to a break.
When we come back, look at what's making news to borrow, including warnings that Australian needs to prepare for war.
A't siting just a moment.
Welcome back to the program. Well, some incredible stories in tomorrow's newspapers. We're going to have a look at them tonight. Calub we've got the Australian.
Indeed, it says US China war we would be in.
Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles says the nation will inevitably be drawn into a US China conflict, with the continent now more relevant than ever to the contest between the world's great powers. As America ratchets up its military presence on Australian soil. The stark warning came as the Chief of Defense Force, David Johnston, said Australians needed to prepare for more regular Chinese naval exercises off the nation's coastline, as Beijing's powerful navy owns its war plans.
I mean that is the most directly.
This has been put to us thus far, that we will end up in a war, and all the modeling and whatever out of the US in particular has been that at this point, now, by the end of the decade, it's likely that there will be some kind of major conflict with China, probably them going into Taiwan, and if that draws in the United States, which would be highly likely, it would then draw in necessarily Australia and the United
Kingdom and Canada, etc. We are heading towards war. It is now clearly admitted by the government.
It's an interesting admission by the Defense Minister, because Anthony Albernezi has been very coy about suggesting that there's any sort of remote possibility of conflict. But of course Richard Miles was at a defense symposium where other speakers were
very blunt about what Australia is facing. Former US National Security advisor, former General hr McMaster said, quote unquote, China is preparing for war and they're probing signs of weakness in Western nations, and Radia should be quote unquote very concerned about what's coming. So I think that Richard Miles didn't have much option but to admit what everybody knows privately and to say it out loud.
And they do need to talk about it because otherwise you have.
A public who are completely unprepared in the event that all of a sudden we're involved in a major conflict and big sacrifices have to be made.
But this is so embarrassing for Anthony Albanesi for your Defense minister to be saying we're going to war soon, and then the Prime Minister to be saying we're going to be neutral third party negotiating between China and the US. We don't want to take sides too early. I mean, do they realize how out of sync they are?
Well, it's funny how Richard Miles seems to get things done when Anthony Albanizi.
Is out of the country, to be true, because the last one I remember.
Was during the n zyq business and he was acting Prime Minister, and the coalition came in with a bunch of amendments to the legislation that was going to be put through in order to get these people redetained, and Richard Marles had it all fixed in five minutes flat, which I don't think would have happened if.
Albow was there on the day.
But while we're talking about defense and how we're likely heading towards war with China, other story on the front of the OS that well tells us exactly how well that might go. Lack of certainty on defense spend a
super dilemma. A lack of certainty around defense spending plans is preventing investment in Australia's military industrial base, especially from the four point two trillion dollars superannuation industry, says South Australian Premier Peter Malanowskis as preasure builds on the Albanzy government to increase defense spending as a percentage of GDP.
Industry participants say greater commitment on contracts is needed, especially if the government's calls for superannuation funds to participate are met.
Once again. It proves how far behind the eight.
Ball we are.
And once again it takes either Chris Mins or Peter Malinowskis the two most sensible labor leaders in this country to call out exactly how bad a state we are in.
It's funny, isn't the government always going on about investment certainty. Business needs investment, certainly when it comes.
To their pet project renewables, but.
When it comes to defending the country, investment certainty is nowhere to be found.
And also how they always seem to turn to superannuation as the thing that's going to save Australia. Who's going to buy the Port of Darwin's superannuation, Who's going to build all the renewables superannuation? Who's going to save our defense superannuation? But super is just our money, so it's another way of using our money to fix their problems. But let's move on to the Herald Son now. Speaking of we spoke about youth crime earlier. They've finally introduced
some new laws around post and boast. You'll pay dangerous criminals who share videos of violent home invasions, carjackings and stolen card joy rides online will cop an extra two years behind bars with the Victorian government and set to introduce.
Tough post and boast laws.
The Alan Government will today announce the introduction of this specific offense for bragging about crimes online that will keep thugs in jail for longer. I mean initially when I read this, I thought, wow, Victoria's finally doing something about youth crime. But actually New South Wales introduced these laws last year. Queensland has already introduced these laws, and the Northern Territory as well, So once again Victoria is lagging.
Yeah, it's a good law.
It's just amazing it hadn't been implemented a lot earlier, particularly when you.
Look at all what's going on in Victoria.
Well there's a state election next year, sir, you know, get your skates on exactly right.
Another story in the Herald Sun, the headline is Albo's aids fly high. Aid senior bureaucrats inside Anthony Albanese's Prime Minister and Cabinet department with membership to the exclusive Quantus Chairman's lounge enjoyed almost ninety fly over a year, with an independent senator claiming the continued acceptance of gifts by politicians and staff was deeply concerning I don't want politicians or bureaucrats to, you know, not have a pleasant experience.
They work hard, they should be rewarded for that. But I think the challenge comes in when these are the same people who are making billion dollar decisions around flight timetables, which airlines can operate in Australia, and then they're getting free perks on the side.
It doesn't exactly stack up.
Yeah, you've got to ask yourself, do Quantus give these chairmen's lounge passes just out of.
The goodness of their hearts?
Or is there a hope that, you know, when push comes to shove, Quantus will be looked on favorably. I think we all know how human nature works, and the Independent Senator is right, it's deeply of course.
And I mean there are some people I know of in entertainment and media who do have membership to the Chairman's Lounge. I'm not one of them, but I would, you know, without trying to be too egotistical about it, I'm far more recognizable than any of these people who would work for.
The Prime Minister.
So when you're making a decision about who do you admit to the chairman's Lounge, it's who can I get the most influence out of who is it most worth having in the lounge to get towards the decisions that can be made. So if you are the top of the tree when it comes to media in this country,
you might get an invitation in there. Or if you happen to be a faceless back room person, a bureaucrat who works in the Prime Minister's department, but someone who gives advice to the Prime minister, will you're in for membership of the Chairman's lounge.
I think that tells you why they give the memberships.
But it will continue to happen because most politicians enjoy it. So I don't see that they're going to vote to not be part of that club. Let's go to the Newcastle Herald. Wind knocked out of sales, reads the headline. Of course, this is in reference to Labour's green fantasies. Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen has ruled out adding more project to the Hunter offshore wind Zone, a move that reflects growing uncertainty about the offshore wind industry's future.
This comes as Norwegian energy giant Equinor continues to deliberate on whether to take up a feasibility license for the Novocastrian Wind project, which aimed to generate two gigwats of offshore renewable energy. By the way, this same company declined to take up the offer in the Illawarra zone, where a feasibility.
License has still not yet been issued.
The Labor government ANOWT six offshore wind zones that would be crucial for them providing the power that we need, and energy companies are very reluctant to take them up without massive government subsidies, which should tell you something.
Indeed, let's just get rid of it all, I think is probably what it's telling us. But I don't think mister Bowen will be going down that line very quickly.
Before we get to the break.
Tragic story on the front of the Mercury down in Tasmania tomorrow.
It'says killed in line of duty.
Tasmania's lead have called Monday a dark day after a well respected and seasoned police officer was shot and killed in the line of duty, the first fatal police shooting in the state in twenty six years. The officer was executing a court issued warrant to repossess the home when police say the resident opened fire.
I mean, you know, the police do a lot of great.
Work in this country and we should never forget the family and friends they have. Don't think when their family and friend Copper wakes up in the morning that they're not going to come home alive. But sometimes these things happen when they are simply doing their jobs.
What an awful case.
Yeah, absolutely, well, we're going to go to a break.
When we come back, you will know what happens when people see a sign saying fresh paint, don't touch.
So what do you think happens in a museum.
When a priceless crystal incrusted chair has a sign attached saying don't sit down.
You know what happens.
Will show you after the break. All right, welcome back to the program. We've got our dope of the day, Freyo.
Let's hear it for our dope of the day.
A pair of tourists at a museum in Italy were caught on security footage sitting on a chair that had a big sign do not touch. This was a crystal Swarovsky crystal encrusted chair, and they specifically waited for security to leave before making them move. Obviously, they immediately realized we've messed up, and they fled the scene. And now the museum is looking for tips to find this mystery couple.
This incident happened in April.
The museum have only just released the footage a to try and find who wasn't that destroyed this priceless piece of art, but also as a warning to future tourists, maybe just look at the exhibits.
Don't touch like they should have put something around round it.
I suspect because you're right, James, when you said earlier that it's like, you know, don't touch you when it's almost encouraging people to go and do it. It's meant to be a tribute to Van Go's chair painting, of course, the total opposite of his painting, which was far more to day. It was a wooden chair, this one covered in this were obsky crystals, but.
It was helped to going to buy tinfoil.
I know, come on, people, can we just follow the rules for the sake of everyone else?
Now?
Today is not only has Paul told you in his program the day that ten years ago Donald Trump descended down the escalator to tell us he was going to run for president.
It's National Vigiamte Day. We all remember this.
Ad today more than ever. Bgier might help, might yeast extract with all the goodness of those essential B Group vitamins.
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I just remember that ad from nineteen eighty. I'm thinking where all the mobile phones?
I don't remember that ad from nineteen eighty, but I love it anyway, and I love Veggiemite.
That's all we've got time for is stick around? Coming up is the Read a Penny Show.
Good Night,