Le welcome late pay.
Thanks for joining us on. James Macpherson with Liz Storer and Caleb Bond Well, the Victorian State government can't afford hospitals or cancer research, but wait until you hear what they can afford to spend thirty seven million taxpayer dollars on. It will blow your mind when we tell you about that a little later. Plus when we look at the papers. The front page of Tomorrow's Australian outlines Peter Dutton's vision
for the country. Of course, he stated that during his budget reply speech earlier this evening, and the front page of Tomorrow's Herald Son reveals just how much stop and go sign holders are earning. And I promise you once you hear about it, no matter where you are tonight, you will pack up and move to Melbourne and apply for a job. It's a great wicket if you can get on it. But if you live in New South Wales and you have solar panels on your roof, you might want to go out and buy a tar pole
and to cover them up during the daytime hours. At least that's what I would do. After Osgrid announced plans to charge householders if they export electricity into the grid during daylight hours. The energy company, which owns the poles and wires for about two million customers in Sydney and Beyond, says that solar panels are producing too much electricity between the hours of ten am and three pm when demand is low. Now, if that continues, they'll be forced into
a costly upgrade of their entire network. So what they're proposing is to penalize households a one point two cents per miller watt hour for electricity that is exported into the grid. Now, helpfully, they say, you can avoid this penalty by going out and buying a battery, so you can just keep the energy rather than pumping it back into the grid. And the good news is a battery lonely costure about nine thousand dollars.
On the other hand, with that problem solved.
You can take up my suggestion, Liz, you can go to Bunning and get a top hole and for about twenty bucks. Now, if you remove the top and from the roof between the hours of four pm and nine pm when demand is high, Osgrid will pay you two point three cents per killer what hour to put solar
panel back into the grid. But back to daylight hours, Calebin, Liz, We've got this situation now where citizens generate electricity that we then pay power companies to take off us so they can sell back to us at a later date. There's a program on the ABC called Utopia which satirizes government departments. I mean, they don't need to pay a script writer. They're getting their scripts for free.
Ridiculous, isn't it.
By the way, I wouldn't be going to Bunnings for our taps. I just give the Port Adelaide Football Club a call and see if they've got any leftovers that they put on the seats at Adelaide Oval because they can't get enough fans into the ground. They might lend you one. But it is absurd because everyone was told to put solar panels on their roof because they would get these massive feeding park right.
That was the idea was that you.
Put the solar panel on your roof, you generate electricity that you then sell to the power companies, and the power companies sell that to other people. You are creating the power for the power companies and.
For that you will be rewarded.
So millions of people across the country have gone out spent their money on their solar panels, expecting that they're going to get a return on investment, and now they're told that because everyone has put solar panels on their roofs, there's far too much.
Solar power swimming around.
Therefore you no longer get any benefit. And if you want the benefit, you've got to go and get the battery for yourself.
And I couldn't believe.
A woman posted on X today her power bill. She goes by art in lily Dale as her handle, and you can see the power bill there that she's posted. She's been charged six hundred and thirteen bucks for the quarter. But if you have a look, there's a graph there that shows the ingoings and outgoing. So that peachy looking color is the power she's using. The green is the power she has put back into the grid from her
solar panels. She is putting twice as much power into the grid as she is personally using, and she still has to pay six hundred dollars for her power. I mean, you would have thought I paid for these bloody solar panels so I don't have to pay for the power.
Now they tear. You've got to pay even more if you want the benefit of it. The whole thing has been a sham.
An absolute riff off.
By the way, lady, there goes you three hundred bucks from the Helm and easy other to help pay your power prices. Not exactly what anyone had in mind, was it. No, which is not what they had in mind either. When you buy solar panels. My parents did this years ago as well, because that turns out the sun actually does shine for free. So if you invest in that, you're like, hey, we're laughing all the way to the bank.
Well not anymore.
And wait a minute, wait a minute, aren't we told on a daily basis by the government's across this country that the more renewables we get into the grid.
The cheaper energy will be. Here you're being fined for it.
You're literally being punished for sending renewable energy into the grid. And this whole like, oh, well, if it's after four pm, then will reward you. You're going to get two point three cents per miller watt? What when the sun's going down? I mean, if we're talking about winter here, it's not much good after four pm.
You're really not going to get much bang for your buck. At all. And what this does.
Is punish the poor because now this means that if you have solar panels on your house, unless you can find a lazy nine grand lying around to invest in these batteries, I wonder who battery friends our government has. Unless you have that money to take that investment, now you are screwed.
Well, I want to know why it's consumers problem this excess energy. Shouldn't osgrid invest in batteries. I mean they're now a company harvey batteries and solve the problem exactly?
You think they could harvest the power You've got all the extra power swimming around in the system. Isn't it the ultimate solution that they no longer have to buy as much coal fired power from other generators because they've got people literally generating the power.
For them on their roofs.
And it's a bit like the electric car situation right where we're all told, going by an electric car, it's the panasee or it's the next big thing. So a lot of people did go and buy electric cars, and then they found out that the more people who did it, the more difficult it is to actually make the system operate because we don't have the charges. We don't have the technology, we don't know how to recycle the batteries.
You've got low range, et cetera, et cetera. The more people you have in the systems, great for those who are there at the beginning, right, they got their feed in tariffs and made a lot of money at the time, But since then it's all fallen apart because we're not ready for it.
Funny about that, and they never they never seem to think of the domino effects because part of the whole solar panel fiasco as well is, of course they generate most of their power during the day when people aren't homey don't work, and then what happens is the call fired power stations have to rev up big time at peak demand, which is when everyone gets home from school, everyone gets home from work. Now, the call fired power
stations weren't designed to do that. So then you've got the power generator charging for that because it's semi damaging. That's not what coal fired power stations were designed to do. Suddenly ramp up at four pm every day, the power generator is charging for that.
They pass that charge.
Onto the power retailer, and the power retailer passes it on to us. So, yay, you did get free power through your soul while you weren't at home in that day, and now you're getting fined for that. Essentially, you're being punished for it. And now that you have got home and everyone's requiring power right now.
It's just way more expensive.
And we're damaging our coal fired power stations happening to ramp them up to top notch at four pm every day.
Well, I reckon what they should do is they should restrict the hours you can use power. But we had water restrictions once upon a time. You can only run your dish washert during the afternoon, you can only run your washing machine during the afternoon.
You know. Look, I mean they can do anything else.
Anyway.
It'll happen at some point. I'm not joking. It will happen at some point. Scientists have already.
Talked about the fact that that is where we will have to go with the energy, if we're going to be relied on renewable energy. While we're on the topic of climate and renewable energy and fossil fuels, et cetera. The Walkley Awards, or should we call them the Wokely Awards, of course, the top gong in journalism in a Australia. They've decided that they will sever their sponsorship with a Ampole, of course, is the oil company. You can go to any of their service stations and fill your car up
with diesel or unleaded or whatever it might be. They signed on for a two year deal nearly two years ago. It comes up in October and the Walkleys have said we do not want your sponsorship anymore because they've changed their policy whereby they now refuse sponsorship from companies that quote offer no tangible benefit to humanity.
Now, I would suggest to.
The committee at the Walkleys that you know, if Ampole were to shut down, and every other you know, gas company and petrol company, oil company, coal producer in this country were to shut down.
There would be a little bit of a difference to humanity.
You'd have to stop all the cars, and you'd have to stop all the electricity, and you'd have to stop all the planes, and you'd have to stop all the tray. I think am Pole actually does a fair bit for humanity, to be perfectly honest. But the thing I love about this the most is that the Walkleys were established in nineteen fifty six by a man called Sir William Walkley.
Now, apart from establishing.
The Walkleys, do you know what else Sir William Walkley did have a guess?
I know the answer, But tell us Caleb, he established am Pole.
For heaven's sake, the man who started the Walkleys started am Pole.
And now the Walkleys.
Say they don't want money from the company that the man who started the Walkley started.
It isn't it ridiculous?
It's a Walkley Foundation are committed to closing down organizations that have no tangible benefit for humanity.
They need to shut up shop.
They'd be shutting down the ABC, That's what they'd be looking for. I mean. But the irony, of course, is delicious that am Pole and Walkley are intimately connected exactly.
He is also one of their sponsors. So I'm like, how about my resources? BHP must be like, well, where the next to go? And if I was you, BHP, I'd just withdraw my sponsorship. I mean, how ungrateful is this that Ampole sponsorship. They had a platinum sponsorship, hundreds of thousands of dollars.
They were welcomed into the Wokely family in twenty twenty.
Two, and two short years later, they've been given the boot.
Because last year awards, a bunch of cartoonists boycotted the awards. Other journists got very upset that it was sponsored by a fossil fuel company. And of course the other upset was that there was no specific award for a climate change report. But this year ampole are gone and one lucky journalist will be rewarded for his climate catastrophe. There'll be a special award.
What this essentially says, and we've seen banks and other people start doing this now, being like, oh, we won't give loans to anyone associated.
With coal, oil gas, those.
Terrible fossil fuels, is that it's a reputational risk now to be involved with these companies that, like it or not, they make your lifestyle possible in countless ways. Baby, So you crossing them off your sponsorship list and then living off their backs on a daily basis, in every which way, that is the stupidest virtue signaling you can possibly do.
Would they say it's a reputational risk? I kind of imagine these same people when they're filling up their car with unleaded are they sort of putting their hand over their phone. They don't want to be seen because they're going to reputation seeing at a gas station.
Please, you are gushing emissions every single day, just like the rest of them, as you probably flew a plane to attend the Woke Please but no, they say their new sponsorship policy contains an explicit focus on ethics and working with sponsors that share their woke values a climate communism.
Fantastic, there you go.
Well, one person who won't be catching a plane, it would seem, is Australian runner Adams. Now he was expecting he would be able to go over to Paris for the Olympics this year. He's a marathon runner and he is seventy fourth in the world. Now, he and Athletics Australia and pretty much every other country were sort of under the impression that the eighty runners who would get to run in the marathon at the Olympics this year would be the top eighty runners in the world.
Not the case.
Apparently only the top seventy have qualified for the Paris Olympics, and then the last ten have been given to what they call universality athletes. Now the idea that is its diversity, equity and inclusion. There are ninety three nations in the world who are deemed to be underrepresented at the Olympics, so they essentially get a golden ticket into events to try and boost their numbers a bit. There are thirty five nations in Africa, eighteen in the Americas, seventeen in Asia,
in Europe, and fourteen across Oceania. It's almost half the world is eligible to get a golden ticket into these Olympic eventually. And Adams though he was sort of taken by surprise. He talked to the ABC about this this morning.
We were all under the impression that you finished in the top eighty and you'd be going to the Olympics. And yeah, when I found out the shock's news three days after the qualification period had ended, the universality athletes had displaced the ten athletes that had qualified in rankings, it was a complete shock. I felt like it was a kind of nightmare and I was just wondering how it all happened. And yeah, it's been a complete shock and.
It's hard to compute.
Really, maybe I'm missing something here.
I thought the idea of the Olympics, the pinnacle of athletics in the world is the you know, the best in the world go over there and represent their countries. No, no, no, no, no, no, no no, we don't do that. We'll let sort of like, you know, the first seventy best in the world represent their countries. Then we'll just have some also rams make it in because they happened to come from a smaller country.
How does that work?
I actually like it because do you remember at the two thousand Olympics there was a guy called Eddie the Eel. Do you remember this guy, Eddie the Eel turns up representing an African nation. He'd only taken up swimming eight months before the Olympic Games, and he got to the Olympic Games. He had never seen a fifty meter swimming pool in his life. He rocks up, he swims in the fifty meters. It took him one minute and fifty two seconds to complete it, more than twice the time
of the eventual winner. But here's the great thing. In twenty twelve, twelve years later, he is the national swim team coach of his country. It's a beautiful story, Caleb, And so I think it is. Universality of athletes is a wonderful thing.
Was he one of the universally the athletes that basically gets given this as a charity.
You've got a.
Wild card entry just to encourage the athletes of his nation who typically don't swim, and he proved that they typically don't swim and they haven't had a compere that since I don't think, but I mean, Palestine are getting a free pass for the next Olympics. They've announced that Palestinian athletes will be enabled to compete, though they won't qualify for any events, and though they're not actually a nation, but this is done to encourage nations to help their athletes.
Well they literally say, the Olympic Committee say it's to increase the diversity of participating nations. So sorry, Leam Adams, you've been pipped by DEI and good grief, isn't that a growing list?
But you had to laugh.
Reading one of the headlines in the Sydney Morning Herald today, they are under fire for calling ballerinas too thin and this is a national disgrace.
How dare they?
So?
Someone did this rite up? What's his name, Nui tech coat? Yes, David Holberg, actually.
So, David Holberg's the artistic director of the Australian Ballet.
Yes, yes, but he's the one who's slamming it. He's not the one who did the ride up. I was referring to the person who did the ride up. Calling them too thin.
Better than calling them too fat. Right, Nope, you can never get it right.
Well, actually I should point out Nui wrote the story and I know knew he's a good fellow.
He wrote the story for the Herald's.
Son about the SMHS getting slammed by the Australian Ballet. The piece in the SMH was written by a woman called Chantal Newan, who is a barrister and the dance critic for the Sydney Morning Herald. So a woman called the dancers too thin is what happened?
Oh so all you wanted to do was let everyone know, don't worry.
It wasn't a man, okay.
So then we've got David Holborg, who was Artist director of Australian Ballet. He says comment regarding body image is not acceptable and I am compelled to address this. Comments about weight, shape and body comparisons can have a serious negative impact on a person's self esteem and body image
can be detrimental to individuals mental and physical health. Professional ballet dancers, like other ascetic athletes, are identified as a high ROOSK group for the development of body image concerns, disordered eating and eating disorders, for.
Crying out loud.
Anyone who knows anything about ballet knows you can't do it if you're a heifer like you.
And a woman said that one of my I would never have said that.
One of my best friends of fifteen years is a ballet dancer, right, she's a ballet dance teacher now, but she has told me so many stories about the agonies these girls go through. Obviously, to keep the number on this scales down, that is the name of the game. I've also have a very good friend who went to London, was a prima donna, ballerina, all the rest of it.
There is no understating how imperative that is if you want to be a ballerina, if you want to excel, as obviously these guys do because it's the Australian Ballet So I'm sure that no one, none of them anyway, reading this critique saying gosh, they're really skinny, would have had that much of a problem with it.
They would have been like I am.
What if the language was not the problem. What if the artistic director of the Australian Ballet was upset not about them being called unusually thin. What if it was just upset generally about the review. Because let me read you some of this review. It says that this particular performance felt like a banal hour of channel surfing. You watch a series of dissatisfying, self indulgent scenes unrelated to
those you've just watched, and will watch after. The only difference between that and channel surfing is when you're channel surfing, you can leave the room. It goes on to say that the ballet's score sounded like a combination of dental tools, a flight path and my neighbor's techno music leaking through our shared apartment Briill. So I wonder if the artistic director was not really upset about them being called unusually thin, just hated the review.
Well, it was a one and a half star review.
And back in the day I used to review shows for the Adelaide Fringe for the Advertiser, and I think I did once hand out a one star review and the performers did not take very kindly to it because it.
Was a crap show. It's just how it goes.
But miss Newan wrote in the quoting question was the dancers are fabulous, although, and perhaps this was the lighting, seem unusually thin this season.
Right, So.
The line he's already qualified the statement and said maybe it was my eyes.
I don't know. I could have been wrong.
Maybe they weren't as thin as I thought they were. But we know that Ballerina's ballet dancers. Of course they're going to be thin. And you don't see people getting up in arms every weekend about the fact.
That jockeys weigh so little.
And I know, having involved in the racing industry, the job stuff that jockeys do every weekend. I mean they get up at the cracker dawn on Saturday morning, they put on like fifteen layers and go for a run to sweat out as much weight as they possibly can. Then they come back and have a scorching hot bath to sweat out even more weight. They don't eat until five PM when they've stopped racing because they have to
make weight. Now, it's probably not the healthiest lifestyle in the world, but you don't see people complaining about that every single week. But you dare to say that the ballerinas look thin?
Oh my god, how dare you?
We already know that.
It's a fact, it's true, before we're too critical of ballerinas. I mean, the AFL have embraced this whole body shaming thing and announced this year they would stop publishing players weights. And the weight AFL footballers is fairly important because if you've got a seventy kilogram player playing on a one hundred kilogram player makes a big difference. But apparently the AFL footballers are a little bit sensitive about weight, and the weight cannot be published anymore.
Well, I'm sure you'd get in big trouble if you tried to publish the weight of ballerinas.
We're not comparing apples with apples here.
But let's go to the Netherlands now, where six months after Garrett Wilder's party was elected in a landslide, he's finally managed to strike a deal with three other parties to cobble together a coalition of sorts. Now this took some doing because Gearritt Vildas is very well known as being what they call far right, and when he won the election, a quarter of the national vote, which is
no mean feat. When to give you an idea, right now, sitting in the House of Reps in the Netherlands, fifteen parties. They don't have a major two party system like the US or Australia.
Over there, it's like a patch work quilt.
Baby, So he had his work cutout, despite getting a quarter of the national vote, get his work cut out to make friends with these parties, A lot of which said, despite him romping it in vote wise at the election six months ago, a lot of them said, we will never do business with this party, we will not form government with him. Well, he's managed to find three friends and they are cobbling it together. Part of that deal was though him agreeing that he would not be prime minister,
which is a big, big bummer. They still haven't decided who will be prime minister. So I don't know what the other three are going to do. What flip a coin, But this I just can't believe he's actually managed to do it, and that much is incredibly impressive. Like early on in the game, this guy came out very strongly on immigration.
He said, we're going to make Netherlands for the Dutch again.
He promised to ban the Koran mosques Islamic schools.
He was going hard now.
Part of this deal with the major three parties, which is so stupid, right because obviously that is what the Netherland wants. That's why he got a quarter of the national vote. And yet in order to cobble together a government, they've made him softened and dampened down and in some regards get rid of some of the policies that he would if he was.
Governing in his own right he would have implemented. How dumb is that?
Like when you're the leaders of the other three parties who have agreed to cozy up to him in order to be in government yourselves, you're like, well, just drop several of the things that were your vote winners that you took to the election.
Yeah, that's the art of politics, though, isn't It's compromise. He's had to back off all the heavy handed Islamic stuff. But when it comes to immigration, strict measures are regarding asylum seekers, scrapping family reunification for refugees, they're reducing the number of international students sounds like a Peter Dutton's speech, and they're deporting people who don't have a valid visa if necessary by force. And on top of that, and you'll be happy about this, Liz the citizen that the
Farmer's Citizens movement has become part of the coalition. And we all have seen the massive demonstrations in the Netherlands because of what's been done to farmers in the name of climate change. So you'd expect the Netherlands to take a slightly different view on climate than has been the case and that should make a big difference.
Oh.
Yes, All in all, this is a massive win for the Netherlands. And this will mean because this is after fourteen years of the same main party being in power. This was a shock to end all shock elections for the ruling elites in the Netherlands. And it's just wonderful to see, especially right off the back of Argentina.
We've got Harveer Malay there. Trump is going to be back in the.
White House later this year, just speaking that out. But these leaders are increasingly coming to prominence as their populations are just like, we are so sick of what we're seeing happen in our country.
And get Wilders has been at it for the better part of two decades now, and he's finally having his day in the sun.
And we've often had this discussion.
About, you know, the fact you look at Europe and you've had a wave of right when leaders get elected over there, and then of course you had Trump in the US and Harvey Malay in Argentina, etc. And people say, well, why has that not happened in Australia, And my answer has always been the day will come, we just haven't met it yet. There will come a point where people will realize what is going on and they will start to rebel. We just haven't got to that point yet.
So don't be disheartened, but beheartened by the fact it is happening in other parts of the world, because the reckoning has to come at some point.
Now.
Dutton's about the closest we've got to it at the moment. And we'll talk later about his budget reply speech, which wasn't really a budget reply speech.
It was an election pitch.
But he was hitting good points, the right points tonight, and it takes a leader like that to step up and drive that message home as long as it takes. It can take decades, but as long as it takes, you've got to keep driving that message home as get Wilders has ultimately to his success.
For a second, I thought you were going to say that Pauline Hanson will eventually be prom minister of this.
It would be hard to do from the Senate.
That's where you were going. How it worked, staying on politics. Great news from the United States. The election season just got better because Joe Biden has announced he will debate Donald Trump, and it started already. Let me show you Joe Biden already goading it. It's like two boxes lining up getting ready for about. It's like box like one boxer and a lettuce leaf lining up about. Listen to Joe Biden already goading Donald Trump.
Donald Trump was two debates to me in twenty twenty. San Sandy Ada's shown up for debate. No exactly what you want to debate me again?
Or make my day pal.
I'll even do it twice.
So let's pick the dace.
Donald, I hear you're free on Wednesdays.
Biden's comment to Trump, I hear you free on Wednesdays as a reference to the fact that Wednesday is the day he's not required in court in Manhattan. So the sledging has already started. But Biden has already rigged the whole thing, right, So he said, I'm going to debate provided the first debate is on CNN and hosted by them. The second debate is hosted by the ABC, which we all know means Biden will have a little earpiece. He'll
be getting the questions in advance. He'll probably be greatly helped.
But greatly helped.
We are about to weakness the Manhattan Project of pharmaceutical simula, because that guy is going to be standing out a podium facing off with RFK, not just Donald Trump, RFK.
As well, and we show him.
Every other night barely able to string a sentence together.
So this is going to be a major feat for.
The pharmaceutical industry and I can't wait to see.
What they put.
Well Donald Trump, actually, so Donald Trump was asked, are you going to accept? And it took Trump all of half an hour to work out whether or not he'd except he's totally up for it, and Trump said, of course, someone to debate him. But he can't even string two sentences together, which is wrong. Biden can string two sentences together, it's just that one is not related at all to them.
That's quite true.
And because of that fact, as you say, Pharmaceuty was whatever, don't underestimate Biden at these debates.
I would underestimate him at your peril. I know he does.
But they are going to put absolutely everything they possibly can to have him at peak mental fitness, whatever that looks like for Joe Biden at these debates.
They are doing fitness out go Biden.
They are going to call the same sentence absolutely all the stops, even if it means they have to in the bloke and put his skin on someone else to put them up to do the debate.
They will absolutely do it. But why don't we go through a few highlights?
Can I just say I'm curious about this though.
He's a bit of a comm theory.
For you, because this was such a sudden one eighty, right, and his mental atuity has been questioned for as long as his presidency has gone on. For this was a very, very sudden one eighty And I do think that people need to stop and ask themselves why, Because you say they're going to throw everything at it. They're going to make him seem bright, shiny, brand new.
Look at him.
He's got another four years in him, or is this a setup? Is he destined to fail so that then the Dems can turn around and be like Newsom one of the other guys waiting.
In the wings, Get on your bike.
Because Newsom has been looking more and more presidential, He's been getting a lot more press coverage in the States, and we all know that none of this is ever like what a coincidence in an election year. So I'm just curious to see why the one eighty because I very much doubt that it is to prove, oh, look at him, he's one hundred percent, when they know better than anyone he's not.
The other option is because I mean, he's tanking in the polls, and if he can do a moderately good job in the debate, there is the chance that Donald Trump may self destruct because Trump can't help himself. But go too far, go overboard. Maybe just counting on that, but we've got to go to some highlights of previous debates. Just have a look at this. I mean, if it approaches anything like the last time they squared off, it's just going to be fantastic.
Stand back and stand by. Are you in favor of law and order?
I am in favor of law.
You fire law, law in.
Order with justice where people get treated fairly.
I'm a moderator of this debate, and I will like you to let me ask my question and then you can answer.
Your party wanted to go socialistic?
Party?
Is me socialist? Now? I am?
And they're going to dominate you.
Joe, you know that I am the Democratic Party right now. The platform of the Democratic Party is what I in fact approved of.
First of all, I guess I'm debating you, not him, But that's okay. I'm not surprised.
It's going to be hectic. But before we move on to another topic, we're just going to show you one more clip from their previous debate. This is my favorite.
A lot of people died and a lot more going to die unless he gets a lot smarter a lot.
Did you use the word smart? So you said you went to Delaware State, but you forgot the name of your college. You didn't go to Delaware State. You graduated either the lowest or almost the lowest in your class. Don't ever use the word smart with me. Don't ever use that word. Oh give me, because you know what, there's nothing smart about you.
Joe Trump is the master of one line, it's going.
To be what he was referring to. There was the bald face lies that Joe Biden has told about his academic record. He said he went to this university, said he graduated top of his class, said he won a scholarship.
None of it was true.
I think that was back in the seventies or something that, maybe the eighties, but you can still watch it online him telling these bald face lies about how smart he is and.
What a incredible student he was. And that's why Trump was like, don't.
Use that with me, quick one before we go to an ad break in Peru this week, they've decided to classify trans, non binary people as well as intersex people as mentally ill.
They have said they've.
Done this in order to ensure that these those who identify as all of the above get the mental health assistance that they need. And they noted the inordinate or shall I say, unbalanced, proportion of their mental health budget was being utilized by people who identify as trans, non binary, and inter sex. So when you use that argument, it actually seems common sensical.
Yeah. Well, they've said they've not done this to demonize transgendered people. They've not done it to hurt transgendered people. They say, our intent is to help to make sure that mental health services are fully covered by insurance. Now activists, of course, aren't happy about this. They say that this is conversion therapy. But again, the Peruvian government have assured the transgender community we're not going to force anyone to detransition, but we just want to make sure that mental health
services are available. And it's acknowledged worldwide that transgendered people do have more mental health issues than the general population. The argument is over why that is, but the Peruvian government made this decision as a way of helping. Obviously there's been pushed back.
Gender dysphoria itself is a medical condition, right, so surely
there ought to be a medical response to it. And when you look at the number of people who are now deciding years after they transitioned, whether that be medically through chemicals and hormone treatment, etc. Or even surgically in terms of trying to change their genitals, the number of people who are now saying that they regret the changes they made, it would seem an entirely humane thing to do to say that, in the first instance, there ought
to be a mental health intervention here. Now, I have no doubt that there are people who seriously suffer with gender dysphoria, and I feel really sad and sorry for them, and they have to work through that, and that can't be an easy thing to deal with. That itself creates
its own mental health issues. But the number of people who are increasingly coming out as having been a confused child and then in adulthood thoroughly regretting what they had done when they were a child and the road they were led down in order to be able to do that as a child, surely we should be saying there
are mental health issues here. You should be talking to a doctor not about the easiest way to change your gender, but about the way you are feeling and what you are experiencing and why you are confused, because clearly, in many of these cases there are underlying issues there. It's not just about I think I was born in the wrong body. There's a lot more to it than that. The science and the medicine is starting to acknowledge that.
A lot of the gender the gender health clinics overseas, including Tavistock in the UK, and there's even reviews going on in our country now into this stuff about gender transition with children in particular, it is changing. Why would we not take a mental health angle on all of this.
Well, we're going to go to a break when we come back. Look at what's making news in the papers tomorrow, including just how much Stop and Go sign holders are being paid in Melbourne. You will not believe it. That's coming up at a moment. Well, Peter Dutton gave his Budget reply speech this evening and so Liz, obviously that's what the Australian are leading with tomorrow.
Indeed, the splash reads Dutton's future made in basics. I think they're playing off the Albanesi's government.
Made in Australia.
Peter Dutton will slash the permanent migration program by twenty five percent, ben foreign investors and temporary residents from buying existing homes, and reduce the number of international students to free up more than one hundred thousand houses for Australians over five years.
These are to be the.
Iceberg in terms of the awesome things that he had to say in his Budget reply speech, but they're so common sense that reading them you're just like, why aren't were we doing this?
Already.
You don't have to be an expert in any of these fields to know, Okay, that is going to make life a lot more livable for millions of assies quite quickly.
Why aren't we doing these?
And as you said, on top of that, he talked about crime and proposed a whole of laws that they'll implement, and of course his background as a police officer, that'll resonate with people. Crimes a major issue. And as well as proposing nuclear, talked about unlocking our gas reserves, which most people, in fact, even the government themselves admit we're going to need gas to get to net zero. So he's proposing let's unlock gas. There's a whole lot of stuff in this. It just all makes sense.
Yeah, Brillion, I was like early election follows.
I know we need nineteen seats.
It's a big ass for common DUTs do it for the country.
I think it's a very big task.
But as Sharri basically said earlier in the evening, it sounded more like an election pitch than a budget In reply speech, it went well beyond budget terms and essentially into policy in other areas.
That's what he used the opportunity for.
And I was so glad to hear him talking about housing a ford ability right, because you've had leaders talk in vain about housing affordability, but it only gets worse. And I've said many times that the biggest threat to conservatism worldwide, but particularly here in Australia with the rate of property prices going up, is housing affordability. Because if you don't own something, you don't have anything to conserve.
You need something of your own to protect and look after and want to grow, et cetera, et ce.
Right, So if you don't own a home, you lose.
All of those touchstones that give you a sense of what conservatism is about because you have literally nothing of your own, nothing to conserve. Every conservative government in the world, then one of the number one priorities should be housing affordability, getting young people into the housing market, because once they have a piece of the economic pie and a piece of the property pie, they'll realize the realit living in the world, and that's when their views on things start to change.
I think it's thoroughly important for.
A young person as an individual.
It gives them such a sense of purpose and meaning as well, like this is my patch.
We've got to get on top of this, for the sake of.
The future, next splash, Labor senator censured for from River to the Sea.
The Senate has condemned the use of the phrase from the river to the sea Palestine will be free, a.
Day after the slogan was used by first term Labor Senator Fatima Payman. I'm mean a push from the Victoria's left faction to pass anti Israel motions at state conference, so their government comes out condemns this floody blah. We know you're talking out of both sides of your mouth because you prove it every other day. But this was also the day that the crazy Greens lady, the Greens lady Lydia thought form was allowed to continue to wear a kefia in our Senate well.
The motion was moved by Simon Birmingham. It was supported by Penny Wong. Curiously, the Labor senator who used the phrase, she was missing from the Senate, but Labor colleagues voted to the statement. The only ones who didn't vote to condemn the statement, obviously were the Greens. And as you said, Lydia Thorpe, who made a rather fiery speech, will show you that speech now. I know, you can just see her making the speech. They're wearing the keffia, if you will.
Pauline Hanson was told to remove a Israeli scarf. Yes, So we were wondering why does Pauline Hanson not able to wear an Israeli scarf but Lydia Thorpe is able to wear the kefia. I believe because the Israeli scarf is seen definitively as political, whereas the kefia is still regarded as a fashion.
State because even though we all know it has political because the Israeli scarf has rioting on it and whatever is the kefia is a cultural garment, but we know.
The content to say that, we know the context statement.
A cultural fashion item, but the context in which they are.
Wearing it is entirely political. Right, So the.
Victorian Parliament recognized by banding Greens to wear.
Victoria, so surely it should be treated in the same way, even though it may have a different history in terms of you know, I mean that scarf that Pauline Hansen wore yesterday. There's no historical significance to that scarf whatsoever. But surely they're both being used in a political manner. They both ought to be treated in the same way I would have thought.
Let's go to the front page of the Herald's Sun. If you're looking for a new job, Melbourne is the place exclusive story stop, go paddle pop holders are now earning two hundred and six thousand dollars a year amid c FMEU takeover of Victoria's big bill dollar signs is the headline entry level labor as this applies to on building sites, getting two hundred and six and a year. On top of that, the CFMEU are making sure that their mates are getting contracts on building sites though quoting
twice the price of non union aligned competitors. So if you're part of the CFMU in Melbourne, you're on a good wicket.
Well, I might just have to get my CFMU ticket and when I leave here at eleven pm every night, go and start to working.
On the lollipops. Reckon. It sounds like a great way to top up.
My Invictorian should be railing against this. The article goes on to say industry whistleblowers say that the CFMEU takeover of the state's taxpayer funded major infrastructure program has driven up traffic management.
Costs alone alone.
So that's just this little bit by more than three hundred and eighty million dollars. That's taxpayers paying three hundred and eighty million dollars for exactly what they would have been getting regardless had the CFMEU not come along and just been like, we're going to make everything way more expensive, so our guys get way more.
Taxpayer dollars and screw the taxpayer.
That's fine. Now why you're upsettlers. If you want a labor state government, that's just the problect.
That's what you get with with labor governments and bolshy unions. I mean, for all the things you can say about the CFMU, you can't accuse them of not doing the best for their members because.
They're pretty bloody effective.
That Let's go to the Courier mail where tomorrow they say government's crazy stadium bill a billion dollars to shrink the Gabba.
Can you believe this?
The state government's alternative plan for the Gabba could cost one point one billion dollars and wait for it, cut its capacity by about four thousand seats. Hang on a minute, now, we know that the Queensland government commissioned a report into what infrastructure that they would require for the Olympic Games in twenty thirty two. It came back and made a bunch of suggests, all of which were chucked out the window. Now they say, well, we can tap the gabber up a bit, but it'll have fewer seats.
What imagine if they spent two billion dollars they could get rid of eight thousands. Don't they just keep going?
It's just necessary to reach code compliance and prevent it from deteriorating.
I'm just like, just change the.
Code, seriously for a billion barts.
Just change the code for two point seven billion dollars. They said they could just demolish the entire thing and rebuild it with more seats, so I might as well to spend the extra billion. And I mean, it's all this money.
Right, I know.
I just looked if only in Queensland can you get away with this kind of thing? I mean, you know, remember back in the days of Joe bi Ilki Peterson there were developments going up left, right and sent her and you know, maybe there were a few brown paper bags under the counter as well.
It is Queensland, let's.
Just go back to the good old days of brown paper bags and get this thing done for five hundred million dollars.
Surely it's possible in Queensland.
That one moment we're like railing against the Union's arts or corrupted, then the next minute we're like we just need brown paper.
Exactly, bring it back.
It worked for Joe Jerrymander the heck out of this thing.
Joe was the best at that quickly to the.
Daily Telegraph, Now work boom eludes more than three hundred thousand long term jobless stuck in misery lane. Whose fault is that almost three hundred and twenty thousand Australians have been unemployed for between two years and an entire decade, despite living through the biggest jobs booms in Australia's history. Okay, so what point do we just go? Okay, we are kicking you off the state's teat the end, I mean that many people, that's a third of a million people
for jobless between two and ten years. That is a lot of years between them. Clearly you just don't want a job.
The article goes on to say that one recruiter says many jobless people deliverly apply for jobs. They have no chance couditing, so they can tick the box and continue to get their.
It's a mentality. They're just like, why would I work for money? You doesn't been giving it to me free for rags.
We're going to go to a break when we come back. Speaking of money, you won't believe what the Victorian government are investing in space tourism. What could go wrong? It's coming up in a moment. Well, the Victorian government can't afford hospitals, but they've decided to invest thirty seven million dollars in space tourism. They're investing in a US company that are proposers to sell people the opportunity to go
up into space. It'll be amazing if it comes off, just like the Commonwealth Games would have been amazing if it came off, and the East West Link would have been amazing if it came off. This company is paying is charging seventy five thousand dollars. You can buy the tickets now to take off from the Great Barrier Reef. Though they've not yet received approval for these flights. They're proposing to put control headquarters in Melbourne, and the Victorian
Government believe that this will create hundreds of jobs. If they'd done their research though they would have found that this company had been sued in Arizona, where they made a similar promise and failed to provide anywhere near the jobs promised. Just another project in Victoria is that you know is going to go exactly as Durians.
Just get out of there, Just get out of there.
But before we leave you tonight, this has got to be one of the weirdest stories you will ever hear in your entire life.
Algeria.
Right, this guy's abducted at seventeen.
Years of age.
His family think he's dead, but twenty seven years later he's just been discovered.
Two hundred meters down the road.
Turns out he's in He was abducted by his neighbor, held captive by his neighbor for those twenty seven years.
Here's some footage of him.
Being discovered down some sort of well, that was some sort of commotion outside the hospital after he was discovered.
Get this.
He says that he couldn't call out for help during these twenty seven years because he was under some sort.
Of spell by his captor. Caleb.
I just cannot get over this story. If this wasn't real, you'd have to write it. But as in so many of these cases. Real life is stranger than fiction.
That's it from us, stick around, coming up in just a moment. It is the readependent show.