Lately the general welcome late to play well, thanks for joining us.
I'm James Macpherson with Caleb Bond and filling in for Listra Caroline Marcus. We've got a lot to get through tonight, including you know, there's a fair bit of animosity between the US and Canada at the moment after Donald Trump suggested that Canada should become the fifty first US state will they faced off in an ice hockey game at the weekend. There wasn't a lot of hockey. We'll show
you what did happen a little later. Plus, when we look at the papers, concerns that Australian school students know almost nothing about our political system. It tends to show around voting time and fire departments issue fresh warnings about the dangers of e scooters. All of that when we get to the papers. Oh, there's also possibly a rate cut tomorrow, the papers doing that one as well.
We'll look at that a bit later.
But first, with the polls turning against him, Anthony Albinezi has sought help to revive his fortunes. So who do you think Anthony Albanesi is turning to for advice? Remember Anthony Albenese's never been particularly good at reading the room, which perhaps explains why Australia's I don't know dopious man has turned to Australia's most hated man for help, Daniel Andrews. That's right, Anthony Albanesi, in need of help, has decided to turn to the former Victorian Premier, Dan Andrews to
help him prepare for debates with Peter Dutton. Now, I know most people regard Dan Andrews as having been the consummate political mastermind. He did win three elections, after all, but Caleb and Caroline that's mostly because he avoided tough interviews famously, he didn't go on three aw for years. And of course Anthony Alberenezi needs to bear in mind unlike Victoria, Australia isn't gripped by Stockholm syndrome.
Well, Neil Mitchell, I'm told still takes sleeping pills to get over the fact that Daniel Andrews wouldn't talk to him for years and years and years. But you're right, I mean he is one of the best. Actually, I'm going to say he is the best politician this country. Daniel Andrews iman has seen in fifty years. When I say best, I don't mean that he did great things for Victoria, but that he was just an excellent politician.
He understands how to gather and hoard power and to then use that over everyone else.
That's why he.
Was so successful as premier. Not because he was necessarily the greatest salesman to the public, but he understands power and how power works better than almost anyone else in this country. And he single handedly turned the Labor Party in Victoria from the Labor right to the socialist left.
And by the end of his premiership he had ministers, including Tim Pallas who just recently departed as a treasurer and on the way out left a ten percent swing against his party in his seat of Werribee, coming from the Labor right to sign up to the socialist left so he can remain as treasurer. That is how Daniel Andrews operated. That is what Albanez he wants. He wants a bit of that big dog energy that Daniel Andrews had, because he is as limp as a piece of wet letters.
To use the line, of course that another Labor leader, Paul Keating once used once upon a time, and it's no surprise that he would go to someone like Daniel Andrews for a bit of advice. The only problem I suspect is that it ain't going to do much for him. I mean at this point in the game, and if you look at the debate he had last time in when was it?
When was the last leg?
Twenty two Scott Morrison, I mean, it feels.
Like yesterday anyway, it feels like a day. I still I remember sitting there on the night in the news.
It feels like yesterday to me. But the debates they had.
Last time were terrible, right, he was so out of form, so I'm not surprised that Albo would want to give it a better go this time. I don't think you could tell him anything though. He's just weak in front of a camera.
I don't think that changes.
What do you reckon? Carole?
I disagree with Caleb. I think it's one thing to captivate a Victorian demographic. It's another thing altogether to win
over the rest of the country. And if you put Dan Andrews almost anywhere else in the country, I don't think he would have performed as well as he did in Victoria, where Let's face it, a lot of the voters are not like anywhere else in Australia, and at the moment he's not even He's pretty on the nose himself within his own state, after what came out of the review into what happened with the car crash that he was involved in, after revelations that he's taken this
very cushy consultancy job post politics. So I don't know that it would even help Anthony Albanezi win in places like Queensland, where the latest News poll shows that he's recorded the highest dissatisfaction ratings. That's the seats that those are the places he really needs to convince, not the people in Victoria who Daniel Andrews was speaking to in keeping his power. Those people are already on labor side. Maybe some of them might be thinking of going Greens,
but those people are already one over. And I think there's probably this news looks terrible for the government that this has come out because among pretty much the rest of the country, if not as a point out Victoria itself, he is deeply unpopular. Daniel leaving in Victoria.
I mean he can't join a golf club. Kenny in his own state. They don't want him as a member. You mentioned Newspaul. Let's have a quick look at some of the latest results from Newspaul out over the weekend. The two party preferred vote sees Labor on forty nine percent training the Coalition on fifty one percent. Anthony Alberinezi is still regarded as the better prime minister.
He leads Peter Dutton by five points.
And when it comes to whether Labour should be given a second term, well that's good news for Albanzi. Only thirty four percent of voters say yes he deserves another go in the lodge, fifty three percent saying no, he does not, thirteen percent still unsure.
Of course, their.
Primary vote at the moment is just thirty one percent. That's the lowest ever, and bear in mind it's lowest still than at the last election when it was thirty two point six percent. What Dan Andrews is going to do specifically for Peter for Anthe Albanesi hang on. I was about to say Peter Dutton, but I'll tell you why, because Albaneze will have to debate Dutton, and Albanzi is a terrible debater.
I mean, he's terrible with detail.
Remember prior to the last election, he was quizzed on some pretty basic economic information and he couldn't come up with the cash rate, for instance. So he's going to be rehearsing debates and Dan Andrews is going to stand in and pretend to be Peter Dutton in these mock debates, preparing him for the real thing.
So I don't know.
Maybe Andrews will help because he'll run rings around Albanese as a debate exactly.
But I mean he'll be.
Teaching Albanezer to say things like I don't recall, that's not how I remember it.
I have no recollection of that. We're doing good things.
I mean that's pretty much what he said for nine years as the premiere.
Yes, well, if Elbow starts saying, look, we're just following your health advice, and I will defer to brit Sutton on this, or perhaps Shane Patton, who of course has just lost his job as police commissioner in Victoria, we should be a bit worried.
But the polling you mentioned there with news POLM, there was.
Quite a few poles out over the weekend, and I know Paul was going into detail on some of them.
Just an hour ago.
But it's interesting if you look at the Ugov pole which came out yesterday and the ABC was running, which went down into sort of a seat by seat breakdown. What we're talking about here is two interesting things. One is that none of the TL seats, according to this pole, would go back to the Libs, which to me indicates that the Libs need to forget about the inner city
and they need to folks on the outer suburbs. Because the other thing this pole found was that outer suburban Melbourne and outer suburban Sydney were the two places where they had found the biggest swings towards the Liberal Party.
Keep in mind these are areas with large migrant.
Populations as well, and that on that pole, Labor would lose three seats in the Hunter, which is coal Marning territory that has always been labor heartland. So what we're looking at here is a major turnaround in the stocks of who votes for the Labor Party and who votes for the Liberal Party, which in politics in the last four or five decades is almost unprecedented.
Basically, the other interesting thing, Caroline, is that these polls found very little difference in men and women when asked do we need a change of government? I think it was fifty three percent of men said yes and fifty two percent of women. So maybe the Liberals don't need to worry too much about their perceived women problem either.
Just get on with good policies rather than quotas and all that kind of not Just remember they famously ditched Warren Mundine as a pre selected candidate because they felt they needed a woman in that seat.
Look, I mean, as our colleague Peter Kretlin put it so well the other week, women vote on the same issues as men. They're also concerned with cost of living for their families. They're also concerned with immigration levels, housing, affordability, crime. Of course, there's some separate concerns that women have that perhaps men don't. But these are not issues that generally speaking drive people at elections, and it's certainly not for a lot of women. How many women give me the
percentage breakdown they are in a party? I mean, I think a lot of women would feel the way I do and despise that kind of tokenism. Don't want to see women being put in a certain position simply because of their gender. It's offensive. So look, I'm not surprised to see that results and I think it just validates what so many of us have been saying for so long. But look, speaking of Anthony Albanisi, who would have thought it.
But the ABC has been inundated with complaints for being too pro coalition after the Prime Minister gave a testy interview with the public broadcasters Alice Springs Breakfast Show. Stuart Brash conducted an interview with mister Albanzi on February seven when he visited the Northern Territory and the Ompartsman revealed a report revealed twenty one complaints were made to the
ABC about that interview. Apparently, complainants were concerned the interview lacked in partiality because the interviewer asked questions that demonstrated a pro coalition bias and repeatedly interrupted the Prime minister.
We've got a little bit of that interview.
Let's have a listen and then we'll talk about whether or not the ABC gave the Prime minister two difficult a time.
Here's what happened.
Interesting, I thought you're going to go with me for verbaling. You ever being on the nose with.
The electorc as opposed to being an underdog.
But that's okay, Can I ask you one last thing?
Beat whatever, there's enough people joined in, there's a bit of a media and the ABC joined in on it sometimes.
Okay, I've got to say.
I've got to say twenty one complaints. That must have been everyone who was listening to that radio program rang in to complain. But what was more revealing I felt than the interviewers probing of Anthony Albanezi. And I mean, he is on the nose with the electorate. Their primary
vote is as low as it's ever been. It was a fair enough question, but Elberinizi then complained about the ABC interviewer giving him a tough time, saying we've got enough media outlets doing that without the ABC, which sort of is saying the quiet part out loud that the Prime Minister actually expects to be given easy run by the National Broadcast, which is what we've always said, and the Prime Minister clearly thinks, yes, they ought to.
Well, when he gives them payol or of a billion dollars a year, he might expect something in return. Indeed, and this goes back to the point we're making before about why he's got Daniel andrews In.
He has a tendency to do this.
He gets really testy with interviewers when they go places he doesn't like. We've seen him do it with our own Pete Stefanovic when he's tried to question him on comments he's made before. He's done the same thing over on the Today Show. When you get into territory, particularly previously he's been talking about the RBA and comments that have been made about whether or not government money contributes to inflation.
He goes, oh, no, the RBA has never said that. You're making that up.
Well, it's all on the public record. And his response to things he doesn't like is not to go look, I disagree with you on that.
One.
Next question, he actually gets angry, and I think that says a lot about where the Prime Minister's head is at. He is supposedly saying behind closed doors that he thinks he can win the next election with an increased majority, right. I think in his head though, he knows he's in a bit of trouble and that's how he gets into
a position like this. As for the twenty one people seemed in a complaint, I mean, come on, imagine having that much time in your day and loving the Prime Minister so much that you would actually write into the ABC to say that I think there's a great bastion of left wing broadcasting is somehow biased against.
The Prime mist It actually doesn't surprise me, because if you look at the amount of complaints that the ABC had over its coverage of the Guars at War, for instance, the majority of them have accused the ABC of being too pro Israel. Its audience is just so starved of any balance that when there's any semblance of some even just the faintest whiff of it, as there has been with the Guys and Conflicts coverage, then there's accusations of bias.
In this example, it seemed pretty straightforward to me. This was a stock standard political interview. It's how it should be conducted. You have to ask tough questions of people and power, hold them to account, ask for clarification. Sometimes that requires interruption, which the host seemed to do fairly, and that's normal. But the ABC listeners and viewers have just come to expect that the broadcaster is a mouthpiece for the government.
We should give some credit to the ABC radio host Stuart Brash for taking on the Prime Minister brash by nature exactly.
That was the problem.
It was a little too brash for the gint listens of the abbey s. But have you seen the drips on x or Twitter as it used to be, who complain had nauseum that Insiders on a Sunday Morning has turned into some sort of liberal party mouthpiece. There are actually ABC viewers out there who watched the ABC and even the ABC is not left wing enough for them.
I mean, that's the sort of crazies we're talking about here.
Caroline mentioned Gaza before. You will remember, of course, the shocking case last week of two nurses in New South Wales who were working at Bankstown Hospital who were caught on film saying that they would kill Israeli patients and they would refuse to treat them, etc. The New South Wales government turned around straight away and said they will never work in a New South Wales hospital again, thank.
You very much.
The rest of the country followed soon after that all the other states said they'll never work in our hospitals again either. Well, they finally found some supporters. Would you believe it amongst a bunch of Islamic groups, Now you would think this would be the easiest thing in the world.
If you want to make the point that.
We don't actually agree with going that far. We might have our disagreements over whose land it is, Israel or Palestine, but surely we can all agree that you don't kill Israeli patients.
Apparently not.
This is from the odds today, a United Community COMMUNICA put together by Stand for Palestine, which was a group established and largely run by long standing his book Terrera Operatives and his book Terrea is an extremist organization.
We know that, but this has other groups on board with it.
It should be noted that the Muslim Votes, Independent Mob etc.
Saying they've slammed.
What they call a coordinated outrage, claiming the response to the two nurses comments was manufactured to serve a political narrative. This is the quote from their communicay. The most revealing aspect of the reaction to the nurses video is not the footage itself, but the speed, intensity, and uniformity of response from certain political leaders and media outlets. It read, which was endorsed by more than fifty bodies or leaders
rang small mosques to statewide or nationwide groups. Outrage is manufactured when it serves a political narrative with silence deployed when the truth might expose the complicity of those in power. Silence over what exactly and what sort of feigned outrage? I mean, what a strange idea that if you heard someone saying that they would kill patients on the basis of their nationality, that there would.
Be national outrage.
And oh, some media outlets, every media outlet in the country, every mainstream media outlet, treated that exactly as it should have been treated. Every right thinking person in the country treated that exactly how it should have been treated. And yet you have more than fifty Islamic bodies in this
country saying, oh, well, they were treated too harshly. And this goes to the point I was making last week that when you import religions and cultures that are anathema to yours, there will eventually come a point.
Where we start to see the results of that.
And I think this last week was one of those moments where we go, hang on it, we actually have a problem here, and then they're backed in by all their compatriots. It proves the point.
This begs a question to me that I've been grappling with for some time, What exactly is the difference between moderates and extremists, because I would love someone to explain it to me. When you've got the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, when you've got the Islamic Council of Victoria, the Islamic Council of Western Australia, these are so called moderate Islamic groups signing the same document as Wa Sinhadid, who described Jews as the descendants of pigs and monkeys.
When you've got shik Ibrahim Dadoun, who said he was elated at the October seven attacks on this same communicay represented alongside these supposed moderate organizations. If you're moderate, you say no to these extremists having anything to do with your statement.
We've all been involved in.
Politics and community organizations long enough that when joint communicators are put out, you're very specific about who is part of it and who is not part of it.
How can you be moderate.
When you're allowing people who have said Jews are apes monkeys, that October seven was a day of elation. When you allow them to be part of your statement, you forfeit the right to call yourself a moderate organization. You have become as extreme as those who sign your document, and I think we need to stop talking about extremists moderates.
We've got a real problem here.
Show me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are.
Absolutely.
The fact that they have signed a document not only with the sheikhs and the hate preachers who you mentioned, but with his book Terrier, which is not banned in Australia shamefully, it should be banned in many other countries, including Arab countries, for being too extremist, tells you everything you need to know about these groups. Not one of them has come out and unequivocally condemned, not this incident or any of the other anti Submitic incidents, and there
have been so many since October seven. There's always an attempt of minimization, of what aboutism, of reversing the victims somehow making these nurses who threatened to kill Israelis and have claimed that they've killed Israelis the victims in this episode. It's deeply concerning. And then we saw Fatima Payman, the former labor and a senator in Western Australia now in independence, speak out and this is what she had to say about it.
These individuals have been fired, banned from ever working as nurses again, raided by police, placed under the most intense public scrutiny, and now the ones being hospitalized, they've apologized, they.
Have been punished.
What is the end goal here? What exactly are we trying to achieve justice or just public humiliation? We never see the same level of anger and vitriol when the roles are reversed, and.
Of course the roles are never reversed. She got I was on to mention a case that is before the courts of a woman who is a diagnosed schizophrenic who drove her car at an Islamic shake that was in the papers as well, that was covered, that is before the cause. That woman has actually been charged, unlike these nurses, which by the way, why haven't they been charged? What
are police waiting for here? But you know, I just it sickens me that these groups cannot call this out for what it is, and I think that it tells you everything about who they are.
The other hypocrisy here is they say that all of this outrage about the nurses who boasted of killing Israeli patients and threatened to kill more Fatima Payment says, they made some comments.
They didn't make no comments.
They boasted about committing murder and they threatened to do it again.
That's not just comments.
And one of them was found with morphine in his locker. They yeah a colleague to help clear out before the police could find and as our colleague share remarks and exposed earlier tonight, these were just the tip of the iceberg. Correct healthcare industry is absolutely infiltrated with this type of anti semitism.
So then Fatima Payment says, this is all just a political narrative, and that's what the Communica by fifty Islamic organizations also said. But the hypocrisy here is that Fatima Payment is trying to create a political narrative because of course she's running again, but now as an independent, she's trying to gather together the Muslim community. Most of these Islamic organizations that signed them communicay are all about the Muslim voice.
So if anyone is trying to create a political narrative out of this, it's the Islamic community.
And by the way, they say these outrageous things that oh, this is a political narrative, it's a coordinated manufactured outrage and we all think, how.
The heck can they say that? But they're not talking to us.
They're talking to a specific audience of Islamic communities, particularly in Western Sydney, that they are trying to gather together to create political power. That's what's really going on.
And that was because you know, on the face of it, you'd say, how brain did would you have to be to say what Patterman Fatima Payment said just then? But it's not that she's brain did. It's that Aien, she is playing to a certain audience of a certain religion.
How scary is that?
Right? And that is what she is talking about.
She is not talking from a place of Okay, I can look at this objectively as a human being and recognize that any nurse saying that they would kill anyone of any nationality should never work in a hospital.
Again, no, no, no, no no.
We complicated with the issue of religion, and suddenly there's an explanation for why you might say that. There is never an explanation for why you would say that, And anyone who thinks that there is an explanation for why you should say that should be forcibly put on a plane and said elsewhere as far as I'm concerned, now, I know we can't do that, but this is a problem of our own creation.
That we have for years and years and years allowed.
This to festa in Australia and only now we're really seeing the consequences of that. But this is something we've done to ourselves. I think that's the saddest part about.
But what does it say about the base of those who will become part of Muslim votes or Muslim what's it called Muslim voices or.
There's two, there's Muslim votes and Muslim voices.
Right, So what does it say about their base that Fatima Payment believes talking like that is going to appeal to the sort of people who will form her key constituency and it's just rank tribalism.
Well, you see it in some of the statements that have been made by the candidates that are running out of the independent candidates that are running against Tony Burke and other labor Labor members in their seats that they have come out within most horrendous offensive statements about October seven. So it's not really surprising, but the base is filled and absolutely trenched with this jew hatred.
I should note that The Australian Tomorrow is reporting that Anti Albanzi and Tony Burke were approached to comment on this communicate put out by Muslim organizations. Remember some of these Muslim organizations deal with government agencies, and neither the Prime Minister nor the Immigration Minister were willing to comment
about it. So Anti Albanzi, for all his talk about social cohesion and you know there's no tolerance, no place for anti Semitism, you'd think this would be an issue that he would nip in the bud speak about immediately. Maybe he'll talk about it tomorrow, Maybe you'll get around to it in three days.
I don't know when's the Australian open.
Maybe after that politicians out of office. But because that's the thing is, he's got seats in Western Sydney with large Muslim populations. Now do I have a story for you. This is news you've probably never heard before.
Drum roll please. People think they pay too much tax?
Now, I know it doesn't sound that extraordinary. Who he does we pay too many every other thinks they pay too much tax.
But there is actually an organization called Per Capita.
They're a left wing think take that's been doing polling on this for a decade now, and what they've found is previously, people who earn more than two hundred thousand dollars a year feel like they pay more tax. The majority of them in this pole have always said they pay too much tax. And that's because if you're earning that amount of money, you're paying beyond all the other thresholds, you've gone through basically fifty cents in the dollar to
the government. And of course at that point you'd feel like, what the hell am I doing this? For fifty cents of every dollar I earn goes to the government. But what the latest poll is exposed is that for the first time ever, people earning eighty grand to one hundred grand a year, which is quite a lot of people, they now for the first time, feel like they are paying too much tax.
This is from an exclusive report in the Age Today.
It is among those earning between eighty one hundred k, fifty five percent said they paid too much tax, a six percentage point increase on the proportion recorded in twenty twenty three. Less than forty percent said they pay about the right amount. It was the second highest proportion of any income group behind only those on more than two hundred k year, sixty three percent of whom said they
were over tax now. They did this polling five months after Labor fiddled with the Stage three tax cuts, which of course were meant to deliver more tax to people or you know that you pay less tax, a bigger tax cut to more Australians, particularly those who are in that eighty k to one hundred k tax bracket, and even after that, they still feel like they're paying more
tax than they should. The median income in Australia is seventy two grand six hundred bucks a year, right, so eighty grand to one hundred is very much in that middle range, and for the first time ever they feel like they're paying too much because they can see what the rest of us can see, which is that the cost of living has gone through the roof and if you look at the tax books, the income tax take
in the last decade has gone like that. It has shot up exponentially, thanks of course to wage growth, but also bracket creep. And this is what the government failed to address in their fiddled with Stage three tax cut is that bracket creep is the biggest problem our tax system faces at the moment where your wages naturally go up, and they've gone up significantly potentially because of inflation in the last three or four years, but the tax bracket
hasn't moved with it. So the EIGHTYK that you're earning now, which was back sixty five K three or four years ago, you're going, hang on a minute, why am I paying so much tax? Because government put inflation through the roof and then at the end of it decided you should give the more of your income.
So bracket creep is one thing, a cost of living is the other. I mean, everything has gone through the roof.
And the other one.
And I give Donald Trump a little bit of credit for this is we've all suddenly become or where because of dose of government waste. And I mean, we've done dozens and dozens of stories on this program about taxpayer money being used for ridiculous things, whether it's our First Nations Ambassador, our Climate ambassador, or Kevin Rudd doing drag
show parties of his Washington Ambassadorial house or whatever. And people are hyper aware that they're paying all these taxes and they're not getting a lot of service for it. We've got all sorts of problems with our hospital systems, with our schools, but we always seem to have enough
money for politicians to waste on silly ideas. And I should point out this survey comes five months after Anthony Albaneze's Stage three tax cuts, So if Elbow was help hoping that those tax cuts were going to sort of soften people's attitudes towards his government, this poll would appear to show that has not worked.
Yeah, it's not looking good, and I agree. I think it's also on top of the other fact as we mentioned, where the taxes are going, it seems wasteful. People don't agree with where it's going. We talked about some of those hate preachers and the people who signed this letter, I mean some of them receive The guy who said he was elated over October seven, he got a government grant. Another one got two million dollars to promote youth programs.
The secretary of the Lebanese Muslim Association who signed this, I mean the coalition is asking for those sorts of taxpayer grants to now be reviewed in light of these statements. And we've seen so many examples of extremism and anti Australian values being pushed by people who get millions and millions of dollars in grants. So is it fair that hard working Australian Australians are putting so much of their
income towards taxes. They're not seeing it reflected in our healthcare services, in our public transport, schools, everything else, but they are seeing it go to people who are entirely undeserving of receiving a portion of their money their wages. So I'm not surprised at all by this. The only thing that surprises me is it's taken some people this long to realize that they're paying.
This much tax and the role, and that forty percent of people apparently think, no, I'm paying about the right, about.
Serious not paying any tax, who are just getting benefits the role.
Well, I'll tell you people in South Australia might be a little bit upset about how their money is being used because in trying to slow traffic down, they've decided to paint the roads. Now I'll show you in a moment what they're doing, but I'm going to point out there have been numerous studies done around the world that have demonstrated the more road traffic signs you have, the more dangerous the roads and the more likely there are
to be accidents. I guess because drivers either become distracted or drivers figure I don't really need to drive. If there's a sharp bend, there'll be a sign telling me there's a sharp bend, and so I can just sort of auto pilot and count on signage to advise me
if I need to pay attention. There was one study done in the US that the American Authority has decided to put on digital signs the number of traffic fatalities in certain areas, and they actually found that within ten kilometers of a sign pointing out how many traffic fatalities there had been, traffic fatalities went up four point five percent. So they're actually causing more deaths by alerting people to
how many deaths there had been. Now in Adelaide, they're trying to slow people down to forty kilometers an hour. So to trick drivers into slowing down, they've created an optical illusion on the road. You can see them there. They're three D optical illusion triangles painted on the road. They become increasingly smaller and closer together as you drive, giving the illusion that you are going faster so that you will slow down though you're not actually going faster.
It's all an optical illusion, but it's designed to slow you down. I'm not sure how well it's working because some people thought it was an art installation and part of the two down Under advertising, which is a big cycling event in South Australia, and surely that is a waste of money. Just put up a sign saying forty kilometers an hour and let people drive rather than creating these three D optical illusions all over the road.
I will say though, as someone who's driven on quite a lot of South Australian roads as an adelaide boy, it's better.
Than what they've got at the moment.
Because in New South Wales actually paint the speed limit on the road, so when the speed limit changes, if the sign is obscured by a tree or something, it's actually printed on the road for you to see.
They don't do that in South Australia.
So anything to give you an indication that the speed limit is changing I think is probably good because I think too often you don't know that a speed has necessarily changed on a road and goes from sixty to fifty to forty to fifty to sixty in all this sort of stuff, and of course they put a speed camera in the middle of it so they can catch you out and make lots of money. Anything they can do to alert you to the fact that the speed is changing, I think is a good thing.
I was driving in Brisbane a couple of weeks ago and they actually had some digital signs and you get a green smiley face. Oh and you get a red unhappy face if you're going.
Too quick, which I thought was a little bit being treated like a child.
I feel, well, this is as well, because you're almost trying to trick someone into well it is. It's trickery. You're trying to trick them into going slower. And I just think it would be distracting. I found the concept of it confusing enough even to read an article trying to explain the idea behind it. Let alone, if I saw it on the road, what would I be thinking I have to do? I think I'd spent too much time trying to interpret this weird visual art than actually
doing the right thing in my car. So it feels like one of those ink blot tests.
But what does this look like.
I just I don't think you know what's been done in reverse before to make people go faster.
They've done it in the Burnley tanneling.
Likeness, and we're in Sydney to me and actually works.
They found it works because the problem with the Burnley Tunnel is you go down a decline and then you've got to come up an incline, and.
Everyone was slowing down on the incline.
So they put these lights in it that apparently make drivers try to chase the light, so it actually makes them drive faster.
I'd put that everywhere, the thing about the road markings in South Australia. Once you know what's happening, so it makes you feel like you're driving slower. So once you know that, I mean, my mentality is just the foot to compensate for the optical illusion and overcome it. So I'm not sure how well it's going to work. Before we go, We've got to mention jd Vance, who went
to Munich to make a speech. It was supposed to be about the war in Ukraine, but he ended up talking to political leaders in Europe about what he believes is the greatest problem facing Europe.
Here's some of what he had to say.
The threat that I worry the most about visav Europe is not Russia, it's not China, it's not any other external actor. And what I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America and Britain and across Europe. Free speech, I fear is in retreat now.
Political leaders were very upset about that. How dare he criticize them? And there's no problem with free speech in Europe. But have a look at CBS sixty minutes report on Germany and how police are criminalizing gossip, fake quotes, lies.
Have a listen. Is it a crime to insult somebody in public? Yes, yes, and it's a crime to insult them online as well.
Yes. How do people.
React when you take their phones from them? They are shocked.
It's a kind of punishment if you lose your smartphone, it's even worse than the find you have to pick use.
Your whole life is typically on your phone.
Now, that's a group of government prosecutors that were being into and I'm amazed at how they laugh about people's phones being confiscated because they posted some gossip online. They've got sixteen police units across the country investigating online speech crimes.
In Germany. JD. Vance was onto something.
G I'm glad I'm not in Germany because I'd be up on sixteen charges at least of pointing out your hairline, wouldn't.
I James public insult can't do that. I mean, he is absolutely right.
And if you watch that full speech, Vance is so impressive. He just builds the idea that if he's not the next Republican candidate for president, then they've got rocks in me.
Indeed, you know, we have a problem in Australia with us too. I mean we laugh and joke about it. We're not that far off. We have any Safety Commissioner scrubs videos online, we have the toughest defamation laws in the world. You can already can't offend people using a carriage service, so we're not that far off. Maybe JD. Van should come here and speak to.
Us, if only that'd be good. We're going to go to a break.
When we come back, look at what's making news tomorrow, including consternation about tomorrow's RBA meeting. Will there be a rate cut or not all of that and a bit more in just a moment.
Well, welcome back.
Let's take a look at what's making news in tomorrow's papers. We'll start with a Daily Telegraph and of course the news everyone will be sweating on tomorrow will there be a rate cut? The headline reads rate expectations, Ossie sweat on relief as PM praise for pre election gift. Anthony Abenezi is praying he'll be able to bask in the
afterglow of an interest rate cut by this afternoon. Of course, this is tomorrow's paper, and thousands of Australian households are willing the Reserve Bank to give them relief at last. Expectations are mounting. Mister Albanezi will call the federal elections soon after the rates decision. It's a pretty important one for Anthony Albanzi. Though I'm not sure a rate cut is really going to change many people's opinions. I read one commentator who described a rate cut as like throwing a glass.
Of water on a bush fire.
If you expect it's going to provide much relief, but I mean things are difficult. The Australian is reporting seven hundred and twenty six businesses failed in the month of January, and that's the highest ever business rate failure in this country for that month. And since labor came to power, twenty eight thousand businesses have gone into bankruptcy. So Anthony Albanezi certainly needs it, the country needs it, but will
the Reserve Bank give it? Inflation is still a problem, the job market is still hot, and if they give a rate cut, is it seen as an economically wise decision or is it seen as appeasing a government that Let's face it, Jim Charmers and other labor MPs came out today really piling on the pressure for Michelle Bullet to.
Make this decision to cut rates.
I suspect they will have a cut, but I think it'll be the only one for quite some time. I think it's the have a mind to give it a go and see what happens, and then on the they want to monitor the effects of that before they make any further decisions. So I wouldn't be hopeful of having multiple cuts this year. Maybe you get another one or two after that, but I think they'll probably have a cut,
see what happens and monitor the situation. But any political benefit I think that the government could get out of a cut.
Is long gone. Now.
If we were talking about a rate cut before the end of last year, and then potentially another one or two before an election, maybe you could make an argument that it was something the government could say, Look, you know, we're back on track now, we're going in the right direction.
We need you to support us to finish the job. With one rate cut potentially under their belt. I don't think they're able to set up as well.
I still see why a lot of people are putting the money on the fact that the government will call an election soon because it's the first potential bit of good news in a long time. So even though it might not change things magnificantly, what else can we expect to see? This is the time nothing they have to go so I can see, you know, this weekend next weekend. If there is a right cut, then the election good will.
But of course if they don't go, then they're going to have to deliver a budget they do not.
Why would you want to do that. Let's go to the Australian to borrow where it says set to schools compo. When former Victorian C if emmy you boss. John Secker, who spent decades working for the Militant Construction Union, has won limited acceptance of his workers' compensation claim, alleging he is suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and will have his medical expenses paid.
The article also goes on to say that he.
Will be awarded weekly payments totaling three thousand, six hundred and thirty six dollars for the period of November twenty to December seventeen last year, but he won't get anything after December seventeen because they've decided that he wasn't incapacitated to work after that.
I find it rather amusing.
That's, you know, such a thug as John Secker, who ran the union in the way he did, ran roughshod over everyone, went in and took over the South Australian branch, et cetera. Was then suffering PTSD after everything that he did.
Obviously, that's what has been found.
The people that he bullied and all the thugs who worked under him, who bullied people out of jobs, and just the most horrendous abuse that people faced on job sites under this bloke, and how he treated his enemies, his political enemies. It's just I wonder if they'll be entitled to compensation how they all feel reading this news in the.
Morning, would have thought anyone dealing with the CFMU should be exactly you've got The.
Herald see the Herald Son has a story about two thirds of Year ten and more than half of Year's six students in Victoria lack basic political knowledge. Now this is according to a national rapport The Australian so I was carrying the story on the front page. Experts are wanting over crisis in political and civics education as the proportion of students meeting standards has plunged to twenty year lows. And they also found that many students were concerned about diversity,
indigenous issues, pollution, climate change and racism. I wonder why that might be nothing to do with ideology among the teachers or in the curriculums.
Funny about that, isn't it.
The first column I ever had published in a newspaper January the seventh, twenty fifteen, just over ten years ago, when.
I was fifteen years old, was on this topic.
Was about the fact that young people don't understand politics. Because there was a discussion going on at the time, I think being led by the Greens about a reducing booting age to sixteen.
And I've made the point you.
Could potentially talk about that at a later date, but you can't do that when we haven't actually equipped people to understand how the political system works.
And you know, when I was at school, it was no.
Secret I was a bit of a political nerd and I would be asked questions by other students like who's the president of Australia.
I mean, this is basic staff, but it's not.
Taught, yep.
But climate change, indigenous issues, all of that, our kids are right across. Let's go to the Gold Coast Bulletin the front page story, there alarm over silent killer in homes and if you guess the silent killer is e scooters, you'd be right. The head of the Queensland Fire Department's investigation unit has issued a warning over residents charging scooters inside their homes, calling it a recipe for disaster. He said that fire crews were responding to lithium ion battery
fires multiple times a week. I've lost count of how many. It blows my mind, he said. And of course the problem with lithium batteries. Is even if you managed to put the fire out, they can spontaneously reignite again after that. And so they're warning people if you're going to charge your scooter, don't do it while you're asleep, don't do it while you're out, don't put the scooter in the in front of an exit where you're going to be unable to escape if it catches fire.
So you're better off just walking. Caleb.
Yeah, well, if it catches on fire, I think you should be charged with a salt and battery. I just want to note as well, on the front of that Gold Coast bulletin page, if we can get it there, there's a thing down the bottom and says time to go nude. I'm not sure who called for that or why they called for that, but there you go.
That's what goes on on the Gold Coast.
And very quickly before we go to a break, another extraordinary front page on the Newcastle Herald, Jawsome fishermen have captured spectacular pictures of a five meter great white shark they encountered during an annual game fishing competition off the coast of Port Stevens that is possibly one of the scariest things.
You could ever say.
I mean, imagine you just reel it in a fish and this big, great white comes at you. I'd have to go and buy a whole new set of underpants. Right.
I'm amazed he got the photo rather than and took off.
Good work by whoever it was that took that photograph. We're going to go to a break when we come back. The USA take on Canada in the ice hockey, but not much ice hockey was played.
We'll show you why in just a second.
Well, the rivalry between the United States and Canada was already well known, but it was made worse when Donald Trump threatened to put tariffs on Canada and then suggested that Canada should become the fifty first state.
Of the US.
He then started referring to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as Governor Trudeau.
So tensions were already high.
When the USA took on Canada in an ice hockey game over the weekend. When the American anthem was played, the crowd in Montreal booed. When the American players were introduced, the crowd in Montreal booed.
And then the game started.
Well, actually the game didn't really start is what actually happened. Ka Chuck Brothers around the ace, King Jack eckl Jo.
Run away Kutchuck, Brendon Hoog right off for help.
There were three fights in the first nine seconds of that game, and canab this is why we love ice hockey.
Well, I didn't know, but apparently this is like a traditional thing in American ice hockey that they all just punch on. I mean, we've got to bring back the a fil that once upon a time, that's how things went.
The VFL said sanitized the.
Afl UFC on frozen water.
Look.
Speaking of the US and Trump's Trump's controversial statements, Well, he did a lap recently of the Daytona five hundred. This is the NASCAR big car racing event, I'm told, apparently not knowing much about car racing myself, and he did a lap of it in his big car, the Beast, and he made a few comments to the drivers as he did.
So this is your favorite president.
A BIF fan, I am a really big fan of.
I don't know, but I just want.
You to be cheap now.
The people are a great people in Americans.
Have a good day, you have a lot of fun, and I'll be later.
I mean, when we first saw this, we thought, is this parody? We had to check, but it is. It's Trump speaking to the driver.
I know.
It's just like a lot of things with Trump, you'd think it's parody, right, just like the fact that he's put up his mug shot at the entrance to the Oval Office. If you go to visit the President, that is what you are met with. I mean, this is why we love the guy, right, apart from the fact that he's actually reforming America, he's brought entertainment back to politics, and thank heavens for that.
He certainly has.
Speaking of entertainment, don't go anywhere because coming up in just a moment is to read a penny show.
Good Night,