Lately.
Welcome to the Late Base.
Well, thanks for joining us on the Late Debate. I'm James Macpherson with Caleb Bond and freyer Leitch. Coming up tonight, Sydney Airport set to auction lost property. Wait until you hear some of the unusual items that passengers have left on planes that you can buy at an auction later
this month. Plus when we look at the papers, grocery items set to increase in cost due to natural disasters, and an interesting story on one of the front pages tomorrow about the one city in this country where business is booming. We'll tell you what that city is and why we think it's the case a little later. But first, South Australian school teachers are set to use AI to mark student exams. Education Minister Blair Boyer says the technology
will give teachers more time to teach. The Australian newspaper reported today that the task, or at least one of the tasks that AI will accomplish, to gauge the literacy levels of migrant students, usually taking teachers half an hour, but the AI app does the same job in just fifty two seconds. Last year, teachers manly assessed writing samples of thirty one thousand students. The app is set to
save some fifteen thousand hours of manpower. Now, Freyer and Caleber, I get why the Education minister would love this idea. It means he doesn't have to spend more money on teachers. But I reckon the focus of education should not be saving the education budget.
It should be on children.
And using AI to mark their exams rather than a human being means that you don't get a.
Teacher who's got a feel.
For the strengths and weaknesses of students, and instead you're going to get a very mechanical rather than a process that is focused on individuals.
I think that's a bad thing. Freyer, tell me, I'm right.
I don't think you are. James.
Look, I think that AI is going to revolutionize so many areas of our lives, and education is definitely one of them. But from my perspective, having AI assisting teachers in marking papers will be absolutely transformative.
Because about twenty percent of a.
Teacher's week is spent marking or writing student reports.
Twenty percent. That's around ten hours.
Imagine if that time could be spent well tru actually looking after students. Well, a lot of it is like standardized assessments that AI can very easily mark with less bias, often more accurately, in a and in a much timelier fashion. We've all been in that experience in school where you do an assessment only to get the feedback a month later, and at that point it's useless anyway. So I just see a whole bunch of positives.
But it isn't that nature if we need more teachers rather than AI is superior, because sure it's no bias, but there's no nuance, there's no understanding of the individual studentuds progress and where they're at.
Well, we've just had an each way elbow, so let me do an each way elbow here. I can see the four and against. I think there's probably a middle ground where teachers incorporate AI into their work, but we must not let AI supersede the teacher. And as for getting more time back, they probably won't because teachers do
a lot of marking in their own time. It has to be noted they take stuff home and do it outside of school hours because there's simply no time in school hours to get that stuff done, so it won't
actually buy them much time back in the classroom. That's not the issue, but it will speed up the process and AI will pick up on things that teachers might otherwise, basic spelling errors and grammatical errors that when you've got thirty papers to go through and you get to paper twenty nine and you're kind of like, man, I need a cup of coffee and or a glass of red to get through the last one. AI won't have those problems.
But you are entirely right that what makes a good teacher is the teachers care for the student, and so the teacher understanding where a particular student is at, how a particular student performs the particular issues that they're having with the English language, or mathematics or whatever it might be, tenses, you know, one hundred different things that a teacher can instinctively feel and work with a student on. AI will
never be able to achieve. And the issue I have is that we are going heading towards a world where AI is going to replace lots of jobs, and then we'll all be sitting around wondering, Oh, which is, who's got any money left to spend? Because no one's got any jobs anymore because AI is doing it all. So yes, use it, but don't do it in a way that means we as a people have nothing left to do.
I remember when I was.
At school, right, So you get a report card and the report card was handwritten by the teacher, which would have been laborious and would have taken ages. And as you said, they would get to kid number twenty nine and no doubt they'd be shortcutting. So they replace that with a tick the box thing like your child is doing doing excellent, good, average, poor, very poor, And every parent watching would know school reports tell you virtually nothing.
These days.
You have to go along to the parent teacher night to sit down with a human being to actually find out what's going on, because the report has become so standardized and mechanical. And before you jump in, I jump in.
Go on, you know what could give you a really detailed breakdown of exactly where your child is at, analyzing every single assessment they've done, picking up on every bit of syntax, eraror grammar numerously if it's in mathematics AI because they can process vast quads and then give you an extremely personalized.
Reportext message how it's going to go.
I got a voice of myil message from my mom today, right, and my phone converts the voice my message to text, and my mom sends me a message. Right at three times she says, hey, babe, that's not the way my mom talks.
You're not from that is not AI, that is AI.
Somehow I'm going to find every syntax. And my other case soon is where does this go? I mean it.
Starts with AI marketing exams and eventually we end up with classrooms like this.
Somebody's got to alert the media and expose to everyone that this AI teacher thing is corrupt.
Put the phone.
Down than Yeah, I'll call it, Tim, We're right.
I think it's a bad idea, getting robots AI whatever you want to call it, to do jobs that teachers used to do. They used to do it. Well, we just need more teachers. That's an issue for governments. Find the money for the budget for teaching. There's plenty of places to find government wastage. You don't need to revert to AI to.
Say don't don't please, don't start talking about teaching in an education budget, James. We spend more than enough on education. We just don't spend it properly because we haven't gone back to the drawing board and redesigned the system. But you know again, I'll say what I said earlier. I have no issue with AI being involved if it's a tool that the teacher themselves is using to make their work better. Because look, if the AI is a ripper at doing the marketing, why couldn't the AIB ripper at
teaching the students. I mean, you can do it with complete accuracy. I mean the kids will just be sitting in front of a screen all day. They'll have no human interaction whatsoever, no one who actually cares about We'll just get a robot to do everything.
Why would the kid do an assignment if AI can do the assignment? We have AI marketing exactly exactly.
That's where were living. And of course we showed you this vision a few weeks ago. I think of a bloke who was programming and an AI robot, and I think this was in China and something went amiss and it sort of went tropo at him, And I imagine that's what a lot of these AI robots will look like when they're going if you do badly exactly well, that that's how the robot will be feeling as it's trying to work out what the hell that kid in year ten meant. I can't believe a ray of common
sense has come through today. You know, if you're a regular viewer of this program or any other program I've been on across Sky, if you're a regular reader of my columns, you will know for years I have been carrying on about the fact that the tobacco exercise in this country is way too high, and for years I have been warning that it will lead to a massive illegal tobacco black market. That is exactly what we have now.
The latest numbers are that last year, forty percent of all cigarette sales in this country we're of illegal cigarettes. This is a problem created by the federal government because they are the ones who levy the tax, and then the poor old states are left to clean up the mess, because of course it's the states that have the police forces and enforce the local laws about the sale of tobacco. So the states are saying, for Heaven's sake, can you
stop sending these illegal tobacco shops to our states. You know, in Victoria there have been more than one hundred fire bombings. It's spreading now to New South Wales and the New South Wales Premier Chris Mins says something must be done about it. He said today we ought to look at reducing the tobacco excise. Take a look.
I'm not arguing with the public health benefits of putting an excise on tobacco, but the massive increase has exploded the ilicit tobacco marketplace.
Indeed it has He's quite correct. Go and look on any main street anywhere in the country now they're just full of tobacconists. And yet I thought everyone was giving up smoking. I wonder why this might be. He said, the federal government's not getting the excise that they thought they would. The massive excise increase to tobacco has meant that people haven't stopped smoking. They've just transferred their sales into illegal tobacco sales, which I don't think is helping
New South Wales or any other state. So my view is let's have a look at this policy and is it working. No, it's not, is the simple answer there. It takes the Premiere of New South Wales to point this out. He also says, as we're formulating the budget, the New South Wales government and the police are going to have to make a decision about ruling out resources to confront what is absolutely illegal behavior that is getting police to tackle this crime crisis in terms of illegal tobacco.
He says that would mean allocating police officers that are currently working on domestic violence cases and youth crime cases and major organized crime networks in New South Wales, take them off those important inquiries and send them into tobacco regulation. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is where we are in twenty twenty five, when a packet of legal cigarettes costs forty to fifty dollars because the federal government is greedy and thinks it needs all that tax. And then you look
around and everyone's now buying the illegal stuff. I mean, we knew this was coming. It was always going to happen. Chris Means is absolutely right. The excise has to drop if you want any hope of fixing this problem.
Two things can be true at once.
It is true that the tobacco excise is driving people to the black market where they can get substantially cheaper cigarettes.
But it is also true that in New South Wales there.
Are about twenty tobacco compliance officers in the Department of Health not even operating out of the police in the Health department who are responsible for regulating twenty thousand tobacconists in the state, twenty bureaucrats regulating twenty thousand tobacconists, many of whom who are participating the black market have links to organized crime. I think the primary issue here is why are the police not regulating tobacco at the moment.
And I would say this is more of a failure of Chris Minz's labor government to not step in earlier and actually have the police crack down. You can just walk down any main street and spot the illegal tobacconists yourself. I don't get how hard it is to just look on Google maps tobacconists, go in, find the illegal cigarettes.
And shut it down.
I think Chrismin's explained why they're not shutting these illegal outfits downs because they're dealing with domestic violence, they're dealing with youth crime. And if those then hire a law police, then they could go after a lease.
So Chris Mins, So Chris Mens has to fix up Elbow's problem, that's what you're saying.
I'm saying Chris Mens needs to enforce the law by getting police to shut down illegal tobacco.
You wouldn't have a legal problem if the federal government wasn't so greedy with its ridiculous tobacco x.
You also wouldn't have this problem if Tobacconis knew that if they sold illegal cigarettes they would end up in jail for seven years.
Yeah, well you can, well you can threaten that. They've already done that into state, by the way, and it doesn't seem to have changed anything in Victoria or South Australia, where the tobacco wars wars sorry, are continuing to spread. I mean, the facts are obvious that the federal government, what was it four or five years ago, was pulling in nearly seventeen billion dollars a year in tobacco excise. This year they project by the end of the financial
year they've pulled in seven point four billion dollars. That is an enormous decrease. The smoking rate has only gone from ten percent to about eight point six in that time, so it almost halve your excise. Tells you where the market is going. It's all going to illegal cigarettes, principally because the federal government has increased the price of cigarettes so much and I would say you could dramatically drop
the price of cigarettes. Let's go from forty fifty dollars down to what you're paying for a packet of the illegal ones fifteen to twenty dollars, and it will make zero difference to the smoking rate, because in the US, with this smoking rate is ten percent, a packet of durries Australian dollars on average costing twelve dollars and thirty cents, and their smoking rate is almost the same as ours, So it doesn't work in stopping people.
I'm very sympathetic to your argument that we want to crack down on crime and we don't want to go easy on criminals. But this is a crime that was literally created by the Government's very different to most other crimes that are crime against people or that are obvious. This one would not exist except for government policy. So the government could change their policy, the crime disappears, police.
Can focus on what's important. That's chris Min's point.
Well, the last thing I would add to that before we move on, is that these illegal gangs who are running the tobacconists would have been dealing in hard drugs or other things, but they've done the risk reward calculation and realize, heck, I can make a lot of money selling illegal tobacco and I won't get caught because the police aren't even enforcing the law.
So let's start there before we cut.
The way and the border force, by the way, because it all comes through entertainers, so you know, the federal government's creatory.
So the failure of law enforcement and policy at many, many levels. But let's move on now to the US, where Donald Trump's ongoing feud with Harvard is quite entertaining. Initially it was all around getting them to take stronger action on anti Semitism, but now his crackdown on Harvard's international students has expanded to Chinese international students as well.
Now it has been noted in an article that the Harvard University is such a popular university for the Chinese Communist Party to send its officials, its rising political stars to.
It's even been named the party school.
Many senior CCP officials, including former VPS, members of the Chinese Pollit Bureau, and even Jijingping's own daughter have gone to Harvard University. So that raises some significant concerns. It's also deeply concerning when you think about the number of international research collaborations between the US and China, also Australia and China, and the potential access to sensitive information that
the CCP may be getting through our universities. I just find that particularly shocking, and it's a problem we have here in Australia as well, because the reality is the fees for international students at Western universities are so high that really only the elites of Chinese society can afford to send their kids to Western universities. But then the next question is who are the elites of Chinese society.
Chances are at some point you've either had to be a member of the CCP to advance in your political career, in your business career, or at least not critical.
And so I think Donald.
Trump's efforts to root out CCP influence and infiltration on US university campuses is very welcome. I just wonder if our government here in Australia would ever have the guts to do the same thing.
Well, it's a really good question.
Let's ever listen to Homeland Security Secretary Christy Nome talking about what the Trump administration is so upset about, particularly with regards Harvard.
They've allowed their students to participate in activities that are paramilitary activities and supported them and feeding information back to our enemy, which is communist China. In fact, even the lead Hijipingov China's daughter has a degree from Harvard. And hundreds of thousands of these foreign students have come into our country, and our universities have facilitated it because they pay full tuition. They've taken away opportunities from our American students.
And the universities have asked for this, haven't day frayer because they have been given opportunity to do something about anti Semitism, about discrimination, about work ideology that they continue to perpetuate, and about the Chinese influence, and on every point they've declined.
To take any action.
Famously, the former president of Harvard University, Claudine Gay, said that calling for Jews to be killed was probably wrong depending on the context. Well, no wonder the Trump administration has had to step in. I just think we've found out over the last couple of years that universities are ground zero for a lot of the ills that are besetting Western culture. And sure it's going to cost universities. It's going to cost business. It's going to cost reputation
Trump to take the action he's taking. But you either pay now or you pay later. And Trump has just decided at some point we've got to deal with foreign influence in our nation being imported by universities without regard for what it's doing to the social fabric, let alone to national security. So you say, we'll pay the price now, we'll deal with it. And that's what he's doing. And I take your point. I think it's something that the
Australian government. I don't think they will, but the Australian government could have a look at as well.
You mean, the handsome boy won't be taking much notice of whether or not we're training up CCP operatives. I'm truly shocked, James, and we should note you say there that you know, universities have become the source of any of the ills of the world by design. You know, this has all been very deliberate. This is what the
long March for the institutions is all about. But why should we sovereign nations in the West voluntarily train up people to go back to you know, what are essentially enemy countries like China and use the skills that we have given them to then go on and become the ruling class. We have no obligation to do that. The problem is universities have become businesses. And it's true across
the Western world. It's no longer any more about creating bright minds and fostering bright minds and people who go on to achieve great things for their country. It's become about how many dollars you can get through the front door.
I've said it many times. Where we went wrong in Australia was when Julia Gillard uncapped university enrollments in I think it was twenty ten, and that was basically the green light to say that anyone and everyone can go to university, and anyone and everyone should go to university, and especially if you want to pay full to odds to come from overseas, because we want that money. Why would we give that privilege to people who we know traceably are going to go back and then do things
that may well harm our own country. I mean we may as well pick up the phone right now and say, oh you Mobert Harmas, get your ass down Australia were we're going to train you up. I mean, that is how ridiculous. The proposition is of training up the sons and daughters of CCP members.
Yeah. Well, if CCP members want to skip the US and come to Australia, they can go to Macquarie and become experts in indigenous studies.
Or they could win, Yeah, and will lock them up like they did to Chung Lay. I mean, you know, fear fear.
I tell you what's funny. Though.
The Guardian were reporting on this and they reckon that the reason Trump is cracking down on universities, He's trying to stifle all descent so he can implement his authoritarian agenda.
So there you go, speaking of funny.
I had to laugh at advertisements taken out in major newspapers, particularly the Australian Financial Review over the weekend by TikTok. They took out four and a half pages of advertising to promote themselves to parents. TikTok, as it turns out, is an educational tool.
Now.
The reason they're doing this is the Albanezy government has promised by the end of this year to introduce age restrictions on social media. YouTube has been left out of that because YouTube have convinced the government it's an educational tool. So TikTok is now arguing where educational. Some of their arguments are.
TikTok gets kids outside. Did you know that? Because you can watch phishing content on.
TikTok and that'll encourage your kids to go out and fish.
Who knew? Plus they have videos of science and maths.
And I've got two kids, and I know when they're in their rooms on TikTok they're looking at videos on science and maths.
Did you say maths or maths because there's plenty of maths content on me.
Here is Tristan Harris is the co founder of Center for Human Tech talking about the way TikTok manipulate their algorithms to set up kids in the West for things they'd never do to their own children in China.
If you're under fourteen years old, they show you science experiments you can do at home, museum exhibits patriotism videos and educational videos, and they also limit it to only forty minutes per day. Now, they don't ship that version of TikTok to the rest of the world, so it's almost like they recognize that technology is influencing kids development, and they make their domestic version a spinach version of TikTok, while they've shipped the opium version to the rest of the world.
I reckon he's spot on.
But let me show you, just briefly one more thing he says, which I think is quite pertinent to what's happening right now in Western culture because of social media platforms like TikTok.
There's a survey of pre teens in the US and China asking what is the most aspirational career that you want to have, and the US the number one was.
Influencer, social media influencer, and in.
China the number one was astronaut. Again, you will allow those two societies to play out for a few generations. I can tell you what your world is going to.
Look like now, Kindabin Fray, I actually don't agree with the government's attempt to ban sixteen year old and under from accessing social media, but I certainly don't agree with TikTok that their device is educational exactly.
I mean, I still believe that the age band will be unworkable and all the various things that come along with it are troubling in terms of biometric data that will have to be kept, and all this kind of stuff, but I mean, come on, pull the other one. Not only have they taken out these ads in the AFR, they've got billboards going around. I saw them walking through Melbourne Airport this morning. They've got billboards up there. They're all over the place now extolling the virtues of just
how good TikTok is. But as you heard there, if TikTok were as great as it supposedly is, why do they have a completely different version in China. It's because it is designed to rot Western brains. And it might sound like hyperbole, but it is genuinely the point of TikTok to rot Western brains. So I won't go into too much detail, because you know, I don't want to particularly older viewers with the intricacies of how young people
use the Internet. But there is a certain class of meme that is referred to ironically as brain rot, right, which is, you know, online jokes and videos and content that are completely meaningless and of no value to anyone. They literally call it brain rot, and that is the precise point of what TikTok is doing. It's designed to destroy your attention span because everything has to be taken in thirty minute doses, or they're sorry, thirty second thirty minutes,
fantastic thirty second doses. You're constantly scrolling because it is moving so fast, and you lose track of time. You're watching stuff that is of absolutely no value to you whatsoever. It's so easy to fall into it, and China knows that that's why they're doing it. They want to weaken kids in the West so they can send their CCP kids to come to Harvard and take over the world. That is the point of TikTok. I don't know why we haven't banned the whole thing outright.
And there are some other concerns as well, apart from the impact this is having on ch children's mental health, also the national security concerns. If you look at the data that TikTok tracks, it's far more invasive than any other social media platform. It tracks your unique device identifier, It can track your precise geolocation, you'll biometric data, how
you speak, what you look like. It is extremely invasive, and then you have to ask where's that data being stored, And of course it's Chinese parent company has access to all of it, so it is extremely terrifying.
I don't know why people aren't more concerned about that.
Kraya, don't you have a TikTok account?
Yes, but to post the long is it's still here. We have to reach young people with.
Our message, so if they're going to be on TikTok, we've got to be on there.
So we have to give in to the Chinese spy we're in order to talk to.
Young people, well, we have to be on the platforms where young people are. I don't support TikTok as a platform, but if young people are going to be there. Something like thirty five percent of gen z get their news from TikTok, so why not there?
What are they seeing?
But doesn't it It becomes a chicken and egg thing because by support by using TikTok, you support the platform right and people will go to TikTok to get the content that you create, so you continue creating a market for TikTok. Like you know, Sky and News made a principal decision that we would remove ourselves from TikTok because we took a stand on what they were doing and said no, we just can't be part of that anymore. So by being part of it, does it not just perpetuate the value of TikTok.
It does to an extent, but I would still say that it is incredibly influential in the Voice to Parliament referendum. The TikTok's that I made got millions of views in the last federal election as well. Hundreds of thousands of young people saw the videos that I created, and TikTok has a unique ability to reach people because things go
viral so easily. The risk in that is we have no idea how the algorithms work and could be heavily manipulated to sow division within Australian society, which they probably are. But again, as long as young people are on there, if where not, they just simply will not hear our message.
So I would rather be on there and.
Risk the Chinese spyware and at least try and reach out to young people.
This is why I say we've got a ban it, because there's just no other way of fixing it. It is Chinese spy where it is designed to rock Western kids' brains. I don't know why we tolerate it. It's as simple as this. Could the ABC or Sky News or anyone else go over to China and start a media outlet or a social media company. No, so why do we let them do it?
Here?
Let's move on to another topic. Down in South Australia, a couple of councils recently have decided that if you have a stillborn child, they will waive the burial fees at the cemetery. And fair enough fits up to each individual council to make these decisions. But one council that had emotion come up to do exactly that and said no, has come under fire because you know, they're saying, how heartless could you possibly be to say no to getting
rid of burial fees for still born children. This is narrow court Lucindale Council down in the southeast of South Australia where they had this motion come up and only three councilors supported it, so it's fallen over. One of the councilors who didn't support it, Cameron Grundy, I think, made a very good observation and he said that it sets out if they do this, it sets out to put a price on grief, and that your grief is more deserving than mine, so we'll go and wave the fees.
From that perspective, it's problematic philosophically, it's inconsistent, I think and look, I loathe to say a good word about councils or to support them in any way, but I think the bloke has a point because I understand why people might be upset that they haven't waived the fee for still born children. But then if your kid gets run over when they're three years old, do you not
then deserve to have the burial fee waved. If your wife of forty years dies and you're completely devastated and this is the end of life as you know it, do you not deserve to have the burial fee waved. The reality is the temmetries have to be maintained by someone, in many cases their councils. Surely everyone pays the same price of admission. You can't just can't divide them up and say, well, you get this price and you get that price, because your grief is different to someone else.
You're looking at about what is it five hundred and seventy dollars to about twelve hundred dollars depending on which symmetry it is in that particular shire. And I guess everyone will be sympathetic to anybody who's had any kind of loss.
But once you start.
Picking and choosing, there was a suggestion, Freya, why don't we introduce a hardship application where families who have lost a loved one, whatever the circumstances, and can't afford or are struggling to afford a burial would be given help by counsel.
But it's not because of the kind of death.
It's because of the need of the people who are seeking help.
Well, I do understand the argument you guys are making, but I would say that losing a child, especially having a stillborn birth, is different because.
It is so unexpected.
And I think the hardest thing any parent could ever do is say goodbye to a child, because you're not only saying goodbye to your child, You're saying goodbye.
To a future you never got to have.
Whereas when you're burying someone who died in the natural course of life, there's more time to process, more time to grieve, you can kind of anticipate it a bit more. But with children, that is that it violates the natural order of life. And so look, I don't know if there's an easy answer here, because I do understand what you're saying. Once you make exceptions for these people? Do you make exceptions for them? But I would say grief,
the grief of losing a child is different. It is not to say other grief is not painful, but it is different because it violates the natural order of life. And so I think we should I think we should be a compassionate society and do everything we can to help people who experience that.
It's one of those interesting ones to debate, isn't it, Because you just said we should be a compassionate society. The danger is then you imply anybody like those at the council who say no, we're not going to do this, is lacking in compassion. But of course they were saying, we've got compassion for everybody, so we can't pick and choose. It's a difficult one to debate because you end up looking bad whichever way you get.
And then the challenge is with stillborns as well. This is a council of eight thousand people. Statistically, how many stillborns are they going to have?
One every one to two years?
It is such a small, insignificant part of their overall budget six hundred dollars every two years. Say like, seriously, seriously, can you not find six hundred dollars we cover that, we talk about the stuff council spend money on. I'm sure they can find six hundred dollars to help a family who's just been through hell.
The truth is they can't find the six hundred dollars because they're two hundred thousand dollars in deficit this budget for a town of eight thousand people. So maybe if they manage their budget better, there would be the capacity to do things like that. Speaking of managing budgets better, let's talk about Victoria and specifically the City of Melbourne. They've decided they going to manage their budget better by
continuing to impose taxes on already over burdened citizens. The City of Melbourne is now charging businesses a special levee, or rather, businesses that collect rubbish will be charged a special levee in order to be allowed to collect the rubbish from the streets of Melbourne five five hundred dollars to those companies that go around emptying the bins in the city. This is on top of a levee that's already been imposed on businesses where their bin is on
public land. They have to pay a special tax as well, and so it's just tax upon tax. Of course, the levee for those who are collecting the rubbish will be passed on to businesses who has a seid already paying a tax for having a bin sitting on the footpath. It just goes from bad to worse in Victoria. But I love the reason given by a council spokesperson who said, our community has told us that these trucks, these are
the garbage trucks are clogging our streets. Why they're cloging the streets Calaber is because of all those bike lanes that the City of Melbourne put in place zone creating noise around the clock and negatively impacting public amenity. I'll tell you what would negatively impact public amenity, and that is if the garbage collectors just refuse to collect the garbage in protest at this five and a half thousand dollars levy that's being imposed upon them. The council spokesperson
went on to say, I love this. The fee quote would encourage more efficient operations and reduce the number of trucks on our roads.
Direct its can encourage people who more efficient.
Or if it's reducing the number of tracks on the road. Where's the waste going? I mean it's rubbish. So you have a product that no one wants because it's rubbish, and the council says, we will charge you a fee to be able to drive your truck into the bounds of our council to take away the product we don't want. Now, I don't know whether the City of Melbourne, and you saw the Lord Nicholas Reis on with Paul earlier. I don't know whether Nicholas Reice is struggling with the concept
of how city works right. But you have large volumes of waste created by businesses and funnily enough, all the apartments full of people that these councils have wanted because it means more rate payers and therefore more income, they create waste. It has to go somewhere. Surely they just want it out of the place, and they go, no, you have to pay a special fee as a private
company to come and take waste away. I mean, next thing in Melbourne they'll be charging every time I walk over the bridge over the Yarra, they'll charge me fifty bucks for the ability to breathe in the bounds of the accountry.
This is also just after they've already introduced an extra four hundred dollars levee just for the right to place rubbish on council land. They're just looking for any way to add tax onto small businesses. No wonder the city is shutting down. Do you guys remember the show Sasame Street. It was one of my childhood favorites. It teaches you the ABC's sharing is caring, all sorts of lovely lessons
that children should really learn. Except this beloved childhood show has now come under fire for embracing Pride Months.
Here is a.
Little video to commemorate Pride Month that Sesame Street posted.
Hi, Elma and I wanted to share that everyone is always welcome on Sesame Street this month and every month. We want to uplift and celebrate our lgbtqia plus family, friends and communities not.
As friendly, very lot from our Sesame Street family to you. It Happy Pride.
So that was from Pride Month a couple of years ago, and you'd think, you know, the cultures moved on now we are sort of generally a little more anti politicizing children's shows. I would say, yet again this year they didn't learn the lesson and they posted this photo, which seems very very strange. But this is also not the first time Sesame Street has waded into controversial political issues. They also did a special little episode on Black Lives Matter and on racism.
People of color, especially in the black community, are being treated unfairly because of how they look, their culture, race, and who they are. They want to end racism.
I'm almost an unracism kune.
Now, I have no issue in teaching kids about racism, but the Black Lives Matter protests was a political movement. Pride Month is clearly politicizing children. That is my issue. Why does politics have to infest everything, including innocent.
Child Well, the reason they infest everything with politics is because for them, politics is everything.
And the image that you.
Showed Freyer was attached to caption that said, on our streets, everyone is welcome together. Let's build a world where every person and family feels loved and respected for who they are.
And no one.
Would dispute that it's good to teach kids to be loving and be respectful, but that the clue calib is they only do it during Pride Month and it's specifically regarding LGBTQ, and then they accuse anybody who objects to this as being.
Against love and acceptance.
And someone wrote, if this irritates you, you have no soul.
No one's against love and acceptance.
What people are annoyed about, as you rightly pointed out, is politicizing children.
We can only hope that the count comes so you know, the character and system street the count fixel of this, and he will do it by saying today we're going to count too genders. Ah. I mean, that's our only hope.
Now.
I think that was.
Very, very good, Calob. We're going to go to a break. When we come back, we'll look at what's making news tomorrow, including the one city in this country where business is booming.
Can you guess what it is.
And why that's coming up in a moment, welcome back. Before we look at what's making news tomorrow, have a look at this vision from Sicily, where Europe's largest volcano has just erupted Mount Edna. Social media footage has shown people literally running down the mountain side to escape the eruption, which has thrown ash six four hundred meters into the air. You can see the footage. They're quite incredible, Caleb, but it's I.
Mean, how often you get to see these sorts of things. It's marvelous to see, well, not marvelous if you've got to deal with it, But like the wonders of the natural world, however, they pop up in whatever form. You know, you don't sit around thinking about a volcano erupting every day, do you, Especially here in Australia. It's not something we have to deal with. But in some parts of the world this is still a very real thing, in sort
of thing of dinosaurs and whatever. This is real. It's still going on, and of.
Course all of those emissions who have to be accounted for somehow freyer exactly. Let's take a look at what's making headlines tomorrow.
Frey, You've got the Daily Telegraph.
Let's kick it off. Crooks on camera are no match.
Facial recognition software is being used by New South Wales police to identify suspects in crimes ranging from violent protests to sexual.
Offenses and murders.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal the team of tech experts secretly work around the clock monitoring images of wanted people captured on CCTV cameras, police body cams and social media before feeding.
Them into a police database.
I mean, this is where it was always going to go with facial recognition technology.
And I do see the risks.
In this being overused in US turning into a surveillance state, but if it helps police catch criminal I kind of support it.
So you'd give up your privacy in order to catch a few bits.
I'm not committing the crimes, so I'm not too worried they always wrong.
You're not nothing committing the crimes until mister CCP comes and takes over the country.
And that's why we make sure Australia remains a liberal democratics day.
If I were you, I would get TikTok off your phone.
What's interesting to me about this story is I remember in April the police minister in New South Wales said that New South Wales police were getting rid of a German software program that provided facial recognition because it had been making too many errors, particularly in.
Relation to minorities.
So I'm not sure what software they're using these days, But anyway, then you go, you're.
On a camera all the time, exactly.
The next headline black market Siggi's sold right outside Parliament. Poly Puffs Premier Chrismins has waged a war on alicit tobacco, and he only needs to walk across the street for the first battle. As a major political blame erupted yesterday, the Delhi Telegraph discovered a convenience store on Macquarie Street, directly opposite state Parliament, flugging illegal cigarettes and vapes in broad daylight. Now, this is my fundamental problem with the fuel with.
The tobacco excise tax argument.
You only have to walk down the street to see the illegal tobacconists openly flouting the rules. So before we start cutting the tax, why don't we just enforce the law? And I think Chris Mins is trying to abrogate his responsibility to enforce the law by blaming.
The federal government.
When he's literally just got to walk out of his office and the convenience store across the road is openly selling black market cigarette.
But then the point of the states enforcing the law is to run a protection recket for the extortion of money that the federal government wants to take out of it. That's the problem. It's not a problem of the state's creation. If the excise wasn't so high, these people wouldn't have a market and there is no genuine reason for the excise to be as high as it is. It's about a dollar forty of every cigarette is tax. It is ridiculous.
As I said before, these people are the lifters of the country, not the leianas they pay tax voluntarily and good on them, but in increasing numbers they don't moving on to the Australian tomorrow. It says us in them or should that be us and them? PM defends low spend. Anthony Alberizi has been worn by a former army chief that the government risks abrogating its responsibility to the public and those in uniform by failing to increase military funding.
As the co architect of the Defense Strategic Review called for spending to be lifted to between three a three and a half percent of GDP head of his first first sorry his first in person meeting with Donald Trump at the G seven in Canada, the Prime Minister on Monday came under pressure from former military chiefs, strategists and the Coalition to commit to increasing defense spending beyond the four past two point three three percent share of GDP over eight years. I mean, you know, this stuff is
as obvious as the lack of hair on your head. James, we have to spend more on defense. I mean, I can't believe we're still the year talking about it, and last week you have the Prime Minister jumping up and down about Aspy for calling him out. And how do you do that? I mean, look, does Albo just want to sell us to China? If that's what he's doing, just do it, Just just get rid of it. I'll flow the whole joint, make lots of money while you do it, because that seems to be where we go.
Well, the first responsibility of a government is border protection and national defense, and on both of those issues, the Albanezi government is hopelessly out of its depth. And you've got to wonder what this meeting with Trump will be like. I note that the meeting is at the G seven on the sidelines. Albanezi is smart enough not to go to the Oval office and sit down for Zelenski type meeting, and he wouldn't want to with just two point three three percent of GDP being spent on defense. In was
it twenty thirty two? I was reading in the UK Times and Telegraph today. All the headlines are about the British military building new subs, building new bomb making factories. The whole world is rearming, and here we are sitting at the bottom of the world saying we'll be right.
Well, if Albanezy did go to the Oval Office and had a meeting with Trump, he would probably pull up his big TV and play a video of the Chinese navy ships circumnavigating Australia and then go.
So you're really not going to spend more on defense exactly.
Let's go to the Adelaide Advertiser a story that's going to affect everybody.
In the next couple of weeks.
Milk butter prices surge in big dry reads, the headline milk and butter prices are predicted to search with the dryest conditions on record, crippling dairy farmers in South Australia and Victoria, and floods destroying operations in New South Wales. Leaders of the Australian dairy industry have called on governments
to help. More than forty percent of Australia's dairy farmers are in drought, many of them battling the dryest conditions on record, and of course that's before you take into account. Dairy farmers in New South Wales who have just gone
through a one in five hundred year flood. They're asking for special government assistance and I think most fair minded people would say yes to supporting our farmers who have to deal with all sorts of things and obviously whatever happens on the farm, you end up being affected by it in the supermarket. So let's hope the government give our farmers some assistance.
Yeah.
Well, I don't know how much more expensive dairy can really get, because cheese is like ten bucks a bag now at Woolly's, which is pretty crazy.
So let's hope for some rain.
Move.
Let's finish up with the Canberra Times going at a good clip. Businesses are booming in Canberra, apparently. New ABS data shows the Act had twenty five percent more businesses in twenty twenty four than in twenty nineteen.
Hmm, the one state in Australia that seems to be growing. Why might that be, James, I've.
Got no idea.
Why would the Act be booming when everyone else is struggling?
Caleb.
Maybe we've hired thirty thousand new public service that might have something to do with it, you know, I've pointed out many times that all of these migrants they brought in fundamentally have been taking up jobs that are created with government money. Seventy five percent of jobs created in the country last year were in some way connected to the government, and they've gone so far as to import more public servants into the act so they can say
they've got a business book. G we're living in a Ponzi scheme.
We're going to go to a break when we come back Sydney Airport to sell off lost property. You'd be surprised at some of the things people live on planes.
That's coming up at a moment.
Well, if ever, there's a good horse racing story in this country, you can count on Caleb Bond to find it.
That's right. I can't tell you a good story about my horse that ran at sand Down yesterday over the jumps came last. Never mind about that. But this was a little more interesting though. Warren in New South Wales today had its race meeting and on comes a kangaroo who decides he should join in the fun. Take a look at this. They're just tumbling down the straight. They're pulling into the strait and the road jumps right out in front and gets in. Well, now I can tell
you that could have been very nice. Horse struck that kangaroo. It would have been on for young and old, and bad things could happen. But you know he woke up this morning with a death wish and he thought he'd give it a really hot go that room.
Yeah, that kangaroo is not scared of anything, including huge animals moving at pay.
I tell you I don't want to be in front of a big horse racing.
Genuinely incredible.
Well, get ready to see the weirdest council meeting you have ever witnessed. This is a UK council that encouraged people to dress up as non human constituents.
Check it out.
I am a butterfly, I am here to represent all the insects.
I am the foxglove, and I represent all the wildflowers.
I am net all and.
I am here because we have been misunderstood, this is an interspecies democracy meeting. So it's a theatrical council meeting. We are inviting people to represent non human residents to Southampton and they are going to put forward questions emotions as you would in a council meeting.
What the heck is an interspecies democracy, meaning how about you start by caring about.
The human citizens you have.
I am mad and I should not be allowed to go to a council meeting, I think is the bit that they left out of that.
If ever, there was an argument for not doing drugs, I think that is a great argument. You know, forty million people pass through Sydney Airport every year, so you can imagine lots of stuff gets left on planes. God knows, I've left things on aeroplanes. Last year, Well done Sydney Airport. They returned seven thousand items to their rightful owners. But in the first three months of this year, two thousand items have gone unclaimed and so they're about to be
auctioned for charity. What I found interesting, Caleb and Freyer was two hundred and fifty laptops left on airports and not claimed, eighty handbags. But here's what's amazing. Three surfboards were left on aeroplanes and whenever went back to get them.
And a violin.
So if you're in the market for a surfboard or a violin, you can pick one up cheap at the SID the airport auction this month.
Look all I can say is if you're the sort of person who can afford to lose your laptop at the airport and then not follow it up, feel free to donate your laptop to me instead you send it to a needy home.
Very good point.
That's all we've got time for is stick around. Coming up is the read a Penalty Show.
Good Night,