Lately.
Welcome to the Late Debate. Thanks for joining us on the Late Debate.
I'm James Macpherson with Caleb Bond and Freier Leach. Coming up tonight, the Chinese launch a brand new sport, robot boxing. Is it RoboCop? I think it's more robo Flop. Will show you about a little later. Plus when we look at what's making news tomorrow, the Queensland government have got an idea for reducing power prices. They're going to open up new gas fields.
Who would have thought.
And a former afl umpire gives the most bizarre excuse for missing a court hearing. We'll get to all of that shortly, but we want to start the show tonight in Caleb's favorite place, South Australia, where the City of Churches is about to get their very first skyscraper and not everybody is happy about it.
Now.
Business leaders they're very happy they're going to get a thirty eight story tower right in the heart of the city because it will house five thousand office workers and one hundred retail staff.
But opponents, including the Council, say it will.
Completely overshadow the Historic and National Heritage list in Parliament House.
You can see an image there. And then the.
Adelaide Parks Association of called the skyscraper a monster, saying it's going to impose on Adelaide's beautiful green spaces. Now I've got to say I am with the opponents of this project for two reasons. Firstly, Caleb Adelaide is a beautiful city that is not in spite of the lack of skyscrapers, but because there's a lack of If you want skyscrapers, go to Melbourne, go to Sydney, go to Perth, go to Brisbane. Adelaide is beautiful because it doesn't have
any of those things. And second, they don't need this. The commercial vacancy rate in the CBD of Adelaide is sixteen point four percent. The national vacancy rate is thirteen percent. Only Melbourne has a higher commercial vacancy rate than the CBD. Adelaide doesn't need more office towers. It's beautiful the way it is. And as a person who loves Adelaide, I would expect you would agree with me on this.
Well, no, because it sounds like you want to tell the private sector what they ought to do with their money. I mean, you're saying you know the vacancy rate is this, therefore you should not be able to build new buildings. I'll tell you why the vacancy rate is so high. There are lots of heritage buildings in the CBD that ought to have things done with them, and nothing is done with them. I mean, I have written about Sir Edmund Wright House in King William Street in Adelaide has
been sitting there empty for years. In years and years, it's owned by the state government. They've tried to sell it multiple times. No one wants to take it because serious work has to be done to it. So why doesn't the state government say, oh, look we've got an opportunity here to do something with a heritage building. We'll do it. But they don't do that. So the only
place you can go is a new building. So someone comes along Lange Walker and says, I want to spend the money to put up two towers on this bit of what was otherwise basically unused land in the CBD behind Parliament House. I mean, they these sculptures. It was called Adelaide Urban iconography, and people who live in Adelaide will know exactly what I'm talking about. It used to be behind Parliament House. It was a weird, rhombous looking thing and it was dilapidated and old. It was done
in the time of Don Dunstan. It was an eyesore. So lane walkerss will put some buildings up. I mean, you pee investment in South Australia, what is wrong with that? And you've got the Greens say, oh, we can't have anything shadowing over Parliament House. The only people really concerned about anything shadowing over Parliament House are the people who
work with in it. But what's the problem. They put up a brand new building with a rooftop bar and a restaurant on it, so all the overpaid staffers can go and spend their taxpayer dollars up there. I don't see what the issues.
Put it somewhere else, Freyer, so it doesn't overshadow what is a beautiful historic building, this parkland mine. You have the building, just put it somewhere different.
But this is the reality. If Adelaide wants to be an international city, they need to go up and they're surrounded by a ring of parts. It's not like you can just infinitely go out. There's a limit to how far Adelaide can expand. So they have to go up. And we've seen this, you know, I'm from Sydney and we've seen this in Sydney all the time. People oppose huge developments like Barangaroo is a great example. They go, oh, no, this will be terrible, My harbor of you will be blocked.
How could we possibly do this? And then they go up. Sure, in the early years you deal with a lot of construction, but once they're up, everyone enjoys it and the amenity for the whole area improves. And that is what development does to our cities. The nimbi's oppose it, but the ymbi's will win because we all benefit from nice, new, great cities.
All right, Well, I'll tell you who else is opposed development, and that's the Australian Turf Club. They've rejected caliber what a five billion dollar offer from the New South Wales state government to take over that property. They would have put twenty five thousand homes there. God knows we need more homes. The Turf Club could have built a new facility somewhere else. There was the opportunity to upgrade an
existing one elsewhere, but they've declined the offer. They want rose Hill to remain as a turf as a racing venue.
Good decision or bad decision.
As well, they should. I mean you get rid of these things, you'd never get them back. Right. This is one of the premier race courses in the country. Right, it has some of the best races in the world, the Golden Slipper etc. And the idea that you would turf pardon the party, what is a great race track because mister Mins wants to put some houses on it makes no sense to me. Let's be clear, this was
not a proposal from the state government. It was an unsolicited proposal from the Australian Turf Club to the State government that they could put twenty or twenty five thousand odd houses on it and that the state government ought to chip in the money to make it happen. The state government said they were interested, but there was no
contract there. So the members of the ATC were essentially asked today to sign a blank check for the club to go way and have negotiations with mister Min's to come to an agreement which is probably about five billion, maybe we were told, but who the hell would agree to that. There's plenty of space to put houses elsewhere. In fact, there was already a proposal on the table to put ten thousand residences next to the rose Hill Racecourse that required no touching of the race course whatsoever.
So why don't they just do that? Why do they have to get rid of one of my great loves to put up more houses.
But this is just nimbi logic.
A four seconds ago you were arguing against when it comes to Adelaide.
But this is the exact same thing we took me down.
People and Australians value homes in an acute housing crisis more than I'm sorry. A few people value horse racing.
That's what people horse racing. Yeah sorry, It is one of the biggest industries. It is one of the biggest employers in this country.
Horse and you know what happened.
We don't have enough. You know what happens if we don't have enough homes, week suffer. But you could also build the race course next door. You can build the races running Western Sydney. This is a silly argument.
You know, you don't need to build another race course. You've already got the race course and history has shown what happens when you sell race courses. The SAJC in South Australia sold Cheltenham in two thousand and seven for eighty five million dollars and they said this will secure racing in Adelaide forever. We have an investment fund now that will make sure everything is hunky dory. And it
was never meant to go below fifty million dollars. In their last annual report the investment fund was down to eighteen point nine million dollars. So in a matter of fifteen years they've nearly blown the whole lot, and then that we're going begging for more money. This is what happens. They never spend it properly and leave it as it is.
Unlike you, I could care less about horse racing.
It's not the job of the Turf Club to help out the New South Wales government with their poor planning by giving up their property to create more houses. If we've got a housing shortage, it's not up to the Turf Club to save it. On behalf of Chris Min's. He's the government organize a solution.
I'll just leave it on this. If racing was so profitable, why are they flogging off their asset?
But let's move on. Moving on to Victoria. Now, the Victorian.
Treasurer had a really awkward moment today when she was addressing a group of high rolling property developers and investors and she asked the really interesting question.
Of what is your favorite tax?
Now, obviously the room was dead silent, and everyone was kind of looking around, going what the heck the treasurer of the state that has become uninvestible because of the amount of taxes and regulations being put on the property sector is trying to make a joke of this situation. Seriously, it was truly shocking, and I think it really does demonstrate how out of touch the Victorian government is with the realities.
Well, I just wish Kerry Packer had been part of that crowd, because he would have answered something like this, I'm wrong.
With minimizing tax. I don't know anybody who doesn't minimize their tax, and that you were doing so in ways that work contrary to the spirits of the law. Well, I just got through telling you what I thought about that. I am not evading tax in any way, shape or form. Now, of course I am minimizing my tax. And if anybody in this country doesn't minimize their tax, they want their head remp because as a government, I can tell you you're not spending it that well that we should be donating extra.
Imagine a Victorian state premier asking property developers and real estate moguls, what's your favorite tax? I mean, you've got plenty to choose from. You've got your land tax, you've got your fire services levey, you've got your windfall gains tax, you've got your congestion levey, you've got stamp duty, all of which affects property owners. So what's your favorite tax?
Or there's so many to choose from. I mean, this is a treasurer who asks staff, don't give me economic terms in your emails because I don't understand them, and clearly she doesn't understand business. To suppose that they might have a favorite tax that they could nominate. A better question, Caylor would have been, what's your favorite term to describe the treasurer? Is it incompetent, arrogant or completely tone deaf?
Look, I know, what's your favorite text? Might fly in a room full of boring ato. You know, people weren't good enough to be accountants in that with the ADO public servants. But I mean, it's like asking a room full of people who's your favorite serial killer. Oh yeah, Jeffrey Dahmer. I mean, you don't ask people what their
favorite No one has got a favorite text. There is no such thing as a favorite tax I can only imagine that the discussions between Simes and her staff before she went into the room when something like this.
Does every tax ryers represent a blur against freedom?
It depends how big the tax raises.
That's fascinating.
Does twenty pence represent a blow against freedom?
So it's something a blow against freedom simply because it can seriously damage your wealth.
I must warn you of the difficulties.
I foresee all sorts of unforeseen problems, such as if I could foresee them, they wouldn't be unforeseen. They obviously didn't foresee the unforeseen problems in asking a room full of people who work in the property sector what their favorite tax is. But it is, you know, to be
serious for a moment. It is a window into the way the Andrews then Allen government thinks in that they generally think that there would be people out there who would be able to nominate what they think the best tax is, because of course it's the only way they can think that government at the moment because they need the money so much. I mean, they're hurtling towards two
hundred billion dollars sorry worth of debt. I mean, compared to other jurisdictions around the world with similar populations, it is one of the most indebted jurisdictions, state or federal anywhere in the world. I mean. They are obsessed with taxation because it's the only way they can hope to keep themselves afloat. So she's certainly thinking about what her favorite tax is. She just can't fathom the idea that the rest of us wouldn't.
It's like asking what's your favorite way of being robbed? Well, that's pretty much the question.
Speaking of your favorite way to be robbed, perhaps your least favorite way to be robbed. Council rates is probably it certainly is for me. I mean, you know, we bang on every night about these council stories here because you might say, look, they're minus stories, but these are the things. And I have a background in working in newspapers at a local level, where I started out at
the local rag in Adelaide, working around the suburbs. You will never find a story that gets people more angry and they're more interested in than a council story because it affects them every single day and you pay your rates and you expect something reasonable to be done with it, and we constantly show you the examples of how they're not doing reasonable things with it. But I can't believe this decision has been handed down by the South Australian
Remuneration Tribunal. And you would know that this is the mob that sets the pay for senior public servants and politicians. So they decide what the premier gets and what MPs get, and they also decide what council CEOs can be paid.
So they've gone through and done an audit because a number of councils have come to the Remuneration Tribunal and said, for some reason or another, we want to pay our CEO more so, the Remuneration Tribunal has reviewed all of the pay bands for CEOs and they do it council by council and for at least half a dozen councils they've actually reduced the top end of the paypacket that the council CEO can go away. And one of these councils is burn Sad. As they say in Adelaide, Burn sad.
It's the leafy Eastern suburbs which is actually now turned into labor territory. But they wanted to give their CEO pay rise and at the moment, the upper end of that is three hundred and fifty one K that they're allowed to give. Now the Remuneration Tribunal says you can only give three hundred and twenty one. Kid going begging for a pay rise, they've actually come back and said, no, you've got to take a pay cut. How good is this? What's that? Oh? I thing?
Be careful what you ask for.
And the reason that the Burnside Council wanted to pay their CEO so much money was that they listened to three things. Because he's the CEO in a highly engaged and affluent population, I should notice a shit. I'm not sure when that matters. They want to pay her because she comes under media scrutiny. Will a lot of roles come under media scrutiny? And because of political challenges, it's
not that difficult prayer at last. I remember it was like filling in potholes, arranging for bins to be emptied, mowing the grass, you know, in the public park areas for a CEO to earn as much as, or in some cases more than the state premiere.
It's just outrageous.
You've got sixty eight local council CEOs in South Australia in a population of two million people, and these CEOs are on between two hundred and four hundred and fifty thousand dollars each.
No wonder they don't want to.
I know you're a bit of a proponent for amalgamating council. No wonder they don't want to amalgamate. Why would you when you're on that kind of money.
Well, I think it shows us a couple things.
Firstly, defenders of the high renumeration would argue that a lot of these councils have budgets of hundreds of millions of dollars. So it actually shows us that these councils have expanded well beyond the remit of what councils were actually established to do.
And a lot of the functions in the community that.
Used to be carried out by not for profits voluntary association's churches are now being taken over by the councils.
So you end up with these huge.
Massive, bloated bureaucracies performing functions that used to be perfectly well performed by not for profits. But then it also does highlight the fact that our politicians in Australia really are not paid very much. In New South Wales you have ten council CEOs earning over five hundred thousand dollars. That is far more than the premiere of the state. So it is pretty shocking. I mean, I think we need to pay our politicians more, and also just in council.
Funny thing though, is, you know, comparatively, we pay our politicians a lot in the present of the United States, and it's about two hundred k year, which is probably traditionally why the President of the United States has been a rich man, because they're the only people who can
afford to get there. But one thing I can guarantee is that when people woke up and read the advertiser this morning and discovered that their council ceo was going to be paid list, they would have reacted something like Jeremy Clarkson, here.
Bad news. What the Dacia sandero it's delayed?
Oh no, anyway last week.
And so say all of that, I think when we use that cleep a bit more now because there's plenty of opportunities I can think of where you're just like, oh, oh, that is so sad. I just can't believe it's happened.
Absolutely love that.
Let's go to the United States where Donald Trump is busy trying to rebuild the US military, and we wish him all the best with that. The military really came under a lot of pressure because they just couldn't recruit enough soldiers. In twenty twenty two, they felt twenty five percent short of their recruitment target. Twenty twenty three wasn't much better than new Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says it's because the.
Military had gone so woke.
Young Americans just weren't inclined to die for their country or serve in a military that was all about transgenderism and pronouns. But the Trump administration, well they've addressed that issue. And take a look at the new recruitment ad. It's pretty inspiring.
No more distraction, no more electric tanks, no more gender confusion, no more climate change worship. We are laser focused on our mission of warfighting. We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the war as we end.
And perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.
It's called peace through Strength.
I like that commercial. It's inspiring and some of the other slogans used in the extended version. They talk about, we don't fight because we hate what's in front of us. We fight because we love what's behind us. They talk about through power and might, we will lead the world to peace. Our friends will respect us, our enemies will fear us, and the world will admire us. What I like about this Frayer is they're appealing to young people's
sense of getting involved in something bigger than themselves. And I couldn't help but think about some of the Australian Defense Force advertisements which have as a slogan, or at least they did recently, challenge yourself. It was all about self fulfillment. It was all about a career. Maybe you could get a trade through the military. But the US have gone a different way. It's not about you, it's about your country. It's not about you, it's about your family.
It's not about doing something for yourself. It's about doing something for the common good that will go on beyond you. I think it's a good way to inspire young people totally.
And the kind of twenty five century religion for jen Z has been expressive individualism. Find your true self and live according to your authentic self and self actualize and then you'll be a fulfilled human being. But ultimately that actually leaves us empty, as you can see by the incredibly devastating mental health statistics. So what the US has
now said is stuff that it's clearly not working. This is the counter cultural revolution of saying it's not about just focusing on yourself, focusing on who you are, it's about fighting for something greater than yourself. And that commercial was so inspiring, but let's compare that to a different ad that was released under the Biden presidency.
This is the story of a soldier who operates your niece's Patriot missile defense systems. It begins in California with the little girl by two moms.
Need I say more? Need I say more? And the rest of.
The commercial continued in that vein the fact that they are trying to or they attempted to recruit people into the army based on silly things like LGBTQ diversity. It's just people don't care about that. If they're going to die for their country. It better be for a dune good reason. It's not going to be because they happen to have two mothers.
And this has not been without consequence and design really that we've ended up in this place. And you know the polling the IPA has done recently. You know, if you were in a position, if Australia was in a position like Ukraine, for instance, where you get invaded, how many young people would go to fight, and it's something like twenty five percent, Like most will not fight. Nearly half say they'd flee the country, they get out of the joint because they don't want to be here anymore.
And that's because we haven't instilled any level of national pride anyone. If you've got nothing to believe in, then you have nothing to fight for. And of course that's what the long march through the institutions has been about. The if you can stop the kids from loving the country they live in because they live on stolen land and their existence is illegitimate, etc. Then they won't defend it.
So then someone else will come along who presumably the Chinese will then come along and they'll have great regard for our indigenous populations. I suppose, I don't know, but this is exactly the problem that the rest of the West faces. I did think it was curious though, because it was in the early two thousands that they essentially made the movie Team America World Police. That is exactly what this ad was. Carbon copy. I mean, when I saw the ad, I thought, Gee, this is a great movie.
I want to go and see it. As Tom Cruise put out another version of Top Gun or something, I think he is actually putting out in another version of Top Gun. Let's go back to my old state of South Australia again for a short moment. They just elected the youngest senator in Australian history, Charlotte Walker, twenty one years old, of the Labor Party. She turned twenty one
on election night. It should be noted as well. Now she was third on the Senate ticket in South Australia, of the Labour Senate ticket that is, and that's generally been an unelectable position for Labor in South Australia, certainly since rud one in two thousand and seven, so they weren't expecting that she would get up. She's just a place filler, as often is the case, in these elections, but because the swing was on, we now have a
twenty one year old senator in the Federal Parliament. She said, I want to do a good job for South Australians, but I also want to show young people, particularly young women, that this is achievable and this is something that they can do. Also, not many people my age get to go to Canberra have the ability to contribute in the way that I will, so I'm also really excited to get into it, and to be perfectly honest, good luck
to her is what I have to say. I mean, look, you know, she's got very little life experience or work experience. She's been a union she went to work in a union. But that's about the same as anyone who's in the Labor Party, the Parliamentary Labor Party. So whether you're forty one or twenty one, I don't think it makes much difference.
And if you can vote at the age of twenty one, and of course you can, you can vote from eighteen, then you are as deserving of that spot in Parliament as anyone else.
I agree with your sentiments. Good on her, well done.
That's no mean feat to be elected to the Senate at the age of twenty one. But it's interesting she said there that not many people my age get to go to Canberra. And I think there's a good reason for that, because at twenty one, you presumably haven't bought a house, haven't had kids.
She hasn't worked a real job.
She did one year of university, dropped out, went and worked for a union. There's so much life experience she doesn't have. And it's wonderful that you could be an example of what's possible getting to Canberra. But you don't go to Canberra to show other people they can go to Canberra. You go to Canberra to enact policy and legislation. And at the age of twenty one, as Caleb said, not a bad twenty first by the way, on election night.
And bloody good Barty would have been thrown.
I really have what it takes to make sensible policy. And the worst thing that could happen is that she succeeds. Imagine she's in the Senate for the next twenty years. You'd end up with a forty one year old who's never had a real job making legislation for this country. I don't think that's in anybody's interests. I remember here at the Sky News studios was last year sometime talking about Barnaby Joyce and I had my son with me and I said to Barnaby, do you reckon my son
should go into politics? I was stirring my son because he has no interest whatsoever. And Barnaby Joyce said, if you want to go into politics, my advice is how old you My son said eighteen or whatever, and Barnaby said, wait until you're thirty and get ten eleven twelve is life experience, and then minimum age thirty. Then go into politics, but get some life experience. I think that's good advice, good luck to this girl, but I don't know that it's a great thing for our country.
Well, I think that's exactly right, because there are certain things that you can only really understand by going through life. And also the Senate is quite different. So why Roy was younger than this new senator. He was twenty when he got elected, but he got elected in the lower House, so he had to run a campaign, He had to engage with voters at town hales do daw knocking the whole thing.
Now, I think that is more justified.
Obviously, I ran as a candidate in an unwinnable seat in the state election had to do the same thing and it was a really good learning experience and.
You have to come face to face with voters.
The difference with the Senate is no one's really voting for you, and it more just underscores the fact that the Liberals absolutely tanked at the last election and Labor romped it in. But in any case, I don't think it'll really matter if she's there or not, because Labor senators and members of Parliament for that matter, have basically no freedom in what they do. When we saw how this all worked out for Fatoma payment last time they put a twenty something year old in the settus, I'm.
Going to put you up on something.
Mac.
You say, you know, probably as an owner house and no kids and all these things, which is fair. I doubt she does. But are they prerequisites to go into parliament, because this is probably.
The prerepposite is you're old enough to vote, you're Australian citizen, and that's the prerection. I'm just saying, is it great to have people who have virtually zero life.
Experience what you're describing. His whole problem with the party system, not with the age because the party has chosen people who will be loyal foot soldiers of the ALP and they are mostly people who have their history in the Union or working in a labor politician's office. Right, So whether you're twenty one or forty one, or fifty one or sixty one, they're all of the same book. They're all from the same gene pool. True. I don't think
it makes any different difference. I mean, this is the problem with democracy, I suppose in some respects is that it has to represent everyone, and that's the person with the lowest IQ up to the highest IQ, and the least successful person to the most successful, and the youngest to the oldest, et cetera.
Well, I mean, she's been elected as a labor senator, right, Don Ferrell, who's a labor statesman, he described her and as I quote, very young and very very lucky. That's hardly a rigging endorsement.
I mean, that's the reality of it. But you do make a good point. But I think ultimately we want our politicians to be leaders that we can aspire to and look up to as well. So we'll see how this all plays out. But let's move on now. Last week we covered a story of a transgender athlete in California who was allowed to compete as a biological male against biological females, and predictably, this athlete beat the women in their category and took home first place.
And there's now been a development in that story.
The mother of this fleet was confronted by other parents at the athletics tournament who were rightfully extremely upset that her son was being allowed to compete against their daughters.
There's not belong competing against those girls, period. What a coward of a woman you are allowing that? Telling a woman?
Telling? Are a woman?
Telling girls to go and compete against the boy?
How embarrassing. How you're a mother, You're a mother, Stand up like a mother. I am a mother. I'm compecting girls. You want a boy? How many people.
Support the boy?
Girl?
I can really understand the anger that those parents must feel seeing their daughters, who have worked their guts out to get there take home second place or third place, or no place at all because a male is beating their daughters. That's outrageous. And it's also been revealed in this article that the male managed to change his birth certificate very recently for a small sum of twenty three dollars, and that's what allowed him to compete in the female category.
Now he's got the opportunity to access college scholarships, the state finals, and all sorts of athletic opportunities. Not a bad return on investment, I say, but a very unfair outcome for women.
Not bad at all. And have a look at how this athlete fared. We'll show you the results in the girl's long jump. Ab Hernandez is the male who's competing in the female category. You can see there that he won the women's event with a jump of five point eight eight meters, But if he was to jump in the boys event, the winning jump was not five point eight eight it was seven point four to zero meters, So Hernandez would have been two meters short of winning
the men's event. In fact, his jump was so short enough to win the girl's event, but so he would have finished last by sixty centimeters from the next lowest placed getter in the boys event. So very clearly identifies as a girl. Absolutely smashes it in the female event. But if he had remained in the boys event, would have finished last.
It would have been nineteenth and by a margin.
Well, twenty three bucks is a pretty good price of admission. And I'm starting to think, James, you and I should go and have a go at the afl W because I think we could show them a thing or two. But I mean, what you saw there was pretty unedifying
two parents going at each other. But this is the logical consequence of the authorities that ought to be taking this stuff seriously not taking the matter seriously, because, as I've said many times, this is a matter of fairness, right, and we're continually told, well, no, it's a matter of inclusion and that everyone ought to feel included in school
and junior sport. And I get the intention of what they're trying to say, but you have to teach fairness from a very young age, and fairness is such an important tenet of sport. It's what sportsmanship, or maybe sportswomanship or sports day them ship these days is all about.
And when the authorities don't take it seriously that girls ought to be able to compete on a level playing field, then of course you're going to end up in a position where parents will start lashing out like that and saying this is not good enough, and they'll take it out on other people who perhaps they ought not be taking it out on, because these things should be settled in much more civil ways. But the people who can settle these things in civil ways seem to have no
interest in doing so. That's the biggest problem.
And you're absolutely right about parents in sport.
I've spent a lot of the time pacing the sideline at kids' sport, and you do get emotional, and you do get wound up, and when you see your child being disadvantaged, tempers get hot, and politicians should do something to head that off. We're coming into flu season, of course. An interesting survey from the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne. Two thousand people surveyed and found a third of parents
were hesitant to have their children vaccinated. Seventeen percent said they wouldn't get their child vaccinated at all, twenty two percent said they were unsure whether they would go ahead with their vaccination of their child. Of those that said they were hesitant, staggering thirty nine percent said the reason was they didn't trust doctors or nurses information. That's compared to thirteen percent of parents planning to vaccinate, who were still a little bit skeptical of what they were being
told by doctors and nurses. When I read this, I got to say, I wasn't that surprised, because it's in recent memory that we lived through a period where doctors and nurses were pretty much banned from telling you their honest opinion about the COVID vaccine nless they be deregistered, and so you'd go to your doctor and you weren't sure whether they were telling you what they really believed,
or whether they were just towing the government line. And of course everything has consequences, Freyer, Vaccination is an incredibly important thing broadly speaking, but now we've got a whole segment of our population who were looking at their children saying, I don't think you should get vaccinated because they've been taught you're not always being given the right information. Can
you blame parents for being a little skeptical. It's all very well to anti vaxx's conspiracy theorists, but we've got living memory of being told one thing when the opposite was in fact the case.
And I think it's really sad because trust is so hard to build but so easy to destroy. And the really sad part of this is that vaccination rates for children across the board are down. So the percentage of children around twelve months old who are up to date on their vaccinations has fallen by about five percent since COVID, And that's huge. And once you cross a certain threshold, you won't have enough people vaccinated to reach hurt immunity.
You open yourselves up to a whole lot more dangerous diseases, et cetera, et cetera. But this is the cost, This is the true cost that I think no one wanted to consider at the time.
Yeah, I mean I get from a public health perspective why it's bad. But you know, these are the consequences of your actions. Right, if you trusted us and treated us a little better during COVID, perhaps we wouldn't be responding to what you did then. I mean, you know, it's all good and well to say, Oh, I can't believe it. The numbers are going down. How could that possibly happen? I mean, it's like the big bad wolf saying that you ought to trust him after he came
and blew your house down. It's fine, it's fine, I've learnt my lesson. It's all good. Now I'll rebuild the house for you. No, I don't want the big bad wolf to come and do it. I'd rather talk to someone else. Thanks, and can you blame people for it? Before we get to a break good news story very quickly again, another council is going to make an attempt to get rid of Welcome Country and acknowledgments of Country
as well they should. This time it's Flinder's Island Flinder's Council in Tasmania, where a councilor Gary Blindcorn says, I believe the two protocols are Welcome to Country and the Acknowledgement of Country have served their purpose and it is now time to move on. These protocols are not historical and have only existed for around fifty years now. They were early adopters to all of this anti Australia Day stuff.
As far back as twenty thirteen they were having sort of alternative events on Australia Day, Sorry Day, or whatever the hell it is they call it. But you know, it feels like with every passing day there's more and more people waking up to this and I know people pointed to the fact that it was brought up at the end of the election campaign and it didn't help the coalition because you know, people were voting on cost of living at that election. It's a completely separate thing.
But since the voice went down, it does feel like incrementally people have started to wake up to the fact that this is so tokenistic, it's overdone, it's lost all its meaning. People don't want to sit through it anymore.
And it's more often being used as a political statement to undermine the legitimacy of Australia.
And push a left wing political bias.
Rather than actually moving towards practical reconciliation, actually doing things to help Australia's most marginalize. How about the Council, instead of spending thousands of dollars on welcomes to country, gives that money to indigenous communities in a practical way that actually helps people.
This council member says that he's had at least one hundred people come to him wanting to abandon these ceremonies, which is ten percent of the town. That's a pretty significant number. So they'll vote on that tomorrow, so it will be interested to see how.
That vote goes. We're going to take a break.
When we come back, we'll look at what's making news tomorrow, including the bizarre excuse a former afl umpire gave for missing a court hearing that's coming up in just a moment. Welcome back to the program. Let's take a look at tomorrow's headlines. Kleb, you've got the career mails.
State gets on the gas, it says, and I think just steam co host here of mister McPherson was on the gas a little earlier, but we'll leave that to one side, says. Nine new gas fields will be opened up in Queensland as the state government signals a planned to cut red tape and get more of the fuel out of the ground in order to drive down the
electricity bills. What a strange IDEA Resources Minister Dale Last will unlock sixteen thousand square kilometers to explorers to tap into gas reserves across the Cooper Erimannga and Bowen Surratt basins. I can't believe it. I'm literally I'm genuinely lost for words that like this has got to go to. What's the date today? Tomorrow's the twenty eighth, So today's the twenty seventh of May twenty twenty five. That a government, a state government was like, I know what we can do.
We can use the resources that are under the ground. I mean, this is extraordinary in modern Australia. This is legitimately extraordinary. It's a brand new discovering that who knows it could spark it? I don't know an industrial revolution. Who knows? This is a win on every side.
It means increased royalties, it means increased jobs, and of course it will mean cheaper power. And it comes a day after we talked last night Freyer about this same government nixing a one billion dollar wind turbine farm because locals weren't happy about it. This is a much better plan and to make it happen. What they're doing ostensibly is just getting read of red tape, streamlining approvals so that investment will start to flow into gas.
And that's the thing.
A lot of the people that claim, oh, no gas and coal, that's uninvestable, it's not profitable. That's only because of all the regulations and the red tape and the fact that governments.
Won't approve it.
So if you start approving this stuff, people will invest absolutely.
I wonder if Victoria will take note We've got a lot of gas there that they're not accessing.
Let's go it comes from Jacqueline SARMs.
I'm not sure much good is going to come from there. Let's go to the Mercury. In Tasmania, firebrand MP squeaks home in tight Senate count, Jackie's Jackie Lamby grabs fifth seat. Outspoken MP Jackie Lamby has survived a protracted battle to retain her Senate seat in a tight count which has taken more.
Than three weeks to finalize.
She edged ahead of six plate Liberal incumbent Richard Kolbeck and a challenge from the Labor candidate Bailey Falls. Of course, Pauline Hansen's daughter was also involved in that contest and just failed to win.
The seat there.
Jackie Lamby, of course started back in twenty thirteen. She's been in politics. I just find it extraordinary. He's been around twelve years now. Started with Clive Palmer's Mob. Didn't last long, as not many of Clive Palmer's mob did. I think it was a year later she went independent and I guess, no matter what you think of Jackie Lamby, she's been a stayer and now she's going to be around for another Don't roll your eyes, frail another six years.
Would you rather a twenty one year old.
Well, I don't know.
No, she's certainly got a lot of hootspa, she's got a lot of pizazz. Australian politics needs a bit more of that sometimes, and there's never a dull moment with her.
Well you know, I think many of us laughed when she first got elected and said, oh, oh, look at this idiot. But she's carved a great niche for herself as a representative of Tasmania, and that's what you want a good state senator to be. She's looking after an underdog state and she does that well and that's why they keep electing her. And to jump from the sixth spot up to the fifth spot is again another endorsement
in that. I was a bit concerned though, because that the headlines is Jackie grabs fifth seat and I remember many years ago a story about her saying she wanted a bloke with a big package. So I'm not sure putting grabs sneaks to Jackie Lamby is a terribly good idea.
Oh my goodness, typical Jackie.
Let's move on to The Australian Now and the headline says small Business levee cut to boost GDP.
Cutting the small.
Business tax rate by five percent would increase GDP by up to eleven billion dollars over the forward estimates, including cloring back almost all the tax revenue in five years. Modeling shows the data places pressure on Jim Charmers to consider implementing company tax recommendations from the Productivity Commission.
And now this is the thing.
Australia has a very high company tax rate, and when you actually cut company tax, what you do is you boost the supply side of the economy. So all of a sudden, businesses become more productive, they become better and therefore end up paying more tax to actually make up the full gone revenue that you've given up when you've cut the tax rate. So this is supply side economics. It's basically HC economics. But for some reason labor can't understand it.
And that's the problem because you're describing HSC economics and clearly that's not something they're.
FAILUAB not PhDs in political science.
Sorry exactly.
I'm not sure that we're going to see businesses getting a tax cut. Would be great for productivity, as explained in the Australian but I'm not sure that's the inclination of Jim Chalmers or the left leaning part of the Party which are going to be in the ascendency over the veryveryation is to.
Halt productivity by putting in taxes like unrealized gains. And I agree with the idea of cutting the small business tax rate further, because at the moment it's thirty percent on a big business twenty five percent on a small or medium business, so you'd go down to twenty percent
for small businesses. But I think more precingly we actually need to cut the corporate tax rate for big business because the problem we have as a country with one of the highest rates in the world is the profit shifting that companies engage in, where they send their losses to Australia to claim that on tax, so they pay no TEXT here and then they have their profits in other countries where they pay a much lower rate of TEXT.
So if you lower the corporate text rate, you equalize that out and we don't bear the losses of the rest of the world, which we're currently doing. Seems like a no brainer to me.
Yeah, it's pretty straightforward.
Now if you're thinking ahead to eurosummer or media holidays. You might want to think again, because one of the headlines in the Australian for tomorrow is TWU chaos.
We are clear for takeoff.
Transport Workers Union will investigate deploying multi employer bargaining agreements across the aviation industry as flight attendants launch action demanding an increase to minimum pay rates of up to thirty percent in a new industrial relations flashpoint. The TWU's National Council has endorsed a strategy to explore advancing multi employer bargaining agreements beyond ground crew to thousands of cabin crew and airport staff as well.
I mean, as if flying.
At aviation wasn't already expensive enough in Australia. We live on an island in a tiny corner of the world, far away from anything, and now it's effectively going to get more expensive if we have everyone going on strike.
I totally agree with you, except when I read this article, I was astonished to find that entry level wage for a flight attendant fifty three thousand dollars And people.
Say, wow, there are trolley dolly, they're just serving drinks. But you're away from home all the time.
It's pretty taxing at altitude trying to do that job fifty three grand?
Why would you do it?
And to be perfectly honest, I'm kind of on the union side here because I have no sympathy for Quantus, etc. Which illegally sacked workers during COVID and tried to outsource it all to Donata, like they have tried to cut costs at every single turn and then charge us more to give us less servers, and now they're going to win the work. Actually want to be paid a fair wage. To be honest, good luck to you. Now, let's go to the advertiser tomorrow where it says really bad excuse
boom boom. A former AFL umpire blamed a kangaroo for his failure to attend court to answer claims that he defrauded his employer of eight point seven million dollars. Troy Pannell, who was umpired two hundred and nineteen AFL games, remains wanted by a police outter. Victoria's Supreme Supreme Court sorry issued a warrant for his arrest last week. A kangaroo, Oh you know, sorry, sorry magistrate or judge or whoever it might be. I ran over a kangaroo on the
way in. I mean we've all sort of been there at one point or another. You get the car fixture, rock up to court. I mean court's more important, isn't it.
Can I just say, as a North Melbourne supporter, the kangaroo's always being killed by afl umpires. I tell you every weekend when you go to a break when we come back, the Chinese have launched a brand new sport, robot boxing.
You've got to see it to believe it will show you in a moment.
We thought we'd finish the show by showing you some unusual sports. We'll get to the Chinese in a moment. But Caleb, the British pretty weird when it comes to sports.
Oh it's quite incredible actually, you know they say people will beat on anything two cockroaches or two flies ago and have a wall or whatever it might be. Here's a product they should be selling over in the UK. It's become a big thing now. Started out as just a small, little local event, it's now a worldwide phenomenon. People tuning in from all over over the world to watch cheese racing in Gloucestershire. No, I am not joking. They roll a large three kilogram wheel of Gloucester cheese
down a hill and get people to chase it. Take a look there it is.
Done on the twenty twenty five prowis. Oh, but it is the German again.
The German looks good. He might be done. I think he's done crazy. This was madness. The hill this year was dry and unforgiving. I'm lost for words. In spite of I'm looking good. Superman's even better.
Superman looks like you might witness one.
Superman has done it.
When it started going, I don't stop this.
Up and fantastic. The hill was dry and unforgiving. It sounds like me trying to explain why one of my horses failed to do so well in a race. One bloke had to be flown off to the hospital because he injured himself in all of this palava, and you can understand why that might be. During the height of COVID, when there was like no sport going on, it was
like racing and that was it. You could go online and bet on Ukrainian and Russian ping pong, table tennis, and I was absolutely hammering this stuff because it was the only thing you could get your hands on. If they had cheese wheel racing, I would have been all over it. I reckon, that's brilliant. You've got the stall gift and cheese racing.
All right, I reckon.
Worse than cheese racing is robot boxing. That's what the Chinese are now into. It's more roboflop than robo cop Check this out. Well, they certainly showed their metal. What I can't work out is why those robot boxes were wearing boxing gloves and helmets frayer while they wearing protective gear.
And seriously, it would be a lot more fun if the guys with the little remote controllers just got in the ring themselves and punched on because no one is interested. I mean, this is the fall of men. If you're at a point where you have to use remote controlled robots to box, like, come on, man up box each other.
But we showed vision a few weeks ago of one of these robots going absolutely WoT at the bloke who had made the thing. Right, So if these robots really wanted to box on, I'm can vinced they good box on and I don't want to be getting in the ring with one.
So that is a sport I think it would take off robot versus human being.
I know the answer to that one. The robot wins. What's the point in having this sport in the first place.
That's all We've got time for tonight, but don't go anywhere.
Coming up in just a moment is the Reader Penalty Show. Good Night,