Welcome the Late Debate.
It's great to have your company on the Late Debate. I'm James Macpherson with Liz Staurer and Caleb Bond. Now, like me, you've probably seen some weird things on aircraft. But a little later we'll talk about a international passenger who's copped an absolute pasting for using her flight to make dough for bread.
Did it all while.
She was in the air will show you that a little later. Plus, when we look at the papers, an incredible story tomorrow detailing how Northern Territory police were too busy to conduct a welfare check on a woman who was allegedly murdered just nine hours after that welfare check was supposed to have taken place. And on the front page of Tomorrow's Canberra Times, an incredible story about bureaucrats who assured they're superiors that a project was going to
come in under budget. Three months later it came in overbudget by forty million dollars, as Maxwell Smart would say, missed it by that much. But first you have to wonder if any organizations in this country have as finely tuned moral conscience as our football codes. Take the NRL, for instance, they have special games honoring ANZACs, honoring Indigenous people, honoring women until it all went wrong. They had a special round honoring the LGBTQ community. They've even got a
round honoring members. It's like the NRL spend more time honoring and celebrating and respecting various niche groups than actually playing football. Or is something else going on here? You've got to understand that every time the NRL virtue signal, they need a brand new jumper in which to do so, and of course it's available at the merchandise stand. Take
Anthony Albanese's much loved Sydney Rabbitdoz for instance. This year they've played six themed rounds which have required six brand newly designed jumpers, all of which you can purchase at the merchandise stand for about one hundred and seventy dollars each. That means if you were to purchase one of every jumper that team alone has worn this year, you'd be up for just over one thousand dollars. That's just for you,
let alone your kids. This year, NRL clubs have a combined seventy seven different jerseys that they've worn over one hundred and eighty eight games of football. That's the equivalent of a new jersey for each club every five games. And so I'm starting to wonder Caleabin Liz, whether it goes like this The NRL clubs think what can we do to honor and celebrate and promote various minority groups? Who could we honor? Oh, by the way, we'll need a jumper to do that, or does it take place
the other way? And they think we need a new jumper because you know, we need people to keep the cash registers chugging along, so we need a new jumper. Could we honor? Now that much sound cynical, but do you remember the Pride round back in twenty twenty two where Manly got their players to wear a Pride jersey. Seven Islander players famously decided not to play. But I remember at the time it was revealed the idea for
that Pride round did not come from the club. It came from their jumper sponsor, who had pitched the idea of let's do a round on LGBTQ people. They'd pitched that idea not just to Manly but to other football clubs as well. Now, Manly bit, but the idea was not a group of benevolent rugby league officionados sitting around thinking what could our game do for social cohesion and to better the community. It was a jumper sponsor thinking how can we sell more jumpers to rugby league fans.
Well, it just goes to prove that the virtue signaling is a load of crap. I mean, the NRL, the AFL, they're big business by the way.
They don't pay tax.
On the money they own because you know, they're deemed to be a social goods not for profits sort of organization, but they're big business, right, and so when they have these things pride around and indigenous round whatever, they cloak it in the idea of this is a lovely thing that we're doing for the community. We're honoring people where we're all lovely over here, it's all about making money.
It's all about business, because in general, a business does not make a decision that it does not think is going to be beneficial for itself. And so every time you see a sporting code or a big business like Quantas, even though they've now said they're not going to get so involved in political issues unless they have a bard approval to do so, we know under Alan Joyce over there. They were just sort of running around endorsing everything they
could possibly find that. They don't normally do something unless they think they can make a buck out of it, or it's going to be good for shareholders, or it's going to be good for the bottom line. The NRL, the AFL, big business. They don't give a hoot about you. They don't give a hoot about gay people. They don't really give a hoot about Indigenous people. Hell, they don't even give a hoot about the members.
Look at how some of.
The teams perform every year, and you've got to wonder how much they really care about the members. It's all about extracting as much money as possible from you. And I think the kids is the real number the issue here, because you know, it's a bit like little Johnny goes to school and his schoolmates have got the latest toys. So little Johnny comes home and he has to have the same toys all his schoolmates otherwise.
He feels left out.
And if you're a parent and you go along and all the other kids are wearing the brand new jersey and they design it's also the greatest scam ever because they have a different one every year, So like Indigenous Round for instance, right, there's a new.
Design every year, so you're locked in.
You've got to keep buying these things. It really has nothing to do with politics. It's all about revenue raising, which makes it so ridiculous that people keep buying into this stuff and they oh, it's so important that the NRL and the AFL has Indigenous Round and Pride Round.
They don't care. They've got money out of you. They're happy.
They're laughing all the way to the bank, thinking, how stupid are you?
We pulled the wall over your eyes.
You think it's all about lovely, lovely social issues.
Nothing. Nothing.
I'm just glad that the NRL have capped it at five Jerseys.
Well at least they've capted it.
Otherwise obviously these guys would keep going.
But I just say, let the market decide.
If people don't want the new virtue signaling Jersey, they won't buy it, and if they do want it, they will buy it. And obviously you keep buying them because they keep doing it.
They make a lot of money off their merch.
Do you own a GWS jumper?
Nah?
You don't even own one.
Nah, But I do own a scaff got it off Facebook marketplace, so they didn't make a.
Sunis out of me.
To the States now, where Trump has been slapped with yet another indictment regarding the twenty twenty election, that's subversion case. They are not done with him yet. You will recall the original indictment was scuffered by the Supreme Court ruling
that Trump enjoyed some presidential immunity from criminal prosecution. But Special Counsel Jack Smith is not done with him yet because you may also recall that the Supreme Court decided that there was three different areas of immunity, absolute immunity for acts that the president has done with his constitutional authority, immunity, presumed immunity with regard to official acts, and then of
course unofficial acts zero immunity. So the Special Council has gone, hang on a minute, we can still get him on a few of these allegations. Special Counsel Jack Smith says the superseding indictment, which was presented to a new grand jury that had not previously heard evidence in this case, reflects the government's effort to respect and implement the Supreme Court's holdings and remand instructions.
What He's basically saying, is there.
This new version of the indictment includes all of the allegations from the last indictment, minus a few that they know would be considered completely covered off on by the fact that Trump was once the president. Trump has, of course responded in a very Trumpian way. He says, in an effort to rest you a dead witch hunt in Washington, DC.
In an act of desperation and in.
Order to save face, the illegally appointed Special Council, deranged Jack Smith has brought a ridiculous new indictment against me, which has all the problems of the old indictment and should be dismissed immediately. In Trumpian caps, he loves the caps. Now, of course, they've done this just ten days out to the Justice Department's sixty day rule, which means you can't bring and he charges against a presidential candidate more than sixty days out to an election.
So they've chosen their timing.
They've made it across the line, and experts are saying this prosecution will go long into after the election. Of course, if Trump makes it to the White House, he'll just throw it out because he will then have the power to do so, but I just can't believe how desperate they are. I really can't clinging on to the few allegations that may not fall under the scuppering that the Supreme Court pulls in this case, and they're going again.
I can't believe that they're continuing to bother here because every time you've had one of these cases, it's generally been a boon for Donald Trump because it just gives him, as we've said so many times, the opportunity to say to people, look, it's not me they're coming for it's you. The idea here is that I stand between them and you, so they're coming for me, so they can get to you. And we know what the poles are looking like at
the moment. Kamala Harris is going through something of a honeymoon period since she replaced Joe Biden because she's got the anyone but Biden advantage. They've just had the DNC, which gives her a little more wind behind her. And Trump actually has a threat now in the Democrat someone who could potentially beat him at the pole. So you would think at this moment in time, these Democrat justices and prosecutors, etc. Would maybe just take a step back and go Okay, every time we've tried to do this
over the last year, it hasn't worked. It hasn't landed a blow on him, it hasn't hurt him whatsoever, if anything, has helped him. And right now, when he's actually looking like he might be receding in the polls, why don't we just step back for a moment and let him hang himself instead of saying, look, we know you're drowning a little bit, buddy, here's the life boy, the rope to.
Just drag yourself in a little bit.
Like they have handed him the advantage that he needs right now.
I don't know why they're bothering.
Well, as you say, After the DNC, Kamala Harris and the Democrats have had all the momentum. They've still got it, They've got all the press, and now they've made Trump headlines all over again. On top of that, they spent the whole of the DNC talking about how they would unite the country and they were the Party of Joy, and now they're using the justice system to go after Trump.
Now.
Of course, Donald Trump is a very clever politician. Whatever you think about him, he's not dumb and so he's linked this judicial process with the fact that the Biden administration is not only going after him in court, but there was also that little matter of failing to provide him with enough Secret Service security agents to keep him safe from an assassination. Here he is talking to doctor Phil.
You know, when this happened, people would ask, who's Walter is it? I think, to a certain extent, it's Biden's and Harris's fault, and I'm the opponent. Look, they were weaponizing government against me. They brought in the whole DOJ to try and get me. They weren't too interested in my health and safety.
I would be if I were in.
Their position, but they weren't very interested. But they were always making it. From what I understood, and I could feel it. They were making it very difficult to have proper staffing in terms of Secret Service.
So there you go, Trump grabbing the momentum all over again thanks to the Democrats. But it shows how desperate the Democrats are Kada that they would rather talk about Trump than anything else, i e.
Policy, which is the idea in general. I mean, we showed that clip the other art of Quentin Tarantino in them. It wasn't mincing his words, telling Kamala Harris to don't Epan do any ef and interviews because you're just going to buger it up.
Bugger was not the word he used.
The idea, much like they did with Joe Biden in twenty twenty, is to keep her in the bunker so that you're not exposed to any of the policy. And it's all on the feeling and the fact that she's not Trump and she's not Barden. But if I may venture into conspiracy theory territory here or most we do off on you, A part of me wonders whether the whole point of this beyond the you know, let's get Trump for the opportunity to lock him up, because we
know they'd love to lock him up. But part of me wonders whether going with the water down case is just to put the idea of January six back on people's minds, because they know that if Trump loses the election in November, you'll probably have a repeat of January six last time around. There will be so much unrest and questioning and concern about.
The validity of the election.
So what they're actually setting up here is almost goading people if Trump loses, to go and do it all over again, because they're saying, we've got a case on the books here that he's sort of proving that Trump made it all up last time, so we've got cause to encourage you to go and do it again. So we've got twice as much AMO to get Trump points.
I'd say that's exactly why the Dems have gone again, because you're quite right in saying it galvanizes the Republican base and all the Trumpers, but it also galvanizes the Democrats base to keep him in the headlines. As I mean, when I watched the DNC last week, that mind numming. It was the most low IQ thing I've ever seen in my entire life.
But the amount of.
Times they were talking about him convicted felon, convicted felon.
And people love it.
They're absolutely gobbling up this narrative about Trump that actually he does be along behind bars and now we've got the DOJ still not letting him off the hook. This man should never make it into the White House. And because the poles are so tight at the moment, they're probably not so much worried about a boost in the polls for Trump should he be seen to be prosecuted.
And this is just another.
Witch hunt that has worked on whoever it's going to work on at this point. And now the Dems are going for the jugular again, playing up to the narrative that they have sewed so thoroughly over all this time, that they have been employing lawfair Again.
That's the reductive message of the Democrats. Right, Kamala Harris is promoting herself, not as the vice president, to accomplish all these things. She's gone right back in history to when she used to be a prosecutor going after Felon. So that is the contest. It's not a contest of equal political identities. By the way, listening to you do that conspiracy theory, I'm sitting here listening, it's like watching Liz with a beard.
That's actually a really scary thought I would not want to see.
Is what you just called a conspiracy theory.
I just called playing.
So anyway, we'll get you there.
Well, you know you're not quite old enough to be menopausaled is. But please please don't, please don't ever grow a bee. We don't want to cover up that beautiful.
Ways you haven't just defended how many more than menopausal ladies at home you'll be hearing from Bola.
You can write in your complaints, but I'm sure you all agree Liz should not grow a viear. But you know, in this modern world, she's allowed to do whatever she wants. I think maybe Liz identifies as a man, and tomorrow we'll have conscience here on this panel. Now, let's go to one of my favorite segments on this program, the Council round Up, and hell do we have some good
ones for you tonight. Let's start here in Sydney with the North Sydney Council now Sydney or New South Wales more broadly, next month will have its council elections, where of course we know that many Liberal candidates won't be standing because the Liberal Party didn't bother to actually nominate one hundred and forty or so of their candidates. But it means that councils are now going through their last meetings of this term. And North Sydney Council last night
had its last meeting for this term. And Jilly Gibson, who was once the mayor of North Seatan, has been a servant counselor for twenty five years gave her valedictory speech. So she got up and said a few nice words and received some flowers, etc. And then one of her fellow counselors, James Spenceley, decided that, well, maybe in her honor we should name.
A plaza after her.
The new Burton Street plaza in Kiribilly has just been opened, and he said, why do we just think nice for miss Gibson and name it after her twenty five.
Years of service.
She was happy to accept it, but then we found out why she'd been a counselor for twenty five years.
She'd stuck it out all that time in order to get that plaza.
And we know that because when she didn't get it, by god, did she wrick have it Upon the council. The Mayor, Zoe Baker, called a division on the motion and it was voted down. And instead of just walking out and saying Sia Narah, thanks for the twenty five years, Miss Gibson responded by saying.
What an in actually yielded? She said, what an ending? Did you hear?
That?
They just voted down Council Expensively's amendment to name a little plaza after me?
They can't find it in their hearts. No heart, no heart.
She had to repeat it twice. She then went after the mayor, Miss Baker. She said, you can warn me all you like, Mayor. The mayor clearly has repudiated her for shouting so much that was mean.
This has been the meanest counsel ever.
I'm off you are so mean, You are so mean, You are so mean A plaza your mom.
She's talking to the mayor. Your mom was mayor for a year and got a building named after her.
Now the mayor's mother, Carol Baker was indeed mayor at one point, and the Carol Baker building in the Council Chambers is named after her. But she was the first female mayor of North Sydney, so she got something named after her. But we finally found out on the way out why Miss Gibson had been there for twenty five years, and it was to get that lit plaza.
G did that sting on the way out.
I'm glad they're spending our rate Kay's money to have squabbles like this at their.
Last legacy, Deny.
The hilarious thing about that story is that during her valedictory speech, Miss Gibson had described council as a preschool for bullies.
Well point made you will a solid member for twenty five years.
A lady.
I got to say, though, as bad as that story is, I've got worse for you. Forget about the North Sydney Council. What about just the Sydney Council with Clover Moore. Now, Clovermore has been there a long time as the Mayor of Sydney and she's been campaigning hard for a slice of the pristine eighteen hole More Park golf course to be carved off as a park for local residents. Now, no one really wants this because it's a beautiful golf course.
Even Hollywood stars like Mark Wahlberg, even they think it should be left as it is.
I know I'm not a citizen of Australia, but I am pleading to you, everybody, New South Wales, to save More Park Golf Club. It's been here for over one hundred years and it's been giving people hundreds and hundreds of years of pleasure and joy and just people being able to come out, get a nice healthy walk, spend quality time together with family and friends, to meet new friends. Please,
I've seen lots and lots of parks. I haven't seen too many lovely public golf courses like this and have access for everybody.
Please save More Park Golf Club. Now I ignore Hollywood stars and ignore local golfers. Clover Or, the mayor of Sydney, she wants a significant section hived off as a park for local residents and Chrismin's, the new South Wales Premier, has finally agreed, saying that this park and we've got an image of the park that will put up for you. It's going to be an enormous benefit for local residents. It's going to have children's playgrounds, running paths, eskate park,
outdoor fitness facilities, open meadows, walking tracks. Who wouldn't want that right near where they live? Well, as it turns out, Clovermore has two properties within walking distance of where this park will be located. Councilor Evonne Weldon, who is running for mayor at the next election against Clovermore, said, I think it needs to be acknowledged and people need to be made aware of the truth of what is happening here.
And the truth is that Clovermore and her husband own a property just five hundred meters from where that park will be established, and another property only four hundred meters from the park. Now, when The Daily Telegraph asked the Sydney Lord Mayor about these properties and why she'd never told anybody about them, she said she didn't need to acknowledge her ownership of these properties when dealing with proposals for the park because and I quote it wasn't required
by the Sydney Council Code of Conduct. That's a pretty low bar I would have thought for transparency and integrity when you say, well no according to cod of Conduct, we don't have to say.
After twenty years as mayor, it is time to see the back of this woman. Come on, Sydney, pull it off at the next election. Also, I do love how we bash celebrity endorsements day and night.
But then Mark Walber.
The golf course and we're all like, everyone listened to him.
He's an out of towner. But what a legend.
It reminds me of the story of Russ Hins. And you you would remember, having lived in Queensland the bad old days of the Joe Bilky Peterson government. He was the Transport Minister there and he bought a pub and he had the highway diverted to go past the pub he had bought so that people would come in and buy beer from him.
He can't get a plaza named after you, might as well have a highway diverted past your store.
Don't give her ideas to Hornsby Counsel. Now we're a restaurant on the owner his restaurant's called the Smoke Shata is trying to save his smoker. The whole idea of his restaurant is brisket burgers, big juicy chunks of meat. But the council has received complaints about the smells.
Who doesn't like.
The smell of cooking meat?
Some karens in Hornsby apparently, and they've told him he has to get rid of his smoker or else, which of course means the end of the entire concept of his restaurant. Restaurant owner Mehdi Madove says, they're saying, if we don't remove the smoker, it's a criminal offense and they can take me to court. And it's all because we had one person complaining about the smoke and food smells.
I've spent thousands of dollars trying to address the council's concerns including hiring a town planner, commissioning four thousand dollars for air quality reports, three thousand dollars for an acoustic report, another three thousand dollars for surveys, four thousand dollars a traffic engineers. I have put everything into the business, and the council should be helping small business, not hindering us for crying out loud hornsby counsel. What are you thinking.
It's just more of the same week in and week out, these councils not actually doing their job and having to be told by the rate payers what their job is, i e.
Helping small business.
I was actually getting hungry as you were describing the wares of the smoke shack. What's the bet that the person who complained is a.
Vegan exactly exactly, for Heaven's sake, who doesn't like, as you said, Liz, the smell of the meat being cooked on the barbecue.
I'm actually I'm near it.
I'm thinking of moving to Mount Cola so i can. I'm going to find whoever it is who's complained and say, look, what do you want for your house? Get the hell out of there, because I can't think of anything better than living.
There is the irony, though, Do you reckon if you complained about I don't know, the stench coming from a sewerage works, the council would be straight on it dealing with that. Or do you reckon you'd hear crickets, but you complain about some guy's barbecue. He's trying to eke out a living. The council can't shut him down fast.
And all the people with yapping dogs next door that they've been complaining about for years and nothing have been done about it.
And they're like, what the hell you? All I had to do is get.
A smoker going and then the council would come and visit me. But look, we've gone through all the bad things that Australian councils have done this week.
But maybe this will make you feel a little bit better because.
A council over in the UK, the Norfolk County Council, has come up with an ingenious plan to save the planet.
They're going to.
Turn off all the street lights. No I'm not joking.
They have decided they're going to turn off a thousand lights across the council at night. Now, street lights are generally there for I don't know safety, But who cares about safety? We've had a planet to save here, and they reckon they're going to save two hundred thousand quit a year and cut carbon emissions by seventy six tons six duns.
Can you believe it?
And one of the places where they're going to turn off these street lights is a particularly dangerous stretch of road were in the last six months alone they.
Have had major crashes at night. So who cares about safety?
Who cares about women walking home at night who want some lights so they feel safe? Who cares about people being safe on the road here? People are dispensable. We need to save the planet. I mean, of all the things we expect councils to do right, roads rates, rubbish, fill in the potholes. We know they can't do that unless apparently someone goes along and spray paints a penis over the top of it. We've seen cases of that and the council acts very fast, not giving you ideas.
But you know, if it just magically appeared on the road, who knows where that came from. But you now have councils and this is not the only one. Apparently in the UK, and you can imagine if it's starting to happen in the UK, it will start to happen here. You know, turning the lights on a basic thing, but you will now have counsel saying no, to save the planet, we're not going to turn the lights on for safety ATNA.
So the part I missed in your introduction was how much the global temperature will decrease because of this?
Like five three is apparent?
Five degrees?
Oh yeah, yeah.
And the sea levels, oh, the sea levels just planmmet mate, We're going to have to the island. It's going to create so much more room for us all to live on. But of course there won't be anyone left to live on the room because they will have all crashed their cars into each other.
And unto all the lights.
And maybe on that point, maybe they're smarter than we're giving them credit for. So they'll save seventy six tons of carbon misions by turning out the lights. Then people who die in head on collisions, think about it. They won't need food, they won't need transfer. Yeah, that's a whole lot more emissions that will be saved. Once you factor in cremation, that will probably increase. I mean, this
is outrageous. And then what they'll do once this move starts to create traffic accidents, as they'll say, oh, this is not good, we're having too many accidents. So you reckon, they'll turn the lights back on. Or do you reckon, They'll lower the speed limit. And so no, no, we need to turn this eighty zone into a forty home scooters.
I just can't believe norfolks that are council of this s far behind the times because so many of our lighting street lighting is using.
The solar panels.
Now I've seen that.
So just get some CCP solar panels, whack them on your street lights, and then you can have safety and virtue signaling together.
Let's go. Let's stay in the UK actually and talk about eminent biologist Richard Dawkins. He is proposing that perhaps the incredible rise in mental illness we're seeing across the western world is due to the astonishing rate of technical change. Now, before we hear what he's got to say, I've got
to point out the irony. This is a man who's devoted his entire professional life to I convince us all that life has absolutely no existential purpose or meaning now he's worried about mental health anyway, Here he.
Is, it is changing more rapidly, and many people do worry that the pace of change is such that we are no longer well adapted to live in it. And much of the mental illness that afflicts people maybe because we are in a constantly changing, unpredictable environment in a way that our ancestors were not. So that is a worry. Actually, I think it's amazing how resilient we are. I mean, we do seek to most of us managed to cok pretty well with the astonishing rate of change.
Yeah, the mental health problem, it's got to be the Internet. This is a guy who wrote a book called The God Delusion, calling anyone who believes in God a sky fairy and a simpleton. He's basically gone all around the world telling people we came from nothing, We're going to end up as nothing, and therefore life is worth nothing. And now he's banging on about mental illnes and wondering
what's gone wrong. More interesting than his comments on social media and the Internet are his comments back in April where he said, you know, I love hymns and Christmas carols. I feel at home in the Christian ethos. I feel like we're a Christian country in that sense. Now, to be sure, he's saying, I'm not a Christian, but I
do like the Christian trappings. He reminds me of a man who's sitting on a branch, busy sowing it or from the trunk, and then all of a sudden he realizes just how far he's about to fall, and suddenly thinks, oh, maybe this wasn't such a smart idea after all. I think we've got a problem with technology. But the problem is not the technology. The technology simply magnifies or exacerbates
what's already in the culture. And when you've had people like Richard Dawkins traveling the world telling everybody there's no purpose. People can put up with a lot of affliction, but they can't live with no purpose and no meaning. Even Dawkins himself saying, well, now I don't believe in Christianity, but I'm going to adopt it anyway, because I can't
bear the thought it's all for. When you travel the world preaching that message, of course, you're going to have people with mental health challenges, and technology is just going to exacerbate that. It's not the cause, it's the magnifier.
I think I've got to disagree with you there, because what we see technology doing is often very much driving the changes in the culture. It's not just a reflection of the culture. When you think of the way that pornography has changed the relationship between men and women even from a very young age. Now the most common age of introduction to pornography here in Australia is just.
Eight years old.
That is driving a massive cultural change. Where we talk about introductions to AI and that taking over different jobs, that is driving major cultural change. When we talk about social media and the way it does indeed drive a lot of social change, whether that's the way people dress nowadays or who they want to be because the influences are so cool. So got to disagree with you on that point. But all the stats bear him out with regard to him making a direct connection between depression anxiety.
People's mental health has.
Never been this poor throughout history, and there is no way that we can say, oh, it's got nothing to do with the fact that we've got these computers in our pockets twenty four seven that we all spend hours on every single day. We've got this twenty four hour
news cycle that is updated every five seconds. I often find myself envying people from decades past, when in order to feel informed about what was happening in the world around you, you just had a paper, had a paper, a daily paper, and if you read that, that was great. You sent and received letters. There was no instant requirement for you to respond to every text as you got it, every.
Email as you got it.
This has changed us in ways that will never ever be able to fully fathom.
And essentially arguing because he's an evolutionary biologist, is that we as a species, particularly our brains, has not evolved at the same rate as the technology has evolved, and we're not able to cope with the technology technology. Sorry, that's in front of us. And the example you use about responding to text messages and whatever there is such a great example because when I was away last week, I was up for a few nights in Cape Tribulation and I had no phone signal up there. Really lovely
because no one could contact me. I was divorced from the rest of the world for a little while, sitting in the rainforest and on the beach drinking beers. That was fantastic, But of course there's an expectation now, whereas once upon a time you received a letter.
You wrote back.
You know, the letter might get there in a few days or whatever. You've got a telegram or whatever it might be. If someone seems you a text, they're expecting you to respond within five minutes.
So the slowness of life has.
Been taken away from us and it makes it so much more difficult to cope with the pace of life. And you add on top of that the jobs that will lose through things like AI. If you're unemployed, your mental health ain't all that good. I think it's true that perhaps technology can go too far, and we're starting to see that born out.
I don't know about your example from being up in fun North Queens and I reckon not having access to my phone that would do my mental health incredible that you know.
You have a problem.
That the outcry when they introduce Wi Fi on plane, I know most people were like, this was guaranteed my own break where I had the ultimate excuse. Sorry, I'm on an airplane for five hours just to disconnect and no one could get at me.
And then the airlines are like.
We've got wi Fi, congratulations everyone. The vast majority of people, to my understanding anyway, we're like, no, don't do it to us.
Oh I was not one of those people. Before we go to an ad break news this evening that the Muslim Votes Matter advocacy group now it's not a political part, but they are going to promote independent candidates who stand as Muslims at the federal election. They will launch their national campaign in Melbourne on Sunday. Group spokesperson says there are more than twenty seats where Muslims could have the
deciding vote at the federal election. Told the media, in the last twenty five years, no federal government has been elected by more than a fifteen seat margin. This positions us strategically to support candidates who prioritize our issues. Interesting, he says, issues plural because there's really only one that they've ever talked about, and that's Gaza and challenge those
who neglect our community. Now, speakers at the campaign launch on Sunday are going to talk about Gaza as the issue, and they're flying in people from the UK to talk about how Muslim votes in the UK managed to win numbers of seats over there, so that will be an interesting campaign launch and one that I know Anthony Albanezi will be what closely.
Certainly, I think the only problem is you can bust people in from the UK to talk about how successful it was over there, but they have first passed the post voting, so you know you can get someone elected
on thirty percent of the vote. The problem that they will run into is that they may well get thirty percent of the vote, but then you've got to talk about the preferences and where they go from there, and I suspect in most cases they'll just flow through back to labor anyway, and the Labour people like Tony Burke and whatever that have been touted as being under attacked by this will eventually get re elected.
But you know they are going to flex their muscles.
And again it goes back to the question of when you have people coming out to a country from a different culture and they all go into one place and they don't mix amongst the rest of us, create enclaves, and then you end up with movements like this essentially saying well, we want our own religious or ethnic power in this country. Sorry, you came to Australia, how about you try being Australian.
Well, we're going to go to a break. When we come back, we'll have what the papers are going with tomorrow, including a really sad story from the Northern Territory about a woman who was allegedly murdered nine hours after police were supposed to do a welfare check but never got around to. That's coming up in a moment. Welcome back, some great stories in tomorrow's papers. One of my favorites on the front page of Tomorrow's Canberra Times. Liz, I know you like this one too.
I do, because it's just another classic trust the experts story.
Audit finds misleading reporting of millions. Bureaucrats told a board overseeing the Digital Health record that the program was under budget, but it ended up being forty million dollars over and audit found there was an inconsistent and misleading reports to the board which the project going, with the project going millions of dollars over budget. The article goes on to say the project is expected to be more than one
hundred and sixty million over the initial budget. I guess they're a bit too far in at this point to pull out, but I'd be seriously reconsidering if I were them, part of the.
Story details that you know they're giving incremental reports. Is this projects rolled out right and three months after saying no, it's going to come in under budget. Imagine the meeting where they walk in say, no, how we told it's gonna be under budget, bitter new it's going to be a bit over forty million.
But if you've added forty million dollars to the expense within three months, I mean they must be going out to some bloody good lunches.
Right, how do.
You increase the cost by forty million in three months?
It was just inconsistent and misleading.
Oh well, it certainly was.
Doing the reporting it was.
Therefore, the story doesn't say do those bureaucrats keep their jobs?
Correct?
Of course exactly, Otherwise this would be the article to break it to taxpayers that oh, heads are rolling over this, don't worry. But no, there is nothing to say that any such thing is happening, So it's safe to it's not.
I mean, why are we working here and not in the public service? I know, I know. Can we do it with our lives?
Can you imagine?
You know, if I was head of programs here at Sky News and I walked into the CEO's office and I said, look, I know, I told you I was actually going to come in under budget for programs this year, but have actually just gone over by forty million in the last three months.
Is that going to be an issue?
Do you reckon?
I'd have a job tomorrow overnight.
It's fine, We'll just cut this a salary and it'll be.
A very good point.
Wait, you guys get paid.
Let's go to the front page of the Northern Territory Times. Back on beat in blue reads the headline playing clothes officers will start wearing uniforms and unmarked police cars will soon be branded in moves to make the Northern Territory police forces presence seen and felt. Now, of course, the election has just been decided in favor of the Was it the Country Liberal Party correct that won the election?
There took the government back from Labor and it was obvious all fought over law and order and on day one this is one of the first decisions that's come out of a meeting with the Police commissioner. Makes a lot of sense to me, Liz. There's crime and order problems everywhere. People feel safe when police are around and criminals might think twice when they see men in blue wandering the streets.
Yeah, but there's also the downside of the very fact that they were undercover in unmarked cars and just playing closed uniforms is that you can catch people out doing things that they would otherwise scuffer if you were driving in a police van or dressed up as a police officer.
So, I mean, there's up in.
A downside to this, because the people that you really want to get to, the crims, this makes that more difficult.
But yeah, the people who are less likely.
To perpetrate crime will feel safer seeing the white.
And blue checks. I don't know i'd be voting.
But surely the idea is that it's better to prevent crime than to apprehend criminals. And so if someone who you know might be inclined to mug the bloke who's walking up the street sees a copper on the street, they're less likely to mug someone, Whereas if you have the plane clothes copper there, the mugger will do the mugging and then the copper will nab them. Surely it's better for the person not to be mugged in the first place.
Surely it's better to have that person then off the street.
Well, but if they see the copper, they're not going to do the mugging in the first place.
I've always just.
Mug someone at another time when they can't see a marked car or mugger, they're going to.
Market participate the mugging and arrest people before the.
Very very good point.
But from a from a traffic policing point of view, I've always thought that when you've got unmarked police cars driving around, you know, just waiting for someone to go five kilometers over the limit or run a red light so they can nab you, they should have marked police cars everywhere because the idea is to catch you out doing something that in all likelihood really isn't that dangerous, but they make money out of it. It goes straight into
government coffers. And it's the same as in New South Wales. Previously they got rid of the signs warning you that there was an unfixed you know, one of those movable speed cameras ahead, and then that was changed because it was upbroad because people are like, well, you know, I'm getting fined for things that I really didn't think was that bad. The idea is to entrap you into committing crimes, and I don't like.
Have you ever seen it when you're driving along the road and there's a police car up ahead and it's a sixty zone, but the police car is doing like fifty two and everyone's crawling along at fifty. No one's game to go past him, even though you know you're not breaking the law, but you just do whatever he does.
Indeed, let's go to another story about the Northern Territory Police and this one is not so edifying. On the front of The Australian Tomorrow in t Cops too busy
to do welfare check on murdered Aboriginal woman. Northern Territory Police were too busy to conduct a welfare check on an Aboriginal woman nine hours before she was allegedly murdered by her partner, who had been banned from contacting her for two DECA AIDS cases like this seriously make you think either we have complete under resourcing of police or there is possibly incompetence within police. It's the most basic stuff. I'm sure there will be a lot more to be
said about that. Another story on the front of the Olds Tomorrow, Funds go for class action profits. What have your superannuation funds been up to. Let's says here, Australia's larger super funds are investing millions of dollars in both litigation funders and companies they are targeting in court, amid renewed calls for a crackdown on international vulture firms reaping huge profits from the government's light touch approach to class actions.
It's interesting because obviously when you launch a class action, it's generally funded by someone a big benefactor, whether that be a billionaire or a businessman, or in this case.
Big super funds.
And the idea is that if the class action is pulled off, the money that is won, the line's share of that will go to whoever funded, so they're hoping to make a profit and then the remainder get sent out to the people who joined in on the class action. But the superannuation funds are not only backing the cases, they're investing in the companies that the cases are being
run against. And part of me wonders whether it's an engineering tactic where you run the case which then decreases the share price because people pull out of the company, and then the superannuation fund rules in and takes the shares while they're at a good price.
Ingenious.
What rule you're really embracing the whole conspiracy theory thing tonight?
Well, why again, that is a common thing.
Why would you invest in both? Why would you invest in both?
Sounds see the way, smack, we need to Okay, once you start talking about kem trows, they're not old. I'll credit you with the conspiracy theory. But right now, you guys are spruiting your feathers about now now a conspiracy theory and it just sounds like pure common sense, which most conspiracies turn out to be. Just give it a few weeks, sometimes hours.
But you know, and we are forced to give our money to these superannuation funds, and this is what they're doing with it. You know, they're running class actions and there's no of course, no guarantee that a class action is going to be pulled off. It's a high risk investment. I suppose you would call it. I'm sure we'd prefer they did something a little better with our money. Another story on the front of the Yours tomorrow, Labour takes power walk on tightrope and join kel from Kath and Kim.
In that job.
There.
Households face an ongoing multi year risk of power shortages in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia from this summer, with authorities warning that major reliability risks could derail the electricity grid unless new energy supplies.
Are urgently developed.
And of course we're told repeatedly that renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy. You've got nothing to worry about, and it may well be the cheapest form of energy because of course, if you can't turn the lights on because you have no power, you're not spending any money on your power bills.
Your power bills will go.
Down under this government, chiefly because you didn't have any power in the first place.
This is like the slowest moving car crash that you've ever seen in your life. We've had these warnings repeatedly and eventually it'll all come crashing down and everyone will be surprised. But not it's been ample warning. Not you. We're going to go to a break when we come back. A international airline passenger criticized for making bread dough in mid air. That's coming up in a moment. All right, welcome back the Late Debates Chief Cat. Correspondent Caleb Bond has got a story from the UK.
Indeed, you may well have seen Larry, the chief mouser at Number ten Downing Street before he was adopted by Number ten in twenty eleven to entertain David Cameron's kids at the time. He's now seen six Prime Ministers, David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rischie Sunak and Kiir Starmer. But poor old Larry is seventeen years old and they're a bit worried that he might cark at soon. And so in the spirit of the plans they come up
with for royal family members when they die. When the Queen died, they executed Operation London Bridge. They've come up with Operation Larry Bridges and they have decided when the chief mouser at Number ten dies, and he's become such a popular public figure, they've got the pictures chosen out. They're stored in a server at Number ten, ready to go. They've written up the press release, they have the graphics, they have a.
Social media plan.
This cat Larry and you can see him there and he often likes to shoup when there are press conferences out the front of number ten, and he sort of sits there and waits at the door to be let in. When Larry finally leaves this world, he is going to get more press attention than almost any other person on the face of this planet. And you know what, of all the people who've lived in number ten in the last twenty years, I reckon Larry's the one who deserves it the most.
It's also reported that Larry gave Liz Trust the cold shoulder, as did most of the UK publics a smart cat most of her even when she was in the number ten, everyone had forgotten about her. Hey, yeah, we've got to show you this woman who was on an international flight to Barcelona visiting her sister, and she thought what could I give my sister? When I arrived at the airport, she thought, I'm gonna give her some sour dough bread. So she began making the dough on the aircraft. She
filmed herself doing it. She's copped a lot of flak. I tell you about that in a second. But to have a look at the video she created making dough on the aircraft flight. Why wouldn't you just watch a movie for goodness sake? Anyway, She's copped a lot of flak from people saying it was inconsiderate to people on the plane who might be allergic to wheat or to the flower, could become airborne and could cause toxicically in the aircraft cabin.
Terrible everywhere.
That's it from us stick Around. Coming up is the Rita Pennahe Show.