General Man, welcome the late base.
Well, good evening.
I'm James Macpherson with Lizta and Caleb Bond. Great to have your company. We all know that Australia is becoming a highly litigious society, but of course the United States is next level. We'll talk a bit later about a woman who's swing an airline because they served her an inflight ice cream without telling her it was icy.
Get to that a little later.
Plus, when we look at the papers, the COVID pandemic Response report has been released. It's pretty scathing of the pandemic response, describing it as a betrayal of trust. And Anthony Albinezi is not the only labor MP receiving freebies
from quantas who knew. We'll get to all of that when we look at tomorrow's newspapers, but first, the Victorian government is set to introduce major changes to its judicial system in a bid to protect complainants in domestic violence and sexual abuse cases from being re traumatized by the
court's says. The proposed changes mean complainants would not be allowed to be cross examined before a trial, so instead of giving evidence at a committal hearing and then again, if the matter was deemed worthy of going to court, they would only need to give evidence at a trial. The Attorney General in Victoria, Jacqueline Symes, said survivors of sexual offenses, stalking and family violence deserve justice, not further trauma.
These reforms will ease the burden of repeated testimony, helping them move through court proceedings and get on with their lives. Committal proceedings have evolved over time, she said, the need updating. That's why we're modernizing them by streamlining processes and removing the committal test now, calebn Lis, I'm sure you would agree it's a noble endeavor to try to make the court process as easy as possible, particularly for people who are later found to have been victims of things as
horrific as sexual abuse. But of course we've also got a legal system that is and must continue to be based on a presumption of innocence, which would seem to be violated if you're moving an accusation straight to trial
without a committal process. On top of that, procedural fairness demands, does it not that if you're accused, you should be allowed to examine the evidence against you before you find yourself on trial, and of course then there's always the matter of unintended consequences where you could end up with matters going to court that should never have gone to court in the first place, which just clogs up the courts and ends up costing taxpayers a lot of money.
So it's a fine idea and I think we'd all support the intention, sure, but is it really something that's workable and does it keep the integrity of the court system.
Firstly, what on earth is going on in Victoria? Just last week we discovered that they are slashing the amount of children's courts in Victoria by more than half bite youth crime in Victoria being at a fourteen year high. Last night we were talking about Victorian magistrates being lectured on how to sentence a non citizen child molesta in such a way that it won't result in their deportation, And tonight we're talking about this potential new move in
their courts, which, like you say, wonderful, wonderful aim. We can all get around that, but at the end of the day, this unquestionably erodes the rights of the accused.
How on earth is a.
Defense team supposed to put their case together without asking the necessary questions.
Before trial, because if we are.
Going without cross examination, that's exactly what we're talking about. And cross examination is so important also because not all accusers are entirely honest, and that's what they are at this point in the game. They are complainants. They are not victors. Nothing has been proved in a court of law. So this complainant gets to state their case and that's it, and how on earth is a judge then supposed to come to a clue as to whether this is trial worthy.
This will undoubtedly also end up in more trials then, because you don't want to risk telling a potential legitimate victim, Sorry, your case doesn't sound legit enough, We're just going to clear up the courts, not send all these to trial, and well, sorry about that.
You don't get your proper day in court.
So whichever way you look at this, it seems to be completely ineffective.
Well, Jacquelin Simes has suggested that this would help prevent trials. She says she wants fewer trials to go ahead.
Now, there is one means by which this could possibly result in fewer trials, and that is that you simply plead guilty in the first instance, instead of pleading not guilty and then going to a trial. Because of course, what we're talking about here is cases that would end up at trial that haven't been tested before going there. So if you go, well, hell, I know I'm going to have to go through all this nonsense anyway, there's no chance that this might be thrown out at the
committal stage. Then I'm just going to plead guilty and let's just get it over with, ill cop, whatever the damage is here, because I don't want to go through the further damage that going to a trial will cause me. The legal system, the justice system is based on a very basic principle of innocent until proven guilty, and of course it is far better for ten guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to be locked up or woman for that matter, or they them as
it might be in the current circumstances. And I know that is uncomfortable for some people, and everyone feels like if they are a victim, that they ought to be vindicated by the court. But you cannot have such a system without also locking up people who ought not be there.
I know it's difficult to understand, but it is the least worst option to have a system that properly tests everything and if it meets the required threshold, well yes you're off to jail and you've got the new South Wales DPP, for instance, in recent years has been accused of running rape cases in particular which they knew they had no chance of actually achieving a conviction. There have been inquiries into all of this because the DPP has wasted its time on cases that simply could not achieve
a result. That's what the committal stage is for, so the court can look at it and go, hang on, we don't have enough evidence here that if it goes to trial that anything could possibly be achieved. So you end up in more public money being spent. You end up with victims potentially being left up the garden path, or alleged victims being led up the garden path and told by the DPP whatever the equivalent is in Victoria that you don't worry, They're going to plead not guilty
and we'll go to trial and it'll all be hunky dory. Well, a case that could potentially have been sorted six months earlier, they'll actually have to go through the full trial stage. And then get to a decision of not guilty because they didn't have enough evidence to begin with.
Tell me how that's good for victim.
Back to the intention of trying to do good for victims. If they really want to do that, the better way rather than mucking around with a committal process, is up the punishments and the sentencing for those who are found guilty of domestic violence of sexual abuse, and make the sentencing reflect the community outrage and the seriousness of these crimes. If you want to support victims, do that, punish these perpetrators, do it harshly, have mandatory sentencing, and I think the
community would be much more satisfied. And that's a better way to show compassion to victims. Give out proper sentence.
Yeah, but as we discussed last night, that's not necessarily the first thing in the minds of the judiciary in Victoria at the moment.
As Liz described before, some extraordinary.
Stuff keeps coming out of that state, and of course it always seems to come out of Victoria. Now let's turn our attention to the United States. It is precisely a week until ballots will be cast over there, and I know you're waiting for it just as much as I Am Kamala Harris has realized. Despite a week ago in an interview with the NBC playing down the fact that she has a problem with male votes, she's finally
realized that she does. Now. The polling at the moment shows that Harris leads with women fifty.
Four percent, but it's forty two percent with.
Men, whereas with Trump it is forty one percent with women and fifty five percent with men, particularly young men. And that is important because people will try to spin all of this that, oh, it's a sexist thing, that, oh, my god, men don't want to vote for a war. No, it's not about men not wanting to vote for a woman, particularly young men who've been raised in an era of
equality more than anyone else who's come before them. No, they're reacting to the culture in the United States, and they can actually see through the fact that Biden has been a total disaster and Harris would be a continuation of that. But let's get back to the point. She's finally realized she has a problem. So she sits down with Gretchen Whitner, who's a governor in the United States, and trying to have just a quiet conversation in a public place.
We have.
Everything. They didn't realize that.
All these boom mics, I didn't realize they were there. Is she genuinely the stupidest person to have run for president? That was either entirely deliberate to put some sort of message out there that, you know, the is something going on with men here. We've got to turn this around, or she is genuinely dumb.
I'm not sure which is worse.
Straight after that clip that we show, she leans back and she says, we're drinking a beer, and then she uses an expletive, which is clearly an appeal to men to say, you know, I'm just like you guys.
We're all so manly here, look at us with our beer and swear.
But I mean, they do have a problem with men. Sixty percent of registered Democrats women, and half of those are college educated, and all the latest research says that college educated women are much more concerned about LGBTQ rights and about equality than men. And I went on the Democrats website. They've got a section that it says who
we serve, and they've got sixteen demographics listed. I won't read them all, but here's a taste, African Americans, Americans with disabilities, Latinos, Native Americans, the LGBTQ community, young people, students, women. We can go on on sixteen different demographic groups. You know the one that is missing though, no men, no men, men not. Is that an oversight or is this libriate?
They could have just used one word that encompassed all of them.
Americans, Americans, sub Americans.
How hard would that doo?
We stand for, which is what everyone wants to hear. If someone is running for the president of your country or prime minister in our case, you just say I stand to represent all Australians.
You don't want to.
Hear someone being like these categories in particular. And when you look at how strongly she's leading with the female vote it's fifty four to Trump's forty two. I think it is such a sound argument for us to do away with the female vote.
I know I known't hear me out.
Though hear me out because across the Western world, which is basically the only places women can vote, they always side with the left. I can only speak for myself, but I'm happy to give it up with those of their main concerns. Do you think of how it would transform politics in the West if all these politicians weren't trying to appeal to these women rather than population roughly fifty presented the population to try and appeal to them
with all their we care about lefty issues. I do declare that even if the suffragettes knew just how badly the right that they were fighting for wouldn't be abused in the future, and how badly it would have so many poor outcomes for the Western Empire that once was, they may not have four they may not have fought so violently. Indeed, some of them died in the pursuit
of this cause. I genuinely think whenever I see these polls and it happens every single Western election where women are like, we just found all the touchy feely issues and we're going to vote for the left, I'm like, you know what, I would be more than happy to just go leave it to the men for the greater good Ian.
Will she is.
You know, I never know what's going to come out of your mouth, but I've got to say tonight you've totally surprised you.
Specifically specifically with this election. Right, so we know the Dems ran very hard on abortion, and we've once again found out you give women the vote, their number one political concern is being able to eliminate their progeny unborn.
And once again I'm just like again, I'd happily leave it to.
The men, because then you have entire powerful political parties. But bending over backwards, almost running on a single issue. That's what the Dems have done this time round. It's a highly emotive issue, it's a highly controversial issue. They knew exactly what they were doing, and I do not believe given the sheer state of Kamala Harris that had not been one of the bastions, if not the bastion of the Democratic camp pain, that woman vote would not be this high.
Period.
Well, I can't buy too much into into the where the women should have the vote discussion, because that's no.
I don't advise it away from that. I assume you identify as a woman.
I just want to check I do not identify woman.
But it would be the same if it was Biden still running, right, And I think to go to the women's issue thing, right, because there's there's an expectation among someone we go back to Hillary's campaign, who was it that the name escapes me. Famous feminist said, you know, any woman who doesn't support other women has a special place in hell. I can't remember who it was it was campaigning for Hillary at the time. I'm sure someone will be able to send me an email very quickly
and tell me who it was. But if it was a female Republican candidate, you wouldn't see the same results in terms of the great support from women, because it's not about the woman or man thing. It's about the left right, and as you said, particularly people who have.
A college education.
And speaking of women for Kamala Harris, she had such a rally rally might be a stretch, but anyway, she has such a rally in Michigan.
Women for Harris and Watts and have a look at the turnout.
Let's get to work and get out the vote for Kamala Harris and Jim Wallace.
I mean, what a ripper that is. Compare and contrast with Trump.
I'm not going to talk about women for Trump if for the allegations to be believed, there are plenty of women who have been interested in Trump over the years. But I mean, you know, if that's the best she can pull in terms of if she's leading the female votes so well, and she has a woman for Harris rally and that's the best do I mean? It would seem that across the board, the enthusiasm for Harris has just died, Like in the last month, the enthusiasm has
just totally gone away. All of that wind that she got behind her when she replaced Biden has disappeared, and she's in serious true.
We're looking at the tiny crowd she was addressing there. It reminded me, was it just last week that she abused a Christian who dared to voice out opposition lord to her abortion policy, and she chastigated this Christian saying, I think there's a smaller meeting down the road that you can't get much smaller than Kamala Harris.
I don't think we've.
Seen any Trump gatherings being smaller than the dam gatherings. Can you remember how small they were back into twenty twenty when Biden was running and we just kept looping footage of these tiny little get together as people going here, I go Biden. Hardly anyone showed out for him. But if you needed any further proof that the mail in ballot voting system in America is forraught.
Look no further than this headline.
One mail in ballot's box has been lit on fire in Oregon and another in Washington, very very blue states these. Oregon has voted Democratic in the last eight federal elections. Washington has been blue since nineteen eighty eight. So you do wonder who lit these on fire and why. But it also points to this ridiculous system, right because here in Australia we two have mail in ballots, but you.
Just put them in a normal post office box.
It's only in America they advertise this is a mail.
In ballot box. Put all your mail in.
Ballots here, enabling someone with nefarious intentions to then just drop a little flame inside. Here's what the Tomaha County Elections Division said about their fire. Fire suppressant inside the ballot box protected virtually all the ballots they reckon. Only three ballots were damaged. Voters should be assured that even if their ballots were in the affected box, their votes will be counted. But take a look at this footage
of the box in Washington. Something tells me that these ballots won't be able to be counted.
We're basically talking about a pile of ashes there.
Washington says that potentially hundreds of ballots were burnt to a crisp Why can't these guys just come up with the same system as.
Ows, where their normal.
Postal mailing system is making sure these ballots arrive safely, as opposed to special postage boxes where they're like, hey, if you want to mess with the election result, mess with these boxes.
You're advertising for trouble.
The other strange thing about this is you can't do anything anywhere without CCTV footage capturing you, right, and yet here are these ballot boxes, which, as you rightly point out, basically is a big sign saying if you want to mess.
With the election, here's where to do it.
You'd think that'd have some cameras on the thing, but there's no vision, there's no footage. So it looks like these two instances are connected. It's clearly deliberate, it's nefarious, but there's no clue as to who's doing this.
Or what They did find the same volvo, and no doubt that was due to CCTV footage. I'm sure whoever did this was smart enough to wear a ballet, lava or something.
Confirms everything I've always thought about Volvo driver.
Which is what everyone knows. That are a few Volvo drivers.
My sister drives a Volved. Now we know what you're thinking your system. Hello person.
I always thought Volvo drivers were boring people. I didn't think they'd have it in them.
Oh, come on, classy car.
Hello to Peter Gooz.
If you're watching South Australian viewers will know who I'm talking about. He's been driving around in a banged out old Volve over about fifty years. But it just goes to prove how divided the United States is that you would take it upon yourself to go and set fire to other people's balance, Like it would be one thing to try and steal the box or try and break into it and take those ballot papers away, to actually set fire to it.
What you're not just saying, oh, I'm.
Setting fire to some voting papers. You're actually saying, I want to set fire to democracy. You are trying to subvert the system of democracy. That is what that means. And whether they meant that symbolism or not, I don't know, but it was a pretty good example of it.
If that's what they meant, I mean that is I could not think of anything.
Well, I probably could think of something more disgraceful, but it is hard to think of an act that is so overt in saying I want to do away with democracy then literally setting fire to ballot paper.
But if that's what their intention was, why on earth would you do it in two dead blue states?
They have been blue forever. Nobody is thinking that these two states are going to flip. We're talking about Oregon and Washington.
So if you wanted to subvert democracy, you'd at least be smart enough to try this on in a swing state.
We don't know.
That's like, this is going to be the dumbest arsonist ever.
The rumor online is that it's Antifa who are responsible, who have the stated goal of making America ungovernable. But no one ever argued that ANTIQUA members were smart. So there you go, speaking of no one ever arguing that such and such are smart. Let's talk about local government, which continues to provide much amusement. In South Australia, a council staffer is suing the council for workers' compensation. Now, many of us work from home, and it's.
Quite a privilege.
This particular council worker was working from home and at the same time minding a colleague's dog, so the council worker put up at home a little sixty centimeter metal fence to make sure the colleague's dog, which she was mining while working from home, didn't get to her rabbit at her home arrangements well, during a coffee break one morning, she tripped over the fence that she herself had erected, hurting her leg, having to go to hospital by ambulance,
and now she successfully sued the council for workers' compensation. When the first hearing occurred, the insurer maintained that the erection of the pet fence across the walkway, creating a clear and unusual hazard without the council's direction or approval, meant the injury was not caused by her employment. But the woman went to the South Australian Employment Court and
they found that she had created the hazard. The hazard was not known to council, and yet that did not mean that it was unrelated to her employment, because they said the council had encouraged flexible working arrangements from home and had actually said that you could take regular breaks when working at home and quote unquote enjoy time with your dog. So she tripped over a fence she'd created
to enjoy time with her colleagues's dog. The council are now responsible and a compensation payout will be determined in the coming weeks. I mean, personal responsibility is completely gone now. I remember years ago a maid of mine who if I named him, you would know who this is, and he was staying it I think, at novertel and it
was raining one night. He got back to the hotel, he got out of the taxi and he slipped on the driveway, hurting his ankle, and he was telling me I soon and I got to pay out for such and such, And I remember being flabbergasted that you would even I would never even thought.
To have done that.
I mean, it was raining, I slept in the rain exactly understood. Well, they'll be liable and it's it's all just insurance, right, But of course we all end paying through the nose every time we have to pay our own premium.
I can't remember the name of the case now, but when I was a court report, you'd come across these weird sort of workers' compo cases, and the case law would always refer back to someone who would suit a supermarket for having slipped on something on the floor in there. I can't remember it's quite a famous case. But I mean, this should be the end of working from home. I've
been campaigning for this for so long. This should be the nail in the coffin for working from home, because if this is to be followed through, and this sets the precedent, that means that employers are now responsible for the workplace, that being people's houses and the condition that those houses are kept in. And I put to one of our bosses earlier today that because I do.
A portion of my work from home, like I come.
Into the studio at night, but during the day we're working out what stories we're going to talk about, and we have phone calls and all this sort of stuff that's work I'm doing from home.
So I climb up.
The stairs, half pissed in the afternoon and do myself a miss day drinking.
Are we out and happened?
That explains a number of our phone calls. I might have had a couple of glasses as much.
But anyway, if I go up the stairs and give myself above me, does that then mean that Sky News is responsible because that was an injury I sustained in my workplace. If that is seriously the precedent that is now going to be said, why would any business ever allow anyone to work from home without I don't know, seeting an ock health and safety officer out to inspect your house proper and make sure that it's up to spec It's just insane.
What means this story even crazier is that she had erected this sixty centimeter fence in.
The doorway off her home office just.
The day before, so she put it up the day after she trips over it. So how was her workplace ever supposed to know that this had occurred? But get this, she also had neglected, at any point in her working from home tenure, to fill out the form that the employer had given her regarding the required working from home safety checklist. If you've worked from home at any point, your employer has probably required you to fill in one of these. I know during COVID I had to because
that's their due diligence done. So not only has she never filled it in, but the day before she tripped over it was the day she put it up.
How can they possibly be liable for this?
By this line of reasoning, I could put up some sort of laser beam. I don't know, those the ones that you see in spy movies where you've got to crawl through all the lasers. Put it up in my house, be working from.
Home that day.
Forget I've put it up, burn myself to a crisp, and sue my employer.
That is exactly what you'd expect this story. Most people would put up like a little metal fence.
You put up late laser beams.
I got to keep that bunny rabbit safe.
When you talk about you know, you have to fill out all this working from home stuff, and we have to do it at Sky right. It takes forever. You're on your laptop and they say, you know, have you made sure your chair is ergonomically comfortable?
Why on earth are we having to do all this? Now we know why.
It's employers trying to protect themselves from unscrupulous employees such as you said that you would be.
Well, I didn't say I would be unscrupulous.
That sounds that you already are.
I was just saying.
I was just saying, if it ever eventuates, I just know what I can do now. James was doodling away on his piece of paper there while Liz was talking look like a pram or something, So you're already planning what you're got rammed.
The other lesson from this for employers is when you're interviewing people, you really need to be careful that the kind of people you're interviewing are not the sort of people who would be likely to complain Wine Wings lead Laques shift, go legal it the first thing.
Lead question, lead the questioning all interviews from now on.
Do you plan on building any things in your living room? Or the memes.
So now we know the circumstance under which you can get compensation.
You fall over a fence that you built in your.
Own home and the worker compo comes through. So people who'd like a bit more compensation of farmers down in Victoria Now we've known for a long time that there will have to be swathes of new power lines built through the middle of Victoria for an interconnector between Victoria and New South Wales in order to make the grid work with all this new renewable energy that.
Is coming online.
Now this has to go through the middle of Prime agricultural land, and of course farmers have been kicking up a stink, wanting to know exactly where these lines are going to go, how much of their land is going to be taken away. The Victorian government has until this point kept its secret. Now they're apparently going to make it public next week, but the Weekly Times has seen already where they are going to go and have dutifully
revealed the line, which you can see on your screen there. Now, this thing will stretch two hundred and forty kilometers right, and it will be roughly seventy to eighty meters wide. So we're talking some farmers are going to have kilometers in length taken out of their land to the tune of seventy or eighty meters wide, not an insignificant part of their land that is going to be taken over by the Transmission Company of Victoria. Now, for that, they are due to be compensated to the tune of two
hundred thousand dollars per kilometer over twenty five years. That equals eight thousand dollars a year. Guess what the government, the state government in Victoria, the Allen government, brings in as a result of the land tax on this land. Though they generate seventy six million dollars a year on this land, which is equal to one hundred and seventy seven thousand dollars per kilometer per year, and they are going to give these farmers are poultry eight thousand dollars
a year in compensation. Well, the farmers are not having it. One of the farmers from Southland, Barry Batters, he says, we're not going to let him in. He says, everyone is going to stand at the gate and say no to TCV, that's Transmission Company Victoria. Ninety nine percent of the landholders from Bulgana to ten kilometers north of Wurronook.
We're ready to join forces to block tcv's access.
Will make it hard for them, he said. They're going to go, you know, old style and chain themselves to gates instead of trees.
I suppose.
But what a disgusting situation where people who are simply trying to run cattle and sheep and grow food and whatever keep us alive, to keep us alive and give us clothes to wear, et cetera, are going to have their land compulsorily acquired for this infrastructure that we only need because we're pursuing this crazy.
Green dream of renewable energy.
They'll get eight cane compensation a year and the state government gets one hundred and seventy seven k.
That is a joke.
The other outrageous part of this is Transmission Company Victoria are currently in the process of getting licenses to be able to take this land by force. And yet the map that we showed on screen just a moment ago has only just become public.
Has all been They've only just found out.
Yeah, so locals have just learned this and preparations are already underway. The other thing is it's not just farmers who are being affected, but every Victorian person who pays
their electricity bill. This transmission line is costing three point five billion dollars, and of course the cost of that is added to everybody's electricity bill and it's blown out of course, as everything does with renewables, and in Victoria, by another five hundred and seventy seven million dollars, So it's now up to close to four billion dollars that gets added to people's electricity bill. So everybody is losing from this.
Yeah, and we know it well, they now know. We just found out along with them. This effects at least one hundred and forty one different private properties elsewhere in different shires. The numbers are unknown, they haven't crunched them yet, but that is a heck of a lot of farmers who have just found out these massive swathes are going to be cut through their land if and when this
application is approved. And like you say, the tcv's parent company who made this a lot more expensive by making the transmission lines how of a lot longer, that's just going to be paid off by Victorians via their electricity bills. This isn't fair on anyone at all in this equation.
Well, speaking of not being fair to anyone in the equation, Tanya Plibast continues to upset everybody. In her role as Environment Minister. She's been making a decision or supposed to be making a decision on salmon farming in Tasmania, which is worth about one point three billion dollars to the state. The issue is a skate fish which is classified as
endangered in Macquarie Harbor, where they do salmon farming. She's been asked to determine whether or not the skatefish is endangered or whether it's critically endangered, the difference being if it's critically endangered, then salmon farming in that harbor will be shut down. But she's just announced she's going to delay making a decision until after the federal election. She's
put it off by twelve months, thereby angering everybody. The salmon farmers are upset because they've got no certainty about their future, and of course the environmentalists are upset because they're demanding something be done to save the skate semon.
Tasmania Chief Executive Luke Martin said there is clearly no justification for her to string out a decision on that process any longer, and she must end this completely unfair process for our workers, their families and communities have listened to salmon farmer Adam Saltmarsh and his wife Samantha, who say they have no idea whether or not they've got a future in Tasmania waiting for Tanya Plipasek to make a decision. She doesn't want to make until after the election less it costs labor votes.
This is where we always dreamt of raising our children. It's a beautiful town, it's a safe place to raise children, and they have a wonderful backyard and this is where we want to stay. We don't want to go anywhere else. We believe that the salmon and the skate can coexist together.
For us to move away.
To mean I'd have to move away from our kids probably, you know, to shift work, fly and fly out maybe for weeks of the time. So that means missing our kids school events growing up. You know. Yeah, it's pretty daunting.
It worries us a lot.
So while those families employed by the salmon industry have to sit on their hands for twelve months not knowing if they've got a future, environmentalists are unhappy as well. Bob Brown spoke to the media saying Tanya Plipasek has decided to do absolutely nothing. Sorry not Bob Bread, Bob Brown Foundation campaigner Alister Allen I should have said, he said,
Tenni Plimer section has decided to do absolutely nothing. Minister pilbi Sek is ignoring her role as environment minister while we're seeing a global extinction crisis and potentially putting the decision off to someone else post federal election. This is fairly typical of labor Caleb not wanting to make decisions because they're worried about certain electoral seats and how they
might be affected at the next elections. So to simply put off a decision until after the election smacks of someone who's paid to do a job deliberately not doing a job.
Well, everything seems to be political in terms of the environmental decisions that Tania Pilbysik makes at the moment, because of course we can't have the Blainey gold mine because that might look bad at home in her seat and the other seats in the inner city of Sydney where they're worried about the Greens vote, And of course can't make it a decision on the other hand down in Tasmania because.
It might cost labor votes.
And as Paul Murray outlined in his program early, those seats in Tasmania are going to be very important to whether or not Dutton has any chance of forming a government at the next federal election. Seriously, though, I mean the more genan skate and you can have a look at this thing. Here is an ugly look and bagger, but why don't.
We put the people first?
Seriously, we're talking about jobs for thousands of people and we're talking about food to eat. I to be perfectly honest, couldn't care less whether the more Gan skate disappears from the harbor. Go and collect some of these critters up and go and put them in aquarium or something somewhere so that they don't that thing.
Can't have that thing.
Go extin we have a white quality of life would plummet.
We have a way of preventing them from going extinct forever.
Put them in an aquarium somewhere.
But this is about jobs for Australians and food for Australian.
Straight environmental less.
I mean, I've got ninety nine problems, but the extinction of the skate fish certainly isn't one of them. And like you say, what person in their right mind would sacrifice salmon for whatever the heck that thing was that looked like a weird looking stingray.
We're going to go to a break, but stick around.
When we come back, we'll look at what's making news tomorrow, including Anthony Albanezi not the only labor mp receiving freebies from countas. That's coming up in a moment.
Welcome back.
Let's take a look at what's making news tomorrow. The front page of the Australian only got two stories, but both of them are big ones, Caleb, Quantus and COVID.
Let's start with a whopper, shall we COVID. Now they've got three stories.
On this issue.
I will run you through them, and they don't get any better. The first one says numbers did.
Not reflect the full story.
Australia's COVID nineteen pandemic response fixated on case numbers and lost sight of the broader mental health impacts of lockdowns and school closures, A landmark inquiry has found. Then the second story says draconian COVID nineteen measures including state lockdowns, border closures, school shutdowns and vaccine mandates were not just after the initial wave of the pandemic and fueled an erosion in trust in governments and mental health damage to children,
a landmark inquiry has found. And then the third story says, across the nation's frontline workforce in health, aged care, police and paramedics, mandatory COVID nineteen immunization is a distant memory.
But in Victoria, as.
The summer fire season looms, dozens of unvaccinated firefighters are still banned from returning to work three years after being stood down without pay worse too, worse two worse. Now, look, the result of this inquiry was.
In some way scathing.
I think its certainly said that the States bagged things up, that there was no justification for much of what they did. But let us not forget that no state premiere was hauled in before this inquiry. They will face no penalty or punishment for what they did. The biggest suggestion that comes out of this inquiry is that we need a federal CDC in the event, which is like what they have in the United States, the Center for Disease Control,
in the event that there is another pandemic. Now, if you read all of this, and it's saying the States bagged everything up and there was no justification for all the things that were done. The biggest problem, one of the biggest problems we had during COVID was lots of bureaucrats dictating what should or shouldn't be done.
And now they say we should have a CDC.
That will be the whole of bureaucrats telling us how we should run ourselves during a pandemic China.
Make it make sense, well, I mean, the irony of that is that we knew what to do during a pandemic because Tony Abbott, as Healthminess, had written they dropped a pandemic plan that sat in the bottom of a draw somewhere while we seem to take our cues from
the Chinese Communist Party and copy their response. The thing that I found most interesting in this report, and by the way, this report bears witness to why we need a Royal commission, because if there were that many mistakes, then state premiers, most of whom have now left office, but they should be hauled back in to explain things. But the report points out that it's fuelled a distrust of government, so next time we're in a crisis, most people will be most disinclined to believe, let alone do
anything the government advises. And from a personal point of view, I well remember that first press conference where Scott Morrison as Prime Minister came on and I remember standing there, shot we're closing the borders, we're closing the airports, we're closing schools, and I said to my kids out of school immediately, because I reasoned, if it's this bad that they are going to this must be very, very bad. But after about a month and a half, I'm starting to think something doesn't add up here.
And remember two weeks to flatten the curves.
Do you remember the AFL they're wiping down the goalposts. Do you remember the health minister in South Australia saying if the ball is don't touch the bill.
Your same public health officer who said that the only place in the world where COVID had spread on a pizza box was Adelaide exactly.
We all remember Pizzagate. That was a classic.
It's really interesting though, because we forget there are still workers who can't work. I mean this story about Victoria's fieries. As summer looms, they can't go back to work. We're so far behind America on this. There has been so many cases where people who were fired due to not being vaccinated, not obeying the mandates have been paid out
masses of money. Just a couple of days ago. The most recent case I'm aware of in Chicago, a federal court has awarded a million dollars to each person who was fired by Chicago's state transit company for refusing to take the vacs. They said, we wanted religious exemptions for religious reasons. We did not want to take this. We were fired instead they now get a million bucks age.
But this is one of many of these cases in the States, and I do wonder how far behind we are in terms of Ozzy's realizing that if they take them to task, we've had a few successes. Up in Queensland, they too could be getting really good payouts for the fact that they were cast out of their jobs by virtue of not giving into the mat.
And it is no coincidence that that persists in Victoria, the most belligerent state of all, because they will not admit that they got anything wrong. And that is the problem with this inquiry and its results. Oh they got some stuff wrong, but no one who was involved in that process will come out over the next week and.
Say we got it wrong.
I promise you they will not, and they will get away with it because not one of them was Halding.
And that's the irony, right.
If you're going to produce a report that says the big problem here is you have fueled a lack of trust in government, and then you don't call for accountability from government, well then you're doing nothing to restore trust in government. And if democracy doesn't have trust, you don't have democracy. That may well prove to be the biggest ramification from the pandemic response, especially if we end up in a crisis, whether it's a pandemic or war something else.
If the public don't trust what they're being told by the authorities, then you're in all sorts of troubles.
Well, I can say that it didn't affect my trust in government and always rock bottom and to every rock bottom speaking.
Of a roading trust in government, Let's talk about our great mate Albo Freebies, because because it says he pushed to upgrade Freebie Albanesi to corruption watchdog Anthony Alberzi has been urged by Peter Dutton to refer himself to the National Anti Corruption Commission after the Prime Minister continued to dodge claims that he asked former Quantus chief executive Allen
Joyce for personal flight upgrades. I could not believe the way he conducted himself today when he was asked about all of this, trying to say, oh, you know, just Joe Aston, just trying to sell some books I haven't seen him, declared that he was a liberal star for and that he worked at Quatas, even though it's in the first line on the first page of the book that he's trying to sell you more on and he's trying to We went on about the chairman's lounge access
for his son, saying it was his plus one well as you would have seen on Sharry tonight. Joe Aston pointed out that that was never ever declared and of course his partner now his Fyonce is declared, so was it ever a plus one? There are so many questions here. He won't answer it because he knows he's in the pood drinking.
Anthiy Albanze rang Joe Aston and tried to procure a free copy.
Of the book.
Can I get a pre read?
I just had to laugh at Anthony Albaneze has been urged by Peter Dutton to refer himself to the National Anti Corruption Commission. What are the chances of Ethny Albanisi saying, look, I want to refer myself. Can you just havession?
I want to report myself for king k any freebies the.
I don't think it's going to happen because she wanted the nice flikes to the front page of the advertiser. Now it turns out alben Easy hasn't been the only one earning some well not earning, but enjoying some sweet treats from quantas ministers took Quantus freebies after sinking Qatar flying labor Rus the splash reads, seven labor ministers and assistant ministers were gifted Quantus flight upgrades in the months after the Albanesi government blocked rival Qatar from expanding services
that would have lowered airfares for all Australians. How dumb do these people think we are, or maybe the press are, that something that is so find outable is never going to make the front page splash, Like, this isn't something that you have to do all that much deep diving to discover, and now we know it's from the top down. It wasn't just elbow. They were like, heck, if he's in on it, we're in on it. Like you like to say, Caleb, it's only a rod if you're not
in on it. So these guys have all been cashing in and little wonder they made sure that potential rival never got a chance.
To be the rival that it could have been.
You can read all about it in tomorrow's papers.
It's everywhere.
We're going to go to a break when we come back a woman Susann Airline after they gave her an in flight ice cream and didn't tell her it was icy.
It's coming up in.
Second all right, welcome back, Caleb. You've got a great story about a family who held out with their real estate.
Who needs the castle when you've got this.
This family in Adelaide, Salisbury in Adelaide watched all the land be developed around them and they said, no, we are not giving in. Take a look at the property that they have lived on for more than thirty years. They've had developers coming and knocking on the door and saying we want to take over this place. Literally you can see there on either side it's been developed. Housing estates have gone in and they've said, one day we're going to make shed loads of money out of this.
And that's exactly what happened to parents.
Carc that the kids put it up for sale. They thought they'd get two point two million for it. They got five point five million for it. So there you go.
If you're thinking a hold non hold on.
I say, if you thought that worker's conclaim we told you about earlier was bad, check this out. A woman in the States is suing Jet Blue an American Airline because the ice cream sandwich they gave.
Her was too cold.
Check this out.
The lawsuit argues that the sweet treat was at a temperature below what is reasonable or safe for consumption, and quanonas that's the name of the woman was not warned of the dangerously cold temperature and solid state of the ice cream sandwich she was served. This caused her to fracture one of her front teeth, and she wants some money. Stay tuned to find out whether she's actually successful.
This is insane. This is insane.
At what part of picking up the ice cream sandwich wouldn't you just go, maybe it's too hard for me to bite into it, or even think to be like, now that I have bitten into it, because I'm greedy and it's really hard, now I'm going to som well.
I mean, you would typically hold it in your hand and that.
Would tell you that it is cold. Indeed, you'd squeeze it a little bit.
That would tell you it's solid, and you'd think, if I wait a moment, it will fall.
But apparently you have to serve someone explain that.
But this is why when you buy a cup of takeaway coffee, it's got hot written on the top of it, because some dope in the United.
It's always in the United States, isn't it. They're a bit dense over these.
That is a very head line.
And the woman put the cup of coffee between her legs and then squeezed your legs.
I'm trying to burn on my legs. It was coffee, for goodness sake.
I just want to know if this woman was eating at ice cream at home as a council worker during her lunch break and she sustained that injury, would she.
Be able to sue the council with her My DearS, Taylor, you would.
Get a payout. That's it from us to stick around. Coming up is the readA Penny show that's up in just a moment.