Welcome the Late Debates.
Good evening and welcome to the show.
I'm Frey Leach, joined by Holly Hughes and Joe Hildebrand filling in for Caleb Von and James McPherson. Here's what's coming up on the Late Debate. Calls to Kevin Right as Australia's ambassador to Washington as he's accused of blocking access to the White House.
Peace Love and.
Six hundred dollars tickets to hear hate. How Glastonbury Music Festival has officially lost the plot?
Plus can Cole be cool again?
One lobby group has a plan to convince women to ditch the climate crusades and embrace Cole. Pennywong is on her way to Washington for the Quad meeting this week, and we'll try to remind the world that.
We actually exist.
Well, she won't get that coveted meeting with Trump. She will meet with Secretary of State Mark Rubio. This visit comes at a truly critical time. Orcus is under review. We've been slapt with tariffs. Meanwhile, Albanezi has refused to heed America's call to lift defence spending to three point five percent of GDP, making US in Australia an outlier in the Western world. But according to Trump's twenty sixteen Polster, the biggest issue blocking our relationship with Trump is actually Kevin Rudd.
Donald Trump needs to find an Australian that he likes, or Australia needs to find an Australian that Donald Trump likes and let that person take point, because so much with Donald Trump is personal relationship.
Do you think this is personal he simply doesn't know Anthony Ibnezi or he doesn't like him.
I think he doesn't like the current ambassador and that's one of the biggest issues.
Really, this is no surprise.
Labor has spent years disparaging Trump. Now they have no working relationship with the administration and it is us in Australia that are going to pay.
Joe, My question is bringing you in as the token labor supporter here?
Is it so confair and imbalanced and impartial and balance? Yes, I should work the ABASA.
I'm so impartial.
Is it time for Australia to sack Kevin run as ambassador and put someone in who can actually have some influence over the administration?
Yeah?
Look, so I'll spill the tea on everything I know
about it. My understanding is, and it comes from very senior sources, and I know a lot of people who work in Department of Foreign Affairs and the government obviously, but that it was actually Rudd and the US Embassy in Washington, Australia's US Embassy in Washington that set up that all important phone call between Donald Trump and Anthony Albanezi that had been actually planned for weeks and has been set up for weeks, and not everyone got one, but we did, and it happened to take place just
twenty four hours after he did that tariff announcement, So that actually, with a bit of hard work and a bit of good luck, that actually put us in pole position to raise our.
Are we?
So Rudd has had What I'm saying is Rudd has had some success with Trump, and I think Trump's I think it's selling Trump a bit short that to say, oh, once you've sort of crossed him, you're you know, you're dead to him. Trump has got a very to his credit, has got a very long and strong tradition of forgiving people who have said mean things.
Yes, I accept that, but it does seem clear that labor and the left, I mean We've heard Albanezi say he's scared of Trump, and this anti Trump retoric has been repeated constantly. Just last week, the Foreign Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda got a face to face meeting with Trump. Yet the Prime Minister of Australia, who's part of UCAST, part of the Court, a key Western ally cat, can barely get a phone call, couldn't.
Even get a phone call when they had the meeting canceled. They didn't even get a heads up, mate, listen, bit of a new you in the Middle East, I got a duck home, didn't even get a phone call with regards to the meeting that had to be canceled. There's been zero effort for it to be re established. I mean, I think it's time gena Ryan Hart or Greg Norman or someone else's a high quality Australian that actually gets on with Trump maybe the better person to go and
have a conversation because Albaneze is getting nowhere everybody. I mean, you know, there was an expression around years ago if you wanted to be a Julia Gillard. You know, if you like Julia, if you hated Julia Gillard.
Don't meet her.
If you like Kevin Rudd, don't meet it and you know Joe, you would remember that. I mean, Gillard was very well respected in like percent everybody thought Kevin O seven and Kevin. You met Kevin once you spent time with Kevin, you know, and got to know Kevin was to not want to spend time with Kevin. So I think, you know, flight attendants on RAF jets and Trump are probably making the same call and not wanting to spend time with our man.
I think to be fair album, I mean, he did have a meeting with Trump scheduled for the J seven. It's just that Trump had to go off and save the world, not really have to be a sideline meeting because Australia is not in the G seven anything Australia.
But this is exactly that's the point. It's critical here.
If if Almani's he was actually focused on repairing this relationship with Trump, wouldn't the first and most obvious step be to get on the plane and actually meet him in the White House.
But if these things have to be just rock up because he doesn't.
But I would say he doesn't want to go to the White House because he doesn't want to be confronted by Trump. He wants to have these sideline meetings where they can be informal and non confrontational, because he knows he will be grilled on defense.
A fine man, a very fine man, and they're going to be great friends. Everything's going to be great.
We're going to have a great arcis Yeah, Well let's hope. So.
But look, it is clear the US does not like the direction that Australia is heading in, especially with our defense spending. But not to worry guys, China seeds to love it. Their ambassador wrote an opinion piece in The Australian Today urging us to see China as a friend, not a foe, and they also called on Albanezi to resist pressure to spend more on defense.
H I wonder why the Chinese would be saying that.
Well, when asked about it, how many easy got very sensitive.
So the Chinese ambassador speaks for China.
My job is to speak for Australia, and it's in Australia's national interest for us to invest in our capability and to invest in our relationships.
And we're doing just so, thank you.
Our defense spending is now more aligned with what China wants from us than with what the US wants. We saw NATO commit to five percent. We've been asked to go to three point five percent. We won't even do that. This is an indictment on our government.
Well, I think what China doesn't want is US having the capability to notice when one of their hips is circumnavigating our nation.
They're a little bit worried.
We might give a bit of money to virgin pilots so they can recognize when live fire.
Missiles on the virgin flight. You know, all our problems.
Maybe that's what we need to do is actually, you know, to invest the money, time, effort, and energy into just training up our commercial pilots to see if they can spot any anomally happening out in ours.
And you've got to draw the lines up.
I mean, you know, yeah, there's so many places where we could go with that.
Joseph I actually said, these people on a virgin flight and nearly got shot down by Chinese spilship.
Now you expect that kind of thing on Jetstar a Middle Australian paraly not on virgins.
I think, I mean, obviously the fact that China thinks our defense vet is too high, probably tells you that maybe it's not so bad after all. Obviously we're not going to listen to China. I think we will actually up out and this is the thing. There will be a meeting with Trump and they will both come out of it, and I'm pretty sure that it will result in August being officially ratified or reaffirmed, and Albo will
say yes, and we're going to increase defense spending. We've spontaneously decided to increase it to three percent in EXEUS.
But what concerns me is why is this not what they're already doing.
Why does it have to be dragged, kicking and screaming to increase.
Because it has to be a deal, because the whole thing is that you have to you have to.
You go into a meeting, you come out.
And Albo says Australia is a big winner because we've got Orcust and we're spending on defense. And Trump can go out and say to his base, sal I made Australia increase it spending to defense.
And that's why I'm.
Being we're not even getting the meeting now, because to say.
For the meeting, you've got to save you have if you already say, oh, will increase the defense spending. You suddenly lose all your all your cards, and Trump loves cards.
As as Zelenski knows the art of the deal.
You go and say, you know this is two point three percent and we're not budgeting. Then you say, all right, we're going to take orcas who we're and Chine is going to advt all right, we'll go to three.
And then you go and then you both come out and you say we've got a deal.
It's he.
The problem with that, Holly is that it assumes that Australia can actually offer anything substantive to Trump. I don't think he cares two hoots about whether we increase defense spending or not. Currently, he just thinks we're free riders off the US, and he's shown that he is willing to blow up alliances in order to get nations to budge. We in Australia have a lot more to lose. We have less chips in this negotiation than the US does.
Look, I think geographically we're very important for them across the world. Where we are located. We're closer to Hawaii, we've got Pine Gap. I do think there are things that we can do working with our alliance.
That are maybe not dollars down per se.
But when you look at Tindle and its location, which just for someone who might be part of the Shadow Ministry, it's not in Darwin, it's just outside of Catherine. But you speak to the US fighter pilots during Pitch Black, and they of the fact that they can fly over this huge desert not over built up areas, something that they don't have the ability to do those exercises. I think we need to be more clever in the way
we approach this relationship. What we can bring to the table our GDPY is you know, we're talking to one percent twenty six billion dollars. When you look at some of the other nations and the percentage that they're going to be spending in dollar terms, it's a big lot more chunk of change than we've got when you look at the size of their economies. So I just think everyone needs to be a bit smarter about this.
That doesn't seem to be the case.
Well the other people that definitely need to be a little smarter. I some of the people that performed at the UK Music Festival Glastonbury, do you remember the days when music festival going young people were basically doped up pippies, all about peace and love.
Well, I.
Remember the sixties. You weren't there.
Yeah, well that's exactly right.
I definitely don't because I wasn't around in the sixties.
Unfortunately, hang on, hang on.
Neither would Joe and I.
I just like say that was a sixties hippie.
He was a wandering American turrier.
We haven't fed. The apple has not rolled to the.
Therapy, so does explain a lot about you, Joe. But I've also seen the iconic images of woodstop and music festivals. Back then it was all peace and love, but today they are so different. The UK's Glassenbury will set you back at least six hundred dollars and you'll get to hear performances that are not music, not art, just pure hatred. This is one musician who performed at the festival and he calls himself Bob.
Villain, theft If, the If, the IDF.
This is another band that was also at the festival called Kneecap. One of their band members has been charged with a terror offence after displaying a flag in sport of Hezbla and allegedly shouting up her mass up hezbla Is are war criminals.
It's Jana said, like PAMs Lessen, I can see the Amernda Palestinian flags here.
And it's seeing the BBC editor is going to have some.
Job, particularly that first chance chanting death death to the IDF. How is that not incitement to violence? And how did the lefty hippie progressive you claim to stand on the side of human rights and love and tolerance suddenly end up on this side of terror organizations.
Yeah, that's exactly right, and that's the most interesting thing about it. So it's one thing for a sort of extremist to be out there saying, you know, I want to blow up Israel.
That means you are a terrorist.
It's another thing for all these peace love and mung being hippies to be like that. So that's selling Palestinian flags a glass. But apparently they're selling they were selling and might.
Just ask how they made in China.
Probably I think ten quid. It was so you could show how you know, right on you are. It costs about I know you said six hundred must be cheap. Their tickets from my from what I could gather the basic entry pass for the full three days was eight hundred dollars Australian, so three hundred and forty pounds about it. So we are talking rich, cashed up progressive hipsters who go to these things, right, this is not these are
not for the working man. And so there are two and this is how sort of weird and creepy it gets. So there's this Irish rap group from Belfast called Kneecap, which I think is a play on the fact that the IRA used to go around kneecapping informers. Then they were last November, a year after the October seventh attack. They're one of their members to be to show how hardcore they were, shouted upper mass up. Hezbeler draped himself
in the heasbell of flag. Now because the UK has all these kind of to be honest, quite draconian sort of hate speech, Lord, you can talk about We're talking about that later. He actually got charged last in May.
I think we're July now.
He got charged in May with the terror related offenses supporting a terror organization because Hamas and Hes prescribed terror organization in the UK, but they are here. Glastonbury still put him on so even while he was being charged with supporting a terrorist organization, Glastonbury still has him on. Now this creates a pickle for the BBC because the BBC is live streaming the whole thing. So what the BBC do is right, We're not going to live stream Kneecap.
But what they didn't know was there was another group called Bob Villain. Get it the clues in the name. This is a duo who used fake names, both Bobby Villain. So there's Bobby Villain with a Y and Bobby Villain with an ie and they're both members of the group called Bob Villain.
Kids are so clever these days.
I can only think of I can only think of like one pun so they thought they.
Use it three?
What gets me?
Bob Villain or violin whatever they are, But you would assume thinking of their name bit of Bob Dylan something, that's the whole idea that John Dylan is Jewish?
Ye have they not figured that out?
Like I mean to see, you're also bought again Christian for some time they get into that.
Seriously.
If they're anti Semitic and designers calling for the destruction of the IDF and they've named themselves.
I mean, I don't know, is that an element of irony?
I'm I think I think the idea is that while Bob Dylan was all peace, love and mung beans, they're.
More hard, good, hard cool.
But the real kicker is that when Kneecap gets busted with these things. So Kneecaps sort of started all and then obviously these guys who are opening act for them, I reckon they would have said, right, we'll do.
It for you.
But every time NCAP gets busted, they don't stand by it and say. You know, they've said other things like the only dead toy, the only good toy is a dead toy. You should kill your local tory and pay or whatever, and then when they get caught they go because that has happened in the UK, MPs have been killed and they said, oh no, no, we didn't mean that. That's just you know, that's just part of our actress, a part of our persona, that who we are. So
they are openly saying the actually full of shit. They're just pretending that this is just activist cos play. And yet they're doing all this, and yet the crowd gets sucked along the crowd gets sucked along for this thing that even the acts themselves, even Mekap itself admits it's just doing to pretend it's more hardcore than it realized.
Convening right, and that's that's exactly right, because the problem with progressives is progressive without any values.
They have to.
Continue progressing towards things, but they don't know what they're progressing towards, and you have to be more and more edgy, more and more pushing the boundaries, and eventually you don't have any sense of right or wrong anymore, and you're literally chanting incitements to violence. It is honestly shocking. But there is apparently a spot of hope in UK for young people because a couple of years ago veganism was all the rage. Vegan restaurants, vegan grosses and even vegan.
Butchers were booming.
But now cashed up under forties aren't paying top dollar soggy rabbit food. Some are instead paying one hundred and eighty pounds for a.
Class on butchery with real meat.
According to a chef who's worked with some of London's top restaurants, across the board, meat is searching in demand that waitro is one of their big grocery stores.
Sales of WAGU burgers.
And meat balls are up twenty percent since May, and Tesco said that searches for WAGU were up eighty seven percent compared to last year. Holly, my question to you is if millennials can snap out of the fad of veganism, is there still hope for young people?
This is this is.
Just inspiring and gives me hope for the next generation.
You know, they'll be any take care next.
I mean, honestly, this is honestly the best sign I think I've ever heard of the millennials finally waking up that fake meat is not meat, that they.
Can actually not have to.
I mean, there was you know that saying how you know if someone does crossfeed or is it vegan, because they'll tell you and you know it's both of those things. And the fact that vegans are on the way out. I mean, honestly, I think I don't think I have any friends who are vegan, and I'm not quite sure whether that's symptomatic or not.
Which way, you know.
The vegan insufferable.
The chicken or the egg come first, The vegan or the friendship come first, but they certainly wouldn't be a friend.
And there were a lot of celebrities that did promote veganism is a big thing, but even they seem to have dropped off the vegan bandwagon. Many have actually realized it's terrible for their health and they end up with all sorts of vitamin deficiencies, et cetera.
And it's but it's not actually about that.
Again, like so many other things, it's not actually about being vegan. It's not actually about the food. It's not even really, I don't think, actually about the planet. It's like, it's about being able to tell people that you're vegan. But if everybody's vegan, then suddenly you're not special anymore,
so boredable. So it's actually so it's actually more edgy if you say, oh yeah, I'm actually really it's like when all the inner city hipster's got into slow cooked beef brisket and stuff, because it was like really, but I'll tell you what something very interesting. Do you know how edgy being a vegan is these days? Guess who's a vegan?
Who? This guy?
That's right, That is Bobby Villain from Bob Villain, the same guy who performed at Glasses saying death to the ivy f and his big fu to all the people who had a problem with it. Was him eating some ice cream, and he actually took the time if you can actually.
See in brackets it's vegan ice.
Out of his way to make the point that it's vegan ice cream.
Well, Joe, just how virtuous wing is.
We need to remember all those poor cows that were milked. You know, the damage that was done to those cows ice cream.
I mean, I know, I said kill all the Israeli guys. It's okay, I've got a bad person.
I don't let cows be milked.
It's so bsien.
It's like, if you're vegan, you can cover up a multitude of sins because I'm vegan, the ultimate virtue. In some parts of the country, though one in ten nine to fourteen year olds are on NDIS. Now this is significant because Labour's argument was that if NDIS offers early intervention for younger kids, they won't need it as they get older, and that's how they're trying to justify the astonishing eleven percent of six year olds who were using
the forty eight billion dollar scheme. But these figures now show that Even with that early intervention, a rising number of children are continuing.
To use the scheme even as they get older.
The data also interestingly revealed that NDIS participation rates in lower socioeconomic regional areas are as much as double those in wealthy city areas. For example, the affluent suburb of North Sydney here in New South Wales has one of the lowest participations rates at three point five percent, whereas the mid North Coast of New South Wales it's around ten percent.
Now this raises holly serious.
Questions about the sustainability of the NDIS. I mean, you're seeing kids staying on it for longer and at a growing rate. Plus, I guess it's challenging. Now, how do you rein it in when it's being relied on overwhelmingly by kids from disadvantaged backgrounds.
So someone in politics needs to put their big boy and big girl pants on and have a look at this. Because one in ten kids do not have a disability.
They just don't.
I don't care what the AMA or the pediatrics or anybody else says.
They don't.
Developmental delay, global developmental delays, some speech delays, A couple of fine motor or gross motor skill issues does not make autism or a lifelong and permanent disability. The NDIS was meant for people with lifelong disability, and it needs to get back to.
What it was designed for.
Bill Shorten wanted to bring in foundational supports, which were these early interventions that the states boycotted when the NDIS came in. They're supposed to start a couple of hours to night, and nobody even knows what they are. They haven't even been defined yet, they haven't worked out how the state's going to pay for them.
Kids aren't accessing them, they don't exist.
It is extraordinary, though, that those kids are actually getting the diagnosis, and I think there needs to be some sort of analysis of where these diagnoses are coming from, because kids are obviously having their disability or alleged disability or non disability overstated in a really big way. As the mother of a child with profound disability, I can tell you I am very worried that this scheme is just going to tip over.
It is getting very very close to that, and we're seeing.
People come in in their forties, fifties, and sixties being diagnosed.
Even though they've got careers. Families. You know, I'm going to be so popular.
At the end of it, but you know they've had and then all of a sudden they're later in life diagnosed with autism. But you know they've managed to function through their life, and now they're getting fifty sixty seventy thousand dollars packages to get cleaners come through and gardeners to come through, and assistance with transport that they've never needed before. This is the kind of stuff that's got
to stop. I genuinely hope Mark Butler and Anne Rustin and then Jennie McAllister and Phil Thompson can get together because this is a bipartisan scheme. It needs bipartisan cooperation to try and fix it because without it being fixed, it will fall over.
That is absolutely right. I've been up to my neck in this issue my whole life, basically, so the National Disability Insurance Scheme, it's actual sort of genesis. The model for it was a Victorian scheme called the Transport Accident Commission, where if you had a catastrophic accident, a road accident, and you're incapacitated, you would get a payer and you would get looked after and you get payments for the rest of your life. Your medical bills take care of now.
One of my friends who actually just saw, yes, that was in a horrific motorcycle accident, left in brain braining, half blind, physically crippled.
Half of his body.
So this is something I know incredibly intimately well and ironically another friend of mine, my best friend, also had a terrible accident, but because it wasn't on a public road, he got absolutely nothing. So you have these two situations.
One one, you.
Know, arguably just as bad as each other. My friends are quadriplegic. My other friend is brain damage. But what I mean, my best mate was actually advised, you know, they said that actually was there was the combination of incidents. But he h he dived into his back his parents backyard swimming pool and that was kind of literally the
straw that broke his back. And one piece of advice he got was you should sue your parents, sue your parents and let their insurance pay because that's the only way you can get anything.
So he didn't, of.
Course, But so so he's now, you know, and he's living alive, and he's get some support from the ndis painful and everything.
But you know, the way the India is either way potions now that is, and the things that they are saying they won't pay for are.
Some of the most critical critical people.
And then there's other things that are ridiculous that and it's the people who can manipulate the system and that have got these big providers that we're seeing raughting it and they're pushing people through with you.
You can access that service, right, I.
Say, oh, do you know you can get to support workers and so he goes, no, No, I only need But.
Honestly, can you tell me why they want them around all the time? I would love to not have to do therapy. I would love to not have psychology appointments and other appointments that are quite frankly difficult, annoying and time consuming and really quite emotionally taxing.
Yet these people seem to want it.
It's just to me, bas Up, whenever you have money coming from the government, people will always want more of it.
And it's a challenge because then the risk is.
The people that genuinely do need the support can't get it because the money is being spent on other people who don't need it. But another interesting thing we're also seeing is children staying up on screens past midnight. Experts have warned kids are saying glued to their phones and watching video games, which is leading to huge increases in anxiety. These kids are then often refusing to attend school and
even experiencing increased suicidality. Many children have a compulsive need to stay connected doom, scrolling on their phone for hours when they should actually be sleeping, or.
Waking up to check their phone throughout the night.
It's leading to disruptive sleep, poor academic performance, social isolation, and strained family relationships.
I mean, this is no surprise. And then the problem is once.
The addiction starts, it just gets worse and worse because then they're not doing well in school, so they're going to withdraw. The behavior gets worse, it reinforces the negative cycle. But the question I have, especially in this screen time debate, is where are the parents in this. I mean, you've seen the government try to come in and implement a social media ban.
I get that.
I think social media should be regulated like alcohol and drugs because it does the same thing to kids' brains. But at the same time, nothing will substitute the role of the parent. How are these kids getting these screens in their rooms as young as five years old?
Yeah, I mean, look, as mother of three, I can tell you screens play a very important role when you're going through the supermarket or on a fly or trying to get them on a long drive. There's very important roles that you know.
For all of those that say.
Watch something, yet, just go and have children and tell me whether or not you let them.
Have a screen.
And sometimes screens for some kids, they use them, you know, the homework. My Sammy aut watches YouTube, but he watches lots of instructive shows on how to build. He likes engineering and those sorts of things. So at sixteen he's watching how to build bridges and all sorts of different things.
Usually also how to.
Blow them up.
But that's a whole different topic, not in the same way we were just talking about at Glastonbury. But you know, I do think I mean at five, certainly, them having access to a phone, I think it's insane. I think once they hit high school a lot of kids have got a phone, or maybe later primary so they can contact their parents. But I think it being left in their bedroom overnight is probably non appropriate.
Way for them to be used.
I just it's frightening that kids are now getting more screen time than they are parent engagement, and it's really hard. And I'm not criticizing parents because it is really really hard to break that nexcess. But the one thing with
the social media band with under sixteens. You know my previous life, I have mental health and suicide prevention, and talking to some of the youth mental health care providers, the way that they reached most kids that were having issues was via social media, so they were having to think of yeah, they acknowledged the bad side of it, but they were also thinking how they were going to still be able to stay connected to them once the
band came in. So this is this is one of those issues that's not as easy and simple as everyone would like it.
Yeah, for sure, Joe, I want to ask you about this because from this week, Union students studying courses like nursing, midwiffree and social work will be able to access a placement as salary while they're on placement. It's very small, to about eight dollars an hour, but it does seem to solve some challenges, which is that often people studying these degrees they have to spend weeks on placement.
They can't sustain their normal job.
If you're paying, if you're supporting yourself out of home, that means you then have to drop out of the degree.
I mean, the greens is still not happy with this. Naturally, there's a great idea it's not enough, But I don't know. I think this strikes the right balance.
It really is.
The genesis of this was getting more teachers in more classroom experience. It's one of the big problems with teachers is there's a huge burnout rights it's unbelievables, something like I think fifty percent the first five or ten years or whatever just say no, don't take this anymore.
I'm out of here.
And that results in a teaching shortage. That means that the teachers that remain are under even more pressure that the results in a.
High burnout rate. Is is death spiral.
And one of the big problems that Jason Claire the Education is identified is it when teachers were coming out of their degrees, they had all the theory, they had all the know how, they had all the class plans
in the world. What they didn't have was enough actual classroom training how to handle a disruptive class, how to make sure that kids are engaged, what to do if they disrespect you, or what to do if they're not getting something and you don't know how to make sure that they're actually understanding or when they talk back, and so they're not all these sorts of things. So all the really old fashioned stuff, the direct instruction, but also
the discipline stuff. And this is basically a solution to that. And of course there are a whole bunch of other vital professions that applies to as well. The teaching one is the one that I'm all in on, so I think it's absolutely fantastic. It sounds and yes, you know, it'll never be enough money. That's not going to be enough money to replace a job, but it could be the difference between being able to afford to take time off your job that you've got way of studying, or to take time off whatever.
Some of the degrees that are excluded are things like occupational therapists, physiotherapists, psychologists, and you know, like again, you can't have everything, but this placement poverty is a real thing if you're working, particularly if you go and work in a rural and regional area. But your university is located in a metropolitan area to be able to pay for a second rental whilest doing that placement caused a lot of problems and a lot of the gaps in
rural and regional areas. The service gaps could actually be addressed by those final year students on their placements to help out, and I just think that they're missing again an opportunity to really plug some of those gaps in the skills areas.
That's a really good point.
One other area where people are trying to plug gaps in the workforce is the New South Wales Minerals Council that is launching a new campaign to try and make coal cool again.
That's obviously not the name of the campaign, but essentially you that's what they're trying to do.
They try to change the image of coal among young women, so they're running pro coal ads before some of Australia's most popular culture, gossip and relationship podcasts.
They're hoping to inspire the next.
Generation of female miners by hiring by highlighting some of their women on social media.
This is an example of the kind of content they're putting out. I work at the biggest gold and copper mine in New South Wales. You might not believe it, but I used to die.
Massive mining trucks like these, and now I'm using all of this tech to monitor and many of the exact same trucks on site.
That's pretty cool, Catulator, I love this. I would love to make coal and mining cool again.
It's great for common sense and with combat the climate catastrophism that's driving gen Z towards the greens, and it also is the engine room of our economy.
Coalon mining are critical. So Holleen, do you reckon? This is a swing gen Z with.
I love this.
You know, get dirty, get a bit dusty, drive a big truck all out of the brown.
Wow, you know what else could you want?
I mean, Tanya Constable, if this is one of your ideas, that's fantastic.
I just love it.
Pretty pretty cool. What about you, Jo?
It's so good And the best part is that they're you know, they're really reaching out through all the socials, getting into those gen Z and millennials, especially through popular sort of mummy blog websites like Mumma Minor.
That's why I don't think they'll be hiring you.
But that was a good effort. But one another group that is also struggling with their image of the moment is the.
Democrat Party in the US. They have a male problem. I know, shocking, right. They've just figured this out after a massive swing against them at the last election. And their solution to this is a twenty million dollars study to learn how to talk to men. Yes, it is absurd, and Americans think so too.
OHT know why you have to spend money to study men.
I mean I don't get that, Like, just go ask people, like what you're doing right now, ask me questions. I think they're just going to flow short of money down the toilets.
It's stupid. There's money that can be spent elsewhere.
I'm not on that.
All the answers are already out there. I mean, just listen to them, all the former level commentators that are in.
The action Action.
I have a few ideas for how to improve their prospects with young men. Maybe stop constantly ridiculing them for simply existing.
That'll be twenty million dollars. Thanks. I mean that would seem like the obvious solution.
Joe, Yeah, it's almost worse than that in some ways, Like the Democrats have just so low and it's particularly working classmen as well. Probably won't surprise you to hear, and the fact that they thought the solution to this.
They're so completely.
Divorced from working classmen that they have to sit down and come up with some kind of study to find out what they are interested in and how to communicate with them and how to speak their language. I mean, you read the language of this and it's anthropological. It is like it's almost zoological. It's like they want to trank them and take them back to a lab so they can sort of probe them and see see what
they really think. And even the this was first revealed in the New York Times and then Fox News picked up on it and went bananas, and even the New York Times said, this sounds pretty creepy. And when even the New York Times is saying, you're elitist and out of Dutch.
But does this mean they've actually defined what a woman is so they can know they can go and define what a man is now? I mean, if they now answered the age old question that none of their politicians have been able.
To ask, that's the problem.
They're obsessed with issues like that, they're obsessed with those sort of ridiculous cultural identity politics.
I think all the men they had now identify as women, so that might be slightly all.
The men they have them now identify as Trump voters.
And that is a practical point right there. That is it.
Well, coming up after the break, we're going to get into the papers. Victorian politicians are getting a pay rise and an IVF horror story. One woman discovered she may have seven hundred and half siblings.
Welcome back.
We're giving you tomorrow's papers today, starting with the Herald Sun. The headline is Polly's cash in just into Alan's paypacket has topped half a million dollars for the first time Cement's worth it, clementing her place as the nation's highest paid premiere. The generous boost has been delivered as part
of a three percent pay rise for Victorian MP's. The premier's total annual package is now worth five hundred and twelve thousand dollars, including an almost sixty five thousand dollars expenses allowance.
I must say, during the middle of a cost.
Of living crisis, we've had the worst decline in living standards in the developed world, and you've got the worst premiere in the country, just into Alan getting a pay rise half a million dollars a year in excessive the.
Debt in Victoria, in the state of Victoria, and this woman's getting more money. I mean, look, to be fair, though, I wouldn't be surprised if Dan Andrews comes back and ask for a bit of back pay now saying maybe we didn't get an ass.
Well, to be fair, I mean, the Liberal Party just gave John Pursuito a one point three million dollar.
Pay not from tax payers, not from taxpayers. So still weird, Charlie, You're weird. We don't want to talk about that.
We do not want to talk about that. It is amazing.
You could just say it's a dear Victorian Liberals, here is an election on a plate, and.
Okay, no, but now you're trying to deflect from and.
Yeah, no they are terrible. That's absolutely awful.
But anyway, speaking of pay risers, someone who's not terrible. In fact, someone who I dare say is a friend of the show, is the mayor of Townsville or is he what is his name? Troy tom What a great No, Troy Troy Thompson, the suspended mayor of Townsville who just refuses to leave. I didn't know you could do this. He's kind of like, I mean Donald Trump, but Trump eventually.
Yeah, that's right.
But anyway, so this is this is this story just fascinates me, and every time I come on this show, there's another story. There's a there's a picture of this guy's face on the front page of the towns He just will not go anyway. Anyway, Council's payday, every councilor
set for a pay rise. So every councilor in Townsville on the Townsville City Council will get a pay rise, including the suspended mayor who is serious on guarding leave and he'sn't allowed to do his job while there's all this sort of you know, concern, I'm not.
Sure why you should get a pay rise.
Well, you're literally suspended, literally, that would seem to be very bizarre.
Look great work if you could get it, clearly running for the mayor of Townsville' where you want to be.
Yeah, well you have the advertiser for us. Hollywood's happening.
This is I find very very disturbing that a woman now may have up to seven hundred half siblings.
Now it worries me for a couple of reasons. First one is it's Adelaide.
It's not that big a place, and I think we could run into some real problems there with who might be related to who in the long run, and we might have to do some checks. This lady is actually calling for more transparency because it looks like the donor was actually a man with schizophrenia who used a number
of different identities at donor clinics. Now, I mean this is genetic issues that we're talking about that could be passed on that people may or may not be aware of, and people accepting these sorts of donations are not aware of when they're accepting them. So there's a very serious element to this. But I do hate to think the Christmas shopping for that family, you know.
Yeah, No, it's very concerning that there are very few checks around who actually can be in donor and there definitely needs to be more scrutiny around that.
In the Newcastle Herald, we're all in New.
South Wales being warned about this cyclone bomber bomb. The headline is danger on the Horizon. Cruz were scrambling yesterday to prepare the Hunter for a potentially dangerous storm amid predictions of strong win, flash flooding and damaging surf in New South Wales State Emergency Service had pre deployed teams in the Hunter ahead of the front, which was expected
to hit the state overnight and could last into Thursday. Now, I don't want to down play any sort of terrible weather events, and you know we have seen terrible flooding, but the cyclone bomb retric it.
Does seem to all be a little bit catastrophic.
Well, actually, I hate to rain on your parade as it were, Freyer, but the Bureau of Meteorology has actually asked if instead of referring it referring to it as a cyclone bomb, we could refer to it as cyclone Bureau. Do you remember when they did that last time there was a giant Oh no, oh my god, I knew that jo would be too.
That joke just fell.
Really so the last time there was this giant, massive storm on the horizon that was going to just rip the Jesus through everything and this apocalypse armaged and everything, of Meteorology put out a statement that said, could you please stop referring to the Bureau of Meteorology as the bomb. We'd rather you refer to us as the Bureau.
They spend like two hundred thousand on a rebranding, I mean, another really good use of taxes catastrophics.
They can't figure.
Out what's actually happening with the weather, but they can spend all of that money or a rebrand to go from the bomb to the Bureau.
That's right.
So, now that I've explained the minutia and the history behind that joke, I hope you.
All so much better.
When they have to, I'll find the best line.
Well, do everyone in New South Wales stay safe.
We obviously don't know what this weather event will really look like, and that's kind of why it's so dangerous, because it forms so quickly, hence why it's called a bomb.
But Will was up on the roof this afternoon with my tarp and my cleaning your gutters, cleaning my gutters. Very good, most manly. I've felt well since I got married, quite frankly. Now, and to the odds, and here's an interesting little one games private funding to save taxpayer dollars,
a bit of an Ozzi initiative here. The Queensland government is moving to privatize infrastructure development for the two hundred two thousand and thirty two Brisbane Olympics, including the three point seven billion dollar plus main stadium that has been
deviled the games planning to date. The shift was quietly signaled on Monday when State Treasurer David Jenetski announced, without fanfare, not with fanfare, but without fanfare, the creation of a dedicated union in his department to lock him infrastructure investment from the private sector. So the government building all those venues, they're just going to get the cribe. What didn't someone think of this earlier?
It seems like a great idea to me.
You know, Look, I don't agree with the Prime Minister very often, but I have to say when he made the call that it shouldn't be the Brisbane Olympics, shouldn't even be the Queensland Olympics, it should be the Australian Olympics, I've actually never agreed with him before.
I think he looked at the sailing on Sydney Harbor.
We have the iconic Opera House and Harbor Bridge in the background. It would solve all the accommodation issues that Brisbane doesn't have. The accommodation facilities at the moment where people will.
Stay when they come to the Olympics.
They could move the events around the country and really have an Australia Olympics. And I personally think that's the way we should go. And you know, Brisbane, love you, but there's not really many iconic skylines in Brisbane. No one's going to look at an event and go, jeez, that looks like no. I hang on except for blue Eye, my mistake, I Bluey people might I do understand.
Where you're going with that, And it's pretty hard to say that Brisbane is a global city.
But then the other problem is ship people have.
To help people that.
You're not a real city.
That was not Pearson's take, and he was spot on.
But then the problem is if you have the game spread out, we're such a big country, you'd have to fly between events. So you just have specific sports, you know, and I don't have to have something in some practical issues.
But let's hear about this, can brief fine?
Glad you asked a good bit of good news story to end on scientists in historic cancer breakthrough exclusive by Natasha Robinson, an old friend of mine, The Cellular that's not actually got on the show. By the way, there's no favoritism, no nepotism. This is pure impartial AB you're in the same union ABC level impartiality.
I'm applying here to my news judgment. But the Cellular Keys.
I thought that was the name of a rock and roll band to cancer. They're probably playing at Coachella. The cellular keys to cancer survival and treatment resistance have been unlocked by Australian scientists in a world first study that map thousands of proteins and gene messages from single tissue slides. I don't know what any of that means, scientists from the Wesley Research Institute of Queensland's Spatial Biology Center.
It's not getting better.
Use three dimensional tissue mapping technology to identify specific immune cells linked to cancer patients living longer with their in remission. Well that sounds good. So they're starting why people are living longer with cancer? And I get all that, I bottle it and then I spread it out to everyone else. That's how it does science.
Excellent, well done, science, Well done, Joe, Thank you sounds all those big words for you. Thankes for it.
Well done, Joe sounds very exciting after the break wrapper fifty cent response to New York City Mayor Hopeful's.
Trump proof tax plan.
Welcome back the Democrat nominee for the Mayor of New York, Zoran Mumdani has a lot of crazy socials plans. One of them is to tax the rich more, and he specifically name dropped rapper.
Fifty cent, taxing the top one percent of New Yorkers. We're talking about people who make a million dollars a year more, taxing them just by flat two percent tax increase. And I know I fifty cent is listening. He's not going to be happy about this intense and I like this tax policy, but I want to be very clear. This is about twenty thousand dollars a year. It's a rounding era.
I don't know why he mentioned fifty but fifty cent. The actual rapper was not happy about this at all, and he posted saying where did he come from?
Whose friend is this? And that he would be happy to.
Give him two hundred and fifty eight thousand dollars and a first class one way ticket.
Away from New York.
I think a lot of New Yorkers are feeling this way about Zoran Mumdani. But I do have a theory, guys that the reason Zoran specifically went after fifty cent is because, as we've covered on this show before, mum Dani is actually a failed rapper himself.
He has attempted to release some rap songs in.
The past and quickly quickly gave up because they were truly excruciating.
So I think it might all just be a little bit of jealousy.
Yeah, I think maybe he might have confused fifty cents actual net worth with fifty cents actual name. I think I don't know in which in which universe, twenty thousand dollars is a rounding area.
I'm not sure how.
Yeah, socialists think the rest of the world of sort of, you know, like business and capitalism and money and people doing work and exchange.
It's a lovely magic pudding that just money just comes out of and everything's free.
That's how these people think it works.
And those terrible capitalists, you know, we have to take everything from them.
And this is what I don't want to hear with the boring stick, but this is exactly what the Greens did with their great big super tax on everything. I will just pay for all this stuff, we'll we buy taxing more billionaires. Billionaires don't want to be taxed, and they're billionaires for a reason. So if you tax them more than they think is fair, then they will leave the country. They will rearrange their affairs.
So that they pay lesson well, especially in the US where you actually have competitive taxation. I'll just go to Florida or Texas, as any sensible person works.
Everyone from New York ends up going to Florida anyway.
So palmbate property prices are on the move.
That's exactly right. Now.
Another thing that's on the move is airline passengers, and they are trying to find the safest seat on the plane. Now, you remember there was that incredible Air India flight which is absolutely just horrible. Everyone on board died after it crash shortly after takeoff, except one person, guy called Ramesh, who just walked from the wreckage with basically a few scratches and otherwise unscathed. And he was in seat eleven A and so eleven A. Could this be the magical seat?
Is this actually the most the most safe seat on the airline on the airline, itinery.
No, it's not, No, it's not.
The easy Jet, which charges an extra for seat selections, SET had not seen any uptick in demand for emergency exit rows, and seat eleven A is not an exit row in any of its cabin configurations. It's a standard seat that costs the same as a whole bunch of other seats. So no, it's all rubbish. I think if you're sitting up the back of the plane, that's probably let's look at it.
Yeah, yeah, well there we I mean I thought, yeah, I did think the exit rod though, because theoretically in a crash you could get out faster.
Well, apparently Emirates in their big plane, sixteen k's the way to go. I had a flight attendant tell me that that that's the best seat to sit on sixteen K because you get the leg room close to the bulkhead.
What about if you're the toilet, what if you just sort of barricaded yourself in the toilet.
Well that's it from the late debate. Up next is The Rita Panicky Show with Caroline Marcus