Welcome to the Wait to Pay.
Well.
Good evening and thanks for joining us. I'm James Macpherson with Liz Storer and Caleb Bond. Coming up tonight, the critics of panned Megan Markel's latest Netflix series. We'll give
you our thoughts a little later. Plus, when we look at what's making news tomorrow, the Albenze government promises to increase defense spending on the advice of Donald Trump, and an indigenous group paid one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars in taxpayer money to make tools out of a tree that had to be removed from a property that was going to be developed. All of that when we
look at the papers tomorrow. But first, with a cyclone bearing down on Southeast Queensland, you'd think the government would do everything they possibly can to keep people safe, and they claim that they are. Anthony Albenezi right now is in Brisbane, proving just how much the government cares, but claims that the government will do everything it can to protect life and property.
Ring a little hollow when.
You realize a disaster emergency text messaging system announced in twenty twenty three and promised to be operational last year is still on well the government's to do list. The mass Text Messaging program would allow the government to send important messages to every person within a specified area, no
matter what phone company they are with. And this is really important because last time there was a big disaster in Brisbane back in twenty twenty two, massive flooding, the government sent text messages warning people of rising floodwaters and some of those texts reached people twelve hours after the
flooding occurred. So this new system is pretty important. In fact, when Michelle Rowlands, the Communications Minister, announced it back in May of twenty twenty three, she said, and I quote the first priority of any government is to keep Australian safe and defective communications are crucial to that. So it was crucial that this system being developed. It was promised in twenty twenty three, ten point one million dollars set
aside to make it happen. We were told it would be operational in twenty twenty four, and here we are now in March twenty twenty five with a cyclone bearing down on Brisbane and this crucial bit of communications infrastructure the government just haven't quite got around to doing it yet. But don't worry Anthony Albanezi is in Brisbane every opportunity he gets, telling everybody how much the government cares and
how they'll do whatever it takes to help residents. Caleb, these guys can't even organize a text message.
I mean, you know, normally I'd say you can't organize a route in a brothel, and that's a pretty low bar. This mob can't even organize a text message. How hard can it be? I mean the police already do this kind of thing right now. I didn't know that it depended on what to provider you were with. Often, you know, you'll get a text message it says such and such as been missing since yesterday. If you've seen them, contact police.
And I always thought that worked by they send the signal out from a phone tower and every phone that pings against that phone tower gets the text message. I don't know why this operation can't be exactly the same. But if you set money aside in twenty twenty three and in twenty twenty five, you can't deliver it. I mean, these people are governing us. How can we trust them to do anything if they can't get something as I would have thought, as simple as a system to send
an emergency text message out to someone. But wonder what kind of content would be in these messages, right, And I've got to thank one of our viewers, Steve Walkinshaw, who emailed this through to me. He was looking he's up in Queensland and he was taking a look on the Bureau of Meteorology today to see what he should
do in the event of the cyclone hitting him. And if you go through their official warning there, it's got all this business or show it here on the screen about you know, if you're in this zone, you should do this and get ready and put your gear inside. Read down a little bit. It says if you choose to take shelter away from your home, stay COVID nineteen
safe and pack a mask and hand sanitizer. I mean, for even's sake, can you imagine all these people in Brisbane and North New South Wales tonight worried that a cyclone's about to hit them and they're all running around the heath. Where's the mask, where's the hand sanitizer? What am I going to do?
Like?
Seriously, this is the advice that the Fear of Meteorology is giving out to people. What is going on here? To can't get a text messaging system, and the info they do get out to you says you need a mask of business.
So don't be worried.
About gale force winds, the storm flooding, flash flooding that everyone's bracing themselves on. Don't be worried about your insurance premium which is bound to shoot through the roof after There's all the experts.
Are warning us. Anyway, don't be worried about the uh.
This massive cyclone headed toward your home, said to They think wipe out at least twenty thousand homes. No, No, make sure that you are COVID safe while you are trying to ensure you're not going to lose your life or an arm and a leg.
Do us a favor.
This is the government's priorities, and it's not just this in which they are completely underprepared in terms of their texting system. Brisbane Council, you thought they should have taken some notes after those terrible floods of twenty twenty two, which I don't know about you, but it seems like yesterday.
And yet despite knowing.
That they ought to have at least one hundred and fifty thousand sandbags ready to go. Four terrible natural disasters like this, which aren't all that uncommon in Queensland, being the tropics up there. They've had people queuing for four hours, over four hours, just trying to get their hands on a few sand bags to prepare for what is going to be the first cyclone in quite a while. Wildly underprepared, absolutely no excuse.
For it, and Queenslanders.
Have every right to be utterly outraged.
Moral of the story. Never rely on government.
We're always telling them to pull their heads in get out of our lives. But when it comes to a natural disaster, you want all the help you can get. This is their opportunity to shine, This is their opportunity to remind us all why they exist, and they drop the ball so catastrophically, And you're quite right. I was thinking the same thing, Caleb, about the systems that are already in place. When the government wants to send you a text, you're getting one, whether you like it or not.
You receive them from the police saying we're trying to find Billy Bloggs.
He's in your area. Have you seen him? Contact us if you have.
I was in wa for Christmas and there was some sort of they shut down streets in the suburbs that we were having dinner in and we all got a text then to say, look there's been some sort of domestic I think a firearm was involved. It was quite serious and we've shut down all these streets.
Do not go anywhere near it, etc.
Why on earth in a situation like this, can you not, as the government, flex and make that happen. I don't believe that it's not possible. I don't believe that ten million dollars has.
To be spent. You're the government.
We can't even get a toll rebate without giving you our passports, a urine sample, our fingerprints. And you mean to tell me in a natural disaster you've lost our mobile numbers.
What a fun.
The technology is completely available.
Other countries have the technology to be able to override phone company systems to deliver straight to people instant messages.
It's just that they haven't got around to it yet.
No, that's right. And while people are trying to find the text message, they'll also be looking for the hand sanitizer, because of course that's so important. While we're talking about governments spending money not so wisely take a look at this. In New South Wales. Seven hundred days ago today, the state government, the Men's government, commissioned a report into the
toll system in New South Wales. We've got Allen Fells, who used to run the A Triple C to go and run the ruler over the system and work out how better things could be delivered for motorists on the road and how to get discounts. All this sort of business right, that cost millions and millions of dollars, and we find out today that it's costing even more two point seven five million dollars of legal advice in just
five months alone. That comes out to one hundred and thirty thousand dollars a week, seven hundred days on from when they commissioned this bloody thing. This is in the Daily Telegraph today. Former Baker McKenzie chair Christopher Sason has been engaged on a nine hundred nuns ninety thousand dollar contract to give negotiation, strategy and advice on overhauling the
tolling system. That's on top of the money they've already spent on the report, mind you, that comes on top of the two hundred and sorry two point seventy five million the government is paying for legal advice between February five and June thirty this year, which is in addition to the five point four million dollars already spent on mister Fell's toll review, which included one hundred and forty five thousand dollars in flights and accommodation for the reviews
to authors. So you'd get a bloke in to draw up this report and tell you how the system can be made better and how we can all save money. Meanwhile he's spending a lot of money, five point four million.
Dollars of it.
And when he was employed, his job was to then negotiate with the tolling companies. But now they've got him off the job and they put some other bloke on the job on a million dollars a year to negotiate with the tolling companies. Then two point seventy five million dollars in legal fees. We will be paying tolls for fifty years to pay for the review into the tolling system.
For heaven's sake, they said, Allen Fells, who was on a huge amount of money, he got them to the negotiating table, and that required a skill in and of itself. And now this new guy Saxon, he will actually take over from there and do the negotiation, though Allen Fells, according to the article, continues to be on the payroll. I like the Transport Minister John Graham in New South Wales who rationalized the huge amount of money that's been
spent over the last seven hundred days on consulting. He said the cost of the reform, And I love it how they always call it a reform. Oh yes, the cost of the reform is infinitely smaller than the one hundred and ninety five billion dollars in tolls we paid between now and twenty sixty. Well, in that case, spend thirty billion dollars on the consultancy.
Spend one hundred billion.
It's still cheaper than the one hundred and ninety five billion in tolls. That sort of logic is just ridiculous.
No one buys that.
But I mean, and I know we talked about this when had happened, but it still gets me that you had just been one hundred and forty five thousand dollars in flights and accommodation and to look at tolls like what was Alan Phil's just so.
He couldn't afford to drive.
He was tearing live, just tearing around the world looking at toll roads, going hmm, yeah, I must check.
I must go to Russia or wherever it.
Is, I must go and look over there their toll system to make sure that there's not a certain thing they're doing over there that we could be doing here to.
Make it better.
Can you spend one hundred and forty five grand looking at toll roads for him? And say, I mean, you know there are train spotters right who sit around and they love watching the train and go past and all the tracks. I'm sure there are people out there who are obsessed with toll roads who could have done this
work for Zilch. Like if you told them you can investigate toll systems around the world, there is someone out there who would have been like, oh my god, I am the man for the job, and I will do it for nothing because he's obsessed with toll roads. I'm sure they exist. Why didn't they get them on the job?
They ask any Sydney cider that gets that invoice emailed to them every single month, always a hair raising amount. I hail from God's Country otherwise known as Western Australia, whereby in two thoyd and thirteen Premier Colin Barnett said there will be no told.
In a state that I laid.
That isn't a direct quote, but that was his edict and this is revelatory. The reason why he said there will never be any tolls in WA was because people pay taxes in the expectation that their governments will provide proper transport systems. People already pay for car REGOs, their license fees, petrol etc.
And so on.
If only Queensland at Victoria and New South Wales had taken a leaf out of that man's book, I find it utterly nonsensical, even though I've lived here for years now, that the taxpayer is already paid for the roads, and the government at the time made a decision to instead of just fitting the bill so that people could then travel on the roads that they paid for for free, and then to fit the bill for any repairs that need doing, etc. And so on, no, we've just got
to pay to keep using them in perpetuity. Because they got into bed with some private firms who were like, mate, this will have us laugh and all the way to the bag forever and these states just go well, screw the people. They can keep on paying. It's a terrible system to begin with. And now, by the way, if you're in New South Wales, make sure you jump online and get your forty percent rebate.
It applies to last financial year, so you can get hundreds back. You may not have heard of it.
Jump online, get your money back, because this is day light robbery.
Doua did have the benefit of mining royalties that we probably should point out in terms of how they get money.
Paved the streets in gold in the Eastern States in the form of our gin.
You're going to go there, don't bug me.
But I don't have better off.
I do have some guys milk dost drive.
I do have some sympathy because the M eight, which I drive on reasonably frequently, though not at the moment, because my car is still at the workshop. It's been there for more than a month. If you're my insurance company.
Can you please get me the car back. Please?
But thet if you drive the entire length of it, is nearly twelve dollars now, and I thought, I thought, oh, surely there must be a point where the toll company has recouped the money that they have spent, plus interest in their contribution to build the road, and so surely after that point the toll disappears.
No.
I looked up.
It's a forty year contract and over that forty years the toll goes up every year on the first of January.
So it's twelve dollars.
Now by the end of that forty years, I'll be paying forty bucks.
I'm talking about.
This is what the government signed you up to pay in I say perpetuity. It's forty years. But fine, fine, okay, what government does that and just goes, oh yeah, the people can just fit the bill. That is obviously not a workable system for people who have to travel every day to and from work and for whatever reason can't use public transport.
It's funny living in Sydney.
When my son's twin nineteen year old boys got their driver's licenses, they were so.
Excited they got their cars.
They're finally free, and you know, most of the time these days they're on the Sydney Metro. When I ask why is your car in the garage? Why you're on public transport? You know what they say, not fuel, not red.
Jo the tolls they just kill them and serve. There you go, Liz.
To the US now, where President Donald J.
Trump has delivered his first address to a joint session of Congress, creating a new record. Obviously, because it's the longest, beating Bill Clinton's State of the Union address back in two thousand by quite a few minutes. All the speech watches were keeping a sharp eye on that. Trump clocked in at an hour and forty minutes. He's known for his punch, not for his brevity, but the whole address can be summed up very short and succinctly. It was basically saying, America is back.
Six weeks ago, I stood beneath the dome of this capital and proclaimed the dawn of the Golden Age of America. From that moment dawn, there has been nothing but swift and unrelenting action to usher in the greatest and most successful era in the history of our country. We have accomplished more in forty three days, and most administrations accomplished in four years or eight years, and we are just getting started.
He also took the opportunity, of course, to address the issue of those tariffs that the Dems have been bashing on about. He insists look, this is just tit for.
Tat, and this is how we wild power.
April second, reciprocal tariffs kick in, and whatever they tariff us other countries, we will tariff them. That's reciprocal back and forth. Whatever they tax us, we will tax them.
If they do non.
Monitory tariffs to keep us out of their market, then we will do non monitory barriers to keep them out of our market.
And as he does, he fearlessly waded into the culture wars, saying that under the Trump administration, the mutilation of Chu in the name of the transagender ends.
Now.
I also signed an order to cut off all taxpayer funding to any institution that engages in the sexual mutilation of our youth.
And now I.
Want Congress to pass a bill permanently banning and criminalizing sex changes on children and forever ending the lie that any child is trapped in the wrong body. This is a big line. And our message to every child in America is that you are perfect, exactly the way God made you.
Preage.
Brother Vans and Johnson really got to work out standing behind him for an hour and forty minutes, standing to their face.
They happen very two minutes of boxes up.
I'm absolutely incredible, And of course we can't forget this really heart warming moment where he took the time to bestow the honor of becoming Secret Service to a very unlikely recipient.
Joining us at the gallery tonight is a young man who truly loves our police. His name is DJ Daniel. He is thirteen years old and he has always dreamed of becoming a police officer. DJ was diagnosed with brain cancer. The doctors gave him five months at most to live. That was more than six years ago. We're going to do you the biggest honor of them all. I am asking our new Secret Service Director, Sean Curran to officially make you an agent of the United States Secret Service.
Watching that kid's eyes light off as the people did all around the world, just going house this for a heartwarming moment.
It was very wellful.
It just shows you the power of leadership, doesn't it.
I mean, he's only been in the Oval Office when it was at forty three days, which is hardly any time at all, and yet the whole tone of America seems to have changed. Trump talks about the fact our spirit is back, our pride is back, our confidence is back. Our momentum is back. And of course, unless you've got Trump arrangement syndrome and you just hate everything he does, the truth is America has changed massively in the last forty three days. A certainly the perception of America has changed.
And really the only thing that's changed is leadership. And leadership is always the problem and it's always the answer. And you go from Joe Biden, who was a wet lettus leaf in the Oval Office offered nothing, to a man who actually knows what he wants to do, has got a mandate to do it, despite the fact that the Democrats are still protesting.
He doesn't.
In fact, five minutes into the speech, El Green, a Democrat, stood up and started yelling, you have no mandate to do anything you're doing.
He was promptly ejected.
From the Capitol building. There he is there, pointing at Trump, interrupting the speech. The other great thing about this speech, Caleb, was can you imagine Biden bumbling on for an hour and forty minutes?
I want he was inspiring, He was.
Funny, He handled the interjectors really really well. He didn't ignore them, nor did he carry on too much about them, but just occasionally a little jibe making fun of you know, Elizabeth Warren referring to her as Pocahontas when she dared to chirp.
Up while he was trying to speak.
But there are also parts of incredibly moving, like when he stood that young cancer sufferer up and bestowed him with a honorary Secret Service membership.
I watched the speech in its entirety today and I've.
Got to say, and the other thing about it is so much policy in it. He didn't get up there and just waffle or hammer the Democrats and talk about, you know, personal issues. He talked about issues relating to the nation. It was an impressive performance.
Well, that's the thing. I can imagine that Biden could do an hour and forty minutes, but he'd be stuck on the second word the whole time. There wouldn't be a great deal of substance to it. And that's the thing. How extraordinary is it that forty three days into a presidency he can stand up there and give a you know what was effectively a state of the Union speech so early into his presidency, and he's got so much he can already talk about. Because as we've talked about
many times before. I mean, he was changing America before he was even sworn in as president. He was the de facto president from the moment he was elected, basically, and in that period before Biden finally handed it over, he was achieving more than Biden had been able to do in four years. Like he said at the beginning of the speech, I've done more than forty three days than some administrations have done in eight years. And that
is the movement that people voted for. He didn't vote for Trump so that the world could continue to be like it was yesterday. You had that under Biden. People were sick of it. So he's true to his word in that way, I'm going to do something. And he stood there and said, yeah, this is what I'm actually doing. But the light in the shade of that speech, which is what you're talking about before, you know. He's a showman.
Donald Trump is a showman, and he knows when to hit the policy point and he knows when to hit the emotional point, and he had it all in there. Now, whether or not you like the guy for his politics, you have to respect the fact that he brings people along with him, even if you don't like the message he's selling. He's a good retail politician. And so often this is why people get upset with a lot of
the elite politicians. They don't feel like they understand them, they can't relate to them, they don't know what they're talking about. And Donald Trump has an excellent way of telling a message to the public that the public can understand.
And that's a key part of leadership.
If you say you're a leader and no one's following, you're just taking a walk. He's able to take people with him because he's able to communicate effectively. The other interesting thing you talk is about, you know, the Speaker of the House and the Vice President got a workout, standing up, sitting down, standing up, sitting down. It was amazing how the Democrats were unmoved throughout it. The only thing that moved was their facial expression from scout to outrage,
back to scale again. And you showed that clip where Trump said He's going to end the mutilation of children in the name of gender ideology because he wants every American child to know you're exactly the way God.
Intended you to be. You're perfect.
And the Democrats could not even manage an applause for that. One side of the house all stood and applauded.
The other side. No, no, they are so committed.
To their transgender as it relates to kids, they couldn't even applaud that statement, which I think every single parent would say. Thank God, we've got someone in the White House who's speaking some truth like that. Compare and contrast, though, with the Democrats. I mean, while Trump is a brilliant communicator and proved that in a one hour and forty minute speech today, the Democrats and they are terrible at communication, so bad they can't even come up with their own lines.
They've released a video, first, one or two Democrats, but then it became clear it's not just one or two. We've got more than twenty Democrats, all posting videos, all not just hitting the same talking points, they're all saying exactly the same words.
Have a look at this.
When I will immediately bring prices down starting on daywatch.
That's what you just heard instead, Donald Trump, prices are down there.
Inflation is getting worse.
Get the prices of gross it's not getting better.
And they're all saying exactly the same thing.
Now, because you couldn't hear it, I summarize it for you, Thore saying inflation is high because Trump's been office forty three days. The place offak should have come down by now. They actually had the hide to talk about crime rates. Crime rates are high, I wonder why. And then they complained about doze. You know, it's terrible that the government is getting rid of waste. And Evon Musk was fascinated by this, and he put out the challenge on Twitter
saying we're now up to twenty two. It's twenty three since he posted this tweet, but twenty two Democrat senators all doing the same cringe video simultaneously. I will buy a cyber truck for anyone who can provide proof of who wrote this particular piece of propaganda. First person to post proof in the replies to this post gets the truck. Not a bad incentive to do a bit of digging, But I mean, you couldn't on the same day have a greater contrast between why Trump is so successful and
why everybody hates the Democrats. Trump is a great communicator, speaks from the heart, but he's telling his story. The Democrats are just parrots repeating lines that someone else anonymously in the shadows has written for them, zero authenticity. They clearly don't know how to respond to Trump.
How is that any different to Labor Caucus. I mean, they get together, they decide, they're talking points, and then, like lemmings, that's all any of them say in perpetuity regarding that topic and the next topic and the next topic. When I first came to politics and learned the major differences between the two major parties, there's.
Not that many, sadly, and they're dwindling.
But the idea of Labor Caucus, which is this is essentially what they do. It's like, word for word, this is what we say on this topic, on that topic, as opposed to the Libs that often get bashed in the media because oh, you know they're so divided. Yeah, because they allow independent thought. They allow the people members of the same party to have vastly different opinions on the same issues.
So here you've got the Dems.
And this was obviously intended to be a stunt. It wasn't an accident that they were word for word using the same clip of Trump word for word responding to it. And I tell you what, someone did take elon musk up on his offer I don't know what his name is because his ex account is anonymous, but he found out who wrote it. It's a guy, a Democrat, Senator Cory Booker. And Corey Booker, having been then exposed, tweeted, clearly you are triggered by the truth. He's speaking back
to Elon Musk. It was me, cheap.
Your truck, well, Senator Booker, I don't think you read the Musk's tweet properly.
He offered the truck to the person who uncovered you, not to you for coming forward once you were busted and saying, yeah, it was me who wrote that ridiculous piece for everyone to parrot.
And the thing is right, talking points, as you say is are not uncommon in politics. There's a sheet that is sent out every morning to federal politicians from their respective parties that tells them, these are the things that we want to hit on today. If you're asked a question about this in an interview, you know, here's a line to use, et cetera, et cetera. And that's just how if you're looking at how the sausage is made,
that is how the sausage is made. But the real problem here and that the awful political strategy that was deployed in this circumstance is that you should be able to say to any politician, okay, you remember of our party, these are the points we want to hit, and they should be able to take those points away and then create a video or a speech or whatever it might be from their own head about that. Like they should have independent thoughts along party lines generally about an issue.
So if you said, as a strategist to all of the senators, we want you to do a video on X y Z, they should just be able to go and do it. But clearly not. They actually have to all be given the eggs that script because there is not a sceric of independent thought, and that is why people like Trump are so successful, because they're not running by a script. They can give a stump speech, they actually have conviction, they have real thought, they have real
feelings about politics. You ask them a question, they can give you an answer. That's why Trump has answered more than a thousand questions from journalists since he became president, competed about one hundred and forty in the same period by Joe Biden after he became president. He can actually talk to people what you saw there was the absolute example of what is wrong with the political elite, that is that they cannot talk to people because they can't
form an independent thought. Let's come back home and go to Victoria where the crime crisis worsens. It feels like there's basically nowhere that isn't in the grips of a crime crisis in this country at the moment. But it has gotten so bad in Melbourne that people are now hiring security guards to drive around in their suburbs. Now at Brighton, anyone who's familiar with Melbourne will know is a high socioeconomic area, so they can afford to do
this kind of thing. But there are pamphlets whatever been putting people's letterboxes from other residents saying, look, we've got to get together. You can see it on the screen there. They want to raise three hundred thousand dollars so they can have a dedicated security guard driving around the suburb at night. I think it's from seven pm to six am every day, monitoring the streets to try and deter
people from coming into to do home invasions. They've had one hundred and sixteen burglaries last year alone in that one suburb. Of Brighton, so that's two every night. Basically, people are afraid in their own homes and they are going so far as to stump up the money to have their homes monitored. How sad is that that you cannot rely on a the government to snip this thing in the bud, but b to have a police presence
to deter people. No, they're actually putting up their own money to stop people coming into their suburbs and invading their homes. And then car theft is up in Victoria as well, so much so that this little thing, I'm sure you remember this, particularly if you're an older viewer. It's a car lock that goes on your steering wheel, right.
I hadn't seen one of these things for at least twenty years, I think, but Repco is now reporting that they have had a massive increase forty fifty percent increase in the sale of steering wheel locks because people are afraid of having their car stolen in Victoria.
Now, I mean, if that.
Doesn't tell you that that bit of archaic technology. Genuinely, I don't think I've seen one since my nan would have put one on a little diets of Syrian twenty years ago. I've not seen someone use one of those, but they're back in vogue because well, what else are you going to do. You can't rely on the government, you can't rely on the cops. That's what people are resorting to.
Now, that old question, how does the premiere of Victoria sleep at night? And the answer is a lot better than the residents of Brighton.
Apparently.
When you've got local residents having to employ their own security for their own suburb, it kind of reminds you of a third world country.
You get that in South Africa or somewhere they be doing exactly.
And as for those car locks, the number of Google searches for those steering wheel car locks is at a twenty year high, and it's because we've gone away from keyless from keys, and so the electronic you know, you just push the button and the engine starts. Will crims have got technology now to override that, and so your car keys can be sitting on your kitchen bench for what they're worth, but in less than five minutes they can break into your car and use that technology to
steal it. The other thing, forgive me, I don't know if you mentioned this already, but a thirty five percent increase at Repco in the sale of anti theft screws for number plates.
You mentioned that I didn't mention that, but yeah, that's true. What an incredible thing because the plates are being stolen.
Well, of course, because if you want to commit a crime, you need to get away car, you take a number plate off someone's car. And these are the ways that it actually affect people in real life. Like you can say, oh, well, my home hasn't been invated, so I don't really know
what's going on. But if you look at one suburb where there have been one hundred and sixteen burglaries, two a night for an entire year, then you would be worried that your house is going to be broken into, your car is going to be stolen, or your number plates are going to be stolen. And this seriously is the kind of stuff that can turn a state. I suspect that may will happen next year. I think we get a state election in Victoria.
Well, don'torry at the state election.
The polls are showing that the federal election, the Victorian Labor Party is probably going to be responsible for Albanesi losing a whole lot of seats. But the other thing that lives in Brighton is the mayor was also one of those people who's been burgled. So it's a pretty well to do suburb too.
It is, it is.
It's a very popular holiday destination. Everyone's familiar with bright and I've never lived in Victoria, but I am familiar with bright Now you're telling a lie.
We've lived in Victoria. Don't disavow the state.
A long time ago.
Come full disclosure from the courage of seven to fourteen. I did live in Country Victoria, little town called Coyabram.
It's still amazing.
If you live in Country Victoria, that part of the state is still a wonderful, wonderful place to live and especially to raise kids.
I know I absolutely loved it.
But before we go to a break, we've got to tell you about another disastrous story regarding an illegal immigrant. You should be kicked out of the UK, but may well get to stay.
We told you last month about a guy.
Who has said, look, you can't send me back to my country of origin because my kids don't like the chicken nuggets there. There are ridiculous cases coming out of the UK. Unfortunately Australia is mirroring them. When it comes to our release detainees committing crimes and getting to stay here. But this latest hair raising story out of the UK involves an Albanian criminal for more than three years for running a cannabis factory.
He's not going to be deported. The judges ruled it would deprive his daughter of a male role model.
What kind of male role model are you if you are running a cannabis factory? The shadow, the shadow rather Home Secretary Chris Philp has said drug dealers.
Are not role models.
This is another absurd decision by soft and naive immigration judges. Either enough of ECCHR and human rights laws being abused by foreign criminals being allowed to stay in this country when they should be deported. Of course, the pressing question there is the same as the question here, which we discuss every other night. Why are our laws such that if you come here, especially illegally, and we've taken you in out of the goodness of our own hearts nothing
to gain from it. Why do you get to stay here when you slap us in the face by committing crimes here, some of them far more heinous than running a cannabis factory, and you're allowed to stay on our dime, no less, whether it's back into detention, whether it's in jail, or whether it's running around with some sort of monitoring device on your ankle.
This bloke into the UK illegally twenty thirteen, was denied residency multiple times. Obviously, while he's been over there, he's hooked up with some chicken, knocked her up, so they've had a kid. In twenty twenty, he's caught with drugs and he's sent to jail. And now we say, you entered illegally, then committed crimes in our country, and we tried to get you out of here, but because you had a kid while you were here illegally, now you must stay.
I mean, that is just such an amazing role.
That is the message that is being said that if you enter illegally and commit crimes here, it's okay. As long as you get a woman pregnant while you're here, and it's all fine.
You can start.
Someone said you should have considered the risk of deportation before he did the crime, but I think he actually did consider the risk of deportation and thought I'm going to go ahead and recommit the crime. We're going to go to a break. When we come back, we'll look at what's making news tomorrow, including the Albanezi government announcing a massive injection of funds into defense, all on the advice of Donald Trump.
That's coming up in a moment. Welcome back.
Well, let's take a look at what's making news tomorrow, Caleb. Most of the papers obviously talking about the cyclone that's approaching southeast Queensland.
Indeed they are. We'll start with the Daily Telegraph where it says Alfred intensifiers as he heads for coast. Hold on flights are canceled, more than two hundred and fifty schools are closed, and northern New South Wales households have bunkered down and midfears Cyclo and Alfred will deliver three natural disasters in one when it slams into the coast tomorrow morning, that being Friday. Because this is Thursday's paper.
The Gold Coast Bulletin says Alfred's knocking. Premier David Christoph Fooley visits at the Gold Coast on Wednesday along with one hundred and seventy six extra pleas as flooding began to warn residents to prepare for cyclone. Alfred quote there is the prospect this cyclone could cross the coast in the middle of the night with a high tide. That is not the time to be making your evacuation plan.
And the Australian says millions face Alfred's Capital Punishment cyclone Alfred's predicted to lash Brisbane for twelve hours on Friday, with the slow moving and intensifying Category two storm now on track for a direct hit on the city of
two and a half million people. For the Gold Coast, it'll be their worst weather event in some seventy years, and the story goes on to say that the latest modeling, which came out tonight, shows that as it crosses the Queensland coast, it'll be the first since nineteen seventy four to do so. It'll hit in the hours after one
of the highest tides of the year. It'll drive a storm surge that threatens to inundates and estimated twenty thousand properties in Brisbane, six thousand on the Gold Coast and
four thousand, six hundred on the Sunshine Coast. And you know Queensland, obviously is it's not unusual to see tropical cyclones up there, but it's not often that they go that far down and particularly into northern New South Wales as well, so a lot of people who never really have to deal with these issues, despite living in Queensland and northern New South Wales, will be seeing it potentially for the first time in their lives.
And the big problem is houses in Brisbane, you know, those old Queenslanders timber and tin, not like in North Queensland, where you're expecting cyclones you get what two or three every year, so you're kind of used to it. A category one or two for a North Queenslander is not a big deal. Three four or five gets serious. But it's a different proposition in Brisbane where homes just aren't built to withstand it.
That's so true.
Well, the Queenslanders are built on stilts because of flooding.
They're like they're used to that.
But when we're talking about a cyclone, it ain't just flooding, it's these gale force winds is.
The complete force of the entire thing. This looks like a degree too, as.
You've mentioned, so thankfully we're not looking at a cyclone Tracy type thing, but who knows what's going to happen when you've got I mean, these things do turn out to be wrong. We've had really wrong reports from the bomb before, so well, I'm.
Saying it's a category too.
If I was in Queensland right now, i'd been, I'd be preparing for the absolute worst.
We make sure just knows they've got it wrong.
Make sure you do follow the advice of the bomb. Have your mask and hand sanitizer ready. Oh when the cyclone does his let's get another story on the front of yours tomorrow, it says Marles. Target's defense spending. The Albanezy government has opened the door to hosting so boosting, sorry, defense spending after one of US President Donald Trump's key Pentagon appointees called for a massive rise in Australia's military
spending from two percent to three percent of GDP. Defense Minister Richard Marles revealed the government was ready for an ongoing conversation with the Trump administration about lifting defense beending further than the government promised fifty billion dollar boost over a decade. Isn't it amazing what this president can get done.
Or just shows that he knows exactly what he's doing. He's playing tough, not because he doesn't care about the rest of the world, not because he doesn't care about the free world, not because he's only concerned about the US, but he understands that the rest of the world needs to lift their game. And funnily enough, even the Elbanezi government seems to have gotten the message.
Indeed, and this is timely for them as well, because this is going to be an issue going into the election. So they're killing two birds with one stone here being like a keep Trump happy and B promise the people. We're raising this by one percent of GDP, which is a very impressive jump. Indeed, we saw Kirstamer in the UK come out saying we're raising it by half a point of GDP. But something that's not really talked about when they make these announcements is you can buy more firepower, sure,
but we are so low on man power. In the UK, they are set to this year hit levels so low in terms of troops and manpower in their forces. It's going to be at the lowest level since the Napoleonic era. And here in Australia, we can't laugh because we're doing just as badly. Last year alone in the UK, fifteen thousand troops hung up their boots and we're like found
another job. I'm out of here for whatever reasons, and you find that this is the issue that needs to be addressed because for every Western nation which is going through a complete identity crisis due to massive, massive, multicultural everyone just piling into the countries. I do believe that is at the root crux of these historically very low problems that we're facing in beefing up our.
Militaries across the West. Still.
Well, so you can make these impressive announcements, but who's going to be firing them, who's going to be going to the front lines.
Who's going to.
Be sad at the desk with the required skills, who've been in the job years in training. What are we going to suddenly decide to conscript everyone should something bad happen and then you've got a pile of newbies who are still wet behind the ears.
Well, talk that easily. You just defund the ABC.
So that's not making our military look like the bad guys, and all of a sudden recruitment might improve.
We have done conscription before, and of course now we're leading people who are citizens in ter our military.
What does that tell you?
Now?
The story on the front of the US tomor are textpayers one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars for tree felling. New South Wales textpayers have been asked to fork at one hundred and twenty five grand for an Indigenous group to cut down and quote unquote make items from a tree that needed to be removed from the proposed site of a controversial nine million dollar performing arts center in
Baptist under a requirement for Aboriginal participation. The only Indigenous group to take up the offer of visits for the project was the Woraduary Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation, also behind a controversial heritage claim on the peak of Mount Panorama. I mean, there you go, just pony up money. We're going to cut the tree down anyway, but here's the money to go and do something with it. Look, greenies should be outraged by this because they've cut a
tree down in the first place. I cannot wait to see the greenees tomorrow saying that the local Aboriginal Land Corporation should not get a sceric of funding because they are vandalizing the environment. Do you reckon it's going to happen? No funny about it.
I don't think that what's the other story there, of course, is the green hydrogen is.
You left me hanging there, James. I thought you're going to say.
It's a simple question. No, they're not going to get upset because they never do fair enough.
For another story, the greenies aren't that worried about the environment of Kayleb.
Yes, I know that that was the joke. Another story quickly before we go to the break Forest axss hydrogen deal. Australia's biggest promoter of green hydrogen, and Andrew Forrest, has axed an investment packed with the US hydrogen giant plug Power, in the latest blow for the hyped clean energy source.
I mean, it just goes through to worse.
We had the story yesterday that you know, ninety percent of these projects can't get off the ground, ninety nine. Now the big players just pulled out. I mean, at this point, why don't we just say it's not going to happen. It ain't gonna happen.
And for them not to be able to make this work with all the subsidies they get and they still can't make it work. Imagine if Australia went back to I don't know.
Cold gas, beef and sheep resources. We're going to go to a break.
When we come back, Meghan Markel's got a new program on Netflix.
We'll let you know our thoughts. Welcome back.
Well, if a little later tonight you decide to flick through Netflix, Liz, Meghan Markele is.
A would you encourage people to watch this? Don't give it few.
I didn't say you should. I just said we're going to talk about.
It about what is going in said to cry out loud.
This is Megan Markle in the dying gasps of relevance, Ladies and gentlemen.
Is this her final form? At last?
She's now playing Martha Stewart, launching this show on Netflix to of course, actually.
Deliver on the deal that the Sussex has signed with Netflix years ago. This is part of that.
And now she's just like a stay at home mom, harvesting honey, making basalts, preparing dishes for the kids, having the neighbor over, and there we are in the front row. If you're one of those people, can't wait to tune in and find out who she's gonna have over next and what delicious culinary skills she's going to show off here. She is just having a neighborly chat with an next door neighbor, Vicky talking about I don't know, see if you can figure it out.
You gave me this idea.
I think it's so.
Meaningful that if you break something that is precious and valuable, it's not broken, that that fracturing. You taught me this, that that fracture actually makes it more beautiful, That break makes it more beautiful. And I just think that it felt really symbolic of saying to anyone, if you've been through something, you're not broken. It can be fixed, it can be sealed and healed.
We think it all sounds really symbolic of your current relationship with the Royal family, Miss Yoko Ono of the Royal Family. I mean another part of this that absolutely cracked me up was firstly this massive fruit platter that she has, which is it looks absolutely incredible. What one glance at that actual Housewives of Australia, you'll know that thing costs hundreds of dollars to make. So firstly, this is not a recipe that she's sharing. You haven't learned
how to cook anything. This is like a handful of blueberries.
These days is five bucks. If you're lucky.
This is not a show that is relevent to the everyday homemaker and all she's in her luxury mansion.
Highlight is in episode three where she laments the fact that people's aversion to MSG was because of racial undertones because the MSG is in Chinese food, but she says forty we've evolved beyond that.
And she also pulls up Mindy Kaling for calling a Megan Markle says, no, I'm actually a Sussex. Will you chose to leave the family woman?
And now you want to claim the name?
Please?
There you go, stay with Sky News. Coming up next is the Reata Pennehey show Good Night