Lately.
Welcome to the Late pay.
Well.
Thanks for joining us on a Thursday night.
I'm James Macpherson with Liz Thorer and Caleb Bond coming up. You know how local governments are always banging on about health and safety. You won't believe what one Sydney council has put smack bang in the middle of footpaths. Will show you that a little later. Plus, when we look at the papers, should police have the power to monitor the phones of domestic violence offenders? And the act government
has blown its budget. What's new in this country. But you'll be shocked by just how much they've blown the budget. It's quite staggering. We'll get to all of that when we look at tomorrow's news. But first now, I've always thought the best way to stop racism is to stop talking about race. I've got a couple of African sons and I always say to them, while we honor your African heritage, to be honest, that's the least important or
least interesting part of you. Far more interesting is your personality, your gifts, your talent, your character. And it's true you've got an African heritage, but it's not that important. It's incidental, not essential to who you are as a person. So it always surprises me when authorities in this country say the only way we can unite people is by continually dividing everybody according to ethnicity. One Sydney council in a West has decided they've got to fight the scourge of racism.
So they've decided to fight racism by spending two hundred and eighty thousand dollars focusing everybody on racial differences. The Inner West Council has developed the first ever anti racism strategy by a new South Wales council.
Here's what it entails.
Tell me how this builds unity amongst people in the community. The key features of the strategy include investing one hundred and twenty thousand dollars toward an evidence based, bespoke anti racism training program to be developed over two years with Western Sydney University. Let me pause for a moment just there, or come back to the rest of it in a second.
What they're going to do is they're going to spend two years developing a training course that they're then going to run through with hundreds of people in the Inner West, teaching them to spot racism and then to intervene when and if they see it. I got to tell you, when you see racism, you know it when my kids are playing on the football field and someone calls them a black so and so. In that instant, all of their teammates are right beside them having a go at
whoever made the comment. Because when you see racism, it's pretty obvious. You don't need a training course that's taken two years to develop for you to know what racism is, unless you're looking for microaggressions, in which case you're teaching colored people to be hyper sensitive and you're teaching everybody else to walk on eggshells.
It's rubbish. They shouldn't be doing this. It goes on to say.
Another key aspect is fifty thousand dollars annually allocated toward artists and community leaders from diverse backgrounds to showcase and develop their cultures. Other funding commitments include fifteen thousand dollars towards identifying and alleviating the cultural load of Aboriginal and torrestrate under staff, with the same amount allocated towards commemorating the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on
March twenty first, but doesn't stop there. The Council are going to erect thirty racism not Welcome signs around the Inner West, as though somehow a racist will see the sign and then think, oh, I'm not allowed to be a racist here. I'll have to go somewhere where the sign does not exist. They're going to erect three Aboriginal survival monuments to create cultural safe spaces, in other words, to try to bring us all together. They're going to
spend rate payer money dividing, dividing, dividing. If you want to unite the country, a much better way would be to take the two hundred and eighty thousand dollars and spend it on Australia Day, put on a massive barbecue and invite everybody from the community, no matter what the color of your skin or what your ethnic background. They put this anti racism strategy online to get feedback from the community, and wouldn't you know it, forty percent of the community said they liked it.
The rest didn't like it.
So even the anti racism strategy divine to bring everybody together, has divided the community. We have this thing called a national anthem. It's not very popular among anti racists, but maybe they should take notice of it.
It begins Australians.
That would be a good place to focus on Australians. All that's pretty good. Let us rejoice for we are one and free. If you want an anti racism strategy, I reckon that's about as far as you need to go.
And that's about all you need to know.
This attitude that to bring us together, they've got to keep dividing us up, Liz, is absolute rubbish and entirely counterproductive. They wonder why we've got social cohesion problems because even in trying to solve the problem, they.
Make it worse.
Well, it creates way more resentment.
Who enjoys going to these workshops in their workplaces? In UNI, you get a module being like you must complete this module along with all the sexual harassment.
And don't do this and don't do that type stuff. Nobody.
Maybe go ahead with the sexual harassment stuff if you find that's the problem on your campus. But in terms of race, they are making this a thing, and what it creates is resentment. I've heard it said several times before, and I'm genuinely starting to believe it's true that the coming generations, and indeed those already born are going to
be way more racist than their grandparents ever were. Because notice in the West, as our countries have been flooded with people from different parts of the world, that is when all this anti racism you can't be racist, you can't be racist, has started being pummeled into the indigenous populations, whether you're talking the UK, America, Canada, Australia, because they know that by creating a melting pot of cultures, people.
Are going to start noticing other.
People's differences and all that's racism. You can't even acknowledge difference. Nowadays it's considered racism. Once upon a time, we used to laugh at each other's differences and get along just fine.
You know.
We'd be like, oh, these are the wogs, these are the greats, these are the winging ponds.
Nobody cared.
Nowadays we've lost that, like, oh, let's all just get along. And it's due to a lot of these kinds of initiatives.
It's the if you push someone far enough, they will eventually revolt against you, which is basically what we saw
with the Voice to Parliament, right. I mean, you went with a piece of policy that was originally about sixty forty in support and ended up being roughly sixty forty again against it because people were lectured all the time, oh, you're racist if you don't support this, and people start to go, well, if you're telling me I'm racist because I'm even questioning the validity of this thing, then I'll vote no because I'll do what you're telling me not
to do, which is essentially what you're suggesting happens here. And I think that's correct. You mentioned the national anthem. I think the second verse isn't. It goes on to say for those who come from foreign lands have boundless planes to share. So we've already ticked that one off.
But as someone who lives in the Inner West Council and has for the entire time I've lived in city, No, I did not vote in this poll because I wasn't to where it existed, just like ninety nine point nine nine percent of other people in.
The inn A West Council.
But as someone who's lived there the entirety of my time, I've been in Sydney and it's a place that is very left wing. Our state member, the member for Balmain, is a Green. The federal member. Depending on where you are in the council is Anthony Albanizi your tenure pliver six. So we know how people think in the Inner West.
I'm just glad that the Inner West Council has now admitted that the people of the Inner West are racist, because if the people of the Inner West were racist, you wouldn't need to be training them to be anti racist, would you.
And of course I'm in my.
Local booth where I lived before. I've moved suburbs, but I'm just up the road from where I was my local booth during the Voice, I think voted seventy percent in favor of the Voice. So I think we're probably quite right to say that there are a bunch of racists.
In You could be chosen, Caleb for some of this bespoke anti racist in training.
Well, they would think I need it because I voted against the Voice. I would say they need it because they voted for the Voice. While we're talking about racism and such things. You might have seen today, though perhaps not because it didn't actually receive a great deal of coverage, but new hate speech laws passed through the Federal Parliament. Now this happened with barely an hour's discussion in the Senate.
It started in the Lower House, yes that I passed there, then went through to the Senate today where it was eventually passed. So this will now become law. Now there are certain parts of it with which I agree and others with which I am really worried. It means that there will be mandatory minimum sentences of six years for terror offenses, three years for financing terror and twelve months
for displaying terror symbols. But it then goes on to talk about inciting violence essentially, and the means by which someone incites violence and the rules by which you have to meet if you are in court being accused of inciting violence.
Now they have watered this down to the point where you would question whether the things you.
Might just say in a normal conversation joking halfheartedly could essentially now be called inciting violence here in Australia. If you go to the Criminal Code, what they've changed is in section eighty point two A. Now it previously said that a person can it's an offense if the first.
Person, which is how they refer to it in the.
Act, intentionally urges. Remember that intentionally urges another person or a group to use force or violence against a group. That has now changed from intentionally urges to advocates, right, so there doesn't necessarily have to be intention anymore. The wording changes to advocate to water it down. You then get to the next bit, which says that the person does so intending that the force or violence will occur. Ie, you say kill this bunch of people, et cetera, et cetera,
because you want people to do that. That now changes from intending that it will happen to reckless as to whether it will happen. So you could say something perhaps jokingly, not meaning that it will happen, but if.
You are reckless to the fact that it could.
Happen, you have by the law now in violence and the groups that we are talking about have also expanded. It used to be race, religion, nationality, national or ethnic origin, or political opinion, will now they insert into that sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, into sex status and disability. Now we all know there has been a scourge of anti Semitism in this country and we want something to be
done about it. But this is being used as a vanguard to water down free speech and add in other protected groups like the ones I just read out there sex sexual orientation. Speaking of sexual orientation. A Llegras Vender was talking about this legislation last night on seven point thirty. Now she is talking here about a sign that was held up at an the.
On Nazi rally.
As she says, but that's not really pertinent to the sign that was held up. She'll explain the sign she thinks should be made illegal.
Take a listen.
I support where the government is going with this legislation, but I want to go further. And that is the question I'm really trying to address, is those people who are promoting and really pushing hate in our community. So currently under the current legislation, things like some a neo Nazi protests which had destroy pedo Freaks as a banner that wouldn't be covered under the current legislation.
Out I want to destroy pedo freaks to be speech that is now considered a crime in Australia. I understand the idea that you know, basically no one has been charged under hate speech laws, and I don't think that's a problem with the law necessarily. I think that's been an unwillingness for at least to try the laws out I mean, we're fiddling with laws here without really knowing the bounds of what can be done with them, because they haven't actually been tested in court.
So we jumped the shark and now say that if you say something that is reckless or without reckless knowledge of what might happen, you could be up on a defense.
I just wonder if, for instance, because sex is now included, right, Clementine Ford, a feminist commentative, any of you would know used to quite frequently say kill all men. Now sex is now a protected group under this legislation. You say kill all men. She means it as a joke or ironically when she says it. But is she saying that without reckless as to weather, someone might go and then kill a man?
So does that mean that sentence.
Which is from her a joke, is now a crime in Australia.
Is this where we've gone?
So let's take that as a rhetorical question. Here's the bigger problem we've got in this country. As you pointed out, the Senate took all of one hour to review this legislation, which is not exactly simple. It's quite complicated in some
of its detail. Our senators spent more time debating whether or not Donald Trump is a threat to the world than they did debating this legislation, which then has direct impacts upon things you post on social media, things you say to a mate over a beer at the pub, something you say outside your church or whatever. And so the Senate, which is meant to be a place of
reviewing legislation, saying is this good? What are the unintended consequences, has just become all about rubber stamping legislation according to which senator, which which party each senator belongs to. It's quite derelict in their duty of our senators to wave through legislation which you've so brilliantly described, has got all sorts of problems with it.
How do you interpret it?
What does it mean to wave it through without doing due diligence?
And these things are never tested until it's before a court, until someone brings the case, and then of course the judge in control of that simply is held by the bound and then you've got a precedent set because either the judge said it applies or it doesn't apply. Hence the case is build up, and then lawyers have precedents to rely on. It's utterly insane. I've said it, be all said again. I'm a free speech absolutist, I really am.
You can't have free speech without hay speech. You either have both or neither.
And as we know, anything.
That's even incitement, how do you measure incitement? Now that they've taken intent out of it, one would think, because that lowers the bar, intent is very hard to prove. I can say I was joking, you can say I was dead serious and my intent was to cause you grievous bodily harm. Who's to say so They've removed that now, and all that matters is that I said it, and the rest is.
Up to the judge. I mean, it's just a can of worms.
I genuinely find it disgusting that we have any of these kinds of bills, well now laws in our country at all. It does not belong in a free democracy. And I know that that means O people will be able to.
Say very vile things.
But for centuries this has worked for us because people say vile things and society rightly revials them.
And you said that.
No one's been convicted for a hate speech crime in Australia.
Well, I'm not aware of anything. This happened recently.
Now there was the case of this absolutely stupid kid, Jacob Parsons in Victoria just last year he was sentenced for one month to jail for doing a siege hile. So that takes it to even another level where you've got this judge who said it was a.
Display of hate speech.
Well, actually I could contend that this particular fellow had actually said hate speech, but the case itself centered around this Nazi salute that he'd done just weeks after Victoria had made it a crime to do so. And so I don't think that got enough media attention because that is definitely the first of its kind in Australia where someone is doing jail time while his lawyers are appealing because of a gesture.
So then looking at this kind of.
Legislation, it's just an absolute cannib Wait this is and once you start, you can't stop.
We can point to one case, right, but there's been plenty of other hate speech happening in Australia. Have any of these cases been tried?
And that's the thing.
How we say, does this capture the hate preacher?
How can we Kuran?
Can you now not quote that part of the Quran as the man that we.
Played countless times. You probably remember him.
I can't remember his exact name, because unfortunately there's too many of them.
I can't remember which it was.
But he was reading from an Islamic script when he was quoting, saying there's a Jewish person behind me, come get him. Basically, will that be captured by this legislation because we know that so far to our knowledge, no one's been prosecuted.
And that's the point you made.
They haven't tried to even use existing laws. Now they're making new laws. And the other thing that gets me about this is the premise for we need new laws is antisemitism. Right, But we heard the Victorian premier justinto Allen's say the other night, you know, antiseism is really bad, and then she said next breath, you need to be able to love who you love, marry who you want to marry, and pray to who you want to pray to.
So all of a sudden, antisemitism was thrown out, and all we came about all these other identities that are now protected, which makes you think, is it really about dealing with antisemitism, or is antisemitism just a very convenient crisis right now for people who want to limit free speech to take action, and.
They don't seem to have taken into account at all. What say a case were to be bought against, say one of these hate preachers, then what of religious freedoms and the laws around that?
So then you've got your own laws having a face off in court.
God help whoever that judge turns out to be, because I'm sure it's just a matter of time to the States now where you may have heard of Politico. It's not that big here in Australia, but it is in America. And we've just found out why the Biden administration was sending this media outlet during its tenure over twenty seven million dollars.
What a rot?
This isn't supposed to be a government funded media organization whatsoever. DOGE has found this out, but it was brought to their attention when all of a sudden, when the USAID payments were put on hold, because DOGE was going line by line through every single expenditure saying, excuse me, what is this?
For that week, Politico did not pay.
Its employees, and the employees even joked amongst themselves is this because USAID payment.
Have been frozen.
Here's a tweet from Elon Musk when it was brought to his attention that the Biden administration had at one point paid half a million dollars for just thirty seven subscriptions. And that graph you can see on your screen right now is where their money came from over.
The course of the Biden administration. Look at all the different departments.
Biden really put his hand in the pocket for these guys, and if you go over the years of media that they pumped out during the Biden administration's term, you can see that it was actually very well spent because Politico made sure to absolutely give these guys a tongue bath every single chance it got, whether it was.
Covering up Hunter Biden laptop.
Story, all the fact that this was a presidency that started with denying the Hunter Biden story even existed, much less had any credit to it, and ended with the President hardening his son for the very thing that had started out saying wasn't legitimate in the first place. So a lot of questions have been asked, but here is Press secretary, the White House Press Secretary, Carolyn Levitt telling Politico to their face in the press conference room. Your big payday, your big cash cow ends today.
Upon coming out here to the briefing room, I was made aware of the funding from USAID to media outlets, including Politico, who I know has a seat in this room. And I can confirm that the more than eight million taxpayer dollars that have gone to essentially subsidizing subscriptions to Politico and the American taxpayer's dime will no longer be happening. The DOGE team is working on canceling those payments.
Now.
What makes this revelation even worse is the fact that due Toltico's fake subscription numbers being pumped up so high, they were able to sell themselves to.
A German company.
So all these millions of American taxpayer dollars were actually going into the pockets of people oceans away who were then benefiting from them pumping out propaganda into the American public.
This is just extraordinary.
And on top of this, we've discovered that BBC got over three million dollars. New York Times got over three million dollars. These are supposed to be independent, well, not the BBC that's supposed to be funded by the UK government, So.
What's going on there?
You're paying for a few favors from them as well. This is horrendous and really opens up the door to question marks over the legitimacy of every story written during the Biden administration tenure.
That was just a big rate.
It's pretty good going, isn't Because the one you quoted before four hundred and forty three thousand, nine hundred and ninety eight dollars for thirty seven subscriptions to Politico Pro. Now, Politico Pro I went on their website and I couldn't find what a subscription cost, so I can't ten thousand. Well, we'll see they've paid twelve thousand per person if you divide that number by thirty seven thousand, thirty thirty.
Seven people, I should say.
But it's some sort of like public policy platform where it colates legislation that's currently going through the House or whatever, and it's got news pertinent to those pieces of legislation. Like, if you're paying twelve thousand dollars per person a year for that service, you're telling me you couldn't get someone
internally to go and do that. Now, I had no problem in principle with the government paying for subscription to news services so that members of the government can read, because it's only fair that they pay the same as every other member.
Of the public.
But compare and contrast through the entirety of the Biden administration. You know how much money they spent on News Corp. And news Corp has as well as Sky News of course in Australia, and all the newspapers here. They've got Fox News one of the biggest cable news networks in the United States, the New York Posts one of the biggest newspapers in the United States, the Wall Street Journal one of the most important business newspapers in the United States.
You know how much money the Biden administration spent over four years on news Corp. Zero until October the first last year. They had spent zero dollars on any News Corp publication until October the first, when they decided just before they left office that they would spend thirty seven five hundred dollars on one hundred and fifty.
Subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal.
So in all that time they spent all that money on Politico and all these other to wing outlets, and not once did they spend dissent until the dying days on the Wall Street Journal of all the newspapers, So it seems pretty clear that they were using this money to give it to outlets that they thought would give them favorable coverage.
Either that or they couldn't be able to read the coverage that.
Biden was getting in the rest of the media because they knew how bad it was.
But that's clearly the decisions they were making with that month.
Twenty seven million over the course of four years mag.
How many subscriptions is that.
I think clearly they understood the only way they're going to get positive coverage for Joe Biden is to pay for it and pay through.
The nose for it.
And of course you mentioned the story Politico did dismissing the Hunter Biden Lapstock laptop store and trying to bury that. Do you remember Politico Also they reported a leak from the US Supreme Court when they were deliberating over what to do with Roe v. Wade, Yes, and a draft decision was leaked by Politico and it ended up with conservative judges having death threats have guards outside judges' homes because this decision, which of course the Democrats hated. This
decision was leaked by politicos. So the Democrats got value for money.
But yeah, you're right.
They didn't invest in Fox, they didn't invest in The Daily Wire, they weren't giving money to Joe Rogan, none of those things.
They knew where to go, they knew where their.
Bread was buttered.
But I'll tell you who is starting to get the message. The big tech companies Google, for instance, have got the message that DEI under Donald Trump is now dead and buried. You know, in twenty twenty four, five point seven employees at Google were black and seven point five Google employees were Latino. I know that affects you Google searchers greatly,
doesn't It makes no difference at all. But Google knew because ever since George Floyd died in twenty twenty, Google, along with most other corporations in the US, were very focused on diversity and increasing the number of underrepresented people in their organizations. From twenty twenty one through to twenty four, Google every year announced in their annual report that they were.
Committed to DEI.
It was one of the vital things that they did because, of course, we all know diversity is our strength. Will this year, for the first time since George Floyd's death, Google didn't bother in their annual report to Mention DEI at all. In fact, they sent out an email saying they will no longer set hiring targets for underrepresented groups. They're going to focus entirely just on people who are you know, good at their job. What a novel idea. But Trump's only been in the White House.
What is it now?
Coming up to three weeks and already we're seeing massive shifts right across the US. God willing it will start to come to places like Australia, you know, see some kind.
Of So far no movement here, but it has been extraordinary. We've had Meta, we've had Starbucks, We've had even these massive brands that we're familiar over here in Australia. There's many others in the States who have joined this long growing list. They now know it's on the nose. People aren't remotely interested. There was a day that by flying all the different flags, etc. You were encouraging everyone through your doors. Now you're actually discouraging people. They don't like it,
and they've had enough. Something else that they don't like is biological men playing in women's sports and true to his word, President Donald Trump has signed an executive order banning it.
Here he was, you know, if you'd.
Like to gather around me, I think I'm going to be. You come, secret services. Worried about them? If we have to worry about them, we have big problems.
Are you ready? What a nice picture of this is?
Uh?
Governor?
You ready?
We'll do a good.
Joby a lett impress that.
I want to make this a really good signature because this is you know, this is a big one.
Right oh, I think we.
Have a ten.
We have a ten.
And speaking of hoping these things will translate into Australian politics, dunt't wasted no time with an exclusive on the Credlin this evening, backing Donald Trump right in.
I think it's one of those debates that we have to be honest in and it's not about discriminating against anyone, including young girls. And young girls want to be able to compete on a fair basis, and I think that is a perfectly reasonable position to hold or young girls not to be able to achieve their Olympic dream, their pathway to a World Cup, or to be displaced from a team because you know, somebody has a physiological advantage
over them. I just don't think that is that's not in the spirit of sport.
And will you commit to banning it? Will you commit to banning it?
Goods?
He was Trump saying the war on women's sports is over.
A bit more emphatic.
Than that, And we will defend the proud tradition of female athletes. And we will not allow men to beat up, injure and cheat our women and our girls. From now on, women's sports will be only for women. With this executive order, the war on women's sports is over.
Hallelujah.
So many women and across the States have missed out big time, and it ends now. And it's thanks to the tireless work of those brave ones who were reviled by their schools, reviled by their universities, refused to play, therefore missed out even before they had a chance to compete, because they simply said, I will not compete against a biological man.
It's so common sense it almost defies logic that it has to be done.
But the reaction was quite astonishing.
I mean, The Guardian reported on Trump's decision, thus saying it's the latest in a series of moves rolling back the rights of trans people. So the Guardian were not at all about way we need to protect girls, we need to protect female sport. It was rolling back the
rights of trans people. But could you imagine, Caleb, how confused lefties would have been watching that press conference that Trump did because he was surrounded, did you see by a group of people, and leftives would have been looking at the group of people trying to.
Figure out what are they?
They?
Are they girls? Are they non binary? Gender neutral?
Are they boys trapped in girls' bodies?
Because, of course, this is the.
Difference between Donald Trump and the Democrats. Trump knows that there are two genders, male and female, and he can tell them apart. The Democrats had a nominee for Vice president who was putting tampons.
In boys' bathrooms.
It's obvious, which is why Liz, I thought your point about Peter Dutton's interview was well made. It would have been nice to see Peter Dutton, our future Prime Minister.
Not say it's entirely reasonable.
I think to make sure that we don't have boys in girls' sports entirely reasonable, it's common sense, it's basic logic. It's an outrage that we've got to a point where it needs to be said. It would have been nice to see Peter Dutton. I appreciate what he said, but he could have said it with a bit more.
You're waiting for that line, Caleb of in a coalition government.
And do the same.
And this is the trouble.
He's trying to walk a tight rope at the moment where he doesn't want to upset the left of his party and he doesn't want to alienate people in these tlcs because they want to get those works back, et cetera. But it doesn't have to be and it shouldn't be a controversial issue because it's not fundamentally about I hate transgender people. It's an issue of fairness and that's the way in.
Which it should be sold. That look, we all send out.
It's not even an issue of fairness, it's an issue of biology.
Well, of course it's an is fairness.
You can debate it's an issue of biology when we're talking about you know, broader stuff when it comes to transcender issues.
But we're talking specifically about sport. The reason it is an issue.
Is because biologically, yes, men have more strength than women. That's where the foenus issue comes into it right, and so surely it's not hard to prosecute the argument that if you're sending little Sarah or whoever it is, to school, the chi should have just as much opportunity to excel in sport as little Johnny when you send him off to school. It's an issue of fairness, and particularly here
in Australia, we say we're the country the fair go. Right, if the fair go is an Australian value, it should be the easiest thing to possibly sell. And if you want to watch the rest of that interview, if you didn't catch it earlier to night, or you want to watch the extended excerpts of it, you can get a Sky news dot com dot au and stream that exclusive interview with Peter Dutton conducted by Peter Kredlin this evening. And he also says in that interview that he likes
to Clint Eastwood film on that count. Mister Dutton, I am with you. Now let's go down to the saga of Victoria's bail laws. We've been talking about this all week here on the Late Debate. It started on Monday night when we showed you the front of Tuesday's Herald Son where premierges Cinta Allen said there will be a review into bayl laws. Then last night we talked about the fact that the Police Minister Anthony Carby and stood up at a presser yesterday and said, look, there is actually.
No review going on.
I wouldn't even call it a review, he said, And in fact, I have in my bottom draw at least ten things I could do right now to fix the bail laws here in this state. Jacinta Allan's response to that was quote unquote, well that's terrific.
Well, Aga, it's even better because the other.
Minister, of course involved in all of this is the Attorney General Sonya kill Kenny. Now, we hadn't heard from her all week, and journalists had been asking for miss kill Kenny to come out and address the media about this report that apparently isn't a report into the bail laws. In this morning, she at least twice said no to
doing a presser until one little problem popped up. See just cent her Alan stood up in Parliament today and said there are currently eight criminals who are on bail walking around Victoria and we don't know where they are because there was a private company called bail Safe that was employed to monitor these people, and a week ago, without telling the government, bail Safe shut down. So now
we have no idea where they are. Well, Miss Kilkenny thought, oh god, I can't get out of it now, I must go and do a press conference where she filled us with so much confidence by letting us know that It wasn't until the media asked her about fail safe that she was even aware that private companies were monitoring people in Victoria. Take a look, how many pies are in this operating Victoria.
Well, we know of bao Safe, and what we also know is that that bailsafe has failed to alert state agencies of these developments. I also find that the use of bow Safe, in fact, the use of any private company for these purposes, is not appropriate whatsoever.
Sotatifically, you don't know how many other companies there are other than.
I'm not responding to that.
She's not responding to that because she doesn't know the answer. I mean, this has to be the greatest cockup I've seen in quite a while.
Yeah, as we said the other night, there's a by election on Saturday in Werribee, and so in preparation for the by election.
The Premier Victoria grab a cigar, put it in her.
Mouth and lit it and it's exploded in their faces.
I love Michael O'Brien, the shadow Attorney General's response to this. He said she might be a part time Attorney General because she's got her planning portfolio, which is clearly more interested in. But the Attorney General is the first law
officer in Victoria. She's obligated to come out and answer questions about her government's absolute failure to regulate this industry, which has led to this collapse, which means Victorians are less safe when a politician responds to a question like that simply saying I won't be responding.
To that one. Then what are we paying you for?
I just love.
They're going to have a review of bail laws as soon as they can find all the people who are meant.
To bail who has disappeared.
Unbelievable, all of those people in Victoria watching, we love you, were praying for you. We're going to go to a break when we come back. Look at what's making news tomorrow, including the act government have blown their budget big time.
We'll tell you how much by it In just a moment welcome back.
Let's take a look at what's making news tomorrow. We'll start with the Canberra Times and on the front page they've got a photograph of what must be the most unlucky man in the country. That's the former Transport Minister of the Act, Chris Steele. In November, he thought he was getting a promotion. Calebin Liz, the first Minister, Andrew Barr, said to Chris Steele, how would you like to be the treasurer? Andrew Barr had been doing it for quite
some time. Chris Steele thought he was getting a prize. And as I said, he's only been doing it a couple of months and he's had to update Camberians on the state of the finances. Daddy of all deficits, reads the headline. The Act's new Treasurer has warned of tough and challenging to see heead of balancing the Act's budget, with the territory now on track to post its highest deficit in history. Here's the interesting part and maybe the reason Andrew Barr was so keen to give Chris Steele
an opportunity to take the limelight. The definitis is expected to reach nine hundred and seventy one point seven million dollars in twenty twenty four to twenty five, more than three hundred and forty seven million dollars larger than was predicted in the budget just last year. That is a fifty nine point nine percent budget blowout in less than twelve months, and Chris Steele is left there holding the can on behalf of his first minister. I wonder how
warm that relationship between those two politicians now is. He's saying, and I love this quote, he says, there are tough decisions that had to be made and we're prepared.
To work through those.
Well, it's good you're prepared to work through the tough decisions. Since you're blown the budget by sixty percent in less than twelve.
Months, I suspect it's as warm as North Pole right now. But I mean, and they're saying that two hundred and twenty seven million dollars of it was on the health system. How do you just miscalculate spending on the health system by two hundred million?
Really?
Yeah?
Right?
A lot of come on?
And then there's another one hundred and twenty odd that's been spent hell swear that they didn't know was going. How does that happen? What is no one actually in charge of the budget in the act?
I know, public servant.
They still have a slim surplus.
Oh that's could still have a sim It's going to be fine, Ken Barns hang in there to the Courier mail. Now cops want to monitor phones of DV thugs password protect. The splash reads domestic violence offenders would be forced to share the device passwords with the police and have their movements tightly controlled under sweeping changes proposed by the Queensland
Police Union. The article goes on to say that control orders for high risk offenders would restrict associations, where they went and who they communicated with.
They would also be banned.
From online dating apps and from going to nightclubs.
Now this sounds.
Fabulous maybe on first read, but I have some serious questions about this because there's all kinds of criminals that have more freedoms than that. Why is it if you have a history of domestic violence, that me having access to your passwords and all your online activity, your text messages per se, you can't go to nightclubs.
I'm just not sure how this creates.
Someone who's less likely to offend or even prevent them from offending.
Do not using dating apps and going to nightclubs. Bit maybe makes sense from their perspective. The only thing I can glean from it really is that it means that a copper could inspect their phone without having to go
to a court for an order to do so. But presumably you would only be doing so if you had suspicion that they might have committed an offense that were likely to commit an offense, in which case in cases of DV, it's usually because someone's breached an apprehended violence order, which means they've already fallen foul of the law, and so that the law should be.
Dealing with them anyway.
And if you are that bad a repeat offender to the point where they're that worried about you, create laws that put them in the clink, but keep them in the clink. I mean, I've argued this about repeat Peter files before, people who are just constant dangers, who cannot be reformed and have proven themselves to be unable to be reformed, and we let them out and then they go and offend again, and then we go through this
every ten years. They get out and they reoffend again, and we go, oh, well, you know, that's just how the cookie crumbles. Ought not be how the cookie crumbles. You can go through their phone. But if this is someone who continually reoffends with domestic violence, just put them in jail and leave them there.
I think a lot of people would have sympathy for doing whatever we can to keep domestic violence offenders from reoffending. I mean, we've seen some horrific murders over the last couple of years of women who and and authorities had fair warning that things were going in the wrong direction. So anything they can do to crack down on this they should do. But this does seem a little odd.
It's talking of crime.
Go to the Herald Sun tomorrow where we're talking about prisoners. Here, they're not getting it as good as.
They'd like it.
Apparently, King Pinn's food fight, It says, exclusive from Anthony Dowsley dows I hope you will mate. One of the nation's most volatile inmates is on a hunger strike over a lack of meal choices. Convicted drug trafficker George Morogi wants bar and prison to offer more hosher dishes. Well,
I'm sorry to inform you mate. But when you traffic in drugs and all the other sorts of things that go on in organized crime, and we send you off to the clink to pay your penance to society, you don't get to choose the food that you receive, and good luck to you go on a hunger strike. I hope you stay on the hunger strike forever and that
finishes you off. If you are literally that stupid that you feel that you can go on a hunger strike to get whatever food you want while you're in prison, then I think you probably deserve to suffer the consequences that come at the end of a hunger strike.
Don't you think there's not no kosher options?
He just went forward more.
Prison.
It's not a bloody days back.
Before you go to prison, do you get an opportunity to peruse the menu and see what's on offer?
Is that well, I will be choosing the steak fruits with a glass of read if favored up in that position.
Let's go to the front page of Sydney's Daily Telegraph. Golf course cover up to spark property crash and cost two hundred million dollars more madness, reads the headline, slashing More Park golf course in half. That's the proposal by the state government and backed by the City Council. Will cost the cash strapped state government two hundred million dollars and one of Australia's top witters, State Agents predicts nearby
property values would also crash by twenty percent. Now that two hundred dollar figure has been billion dollars, sorry, two hundred million dollar figure.
I'm sounding like the Treasure of the eighty.
It's what happened with the Burney General of Victorias.
I will not the.
Treasure of Victoria who doesn't use economic terms.
That two hundred million dollar figure has been put down by a golfing consortium, so you know you've got to take that into consideration. But if that is true, or even remotely true, the New South Wales government have put aside two point five million dollars to divide up the golf course.
That money is tight.
If that's going to be the price, then that would be a good reason to leave the golf course intact.
Why is it I feel like we have one of these stories. At least every six months.
There's a golf course story, and everyone's like, save the golf course, and the Premier who or whoever's in charge of being like, look, we've crunched the numbers.
We've got to do this every single time. Is it just me?
This one has been going for a while, this argument.
I think it's because Greenies hate people using open groups.
Last time it was the one in New South Wales and everyone was like save the golf course and Min's was waiting in on it.
This was the way park.
In fact, there was a Hollywood star Why the same one.
We're going to go to a commercial break.
When we come back, we'll talk about a council that I mean, they're always going on about health and safety.
Right, wait till you see what this council has put smack bang in the middle of for paths. That's coming up in a moment.
Welcome back, well, Liz, the new US continues to provide endless entertainment.
They do.
He is Carolyn Levitt telling the public even more ridiculous projects that USAID has been splurging their heart earned dimes on.
And I would just say a strong message to Democrats who are out there pretending to be outraged about the long list of crop that this administration is cutting. Federal waste and funding like two million dollars for sex changes in Guatemala, six million to fund tourism in Egypt, twenty million on a new Sesame street show in Iraq, four
point five million to combat disinformation in Kazakhstan. Democrats are outraged that the American people want to be They want their taxpayers going to good uses, not stuff like this. But then they're very quiet about the fact that there are still North Carolinians and people in California who have lost everything and in the last four years, this federal government did nothing to help them.
Every day by telling them more of the stuff that they're cutting, more of these ridiculous projects that they're finding, so much so that comedians are now taking to socials to do their own parodies of this daily ritual.
Hi, Welcome to the Department of Government Efficiency. We were looking over last year's budget and we found some anomalies that we wanted to address. Okay, if you're talking about the military budget, if you want a safe country, that's how much we Oh, we didn't even start looking at that yet, get ready for that. No, we were looking at this list here. We wanted to start with the National Pillow Fluffing Initiative. I mean, don't you want your
pillow to be fluffy? Also, the Bureau of Elevator Music Standards. Explain yourself, forgive me if you're trying to set the vibe bro eight hundred thousand dollars a year, the National Velcrow Noise Study.
What's the problem here.
You don't have to spend a million dollars a year to know that velcrow noise is annoying.
Now, the Federal Kazoo Orchestra Grant.
It's amazing what they could do with those things, honestly. The Federal Bureau of Traffic cone counting two hundred and fifty six three hundred and forty three. You're welcome now, that's what I call eight hundred thousand dollars while spent.
And forget about traffic cone counting. The yay of the day goes to Bayside Council in Sydney, which managed to do this in the middle of their footpaths. Yes, that is an electricity box. They have literally built the footpath right around it.
How much better can you get?
Unbelievable? Well done, guys, that's.
It from us stick around. Coming up is the Reader Penalty Show good night,