Good evening and welcome to the media show.
I'm Caleb Bond. Here's what's coming up tonight.
The ABC accused of yet again misleading viewers in a military story, and a senator takes aim over their profile piece on Bob Katter, Big story from CNN. They say they don't hate America. Huge news if it's true, and we will someone call out the six hundred billion dollar figure that Labour keeps ascribing to the coalition's plan for
nuclear energy. But first, the ABC, as I said before, this week, cleared itself of wrongdoing over a complaint that a Four Corners report made it look like the construction noise could be heard over the last post at the Australian War Memorial. The episode, hosted by journalist Mark Willisy, was broadcast last month and was critical of the War
Memorial's five hundred million dollar expansion. James Willis reported in the Daily Telegraph this week that the War Memorial had lodged an official complaint with the ABC over the episode, and specifically the bit where the last post is played
over the top of construction noise. The Australian War Memorials director Matt Anderson told The Telly that they had quote a stop work order since twenty twenty to prevent construction noise from disrupting commemorative ceremonies, including the daily Last Post ceremony. At best, it was remarkably insensitive to all for whom the sounding of the last Post is a most solemn act and tribute. At worst, it appears it was a
deliberate edit to mislead the audience. This is the part of the program to which he refers.
The inheritors of Charles Bean's simple solemn vision are now massively expanding the memorial. This place of commemoration is also a construction site.
Now what you saw there was multiple pieces of footage edited together. The construction footage was not filmed at the same time as the last Post or the footage showing mister Willisey, and I don't suggest that it was deliberately edited to make it look like construction was going on while the Last Post was playing, but I do think
many viewers would have had that impression. The ABC doesn't seem to agree, though, because it's Ombardsman, which is an internal reviewer of complaints, not an external ombardsman.
As you might think.
Found that quote the episode did not suggest that construction noise from the development site had disrupted a last post ceremony. We think that four corners is correct that no reasonable viewer would interpret this series of scenes as a continuous sequence.
Even a viewer who might have got the impression that the recording of the last post was live audio from the ceremony in the first or second scene would have understood that it was then borrowed quote unquote as a unifying musical soundtrack for the following, related but separate scenes.
Again, you saw the footage. I'll let you be the judge.
And of course, this isn't the first time the ABC has been caught in a scandal over the editing of a military related story by mister Willacy. You'll recall that last year we found out the ABC edited extra gunshots into footage in a story that suggested Commando Heston Russell
committed war crimes in Afghanistan. Well after This network's Chris Kenny discussed the war memorial story this week and also mentioned the previous story by mister Willersey, the ABC sent a complaint to Sky News claiming his comments were reputationally damaging to mister Willersey and the Four Corners team. The ABC, I think should be more concerned with the accuracy of its programs and how they're presented to viewers, rather than
firing off complaints to those who question them. Sjoining me on the panel this week Skarn News contributor Kel Richards and the man I was just talking about James Willis of the Daily Telegraph, and I'll start with you, James Cracker Yarn. Of course that you broke this week, But the ABC says there is no problem here. Do you buy the idea that a reasonable viewer, no reasonable viewer, they say, would have got the impression that the last post was interfered with by construction Laise.
Well, Caleb.
For everyone that I've shown this footage to over the last few days, both in media in private political figures, they've all been of.
The view that at the very least it.
Was an insensitive act to have anything playing over the sacred bugle call of the last Post, and so to have the construction running over the top was certainly insensitive.
But on the wider issue, this was.
A one hour program that largely focused on critics of the five hundred million dollar expansion of the War Memorial, which involves the building of.
A new ANZAC hall.
And there are some people that have been involved with the warm memorial previously in fairness that are opposed to this, and they were big subjects of this ABC program. But given that the program was about the redevelopment and some of the issues around that, I certainly thought, looking at this on first glance that it was clear to me that they'd tried to indicate there was construction going on over the last post ceremony. Now the ABC has investigated
four Corners. The way the Ombudsman works, as they make inquiries to four Corners, they have a look at what went to wear and then they make a decision. And in this case they've said, look, four Corners has no case to answer. But yes, the Ombudsman receives thousands of complaints relating to ABC content every year. In twenty twenty three twenty four they upheld just two percent, and there's always going to be that concern about the ABC Ombardsman.
They claim they're independent, but I think the way they deal with the teams internally would indicate that people can make up their own minds about where those findings are. I've heard the argument they mark their own homework before the ABC rejects that. But there's certainly been stories, and the Heston Russell one was another one. Keep in mind the ABC also had to remove several Heston Russell stories from the end after he successfully sued the public broadcaster
in twenty twenty three. That cost tax pays at least a million dollars in the federal court in legal fees and costs. And that was all because the ABC had made a mistake back in twenty twenty and refused to apologize, refused to take the story down, and so eventually three four years later, mister Russell went to court, one judgment and finally the ABC took action over what was a shocking error on that story.
And I just I don't understand Kell, and we've talked about this before, how no one in the editing of that program looked at that and went, oh, I think maybe it makes it look like the last post is being interfeed with by constructions.
It's not looked at by one person. It's not just the editor in the editing booth and the reporter. It's the producer of the segment. It's the executive producer of the program. These things are looked at many times. Now, it seems to me, as James was saying, they had an agenda, and their agenda was they were going to take side of the people who posted the development. Now, whether it's a good development or a bad development is
beside the point. They appeared to me to be taking a line and running that line, and that.
Was controlling too many decisions.
Hence it may not be a manipulation, but it looks like manipulation. Now, if I sat there in the editing move at the ABCN making current affair stories, when you cut from one scene to another, why do you keep the sound of the music from one scene running over the next scene for as long as it ran. That makes no logical sense. And if you were doing a balanced story, you would have got rid of it because that was about the ceremony.
This is about the construction.
So no, I mean, we've got to remember the ABC claimed in the Heston Russell case that five gunshots accidentally fell onto the soundtrack from the sort of woodwork or something. The other problem with this is the one that James pointed to, which is the Ombospen system.
There's something wrong there.
You've got an internal internal.
System that's right.
So what you need to do is to cut money out of the ABC's budget and set up a separate unit which will say we will independently check the ABC. I know what would happen. Whoever, the independent ombos would suddenly discover they got no cooperation with the ABC whatsoever.
That's what we could possibly have, that could we now.
I think it's been a pretty boring election campaign so far, but we had a little bit of intrigue this week when Peter Dutton's twenty year old son Harry, fronted a pressor on Monday to say he was struggling to see how he could afford to buy a home.
I am saving up for a house and so is my sister back and a lot of my mates. But as you've probably heard, it's almost impossible to get in.
And it's a fair point to make.
House values are now sixteen and a half times the average annual income, compared to nine times at the turn of the century. But of course, Harry Dutton isn't just some ordinary kid off the street. He's the son of the opposition leader who happens to have made tens of millions of dollars by trading property so predictably, the senior
Dutton was asked about this. As one reporter put it to him on Monday, why won't you support him a bit and give him a bit of help to get into the housing market, And it quickly became the headline across many outlets, essentially suggesting that it was stupid for a rich man's kid to say he can't afford a house and that his dad ought to punt up some money. Now, mister Dutton dodged that question on Monday, but he clarified the next day that he probably would help his son.
Will you help them if they're saving for a deposit and proving to be a good financial financially responsible.
Kids, And I think our households are no different to many households, where you want our kids to work hard to save and will help them with a deposit at some stage.
But now it was bad media strategy from Dutton and his team that they should have anticipated that that question would come.
But surely the point is that you.
Shouldn't have to rely on the bank of mum and dad to buy a home. Pointing out that mister Dutton could afford to help his kids isn't quite the gotcha. Some journalists might think it is James. I mean, I found it astounding that the media, of certain sections of the media anyway, seemed to be turning around and suggesting that intergenerational wealth is the best way to get into the housing market.
Well, I can understand where and look, I sort of feel Caleb that he did leave himself open to some criticism here by pulling that stunt and putting his son up for the press conference. But I also thought, and not for the first time in this campaign, that he was treated very unfairly by the press pack And there's been multiple examples of this where they've hit him with some very very I think unfair questions, And this was the kind of thing.
You can understand.
There's a perception with some people in Australia that Peter Dutton doesn't have that friendly or you know sometimes times, that family or that human element, so they're trying to humanize him by bringing his family involved. I didn't really have a problem with it, and I think, yeah, you're right, like we shouldn't have to rely on the bank of mum and dad. But guess what most people do. I did, to an extent, my brothers did to an extent. Most of my friends did to an extent to get in
the door. And so for Peter Dunton to come out and say that is fine. Now, that doesn't mean you have to link back to his property portfolio or anything else. I think it was a nice moment and I thought the way that the press responded to that was was quite unfair.
In my view over the last few.
Days, I think he should have more of his family on the campaign trail, to be honest. Now, earlier I gave the ABC wrap over the knuckles, but now I'm going to defend them because apart from the reporting on the Australian War Memorial, they also came under fire this week for broadcasting an episode of Australian Story on Bob Catter.
Got ninety seconds seven Today we've got to one you can too, So Lisa, you can't do it. I'm Bob's chief of staff and I've been his chief of staff for the last three years.
Your speech is on the can itself.
No no, no, no no.
So he makes me very stressed at times.
He makes me.
Exasperated at times.
You need to start preparing now because we're.
Going to run out of time.
My sisters and I have all worked for Dad at some point or another, and we call it doing time.
It was a wide ranging documentary about the father of the House, his five decades in politics and his personal life. It was a great portrait of someone who's dedicated himself to public life.
But not everyone liked it.
Ell In p Senator Susan McDonald said it breached the ABC's editorial standards. She said, quote, it's my understanding that the piece was going to be used as a tribute to Bob because they believed he was retiring when it became apparent.
That he wasn't.
To do an Australian story on somebody who's running for election is not a level playing field. I don't see them rectifying that by featuring the other candidates. It's an extraordinary decision by the ABC to use taxpayers money to feature one politician who's up for election. That doesn't meet the sniff test of what is a fair and equitable representation of the political landscape in that location and use
of taxpayers money. It fails editorial balance and impartiality. The Board of the ABC should be examining how that decision was made.
Now.
Look, I know the ABC might have a bent against the coalition, but I don't think Bob Catter is exactly their flavor either, And he's been the member for Kennedy since nineteen ninety three. He had sixty three percent of the two party preferred vote in twenty twenty two election interference. This is not and to pretend it is, frankly, I think is desperate. I mean, look, the ABC commits many sins kill, but I'm not sure this is.
What look largely on your side. Three quick points.
The first is if it was any other candidate in a two candidate contest at the time of the election for seat X, then running a profile on one and not on the other would be wrong.
But as you say, it's Bob Catter.
Bob Catter has been the member for Kennedy since Noah was a small boy. In fact, I think it was Catter who heard the knocking on the inside of the door of the ark and opened it to let out the animals and Noah and his family. So he's really safe. He's going to be re elected now. Having said that, so that's okay. I still think it would have been an intelligent decision to say let's wait till after the third of May. Let's put this episode back till after
the election is over. He's going to be re elected, right the chance of anyone beating him. There are two charges, either Buckley's or none, so he's not going to be beaten. He'll be re elected after May. Third runner then I think that would have been an intelligent and.
Thoughtful choice perhaps, So look well, look at the result afterwards, and we'll see how much the ABC you had to do with it.
Kel Richards, James Willis, thank you so much for.
Joining me tonight after the break, c and ends it doesn't hate America and could meant to be forced to break up its behemoth social media empire. All the news from the American media in just a moment now just thousand gripes. And in the United States this week, c and N felt the need to clarify that he does not hate America.
For the record, since we heard President Trump say in the Oval Office that CNN hates our country, CNN does not hate our country.
That should go without saying.
It should go without saying. They say, well, all the type breaking news.
We live in a racist, sexist, homophobic, islamophobic, anti Semitic country.
Everything they're doing runs against making America great.
Well, it was never great, so I'm not going to say the agampart but making America great. President Trump will be at Mount Rushmore, where he'll be standing in front of a monument of two slave owners and on land wrestled away from Native Americans, told that be focusing on the effort to quote tear down our country's history.
They strongly believe, these human smugglers that this is their chance to enter the United State, this is their chance of the American dream. That's why they risk everything only to find out that it's all alive.
We got our freedom, our quote unquote freedom, we were never restored whole, which is why you hear about reparations. So until the United States atones for that and makes good on that, we're still living in a racist country.
You can see why it's hard to beat the allegations. And this is the thing about left wing media outlets. They hide behind the fact that they exist in Western countries and serve people in Western countries.
To say it's stupid to suggest.
They would hate those countries, And they may not fundamentally hate the country. I assume they don't hate the land. But what they do hate is the foundations of the country, the fact the country exists as it does, and the fact that it is the result of colonialism. They hate the economic systems that under in the country, the freedoms that we enjoy, because that gets in the way of
their socialist dreams. They may not hate the country per se, but they hate everything that characterizes the culture of the country. Joining me to discuss this and plenty more this week from the US is Kosher Gata Kosher. It's extraordinary, isn't it when I Television network hates to clarify now, we don't actually hate the country we operated.
It really is just back and think that that is something she felt the need to say on the air. There are a lot of contradictions here, Caleb. I think you've set it up perfectly where they don't hate the country, but they do hate everything that makes up the country in terms of the foundational principle as the culture of the system. They may not hate the land, the physical land, but then they don't really believe that it's American land.
A lot of them, I'm not talking about Dana bash in particular, but a lot of them, you know, they go back to who the land belongs to and first nations and all of that which is sweeping around the world. And they certainly don't hate freeze speech. They love it as is their right to air all sorts of people and characters, which is what you played in that mash up over there of the kinds of things that their
guests and contributors say. But they have many, many instances where they have either criticized other people exercising free speech or very quick to censor and deplatform others. So lots of contradictions, but that's the world in which we live in. It does show up in the numbers, that is the
big picture. Whereas CNN wants the pioneer of twenty four to seven news and its heyday was getting millions of viewers and now it's down to half a million and sort of like a melting ice cube where that decline continues and will for the foreseeable future.
Yeah, well, perhaps people don't want to be served up the fact that the people they're watching don't like their country. And another interesting thing this week, Mark Zuckerberg and met have been going through an anti trust court case this week. He's a report that we had earlier in the week from Peter Stefanovic.
Well Mark Zuckerberg, He's returned to court for day two have met his anti E T TRUS trial, which could lead to the parent company breaking away from Instagram and WhatsApp. The tech giant will defend claims it holds a social media monopoly, accused by Donald Trump's Trade Commission of neutralizing its competitors. It's understood the Facebook founder has lobbied the US President in recent weeks to have the case dropped.
Now kosher.
This is centered around Mark Zuckerberg's purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp and whether the company ought to be broken up.
What exactly is this case about and what's the latest.
Yes, so it is an anti trust case, and antitrust in general has been certainly gaining momentum in the past five six years in the US. In this case, this has been brought by the FTC. There are similar cases being brought against Google and Amazon by state attorneys general,
by the Department of Justice, by the SEC. All around that being of antitrust, which is that alleging that they have engaged in very anti competitive behaviors buying up where they've got seventy eight d ninety percent market share in the places in which they play, and doing what they call this buy or bury strategy, where if they can't outcompete a company, they're so big that they can just
acquire them and become even more powerful. And antitrust law has long been behind the eight ball in the US because the end benefit to the consumer since most of these services are free, has been hard for them to prove. But finally it is something that is gaining steam in terms of whether or not it's going to happen. It's honestly anybody's guests. There's a lot of wood to chop before we get there. It has survived, the case has survived two attempts from Meta to dismiss it, so it
is going to trial right now. Hence he's showing up in court. It's that same judge Boseburg who's been in the news and at loggerheads with Trump right now presiding over the case. So it really is anybody's guest. I'm not sure how far they will go, but it's certainly putting them in the spotlight.
Well, how much of Zackerberg's sucking up you might call it to Trump? After he was elected in November do you think might be linked to this?
You know, it could be.
He is worth about two hundred billion dollars because of his thirteen point five percent stake in Meta, So yes, he would have if a forced divestiture were to happen based on antitrust law, he would experience a dent, but not really a life altering dent. Even if it's ten or twenty percent of his net worth. He's still going to be worth north of one hundred and fifty billion US dollars, So maybe that's coming into play a little
bit for it. It could also be on some level, I don't want to say a genuine change of heart, but a little bit of a change of heart where the cultural zeitgeist really has shifted from where it was so much into Trump hating into sort of admiring him, even in some ways surviving the assassination attempt and all that. Zuckerberg has talked about that in different forums, So who knows. It's probably a mixture of different things in there. But yeah,
I'm sure these people all lobby. They lobby with their wallet, and they lobby with curring personal favor, and I'm sure that's part of their recipe as well.
Yeah, Well, if he wants to lose a bit more money, I'll share seal him some shades and some of the horses. I mean, it's a pretty good way to lose you maney fast. Now, earlier this week, a jury took less than a how to convict to victor Antonio Martin is
Hanandez over the murder and rape of Rachel Morin. He's an illegal immigrant and Moren's mother, Patty, turned up to the White House during the week to address the press, and our sister station in the US Fox News they broadcast to address live, but MSNBC covered a Bernie Sanders rally and interviewed a journalist about it, and over at CNN they were talking about Californian Governor Gavin Newsom and
ran a segment on the NBA. Now, it's pretty standard for news channels to take press conferences in full these days.
Why would they.
Cut away when the mother of a murder and rape victim starts describing what an illegal immigrant did to her daughter.
Now, I think the only conclusion we can draw is that it doesn't fit their narrative, or their product strategy, or their ideology, which is all ruled into really one and the scene and what that is for all of them. They're at entire thesis is that immigration ultimately is good. It's a net force for good and these are just
persecuted people coming into the country. And Trump and his administration are terrible for engaging the biggest deportation effort, as he campaigned on these kinds of things that humanize the victims, and the human tool of illegal immigration is something that we've seen, whether it's CNN and MSNBC not covering it, whether you saw not a single Democrat in Congress of the State of the Union getting up to applaud the signing of the Lake and Riley Act, Lake and Riley
being another American victim of illegal immigration, it just doesn't fit their narrative. And so we're going to expect to see more of that. And it goes back to the earlier point where that is leading to a dwindling base or audience of people that just want to keep eating what they're serving up rather than getting a true picture of these issues and what's going on in the country.
I talked about seeing in earlier. While we're on the topic of illegal immigrants, Trump faced off with seeing in reporter Caitlin Collins this week over the deportation of an ill Salvadorian man. His name's Kilma Abrago Gasse Series allegedly a member of a gang. So he was sent back to Il Salvador, where he's now in prison. But the courts have ruled that he should be brought back to the US. Take a look at the scaffold.
You plan to ask President okately to help return the man who your administration says was mistakenly deported, the man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador.
Well, let me ask Pam, would you asked to answer that question?
Sure?
President, First and foremost, he was illegally in our country. He had been illegally in our country. And in twenty nineteen, two courts, an immigration court and an appellate immigration court ruled that he was a member of MS thirteen and he was illegally in our country right now. It was a paperwork, it was additional paperwork had needed to be done. That's up to El Salvador if they want to return now.
The President, you said that if the Supreme Court said someone needed to be returned, that you would abide by that. You said that on Air Force one just a few days ago, and.
They said that it must be facilitated.
Why don't you just say, isn't it wonderful that we're keeping criminals out of our country?
Why can't you just say that?
Why do you go over and over and that's why nobody watches you anymore?
From you know, you have no credibility. Well Collins, they went on.
Aaron said that Trump saying to backtrack on previous promises to abuide the Supreme Court on these what's the story here?
So here you know what they're doing is in the big picture, Trump is enjoying a resounding success on the entire topic of immigration. It's what he ran on and won on twice. He's completely taken deportations to a next level scale. Border crossings are down to virtually zero, and these types of cases are being publicized and the entire electorate, including Democrats, are with him.
Now.
That is quite a turn about in that issue from where it was even a short time ago. In the midst of that resounding success, there are little cases here and there where they might have a little bit of a bump or the other side gets a little bit of a win. That's what this case is, and so what Caitlin Collins and others are doing is they like to zoom into that minutia since they have already lost on the big picture and will continue to do so.
And basically with the Supreme Court rule this went all the way up to the Supreme Court, is that this person claimed persecution in his home country of El Salvador, and so while he could be deported because he is an illegal in the US, he doesn't have to be deported to El Salvador. But that happened anyway, and the ruling said that the US government has to facilitate quote facilitate his return. That is a legal term of art.
Many say the Supreme Court did it deliberately, which means that they don't have to actively retrieve him back into the country. But if he were to come back somehow, maybe they wouldn't stop it. That's kind of how the Trump administration is interpreting it. And the president of El Salvador was sitting right there and he said, he is a citizen of my country and I'm not going to smuggle him back into the US. So it's kind of
a done deal. And they just keep going to the minutia of the law while they continue to lose on the big picture and where the American public stands on this issue.
Don't you gotta thank you so much for your time? Coming up in just a minute, Jared Henderson writes the IB he's coverage of its election debate, and when will the journalists challenge Labour's rubbery numbers on nuclear energy?
Don't go away?
Joining me now as he does every week is scar News, Australia's media watchdog columnist Jared Henderson Jared, good to see here one the ABC this week had the second Prime ministerial debate, that the leader's debate. Here's a bit of what their special inside is programmed it afterwards.
In the end, maybe you would give it to Anthony Alvinezi. But I don't think that was a knockout bo.
What do you reckon, Jacob?
I agree with the knockout blow assessment.
We didn't really get a debate of competing inspiring visions. We had two leaders who have a lot to lose out of this, and I think we saw that with a very defensive approach from both of them.
One opinion amongst the whole lot.
It would see everyone agrees with everyone else a pretty normally ABC program. But this concept of a knockout I mean, when you got two experienced politicians like Peter Dutton and Anthony Albernesi, the chance of a knockout blow is virtually non existent.
It never happens. Now. Sure with Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
Last year there was, but you'd have to say that then President Biden had probably had two eight second count outs before he got in the ring, so he was pretty.
Well knocked out before he arrived.
But that the idea that you have knockout blows, I've never seen one. In watching Australian political debates for many, many years, I've never seen a knockout blow. I've seen some people do better than others, and very often the person you think often did better that it doesn't come up in the vote either. So the concept of a knockout blow is really just a cliche and everyone essentially agreed with them. When else I found I found it a bit dull actually because there wasn't a live audience.
There was only one presenter, David Spears, and it was pretty dull because there wasn't much It wasn't much movement around the place, but apart from that, both people did competently. You pick up an error on either side balances out.
They did actually get an audience for it, though, and I was wondering, you know, what the Freedware audience would be for a political debate in twenty twenty five, But they had a million average and one point seven overall, which isn't too bad for free towere TV these days.
No, it's quite good, but I.
Don't think it changed as many.
I mean, as you know, what matters is what people say that gets clipped and gets put in the news of a night. So they had a good audience, they didn't have a live audience. I think the problem with the ABC live audience is invariably they're stacked because the people who watch the ABC invariably on the left, because they've lost so many of their conservative people who used to watch or do you used to listen to radio
and watch television. They've lost them, and so what's left is essentially a soft left to a hard left audience, sort of from teals across to the Greens, with labor somewhere in the middle.
I know it was Nine's thing, not the ABC's, but bring back the worm. I say, now the ABC's being to bring things back has brought back the vote compass survey for this lie.
You have some concerns about its accuracy.
Well, they present this as an example of what Australians think, but as an example of what people who read ABC online think. And so if you look at the way they've done it, they put Labor very close to the center of the and they put the Greens a fair way away, whereas they don't put the coalition close to the center, and they put them close to one nation.
So this is you can see on screen.
So you can take a test online and it tells you where you sit on the police.
So I didn't put where I sat there as someone did it for me. You just put out if you're putting neutral to everything, this is what they think. That's what the people who put this together think about the coalition. They think they're close to one nation and they think Labor is a long way from the Greens.
Well, some Labour people are a long way with the Greens.
The labor right is, but the labor socialist left is not a long way from the Greens at all.
No, and I suppose if you're using this system and you're using it to see where you sit.
On the spectrum.
I wonder what else they doing with the data they're collecting here as well, because they're asking serious questions about how people feel about politics.
Well, what happens on the back end with all of that sort of thing.
You know, as a commercial operation. No one seems to say.
I mean, the ABC contracts us out, contracts out and what happens to the results?
I don't really know. They haven't told us.
But it's it's not how you judge what Australians think by that.
It just gives you an example.
As Joe Gersh wrote a good piece in the Australian Media Section last Monday, he made a point that it shows really where the ABC stands. It shows that the ABC is fairly well to the left as the think from the coalition.
It tells us that about but we know that anyway, I guess.
Yeah we do.
Indeed, speaking of which ABC ready, A National Breakfast host Steve Kanaan was interviewing Education Minister Jason Clear at this week and Clear came out with this same number that is being parroted all the time. Albanezy did it during the debate this week, everyone's saying it that it's six hundred billion dollars for the coalition's new you're planted to get off the ground.
He's a little bit of the radio interview.
The Prime Minister could not tell us in the debate last night when power bills will be coming down. Can you help him out with an answer? Well, what I'll tell you is that energy bills will be lower under Labor than they will be under Peter Dunn and the Liberals. And the simple reason for that is building six hundred billion dollars worth of nuclear reactors' costs.
And he didn't pull him up on it.
And I've not actually heard anyone pull any Labor polly up yet on the six hundred billion dollar figure.
Well, I don't blame Jason Clair for saying that or the Prime Minister. I mean they're scuring points in a political campaign, but someone should pick them up. I mean this is put out by the Smart Energy Council, which is a climate actives organizations had association with Simon Holmes a court which was pointed out well on The Australian a couple of days ago by Sarah Aison, And it's put out by them and.
It's very clearly in operation.
Now what they do is they run it from the estimen of theirs is from one hundred and sixteen billion to six hundred billion. So Labour's taken the top and I can understand why they've done that. But someone is a clever journalist like Steve Canane should say, well, I mean this is a climate activist has put out this figure. You've taken the top figure. The model figure from the Coalition is substantially half of that or a bit less.
There should be challenged. But what's happening is that if you look at at politicians on the left on the ABC rarely get challenged. But it's a pretty important thing to challenge those kinds of assessments because how do we know where the figure's coming from. You think it's an authentic figure, but it's not an authentic figure. It's the figure of an activist group exactly.
And of course the game is if you say the figure enough times, people will start to believe it. Things that aren't facts start to become facts because you've heard it so many times that you think is the truth. Jared Henderson, thank you so much for joining me tonight and that's all we have time for this evening. Thank you for your company.
Up next, news that, and then