The Bolt Report

00:12 This is The Golf Report. 00:15 Tonight, the ABC buckles after first defending the disgusting film it showed about sodomising minor Gina Reinhart. 00:25 But the Albanese government's communications minister still refuses to tell the ABC to apologise. She actually said today, there's nuance here. Nuance. Can you believe it? I'll show you that feminist hypocrite's amazing response later. Lots more also coming up, so let's get stuck right in. 00:47 Watching Pauline Hanson on Paul's show last night, I thought, it's time. I mean, it's past time. Hanson must now put up or risk turning into a rerun of the Joe for Canberra push. 01:02 Now, this might seem like old history to some, but the parallels are too close for comfort for her and the millions of Australians who've put their hope in Hanson. 01:12 And voters don't actually change that much. 01:16 In 1987, another populist, Premier Joe Bjelke-Peterson, stormed out of Queensland, which is Hanson's home state, on a crusade to topple Bob Hawke's Labor government, with lines that could have been written by One Nation's Malcolm Roberts. 01:32 Can Bob Hawke be beaten by anything other than a coalition government, a coalition party? 01:37 Quite simply, yes, he can, he can. 01:39 So you don't need the National Party and the Liberal Party together? 01:41 If the National Party behind me supported the policies I had, We could do it ourselves without any problem at all because the Australian people are fed up to here with everything that the Labor Party are doing. They're trying to run a nation on a crack foundation. You wouldn't build a house on the foundation they've got of 20-odd different organisations, the Communists, the Socialists, the International Socialists, the Majority Group, the Right and the Left, Old Guard, New Guard. 02:08 Well, this Joe for Canberra push was huge news at the time. Promise the revolution. Joe for Canberra was the slogan. 02:15 And Joe for PM was the dream. The media was fascinated, a headline every day, and so on. A bit like Hansen at the moment, Bjelke-Peterson had few policies, but he did campaign on a tax that would cost plenty, 25% flat tax. 02:34 Pauline Hansen has her own big tax idea, income splitting, something that would cost the budget $6 billion a year at least. 02:43 Plus, there's other expensive promises like halving the fuel excise. That's another 10 billion a year. 02:51 Now, again, like Hansen, Bjelke-Peterson spent little time explaining his policies. He also avoided tricky details. 03:00 And like Hansen, Bjelke-Peterson... 03:02 and someone who was there to explain what he really thought. Hanson as Barnaby Joyce, Jo had wife Flo, who'd explain her husband even with the man sitting right next to her in the studio. 03:17 Does he want to be Prime Minister? 03:20 I don't know that you'd say he actually wants to be prime minister. I believe that he wants to be sure that Bob Hawke isn't prime minister. I think that that's the whole answer, Ray. And he's working very hard to do that. He's got good policies. And I believe they're policies that the ordinary average people would be very happy to have. 03:38 a policy where it's a 25 cents in the dollar income tax, you know? And to me, if you've got 75 cents in your hand, what are you going to do with it out of every dollar? You're going to be his campaign manager. Oh, I suppose I could do a good job, but I'm pretty busy looking after Queensland as one of Queensland's senators, Ray. 04:01 But most importantly... 04:03 Like Pauline Hanson, Bjorkie Peterson, a national, split the Conservative vote and robbed all oxygen from the Liberals then led by John Howard, who was not then the politician he became. 04:17 Of course, Bjorkie Peterson's campaign, it collapsed. Killed largely by a lack of policy, a lack of detail, lack of coherence. 04:28 And all that Bjelke Peterson achieved was Howard's defeat and Hawke's triumph. Labour won big. 04:37 Well, today's News 24 Pulse YouGov poll suggests the same could now happen again, even though Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is no Bob Hawke. 04:47 More like a sitting duck than a hawk. 04:51 Support for Hanson's One Nation has once more fallen, albeit this time by just one percentage point, leaving it three points behind Labor and now only three ahead of the Liberals, who seem to be slowly recovering. 05:06 But after preferences, Labor still wins against both parties, really, despite being itself the most unpopular governing party that polls have ever measured. 05:16 However low Labor's vote is, it still wins against the divided Conservatives. 05:23 Hanson last night said, don't worry, she was finally about to announce her candidates and her policies for the Victorian election, which is One Nation's next big electoral test, and it's in just four months' time. 05:39 We have locked in about 74, 76 seats at the moment of the 88. So we have got our candidates. 05:49 Well, very high time indeed for them to be announced and the policies we hope as well. But even then, it may now be a bit late, too late. 05:58 Because already without those candidates and policies, One Nation has dropped, its support has dropped by a third according to some polls. Now down to 90% in Victoria's news poll. 06:10 I mean, it's still extremely good compared to where it was, but it's certainly not enough to do much except hurt the coalition. 06:19 And in the meantime, the contest in Victoria has sharpened to a battle between the Liberals' Jess Wilson and Labor's new Premier, Ben Carroll, with One Nation barely rating a mention. 06:32 Now, you may say, you know, well, who cares about Victoria, you know? But failure there could be fatal to Hanson's momentum federally. It could pop the balloon, change the narrative. 06:45 Now, I've said before... 06:48 that Hansen has reached a point where she must pivot. She's gained the voters' attention. Boy, has she done that. 06:56 Now she must gain their trust. 07:00 And that means being normal, because normal now is enough. 07:05 Stunts like consortium with convicted thug Tommy Robinson in London this month, that's a mistake. 07:12 Hansen's got a campaign like a real candidate for Prime Minister. 07:18 And that means especially she's got to explain her plans again and again and again until they seem clear and safe. And, you know, voters go, of course. 07:31 That hasn't happened. 07:34 And again I ask, why has Hanson, for instance, not exposed the lies that Labor tells about her call for a monoculture? 07:43 I know what she meant. I've said what she meant. 07:48 Why has Hansen not explained herself what she meant? 07:53 Instead, we've had Barnaby Joyce trying to explain it. 07:58 Bjorkie Peterson used to have a catch cry. Don't you worry about that. 08:03 But Hansen must. 08:05 She must worry and must sweat those details, must sweat those policies, or all this excitement will be for nothing. 08:18 And I think it'd be bad news for the country of all that Pauline Hanson achieves is the re-election of the Albanese government. And I think that's confirmed today by what the government actually hailed as good news. 08:30 Today's inflation figures, they were less bad than expected, which is a bit like saying a punch to the head didn't hurt as much as you expected. 08:39 Headline inflation fell to 3.8% from 4%. 08:45 It's still far too high, but yes, it's down. Although the underlying rate that strips out the temporary stuff, that's the rate the Reserve Bank looks at in setting interest rates, showed still on 3.6%. 08:59 Again, still less than expected, but 3.6%. The Treasurer wasn't letting that, though, stop him. 09:07 What these numbers show is that inflation across a number of measures is lower than what the market expected, certainly lower than what we expected at budget time, and lower than was forecast by the Reserve Bank as well. It is an encouraging outcome. 09:26 Now, here are some reasons why inflation is so high. I mean, look at what's really gone up. Electricity again. Electricity up 22%. How much of that is due to the government itself? And that's after some rebates ended, of course. New houses, building them, up again. Rents, up. And while fuel costs have fallen, that's because of the ceasefire and the war in Iran, where in fact that's actually breaking down. 09:56 The war is again threatened to break out big, with Iran yesterday launching a surprise attack with ballistic missiles on US forces in Jordan. All missiles fortunately shot down. But Petra was already going back up after this resumption of hostilities. 10:13 Joining me is the panel, Michael Costa, former New South Wales Labor Treasurer and News 24 host, James McPherson. Michael, less inflation is clearly better than more. So give that to the government today. The chances of another interest rate rise this year are also now lower. The Treasurer calls this encouraging news. What do you call it? 10:36 Well, it's Baghdad Bob Chalmers at it again. I mean, look, you can spin it all you like. I mean, there was 30% of market predictors, forecasters thought the rates would be higher. The other 70% thought it would be where it is. Look, let's not kid ourselves here. We are facing... uh what i've called a soft stagflation i mean the bottom line is that core inflation is stuck and the core inflation that counts hasn't moved and it's way outside the band so what it means either either the reserve bank you know uh does what i think it should have done earlier was you know try and break the back of it by having some higher interest rates and i know your viewers not going to like to hear that, but we would have been better off if we had done what the rest of the world did, was break the back of it early, or we're going to drag on in this sort of middling economy that's, you know, at the moment performing at the bottom of the OECD. 11:32 I mean, our labour productivity has collapsed, but worse still, our multi-factor productivity, which is the key to being a smart economy is in negative territory. Andrew, you know, he's dressing up an economic corpse at the moment and nobody's fooled by what he said. His predictions and forecasts mean nothing. We still remember the $2 increase in rents and those figures blow that out of the water. It was supposed to be out of the budget, you know, $2 a week. Clearly, they've gone up higher than that. So, really, we've got major problems and the government's primarily responsible for destroying our productivity. 12:11 Well, James, what do you think? I mean, you just heard Michael say voters aren't going to buy what the government's selling about how good things are getting now. 12:21 What do you think? Will they? 12:23 No, of course they won't. I mean, you don't congratulate the captain of the Titanic because the orchestra was really playing in tune tonight. I mean, that's just not going to happen. Inflation is still well above the RBA recommended limits and prices keep going up, whether it's energy, whether it's housing, whether it's whether it's groceries. I bought a two-litre bottle of milk last night at my local service station. It cost me eight bucks. I couldn't believe it. And that's the experience of people day to day. Regardless of what Jim Chalmers says, prices keep going up. 12:56 The only thing that's going down, Andrew, is the government standard for success. And so we're expected to applaud Jim Chalmers because inflation is very high rather than very, very high. I was interested a couple of days ago that there was a leak from Jim Chalmers' own department. He had been given advice that inflation could reach 7% by the end of the year. Now, I'm interested that that was leaked and it seems to me that Jim Chalmers is quite happy for us to expect the worst so that when instead we just get really bad that we all say, oh, wow, things are going great. 13:32 They're not going great and voters are not buying Jim Chalmers' spin for a second. 13:39 No, well observed. Michael, what's obviously really hurting us, one of the big things, as the Reserve Bank Governor himself noted just yesterday, is that we have very little productivity growth. I mean, it's just really bad. And I wonder how much of that is actually cultural. 13:59 For instance, when you look at people graduating as engineers, China, obviously a big country, has got 1.3 million new engineers every year. The US has got one-tenth of that. 14:13 And Australia, just 22,000. But past those figures, nearly half of that 22,000, they're actually students from overseas, especially China, where we're training Chinese engineers. And this shows in the kind of Chinese technology that I've been showing on the show, like these new robot dogs or this new Chinese car, the fastest production model vehicle in the world. No wonder that a third of the cars sold here in May were Chinese. We are being left, Michael, way behind technologically and seem to have very little interest in even studying the subjects we'd need to catch up. 14:53 Look, Andrew, that's true, but we've always been, you know, importers of technology. The areas that we have advanced our technology in is the areas we've had competitive advantage. I mean, in mining, we were leading the world in mining equipment until the government came along, increased costs, re-regulated the labour market. You've got those disputes going on in Western Australia in the mining industry. 15:15 So the problem in our country is... 15:18 is the re-regulation of the labour market and the inability for businesses to have a fair go at creating innovation, you know, because of the regulation, the red tape and, you know, the silly policies. You know, at that Labor conference, they announced another layer of bureaucracy. What is it? The workers' court. I mean, that's the last thing we need. Then you've got that dope in Victoria that they've thankfully got rid of. You know, legislating for two days working from home and teachers asking for 30% wage increases. Our labour productivity is not sustainable in terms of the real wage outcomes these people expect. 15:56 We've got to fix that up and we can't fix that up unless we deal with the labour market. Our multi-factor productivity, what I talked about before, the way we use capital and labour together, is a disaster because there's no incentive in this country because of government and regulation and crowding out with spending to invest in Australian businesses. That's our fundamental problem. 16:18 And yet I think there's also, I agree with you, fundamental, but there's also, James, isn't there a cultural problem? In a country that goes big on teaching, you know, gender studies and feminist studies and white studies, for us to have the sixth lowest rate of engineering graduates in the OECD strikes me as a cultural issue. If you don't have the engineers, how are you going to engineer the solutions? 16:46 Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, we don't graduate many engineers, but we graduate an awful lot of people in grievance studies, which is fantastic, except they don't produce anything. We used to be a nation that produced things. Now we regulate people who produce things. And that's our biggest problem. You know, I was reading the other day that in Victoria, where you are, Andrew, you now require 37 licences and approvals to make a cup of coffee. If that's what it takes to open a cafe in Victoria, God help you, if you want to actually invent something that's going to, you know, be exportable. 17:23 We talk about productivity in this country like it's some mysterious force and we're just trying to figure it out. It's not complicated. Productivity is what talented people do when they're not buried under government paperwork and not crippled by government taxes and levies. If I was to ask you, Andrew and Michael, you know, what would be more likely in this country, that someone would emerge a wonderful inventor of things or someone would emerge a brilliant administrator who holds round tables talking about innovation? 17:55 We all know what we're good at. We're good at administrating and regulating. No wonder we don't produce anything. It's to our shame and our disadvantage. 18:05 I don't know that we're that good at administrating either. The polls, Michael, One Nation, SAG in support there. Liberals on the rise. I might have to eat my words one day about calling Angus Taylor a dead man walking. But both still being beaten by Labor. What needs to happen to change that? 18:27 Well, Andrew, I'm not surprised by this. And, you know, when you look deeper into those polls, that's when you get really worried. I've said once before to you that I think that the One Nation is going to act like the DLP did to the Labor Party in the 60s and 70s. It's going to keep it out of government. And the reason I say that is... If you look at the preferences which are critical to any different outcome, we already know that 20% of Liberal voters won't vote for One Nation and 20% of One Nation voters won't vote for the Coalition because they're ex-Labour people. 18:59 So you're going to have a real problem getting a consistent vote. 19:05 and that's in a compulsory system. In an optional system, it's going to be even worse in New South Wales, which we have an optional system. So I think that's the problem. You know, One Nation has to be exposed by the coalition. I mean, it has got to take the charge up. in relation to it being another big government operation. That's all it's about. Everything you hear about is spending this and spending that, cutting taxes there, but no sustainable economic plan. In doing that, you don't attack the people that support it, of course, because they are frustrated. 19:35 You know, they're disillusioned with the major parties. 19:38 Look, I think that's right. 19:39 It's not their fault. 19:41 I would add that. I would go the economy, but I wouldn't criticise them on multiculturalism. In fact, I'm surprised the Liberals haven't taken that up themselves. It is an issue, and if they seize that and have the economic creds, that could be a winner. Michael Coster, James McPherson, thank you very much to you both. After the break, Rowan Dean. 20:06 I'm Shannon Maldonado. I'm the founder of Yaoi, a souvenir store with artisan products and artists selected. I chose Shopify because, after experimenting with other platforms, this was, without doubt, one of the most intuitive. For me, it was important to think about where we would be in the future. All the elements to analyze the sales, like the inventory, are there, on our dashboard. Start your free review at Shopify.com. 20:35 I find Donald Trump sometimes so very frustrating. I mean, he's done a lot of good and he's got the power to do so much more, the power and the strength of character. 20:47 But he has a great weakness. He likes what he calls winners, which in foreign affairs tends to mean... 20:54 He's got a very unhealthy liking for thugs and tyrants and bullies. 20:58 You already know about his bromance with war criminal Vladimir Putin, a strong man. But what about his dangerous cozying up to Turkey's Islamist president, strong man Recep Tayyip Erdogan? 21:11 Now, Trump yesterday was cross when Israel's Prime Minister said he wished Trump would not now sell Turkey the world's most advanced jet fighter, the F-35. 21:23 Prime Minister Netanyahu opposes sending F-35s to Turkey. What are you going to tell him? Look, Turkey's been a great ally for me. You know, I think he's done a very good job. He did a good job with Syria. He's a friend of mine. And nobody tells me what we should be selling and not. Turkey's been a tremendous ally for me. It was up to Turkey. Turkey's not a big fan of Israel. You know that, right? 21:50 And not a big fan of people. 21:55 So Erdogan is a great ally and a friend, tremendous ally in fact. Erdogan, the man who told the United Nations this. 22:16 but not with America. Well, this sort of runs in the family. Erdogan's daughter heads an organisation which recently co-hosted the World Decolonization Forum, aimed right at America and the West. 22:31 Decolonization is an open invitation to the United States, For example, the foreign system has been used in Paris, London, New York, Amsterdam and New York. The world is now available to the new centers of Istanbul, Jakarta, Addis Ababa, Rabat, Kahire and Gazze. 23:06 Well, switch the world's centres of knowledge from London and Paris and America and bring it to Gaza. 23:16 A lecture on decolonisation from the daughter of the President of Turkey, which when, in its former incarnation as the Ottoman Empire, was one of the world's biggest colonisers ever, and it still colonises northern Cyprus. Joining me is Rowan Dean, Editor-in-Chief of The Spectator Australia, host of Outsiders every Sunday at 9am, and host of his own show on Fridays at 7pm. Rowan, I'm sorry to give you, you know... 23:42 Take the viewers on a little bit of Arcania, really. I mean, but still, this worries me. Trump seems blind to how leaders like Putin, China's Xi Jinping, the leaders of Iran and now Turkey, they don't just want a deal, they want America destroyed, or in Turkey's case, at least cut down to size. 24:02 Well, first of all, to take the first point about the colonial empire that was the Ottoman Empire and is the Muslim world today. It is a colonial enterprise. The Islamic enterprise, if you want to call it that, is the world's greatest colonial enterprise currently in the world. And it was the Ottoman Empire, and it's trying to re-establish that through various means. So clearly the Turks have got a very refined sense of humour and irony to be holding a decolonisation seminar in the heart of Istanbul. 24:36 Perhaps they could call it the Constantinople Seminar on decolonisation and hand back... 24:43 Yes, indeed. And those other glorious institutions back into Western-slash-Christian hands. 24:52 But you've got to admire the Turks for their sense of humour and Erdogan's sense of humour. They're also, of course, currently the president of COP31, for which Erdogan's team in Turkey beats Australia and beat Chris Bowen. to be the global leaders combating climate change. So the Turks are combating climate change. Not quite sure how much they literally are doing, but they're going to be holding a conference. And they're also, of course, holding a decolonisation conference. They've clearly learnt the ways of the West and how to appeal to the leftist Western mindset. 25:26 As for Trump, the clear thing about Donald Trump is that He will be kind to you and say nice things about you if he wants something. And once he's not going to get what he wants or has decided he doesn't need it or he's not going to get it anyway, he quickly changes his tune. We saw with Albanese how keen he was to butter up to Albanese, how quick he was to dismiss Kevin Rudd. The key thing here is he obviously sees a need for Turkey to play a role in in the Syria that's been re-established. 25:58 We don't really know how that Syria is going, but Turkey clearly plays a role in that, how that will play with the Kurds, with Iran, et cetera, et cetera. We're back on our 4D chessboard. 26:11 But on that issue, you're right, Andrew, that Donald Trump does some great things and I'm less inclined to agree about the weaker sides of him, but... 26:22 What we are at now is a stage in which I believe the Iran regime will be defeated and destroyed. But I remember the period before the Berlin Wall came down, and I was living in London then, it was during the 80s, and you had the Pope saying this and that, you had Lech Walesa in Poland, you had Margaret Thatcher being accused of being a warmonger, you had the Greenham Common Women, you had Ronald Reagan wandering around to the Berlin Wall and people saying, oh, he's just, you know, shouting in the wind and so on. 26:53 And then one day it happened. And when it happened, it wasn't as everyone had predicted and it wasn't on the timetable that everyone had predicted, but literally the wall was up until the wall was no longer up and when it fell, it came crashing down. I believe the same force play in Iran... 27:11 It is a weak regime. It is weakened militarily. It is weakened religiously. It has lost its... Well... The people will eventually rise, but it needs the right circumstances and it needs the American assistance and Israeli assistance and what other assistance? Who knows? 27:29 Look, I hope. I mean, tyrannies always fall in the end. I've got that. How many people die in the meantime is the issue. 27:38 But on that point, in fact, there was a protest outside the hanging of, I think it was on the weekend, it might have been two days ago, a demonstration against Iran hanging two pro-democracy protesters. And shots were fired to chase them all away, but that people still dared to do that. 27:59 Thank you. 27:59 Tells me something a little hopeful, Rowan. 28:03 I'm actually out of time, but I want to quickly ask you, Victoria's been divided and weakened by its socialist left government. You know that. Talk about cultural rot and weakness. I should point out here now it has a new leader who's, oh, not from the socialist left side of things. I'm a new man, a new Labor-appointed premier, a new start. I'm not Dan Andrews. Now, I should point out... 28:30 that the new Premier is the one pictured on the left, just in case there was any confusion here. 28:37 Do you have high hopes for him? 28:43 Well, I think you've answered my question for me, Andrew. That's superb. I thought it was a leading question. You've got to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. He obviously has his priorities for the future of Victoria now. 28:59 I'm constantly baffled by your state, Andrew. It bewilders me when I go there to visit. I do enjoy going there to visit, you know, stepping over the homeless people in the streets and the filth and the litter that hasn't been cleaned up for five years. But I still enjoy it. And once you've paid for a restaurant, you take out a second mortgage to order, you know, a dessert. But I do enjoy it. 29:21 I got worse than that. I have worse, mate. 29:24 I had to go to hospital today for this or that. But dodging the potholes there and back, honestly, your life is in your hands. One pothole, I swear, would have been about a metre long and half a metre wide, still there. Roads like out of the third world. Haven't seen anything like it since I visited India. I mean, unbelievable. Rowan Dean, thank you so much for your time. Talk about a state in decline. It's absolutely disgraceful what the Labor has done to Victoria. 29:56 After the break, speaking of Labor, a former Labor minister now publishes a new book warning against the new Australian apartheid. And there's something to say in the strange confrontation yesterday with the race-baiting senator, Lydia Thorpe. 30:17 On some topics, truth is now dead on the ABC. 30:21 And one topic in particular it's dead on. It's Aboriginal issues. And especially Bruce Pascoe, who the ABC has again been promoting as Aboriginal in the past two months, when it now should be beyond argument that Pascoe is a fake Aborigine. Professional genealogist at darkemuexpose.org says 100% of British ancestry and even many of his own relatives, he admits, no longer buy his story. 30:46 But listen to this latest full-court press by the ABC insisting he is still Aboriginal. 30:55 So I started off this week with Bruce Pascoe, who is an Aboriginal writer and farmer who lives on Ewan country. Natasha Mitchell joining you from the Melbourne Planetarium at ScienceWorks in Naam, Melbourne on Bunurong country today at a Melbourne Writers' Festival event. With award-winning author of Dark Emu, poet and Aboriginal farmer Bruce Pascoe. 31:19 Ewan and Boonwurrung and Tasmanian man Bruce Pascoe is most well-known as an award-winning author and Aboriginal language researcher, but to his four grandkids, he's just papa. He loves spending time together on the farm. He sees his role as helping them grow into conscientious citizens. 31:35 My name's Bruce Pascoe. I'm a Ewan Boonwurrung Tasmanian man, and I'm the grandfather to four grandchildren. 31:43 I've had the great joy of working with Uncle Bruce and really understanding his work. I've been able to go to his farm and really enjoy the native food sector that still exists in Australia today. 31:56 It's stunning. They live in an alternative universe. 31:59 And the ABC has been just as, you know, over there, silent about the dangers of the new apartheid that we're seeing brought in. So I doubt, here's a tip, I doubt it will be covering a new book of essays, Australian Apartheid, The Aboriginalisation of Australia. And what's interesting is one of its editors is former Federal Labor Minister Gary Johns, I spoke to him earlier. 32:26 Gary Johns, always great to see you. First of all, why is the ABC so determined to sell Bruce Pascoe as Aboriginal? 32:36 Well, in some ways it's a mystery, but in other ways they really don't like this country, they don't like its history, and it's another institution which has been overcome by, you know, those who would seek to do ill with 32:56 Well, I just wonder whether it's not just his theory about Aboriginals being farmers instead of hunter-gatherers, as if that's shameful, but whether he's the kind of Aboriginal to be safe with, a left-wing guy who's actually white. You know, they feel much more comfortable that way. 33:13 I don't know what it is. It's an utter mystery to me. But to your latest book, let me tell you already, Gary, Newsbreak, the ABC will not have you on to review it. You've called it Australian Apartheid. It's a collection of essays. What is the aim of it? 33:32 The key thing is to wake people up to say, look, Aboriginal people, of course, have a place as citizens in Australia, and they can celebrate their way of life, their culture, all they like. But they are not to separate us. They're not to say that they're somehow more important to us. Can I give you a little illustration? Yesterday, I sat in the back of an old parliamentary committee on racism, which is doing the rounds. They berated Dr Peter Bellin, a fellow who flew up from Adelaide to Brisbane, because he simply said, my view about racism is that people should be treated with equal dignity. 34:12 Now, Senator Lydia Thorpe got stuck into Eamonn, asked him whether he would acknowledge that he was sitting on stolen ground and would he pay the rent and so on and so forth. And then Senator Yana Stewart, who's a Labor senator from Victoria, stopped the meeting. They wouldn't take any more questions and answers from this fellow. They excluded him from the room. And then they had some people throw him out of the building. So these sort of neo-Aboriginal people are not playing fairly. 34:43 They're not saying we respect free speech. They're doing anything but it, and they just used parliamentary power to exclude a man who simply wanted to argue that we should all be afforded equal dignity. 34:59 Well, Peter Ballin's actually been in contact with me too. He's a former academic. And he was at that, as you say, at that Joint Parliamentary Commission on Racism Against Aborigines. I find it he probably offended Lydia Thorpe, who's a race baiter. I think, you know, she's made a career on stressing these differences. Aborigines like her are different, even though seven of her eight great-grandparents We're white. I mean, really, it's this kind of, you know, insistence on tiny little distinctions that drives me nuts. 35:34 I thought we were all, you know, we all bled red, whatever the skin colour was and whatever heritage we claim to have. 35:45 Yeah, I call them neo-Aboriginal. I mean, it's a sort of a confected front. They have a very distant heritage. That should count for nothing. 35:56 If they want to respect it, then that's fine. But they shouldn't stop people from discussing what it is to be an Aborigine, what Aboriginal people do, any benefits they should receive. That's a discussion that should be for all of us. And the book stresses that. For goodness sake, can we just talk to Aboriginal people as we used to, rather than now being afeard of saying the wrong thing or misidentifying or causing offence? I mean... 36:26 Senator Stewart, in questioning the Facebook people yesterday, wanted Aboriginal people to make decisions about what could be placed on Facebook. They wanted Aboriginal people saying they would be offended if someone said we should have one flag or shouldn't have a welcome to country. She wanted those things taken down, even though she admitted they weren't racist as such. She said it was hurtful to their people. Well, that's just nonsense, and it's stopping us from treating Aboriginal people as equal citizens. 37:01 Do people of Dutch background get an say in what goes up or not? I mean, the whole thing is, to me, utterly bizarre. But to your book, Australian Apartheid, there is actually a political agenda here. It's not just about hurt feelings. I think we have seen moves to sort of Aboriginal apartheid. People get very upset. 37:22 Some people on the left get very upset when I use the word apartheid. Is it too hard a word? 37:29 No, no, no. It separates us and gives certain rights to some groups on the basis of race and denies rights to others on the basis of race. So Dr Peter Ballin was denied the right of free speech. He spoke very properly, very decently by neo-Aboriginal people who stopped him and then threw him out. That's apartheid. 37:54 Yeah, but I think it goes far beyond that. Like, we had the attempt at The Voice, of course, which was an Aboriginal-only advisory parliament, an attempt to institute that. We do have Aboriginal-only advisory parliaments in Victoria and in South Australia. We also have Aboriginal-only programs and scholarships. 38:18 positions in universities, on it goes. Aboriginal-only courts, courts only for Aboriginal defendants. 38:28 This strikes me as apartheid, and I wonder where it will lead to, Gary. 38:34 Well, it will lead to the lives of Aboriginal children being destroyed. So those Aboriginal people who are integrated, doing well, got a job, speak, read, write English, they're doing OK. In fact, there's an elite who are doing extremely well, you know, the vice chancellors, Indigenous at universities, senators, members, the rest. But those poor kids stuck out in remote communities who barely read, write, speak English have no prospects There may be a made-up job for them at some time in the future that a government deems to sort of supply them. 39:12 There is no future for those kids. So the real harm is not to you and I who have done well in society. It's to Aboriginal children who will never get a job and probably never escape those communities. They need to get out and have a life, and it's Aboriginal leaders that are stopping them from doing it. And I call that apartheid. 39:35 Now, Gary, who else is including your book of essays and where can people buy it? 39:43 Well, for instance, Ian Callinan, a former High Court justice, has written a wonderful essay criticizing Mabo, the Mabo decision, for instance. And you can buy it through Quadrant. Just go online to Quadrant and it'll be out within days. 40:01 And please read it and tell others. 40:06 I certainly will do that. And if you could tell us if the ABC deigns to have you on to discuss the contents. Gary Johns, thank you so much for your time. 40:17 Thank you. 40:20 Well, after the break, the Albanese Government's Communication Minister today shows... 40:24 What hypocrites Labor feminists are refusing to condemn the ABC for showing a film fantasising about sodomising a conservative woman. Unbelievable. Watch this minister wriggle at a press conference today. 40:43 So where are those Labor feminists now that the ABC screens a video fantasising about sodomising mining billionaire Gina Reinhardt, a conservative? 40:53 I showed you that ABC film when I broke the story of the scandal last week. 40:58 Cos when the revolution comes, will you hide under your bed? 41:03 Or will you know exactly how? To shove a stick right up Gina Reinhart's butthole, stirring it round, mixing her guts up nice and smooth, making her into one big sausage roll. 41:20 To make something out of nothing. 41:24 The ABC management had the gall to defend that grotesque attack as editorially justified, claiming it was satirical. 41:33 Well, today, after mounting pressure, the ABC has said it will ask its supposedly independent ombudsman for a second opinion. Yet even today, Annika Wells, the Albanese government's communications minister, refused the call on the ABC to apologise, struggled even to criticise that vile abuse of Reinhardt when quizzed by our own Harry Clark. 41:55 Look, my personal view is it's unacceptable. Like any Australian, there's stuff I see on TV that I don't agree with. 42:03 As the Minister for Communications, I respect the editorial independence of the ABC, but I understand they have now referred it to the Ombudsman. I think that was the right thing to do. 42:10 But Gina Reinhart's calling for an apology. Do you think it's something that they should be apologising for while also referring it to the Ombudsman? 42:18 Look, as the Minister for Sport, to be honest, if I spend all my time weighing in day to day on the scandals and outrages, valid or not, in both sport and communications, I wouldn't have time to do anything substantive. 42:32 Is it not hypocritical for Labor figures to come out and condemn the Ditch the Witch campaign against Julia Gillard and Jacinta Allen, but not actively be condemning this sort of content towards Gina Reinhart and the ABC? 42:46 I think a nuance here as the Minister for Communications is that I, as the Labor Minister for Communications, respect the editorial independence of the ABC. 42:56 Joining me are Gemma Tonini, colonist and communications consultant, and Karen DiRasso, commentator and president of the West Australian Liberals. Gemma, your response? 43:06 Well, this is just another example of the ABC's... Sorry, well, it is the ABC, but the Australian Labor Party's problem with women if you are the wrong kind of woman. You're the wrong kind of woman if you're Fiona Brown, may I say. You're the wrong kind of woman if you're Gina Reinhart. Let's just imagine, Andrew, that that... Poor excuse for whatever it was that our taxpayers' money went towards broadcasting was speaking about a woman on the political left, a woman in the Labor Party. It wouldn't have even gotten approved. 43:38 The thing that always gets me about the Australian Labor Party is they say, you know, the coalition has got a problem with women. Nothing could be further from the truth. That is just the ultimate projection. Annika Wells has just... ducked and weaved with an exceptional amount of sporting prowess. It is not leadership to hide behind the objectivity of the ABC. The ABC is not objective and it's certainly not independent. It's a joke. Australians know it's a joke. And if you are the wrong kind of woman, the Australian Labor Party and this government will throw you under a bus quicker than you can light a ciggy on a cold day. 44:16 Honestly, Caroline, you have no trouble guessing what the reaction from the Labor Party and the Albanese government would be had that attack been made on Julia Gillard, for instance, or Governor-General Sam Mostyn, also on the left. Oh, my God, the heavens would thunder to their rage. I mean, it's unbelievable. How can it not be unacceptable for that to be said of Gina Reinhart? 44:44 Well, I remember when there was a time that it wasn't acceptable for Tony Abbott to look at his watch without it being sexist. And that's not even saying any words. So true. But we know this. But we know this. 45:00 Andrew, and the thing is you do not build credibility by trying to caveat your answer by hiding behind your ministerial position. 45:10 Either something like this passes the pub test for want of a better phrase, or it doesn't. And people don't really care whether you're the average Joe in the street or you're the communications minister or you're the sports minister or, you know, you're leading alto in a opera. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It's either acceptable or it's not acceptable. Andrew, and this absolutely wouldn't fly any day of the week if it was a woman of the left. 45:43 Like, just imagine for a second, Andrew, if it was said about Louise Milligan. Like, just for a moment. Hold that idea in. And just think about the Four Corners series that would follow if something like that was said about Louise Milligan or said about Laura Tiel. I mean, it would just be off the charts outrage. And the fact of the matter is what was said was disgusting. It was objectively disgusting. 46:14 Doesn't matter who you are and what position you hold. 46:17 It was also just like such B-grade TV. Like who commissioned that? 46:22 Oh, it was terrible. 46:23 Who commissioned that? Which commissioning editor on 200 grand a year at Ultimo goes, yeah, that's just really good talent. Like stop the day drinking, mate. Edgy. It's edgy. Stop the day drinking. These people don't live in the real world. Nobody looks at that and thinks it's funny. No. It's not funny. 46:39 Well, we mentioned Julia Gillard. Talk about selective outrage. Gillard, she has not defended Gina Reinhardt, but she did post something, a claim that Jacinta Allen, who's quit as Victoria's Premier yesterday, was the victim herself of wicked sexism. Oh, please. She wrote, there is no... Well, honestly, it always... Whenever a woman of the left fails, it's always because of sexism, of course. Vile sexism, Julia Gillard called it. 47:10 And it said that, you know, Jacinda Allen had been courageous in calling it out. I don't recall Allen being the victim of any vile sexism other than maybe, if you want to call it vile, a mobile billboard this month with the post, The Ditch, The Witch. 47:25 And yet nothing from Labor about this far worse slur by national broadcaster and runner, Gemma. 47:32 I mean, Jacinda Allen is the victim of nothing but her own incompetence and you could argue that the entire state of Victoria and by extension the rest of us are victims of her incompetence. The fact that, this is the thing, like Caroline said, these people don't actually have a modicum of self-awareness because people in the real world know what sexism is and it isn't. Sexism is not the worst premier in recent years, arguably since Joan Kerner, being bulleted by her own party in a desperate act of attempted survival three months before an electoral wipeout. 48:08 That's not sexism. That's the political left in action. They will eat their young and it is offensive. It is offensive to those of us who've actually been on the receiving end of sexism, i.e. being paid 50% of the nearest bloke doing the same job. It's not sexism. She's just a rubbish, rubbish Premier. 48:27 Caroline DeRusso in the 20 seconds I have left... 48:31 But it is kind of sexism because affirmative action is sexism and that's the only reason she got the job in the first place. Because I tell you what, you can put a dush in a greyhound race and everyone knows it's never going to win. She was never up to the job. She shouldn't have been put there in the first place. She was woeful and she's been shown the door. Shame on the Victorian Labor Party. 48:55 Oh, all this sexism from two lovely women who normally are just straight as a die. I mean, how can you criticise Saint Jacinta? She's really ascending to heaven, this poor woman. 49:08 Chairman Tonini, Dick Ireland and Russo, thank you very much to you both. That's it from me. Shari Markson up next. Good night.