00:00:02
Speaker 1: Peter Credlin, live from News 24.
00:00:07
Speaker 2: Certainly am here. Good evening. Welcome to the program. Here's what's coming up tonight on Credlin. Another counter-terrorism arrest in Melbourne today. This time it's an alleged ISIS member who spent six months in Egypt before returning home to Australia. All smiles as the Prime Minister gets his selfie fix at the UN, but the US President not looking so happy, turning on the pressure to Australia over Labor's digital laws and free speech. More tonight on the Australian War Memorial being used as a political platform, including the dumping of the Australian National Anthem. And the Coalition unveils its energy plan and finally looks ready to pull the renewables rug from under Chris Bowen and this net zero obsessed government.
00:00:52
Speaker 3: We need to take a chainsaw to Labor's green, ideologically driven approach to energy.
00:01:02
Speaker 2: But first, as the latest News 24 Pulse poll has revealed, with a deeply unpopular leader, Labor is in trouble. No surprise then that Anthony Albanese has grabbed the opportunity for a trip to the UN rather than face a booing crowd and Kylie Minogue at the MCG this weekend. Shag, marry, date. Kylie Minogue, Nicole Kidman or Rhonda Birchmore?
00:01:27
Speaker 4: Kylie, clearly.
00:01:28
Speaker 2: You'd marry Kylie and shag her and date her?
00:01:31
Speaker 5: All of the above.
00:01:32
Speaker 6: All right.
00:01:35
Speaker 2: That's why he's not there at the MCG for the AFL grand final. But Albanese is under no threat of removal as long as the right of politics remains split. And that's both the dismal reality and the challenge for anyone wanting our country to be better. After a decade of climate wars, the coalition has finally given us the bare bones of an energy policy today to keep coal in the system, to get more gas out of the ground as quickly as possible and essentially to scrap all subsidies for renewables because if they're really cheap, they don't need them, and to end the nuclear ban. Finally, net zero is dead and the Turnbull-Morrison era of climate nonsense consigned to history. But now the coalition needs a fair income immigration policy too. Because energy and immigration are the policy areas where the Albanese government is most damaging our country. It's also where One Nation has the advantage over the Coalition for consistency and credibility. Unlike the Coalition, which has been against and then for and now against net zero emissions, One Nation has always opposed it. And unlike the Coalition, which successfully stopped illegal migration under PMs Howard and Abbott, But eventually lost control of legal migration, One Nation's always been concerned about both and the impact of migrants on the economy and their effect on social cohesion. As revealed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in their annual report last week, our net overseas migration, the NOM, was 292,000 in the 12 months to March this year. In the Howard era, the long-run average was 110,000. So let's be clear, a norm averaging around $ 300, 000 a year puts downward pressure on wages, upward pressure on housing, it strains physical and social infrastructure, and at least for the migrants who come here and just live in Hotel Australia, take all they can get, well, it erodes social cohesion. Angus Taylor began his time as opposition leader saying that he'd restore our standard of living, he'd protect our way of life, and that the migrant situation Migrants come into this country while the numbers were too high and the quality was too low.
00:03:58
Speaker 7: Our top priority in the Liberal Party and my top priority as a new leader and Jane's as well is to protect Australians' way of life and to restore their standard of living. You've heard some strong comments from me in the last 24 hours on immigration and immigration, clearly the numbers have been too high and the standards have been too low.
00:04:19
Speaker 2: Now on this, the public are clearly with Angus. Numerous polls have the majorities wanting lower or much lower migration. Likewise, there are significant and growing poll concerns about the impact of mass migration on social cohesion. As well as fueling support for One Nation and the polling trend line makes that obvious, the Bondi massacre has obviously drawn attention to migrant communities that have lived here for decades without assimilating Australian values. For too long in Canberra, ever-increasing migrant numbers have been a lazy tool to artificially inflate growth forecasts and to stop the economy slipping into recession, even though in per capita terms that's precisely what's happened. This practice has masked record high government spending and profligate waste, especially under the Albanese government, but also under Morrison too. Now Taylor has to stand up and declare the racket must end. To keep the coalition competitive, he must spell out precisely how he will reduce migrant numbers while demonstrating how to keep productive industries strong, such as agriculture, that rely on overseas workers to do the jobs that Australians just won't do. Now, perhaps ending access to welfare for able-bodied, working-age people would be a good start. He's also got to tackle the elephant in the room, and that's who we permit to migrate here. If politicians don't think that voters could join the dots between recent terrorism-related arrests and the countries of origin that sponsor Islamist extremism, well, they are kidding themselves. Look at the latest arrest today. A Somalian-born man, now Australian citizen, arrested because police allege he's a member of ISIS and has been, they claim, trying to recruit people online to and give advice as to how to avoid detection when planning a mass terrorism event.
00:06:24
Speaker 8: Today, the Victorian counter-terrorism team, comprised of the AFP, Victoria Police and ASIO, have arrested a 65-year-old man who we will allege is a member of ISIS. The man will be charged with membership of a terrorism organisation, possessing and controlling violent extremist material and using a carriage service to cause offence.
00:06:47
Speaker 2: Not linked to ISIS, a member of ISIS is the allegation. In a world that's more globally connected than any other time in human existence, events in a little town called Piddington in the UK and their anger about the housing of some 1,500 adult male illegal migrants near a rural hamlet of 350 locals, well, that matters to perceptions of what governments end up doing when they lose control of both our borders and culture.
00:07:21
Speaker 5: My concerns are the sheer scale of this. So we are a very small village.
00:07:26
Speaker 2: I'll be afraid. I mean, and I like going around the park, which is also very close. And it will be, well, I'll be totally scared and at risk.
00:07:36
Speaker 8: We're already doing self-defense classes.
00:07:39
Speaker 2: Everybody's watching this stuff on their devices. And what's happening in the UK feels very, very real here. Taylor's challenge would be to say what must be said while avoiding outbreaks of disunity from left-wing liberals who think that we've no moral right as a rich country to exclude would-be migrants from relatively poor ones. Now, if they can't get on board, then it's beyond time they drop the charade and join Labor. Luckily, there's a way forward, namely to insist that everyone who comes to this country must be able to demonstrate that their presence in Australia will be as good for us as it would undoubtedly be for them. After all, the chance at life in Australia remains the global golden ticket. And we've got to get back to prizing this ourselves to ensure we leverage it to get the world's best and brightest, people who love what we stand for and want to join us, rather than those who want to come here, use us or change us. Essentially, this means only providing long-term visas to those with a definitive job to go to from day one at fair market wages, because working and paying taxes is the best way to integrate and ultimately to assimilate into Australian society. If you're on a tourist visa or a study visa, when it ends, you go home. You go home and apply again if you want to come back to Australia, thus ending the road of visa hopping onshore. And when it comes to our refugee intake, how about prioritising the persecuted Christian minorities currently being slaughtered by Islamists in places like Nigeria? Taylor will never be able to rhetorically outgun his rival on the right, who will always sound more hardline than a party of potential government that has to balance concerns about social cohesion with concerns about keeping migrant-dependent industries alive. But Taylor's got to do a whole lot more than just be a little less worse than Labor, because it's this policy timidity that began under Labor-like Malcolm Turnbull that's responsible for the decade-long exodus of the Liberal base. A big migrant intake, and ours is one of the largest intakes, the developed world, that does not automatically mean a higher GDP. Every country ahead of us on the IMF's latest GDP table has a smaller percentage of foreign-born population than we have in Australia, meaning it's one thing to bring people into this country But it's whether they lift or lean, to borrow Robert Menzies phrase, when they get here, well, that is what matters. All right, let's go to camera now for the headlines with our political reporter, Ruben Spargo.
00:10:38
Speaker 5: Good evening.
00:10:38
Speaker 9: The prime minister has met President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. A selfie of the pair was taken only hours before the US President criticised Anthony Albanese's tech agenda.
00:10:51
Speaker 6: I'll always stand up for Australia's national interests and the digital duty of care is something that we've foreshadowed for some period of time.
00:10:59
Speaker 9: It was the first face-to-face meeting between the pair since October. Former Victorian Premier Jacinta Allen will be called to give evidence at the state's Construction Royal Commission. Documents revealed she was briefed about concerns surrounding major infrastructure projects in 2023.
00:11:15
Speaker 10: The core message recited in this brief is as follows. MTIA has recently received anecdotal reports of criminal elements potentially becoming involved.
00:11:26
Speaker 9: The Royal Commission opened with a warning to those with something to hide. Come forward or be found out.
00:11:32
Speaker 2: All right, fresh poll in today. Sky, Sky, good to see you again. News 24 Pulse Poll. shows Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's crash to his lowest and worst ever approval rating following weeks of scandals. A bit here from me about golf courses, controversies and government backdowns. Here to tell us more, News 24 Chief Election Analyst Tom Connell.
00:12:03
Speaker 5: Peter, there has to be a real question.
00:12:04
Speaker 11: Is Anthony Albanese's net satisfaction rating becoming a bit of a problem for Labor? This particular poll already has a big drop in support. So the number satisfied with his job, 33%, down three, dissatisfied up to 62%. Net satisfaction, so the positive, minus the minus, minus 29%. Scott Morrison after the summer of bushfires when... Voters weren't shaking his hand. He was at minus 22. So this is a problem. Let's compare it to November as well. As you can see, since then, minus nine satisfied, plus 12 dissatisfied.
00:12:36
Speaker 2: That's a huge move.
00:12:37
Speaker 11: So he was minus eight in only November and he shifted to minus 29.
00:12:42
Speaker 2: That's a huge shift.
00:12:43
Speaker 11: Where is he losing support? Well, breaking it down by voter cohort, first of all, some massive discrepancies. And you might say, well, no surprise.
00:12:50
Speaker 5: Of course, he's plus 67 with Labor. and much worse.
00:12:53
Speaker 11: But the concern here is Labor has lost primary vote, maybe a little bit to the coalition, maybe not, but certainly to One Nation. And that rating, minus 94, basically everyone saying he's doing a bad job, indicates maybe it will be hard to win them over. The other problem is where it's happening in terms of voter type. So Outer Metro, remember, his overall rating, minus 29. It's worse than the Outer Metro at minus 33, much worse for those low-middle-income households at minus 39. and also bad at minus 35 for TAFE educated. So outer suburban seats, working class, low and middle income, these seats, Labor have a lot of them at the moment, and these numbers indicate they could be in trouble.
00:13:39
Speaker 2: All right, let's bring in my panel. We'll pull that apart and a whole lot more. Senior Fellow at the Menzies Research Centre, Nick Cater, and News 24 host Jamie Rogers. Just on that, Nick, those numbers there from Tom Connell, what's interesting in that last slide, the demographic of the people moving fast away from Labor, that's Labor's old working class base. This is why they're so exercised.
00:14:04
Speaker 5: Well, that's right.
00:14:05
Speaker 12: One Nation has bled to labour before in past incarnations, but it's happening big time now. And I think this is where most of the increase for the One Nation vote has been coming in the last few months. Some of the coalition are not in a great position, but they're stable. They're holding their ground and perhaps even gaining some. So I would be really worried if I was Anthony Albanese on this. There's a lot of metropolitan seats, outer metropolitan seats around Sydney, around Melbourne. Adelaide even and Brisbane, that the coalition would have a real battle winning. You wouldn't get them over in one election, you would think. But the One Nation, I think, have every chance of winning some of those seats, places like in the Illawarra, up in the Hunter Valley in the far west of Sydney.
00:14:50
Speaker 5: So.
00:14:50
Speaker 2: Oh, I might have lost him there. He's frozen. I'll go to you if I can, Jamie, that the government, sorry, the opposition announced its energy plan today and it's really ripping into renewables. Now, we've long argued this should be on the agenda, that they need to really differentiate themselves from Labor. Here's the shadow energy minister, Dan Tehan.
00:15:18
Speaker 3: We need to take a chainsaw to Labor's green, ideologically driven approach to energy. For the Coalition, our energy policy starts with abundance and has three non-negotiables. The focus has to be on affordability, it has to be on reliability and it has to be on security.
00:15:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's eight priorities here. There's a big one, the repeal of the Climate Change Act of 2022 to remove legislated net zero targets, scrapping the safeguard mechanism, revoking four offshore wind energy zones and removing, of course, that prohibition on nuclear energy. Well, it's been a long time coming. What did you make of it today, Jamie?
00:16:07
Speaker 13: Well, Peter, I watched Dan Tehan today and I heard him earlier this morning on radio and I thought, demolition Dan. I liked what I was hearing, especially the removing net zero targets and lifting this nuclear ban. The concern, though, is the fact that we are still staying in Paris. And Dan did explain it on radio as a way to make sure that we can stay in control of pretty much our destiny by keeping a seat at the table and At the time when he was explaining it, it did seem to make sense to me. But now, as I'm saying it to you, it's actually not really quite making sense. But he came across brilliantly. And I think this is exactly the sort of fight that we need to see from the coalition. My only concern now, though, Peter, as well, is they drop these policies and then they stop talking about it. So now they've got to go hard and make sure that they get cut through and that the electorate and voters can see what their plan is. Because as Dan rightly pointed out, Australians at the moment are choosing between whether to have the lights on or whether to feed their family. And in a country like Australia, where we are abundant with natural resources, it's the sad reality that we face chasing this green ideology path. So I think that the coalition are heading in the right direction. I want to keep seeing more of this policy prosecution, because let's not forget, when nuclear was the only policy for the coalition January last year, they were dominating in the polls. And then they backtracked and almost got scared. And as soon as Labor came out with that $ 600 billion scare campaign, with nuclear. No one stopped it and corrected Labor. And unfortunately, we know the results there. So I think this is a good direction. I've liked what I've seen so far. So it's the fight's on.
00:17:48
Speaker 2: I just want to see them prosecuted day in, day out for more than a week. I mean, the problem is they pick something up, they drop it tomorrow. I mean, Abbott wore out his welcome everywhere he went with the four or five plans he had over six years. before he was elected, you've absolutely got to drum the message in. And, look, I was in Horsham on the weekend. I was in Birdship for a funeral of an aunt yesterday. God bless her soul, a wonderful woman. But all the way up that road, up the calder I was driving this time, it was the Western Highway on the weekend, but up the calder, there were signs everywhere about renewables. I mean, these communities now... are absolutely fighting this stuff hard, Nick. In Birdship, there was no lines, no mines, no turbines. That's the sign. Absolutely everywhere. I think this fight on renewables is fast becoming lost for Labor.
00:18:41
Speaker 5: Well, I think it definitely has.
00:18:42
Speaker 12: I mean, this has shifted a big way, Peter, in the last year, particularly in rural areas. I mean, you and I know we've been following this for four years or longer, the anger that was building up in the bush, but that was not getting through to the cities and it certainly wasn't getting through to Canberra. Now it is, it's become a national issue. What is happening to our countryside, what is happening to our Our farmland and some of our native bushland is an absolute disgrace. And once at last, that's on the political agenda. So I think this is a real, real negative for Labour. And you can see in the coalition's policy, they are onto this. They recognise that this has to change and we have to get back to a more sensible energy policy that focuses on cost and availability, one and two.
00:19:30
Speaker 2: Let's go to that fight I discussed yesterday, last week with Jess Collins, Senator Collins, about Sydney's Victoria Barracks. Well, today Chris Minns has weighed in. He's talking about support to slap a Heritage Council order on the property so it can't be sold, but it must be protected. Jamie, I think the Prime Minister's got a real fight on his hands here. Well, he does, and I've got to say well done to Chris Menz.
00:19:57
Speaker 13: I probably would have liked him to have started this fight a little bit earlier, but he's done it.
00:20:01
Speaker 2: Credits due.
00:20:02
Speaker 13: And the sad thing, though, here, Peter, is the prime minister is the one person who can stand up and stop the sale of these defence assets. He needs to show some leadership and back our defence sites. I actually took my boys to Lancer Barracks in Parramatta. And as soon as you walk through the gates, you can feel how special these sites are. And when you bundle in HMAS Penguin and Victoria Barracks, this is part of our national heritage that the Labor government are just so flippantly going off and selling. So we need to all sign James Patterson's petition that you can do online. Last time I checked, it was more than 80,000 signatures. And Jess Collins is also organising a protest down at HMAS Penguin on October 11. So the more people that are out there and the more that we all stay vocal, we can show this government that it's just unacceptable and it's an absolute disgrace that they're selling off these precious sites, because once they're gone, they're gone.
00:20:56
Speaker 2: They're gone forever. I need to leave it there. I'm sorry, I've got a hectic show and Obviously, I want to get to that Islamic State arrest today. Thank you to you both. Now, the continuing debate over the role and purpose of the Australian War Memorial and whether its expansion into the history of colonial frontier conflict risks changing what the institution is fundamentally about. Last week, you'll recall, I brought you the concerns from retired Lieutenant Colonel Peter O'Brien, a Vietnam veteran and co-convener of the campaign Defend Sacred Ground.
00:21:30
Speaker 6: This should go to the people, but they have done it behind closed doors. They had a meeting where it was agreed. The minutes of that meeting have not been made available. It was done in secret and now it's being thrust upon people. And I would bet that if this came to a plebiscite, we would get the same result that we got in the voice referendums.
00:21:51
Speaker 2: Well, now former Prime Minister Tony Abbott has weighed into the debate, arguing that frontier bloodshed is part of Australia's national story, but that the war memorial is not the appropriate place to commemorate it. Tony Abbott joins me now from Perth.
00:22:08
Speaker 5: Tony.
00:22:09
Speaker 2: In addition, obviously, to being a former Prime Minister, you were a member of the War Memorial Council. That's what we call the board of the shrine. So I'm assuming you've got plenty of understanding of what was discussed on this issue. I've been contacted by a huge number of Australians who are very angry that this proposal is even on the table. What can you tell us?
00:22:36
Speaker 14: Well, Peter, my very strong recollection is that no final decision was made, certainly in my time, to go down this path, because the Australian War Memorial, it's our greatest national shrine. It should be a place which honours those who have worn our uniform.
00:22:54
Speaker 15: It is a tribute to our nation in uniform.
00:22:57
Speaker 14: It should always be a place of unity and pride, not a place of division and shame.
00:23:04
Speaker 15: And unfortunately, there's an attempt on now to hijack the.
00:23:08
Speaker 14: War Memorial by the Invasion Day Brigade, by people who think the only thing that matters about our country is Aboriginal dispossession. Now, I accept that there was bloodshed on the frontier, and it's fair enough to remember that at the right place. But the right place is not the Australian War Memorial. I say hands off the Australian War Memorial. And we shouldn't have changed by stealth here. We've had too much change by stealth, change to have three flags, not one, change to have acknowledgements of country at every official event. We've got too much of this change by stealth. If any change is ever going to happen at the Australian War Memorial, ask the people, ask the people. Don't have it snuck in behind closed doors, particularly in given that the composition of the council has changed dramatically over the last 12 months.
00:24:05
Speaker 2: Yes, there's a number of highly political appointees on the council. Peter O'Brien, when we spoke to him last week, said that he had legal advice from an eminent QC that, and this was the best of the advice, that doing this, putting this into the War Memorial in this way, would actually contravene the act of So if that's accurate, how does this even go ahead?
00:24:34
Speaker 14: Well, there is a view at the memorial that what is now proposed is broadly consistent. Now, I think that means in practice it's inconsistent with the strict terms of the Act. I guess to try to work this out, someone would have to bring an action. But as we know, an action in court, first, you've got to have standing and second, you've got to have a lot of financial resources. I think the moral case is absolutely overwhelming that no government and no War Memorial Council should suddenly change the fundamental nature of our War Memorial, which is to honour those who wore our uniform and no one wearing Australia's uniform was ever involved in any violence against Aboriginal people. And at no stage, going right back to Governor Phillip in 1788, was there a war against Aboriginal people.
00:25:41
Speaker 15: Sure, there was bloodshed on the frontier, on both sides of the frontier.
00:25:46
Speaker 14: Settlers killed Aboriginal people, Aboriginal people killed settlers, but.
00:25:50
Speaker 15: It was never a war in any meaningful sense.
00:25:55
Speaker 2: Well, just across Lake Burley Griffin from the War Memorial, as you well know, is the Australian National Museum. If there was such a need to tell this story, and let's make sure it's accurate, both sides suffered bloodshed. Well, put it over at the Australian National Museum. Ultimately, and I know there is an independent charter for the War Memorial, but ultimately the hundreds of millions of dollars that To do this extension, this new development, comes from taxpayers, provided to them by the government. Surely the Prime Minister's got to speak up and step in now.
00:26:33
Speaker 15: Look, I agree.
00:26:35
Speaker 14: This would not happen if the Minister or the Prime Minister were to have a quiet word in the ear of Kim Beazley, the Council Chair.
00:26:43
Speaker 15: Now, I know Kim Beazley well. He's a very decent man.
00:26:48
Speaker 14: He and I have had discussions about this recently. He and I differ on this matter, but in the end, Kim Beazley and the Council will do what the Minister and the Prime Minister would like, and both the Minister and the Prime Minister, I think, have a duty to our country. The War Memorial belongs to all Australians and it should not be hijacked to talk about a part of Australian history that was never part of the work of the armed forces of the Commonwealth of Australia.
00:27:23
Speaker 2: Okay. Well, just to add insult to injury, one of my viewers, Peter Bruce, terrific bloke, sent me a lovely email, had gone through a process with the war memorial where he wrote to them and said, how on earth do we have a welcome to country for a recent opening event and not play the national anthem? This was in relation to the opening of Anzac Hall and the new atrium. He said his father had served in New Guinea. He wanted an explanation. Well, he got something back. He said it wasn't a proper answer, but the memorial eventually told him, and I quote, in terms of protocol, the Australian National Anthem was not played at either of the two previous events opening new sections of the development. It is, however, almost always, it says, not definitively, just almost always played at commemorative events. Now, come on, Tony, this is not good enough.
00:28:18
Speaker 15: Look, you're right, Peter.
00:28:19
Speaker 14: I think a lot of people were a little bit dismayed that the anthem wasn't played. I can only assume it was an oversight, to be honest. I know Matt Anderson, the War Memorial director, very well. I just have to assume that somehow it was left out by mistake. Certainly lots of people have commented upon its absence, and I can't imagine... that there will be another big event at the War Memorial that doesn't involve our national anthem.
00:28:52
Speaker 2: Well, can you write to him as a former Prime Minister, maybe co-opt a couple of other former Prime Ministers, to put it in writing to say that you speak on behalf of the majority of Australians, that you want to see the War Memorial play the national anthem at any significant event? Can't you put it on the table?
00:29:10
Speaker 15: Well, look, I'm happy to do that, Peter.
00:29:13
Speaker 14: As I said earlier, My main concern at the moment is to ensure that the War Memorial remains an institution that all of us can take pride in. And if it starts to go down the rabbit hole of the so-called frontier wars, I think that would be an absolute tragedy. Sure, not every part of our history is perfect. I absolutely accept that. But our country has far more to be proud of than to be ashamed of. In any event, we've all got to build on our strengths if we are going to go forward together into the future. And the work of the Australian Armed Forces from 1901 until today is part of the wonderful heritage of this country.
00:30:02
Speaker 2: Right, I've got you in the hot seat. I'm not going to let you go. We were having a quick discussion before about the Coalition's energy policy. We discussed the Paris Agreement. Of course, the Paris Agreement was agreed to in your time as Prime Minister, but I recall a handwritten note you wrote on the Cabinet decision saying, that said something to it, the effect that everybody else had to meet their targets or we were out and that our targets could only be met, it was 26 to 28 percent, which is a long way from where they are now, could only be met without any damage to the Australian economy. Is my recollection right? And given we have had damage, given those targets are now double, given that no one in the world is really doing anything, can't we now.
00:30:53
Speaker 5: Just walk away?
00:30:53
Speaker 9: Yeah.
00:30:55
Speaker 14: Well, Peter, we don't need to pull out of Paris because we have long ago met the Paris targets and we only agreed to meet the 26% to 28% Paris targets because the advice I got was that we would meet them without any new expenditure and any new policy. So, yes, net zero is economic insanity. It's energy madness. It's economic suicide. But Paris is, as it were, in the past because we long ago achieved our Paris targets.
00:31:31
Speaker 15: I think it was in 2022.
00:31:32
Speaker 2: You're saying it's a dead letter. You're saying it's a dead letter.
00:31:34
Speaker 15: It's a dead letter. It's ancient history now.
00:31:37
Speaker 2: All right. I'll leave it there. I will put up on the screen, though, information. Thank you, Tony. Information for people who want to get in and support this campaign. Tony Abbott's joined it now. Of course, you can see DefendSacredGround.com. So there's no AU there. DefendSacredGround.com. Please, please, please get involved. We don't need a war memorial. to be damaged in this way. After the break, the latest on the arrest of an alleged ISIS member, not supporter, member in Melbourne and what it means for Australia's terror threat level. Coming up, President Trump ramping up pressure on the Australian government over digital reforms and free speech. But now to the arrest of a Melbourne man. He's from Carlton, actually. Happened in Melbourne. 65-year-old individual arrested by counterterrorism police who alleged he was a principal distributor of ISIS propaganda among a group of associates. As I say, the clincher here is he's not ISIS linked, but police have charged him with being an alleged member of ISIS. Here to discuss it, former AFP Detective Superintendent David Craig. David, welcome. This bloke is accused of pledging allegiance to ISIS and distributing around 10,000 files online for the terrorist organisation, including instructions on how to plan a terror attack.
00:33:07
Speaker 5: Have a listen.
00:33:09
Speaker 8: Border force tipped off the AFP about this man in 2020, or at least his phone was seized a year before. A, why was he allowed to continue on to.
00:33:18
Speaker 5: Travel to Egypt, which is not far from Syria.
00:33:20
Speaker 7: And the conflict zone?
00:33:21
Speaker 8: And why has it taken almost six years to arrest this man? So when Border Force seized his phones at the border, they hadn't fully examined, they had enough suspicion to seize him, and then he was allowed to leave the country.
00:33:36
Speaker 7: How long was he then overseas before he returned?
00:33:38
Speaker 8: Approximately six months.
00:33:39
Speaker 2: All right, he's had long stints overseas in Egypt. We can't tell where he... went from Egypt, if he did leave Egypt. As we know, that's a stone's throw from Syria, from Gaza, from Iran, everywhere else. It's a hotspot over there. David, what was your impressions from what you heard this afternoon?
00:34:01
Speaker 1: Well, you know, if convicted, Peter, this person represents the absolute rot in our country that we don't need. This is allegedly a purveyor of hatred, of Islamic hatred being distributed with over 10,000 files or 10,000 files to people, inspiring hatred, giving police.
00:34:24
Speaker 5: Methodologies away on how to avoid detection.
00:34:27
Speaker 1: If this person is convicted, I would hope that they can pack him up and deport him back to Somalia where he can spend the rest of his days once he's finished his jail term here. This is a very dangerous individual that is perpetuating hate and has done for a considerable period of time.
00:34:47
Speaker 2: It was interesting today in that exchange with the Assistant, Acting Assistant Commissioner there on the TV from the AFP. One of the journalists asked her, was he a foreign-born individual? Was he Australian-born, I think was a term that was used. And the response from the AFP was, he is an Australian citizen. They completely dodged answering the question about his nationality at birth. I think that's relevant.
00:35:16
Speaker 5: Highly relevant, Peter.
00:35:17
Speaker 1: I mean, if he's a dual citizen, he should be, if he's convicted, if the alleged behaviour is proven in court, he should be stripped of his Australian citizenship and deported at the end of his sentence. We don't need this sort of person peddling this sort of hatred in our country.
00:35:33
Speaker 5: This is an imported problem and we don't need it.
00:35:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, interesting you say that because I thought to myself, six months in Egypt for an Australian citizen is That's a bit unusual. I don't think you can get a visa that long. So I jumped on the website and found out that you could get a 60 to 90 day visa. You can get a longest day visa of, you know, three, four, five months, but you have to leave the country, leave Egypt after 60 days. So the fact that he was in Egypt for such a long period of time probably says to me that he has some sort of permanent residency or perhaps citizenship. in Egypt. Again, we've got to get tough on anyone who has multiple rights to citizenship. If they don't want to join our team, if they don't want to live by Australian values, if that's what the court finds in the end, out they go.
00:36:28
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and the AFP and Home Affairs shouldn't be shying away from this, and certainly not the Prime Minister either. As we know, all three that I just mentioned then have shown a lack of spine in relation to confronting radical Islam, which this is if it's proven in court, and we need to expel this from our country.
00:36:50
Speaker 2: Okay, what do you make of the calls now for a new threshold to be inserted between possible terror threat level and the probable terror threat level?
00:37:03
Speaker 5: Peter, I think it's a good idea.
00:37:05
Speaker 1: We've been at probable now since August 2024. I think there's an issue with remaining in the probable state because people become desensitised to it. We've been in that level during the Bondi attack. We've been at that level while, as we've learnt last week on your show, four disrupted major terrorist attacks plots that were in the final stages of planning. And yet we've remained at the same security level, the same threat level. We need an intervening level. And I think that level should be probable hyphen heightened so that there can be two levels within probable before we go to expected, which is an absolutely expected level.
00:37:49
Speaker 5: Rock sure there's going to be an attack.
00:37:51
Speaker 1: I think it's important because it alarms people if there is an escalation and yet we can drop it back from probable heightened to probable if the circumstances allow.
00:38:02
Speaker 2: So probable plus, I suppose, is how I'd call it in a layman's term. Hey, what about the report yesterday? A 14-year-old boy charged with violent extremist offences after allegedly planning attacks at three locations in Miraburra This is on the Fraser Coast in Queensland. Police allege he was acting independently. I mean, a 14-year-old, terror attacks alleged, alleged, alleged, acting independently. How does that stack up?
00:38:31
Speaker 1: Well, you know, Peter, tonight on your show, we've sort of covered the entire spectrum from an alleged 65-year-old Somali Muslim radical ISIS member to a 14-year-old boy in remote Queensland as the consumer. One was the purveyor of the hatred and one was the consumer. I'm not saying they're the same ideology. What I am saying is it's the same online radical process.
00:38:59
Speaker 5: They are certainly....
00:39:01
Speaker 1: It's the ecosystem in which counter-terrorism needs to operate now. The radical online radicalisation from people that peddle hatred and ideology and the consumer at the other end that picks it up and is prepared to act violently upon it.
00:39:18
Speaker 15: It is, David.
00:39:19
Speaker 2: It is the scourge of our generation. And this is why, you know, again, I'm so angry that the Prime Minister never gave any public evidence to the Royal Commission and we didn't even get evidence from the head of the AFP.
00:39:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very disappointing, Peter, and in fact the fact that the head of the AFP hasn't fronted the media today, you would remember the days when we had real leadership in the AFP with Mick Kelty standing up, leading the way, letting people know exactly where the AFP stands and what people could expect from from law enforcement.
00:39:48
Speaker 5: At this stage, we haven't even got a deputy commissioner.
00:39:51
Speaker 1: We've got an acting assistant commissioner representing a serious ISIS member threat, allegedly.
00:39:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll leave it there. Thank you, David Craig. Quick break after the break. We'll get into the very tough comments today from the president in relation to Labor's digital duty of care reforms. We'll get into that. But the president really fighting on the issue of free speech. That's coming up. Still to come, Words Matter with Kel Richards. Wednesday, of course, happens every Wednesday. Now, of course, to the Prime Minister in New York. And he was there with among 20 other world leaders who were demanding international frameworks on AI safeguards. But he got a lot of pushback from the president and also the new US ambassador to Australia, who's asked for clarity about the government's digital duty of care legislation, saying exactly what is harm? What risks are we talking about? And then, of course, there was a warning today from the AFP acting assistant commissioner at the press conference in relation to the arrest of the ISIS member so alleged.
00:41:06
Speaker 8: The message is this viewing this violent extremist material is not harmless online content. It desensitises people and normalises violence and, as I said, mass executions.
00:41:19
Speaker 2: Bringing in now Senator Sarah Henderson, Shadow Communications Minister. Just on this point, Sarah... I know the government says we need this digital duty of care because we've got young people committing suicide. We've got child pornography on the internet. We've got radical Islamic terrorism on the internet. But we get people put in jail for child online exploitation. And we saw that arrest today in relation to this ISIS-linked individual. Certainly that's the police claim. We've already got all of these laws. They work. So why do we need this digital duty of care bill?
00:41:57
Speaker 15: Well, Peter, good evening.
00:41:58
Speaker 16: And the short answer is we don't, because as you say, most of the most serious online harms are already prohibited under the criminal law or regulated under the Online Safety Act. The difference with the digital duty of care is this is a political censorship bill. This is all about shutting down the opponents that Albanese and others do not want to hear from. And he belled the cat today in New York when he gave a speech talking about, let's take this to the next level, combating misinformation and disinformation and the extreme views on the left and the right. So make no mistake, this is an egregious attack on free speech, and that's why it's been condemned by the US administration.
00:42:43
Speaker 2: So he's using the cover of child pornography, child exploitation, all the things we're against, suicide idolising and information to young people to radicalise them online. All of that's already against the law. So this is a really cheap shot by the government to come at sort of our natural sympathies to see the end of all of that But by basically getting it in before the next election, mind you, to basically shut down legitimate debate on the internet or for people hearing, you know, that the bloke lies, that he isn't doing what he promised, that the budget's in bad shape, that the borders are not controlled. That's what this is about.
00:43:26
Speaker 16: It is, and as I say, that speech that he gave today, they've now removed that damning, extraordinary section from the transcript on the Prime Minister's media website. So talk about disinformation on the Prime Minister's own website. No, I've just checked, and that section of the speech where he referenced... Misinformation and disinformation and the extreme views on the left and the right, that has been removed from his website from that speech.
00:43:55
Speaker 2: So the Greens have belled the cat on this.
00:43:58
Speaker 16: They talked about using this, that they should and can shut down the views of their political opponents, the Coalition and One Nation. This is a cover. for an egregious attack on free speech. This is the stuff of communist China. This is not the laws of a first world democratic country and it's extraordinary what the government is doing and it's disgusting that they're using children, harnessing the protection of children, for their insidious agenda.
00:44:32
Speaker 2: And, look, from my understanding of it, Sarah... A reasonable debate about safeguards around AI and how it's rolled out and its impact on the workforce is very different than a debate about free speech, than this digital censorship, than this misinformation, disinformation. But the Prime Minister is trying to conflate the two. It looks like that to me. Is that how, am I reading it right?
00:44:59
Speaker 16: He certainly is, and he's also conflating this notion of my feed, my way, where you can so-called turn off the algorithm, which of course is not possible, turning off the personalised algorithm. That's actually not in this bill. There's just some rulemaking power. So he's mixing up different issues. The real story here is that the minister has unfettered powers to decide any category of harm that should be shut down. It is all about shutting down what people can say and see online. It's all about shutting down the political opponents of Labor. They are desperate. They will do anything, Peter, and this bill is dangerous and must be stopped.
00:45:43
Speaker 2: When the bloke's got the worst ever rating of any Prime Minister in living memory, I can see he's going to stop at nothing to stay in office. Sarah, thank you. All right, after the break, we'll get into words with Kel. We'll come back to other things. Of course, the Victorian Royal Commission into the CFMEU. It's not all unions, mind you. Started today. I'll have a big update for you on that tomorrow night. It was just sort of the opening salvo tonight, but tomorrow there'll be more. See you in a moment. Mr Richards, it's been a busy day. I want to get straight in it with you. Thank you for being here. The first one up is from me, and I tell you, I throw things at the TV. Comparable was how I was taught to pronounce the word, not comparable. comparable, but maybe I belong in another century.
00:46:32
Speaker 4: No, no, no. You are spot on. There is one standard and correct pronunciation, and that is to stress the first syllable, comparable. The American pronunciation is comparable, spitting out that middle. But don't do any of that. Stress the first syllable. It's the American influence. Really sad. So either show me your American passport or say comparable.
00:46:54
Speaker 2: OK, politicians and media types, please take note that one does my head in. Hey, guts for garters. Ron says, where's this one come from, Kel? I'll have your guts for garters.
00:47:05
Speaker 4: Comes from the reign of the Tudor kings and queens in England when one of the punishments was to be hanged, wrought and quartered. Now, that involved a cutting out and exposing the intestines of the poor, unfortunate victim, although still half alive. That's where the guts come from. The garters from the fact that Tudor men would wear garters to hold up their hose or, Now, it was never a serious threat. No intestines were ever turned into garters, but it made a nice, alliterative, blustering revenge threat, guts for garters.
00:47:36
Speaker 2: Now, I like this one from Dee. She wants to know the history of duck shove.
00:47:41
Speaker 4: Oh, this is ours. This was invented in marvellous Melbourne in 1859, and it came from the behaviour of cab drivers. Now, obviously, at that time, horse-drawn cabs, handsome cabs, And apparently they used to shuffle and compete to get to the best places in the cab rank. And the way they behaved was described as duck shoving. And that put the word into circulation, presumably from having watched lines of little ducks pushing each other as they waddled towards the water. But it was Melbourne cab drivers that gave us the word.
00:48:12
Speaker 15: I love it.
00:48:12
Speaker 2: It might be about the duck boards. You know duck boards, wooden duck boards? Oh, yes, yes. Could have been that too when people stand up next to those to get into the cabs because I suspect Melbourne was as wet and miserable back then as it is sometimes today. Beautiful as well. Beautiful as well.
00:48:26
Speaker 4: Leaving it out.
00:48:27
Speaker 2: That's it for me. Thanks, Kel. See you next week. Here's the Andrew Bolt Show.
Speaker 1: Peter Credlin, live from News 24.
00:00:07
Speaker 2: Certainly am here. Good evening. Welcome to the program. Here's what's coming up tonight on Credlin. Another counter-terrorism arrest in Melbourne today. This time it's an alleged ISIS member who spent six months in Egypt before returning home to Australia. All smiles as the Prime Minister gets his selfie fix at the UN, but the US President not looking so happy, turning on the pressure to Australia over Labor's digital laws and free speech. More tonight on the Australian War Memorial being used as a political platform, including the dumping of the Australian National Anthem. And the Coalition unveils its energy plan and finally looks ready to pull the renewables rug from under Chris Bowen and this net zero obsessed government.
00:00:52
Speaker 3: We need to take a chainsaw to Labor's green, ideologically driven approach to energy.
00:01:02
Speaker 2: But first, as the latest News 24 Pulse poll has revealed, with a deeply unpopular leader, Labor is in trouble. No surprise then that Anthony Albanese has grabbed the opportunity for a trip to the UN rather than face a booing crowd and Kylie Minogue at the MCG this weekend. Shag, marry, date. Kylie Minogue, Nicole Kidman or Rhonda Birchmore?
00:01:27
Speaker 4: Kylie, clearly.
00:01:28
Speaker 2: You'd marry Kylie and shag her and date her?
00:01:31
Speaker 5: All of the above.
00:01:32
Speaker 6: All right.
00:01:35
Speaker 2: That's why he's not there at the MCG for the AFL grand final. But Albanese is under no threat of removal as long as the right of politics remains split. And that's both the dismal reality and the challenge for anyone wanting our country to be better. After a decade of climate wars, the coalition has finally given us the bare bones of an energy policy today to keep coal in the system, to get more gas out of the ground as quickly as possible and essentially to scrap all subsidies for renewables because if they're really cheap, they don't need them, and to end the nuclear ban. Finally, net zero is dead and the Turnbull-Morrison era of climate nonsense consigned to history. But now the coalition needs a fair income immigration policy too. Because energy and immigration are the policy areas where the Albanese government is most damaging our country. It's also where One Nation has the advantage over the Coalition for consistency and credibility. Unlike the Coalition, which has been against and then for and now against net zero emissions, One Nation has always opposed it. And unlike the Coalition, which successfully stopped illegal migration under PMs Howard and Abbott, But eventually lost control of legal migration, One Nation's always been concerned about both and the impact of migrants on the economy and their effect on social cohesion. As revealed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in their annual report last week, our net overseas migration, the NOM, was 292,000 in the 12 months to March this year. In the Howard era, the long-run average was 110,000. So let's be clear, a norm averaging around $ 300, 000 a year puts downward pressure on wages, upward pressure on housing, it strains physical and social infrastructure, and at least for the migrants who come here and just live in Hotel Australia, take all they can get, well, it erodes social cohesion. Angus Taylor began his time as opposition leader saying that he'd restore our standard of living, he'd protect our way of life, and that the migrant situation Migrants come into this country while the numbers were too high and the quality was too low.
00:03:58
Speaker 7: Our top priority in the Liberal Party and my top priority as a new leader and Jane's as well is to protect Australians' way of life and to restore their standard of living. You've heard some strong comments from me in the last 24 hours on immigration and immigration, clearly the numbers have been too high and the standards have been too low.
00:04:19
Speaker 2: Now on this, the public are clearly with Angus. Numerous polls have the majorities wanting lower or much lower migration. Likewise, there are significant and growing poll concerns about the impact of mass migration on social cohesion. As well as fueling support for One Nation and the polling trend line makes that obvious, the Bondi massacre has obviously drawn attention to migrant communities that have lived here for decades without assimilating Australian values. For too long in Canberra, ever-increasing migrant numbers have been a lazy tool to artificially inflate growth forecasts and to stop the economy slipping into recession, even though in per capita terms that's precisely what's happened. This practice has masked record high government spending and profligate waste, especially under the Albanese government, but also under Morrison too. Now Taylor has to stand up and declare the racket must end. To keep the coalition competitive, he must spell out precisely how he will reduce migrant numbers while demonstrating how to keep productive industries strong, such as agriculture, that rely on overseas workers to do the jobs that Australians just won't do. Now, perhaps ending access to welfare for able-bodied, working-age people would be a good start. He's also got to tackle the elephant in the room, and that's who we permit to migrate here. If politicians don't think that voters could join the dots between recent terrorism-related arrests and the countries of origin that sponsor Islamist extremism, well, they are kidding themselves. Look at the latest arrest today. A Somalian-born man, now Australian citizen, arrested because police allege he's a member of ISIS and has been, they claim, trying to recruit people online to and give advice as to how to avoid detection when planning a mass terrorism event.
00:06:24
Speaker 8: Today, the Victorian counter-terrorism team, comprised of the AFP, Victoria Police and ASIO, have arrested a 65-year-old man who we will allege is a member of ISIS. The man will be charged with membership of a terrorism organisation, possessing and controlling violent extremist material and using a carriage service to cause offence.
00:06:47
Speaker 2: Not linked to ISIS, a member of ISIS is the allegation. In a world that's more globally connected than any other time in human existence, events in a little town called Piddington in the UK and their anger about the housing of some 1,500 adult male illegal migrants near a rural hamlet of 350 locals, well, that matters to perceptions of what governments end up doing when they lose control of both our borders and culture.
00:07:21
Speaker 5: My concerns are the sheer scale of this. So we are a very small village.
00:07:26
Speaker 2: I'll be afraid. I mean, and I like going around the park, which is also very close. And it will be, well, I'll be totally scared and at risk.
00:07:36
Speaker 8: We're already doing self-defense classes.
00:07:39
Speaker 2: Everybody's watching this stuff on their devices. And what's happening in the UK feels very, very real here. Taylor's challenge would be to say what must be said while avoiding outbreaks of disunity from left-wing liberals who think that we've no moral right as a rich country to exclude would-be migrants from relatively poor ones. Now, if they can't get on board, then it's beyond time they drop the charade and join Labor. Luckily, there's a way forward, namely to insist that everyone who comes to this country must be able to demonstrate that their presence in Australia will be as good for us as it would undoubtedly be for them. After all, the chance at life in Australia remains the global golden ticket. And we've got to get back to prizing this ourselves to ensure we leverage it to get the world's best and brightest, people who love what we stand for and want to join us, rather than those who want to come here, use us or change us. Essentially, this means only providing long-term visas to those with a definitive job to go to from day one at fair market wages, because working and paying taxes is the best way to integrate and ultimately to assimilate into Australian society. If you're on a tourist visa or a study visa, when it ends, you go home. You go home and apply again if you want to come back to Australia, thus ending the road of visa hopping onshore. And when it comes to our refugee intake, how about prioritising the persecuted Christian minorities currently being slaughtered by Islamists in places like Nigeria? Taylor will never be able to rhetorically outgun his rival on the right, who will always sound more hardline than a party of potential government that has to balance concerns about social cohesion with concerns about keeping migrant-dependent industries alive. But Taylor's got to do a whole lot more than just be a little less worse than Labor, because it's this policy timidity that began under Labor-like Malcolm Turnbull that's responsible for the decade-long exodus of the Liberal base. A big migrant intake, and ours is one of the largest intakes, the developed world, that does not automatically mean a higher GDP. Every country ahead of us on the IMF's latest GDP table has a smaller percentage of foreign-born population than we have in Australia, meaning it's one thing to bring people into this country But it's whether they lift or lean, to borrow Robert Menzies phrase, when they get here, well, that is what matters. All right, let's go to camera now for the headlines with our political reporter, Ruben Spargo.
00:10:38
Speaker 5: Good evening.
00:10:38
Speaker 9: The prime minister has met President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. A selfie of the pair was taken only hours before the US President criticised Anthony Albanese's tech agenda.
00:10:51
Speaker 6: I'll always stand up for Australia's national interests and the digital duty of care is something that we've foreshadowed for some period of time.
00:10:59
Speaker 9: It was the first face-to-face meeting between the pair since October. Former Victorian Premier Jacinta Allen will be called to give evidence at the state's Construction Royal Commission. Documents revealed she was briefed about concerns surrounding major infrastructure projects in 2023.
00:11:15
Speaker 10: The core message recited in this brief is as follows. MTIA has recently received anecdotal reports of criminal elements potentially becoming involved.
00:11:26
Speaker 9: The Royal Commission opened with a warning to those with something to hide. Come forward or be found out.
00:11:32
Speaker 2: All right, fresh poll in today. Sky, Sky, good to see you again. News 24 Pulse Poll. shows Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's crash to his lowest and worst ever approval rating following weeks of scandals. A bit here from me about golf courses, controversies and government backdowns. Here to tell us more, News 24 Chief Election Analyst Tom Connell.
00:12:03
Speaker 5: Peter, there has to be a real question.
00:12:04
Speaker 11: Is Anthony Albanese's net satisfaction rating becoming a bit of a problem for Labor? This particular poll already has a big drop in support. So the number satisfied with his job, 33%, down three, dissatisfied up to 62%. Net satisfaction, so the positive, minus the minus, minus 29%. Scott Morrison after the summer of bushfires when... Voters weren't shaking his hand. He was at minus 22. So this is a problem. Let's compare it to November as well. As you can see, since then, minus nine satisfied, plus 12 dissatisfied.
00:12:36
Speaker 2: That's a huge move.
00:12:37
Speaker 11: So he was minus eight in only November and he shifted to minus 29.
00:12:42
Speaker 2: That's a huge shift.
00:12:43
Speaker 11: Where is he losing support? Well, breaking it down by voter cohort, first of all, some massive discrepancies. And you might say, well, no surprise.
00:12:50
Speaker 5: Of course, he's plus 67 with Labor. and much worse.
00:12:53
Speaker 11: But the concern here is Labor has lost primary vote, maybe a little bit to the coalition, maybe not, but certainly to One Nation. And that rating, minus 94, basically everyone saying he's doing a bad job, indicates maybe it will be hard to win them over. The other problem is where it's happening in terms of voter type. So Outer Metro, remember, his overall rating, minus 29. It's worse than the Outer Metro at minus 33, much worse for those low-middle-income households at minus 39. and also bad at minus 35 for TAFE educated. So outer suburban seats, working class, low and middle income, these seats, Labor have a lot of them at the moment, and these numbers indicate they could be in trouble.
00:13:39
Speaker 2: All right, let's bring in my panel. We'll pull that apart and a whole lot more. Senior Fellow at the Menzies Research Centre, Nick Cater, and News 24 host Jamie Rogers. Just on that, Nick, those numbers there from Tom Connell, what's interesting in that last slide, the demographic of the people moving fast away from Labor, that's Labor's old working class base. This is why they're so exercised.
00:14:04
Speaker 5: Well, that's right.
00:14:05
Speaker 12: One Nation has bled to labour before in past incarnations, but it's happening big time now. And I think this is where most of the increase for the One Nation vote has been coming in the last few months. Some of the coalition are not in a great position, but they're stable. They're holding their ground and perhaps even gaining some. So I would be really worried if I was Anthony Albanese on this. There's a lot of metropolitan seats, outer metropolitan seats around Sydney, around Melbourne. Adelaide even and Brisbane, that the coalition would have a real battle winning. You wouldn't get them over in one election, you would think. But the One Nation, I think, have every chance of winning some of those seats, places like in the Illawarra, up in the Hunter Valley in the far west of Sydney.
00:14:50
Speaker 5: So.
00:14:50
Speaker 2: Oh, I might have lost him there. He's frozen. I'll go to you if I can, Jamie, that the government, sorry, the opposition announced its energy plan today and it's really ripping into renewables. Now, we've long argued this should be on the agenda, that they need to really differentiate themselves from Labor. Here's the shadow energy minister, Dan Tehan.
00:15:18
Speaker 3: We need to take a chainsaw to Labor's green, ideologically driven approach to energy. For the Coalition, our energy policy starts with abundance and has three non-negotiables. The focus has to be on affordability, it has to be on reliability and it has to be on security.
00:15:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's eight priorities here. There's a big one, the repeal of the Climate Change Act of 2022 to remove legislated net zero targets, scrapping the safeguard mechanism, revoking four offshore wind energy zones and removing, of course, that prohibition on nuclear energy. Well, it's been a long time coming. What did you make of it today, Jamie?
00:16:07
Speaker 13: Well, Peter, I watched Dan Tehan today and I heard him earlier this morning on radio and I thought, demolition Dan. I liked what I was hearing, especially the removing net zero targets and lifting this nuclear ban. The concern, though, is the fact that we are still staying in Paris. And Dan did explain it on radio as a way to make sure that we can stay in control of pretty much our destiny by keeping a seat at the table and At the time when he was explaining it, it did seem to make sense to me. But now, as I'm saying it to you, it's actually not really quite making sense. But he came across brilliantly. And I think this is exactly the sort of fight that we need to see from the coalition. My only concern now, though, Peter, as well, is they drop these policies and then they stop talking about it. So now they've got to go hard and make sure that they get cut through and that the electorate and voters can see what their plan is. Because as Dan rightly pointed out, Australians at the moment are choosing between whether to have the lights on or whether to feed their family. And in a country like Australia, where we are abundant with natural resources, it's the sad reality that we face chasing this green ideology path. So I think that the coalition are heading in the right direction. I want to keep seeing more of this policy prosecution, because let's not forget, when nuclear was the only policy for the coalition January last year, they were dominating in the polls. And then they backtracked and almost got scared. And as soon as Labor came out with that $ 600 billion scare campaign, with nuclear. No one stopped it and corrected Labor. And unfortunately, we know the results there. So I think this is a good direction. I've liked what I've seen so far. So it's the fight's on.
00:17:48
Speaker 2: I just want to see them prosecuted day in, day out for more than a week. I mean, the problem is they pick something up, they drop it tomorrow. I mean, Abbott wore out his welcome everywhere he went with the four or five plans he had over six years. before he was elected, you've absolutely got to drum the message in. And, look, I was in Horsham on the weekend. I was in Birdship for a funeral of an aunt yesterday. God bless her soul, a wonderful woman. But all the way up that road, up the calder I was driving this time, it was the Western Highway on the weekend, but up the calder, there were signs everywhere about renewables. I mean, these communities now... are absolutely fighting this stuff hard, Nick. In Birdship, there was no lines, no mines, no turbines. That's the sign. Absolutely everywhere. I think this fight on renewables is fast becoming lost for Labor.
00:18:41
Speaker 5: Well, I think it definitely has.
00:18:42
Speaker 12: I mean, this has shifted a big way, Peter, in the last year, particularly in rural areas. I mean, you and I know we've been following this for four years or longer, the anger that was building up in the bush, but that was not getting through to the cities and it certainly wasn't getting through to Canberra. Now it is, it's become a national issue. What is happening to our countryside, what is happening to our Our farmland and some of our native bushland is an absolute disgrace. And once at last, that's on the political agenda. So I think this is a real, real negative for Labour. And you can see in the coalition's policy, they are onto this. They recognise that this has to change and we have to get back to a more sensible energy policy that focuses on cost and availability, one and two.
00:19:30
Speaker 2: Let's go to that fight I discussed yesterday, last week with Jess Collins, Senator Collins, about Sydney's Victoria Barracks. Well, today Chris Minns has weighed in. He's talking about support to slap a Heritage Council order on the property so it can't be sold, but it must be protected. Jamie, I think the Prime Minister's got a real fight on his hands here. Well, he does, and I've got to say well done to Chris Menz.
00:19:57
Speaker 13: I probably would have liked him to have started this fight a little bit earlier, but he's done it.
00:20:01
Speaker 2: Credits due.
00:20:02
Speaker 13: And the sad thing, though, here, Peter, is the prime minister is the one person who can stand up and stop the sale of these defence assets. He needs to show some leadership and back our defence sites. I actually took my boys to Lancer Barracks in Parramatta. And as soon as you walk through the gates, you can feel how special these sites are. And when you bundle in HMAS Penguin and Victoria Barracks, this is part of our national heritage that the Labor government are just so flippantly going off and selling. So we need to all sign James Patterson's petition that you can do online. Last time I checked, it was more than 80,000 signatures. And Jess Collins is also organising a protest down at HMAS Penguin on October 11. So the more people that are out there and the more that we all stay vocal, we can show this government that it's just unacceptable and it's an absolute disgrace that they're selling off these precious sites, because once they're gone, they're gone.
00:20:56
Speaker 2: They're gone forever. I need to leave it there. I'm sorry, I've got a hectic show and Obviously, I want to get to that Islamic State arrest today. Thank you to you both. Now, the continuing debate over the role and purpose of the Australian War Memorial and whether its expansion into the history of colonial frontier conflict risks changing what the institution is fundamentally about. Last week, you'll recall, I brought you the concerns from retired Lieutenant Colonel Peter O'Brien, a Vietnam veteran and co-convener of the campaign Defend Sacred Ground.
00:21:30
Speaker 6: This should go to the people, but they have done it behind closed doors. They had a meeting where it was agreed. The minutes of that meeting have not been made available. It was done in secret and now it's being thrust upon people. And I would bet that if this came to a plebiscite, we would get the same result that we got in the voice referendums.
00:21:51
Speaker 2: Well, now former Prime Minister Tony Abbott has weighed into the debate, arguing that frontier bloodshed is part of Australia's national story, but that the war memorial is not the appropriate place to commemorate it. Tony Abbott joins me now from Perth.
00:22:08
Speaker 5: Tony.
00:22:09
Speaker 2: In addition, obviously, to being a former Prime Minister, you were a member of the War Memorial Council. That's what we call the board of the shrine. So I'm assuming you've got plenty of understanding of what was discussed on this issue. I've been contacted by a huge number of Australians who are very angry that this proposal is even on the table. What can you tell us?
00:22:36
Speaker 14: Well, Peter, my very strong recollection is that no final decision was made, certainly in my time, to go down this path, because the Australian War Memorial, it's our greatest national shrine. It should be a place which honours those who have worn our uniform.
00:22:54
Speaker 15: It is a tribute to our nation in uniform.
00:22:57
Speaker 14: It should always be a place of unity and pride, not a place of division and shame.
00:23:04
Speaker 15: And unfortunately, there's an attempt on now to hijack the.
00:23:08
Speaker 14: War Memorial by the Invasion Day Brigade, by people who think the only thing that matters about our country is Aboriginal dispossession. Now, I accept that there was bloodshed on the frontier, and it's fair enough to remember that at the right place. But the right place is not the Australian War Memorial. I say hands off the Australian War Memorial. And we shouldn't have changed by stealth here. We've had too much change by stealth, change to have three flags, not one, change to have acknowledgements of country at every official event. We've got too much of this change by stealth. If any change is ever going to happen at the Australian War Memorial, ask the people, ask the people. Don't have it snuck in behind closed doors, particularly in given that the composition of the council has changed dramatically over the last 12 months.
00:24:05
Speaker 2: Yes, there's a number of highly political appointees on the council. Peter O'Brien, when we spoke to him last week, said that he had legal advice from an eminent QC that, and this was the best of the advice, that doing this, putting this into the War Memorial in this way, would actually contravene the act of So if that's accurate, how does this even go ahead?
00:24:34
Speaker 14: Well, there is a view at the memorial that what is now proposed is broadly consistent. Now, I think that means in practice it's inconsistent with the strict terms of the Act. I guess to try to work this out, someone would have to bring an action. But as we know, an action in court, first, you've got to have standing and second, you've got to have a lot of financial resources. I think the moral case is absolutely overwhelming that no government and no War Memorial Council should suddenly change the fundamental nature of our War Memorial, which is to honour those who wore our uniform and no one wearing Australia's uniform was ever involved in any violence against Aboriginal people. And at no stage, going right back to Governor Phillip in 1788, was there a war against Aboriginal people.
00:25:41
Speaker 15: Sure, there was bloodshed on the frontier, on both sides of the frontier.
00:25:46
Speaker 14: Settlers killed Aboriginal people, Aboriginal people killed settlers, but.
00:25:50
Speaker 15: It was never a war in any meaningful sense.
00:25:55
Speaker 2: Well, just across Lake Burley Griffin from the War Memorial, as you well know, is the Australian National Museum. If there was such a need to tell this story, and let's make sure it's accurate, both sides suffered bloodshed. Well, put it over at the Australian National Museum. Ultimately, and I know there is an independent charter for the War Memorial, but ultimately the hundreds of millions of dollars that To do this extension, this new development, comes from taxpayers, provided to them by the government. Surely the Prime Minister's got to speak up and step in now.
00:26:33
Speaker 15: Look, I agree.
00:26:35
Speaker 14: This would not happen if the Minister or the Prime Minister were to have a quiet word in the ear of Kim Beazley, the Council Chair.
00:26:43
Speaker 15: Now, I know Kim Beazley well. He's a very decent man.
00:26:48
Speaker 14: He and I have had discussions about this recently. He and I differ on this matter, but in the end, Kim Beazley and the Council will do what the Minister and the Prime Minister would like, and both the Minister and the Prime Minister, I think, have a duty to our country. The War Memorial belongs to all Australians and it should not be hijacked to talk about a part of Australian history that was never part of the work of the armed forces of the Commonwealth of Australia.
00:27:23
Speaker 2: Okay. Well, just to add insult to injury, one of my viewers, Peter Bruce, terrific bloke, sent me a lovely email, had gone through a process with the war memorial where he wrote to them and said, how on earth do we have a welcome to country for a recent opening event and not play the national anthem? This was in relation to the opening of Anzac Hall and the new atrium. He said his father had served in New Guinea. He wanted an explanation. Well, he got something back. He said it wasn't a proper answer, but the memorial eventually told him, and I quote, in terms of protocol, the Australian National Anthem was not played at either of the two previous events opening new sections of the development. It is, however, almost always, it says, not definitively, just almost always played at commemorative events. Now, come on, Tony, this is not good enough.
00:28:18
Speaker 15: Look, you're right, Peter.
00:28:19
Speaker 14: I think a lot of people were a little bit dismayed that the anthem wasn't played. I can only assume it was an oversight, to be honest. I know Matt Anderson, the War Memorial director, very well. I just have to assume that somehow it was left out by mistake. Certainly lots of people have commented upon its absence, and I can't imagine... that there will be another big event at the War Memorial that doesn't involve our national anthem.
00:28:52
Speaker 2: Well, can you write to him as a former Prime Minister, maybe co-opt a couple of other former Prime Ministers, to put it in writing to say that you speak on behalf of the majority of Australians, that you want to see the War Memorial play the national anthem at any significant event? Can't you put it on the table?
00:29:10
Speaker 15: Well, look, I'm happy to do that, Peter.
00:29:13
Speaker 14: As I said earlier, My main concern at the moment is to ensure that the War Memorial remains an institution that all of us can take pride in. And if it starts to go down the rabbit hole of the so-called frontier wars, I think that would be an absolute tragedy. Sure, not every part of our history is perfect. I absolutely accept that. But our country has far more to be proud of than to be ashamed of. In any event, we've all got to build on our strengths if we are going to go forward together into the future. And the work of the Australian Armed Forces from 1901 until today is part of the wonderful heritage of this country.
00:30:02
Speaker 2: Right, I've got you in the hot seat. I'm not going to let you go. We were having a quick discussion before about the Coalition's energy policy. We discussed the Paris Agreement. Of course, the Paris Agreement was agreed to in your time as Prime Minister, but I recall a handwritten note you wrote on the Cabinet decision saying, that said something to it, the effect that everybody else had to meet their targets or we were out and that our targets could only be met, it was 26 to 28 percent, which is a long way from where they are now, could only be met without any damage to the Australian economy. Is my recollection right? And given we have had damage, given those targets are now double, given that no one in the world is really doing anything, can't we now.
00:30:53
Speaker 5: Just walk away?
00:30:53
Speaker 9: Yeah.
00:30:55
Speaker 14: Well, Peter, we don't need to pull out of Paris because we have long ago met the Paris targets and we only agreed to meet the 26% to 28% Paris targets because the advice I got was that we would meet them without any new expenditure and any new policy. So, yes, net zero is economic insanity. It's energy madness. It's economic suicide. But Paris is, as it were, in the past because we long ago achieved our Paris targets.
00:31:31
Speaker 15: I think it was in 2022.
00:31:32
Speaker 2: You're saying it's a dead letter. You're saying it's a dead letter.
00:31:34
Speaker 15: It's a dead letter. It's ancient history now.
00:31:37
Speaker 2: All right. I'll leave it there. I will put up on the screen, though, information. Thank you, Tony. Information for people who want to get in and support this campaign. Tony Abbott's joined it now. Of course, you can see DefendSacredGround.com. So there's no AU there. DefendSacredGround.com. Please, please, please get involved. We don't need a war memorial. to be damaged in this way. After the break, the latest on the arrest of an alleged ISIS member, not supporter, member in Melbourne and what it means for Australia's terror threat level. Coming up, President Trump ramping up pressure on the Australian government over digital reforms and free speech. But now to the arrest of a Melbourne man. He's from Carlton, actually. Happened in Melbourne. 65-year-old individual arrested by counterterrorism police who alleged he was a principal distributor of ISIS propaganda among a group of associates. As I say, the clincher here is he's not ISIS linked, but police have charged him with being an alleged member of ISIS. Here to discuss it, former AFP Detective Superintendent David Craig. David, welcome. This bloke is accused of pledging allegiance to ISIS and distributing around 10,000 files online for the terrorist organisation, including instructions on how to plan a terror attack.
00:33:07
Speaker 5: Have a listen.
00:33:09
Speaker 8: Border force tipped off the AFP about this man in 2020, or at least his phone was seized a year before. A, why was he allowed to continue on to.
00:33:18
Speaker 5: Travel to Egypt, which is not far from Syria.
00:33:20
Speaker 7: And the conflict zone?
00:33:21
Speaker 8: And why has it taken almost six years to arrest this man? So when Border Force seized his phones at the border, they hadn't fully examined, they had enough suspicion to seize him, and then he was allowed to leave the country.
00:33:36
Speaker 7: How long was he then overseas before he returned?
00:33:38
Speaker 8: Approximately six months.
00:33:39
Speaker 2: All right, he's had long stints overseas in Egypt. We can't tell where he... went from Egypt, if he did leave Egypt. As we know, that's a stone's throw from Syria, from Gaza, from Iran, everywhere else. It's a hotspot over there. David, what was your impressions from what you heard this afternoon?
00:34:01
Speaker 1: Well, you know, if convicted, Peter, this person represents the absolute rot in our country that we don't need. This is allegedly a purveyor of hatred, of Islamic hatred being distributed with over 10,000 files or 10,000 files to people, inspiring hatred, giving police.
00:34:24
Speaker 5: Methodologies away on how to avoid detection.
00:34:27
Speaker 1: If this person is convicted, I would hope that they can pack him up and deport him back to Somalia where he can spend the rest of his days once he's finished his jail term here. This is a very dangerous individual that is perpetuating hate and has done for a considerable period of time.
00:34:47
Speaker 2: It was interesting today in that exchange with the Assistant, Acting Assistant Commissioner there on the TV from the AFP. One of the journalists asked her, was he a foreign-born individual? Was he Australian-born, I think was a term that was used. And the response from the AFP was, he is an Australian citizen. They completely dodged answering the question about his nationality at birth. I think that's relevant.
00:35:16
Speaker 5: Highly relevant, Peter.
00:35:17
Speaker 1: I mean, if he's a dual citizen, he should be, if he's convicted, if the alleged behaviour is proven in court, he should be stripped of his Australian citizenship and deported at the end of his sentence. We don't need this sort of person peddling this sort of hatred in our country.
00:35:33
Speaker 5: This is an imported problem and we don't need it.
00:35:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, interesting you say that because I thought to myself, six months in Egypt for an Australian citizen is That's a bit unusual. I don't think you can get a visa that long. So I jumped on the website and found out that you could get a 60 to 90 day visa. You can get a longest day visa of, you know, three, four, five months, but you have to leave the country, leave Egypt after 60 days. So the fact that he was in Egypt for such a long period of time probably says to me that he has some sort of permanent residency or perhaps citizenship. in Egypt. Again, we've got to get tough on anyone who has multiple rights to citizenship. If they don't want to join our team, if they don't want to live by Australian values, if that's what the court finds in the end, out they go.
00:36:28
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and the AFP and Home Affairs shouldn't be shying away from this, and certainly not the Prime Minister either. As we know, all three that I just mentioned then have shown a lack of spine in relation to confronting radical Islam, which this is if it's proven in court, and we need to expel this from our country.
00:36:50
Speaker 2: Okay, what do you make of the calls now for a new threshold to be inserted between possible terror threat level and the probable terror threat level?
00:37:03
Speaker 5: Peter, I think it's a good idea.
00:37:05
Speaker 1: We've been at probable now since August 2024. I think there's an issue with remaining in the probable state because people become desensitised to it. We've been in that level during the Bondi attack. We've been at that level while, as we've learnt last week on your show, four disrupted major terrorist attacks plots that were in the final stages of planning. And yet we've remained at the same security level, the same threat level. We need an intervening level. And I think that level should be probable hyphen heightened so that there can be two levels within probable before we go to expected, which is an absolutely expected level.
00:37:49
Speaker 5: Rock sure there's going to be an attack.
00:37:51
Speaker 1: I think it's important because it alarms people if there is an escalation and yet we can drop it back from probable heightened to probable if the circumstances allow.
00:38:02
Speaker 2: So probable plus, I suppose, is how I'd call it in a layman's term. Hey, what about the report yesterday? A 14-year-old boy charged with violent extremist offences after allegedly planning attacks at three locations in Miraburra This is on the Fraser Coast in Queensland. Police allege he was acting independently. I mean, a 14-year-old, terror attacks alleged, alleged, alleged, acting independently. How does that stack up?
00:38:31
Speaker 1: Well, you know, Peter, tonight on your show, we've sort of covered the entire spectrum from an alleged 65-year-old Somali Muslim radical ISIS member to a 14-year-old boy in remote Queensland as the consumer. One was the purveyor of the hatred and one was the consumer. I'm not saying they're the same ideology. What I am saying is it's the same online radical process.
00:38:59
Speaker 5: They are certainly....
00:39:01
Speaker 1: It's the ecosystem in which counter-terrorism needs to operate now. The radical online radicalisation from people that peddle hatred and ideology and the consumer at the other end that picks it up and is prepared to act violently upon it.
00:39:18
Speaker 15: It is, David.
00:39:19
Speaker 2: It is the scourge of our generation. And this is why, you know, again, I'm so angry that the Prime Minister never gave any public evidence to the Royal Commission and we didn't even get evidence from the head of the AFP.
00:39:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very disappointing, Peter, and in fact the fact that the head of the AFP hasn't fronted the media today, you would remember the days when we had real leadership in the AFP with Mick Kelty standing up, leading the way, letting people know exactly where the AFP stands and what people could expect from from law enforcement.
00:39:48
Speaker 5: At this stage, we haven't even got a deputy commissioner.
00:39:51
Speaker 1: We've got an acting assistant commissioner representing a serious ISIS member threat, allegedly.
00:39:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll leave it there. Thank you, David Craig. Quick break after the break. We'll get into the very tough comments today from the president in relation to Labor's digital duty of care reforms. We'll get into that. But the president really fighting on the issue of free speech. That's coming up. Still to come, Words Matter with Kel Richards. Wednesday, of course, happens every Wednesday. Now, of course, to the Prime Minister in New York. And he was there with among 20 other world leaders who were demanding international frameworks on AI safeguards. But he got a lot of pushback from the president and also the new US ambassador to Australia, who's asked for clarity about the government's digital duty of care legislation, saying exactly what is harm? What risks are we talking about? And then, of course, there was a warning today from the AFP acting assistant commissioner at the press conference in relation to the arrest of the ISIS member so alleged.
00:41:06
Speaker 8: The message is this viewing this violent extremist material is not harmless online content. It desensitises people and normalises violence and, as I said, mass executions.
00:41:19
Speaker 2: Bringing in now Senator Sarah Henderson, Shadow Communications Minister. Just on this point, Sarah... I know the government says we need this digital duty of care because we've got young people committing suicide. We've got child pornography on the internet. We've got radical Islamic terrorism on the internet. But we get people put in jail for child online exploitation. And we saw that arrest today in relation to this ISIS-linked individual. Certainly that's the police claim. We've already got all of these laws. They work. So why do we need this digital duty of care bill?
00:41:57
Speaker 15: Well, Peter, good evening.
00:41:58
Speaker 16: And the short answer is we don't, because as you say, most of the most serious online harms are already prohibited under the criminal law or regulated under the Online Safety Act. The difference with the digital duty of care is this is a political censorship bill. This is all about shutting down the opponents that Albanese and others do not want to hear from. And he belled the cat today in New York when he gave a speech talking about, let's take this to the next level, combating misinformation and disinformation and the extreme views on the left and the right. So make no mistake, this is an egregious attack on free speech, and that's why it's been condemned by the US administration.
00:42:43
Speaker 2: So he's using the cover of child pornography, child exploitation, all the things we're against, suicide idolising and information to young people to radicalise them online. All of that's already against the law. So this is a really cheap shot by the government to come at sort of our natural sympathies to see the end of all of that But by basically getting it in before the next election, mind you, to basically shut down legitimate debate on the internet or for people hearing, you know, that the bloke lies, that he isn't doing what he promised, that the budget's in bad shape, that the borders are not controlled. That's what this is about.
00:43:26
Speaker 16: It is, and as I say, that speech that he gave today, they've now removed that damning, extraordinary section from the transcript on the Prime Minister's media website. So talk about disinformation on the Prime Minister's own website. No, I've just checked, and that section of the speech where he referenced... Misinformation and disinformation and the extreme views on the left and the right, that has been removed from his website from that speech.
00:43:55
Speaker 2: So the Greens have belled the cat on this.
00:43:58
Speaker 16: They talked about using this, that they should and can shut down the views of their political opponents, the Coalition and One Nation. This is a cover. for an egregious attack on free speech. This is the stuff of communist China. This is not the laws of a first world democratic country and it's extraordinary what the government is doing and it's disgusting that they're using children, harnessing the protection of children, for their insidious agenda.
00:44:32
Speaker 2: And, look, from my understanding of it, Sarah... A reasonable debate about safeguards around AI and how it's rolled out and its impact on the workforce is very different than a debate about free speech, than this digital censorship, than this misinformation, disinformation. But the Prime Minister is trying to conflate the two. It looks like that to me. Is that how, am I reading it right?
00:44:59
Speaker 16: He certainly is, and he's also conflating this notion of my feed, my way, where you can so-called turn off the algorithm, which of course is not possible, turning off the personalised algorithm. That's actually not in this bill. There's just some rulemaking power. So he's mixing up different issues. The real story here is that the minister has unfettered powers to decide any category of harm that should be shut down. It is all about shutting down what people can say and see online. It's all about shutting down the political opponents of Labor. They are desperate. They will do anything, Peter, and this bill is dangerous and must be stopped.
00:45:43
Speaker 2: When the bloke's got the worst ever rating of any Prime Minister in living memory, I can see he's going to stop at nothing to stay in office. Sarah, thank you. All right, after the break, we'll get into words with Kel. We'll come back to other things. Of course, the Victorian Royal Commission into the CFMEU. It's not all unions, mind you. Started today. I'll have a big update for you on that tomorrow night. It was just sort of the opening salvo tonight, but tomorrow there'll be more. See you in a moment. Mr Richards, it's been a busy day. I want to get straight in it with you. Thank you for being here. The first one up is from me, and I tell you, I throw things at the TV. Comparable was how I was taught to pronounce the word, not comparable. comparable, but maybe I belong in another century.
00:46:32
Speaker 4: No, no, no. You are spot on. There is one standard and correct pronunciation, and that is to stress the first syllable, comparable. The American pronunciation is comparable, spitting out that middle. But don't do any of that. Stress the first syllable. It's the American influence. Really sad. So either show me your American passport or say comparable.
00:46:54
Speaker 2: OK, politicians and media types, please take note that one does my head in. Hey, guts for garters. Ron says, where's this one come from, Kel? I'll have your guts for garters.
00:47:05
Speaker 4: Comes from the reign of the Tudor kings and queens in England when one of the punishments was to be hanged, wrought and quartered. Now, that involved a cutting out and exposing the intestines of the poor, unfortunate victim, although still half alive. That's where the guts come from. The garters from the fact that Tudor men would wear garters to hold up their hose or, Now, it was never a serious threat. No intestines were ever turned into garters, but it made a nice, alliterative, blustering revenge threat, guts for garters.
00:47:36
Speaker 2: Now, I like this one from Dee. She wants to know the history of duck shove.
00:47:41
Speaker 4: Oh, this is ours. This was invented in marvellous Melbourne in 1859, and it came from the behaviour of cab drivers. Now, obviously, at that time, horse-drawn cabs, handsome cabs, And apparently they used to shuffle and compete to get to the best places in the cab rank. And the way they behaved was described as duck shoving. And that put the word into circulation, presumably from having watched lines of little ducks pushing each other as they waddled towards the water. But it was Melbourne cab drivers that gave us the word.
00:48:12
Speaker 15: I love it.
00:48:12
Speaker 2: It might be about the duck boards. You know duck boards, wooden duck boards? Oh, yes, yes. Could have been that too when people stand up next to those to get into the cabs because I suspect Melbourne was as wet and miserable back then as it is sometimes today. Beautiful as well. Beautiful as well.
00:48:26
Speaker 4: Leaving it out.
00:48:27
Speaker 2: That's it for me. Thanks, Kel. See you next week. Here's the Andrew Bolt Show.
