The Bolt Report

00:16 Tonight, Anthony Albanese announces a new oil refinery for Australia, but is it just the PR stunt? 00:24 And Angus Taylor, named in a corruption inquiry. Also tonight, communism comes to New York with government-owned supermarkets, of all things. And Senator Fatima Payman tells us to pity these victims of the Bondo massacre. 00:39 Muslim Australians continue to face the reality of Islamophobia? 00:47 But first, Victoria has a new premier today and around Australia, the Labor Party has been given a warning Turn right, because the left will ruin you. Their new Premier sworn in today is Ben Carroll, a practising Catholic, like Labor's best leaders, actually, and New South Wales Premier Chris Minns and South Australia's Peter Malinowskis. And he's also a man from the Labor right coming in to try to fix what his party's socialist left has destroyed. 01:18 Now, I'll tell you in a minute why Carroll will probably fail. Despite announcing he represented change from a Labor government, he actually implied lacked integrity. He's not wrong there, and I will get on to that. 01:32 But let's start with what was the most frightening message today to Labor. 01:36 Jacinta Allen's totally bizarre resignation speech, which says so much about the modern left, really, the bubble, the blindness, the denialism. the identity politics, this speech is going to go down as a classic on how not to quit. And it's an insight into how Labor destroyed Victoria, leaving it with the highest debt, the highest unemployment, the worst corruption and record crime. 02:03 Now, Alan started her speech announcing she was quitting as Premier ahead of the planned leadership vote today, even though, and get this, she would have won. 02:15 After speaking with my colleagues overnight, I have made the difficult decision to step aside as Leader of the Victorian State Parliamentary Labor Party and as Premier of Victoria. I was prepared to put my record and my plan to a ballot of members, as our rules allow. 02:34 I believe I would have won. 02:40 I mean, that's just so out of touch, just to be nice about. I mean, Alan didn't have the numbers to survive. She won't even win her own seat at the election, judging by the polls, and I tip she'll quit Parliament before then. In fact, she's the most unpopular Premier in all news poll history and was leading her party to a certain disaster. 03:01 So how deluded must Alan be if she believes she had the votes? 03:06 Trapped in an echo chamber. 03:08 like too many of the left, hearing only what she chooses to hear. 03:13 Next, Jacinda Allen announced that nothing that's gone so terribly wrong with Victoria has been her fault. She blamed the federal government, she blamed the former premier, anyone but herself. 03:29 The average working family has it tougher. 03:32 They're the ones managing interest rate rises. They're the ones living in a housing crisis. I inherited a rising crime rate. I inherited a budget deficit. I came to office in a cost of living crisis. 03:48 It's really a bit like Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers. You notice, you know, the economy isn't his fault either, how it's going wrong. He blames international uncertainty or everything but his spending and his mismanagement and anti-business policy. But anyway, Alan also played the gender card. that Labor has made such a weapon. Dress yourself up as a victim of sexism, despite having been an incompetent who has gifted the premiership more than a thousand days ago without ever facing an election. 04:20 If you're a woman making your start in politics, let me say this to you today. 04:26 Please don't look at what I have experienced this week and think, stuff that. I don't want to be involved. 04:33 Look at the support I've experienced over my career and think, I can make a difference here too. 04:41 And here's the kicker. Ellen made out that among all these people dragging her down, this poor woman... 04:49 She at least, she at least, was a self-sacrificing heroine stepping aside to put the party and Victorians first. She was quitting so that Ben Carroll, her deputy and her challenger, could stand unopposed without Labor then having to hold, as is required, a ballot of all party members under its leadership rules, a ballot that would last four to six weeks, with the state election already just four months away. 05:17 But doing so this close to an election takes up valuable resources, including the most precious of one, time. 05:27 Yet, yet, in the party room meeting straight after Alan's speech, her close ally, Sonia Kilkenny, still threatened to stand against Carol, made a big fuss about it, and then forced that vote of Labor members that Alan claimed... 05:42 she didn't want, couldn't afford, and she did that with, reportedly, Alan's support. What a snake's nest. 05:51 Whatever, after a lot of shouting Kilkenny backed down, but the message there is that Carol does not have all the support in Labor he will need, which brings me to him, to this new Premier. 06:01 We're asked to believe that he will be the new broom. In fact, he's promised it. A new approach, he calls it. 06:10 Enough is enough. 06:13 In my government, integrity will not be optional. 06:21 Pardon? 06:22 Does he mean that the past two Labor governments of Daniel Andrews and Jacinta Allen did treat integrity as optional? It seems so. 06:33 Let me make one thing very clear. 06:36 I am not Daniel Andrews. 06:40 I am not Jacinta Allen. 06:44 I will do things differently. 06:47 I think you get it. 06:49 To me, and I'm sure to you, that says that Carol does think the two previous Labor premiers did lead governments lacking in integrity. 06:58 And to that, I've got to say, there's no argument from me. I mean, just look at the claims that those premiers did bugger all while corrupt union officials and criminals stole $15 billion from Labor's pet construction projects. 07:12 But what I find hard to accept is that Carol is now the man we can trust to do things very differently and to always act with the integrity that those two previous Labor governments lacked. 07:25 Trust him, this guy, who was actually a minister under Daniel Andrews, and then Jacinta Allen's deputy for three years, not once in those three years as Deputy Premier, did I hear Carroll publicly demand his government act with integrity always. 07:44 Not once did I hear him publicly demand the Royal Commission into Corruption that is now his first promise as Premier. 07:53 In fact, as Deputy Premier, he twice said a Royal Commission would take too long and cost too much. 08:01 He went along with the cover-up. 08:05 So, why the big change? 08:08 The man himself said it was the polls. It wasn't an attack of conscience. 08:15 The polling says Victoria is on track for Australia's first Liberal One Nation government. Our government needs to go in a new direction. 08:25 On integrity, on community safety and on the economy. As Premier, I will deliver that new direction. 08:35 OK, so Labour decides to act now with integrity. 08:39 only because it will lose if it doesn't. This is poll-driven, not conscience-driven. It's going to act with integrity always, only because One Nation is on the rise. Damn that One Nation! 08:51 Again, I'm prepared to believe that Carol, a practising Catholic, is personally against the corruption that went wild under the union-dominated governments of Andrews and Allen. I do think this... 09:02 But is he a little bit too flexible himself? I mean, remember that six weeks ago, he dragged his own daughter into an emotional story, how he told her how proud he was to support a female Premier and why he would never do exactly what it's just done, challenge that female Premier for her job. 09:27 I've got a young daughter at home and I couldn't be more proud to make sure she grows up knowing that I supported Jacinta Allen to be a world-class Premier and get re-elected in her own right. 09:40 So why has he now betrayed his daughter and broken his word? Well, journalists asked him that repeatedly in his press conference after taking Alan's job and Carol repeatedly told him something that was actually very similar to Anthony Albanese's excuse for breaking his promise not to change negative gearing. You know, Albanese, I've changed my position. Here's Carol's version. 10:01 The truth is the circumstances changed. The circumstances changed. The circumstances have changed. The circumstances changed. 10:12 Again, again, I repeat that I'm sure Carol means well. 10:17 But here is this problem that explains everything I've just told you and is a warning against expecting too much from him. Carol is actually from Labor's right, but the socialist left, it still has the numbers in Victorian Labor, just like it has the numbers in Albanese's caucus and Labor's federal conference, Congress, or whatever it's called. 10:38 It's Labor Socialist Left that is all spend and no earn. It's Labor Socialist Left that is all about identity, politics, global warming, evil Israel and being nice to unions. In fact, it's Labor Socialist Left that has been historically close to the most corrupt construction union of all, the CFMEU. 10:58 And it's Socialist Left MPs who fought Carol in that shouty, shouty meeting today. So shouty journalists outside were reporting, what the hell's going on? 11:09 And what could Carroll actually do before he became Premier against their power? 11:16 And what will they let him do now? That's the more interesting question. True, he's now Premier, given that most of the socialist left realises, you know, well, he is the government's best hope of surviving the November election. But how long at least do you think they'll give him? before the election to make these changes he wants, and even more importantly, how much will they tighten that leash if and after he wins? 11:41 Now, you think Labour MPs, the socialist left ones, are going to let Carol wind back their global warming crusade, slash public spending, cut the public service? 11:53 You think he really will be able to act with integrity always, with the very same Labour politicians around him who had no problem with how Labour ran riot before? 12:10 Yeah, I'm not even sure the rest of Australia realises how terribly Victoria has been run and how it's now dragging down the whole country. 12:18 Its unemployment rate is now far and away the worst in the country. It's also so in debt that its government has already asked the Albanese government for a bailout that would come from the other states. 12:28 It's so broke that it can't pay to fix the roads properly. Be careful if you drive here. That's why my wife has burst three tyres and cracked one wheel rim in just the past year or two. And why the tyre place yesterday told her that actually had to fix 30 burst tyres in just one day. 12:45 Then there's the corruption and the crime. So I had to laugh to hear Jacinta Allen today claim this success as Premier. 12:54 My team and I toughened bail laws. 12:58 huffing the bail laws. Just last Sunday, a 17-year-old allegedly slashed two people in yet another machete attack. Very serious injuries. And this guy? Out on bail for a previous offence. In fact, police arrested six youths they thought were involved in that savage attack. Of those six, four were on bail. 13:22 Now there's a new Premier promising to get tougher on corruption and on crime with an election just four months away and almost no time to prove he can deliver. I was joined a short while ago by James Campbell, National Weekend Political Editor for the Weekend News Corp papers around the country. 13:39 James Campbell, great to see you again. Look, Ben Carroll says no more will integrity be optional under his government. You know, it's going to be tougher on corruption. It's going to be tougher on crime. If crime and corruption was such a problem under the Allen government before this one and the Andrews government before that, why did he, as Deputy Premier, for the last three years not demand action before? 14:05 Well, that's a very good question, I suspect, because it wasn't in his interest to at that point. 14:11 Up until a few weeks ago, they basically thought that they could ride this out. And it wasn't really until, I think, that became clear that the damage to their primary vote from Geoffrey Watson's report that was leaked in February, you know, finally saw the light of day in February, wasn't going away, that this was a permanent problem, that the problem had attached itself to permanently to Jacinta Allen, that there was no future for her with the public. They had made their mind up. They thought they could get away with it. 14:43 And now, when it became clear they couldn't get away with it, they've suddenly had a kind of a Damascene conversion on the question of corruption. And we're going to have to, we're going to enjoy the sight of all of these Labor ministers who were just repeating the old Premier's lines that we didn't need a Royal Commission, equally enthusiastically repeating the line that, oh, of course we did and we've always thought we did. And that's just, that's just the Lemming-like way of the Labor MP in the modern world. 15:13 Oh, how embarrassing it's going to be. All these people out, all those things. Oh, no, we don't need a Royal Commission. Oh, yes, we do need a Royal Commission. I mean, how pathetic. So, we've got morals now. Integrity is dictated by the polls. OK. Now, that said... 15:30 I've got some sympathy with Ben Carroll. I mean, people I know that know him say he's a good guy, et cetera. He seems decent, despite having gone along with that and keeping his strap shut. What is Ben Carroll really like? 15:49 Well, I would say, I mean, he's a very cautious person. As I joked earlier today, I don't think he's ever started the car without having his seatbelt on. 15:59 He, I think, has been a good education minister. Having kids in state schools, there's no question the decisions he's taken have made the schools better. Forcing the teachers union to... Forcing the teachers to teach phonics I mean, the evidence was clear 10 years ago, but the teachers union in Victoria didn't want to do it. He made them do it. He got rid of all the electronic devices out of classrooms. That's good. He's getting rid of composite classes at the lower levels. 16:30 That's good. I mean, I think he's shown he can potentially stand up. to Labor interest groups, right? And that's all you can hope for in a state government, in a state Labor government, that they will not simply cave in to unions the way that the last two premiers have. He hasn't caved into the teachers' demands for money here, exorbitant demands for money. So, you know, in the range of options that are available for a state Labor Premier in 2026, he's pretty much the best you could really hope for, certainly in Victoria. 17:12 Victoria is just such a warning to the rest of Australia. It's just extraordinary. Here's the ad that the Liberals have already rushed out about Ben Carroll. Well, the face has changed. 17:24 But the problems we face haven't. When costs rose and crime soared, he was right there beside her. Changing leaders won't change Labor. But changing the government will change Victoria. Jess Wilson and her Liberal team have the solutions. Because real change has a plan. And real change is what Victoria needs. 17:45 Together, we can give Victoria a fresh start. 17:53 Now, that match-up, Ben Carroll versus, you know, a Liberal leader who speaks a little bit like an automaton, Jess Wilson, which might help her, might make people think she really is across the figures, she's just got no passion for anything else. How do you think that's going to work, given where the polls are now, which actually shows not that great a two-party preferred lead to the Liberals, given all the problems that Labor Party has had? 18:22 I think the Liberals are actually in a better space than the two party preferred polls give you, look like. Because, let's face it, for the first time, pollsters are trying to grapple with the fact that it's a three-cornered contest. We have a surging One Nation in Victoria as everywhere else. 18:39 I think the Liberals are in better shape for two reasons. Firstly, because I think... The Liberal Party is ahead sufficiently of One Nation that One Nation's preferences are going to end up being distributed rather than the other way around. And I also think, from talking to pollsters, that the Liberal Party is going to get the overwhelming majority of One Nation preferences. You're going to see a kind of Greens-like preference discipline. The Greens vote, over 90% tends to go to Labor. So I think the Liberals are actually... 19:11 in a better shape than the TPP probably suggests. 19:17 There's no question, though, the changing leader will help Labor, I think. 19:25 I think it will. I think it will. But they've only got four months to bet it down. James Campbell, thank you so much for your time. 19:32 Pleasure. 19:36 After the break, Matt Canavan and the Prime Minister's plan for a new fuel refinery. Is it real? 19:48 Angus Taylor, the opposition leader, has been named in the corruption hearing that's looking into his New South Wales division of the Liberal Party. Did he donate money to alleged branch stackers to help sign up Conservative members? 20:01 I find that hard to believe, and there's no evidence that he actually did this, but here's what went down. This hearing is the spotlight on the so-called reformers' conservative faction of the Liberals, including two sons of former Liberal Premier Dominic Perrottet. And it was today shown, this inquiry, a text message in which the factional head Dallas McInerney claimed to have got a promise from Angus... that's all it said, for a $15,000 injection, $15,000, plus a $3,000 monthly donation. 20:33 But former Liberal staffer Dylan Whitelaw said today he also doubted Taylor actually gave that money. 20:39 Dallas has told me he got the commitment from Angus for the $15K injection plus a $3K monthly donation, exclamation mark. 20:47 Yes, I see that. 20:49 I take it you don't recall sending this message? 20:51 I don't, no. 20:52 And you indicated you didn't recall Mr Taylor making a financial contribution? 20:56 No. 20:57 This is not something that you'd make up though, is it, Mr Whitelaw? 21:02 I don't know. I would suggest not, but potentially Dallas had told me something that was incorrect. I'd be very surprised if Mr Taylor made any financial contributions. 21:12 He says because he wants, and I quote, to shake down Angus for $10,000. Do you see that? 21:18 I do. 21:19 Do you know who the Angus is that Mr McInerney is referring to here? 21:23 I would assume it's Angus Taylor. 21:27 Yeah, I doubt Taylor even wanted to help stack branches or that it'd be that stupid... Yeah, I don't know it's illegal, but it's a little bit shady. But as he says, let the investigation run. He says it doesn't... He hasn't actually denied it. Angus Taylor has not actually denied doing this, but he has said it's not party to the investigation. 21:53 But to our Tuesday regular commentator, Matt Canavan, now leader of the Nationals. Matt, great to see you again. I mentioned before the break, by the way, Victoria is a new Labor Premier, a practising Catholic, like the New South Wales Labor Premier, like the South Australian Labor Premier. You are a Catholic. The Prime Minister was raised Catholic, but that didn't take. 22:13 Why are so many political leaders Catholic? 22:18 It's, I suppose, an interesting question, Anthony. I think Catholicism is, if not the most popular religion in Australia, it's right up there, so there's a bit of that. I can't speak for all those other people, what drew them to politics, so I can only speak for myself. And I've spoken openly, my Catholic faith is part of the reason I think I'm involved in trying to help people. 22:40 Not long after leaving school, after leaving Catholic education, I met my wife doing Edmund Rice camps, helping disadvantaged children through the Christian Brothers. So I've always been drawn, I think, through that Catholic teaching to try and live up to Jesus Christ's challenge and help others. And I try and do that through a political endeavour too, to help our community, to stand up for the downtrodden, the ignored. And it's very important to my life. But I can't speak for other people. 23:05 And I welcome anybody in being involved in politics of all faiths and backgrounds. It's a great thing about our country. 23:14 Now, the Victorian Premier, do you rate him? The new one? 23:19 Look, I've got to be honest, Andrew. Until a few weeks ago, I'd never heard of the bloke. So I don't really know. But what I can fathom from up here in Queensland is that Victoria desperately needs a fresh start here. I've said for a few years somewhat in jest, but it's got a grain of truth to it that I really do want to see... The Victorian government changed because I don't think Queensland can take another influx of refugees from Victoria. I love yous all, Andrew, and you're being great additions to our communities up here in regional Queensland since COVID, since the disaster of Danistan. 23:53 But, you know, I want to see Victoria flourish. I think it's important for our nation, for Victoria, to find its feet again. 23:59 It's been going backwards now for a number of years under a failing Labor government, and effectively... This change, this change of leader, shows that even the Victorian Labor Party thinks that Victoria needs change. It'll just be up to the Victorian people to decide, though, about whether just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic is enough. As I said, I didn't know this bloke until a few weeks ago, but he's been part of this mess, obviously. The fact I don't know him probably indicates that he hasn't exactly been speaking up about the mess that's been created around him and... It's kind of absurd for him to stand there and say, I'm not Dan Andrews, I'm not just Cinderella. 24:32 Yeah, well, I'm not Big Bird either, but what has that got anything to do with anything? Victoria needs a real, real change and a fresh start. I think Jess Wilson's offering that with Danny O'Brien, the Nationals as well. 24:46 Now, the Albanese government seems to have done... 24:49 a good thing, but I stress seems to have done a good thing, even though it means embracing fossil fuels, which I thought it would never do. It has joined the West Australian government in promising $4 million to study whether to help a private Indian company build a big new fuel refinery in Karratha. And that would be our third. And the idea is that it'll give us more fuel security because you can... crude oil, you can store that for longer than you can petrol. $4 million is actually a lot for just a study. 25:21 But the Prime Minister was talking today like the refinery, which would actually cost, if it went ahead, maybe $8 billion. It was carrying on like it was built already. 25:29 Listen to this. 25:31 This is an extraordinary project, an example of what Australia can achieve with vision, with optimism, with working between government and the private sector. 25:46 Is the fuel refinery a third one, government-backed, actually a good idea? 25:52 Look, I'd love to see it, Andrew. I'd love to see us use more of our natural resources, hopefully refining Australian oil. It's not clear exactly where this would come from. I'm a bit perplexed that this funding seems to be going to help an Indian overseas company when I know there are actually Australian consortia out there who want to build their own refineries here in Queensland, for example. So I wonder, I think there's questions to be asked here about how the Australian government chose this particular entity. Perhaps others, have they opened it up to Australian companies? I'd certainly support that. But the more important... 26:23 conclusion we can make from today. I think it's a very momentous day in Australian politics because today is clearly the death knell to net zero. I mean, how can you have a sensible net zero idea when you're out there saying we should build oil refineries as well? I mean, this thing is past its use-by date. Net Zero has passed its use-by date long ago and it should be killed and die. Now, Angus Taylor and I and Liberal Nationals will do that. We'll scrap Net Zero and focus on all our energy resources. Now, the Labor Party and the Prime Minister are playing footsie, but can you really trust them to do anything? 26:58 They are in coalition with the Greens. They rely on the Greens to get anything done in the Parliament. They will never go forward and actually build an oil refinery that we need. That's why we need a change of government federally as well, because we need to focus again on our natural resources. And I would say too, the final thing I'll say, Andrew, is it's good enough... For us to support an oil refinery, why is it good enough to support coal-fired power as well? I mean, they're both fossil fuels. And we don't have a lot of the oil, at least, available at this stage, easy to get to. 27:29 We've got heaps of the coal. And I was at a coal-fired power station at Stanwell, west of Rockhampton, with Angus Taylor today. We fully back all of our natural resources. And I think it's about time we have a government that backs Australia by backing all of our natural resources to get energy prices down, to get the cost of living down, to save our industrial jobs and to make sure we can defend this great country of Australia again. 27:53 Yeah, well, I like the idea of a third oil refinery, but the fact is that we're still dependent on the oil that feeds it. It'll still have to come from overseas unless we find more of our own resources here. But just quickly, I'm out of time, but I need to ask you this quickly, Matt. 28:08 Talk... 28:10 The Prime Minister going to the mansion of the son of a Chinese billionaire last week and accepting a donation variously reported as anywhere from $100,000 to $1 million without telling us how much it was, the circumstances in which it was given, why it was given. Have you got concerns about this? 28:32 Look, all political parties have to raise money, and to do so, we do go to functions and other things. It's just part. We've got to do it. To beat the government, mate, I need funding to advertise on shows and change our country to put our message out there. But the problem here with this one is that there are clearly some questions around the source of this donation. Exactly. And the Prime Minister didn't seem to understand those issues. His office hadn't done due diligence, clearly. And in that environment, I think it would be best if the Labor Party just didn't accept this money or give it back if it hasn't been given. That would help restore some integrity to the office. 29:07 Well, particularly when the guy has been in a big dispute with the tax office, which is very concerned about the sources of his money. Matt Canavan, thank you so much indeed for your time. 29:19 The guy they're in a dispute with is actually the father of the guy that held that donation meeting. But anyway, there you go. After the break, Sean Spicer and how communism has come to New York and why that is bad news for Donald Trump. 29:37 You know, in Britain, in Australia, in the US, we are seeing the price of not teaching history or forgetting it. And the price of judging people by what they intend and not what they have achieved, you know, seeming not doing. So now that... 29:52 failing and as a result we are seeing the rise of socialist leaders thanks to a generation that's forgotten what happens when socialism has been tried. In Britain the Greens leader Zach Polanski for instance, here the rise of the socialist left and the Albanese Victorian Labor governments and the Greens But this is happening even in the US, even in New York, home of Wall Street. The latest there, the new socialist mayor of New York yesterday announced something straight out of the Soviet Union as if no one had tried this before. 30:26 Government run shops selling food at government set prices. 30:31 Here's how it will work. Once a month, our five city-run grocery stores will set prices for this core set of goods at 30% below typical retail prices. No exceptions, no gimmicks. The savings will last for the entire month. 30:47 That should wipe out local private stores in competition. And who pays for all that? Well, you know where that will go. 30:55 Joining me earlier was our regular Tuesday commentator, Sean Spicer, President Donald Trump's first White House spokesman. 31:02 Sean Spicer, great to see you. Sean, government-run shops, I mean, in America, what on earth? 31:14 Look, I don't know why we're surprised. The Democratic Socialists of America have grabbed hold of the Democratic Party. They talk about crazy outlandish things taking over, abolishing the presidency, getting rid of prisons, abolishing the border. I don't know why, unfortunately, Andrew, that people are now shocked at their latest move. But what I think is more interesting to me and what I think has got to be careful for folks here, especially in America, is that we don't laugh it off. 31:45 These folks are intent in moving us to a socialist agenda. They're serious about it. They're gaining steam. 31:52 They've got a foothold in the Democratic Party. That is the base. El Saeed, who is the leading candidate in Michigan for the Senate there, has made it very clear that if he does win, he will be a major player in trying to influence the next nominee of the Democratic Party. And the DNC, the Democratic National Committee, has just made Michigan one of the early states. So it's almost like we can see where the ball is bouncing. And the question is, are we going to do anything to stop it? 32:21 Yeah, well, the thing too, you talk about takeover, but let's not forget that Zora Mandani, the mayor of New York City, was actually elected, was actually elected as a far-left crazy. And I'm just wondering where the support for socialism is coming from. 32:43 Absolutely. And look, when you're the mayor of New York, you have an outsized influence on the party. I mean, when this guy says, most politicians, Andrew, in America fight for relevance, fight for airtime, fight for the media. Mondami, by the very nature of being mayor of New York, when he speaks, people listen. And so there's this outsized influence that the mayor of New York has on the agenda of the Democratic Party and what the left talks about. 33:12 You know, it's strange... You know, we're talking about how unhinged all this is, and yet there is... 33:19 some grassroots support for this stuff, like, you know, people have never learned history, never learned about what's happened to socialism in the past. But it just feeds to the wider thing that you touched on earlier. I mean, the left and the US, like the Democrat Party, it does seem unhinged. And this goes back even to the Democrats' candidate for vice president last election, Tim Walsh, governor of the state of Minnesota. that his government has now helped to fund a university project to distribute dolls to schools to children as young as four to help them understand they can change gender, supposedly. 34:00 The dolls have detachable and swappable genitals and reproductive organs so the kids can play with all that and experiment with turning a man into a woman, a woman into a man, supposedly. I thought Donald Trump was... winning this war on Woke and then I read this and I'm thinking, where is America going? 34:18 You know, you bring up a really good point, because for a while, I was with you. I made the argument that we were finally turning the page on the woke DEI ideology, that four years ago, people were literally getting in trouble for not using someone's pronouns, for not agreeing that men could be women and have children. I mean, it was absurd. It defied science. 34:40 I don't know what's happening right now, but there's a resurgence of it, and that's the interesting thing. But here's the broader point that you're touching on. When I first got into politics, granted it was 30 years ago, and you attacked a Democrat and you accused them of being liberal, they thought that was an attack, right? They'd say that's just, we're moderate, we're pragmatic, we're not liberal. Now they embrace it, they welcome it, they in fact don't hide from it. These folks that are Democratic Socialists of America's candidates and advocates get out there very proudly and own that label. 35:17 They want to be seen as this. And I got to be honest with you, I, like you, am very concerned about where we're going when we think that's a positive winning agenda. You know, politics, sometimes you have a hidden agenda. You want to campaign as a moderate or a pragmatist, and then you wait until you get in office to really kind of tell people where you are. These guys are very proud of this agenda, and that scares me more than anything. 35:40 Yeah, but I wonder whether they're getting confident because the polls are showing Donald Trump is now very unpopular. So the heat is off them to try to, you know, move to the right, so to speak. Maybe they're thinking this is the way to go. What is the cause of this poll slump for Donald Trump, do you think? 36:00 Well, I think you're bringing up something, which is, are we just hitting an inflection point where they sense there's a weakness because Trump is involved in the war and this issue of affordability and costs, and they sense a resurgence? Or are they catching us at a blind spot? Or have Americans actually kind of thought maybe there's not that many problems with this agenda? I'm not sure yet. I got to believe in my heart of heart. that these guys are going to go too far. You remember the key ad in the last campaign was when Donald Trump came out and said, they're for them, they, not for you. 36:34 And I do still in my bones believe that this agenda is not something that the average American supports. I think they have some degree of support in large urban city kind of places, but not in the rest of America. 36:49 Well, I think you're onto something here, Sean, What I don't see is, even if you didn't like the President, well, he's not going to run again, one assumes, let's say his inheritors, Vance or Marco Rubio, who I devoutly hope will be the man, but one of them. The problem is, even if you don't like them, It is hard right now to see anyone on the left, on the Democrat side, who's an adult and sane who could yet run for president. 37:22 Who do you see as being the threat there? 37:26 Well, so here's an interesting point. Over the weekend, and I mentioned this in terms of the Michigan and the early states, the Democratic National Committee put out its list of early states, those states that will determine the kickoff of the primary season. They put South Carolina at the front of that line, I think for a very intentional reason, because some of the other states lent themselves to some of these socialist candidates and some of these wackadoodle ideas. So I think that there was a very intentional play by the DNC to help mitigate that or at least blunt it. 38:00 Because I do think that they see that coming. And that's the problem is that they think and they see that that's unelectable. I brought up Michigan earlier. I think there's a reason that all of the establishment folks are getting behind this current congresswoman, Haley Stevens, because they feel like this guy, Abdul El-Sayed, will definitely cost them the seat. So they're seeing what we're talking about. They recognize that this is not a good place for their party to be writ large and definitely not in a national election. 38:30 Sean Spicer, always great to talk to you. Thank you so much for your time. 38:34 You bet. 38:34 And congratulations on the relaunch. 38:39 After the break, the latest ABC scandal deepens. You know that film it showed and defended fantasising about sodomising Gina Reinhart? 38:48 It was made by a filmmaker, the ABC Harriet, after she filmed herself twerking to the last post. Is the ABC really that depraved? I'll show you. 39:01 Fatima Payman. She was elected as a Labour senator. She's now an independent. 39:07 She has posted a video of herself on her social media account talking about the victims of the Bondi massacre. 39:15 You know, Muslims, Muslim victims. 39:18 The Bondi tragedy shocked our entire nation. In the months that followed, many Australians experienced fear in different ways. Jewish Australians saw a disturbing rise in anti-Semitism. Muslim Australians continued to face the reality of Islamophobia. 39:38 Now, what is Islamophobia in this context, I wonder? Is it unreasonable hatred of radical Islam or a well-founded concern? 39:50 Good question. After first, the Muslim extremist in Berlin, the son of Lebanese immigrants, drove a van... 39:58 On the weekend, into a gay rally, murdering one person and then jumped out, stabbing more people. And then yesterday in Paris, a man stabbed three women, saying Allah had commanded him to kill them. 40:10 Attention! Attention! Attention! Attention! Attention! 40:19 Now, we're told that this unnamed man is mentally ill and we don't know if he actually is Muslim himself, although something clearly made him associate Islam with killing. Joining me are Mia Schliff, the executive director of the Samuel Griffith Society, and Michael Damby, former federal Labor politician and former chairman of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade. Michael, Senator Payne's comments, Bondi-triggered Islamophobia. Think of the Muslims. Your response? Yes. 40:45 Well, 15 innocent Australians were gunned down on the beach at Bondi just in December. And now we have a senator trying to... 40:57 steal their honour. It's like trying to kill them twice, claiming it for someone else. It's not justified at all. The incredible surge in anti-Semitism continues as being demonstrated at the Royal Commission. At this very moment, Andrew, while in the post-Bondi situation when things should be calmer, Senator Payman should just keep silent. 41:22 Amir? 41:24 Look, Senator Payman has a history of just making pathetic comments such as these. I mean, her response to the murder of Charlie Kirk was quite disturbing. She was also found about a year ago. She made comments praising Iran for the treatment of women, which she then had to go back and apologise. So I'm disappointed that these comments were made, but I'm not shocked because she continuously just makes completely out-of-pocket comments such as these. But I do think we are seeing a growing trend where Islamophobia is thrown around as some kind of catch-all to any criticism of Islam. 41:58 Now, there is... Let's get very clear about what a phobia actually is. It's an irrational fear. Now, drawing the trend that there is a growing number of crimes that seem to have been driven by some religious grounding in Islamic texts, that's not Islamophobia. And this idea that Islam is somehow beyond criticism, whilst other religions such as Christianity aren't, Well, that's deeply troubling. 42:25 I agree with that. Well said. Michael, I have been appalled that the ABC screened a short film by a contestant on its Race Around the World program. I showed it last week, again this week. 42:40 A film that the producers had seen and chose to put to air, fantasising about sodomising mining billionaire Gina Reinhart and turning her guts into paste. Now, the ABC management not only... 42:54 didn't just defend that film, said, oh, yeah, it was just irony, it's OK, it's within ABC guidelines, which absolutely astonishes me. It actually picked, we now learn, it picked that same filmmaker to do that show and make those films after she had already filmed herself twerking to the last post. Have a look. 43:33 Michael Danby, the ABC thought, there's a talent for us. 43:38 On either occasion, she's not funny. She is... 43:42 in that description of Mrs Reinhart, depraved, as you described her earlier. And Mr Williams and Mr Marks, have you no sense of shame that these people appear on our $1.3 billion taxpayer-funded network? Take some action. Sack the editor who put that to air and the fool who commissioned it. 44:08 Mia Schliff, the ABC standards, does it have any now? 44:13 No, Andrew, it doesn't seem to be. I mean, I'm continuously surprised by the ABC because every single time I think this is the worst thing that could possibly come from our national broadcaster, the next week there's something that's even more terrible. I mean, I think the ABC on this occasion really does have to answer whether they knew about this particular filmmaker's history. To be there dancing, twerking to the last post, really? I mean, the ABC has a bit of a history with hiring individuals that are, you know, peddling this anti-Australian rhetoric. 44:44 It was Laura Tingle who was calling Australia a racist country. And I certainly think it's a huge problem that we seem to have this national-funded broadcaster who doesn't even support Australia. But, look, I just think the ABC is beyond saving. I think it's appalling that they haven't removed the video with those remarks being made about Mrs Reinhart. And I think it's even more appalling that even further information has come out about this particular individual. And I do think they have many, many, many questions to answer. 45:14 I can't wait for the next Senate estimates hearing with the chairman or the managing director with Liberals cross-examining. I hope they're going really hard because this is just disgraceful. A new change of Premier in your home state, Michael, in Victoria. Is it a good move? And will it win the Labor Party the next election? Yes. 45:40 It won't. Alas, poor Ben, I knew him well. 45:44 He's like Rudd. He's being used to save the furniture. The socialists left out in the outer suburbs of Melbourne hope that there'll be a swing of only 10%, not 12%, and that they'll be kept in their jobs by 2%. So my only fear is, Andrew, I think there's going to be a big... 46:05 One Nation's... the Ghost Party is probably going to give the Liberals preferences, but I'm worried that they'll just get to the edge of slipping out of power and the three or four Greens will go into coalition with them. So I'm sorry to be full of fear, but I think we could have a worse result than we've got now, a worse government. 46:34 Mate, there's no need to scare the children like that. Mia Schlicht, what did you think of this? Will it win Labor the next election? 46:42 Look, if this is going to be the saving grace for the Labor Party here in Victoria, then we're going to need to see a far more impressive performance than what we saw from Ben Carroll today. I mean, I was entirely underwhelmed. The problem that the Victorian Labor Party is dealing with is their brand authenticity and trust in the Victorian Labor Party. And the solution to that is to put up the guy who just a week ago was using his daughter as the shield to say that he wouldn't roll Jacinta Allen and then the next moment he's doing that exact thing. So whether he really is the hallmark of integrity which is now posing himself to be, I'm not sure this is going to go very well for the Labor Party because he'll also run into the second issue of if he wants to start saying, all right, this is a new day for the Labor Party and will now have some integrity, he has to admit that he was part of the team that was peddling a whole bunch of mismanagement and corruption scandals. 47:35 So either he was all right with it at the time and now he's not, or he wasn't alright with it and he had a complete inability of standing up against that corruption. Now, neither of those really look like election-winning slogans to me. 47:51 No, it doesn't. And also, Michael said, you know, this government, very heavy emphasis unlike the last couple, you know, won't make integrity disposable. You know, it's got to be constant. 48:07 Well, asked to explain, you know, when he tried to explain why he had this view now, he said, the polls, the polls. I mean, seriously, couldn't he have at least said it's my Catholic conscience or something? Yeah. 48:20 Yeah, that would have been better, Andrew. I'm sorry, I've always regarded people in state politics as the B team and his performance wasn't great. I think the ghetto tax and the machete fights and the potholes are finally going to get them. Really, if a government so poor was to survive, you would hardly believe it. But then again, it did last time with the bloke who's now hanging out at the Mandalay Mansion in Sydney when he was... Premier. 48:50 There you go. 48:52 Yep, absolutely. Mia Schliff, Michael Damby, thank you very much to you both. That's it from me. Coming up next, Shari Markson. Good night.