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High-profile job cuts, a record downturn in home loans, and nervousness about AI. The challenges are mounting for the economy and the government. This morning, we'll hear from Jackie Lambi, a self-styled champion of battlers. I'm David Spears. Welcome to Insiders. From Quantis to David Jones, it's been a tough week for workers. The airline outsourcing and offshoring hundreds of jobs. The retailer closing 19 stores. In the housing market, new data showed a record drop in home loans driven by an exodus of investors. Now the government argues the rebalancing of that market is a good thing, but the overall economic outlook is anything but rosy. The pressure on labor is clear with one
minister publicly urging colleagues to lay off the treasurer. Quantis joins Coohl's Woolworths, Telra, NAB and Office Works this year announcing jobs are being sent overseas. We expect around 850 rolls to be affected as it prepares to accelerate its use of artificial intelligence. And it's obviously very disappointing for uh the more than 800 workers. They wouldn't exist Quantis without the support of taxpayers. So what's the point of taxpayers providing such support if they're going to make decisions like this?
One day it's Canva, the next day it's Quantis. Uh the next day it's the NAB. What's stripping these jobs out is Labor policy. 6,000 jobs across the country with David Jones all of a sudden disappearing. We are seeing rising unemployment under this government. There we go with a million. The number of new home loans in Australia has taken a dive. The biggest drop was for investors and the federal government is copying the blame.
It was a deliberate decision of the Labor Party to smash the Australian housing market. We have as a government a pretty unapologetic focus in getting more Australians into home ownership. She's out there telling everybody it's okay. We don't need more gaslighting from Claronia. I really support uh treating housing more as a human right than an investment vehicle. We were right. We were right on what the impact of these tax increases have been. First home buyers, a proportion of you think about applications in the month of October. They're basically double versus 12 months ago.
It's going to get worse. If you've got a national housing crisis, one of the most obvious answers from the national government is build people homes. We've had a situation where the young people of this country have been asked to pay taxes to subsidize investors to outbid them at auction. That is a totally unfair system. Deal with the data. Yeah. The data. Can I just get you on that data? Qu. What planet is she living on? Why is she saying that fewer loans is good? Fewer loans is bad. The government needs to reconsider its narrow carve out on business CGT.
I would have loved to have seen changes to housing and just to leave other asset classes unchanged. I wish they had done, you know, more listening before the budget. Jim Charmers has got to go. He's been hopeless and failed as a treasurer. Jim Charmer's authority as treasurer is diminished. With a minister admitting his colleagues are now leaking against the treasurer. I think it's pretty obvious that there's all sorts of people making all sorts of comments. My view is that uh whether you're a member of the government as a backbench or as a minister, your responsibility is to work together.
Uh the treasurer is doing a great job. When a prime minister has to go in and defend his treasurer, to that extent you know that he's in trouble. The treasurer has lost his mojo. Just as the prime minister has fleeed the country. It's tough when you are in the main job. You cop it and that's unfortunately that's just part of the job of being a reforming treasurer. Well, joining us this morning, the Australian Financial Reviews National Affairs columnist Jennifer Hewitt, the Australians foreign editor, Greg
Sheridan, and ABC national affairs correspondent Jay Norman. Very good morning to all of you and Jennifer, great to have you back, but some more difficult news on the economy. Let's start with what's happening in the housing market. We saw that home lending data, a record fall during the week. How would you describe what's going on in the housing market? Well, I think it's a real case of be careful what you wish for. Uh I think people definitely did think oh house prices were too high, first home buyers were being priced out of the market etc. But clearly uh neither certainly the treasurer nor treasury understood how much those changes won in the budget plus the combination of interest rates would set a big decline. A big decline
um across in uh prices generally. But more importantly, yes, that's right. Investors are being driven out of the market fine which is what the government says is a good idea but so are first home buyers. They are declining uh as well in terms of numbers and at the same time there is no profitability in building new houses except for luxury apartments in places like the eastern suburbs in Sydney. Affordable housing is just not a for most builders is is not an attractive proposition anymore. So that is a that is the fund far more fundamental problem that it hurts supply. have a look at the numbers because to the point you're raising there, the big drop is investors in blue on the left there. So, this is
the September quarterly figures for home lending. Big drop in investors, but you're right, uh, first home buyers and then other owner occupiers are also down a bit as well and then the total is down by 15%. The government's point though is when you look at the share of the market. So yes, it's a smaller market of home lending, but look down the bottom there in blue, the investors, it's a smaller share and a bigger share for owner occupiers and first home buyers. Jane, the government says that rebalancing of the housing market is a good thing. And I mean, this was the whole point of the changes to the property taxes that the government announced in May. was to get investors out and get first home
buyers into the market. Up until this week, it's been treading a pretty fine line between trying to sort of own the um the good parts about, you know, the share of first home buyers increasing the market without claiming credit for the downturn that we're seeing in terms of prices, auction clearance rates um generally falling. But Claire Neil this week um was actually pretty on the front foot about it saying you know these numbers show the balance is shifting back towards Australians who are buying a home to live in especially for first home buyers. So I think that the government is starting to sort of you know claim more credit for what's happening but also not wanting to necessarily own the fact that um Comwalth Bank is predicting
um house prices will fall by 14% from sort of peaked trough by mid next year. Look, the government amidst all of this, Greg, is putting together its midyear budget update. Just give us a bit of an international context here as to the fact that Australia is not the only country facing these headwinds and difficulties. No, Australia is performing particularly badly, but we are in a in good company. I think there's a worldwide crisis of social democracy. Everybody is paying too much in welfare. They can't afford the promises they've made to each other. No one can balance their budget anywhere in Europe or North America. Um debt is just continuing to spiral. Uh and no one can level with
their people about the need to um reign in spending, but also the need to open up the supply side reforms. I mean, if you have a housing shortage, the thing you do is don't hammer investors to death. the thing you do is rip open all the supply side constraints so you can build lots more houses. Apparently we tried that. We can't do it. So our next solution is just to tax uh small investors out of existence and this over reliance on tax is common problem internationally and it and also not just getting investors out of the housing market making it harder to invest in other things as well which is to kind of grow the economy in general. So I think that's a broader issue and Australia it is true I think obviously
that this is happening all around the world but Australia should have been in a very good position for to combat all these pressures and I think that's one of the problems but once the market does turn and who knows uh when that might be some point maybe late next year is it a good thing that the markets reshape with fewer investors I think this is the kind of reckoning that we've been having we grappling with for a really long time right like so just in the figure that I cited before Matt Common from the CBI said that yes, this 14% decline, predicted decline in house prices, um is the fastest and greatest in 40 years, but over that 40-year period, there's also been a cumulative 1,000% increase in house
prices. It was 1,000%. And so for first home buyers trying to get into the market, I think it's completely fair to criticize the supply side because that has been really lagging. But I do think it's a kind of a reckoning we've needed to have for a long time. If you wanted to make houses more affordable, prices kind of have to come down. And so that means that existing home owners either have to live with that, but ultimately like it would make it easier for first home buyers to get into the market because I guess doing nothing means that 1,000% increase just kind of continues to that only makes it more important to grow other parts of the economy and that's that's where the missing part is I think is
part of the budget and the government strategy overall. They're not doing anything to investment and business investment uh grow and it's all about redistribution of existing as opposed to growing the economy. I think that's right. Everything we're doing is redistribution. The growth e ethos is not there. The hawk keing growth ethos is nowhere to be seen in our economic. So what's the answer? You talk to people in labor, you know, ministers backbenches, they all agree with the media budget update. Um there needs to be some cuts, but don't go crazy. Now is not the time to slash and burn. And the other point is there is no magic fix. Is there a easy answer for this in the media budget update?
Well, no. There's no easy answer because of course this has been a long time building and frankly the government has spent, you know, more than four years now um doing the wrong things in terms of government spending and spending far too much. So now trying to c catch up is going to be very hard just as the economy is weakening. But I do think there's no doubt that um they do have to have substantial cuts even at this is not a great time to do it. But there's really no alternative and um I don't think that they're really prepared to do that. I don't e even though we are in league with others internationally our performance is astonishingly bad you've had very high commodity prices very low unemployment the perfect time you should be running a big budget
surplus and building up resilience for the future and opening up your economy and reforming it instead of which we've gone for overregulation massive increase in government expenditure uh transfer payments which are impossible to take back once you give them and uh we've sort of done everything we can and there's no acknowledgement there's no acknowledgement of that you hear those points but the government would point out that unemployment is a lot lower here our debt as a percentage of GDP is nothing like a lot of those countries you're talking about yeah because how it balanced the books so we're still living off the fact that Howard left uh Rudd with zero national debt but we are galloping along you know
it's like your parents give you a credit card and it's got no debt on it but you say well look at me mom I'm 100,000 bucks in debt now after a few years and the income personal income tax rates are going up and up. Real wages are falling. You know, that's actually worse than most other countries. What's happened? Our personal tax rates are higher than most European nations. So, how much pressure does this put on Jim Char, as we saw there a little earlier, Jane Murray, what saying, "Look, everyone stop leaking against the Treasury." Was that particularly helpful? Well, I think that he was stating the obvious, right? I mean, it's not like we're um you know, making things up about what's happening behind the
scenes. Listen to what they're saying publicly. Jim Charas has said, "I'm copying my, you know, an outsized portion of the blame for the government's wos at the moment." The prime minister is publicly backing in his treasurer. Mari Watt is saying, "Hey guys, stop leaking against the treasurer." I think we're in a situation where after 5 years of a cost of living crisis, people are ground down. They are looking for a pathway out. Um they're looking for an alternative and the economy is not going well and so the treasurers is sort of under a lot of pressure on that front. Now, I think that um there's no sort of necessarily like short-term or medium-term push to move him on, but I think that there is
definitely an acknowledgement now that while the government has very much backed in its spending, um it's never sort of acknowledged that there's anything wrong there. Um the message has been heard loud and clear that there must be a demonstration of cuts in myo. But I think that's also easier said than done, right? Because Labor is also very proud of the fact that it has invested in programs like increasing wages for low paid workers, childare, Medicare. So, TA, right? And so these are kind of big ongoing programs. When it comes to actually making meaningful cuts to help, you know, reduce demand, etc., that proves more difficult. That's why I think a lot of the speculation has been along the lines of subsidies
for like EVs, home batteries, et. Yeah, they're definitely in the government sites. Uh, everyone knows that. So, we'll see where they land. Time to talk to independent Senator Jackie Lambi to take us there. Here were two very different takes on that housing data. We're seeing first home buyers and owner occupiers significantly increase the share of lending going to them. And we are seeing investors step back from existing homes, but good robustness of investors investing in new dwellings.
First homeowners can't get loans. Unoccupiers are lending less. Uh the investors are leaving the market and they're going to be fewer houses as a result. So there's there's no way this could be spun as a positive. Jackie Lambi, welcome to the program. Thank you for having me on. So, what do you make of the housing market? Firstly, is this downturn we're seeing a good thing or a bad thing? Well, I think when we they initially um plan to do this was to remove the investors out of a bit so people had a chance to buy their own homes and so that is a result that we're getting now and I think that is a good thing. Um the
problem is here for 30 years we never built enough affordable and public housing out there and that is why we're in the predicament we're in now. So, I say build baby build and build them a lot quicker. Well, public housing. So, public housing and also affordable housing as well, but a lot more public housing. You know, I've got 5,000 people on the waiting list in Tasmania. Uh we have just over half a million people down there yet. That's that's the economy we have. And it's about making decisions and putting your priorities right. It seems the Tasmanian government is happy to spend 1.5 billion. That is today. I can tell you in the next couple of years it's going to be two billion on
a new stadium with a roof on it while I've got people down there without a roof over their heads. So, how about we start prioritizing what this nation needs instead of these big builds that look fantastic what people are going without. It's all about where are you targeting? We've got to target better in this country whether it whether it's for means testing or on certain thing even if that means you know with your kids in child care and both of you are earning over half a million dollars then why aren't we means testing you why aren't we doing what we used to do and say well you can have 10% rebate not this much rebate that's interesting so the child care subsidy some of those other subsidies we
were just talking about on electric vehicles and batteries and so on means test all of this stuff means test it all that's where you that's where you'll get some money from um you know and another one is the Orcus. It's costing us $33 million a day. Um you know and I can tell you now that $364 billion budget is going to blow out. It will blow out. This is not where the rest of the world is moving. It's all about drones. It's not about having submarines under the ocean anymore. It's about missiles, drones, uh all that sort of automotive stuff, all that sort of stuff. That is where defense should be today and we should be making it. Ditch the nuclear submarines. We cannot afford them. I'm not sure that they're ever going to pay
off. Um, you know, so for me it's a real problem. I just think there's a lot more. We could have that money and get a lot more money. Get a lot more for our money's worth. I was going to ask you about how the cost of living situation is impacting where you are. Northern Tasmania um often has u higher prices for petrol, for groceries, lower incomes than the rest of the country as well. What's it like right now? Well, it's horrible. We're the sickest, the oldest, the poorest. um down there in Tasmania. Uh we have people on the waiting list just waiting for a normal hospital visit for five years. Um so it is just terrible. But what I'm seeing is
something that I have not that financial strain. I have not seen this since co days. Um where people are now, you know, I go in, I talk to Coohl's and I talk to Wies and ask see how they're going on. I want to know what their theft looks like for the month. Things like that. What are you hearing? And what I'm hearing is back to the old co days where, you know, where they're taking meat and they're putting it down their pants and walking out. And of course, uh, security guards can't actually stop them because it ends up making a big fight out there. Um, you know, people to the point where they're even just taking two eggs out of a carton just to get them home to feed their kids eggs. That's what that's
what we're looking at and that's where we're at and that's what we're facing right now. And more pressure you put under people uh that financial pressure, it makes them angry and sooner or later they snap. And that is the predicament and the environment that we're in today. And what does I mean what does that mean for the government? What should they be doing? I mean what you picture you've painted there is pretty stark. What can government do right now? Yeah. Um so for the government what it needs to do is um since it's the highest office in the nation probably try and uh to keep that tempo down a little bit out there is the way that they speak to each other and their respect that they
have for each other. that is more important today than any time I've been in parliament. That must be put into place and left into place. These oneliners that the opposition and that are using are not helpful. Come out with policies that are better. Then get out there and do that sort of stuff. Start leading by example. But there is a lot of aggro going on out there uh in the normal streets and that is enough. So can we just please calm that down because quite frankly I don't see this financial situation turning around overnight and I think we've got a couple more years of it. We've got no idea what's going on this on in the straight of Hamas. We've got no idea how long
that war is going to be in the Middle East. We don't know whether that's going to get larger. Uh and then of course, you know, we've already heard from um Xi Jinping that he intends to take Taiwan next year. What does that look like? Are we going to we're going to have to make some very big decisions in the next 12 months. Do we go in and help Taiwan if that happens or do we not? Or we sit back and we just have to say we can't get involved. So there is a lot of things in play here right now. But just on what government can do to help those people struggling to feed their kids, are there particular cost of living measures you think the government should actually Yeah, sure. We've got an export gas.
It's called put a 20% export. I mean, that will bring in billions a year. Start taking our resources back into our own hands, but we're actually making money off out of them. There is nothing more annoying Australian knowing that they send our gas elsewhere to other countries where it's cheaper than what we're paying for it here. That really upsets people. There's something very wrong here. Just on gas then, the government does have legislation that it's hoping to pass in the next couple of weeks uh on gas reservation to keep more Australian gas here in Australia for local producers. Will you be backing that one?
Well, I'm glad they finally done that since I've been up here. I think it was Nickon when I first got up here that was uh selling that at 15%. I believe now they're going to go 20%. Uh this could have been done years ago. Okay. So, um that's really that absolutely needs to be done. I'll be supporting that. But no doubt there'll be an amendment to also uh see if we can get the numbers. We'll see which team's going to have enough courage over there to say we also need to be taxing export gas as well and we need to be doing that at 20%.
I want to go to Jackie Lambi uh one of your priorities. You've got a bill before the Senate which aims to set up a new statutory authority to deal with sexual assault uh within the defense force. It would be called the sexual assault prevention intervention and response commission. Why do we need this new body and what would it do? Um I don't think defense's game is all about training and being in war. I don't think this is this has not been coined to defense. They have not dealt with this um very well over the years. We still see this ongoing. It's getting worse since this mammosphere stuff. Uh we're seeing the I mean we just recently seen the cameras the camera material
that come out. Um uh so for me it's extreme. What it does is it takes that body outside of defense's control and leaves it to independence on the outside. So, it's just one less thing that they need to worry about. And I think that is a good thing. And as well as that, they're so um the reporting is so underrated, they would see a lot more. And people need trust in that uniform to know that then that they will not be sent home or their perpetrator is allowed to stay on base and work. Um so for me, I just want to be really careful with this. I have had uh quite a lot of government support. I've had the hierarchy of defense opening him up and speaking to me about taking this on the outside of defense. I
think there's a lot of openness and willingness to fix this problem because didn't defense say yeah there was a Senate inquiry into this bill. Defense did point to the functions that are already covered by various things. The sexual misconduct prevention response office. There's a complaint resolution support service, joint military police, inspector general of defense. Are you're saying defense from what you're hearing, they are actually keen on your idea of this new commission? They are absolutely there's nothing wrong with joint military police um you know doing the testing getting all that evidence um ready. I do know that defense has told me that they are now going to start sending their investigators which we called for 30
years ago when I was military police um to send them out there and have some experience with their AFP counterparts and vice versa. Um, so I just see this it has failed miserably when it comes to sexual abuse and assault and defense force. And I think, you know, like I said, their main characteristic should be going to war um and learning how to defend themselves and defend the country. Uh, so why can't we take this outside of defense uh and make sure we've got an independent body as like I said there is so much under reporting going on because people do not trust the system. Uh, that is the problem. There is no trust in the system because the system has not worked. I want to ask you
Jackie Lambi about Pauline Hansen. What's your relationship with her like now? I don't have a relation with um Pauline Hansen. I have a very good one with Malcolm Roberts and I've been very grateful for that over the years. I've worked with Pauline um in the past uh when we had the balance power. We found that very difficult from an office point of view and I'm not the only one as an independent up there that finds that because she tell you she's doing one thing and that's where 5 minutes beforehand and then you walk into the Senate to take your vote, she's on the other side. So for me there was too much flip-flopping going on. Um you know so uh you know Pauline can go and do
whatever Pauline wants to do. That's fine. Go and do that. But I just I wish people would have a really good look. If you think Pauline Hansen can step in tomorrow, run the country and fix all your problems overnight. You are terribly um disillusioned. I will say that to them. What do you put the rise in support for One Nation down to? Yeah, I just said it. People are angry. Uh they're under financial strain. Um, I can tell I live like that for 10 years and when you're under financial strain and your head is full of fog and you can't think properly and you have all that pressure on you, you do really silly things and you don't think about things properly. Um, and that's what's causing a lot of that
is what's causing all that chaos out there. Um, as well as that, I think it's three out of every four, five, two, five um people um that are a between 16 and 25 can't get the mental health that they need. So, it's having all that mental health out there. is having those physio are the psychologist psychiatrists um out there and making sure that we have plenty of them and we just do not. And on Pauline herself, she did apologize for that cartoon, the One Nation cartoon that made fun of your health issues. But have you had a direct apology at all? No, there has been no direct apology. And the only reason she would have apologized cuz um I say too I have a million people I can reach out to between my socials and mail outs and all
the rest because I seen it coming through within a matter of hours. The people and the women out there going, "You've got to be kidding me. This is absolutely disgraceful." So if I can see this coming at me, I can say, "Wo, I bet you she's getting hit on the other side. She must be getting smashed." But no, no apology. Uh no apology. That's fine. I can give and take. I'm not interested in apologies. I'm more interested in what's going on around there. Um especially in those rural and regional areas. Uh once again, uh making sure that those immigration changes is another thing that's really going to affect are going to affect pe uh places like Tasmania in those rural and region areas for
goodness sake. Uh don't get them out in those, you know, if you're going to do deals on immigration, make sure we've got enough in those rural and regional areas cuz we have our fruit picking and our tourists all in one. Sure, we have quite three or four months during the winter, but we do not have the workers down there to cover that. So it comes down security. Yeah. Cutting immigration. Yeah, I am. I'm worried about our national food security. It's not just about defense, about our national food security. We do not have the workers out there. And unfortunately, we're not sitting at 16 or 17% unemployment. Now,
what whether or not that goes out with AI, I don't know what that looks like because I haven't seen any modeling. What is AI doing to jobs next year, the year after, and the year after that? But on the backpackers, does the government need to back off? Yes, it does need to back off because we will not survive. Our food security will not survive. people will not be able to go and get their coffees. Don't bother going out for dinner because you'll have no one to serve you. And I'll tell you what, if you're in age care, you'll have no one to wipe your backside because the two or three and a half% of Australians are unemployed are certainly not going to do to go in and do those jobs. And you've got to always remember in a society two or 3% of those
people are disabled, will never work, um have mental health illnesses or whatever. So, we do not have enough, we don't have much room, um to move here. It needs to be much better targeted. And I've been saying that for years when it comes to immigration. We know we're going to need engineers. We know we're going to need construction workers. Then we need to be moved. What we don't need is I can go and do yoga and turn on my TV and do that for free and get an app up. That's what I can do. I don't need someone to walk my dog. So let's get these targeting. Let's get this targeting right, which we should have
done many, many years ago and get this right once and for all. I want to come back to something you mentioned earlier about how volatile things are uh particularly in Tazzay at the moment. uh cost living hurting people and you referenced the need to I guess use the prime minister's phrase here dial the temperature down in political discourse has politics changed in your t you've been around in the Senate now for a while have you noticed politics has significantly changed I it's I really noticed a change during co um you know because I said everyone has to be a grown-up you just got to you know you have to take a hit what we don't want is to see this stuff being what I don't is me um getting an illness
and then spreading it to the age and watching that go through age care. So, we have to be adults. That's what I really seen that really flew at me in my face, especially out there door knocking uh at times that we could uh that become very volatile for me and I've just seen a buildup ever since and even worse since social media. Oh my goodness, that social media and um the disinformation that flows over that thing. I tell you what, between that uh and the financial strain out there, uh it's just something it's just it's simmering at the surface and she's about to blow big time. Do you feel unsafe as a politician?
Um I have to say I'm in Tasmania so I am a little bit more aware. I guess I've had that military training so I am very aware that my face is out there everywhere. Uh I don't tend to worry about it. And um God love the best of the best Helen Haynes. I'm quite sure that Helen um would not want us withdrawing from doing our duties with what is happening to her because that lets them win and I just will not do we need to be out and about. We need to be listening to our communities and they need to be seeing us out there. What about when you talk about the tone of political debate um and the need to tone it down? Do you self-reflect on some of your own language? You've referred to Pauline Hansen as a bloody
maggot uh recently. Is that all fair enough or do you need to think about your own uh approach to political discourse? Oh yeah. Um absolutely. You know I look back into um I have got better with it over the years but certainly when I um first come out you know and blew it out of the water there and um that hurt not only hurt people's feelings um it made division within the within society. I didn't spend over 10 years in that uniform to come out and make division u within this country. I don't want to see that what we need right now. Times are tough and if we need anything right now, it's unity and the best way that we can
do that is seeing a unified parliament. We are the top office in this country and we must lead by example. Like I said, stop the oneliners, come out with policies, have proper real debate up there. But it's also the government that's in when we ask you questions, be honest about them, start showing some leadership, even if it hurts you. Honesty will pay better than what anything else does. And trust and that builds trust. that builds trust and we must start building that back in this country again. And a final one, another piece of legislation that's going to come up in the next couple of weeks, the digital duty of care to put an onus on social media companies to prevent harms. Are
you going to support that one? Um I'm just a bit concerned that we could be spending a little bit more time on that. First of all, I want small business um taken out of the equation. And while we're on small business, uh there was a promise made by the Labor government that they would increase their by saying small businesses wasn't 15 under but 25 and under. So if the Labor government could please have a look at that, that would be very handy for small business right now. Um but for me, there are still some massive problems with that bill. And I don't understand since they're going to roll it out and watch it go for the next 12 months, why we can't well, we can't tighten that bill up a little bit more.
But what I do know is that um when it comes to social media uh companies out there, they're making way too much money and they've got way too much influence over society. And I can tell you from doing kids boot camps, holistic ones out there, 75% of them are not addicted to drugs and alcohol. They're addicted to tech and they have the same addiction problems. They punch walls in they punch holes in walls. They're throwing moms and dads downstairs. They're pinching mom and dad's credit card to go and pay. It's no different. We have a massive problem with the stuff that's being generated out there into society and it's got to stop and it's extremely harmful.
Senator Jackie Lambi, thanks so much for joining us this morning. Thank you so much for having me on. Well, coming up, global warming and a hot mic moment. What's been going on at the COP climate summit. First, let's return to our panel. Jennifer Hewitt from the Australian Financial Review, Greg Sheridan from the Australian, and Jane Norman from the ABC. Uh, so covered a lot of ground there. Uh Jane, I just wanted to pick up on a couple of bits of legislation that are coming up. Um digital duty of care, Jackie Lambi, still has a few issues by the sounds of it. The gas reservation though, we didn't mention this earlier, but this is something the government reckons will help with getting the cost of energy
down, inflation down by keeping more Australian gas here. Jackie Lamb's clearly on board. What about the coalition though? They're keeping everyone guessing a bit. Yeah, I mean, so there was a Senate inquiry and the coalition said that it wouldn't support the bill in its current form. has a few concerns about why Western Australia is included given it's a separate market and WA has its own reservation scheme. It's worried about ministerial discretion and um you know the possibility that smaller gas producers might be adversely affected by this. So there are big industry concerns about a potential glut here. Um but on
the other side of the equation, Labor is putting a lot of pressure on the coalition here because after years of criticism about rising power prices, Tim is out every other month basically giving handouts to refineries and heavy industry because higher power prices are killing them. Well, here is a policy that the government says will help put downward pressure on gas prices. How much? We don't know. Um but on that kind of industry angle and also for households, um I think it'll be a hard one for the coalition to oppose. But the question is Dutton, wasn't it first? It was a coalition policy they took to the last election. So there is a fair bit of support within parliament, but it's not entirely clear
where it'll land. But the government will be hammering the coalition. All right. We'll see. I want to turn to artificial intelligence. A lot going on. And yes, we'll get to the concerns around job impacts and AI going rogue. But the biggest story, Greg, when it comes to AI in the AI world right now is Jensen Hang, uh, the now former Nvidia boss. Now, a CEO being brought down by an affair is nothing new, but this is of a whole other scale. You've even likened this to Watergate. Well, David, I think this is the uh astonishing event of our time and I think it will change history. This is the honey trap that changed history. I think it's the biggest scandal of the Trump years by miles. So, Jensen Wong and that's saying something.
That's saying something. Jensen Wong, devoted family man, married for 41 years, all the rest of it. So he not only has an affair, but he has an affair with a woman who without a tech background ran a Chinese derived company buying his chips and it's alleged smuggling them to China. And the American intelligence believes she was a Chinese spy. Now up till then you'd say that's astonishingly stupid of Jensen Wang. Yep. But okay, people are stupid. That's that's our nature. We're a fallen creature. But then American intelligence knew about it and told the president and told the commerce secretary and they did nothing about it. So there's a well to be clear it sounds like the commerce secretary and Marco Rubio were
telling the president to do something about this. Well certainly Rubio was the commerce secretary I think is in a lot of sorry not the commerce secretary I mean the treasury secretary Scott Bessant. So we're in a very strange moment of history now. The only two responsible cabinet ministers in the American cabinet in my view are Bessant, the Treasury Secretary and Rubio. Now I think what happened is that force is sympathetic to Rubio if not Rubio himself leaked this information to force the administration that is to say Trump wouldn't do anything about it. Because Trump wouldn't do anything about it. It's a little too late though, isn't it?
Trump. It's too late in a way, but I mean, it's astounding that it just went on. The timelines are quite murky, but first of all, the fact that he had an affair with someone, whether she was a spy or not, it seems that she was, but she was a leader of a Chinese company trying to get his chips for mainland China. Then, American intelligence knows all about it. And they don't warn him, say, "Stop sleeping with a Chinese spy." Even if they said, "We're going to keep it quiet. uh just stop it and let's and this is where it gets politically sticky for the commerce secretary Lutnik and Trump because with the Democrats now controlling Congress they will want to know what did the president know and when did he know it and also the
commerce secretary but he in a sense is small beer but uh now Trump uh I think is in the worst stage of his presidency and we face quite a dangerous two years ahead but he may have thought he didn't want to disturb Jensen Wong his friend he didn't want to disturb things with China because he apparently wants some big deal with China which is also a cause for us to worry. But the idea I mean imagine the Australian equivalent. Imagine if the head of Thalos AIO found him having an affair with a Chinese spy and went to see our prime minister. Do you think the prime minister might give the head of thalos a call and do something about it?
Do something about it. Do something. So I think this got a long way to run it. It does. It's such a fascinating story. But AI back here, we've seen the government this week uh announced sort of plans for a plan to put in place security standards to stop well to do something when AI goes rogue and hacks into sensitive data like the open AI hack of the Medicare database. Criminal penalties being talked out. We'll see the details early next year. But Jennifer, is this direction the right one? Well, look, look, the direction's the right one, but plans for a plan is the key point here. I mean it's all very good to talk about the direction you want to head in and
and what your goals are. the actual practical details of doing any of this is so much more difficult particularly when you've got AI which is developing so fast and the idea that anybody knows exactly what's going to happen whether it's with jobs or whether it's the you know nature of intelligence or the nature of cyber security it's I mean we don't know so yes good intentions great do will it have much impact that is far from proven yeah it raises questions about what jurisdiction Australia will have over AI companies in the US and China and so on and Jennifer's right it's all moving so fast governments inevitably have to play catch-up with all of this, but doesn't mean they should sit on their hands and do nothing.
No. And I think the prime minister acknowledged as much. He's like, we are going to have to play catch-up because the technology is moving faster than any government could possibly legislate. But I think what the kind of um the idea behind this is that Australia wants to be a first mover. tech regulations become a big part of this government's agenda and it wants to kind of put the legal frameworks in place as the first step to then start encouraging uh companies like open AI anthropic to train their frontier AI models here the kind of cutting edge technology and if they can do that and if they come here well then that kind of gives the government more leverage you can enforce Australian rules I mean there are lots of but that's where the whole
argument over copyright goes because the idea you know again great idea you should you know protect creatives how do you do that um and sure you can have maybe deals with some media or big media or organizations as they want. Um but you know it's not realistic to think that you're going to be able to have protect every single creative that or that they're going to be doing deals with individuals and at the same time the government saying yeah we want to do that but uh we also want to make Australia um you know a leader in this field. There's there's just there's a lot of contradictions in here. That's certainly true. But what has I think become fascinating is how quickly AI has lost social license. And I think the government, God bless it, is
smart enough to know that this regulation is essentially hot air will have very little effect. It'll assure voters, but it's trying to assure voters and the West will be in a lot of trouble if AI and data centers and everything are the equivalent of nuclear energy and every time you open a data center there's a massive demonstration and so on. And I think the government is trying to grant So I agree with your contradiction, but I think you explain the contradiction by saying that the government is trying to recover social license for AI. Well, I think that's true. Whether how possible that is, I just I don't know.
I think it's going to be very We're in the midst of it. Uh that's for sure. Look, uh I want to turn to the COP summit in Turkey. It's been another example of the polarized climate debate that we've had for so long. Some argue Australia is not doing nearly enough. Others criticized the prime minister for bothering to go to COP at all. This is the critical decade. We must take that action now. And the brutal truth is that the climate crisis is outrunning ours. I'm proud to be here fighting for the interests of our Pacific family. It is a painful process to go through to watch your island drown. We need all the support that we can get. The views of the Pacific will we will ensure are
front and center of every conversation. Chris Bowen and the prime minister are off at cop spending tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money. Add in 32,000 on coffee was also Mr. Taylor's decision to open free coffee. I don't remember in 2021 a coffee cart costing over $30,000. His job at COP encouraging the 196 member countries to agree to a new 3535 target. 35% of power to be electric by 2035. We have no chance of 1.5 without this electrification agenda.
We must ensure that we are heading towards a future where our energy is clean, reliable, and affordable. We're a top three fossil fuel exporter. He turns up at a climate conference and he doesn't mention it. You can pick out any number of uh things that weren't in what was a short speech. Fossil fuel interests keep making a killing while killing our planet. The amount of taxes paid uh by fossil fuel companies produces uh considerable revenue uh for Australia. Fossil fuels must go the way of the dinosaurs.
Our target is ambitious. Our progress is strong. Greta Tunberg took aim at Australia for not doing enough. Even a snail would agree with that. It's common sense. It doesn't get more clear than that. she's entitled to her views. Uh what we are doing is putting forward practical plans. So I think most would agree this isn't an overly ambitious COP. It's not about setting new emissions targets or a date to end the use of fossil fuels, but it's this 35 by35 target they're hoping to settle on. You heard reference to it there having 35% of energy produced by electrification by 2035. And I guess in many ways that's kind of where we're headed. Things like the Iran war have spiked the global oil price and you're
seeing this global shift to electric vehicles because of that. And so this idea of let's get more electrification is being sold as uh an affordability measure, a sovereignty measure. Oh, and a bit of climate change impact as well. Yeah. Just for good measure. I mean like it's another target. I'm sort of wondering the extent to which um people are starting to lose faith in the various targets that are being set when it comes to this. But I think we're at about 23% electrification both globally and in Australia at the moment. Um but you've got like your electricity grid. We're at 40% renewables at the moment in terms of that. But then the big issue is the electrification of transport fleets
and heavy industry. Um like we are the biggest users of diesel per capita in the world. And so it's kind of easier said than done because electrification means get rid of gas for households, get rid of diesel for you know your big um sort of your big um transport fleets. So that is the kind of big target of this conference. I don't think it's been settled yet. There's a whole other week to go work for Chris the question of whether these things are worthwhile at all and we've seen the opposition getting stuck into everything from the expense of the coffee cart to the prime minister's attendance. Greg, are you a particular fan of COP meetings? Well, they're just a complete waste of time and they're worse than a waste of time. They're kind of
counterproductive. Look, let's just go with a few basic facts. This is not rhetoric. These facts are easily changeable. Global greenhouse emissions rose in 2026 just as they have done every year by a much smaller amount. Okay. But is that we've been allegedly heading towards net zero for 20 or 30 years. We head towards net zero by getting bigger greenhouse emissions every single year. But the curve is clear though. We've seen emissions. No, nothing is all clear. No, emissions have not come down. They've not come down at all. They've continued to rise.
The only place China's emissions actually China's emissions have by a spec come down in one year. You don't think that's significant? A plateauing of China's emissions. Yeah. But that's nowhere near net zero. China is still opening coal fired power stations. Yeah, it's a change. So absolutely the um level of renewables in the whole thing has risen and that's a good thing. But what I'm saying is no one is heading towards net zero. The only actual reductions in emissions in the last 10 or 15 years have come from Western Europe, Japan and the United States.
Almost all of Australia's reduction in emissions is land use change. In other words, you turn farmland into scrutiny. But if we're starting to see it from China now as well, you can't deny there's a shift. No, everybody is doing something to reduce the intensity of fossil fuels in their energy mix. But the great big growth in uh emissions is in countries like India and Indonesia and Brazil. Sure, there's a long way to go. Now, they have not the slightest interest in all this baloney. They're just absolutely uninterested in it. The whole world is going down. Indonesia will come to a summit and tell you they're doing what
they're not doing nothing though. They're not doing nothing. No, I'll tell you what they're doing. When they destroy our nickel industry, they build a whole lot of coal fired power stations financed by China in order to get cheap energy to take nickel away from Australia. Now, the question for us is, do we enter this world a rich nation or a poor nation? And if we make energy costs ludicrous in Australia, we'll be a much poorer nation. Okay. But is there a cheaper alternative than what we're doing? Is anyone pointed to that? Well, I think it's pretty obvious that we've taken the most expensive route possible. So, what is the cheaper route?
Well, I think it's very hard, but I mean but clearly well clearly coal has been cheaper. Um gas historically has been cheaper. I think the direction is there but the idea that we were sold and I think that's why people are increasingly cynical that this was going to be renewable energy was going to be cheap and would see is complete nonsense. But does anyone have a transmission a cheaper pathway? I mean, no, I think it's a very difficult thing to do. But Greg is Greg is right. I mean, Australia um is a very big uh fossil fuel exporter and as the prime minister said, um yes, that's what gives us a lot of revenue to do all the things that we want to do. But to pretend that the world's not, you
know, and China sticking with China, they're spending far more on renewables now than that's right. But as Greg says, you know, yes, the direction is we can see the direction, but it's still and there's a lot of technology and and China has, you know, stolen the market really in electric vehicles. We can see all that happen. Yes. But you know, that's still a long way from net zero. And just in terms of where we're at with climate change generally as an issue for the world, we know because of the cost of living crisis, it's down the list of concerns for voters. still on the list of concerns, but it is notable at COP 31 that Andy Bernham is the only G7 leader who's addressed the summit. The leaders
of the big emitting countries are not at this summit. And I think that probably shows at the moment, and it might turn around, right? Like this is what we've seen with climate um policy there. It's sort of cyclical, but we are seeing countries place a far bigger focus on energy security than we are on decarbonization as the kind of primary focus. I think that's been China is still at 30% of global emissions. So that's if that's net zero, well then that's Alice in Wonderland. And all the European governments are falling because their energy costs are so great because they've embraced renewables. They've got away from coal, gas, and u well less from gas and nuclear in Germany's case. Their energy prices have gone through the roof.
They've de-industrialized. They've got massive unemployment. Europe's future is Australia. If we go down this crackers path as well, I do think the US under a different administration if there's a Democrat presidency, you know, will change direction again. I think that will but um I and I think that China again is plateauing, but it's it's doing it in a kind of in a smart way in terms of technology like EVs and things like that trying to take advantage of that rather than reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. I think for the government though, I do think there's value in going to COP 31. Like they made the bid in 2022 to actually host it. They came up with this compromise. There's not really a scenario in which they could
have sort of withdrawn entirely from it. And I think from talking to people within government, they see this as primarily like a big diplomacy tool. Like Labor obviously takes action on climate change seriously. It's driving a renewables roll out. Whether people disagree with that, it's committed to it. But I think on the other side of the equation is the fact that Pacific nations see action on climate change as very important and it is an important tool for the government in terms of diplomacy keeping Pacific nations intent showing that we care and actually take it seriously.
They were very lucky not to host it weren't they? I mean Albert was a lucky politician probably relieved. Imagine if they spent $2 billion on coffee in Adelaide and so that Greta Thunber yeah they already have good coffee in Adelaide. Look, uh perhaps this cop will be remembered more by some for the uh the hot mic uh moment where the prime minister and Chris Bowen are court talking about where you should keep your mobile phone away from your heart with a little bit of radio makes sense. I'm more speaking virtually I'm more conscious I don't know there are hot mic moments is this one going to be particularly damaging Jane I don't know actually what I'm curious about because there are hot mic moments
and famously Peter Dutton had a similar moment, not in terms of genitalia, but talking about, you know, the ocean lapping up against the doors of Pacific nations years and years ago. I think what I'm curious about here is the prime minister's office has said, "Oh, look, this is just a silly joke between uh, you know, two ministers um on the sidelines of this summit. How's Albany going to respond to this?" Because we have seen time and time again when there have been sort of silly semi- embarrassing moments like this stage. Yeah. He doesn't address it. He's sort of stubborn and doesn't, you know, directly squash the story. I'm curious to see when he's asked inevitably about this, whether he just says, "Yeah, it
was a silly joke. Let's move on." Or whether he kind of digs in. Yes, it's not as damaging as uh humiliating the Japanese prime minister with Melonate, for example. But, you know, Labour has made a great moral virtue of its ability to treat women with respect unlike, you know, hint, the coalition. Uh, and so that to have senior women ministers again in the rather awkward position of having to defend, oh, you know, bloy dick jokes, really nothing to see here, I think is rather embarrassing. But Jennifer, I think you're missing the plainly elevated tone of these cabinet discussions. I mean, there's a reason they're cabinet ministers and we're not.
You know, is it Bitkinstein? Is it Kant? How do you relate Patrick White to Donald Horn? You know, this is an inspiring level of discourse. Are we Yeah. Are we taking it too seriously though? Well, it's all a bit of nonsense, but still. But also, like, how can we still have hot bag moments? The cameras were invited there. There were microphones there. Like, come on. That's right. A quick one. I want to squeeze in the story that will not die. The Marrickville Golf Club and that $6 million grant. We had a couple of the golf club officials appearing before a Senate inquiry this week answering
questions about whether indeed the grant was for Suridge Works and whether indeed that honorary membership for the prime minister was worth five bucks. So the Suridge was never part of the $6 million, was it? Look, I think that's basically correct. It was not ultimately part of what was funded with the 6.05. as the membership fees show, which is $5 for two years. $5 for two years. How much is a membership at the Maritville Golf Club? At the moment, it's 1,100. Honorary membership is does also um confer playing rights. Um so it's effectively,00 plus because you're an honory. Yes. So, we keep getting bits of new detail and information on all of this. How badly is it hurting the PM? What do you think?
I don't know how badly this incident is hurting the PM, although a resolve poll this week did show that like one in five voters are taking notice, but I think this is just like one in five said on this issue, they'd lost trust. Yeah. I don't know if that's being picked up in other kind of research and um focus groups, but I think this is like another in the armor for the prime minister. So, like this was an election commitment. uh Labour fulfilled it as governments do when they win, but I think he tried to make it worthier than it actually was by raising the surge issue and then he sort of erred in joking about the $5 social membership when it actually was an $1,100 social
membership. So, I think that he kind of gets himself into hot water here because he didn't think the story was a story. He was sort of a bit stubborn about it and wouldn't just address it and say this is how it works when you make an election commitment and I didn't know about the honorary membership, but he sort of dug in and created a story. I think also voters do smell hypocrisy. I mean, don't forget this was a government that pork barreling was the most shocking thing. They were never going to be anything do anything like that and this is such an obvious example that people can relate to and you have on that combined with the fact that you know Albanesei many successful
politicians make mistakes and they admit them and say oh you know what an outrage and I'll call a review immediately or something. He doesn't he can't do that. He just can't seem to do that. And a final thought is how amateurish it all is. How could he get up in parliament so badly briefed not knowing, you know, uh, A from B and saying it was about suridge? Obviously, that was going to come out if it wasn't. I mean, wasn't there someone in the prime minister's office getting every single fact on this matter? I'm astonished at how amateurish the government often is when it's telling lies.
All right. Well, we'll come back with some final thoughts from Jane Norman, Greg Sheridan, and Jennifer Huitt. Time now for Mike Bows and talking pictures. I'm Mike Bows and I'm photographer at large for the New Daily. I'm talking pictures this morning with government coach and a very warm welcome. Let's keep this short. Okay, got a conference call with Trump in 20 minutes. So, come on back with us. Let's move it along.
Well, the climate's been copying it recently and they're certainly copying it now in Turkey. Yeah, look, Australia turning up to cop is a bit like Tony Abbott appearing in a documentary about the misogyny speech. I mean, it's got to be there because it's part of the story, but no one really cares what he has to say. A lot of the cartoonists have picked up on the sandpaper, the Kawaja biography and cop and put them together. I don't see what the big deal is. You know, Australia has been sandpapering legislation for years. You know, Albo was doing it with the stage three tax cuts and look, you know, Jim Charas has been sandpapering his balls for years.
It's the worst kept secret in CRA. Um, this is a very fine David Pope. Another climate test. Yep. You're at nothing gets a ball moving like a bit of Aussie grit. So, yeah, that's true. Yep. Bowman's working hard there. Yeah. Beautiful David row cartoon. Turkey. Yeah. Cop 31. Chris, relax. I bought the sandpaper. Yeah. Turkey. Yeah. More like turkey. Yeah. Nah. From Australia's perspective. You're going to make the world reverse spin here. Do you remember when 1.5 felt ambitious?
Yeah. Wave it goodbye as we all just charge ahead in our coal powered electric vehicles. Brett Lethbridge has got some suggestions for a few savings. Oh, look, another government saving opportunity as he's saving the planet here. Yeah, I love the way he's drawn elbow there. It's It's very lifelike. Uh Jess Harwood here has welcome to COP 31 with Chris and the prime minister. Oh yes. Fuel. What's that? Some hefty emissions coming from down under. I'm not sure if the Netherlands were there, but that is definitely a Dutch oven situation.
Fiona Katowskis has um don't be scared. This is coal. Basically, it's Australians are just great at talking the talk, but for some reason they have trouble walking the walk. Yeah. Also looks like a bit of a black hole he might have been wanting to climb into at the time. Yeah. And they call the other side the coalition. Good on you bow and your mad dog. Coach, economics is known as the dismal science and it certainly seems like there's a lot of dismal news at the moment. David row death here is looking for a bit of a Black Friday bargain. I think with DJs,
you know, DJ's loss is Maya's gains. So, swings and roundabouts. Mind the escalators. As death is the administration side. Wasn't sure that was Pauline walking past death. I know. It's a bit touch of the Paulines, isn't it? Matt Golding here. Quantis we now call offshoring home. It's a surprising call that they're going to move a lot of their advice to the subcontinent. Look, in fairness, even though Quantis have offshored, you know, a lot of their workers, a lot of the maintenance, a lot of the planes, the executive bonuses have remained here in Australia. And that's the important thing. You know,
for every loser, there's a winner. So, I think uh Virgin would be rubbing their hands with glee. Um Warren Brown has poor old DJs at the dump here with some other icons of Australia. Anset and uh Victoria, we've got uh the old Holden. Yeah, the Milk Bar. Oh, I miss the Milk Bar. I'm a big Milk Bar fan. Although, you know, with the rise of the service station, the two for one chalky bars, any Australian who pays full price for a chocolate bar and a servo is a bum. Coach, the Victorian election is just weeks away. The Royal Commission seems to have put the pain back in campaigning for them. We used to do a little drill at training called the Royal Commission. That's when you kick the problem right to the future, then you mark it in the present,
you hand ball to the past, kick it down the road routine, right, Mark Knight. Nothing to see here really. J Cinder Allen and the gorilla, of course. Yeah, I think this cartoon is very unfair to King Kong. Matt Golding has got a bit of a game of snakes and ladders here with Ben Carroll. Has How's he been going? Victoria's substitute teacher, you know, lest we forget. Been good on him. He's got good hair. I respect the hair. Lest we regret. He's on the caller Royal Commission square. He goes up and then he goes down the snake.
Royal Commission finding, slide back down, then call another Royal Commission. The election's only a couple of weeks away. Are you going to make a call for us? Well, yeah. Well, the Victorians watching. When communists elect communists, this is what you get. So, strap in. It's going to be a big change coming. I'll let you do the honors. Back to you, Speizzy. You bloody munger. Thank you, coach. Thank you, Mike. Let's get some final observations. Jane, um, one of the polling results out this week was quite interesting. It showed a
bump in support for Angus Taylor and the Liberals after a long time sort of languishing in the polls. There are some mixed views um, as to whether Angus Taylor as Liberal leader is cutting through and actually managing to sort of fend off One Nation hold the government to account. Um, there is some people within Liberal Party sort of boyed by this result. Um, others though believe that it was a response to the Victorian result which is dragging down Labour's vote and sort of boosting the Liberal vote. So, in polling, the trend is your friend. Let's see what happens over the next few months, weeks, and months as to whether this was just like a one-off boost or if Angus Taylor is actually
managing to turn the ship around. See, Greg, so David, look, I think our politics suffers tremendously from a lack of honesty and basic factuality in the debate. And I would love it if we in the media could do more to promote this. I'd love to see a debt clock somewhere in a big city showing what our national debt is at every minute. Katie Gallagher on this program a couple of weeks ago was saying how the government had to really lift its defense effort. In fact, the percent of GDP spent on defense spending is exactly the same as when Albany came into government. They've made no effort at all. I think we in the media need to work out whole lots of graphs and metrics and so forth and hold on both government and
opposition their feet to the fire on basic facts. Jennifer, well, I think it's very clear now that the government overreached by extending its new tax changes in the budget to all assets uh beyond housing. Uh and that's going to play out again this week when they're trying to get the changes to discretionary trust through. And that is going to be very easy to depict because a lot of small business owners will feel it's completely unfair on them and they're being targeted and there's a lot of them. Unlike for example the gas reservation policy which may be reasonably popular with the public, I don't think this will be at all.
We'll see. All right. Thank you all very much for joining us this morning. Finally, as Environment Minister, Murray Watt has an interest in protecting native species, just not when they start crawling it down your shirt. We'll leave you with that. Thanks for watching. Yeah, do you mind? I'm just crawling. I've got ants crawling away from me. I thought they were flies to begin with, but thanks Do you mind if we just find another spot to continue talking that's not in the middle of the ants? You're making us all feel very excited about being here.
