Peter Krandland live on Skyings Australia.

Good Eve, being welcome to the program, break to have your company.

It's what's coming up tonight.

Warnings from Japan's former envoy and significant criticism from one of our closest strategic partners that the Ognezy government isn't standing up to China's bullying tactics.

Meanwhile, it's been revealed China's among at least five foreign governments cashing in on Australian renewable projects, backed of course by Chris Bowen's capacity investment scheme.

Now I've been saying this for months.

Not only is large scale solar and wind in this country majority foreign owned, a now proof that the profits are heading offshore and this racket with the scheme internal liberal reports starting to leak.

They say that the Dutton loss on claim today at least that it was all the fault of Donald Trump, plus warnings from the OECD, the ballooning federal, state and local government dish spending under labor risks, fueling inflation and debt is rising.

So what chances are there that Jim Chalmers will quit spending?

So I see this commentary about public spending I see this commentary about public demand, but what the numbers tell us today is the growth is coming from the private sector in ways that we've been planning for, preparing for, and frankly hoping for the first.

Whether it's claiming that wind and sol is the cheapest form of power, or claiming that there's nothing to see in the government's two point four million dollar payoff to Britney Higgins, or claiming that Australia's relationship with China is very strong, the Obinizi government is consistently into reality denial.

Communist China is indeed our largest trading partner, with two way trade exceeding two hundred billion a year.

That doesn't mean that Beijing's our friend.

No true friend would imposed twenty billion dollars worth of trade boycotts on Australia, as Beijing did for several years after we had the temerity to seek a full international inquiry into the origins of the Wuhan virus.

No true friend would have sailed naval flotilla around Australia.

All conducted live fire exercises were at any prior notice to the Australian government, something that former Army boss Ian Langford last night on the show was quick to call.

Out, you know, their ambition around modernizing their nuclear deterrence, their ambition around reclaiming and controlling the South China Sea as sovereign waters to gain the disagreement of the international community, and the presence of what the DG.

Evasio talks about.

Foreign espionage activities that include up to sabotage on complex critical systems and key infrastructure are all evidence of what's happening around us.

Nor would any true friend of this country shoot off flares and risk the lives of Air Force pilots flying surveillance planes in international airspace over the South China Sea, or have its naval ships used sonar to injure Australian Navy divers again operating in international waters.

A no true friend would be mounting routine cyber attacks on Australian government systems and critical infrastructure.

As the AZO head has recently specified, almost every organ of Australia's national security and defense apparatus has called out China for repeated acts of aggression against Australia, while our Prime Minister and his front bench power in silence fear of upsetting their mates in Beijing.

Indeed, I can't think of any occasion where the Albanezer government has specifically criticized any conduct of China, even though there's been any number of direct attacks on our trade, our communications, our freedom of movement and our personnel.

Indeed, the Prime Minister himself has gone out of his way to avoid making any public criticism of Beijing, most recently refusing to issue a readout from his meeting last week with China's number three, the chairman of the National People's Congress, who'd said in his public statement that they had discussed China's quote sovereignty over Taiwan.

Now to not give our media a briefing of the meeting with a senior Chinese leader held in Canberra, well, that's unheard of, particularly given the visit was accompanied with that warning from parliamentary security officials that MP's and staff were told to turn off their phones and avoid the Wi Fi system for the whole time the Beijing delegation was in the Parliament House building.

But don't think Albanese's cowardice has gone unnoticed internationally.

Today, the former Japanese Ambassador to Australia, Shino Yamagami, called out Australia for its silence in the face of Beijing's latest bit of wolf warrior diplomacy.

Yeah, Magami's son, the former diplomat well known for speaking up about China and Western cowardice with very un Japanese like frankness, was particularly focused on recent verbal attacks by Beijing on Japan's new Prime minister, now Sene Takeyachi, the first woman to lead Japan.

Well, she's a conservative and she's taken a tough stand against China's aggression from day one.

A week ago, she declared that a Chinese attack on Taiwan might trigger a military response from Japan, because she said, and I quote, it could constitute a survival threatening situation.

Well, the rbuke from Beijing against her was quick and it was personal.

In response, China's consul general, who's based in the Japanese city of Osaka, said an I quote, if you stick that filthy neck where it doesn't belong, it's going to get sliced off.

Yet not a peep from alban easy to defend his Japanese counterpart against this extraordinary verbal assault.

As Yamagami said today, imagine if a Chinese official quote demanded that the Prime Minister of Australia retract remarks made in our parliament, while the Consul General in Sydney posted his willingness to decapitate the PM on social media.

Even Penny Wang, for all the talk of supporting women leaders, well, she declined to defend Prime Minister Takeyachi.

But why should she be surprised?

Yet another speech from Wong highlighted the government's double standards.

Here after acknowledging Chinese, Russian, Iranian and North Korean cyber attechs on Australia, Wong said that Moscow, Tehran and Pyongyang would continue to sabotage and destabilize.

She left Beijing out of that list because she said they would merely quote continue to try and reshape the region according to their own interests.

So all the other cybertacks get caught out for what they are, But it's kid gloves that her communist mates.

Still at least some officials are prepared to be honest about what we face in terms of challenges from China.

Earlier this week, the outgoing head of the Office of National Assessment, so the Peak National Security Assessment Body if you like, in Australia.

His name is Andrew Shearer.

He warned that Australia quote must be prepared for what may be coming.

Most consequentially, should the Terrance break down, notwithstanding the efforts of our government and our allies, we would face a rising risk of major conflict in our region within the next decade.

We have to act now if we are to be prepared for what may be coming.

Now that Bloke's got a seat at the National Security Committee of Cabinet, thank god for a bit of truth telling to all of us, all voters for a change.

Retired Brigadier in Langford.

Again, part of the challenge here is to have an honest and frank assessment about how we manage our economic and our security relationship with China in an age where they're in competition with the US to be the single significant power in eastern North Asia.

And this will define very much Australia's future over the next fifteen to twenty years.

So listening to Andrew Shearer, making sober and frank assessments in terms of what are our interests and how we secure them in the context of a changing world is the number one role of the government.

I think right now.

The great pity is that's now left to the officials and the army veterans like former Brigadier Langford to tell us the grim truth about what's really going on with China, and not the Prime Minister or the Foreign Minister, who, at a minimum I Australians a whole lot more honesty for once.

All right, let's get the headlines down.

Skyny's political reporter Rubn Spargo.

The Communications Minister, is defending the six figure price tag of her recent trip to New York.

Anika Wells and two staff traveled to the U and General Assembly in September to promote Australia's world first social media ban for under sixteen's.

According to the government, airfares alone came to ninety four point eight thousand Australian dollars.

Accommodation was just under eighteen thousand, and ground transport cost a further six thousand.

How do you justify spending this amount of taxpayers dollars?

Well, the reason you know all those things is because we're transparent about them.

You don't think that was expensive for airfares over ninety four thousand dollars.

I've answered your question.

The scrutiny is cutting into the government's messaging ahead of the band's rollout in seven days.

Once it begins, social media companies will have one day to report how many under sixteen accounts they've removed, followed by regular updates for at least least six months.

With one law, we can protect Generation Alpha from being sucked into purgatory.

Google, the parent company of YouTube, says the legislation will make Australian kids less safe on its platform.

The Reserve Bank is willing to raise rates in the new year if inflation refuses to go down.

The latest GDP figures came in lower than expected, showing growth of zero point four percent in the September quarter and two point one percent for the year.

Private investment has come back really strongly over the course of this year.

Economists worn government spending could result in more mortgage pain for households.

All right, planning to get through Let's get into it now, joining me Sky News host James Morrow and journalist at the Data Telegraph James Willis.

Gents, welcome, Let's start with the growing concerns about asbestos in wind turbines.

The Queensland Government's now ordered and ordered of all wind farms in the state after Andrew Forrest Clark Creek wind Farm became the third in the nation to detect asbestos in and around the turbines.

Now, surely the rest of the country must follow this audit.

I'd like to see James that they are all shut down pending a clear bill of health.

And I have to say, you know where all the labor sort of class action law firms here, None of them are speaking out and we're talking about asbestos now in multiple locations.

Yea.

Indeed, Peter and I think that the real problem with all these renewable energy projects that we're seeing right across the country is that once they're up and running, the checks and balances.

Basically go away.

And that's obviously where farmers have been left worried about what happens with decommissioning when they have to come down in ten twenty years from now.

But I think this is deeply alarming.

Now the New South Wales opposition has this afternoon told us that they're calling for an immediate audit of all the hundreds of turbines.

I think there's nine hundred New South Wales alone that are up and running, and you think it'd be a pretty basic check now, all these projects in theory have at least a handful of workers that are there for maintenance, well safe work sort of go in.

They've got to go into all these sites and make sure that they are guaranteed.

I mean labor governments don't take second chances with this and all they should when it comes to the protection of workers, and they make a big fuss about showing that they are about workers safety.

Well, if there are parts of wind turbines that have been detected with asbestos, and there are concerns about other sites, out of an abundance of caution, we should be checking all of them.

And if it doesn't happen, it's another clear example of where these guys are just blinded by trying to get to net zero and nothing else really matters, and the checks and balances that would go into any government project at any time are not happening here in the name of net zero, which.

Is just a joke.

If it is the case, it'll be very interesting because a lot of the states, as you know, have industrial manslaughter laws, and it could be government departments and officials who this time are on the hook.

Let's go to comments from the climates are Labour's climates are, I might add Matt Kean, he's taken aim at the Liberal Party and a piece for Crikee today, arguing that they deserve to keep losing.

He says until they decide to change course and get back to net zero by twenty fifty.

James Morrow, I mean this is an extraordinary broadside the former New South Wales Liberal Deputy leader.

There, of course, former treasurer, the bloke who wanted to shut down the coal five power station that Labor had to keep going to get the lights on in your state.

He's still well, he still thinks he's got factional control.

You'll tell me if he does or he doesn't.

But I mean this is extraordinary what he's done today.

Well yeah, I mean, look, he's put it out through and cuaky, so I don't know how much impact the thing is actually going to have.

It is funny though, I mean Mat Keen, as you see not only everything you've mentioned, but he's saddled New South Wales with his renewable energy zones, which are costing an absolute fortunate or tearing apart bush communities from one end of the state to the other, as farmers are seeing their land degraded for solar farms and wind turbines and transmission lines and all that sort of thing.

But you know, I read this piece, Peta, and the thing that thought that came to my mind, the thought that came from my mind is well, you know he would say this, wouldn't he.

You know, he's the head of the Climate Change Authority.

He's also a director of a renewable energy investment fund, so you know, this is what he does.

But this whole idea that he puts forward in the piece, that there's this kind of historic inevitability the arc of history bends towards climate change, as Barack Obaba might have put it, Well, it's a nonsense.

You know.

He's acting like the Liberals are the ones who.

Are to be an independent.

Shit, he's supposed to be independent.

But you know, he's acting like this is some inevitability when he's ignored, and that the liberals are being left behind.

But he's the one Peter being left behind here because the rest of the world is looking at this whole idea of net zero by twenty fifty, realizing its disaster changing policy as much as they can in Europe.

Elsewhere around the world, the idea that Australia, that Libra, that Matt Kean is still wedded to this idea of net zero by twenty fifty, like it's physically or economically possible without it being an economic disaster.

Here's the one who is going to wind up looking like the dinosaur.

Let's stay with this issue, James.

Go to revelations in your newspaper, The Daily Telegraph today that at least five foreign governments have got their noses in the trough of taxpayer money.

This is in Chris Bowen's capacity investment scheme.

So it's a fun to back in renewable projects.

We were told at some stage that they're all about backing Australian jobs in renewables.

I don't believe that you've uncovered that a subsidiary of EDP Global has received backing for two projects under this Bowen scheme.

Ording to the Daily Telegraph, the largest shareholder in an EEDP Global is China three gorges.

It's a company that's controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.

James, what more can you tell us?

Well, and to be honest, Peter, this is built and road by stealth, one way or another, and these are not the only projects that we've uncovered that have links to companies that are owned by the Chinese government.

And for people that don't understand or national security experts say that if a company is owned by the Chinese government, it can be controlled by the Chinese government.

And so what China has done very strategically here, keeping in mind everything you said in your editorial off the top, is basically circumnavigate any of the normal checks.

And there's companies that are set up in Australia or they're overseas companies.

China invests them in them directly, or they provide them loans, or they provide them equipment for these large scale projects, and they've managed to get their way onto the capacity investment scheme, as has a company owned by the Malaysian government, as have international superannuation funds.

And what tax payers are funding is sixty of these projects right across the country where the government or you and I will basically underwrite them for at least fifteen years.

And what happens is if they lose money, we will underwrite part of the cost.

If they earn money above and agreed revenue ceiling, they'll have to pay some of that back.

But it's the deal of the century.

It applies to sixty projects.

International governments and companies have realized this, and they've all hitched their wag into Cris Bowen's scheme.

And the worst part about it is it only applies to green energy.

Now, as we both know we desperately need more gas in this country.

There'd be an argument to put gas onto this as well.

Doesn't apply.

It's green energy, wind, solar, battery only.

And if you're good enough to get involved, they'll tell you what, Peter, It's going to be the deal of a lifetime for the next fifteen years or more.

It's like that horrible pink that scheme of the rud Gillard era on steroids.

I mean, we're talking about billions of dollars here.

And we don't know, we don't know how much.

It's all commercial and confidence.

That that is exactly right.

You were right to make that point.

We know it's billions, we don't know how many billions because Chris Bowen, like everything, is not giving us the financial detail.

I'll go back to those left wing liberals I like to call themselves moderates, James, let's call them what they are.

They've now said they're going to go to war over migration.

Right Andrew Bragg you remember said if net zero happens, I'm going to quit.

Well he hasn't quit.

Unfortunately for four old liberal supporters.

He's still there.

Now he's saying a new red line in the sand.

If they go down the path of migration cutting overseas migration, you know that'll be held to pay over my dead body.

Well, today you've got to report out from the Institute of Public Affairs warning that mass migration is driving a huge decline in our per capita economic growth.

So Brag's a clown.

He's threatened to quit before, didn't he still there?

I'd love to say him go anyway.

But what do you make of a new red line?

Well, I just think it's ridiculous here, you know, I mean, there's so many problems with his position, the first of all being you know, moderates say, oh, well, you know, we have to meet the voters where they are to change our position, to meet the voters where they are.

Well on this, voters across the political spectrum think migration is too high.

They want cuts.

If the Liberals wanted an issue, that would be really popular and start to win them back voters.

This would be it, and it would be something that would win them voters in the inner cities and in the suburbs where people are really concerned about their ability to buy a house or pay the rent, and they're about their kids ability to buy a house or pay the rent.

Because there is no getting around the fact that the massive migration intake under this government here has absolutely pumped up the housing market.

Everybody says that, particularly in rents.

You know today we had the ABS release their figures too about the economy.

Well they said, oh, well, you know, the economy has grown a bit to GDP, but per capita GDP has not grown one bit.

Because the ABS said this because of population growth ie migration.

This is the key number one issue right now because we are seeing the economy being shallowed out, capacity being shallowed out by this massive influx of people.

Only I think about twelve percent of them are actually skilled.

A lot of them are here on sort of these sort of dodgy training college, sort of migration agency sort of bridging visas.

But this is a massive, massive issue for the Liberals not to jump on this.

And yet we hear not only Andrew Bragg.

But other moderates Peta, they're saying in the party, oh, we don't want to use the phrase even mass migration because that might be demonized.

Well that's what it is, though, and you need to call things what they are.

And I'm afraid, you know, the moderate they really feel like they don't want to actually win.

I got a call what they are.

That's why they'reut left wing liberals.

James believe it.

They're James Squared.

Tonight, Thank you, gentlemen.

Let's go to a break up of the break though.

We'll do a preview of an exclusive story involving a controversial push for a genderless bathroom at a Melbourne primary school, plus those warnings from Japan's former envoy over Albany'si's failure to stand up to Beijing.

We'll go back to that issue of the taxpayer billions heading up to China to pay for renewables, all the while pensions here can't afford to keep the lights on.

The first joining me now with an exclusive story, a preview of her story on the push for genderless bathrooms at a Melbourne primary school.

Senior reporter Carolyn Marcus, this is staggering doesn't surprise me though.

It's Victoria.

But what can you tell us, Caro?

It is staggering.

A primary school, a public one in Inner Melbourne called Campbellwell Primary School.

They received close to ten million dollars in the state budget of twenty twenty four to twenty five and they've decided to use that to upgrade their main building and toilet block and have only all the eight toilets in there will be genderless.

Now.

A number of parents have arked up about this, including the school's former Parents Association president, Christina Woods.

She quit as president and her position on the school council up after they refuse to budge on this issue.

They're not against having some gender neutral toilets, but these parents just want a choice of their kids to have a choice of whether they want to use single sex toilets girls and boys.

Here's Christina Woods on why she thinks this is a risky move from the school.

They're going to get sued, Something's going to happen and I really don't want to see that, and no parent wants to see that institution are completely ideologically captured.

And I moved to the wokest city on Earth.

I truly did.

I mean, the reality is too you know, girls and boys are going into puberty earlier, Carolyn, and you know it might have been the case that that didn't hit them till they're in high school.

But if it hits them at primary school, the risk is that they could be embarrassed or vulnerable.

And they're going through that having to share bathrooms with other little boys.

I think that's a bit rough.

There's so many reasons that this group of up to forty parents are opposing this.

I mean, one is the privacy and dignity concerns, as you say, girls have different needs, But there's also the safety risk.

This mom says, you know, a girl could be pushed into one.

Of these stalls, and that could be a risk.

It could happen to a boy as well.

She thinks that this is a heightened risk.

But also we're talking about a block that is for grades two.

To four the school.

It does have some single sex toilets on other part of the campus.

The kids would have to walk quite far in the senior block to use that.

But kids as young as six, why do they need a gender neutral toilet in the first place.

And as my exclusive.

Report tomorrow will show, the principle here has been given what giving what some parents say is misleading justifications for this.

She's said that the government state government has a mandate for genderists toilets and that it complies it's to meet obligations with anti discrimination legislation.

I've confirmed neither of that is true.

It is not required under the law and there is no such government mandate.

So there's a lot of questions here and calls for the Education Minister and Victoria to intervene.

Where are the Liberals on this position?

Do we have something from Jess Wilson?

I note for those in Melbourne Campwell obviously it's close to her electorate area of Q.

They're not very in the past, they've not been strong on some of these ses in community outrage, but the Liberal Party has not often had a position.

Do we know where they stand?

We do and it will be in my report tomorrow.

Peter, the new Education Minister, Brad Roswell, I've spoken to him.

He thinks there could be an economic mismanagement issue with the state, that schools might not have enough money, but he also says it is as simple as that needs to be facilities for boys and girls and he's called on the minister to do better because the Education Minister had been contacted over this and he said this is an issue for the school and he's wiped his hands of it.

His liberal counterpart says he needs to come and explain to parents why there is so much confusion and obfiscation here by the school and the education department.

Let's go to the other issue to that.

You were at the Federal Court Bruce lehn And lost his appeal to overturn the outcome of his defamation case against Network ten and the journalist Lisa Wilkinson.

How do things play out?

Well, It's probably played out as expected.

After hearing some of the submissions from the two day appeal hearing back in August, the full bench of the Federal Court upheld a decision of finding last year that Bruce Lehman, on the balance of probabilities, did rape Britney Higgins, and they have dismissed his appeal.

Now.

He had tried to argue that the primary judge, Justice Michael Lee, had heard in his finding and had denied him procedural fairness because he had made a finding that was different about the rape that he had committed.

To the one that was put to him on trial ospair going into too much details about that, but we did hear that the judge that the full court judges said that they believed that it was open to Justice Lead to make his finding.

Now you might remember that now classical line from Justice Lee back then that having had his criminal trial a bordered due to during misconduct, Bruce Lherman made the mistake of going back into the lionstand to.

Get his hat.

Well, today he found out it was a mistake to go back again because this Full Court has only confirmed that rape finding against him outside court.

Though his lawyer, Zali Burrows, remained defiant, she said that mister Lehman plans to take this matter to the High Court.

Everyone should reflect, even the shameless politicians who have used him for an agenda and everyone else, that Bruce's life is being destroyed.

Just like to say that hope Bruce is seen as an inspiration to those who say they've been wrongly accused, because he will be seeking advice to specially and it's not the end of it in respect of his pursuit for justice.

Just Carol, I want to finish up and go.

Greg Sheridan but can I take it from her comments there?

Outside of that, he will now try and proceed to the High Court with special leave application.

Is that what's happing?

That seems to be.

But we pressed her further on this outside court.

She didn't get more details, including how he would fund a possible appeal, because that is very costly.

He's already up for two million dollars from the first trial, now possibly half a million dollars because he's been ordered to pay the cost for the appeal.

However, she did say that he plans to seek leave to appeal.

It will be up to a court to see whether they would grant him leave to do that, but that is his intention at least at this point.

All Right, we'll leave it there.

Let's go to those other issues from the former ambassador to Australia, the Japanese ambassador, she'd go Yamagami tough comments about the Albanezy government's failure to ever tackle China in international forums.

He says, when Australia came under tremendous pressure from China and was subject to similar economic coercion, Japan stated out loud that Australia was not walking alone.

Is it too much to expect the same from ours inmates in times of need here to discuss this issue and more.

Foreign editor at The Australian, Greg Sheridan.

They come in the contest context, Greg, obviously of the new Japanese Prime Minister being taken to task by China's consul general based in the Osaka city of Japan, in the city of Osaka in Japan, and basically very little commentary from Australia when we're in the position of being targeted by China.

Japan was in our corner and Shingo is rightly saying, well, why aren't you in ours anymore?

Yeah, great to be with you, Peter.

Look, the ambassador's comments are absolutely right.

This is another disgraceful episode from the Oubbuldenesi government which indicates its cowardice and its fatuousness and its vacuousness.

So Australia called for an inquiry into the origins of COVID.

The Chinese didn't like that and they slapped all kinds of trade bans on us, and Japan stood with us in solidarity.

The Japanese Prime Minister, in response to aggressive, relentless questioning in parliament said if the Chinese imposed a blockade on Taiwan, and the Americans were trying to relieve Taiwan.

This would be a matter in which Japan could possibly consider deploying its armed forces.

The Chinese response was intimidty, vicious, foul over the top.

The Osaka consul general said that the Prime Minister's dirty neck would be cut off and they should look forward to that event.

And the Japanese, showing grate forbearance, have not expelled him, but they've asked the Chinese to recall him of their own accord in a face saving gesture.

At the same time, the Chinese have imposed economic sanctions on Japan, telling their tourists not to go there and imposing other economic restrictions.

And what have we heard from the Albanesi government, which loves to proclaim it's solidarity and closeness with Japan, which is in fact our closest and most important partner in Asia.

We've heard absolutely nothing.

Because these guys are cowards.

They do nothing, they stand for nothing, They've got no backbone.

And I tell you what, if you were dependent on the carriage of the Albanesi government to stand between you and death, you'd want to make sure your will was in good order.

Let's go to those comments.

So I was just discussing a little earlier with James and willis the sort of the roll out renewable to detail about the capacity investment scheme is about seventy one billion dollars of our money on the table for people to come and build particular types of renewable energy in Australia.

It's not allowed to be spent in fossil fuels like gas, which we desperately need.

But the concern, I guess it relates to your area of expertise, is the fact that there is now confirmation are really serious money flows going back to entities that are owned in part by the Chinese government.

We know obviously under law in China, if you are a Chinese company, you're basically a weapon if needed for the Chinese government.

So how concerned are you given these money flows and also given the ownership structure.

So going forward, as we get more and more renewables in the system, they will have the capacity to interfere with our energy supply in this country should they so wish.

Well, that's absolutely right, Peter.

I mean, the whole thing is just absurd, I wrote a column on Monday pointing out that we have, through the purchase of Russian oil refined in India, given much more money to Russia than we've given to Ukraine over the course of the Ukraine War.

And that is a pattern of helping our enemies and hurting our friends.

Now as we won't at a single word in solidarity with our strategic partner Japan.

At the same time, we are spending billions of dollars to subsidize Chinese energy conglomerates, so the whole thing is mired in illogicality.

Anyway, we desperately need gas as part of even a renewables lead rollout, so why isn't gas part of this scheme?

Then we find, you know, the government's always telling us renewables are the cheapest form of energy, so why do we need to pay massive subsidies?

And everything it seems which are left of center government does is designed to take money from poor people and give it to rich people.

So we're taxing ordinary Australians at punitive rates to pay subsidies to Chinese state influenced energy companies pursuing strategic domination of the renewable energy sector.

I mean this is kind of madness.

The government says it's trying to diversify trade away from China, but everything it does increases our dependence on China.

And anybody who thinks that Chinese supplied infrastructure won't have back doors which allow the Chinese government to control it in a crisis is just ignoring all the security evidence.

I just think the situation is mad.

I mean, it's incomprehensible.

It's a sign of how deranged our politics is.

Let's go to the Defense Department restructure.

My viewers will have heard my views on this for a couple of days, so I'm interested in yours.

But very quickly the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age was crowing it was the biggest defense overhaul in fifty years.

It looks like a title change for a few people that are all keeping their jobs over greg and some shuffling out and combination of departments.

What's your view, well, Peter, this is really a kind of folderole and much ado about nothing.

I mean, this recreates structure we had ten or fifteen years ago under the Defense Material Organization.

I've been following defense as a journalist for nearly fifty years, and one season there's a reform to centralize all the agencies.

That doesn't work very well, so the next season there's a reform to decentralize the agencies.

So even a few years ago, all these agencies which are being merged were in one agency and they were spun out the Naval Shipbuilding and the Guided Weapons Enterprise to give them greater focus on their missions.

Now they're being spun back in.

But Richard Marles assures us everyone currently doing the job under the old agencies will be doing the same job under the new agencies.

And the whole thing isn't implemented until the second half of twenty twenty seven, so by that time it will have taken the Albanese government nearly as long as World War Two ran to reform defense procurement, and the reform is meaningless anyway.

Meanwhile, we're not doing anything about a acquiring the capabilities that we need.

And most important of all in this respect, nobody in defense bears any responsibility.

Nobody gets the sad.

I mean, if a company performed as badly as our defense establishment did, you wouldn't say, well, the CEOs a nice guys that are going to make him the chairman now you'd say, sorry, fellas.

You might be nice guys, but you're out now and we've got a new leadership in well, nothing like that ever happens in defense.

I mean, twenty of them earn more than the Defense Minister.

And on it goes.

And the final point I'd make is they claim this is the biggest change in fifty years, So where are the supporting documents?

A one and a half page press release, a meandering press conference in which the Defense Minister struggled with any question about detail, and that's it.

And what is shocking is how much of the media treats these absurd government announcements with utter credulity, just says, oh, yes, isn't this exciting, the biggest change in fifty years.

It's beyond It's beyond any sat eye you could imagine.

Really, thank God for the Australian Thank God for Sky and years the tea.

What Greg, where would we be without someone at least prepared to speak truth to government.

We'll leave it there up the break.

Warnings from the OECD for Australia to ragining government spending, But show me your labor government, it doesn't love to waste your money.

That's just how much is the Albanezer government forking out defund its war against the former Senator Linda Reynolds.

Wednesday Night panel up next, welcome back.

We've got words coming up.

Of course it's Wednesday with Kel Richards.

We'll get to that in a moment, but first, the OCD has worn the ballooning federal, state and local government spending under labor in Australia is fueling inflation risks and rising debt, urging Australia to restore fiscal discipline as public outlays surge while the private sector isn't rebounding.

Now those prizes here, let's dig a little deeper into the mess.

Joining me now the panel Skynys contributor Jamie Rodgers and the Deputy executive director at the Institute of Public Affairs, Daniel Wild Well, Dan, you know this is a serious warning.

It's come from the OACD.

How long can Jim Charmers keep up ignoring them.

Well, that's the question, Peter, and he's going to try for as long as he possibly can.

But you know, this is further evidence that our economy is going backwards.

We saw the data out just today from the Australian Bureau of Statistics that yet again the per capita economic growth is going backwards.

That means that ten out of thirteen quarters of this government we've had negative per capita growth.

So they're spending like we've never spent before, but our economy is going backwards.

And of course on top of that, we've got this mass migration program.

So the economy is getting bigger, as Jim Chalmers likes to talk about, but the slice of the pie that Australians are getting is getting smaller.

So we've seen this surge in government spending and what's phenomenal to me is if you look at the government's own budgetary documents, what it shows is that they're expecting government spending to grow at one third faster than the rate of the entire economy.

Now, if you're pumping more money into a moribund economy where productivity growth is stagnant, you know, again the data today shows that we're still where we were in twenty twenty two.

You're going to get higher prices and unfortunately, unless this government reigns in spending, there's going to be more pain for households on the way.

Let's go to the confirmation at a Senate estimates that Labor is spending huge amounts on barristers, including one silk that we know is in excess of five thousand a day.

It could be as high as twenty five thousand.

We just know it breaches the threshold where you have to get special permission from the Attorney General to go above five thousand a day.

And this is all done to fight legal actions being brought by Linda Reynolds and Fota Brown for compensate after Wong Gallagher and others claimed there was some sort of cover up by them in the Morrison era over the rape allegations and Britney Higgins.

Now what's interesting here that was speculated Jabie, As I say, we know it's now confirmed this money is being spent, and it's in sharp contrast, isn't it to how quickly they fast tracked the two and a half million dollar payout to Britney Higgins.

I eventually they're hoping now that will slide into the Christmas break and this lord disappear.

I hope it doesn't your spot on about that, Peter.

It's going to be a situation where it's nothing to see here, just swipe it under the rug and try and stay quiet.

But I do think that Senator Anne Rustin has been very good during Senate Estimates when she's been prosecuting the case with Penny Wong and Katie Gallaher and asking them the really hard questions.

So I have no doubt that Senator Rustin will continue with that interioration of this situation coming into the new year, so that we won't just move on and pretend like nothing has happened.

Because this is really serious, Peter.

These women in Linda Reynolds and Fiona Brown, their entire lives have been ruined, their careers are in tatters, and their reputations are gone as well.

So these women have every right to be fighting to clear their names.

Why the Labor government is continuing to fight against them with the top barristers.

I do think that.

Michelle Roland and the Labor government need to be transparent and be very clear with tax pays just how much this is going to cost.

We've spoken about this previously with one of those silks could be charging up to twenty five thousand dollars a day and for a court case I could go for four weeks.

This will be in excess of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

So I think if Albanezy government doesn't have anything to hide elbows always the one that's talking about being very transparent, then let's open this all up, have a proper conversation and own the situation so that we can move on and these women can get the compensation that they sold deserve off the back of two court cases of finding that there was no political cover up.

So their lives have been ruined and they deserve to be compensated for what's happened to them.

And I must say, in relating to Linda Reynolds, you're right, two court cases have cleared her name.

Stop playing politics.

She's a former brigadier Army brigadier.

You can see they're in her postnominals on the strap there at her hearing.

She is conspicuous Service cross holder.

That is a something that's been awarded to her by the Governor General because of her service to the military.

And when doing this to a veteran, when the courts have cleared her name, will spend millions of dollars to fight her in the courts when she should be looked after.

Now and a few sorries.

Few apologies to come from the government.

Let's go to the story in the City Morning Herald today the leagues have started to come down about all the various reviews into the coalition's loss.

The real reason isn't Peter Dutton, isn't a bad campaign, isn't bad policy, but apparently Donald Trump.

Yeah, look, there's going to be a lot of spin coming out of this.

But you know what's interesting to me is a couple of things.

Firstly, the Coalition performed badly at the election because of lack of policies and a lack of conviction that failed to be communicated to the community.

Now, I was a candidate at the election, so I was Jamie and you know there was a lot of people that worked hard on the ground.

But when the national campaign doesn't work well, then it drags everything down.

I also in the other issue was a luck of ambition.

You know, on behalf of the coalition, they sort of wanted to have one foot in, one foot out do the hokey pokey, which.

You can't do.

You cannot stand in the middle of the road.

Whether it was you know, net zero, you know, they said, oh well, we're not going to dump net zero.

We're going to do nuclear, but people were confused, are you doing nuclear because you want low prices or because you want lower missions?

Because you can't have both.

You know you can't have low.

Prices and lower missions.

We know that.

Same with immigration.

Yes, they said we're going to cut immigration, but it was only by something like twenty percent, and the number they used anyway was the wrong number to begin with, and then they were too embarrassed to talk about at it.

So you've actually got to pick your target and create a contest.

That's why the coalition performed badly.

Now, I'm sure that Trump did play a role.

We've seen across the Western world center right political leaders have struggled because the left have been able to tag Trump to them.

We saw that in Canada, which was a very obvious manifestation of that.

But I certainly don't think it was the number one cause.

And it was that easy.

It was that easy.

We'll leave it there, thank you both.

After the break, we'll get into the words with Kell season.

Welcome back, joining here as he does every Wednesday, our dear friend, the broadcaster and some wordsmith extraordinaire, Kel Richards.

Let's get straight into we got some good ones, a lot of these.

I actually use a fairbey.

Pamela wants to know about the expression hat trick.

Where does that come from?

Kel Ah?

In English county cricket in eighteen fifty eight bowler named AJH Stevenson who took three wickets of three consecutive balls.

The fans were so excited they took up a collection and what they bought him with the money they raised was a hats.

Yes, can I just add one more small detail?

They bought him the wrong sword of hat.

They bought him a hat called affairs, you know, one of those conical things with the tasseina on the top.

And they should have bought him a bowler Boom boom boom boll.

Sorry, yes, absolutely so.

I'm sure they put the hat around to get the money to pay for the hat as well.

Hey, I use this one.

It's a bit of a family favorite.

Lickety split.

Andrew wants to know where lickety split comes from.

First record at eighteen eighteen.

In the early eighteen hundreds, lickarty was being combined with other words to create adverbial phrases.

There was lickety smash, lickety cut, lickety wallop, and this one lickety split, apparently just on the basis that licking was seen as being a rapid action, so anything that was lickety was going to be very far.

The other sort of odd combinations died out, lickety split survived.

The verb to split was seen as being identical with to cut, and cutting was seen as a rapid action.

Lickety rapid action, cutting rapid action, so lickety split meant something very fast, very rapid, and that's how it evolved.

All right.

What about dark horse?

We often say someone's a bit of a dark horse.

Jeremy says, can you explain this one?

For us?

Light often means among the whole range of things.

Often means revelation, knowledge, knowing what's going on.

So you can walk into a rude dark room, turn on the light, you can see where everything is.

So it's that kind of light is information, light as knowledge, and dark is the opposite.

I mean, will say, with someone you know, he's seen the light.

In other words, he understands.

We'll say someone's keeping their motives dark for doing this, it means they're being hidden.

So dark always has meant hidden, and in English, horse racing about eighteen twenty one, they adopted this for a competitor about which nothing was known.

They'd look at the field and say, we don't know anything about this horse's track history, what he's won, what he's lost, what he's run in, So he's a dark horse.

So it turned out of horse racing eighten twenty one, few years later was used by Benjamin Disraeli in one of his novels.

Then it became a general sort of metaphor for anything which is unknown.

The Americans used it in primary elections.

They started using it as a political metaphor.

So if there was a candidate who wasn't thought to stand a chance, but he got the nomination after all, then he was called a dark horse, just like the horse racing expression.

Yeah, it's a bit like if you haven't got exposed form for someone, So someone pops up politically, you don't know much about them not so they're not going to give them a chance, and you're not sure if they're going to win.

You just don't know enough to put them in the rankings, and they come through its role that's always interesting.

Joe.

Joe says, what about the origins of humble Pie and he asks a question, does it come from eating deer?

Yes, it does.

It comes from here, from the sixteen hundreds.

And that's because it was originally umbil pie umb ale without an h.

The umbels are the innerds or the offal of the deer.

So while the nobility ate roast venison at the top of the table, the servants in the castle ate the deer's offal in a pie.

They had umbul pie.

Literally, that's where the expression comes from.

It's nice, isn't it.

And then in the.

Next week, next week, we're going to run through all the various dictionaries in others that all got their words.

Oh yeah, we'll go through those.

Kel look forward to it.

We'll do it.

That's it tomorrow night.

Here's Andrew