Credlin

00:02 Peter Credlin, live on Sky News Australia. 00:08 Don't you dare drop that national cabinet, Chris Kenny. I love it every Thursday. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the program. Here's what's coming up tonight on Credlin. The latest on Dr Jihad, the huge revelations today that'll make your blood boil. I'll update you shortly. We'll also speak to the journalist, the brilliant journalist who broke the story live on the program a little later. Growing speculation too today that factional support for Jacinta Allen's crumbling. I'm told this afternoon that meetings are being held in the margins of the ALP National Conference in Adelaide. 00:40 State Parliament's back next week. So will she be rolled? 00:44 Plus, Bowen's battery blowout expected to cost taxpayers over $8 billion. Worse still, the majority of these billions are being paid to foreign battery manufacturers. That's coming out. And all the action out of day one of the ALP conference, the elephant in the room, for Labor even, is clearly one nation. 01:07 Even the very first Labor government was not a monoculture. 01:14 We'll cross live to Adelaide for the latest there. But first, Labor has been exposed. The secrecy and the duplicity of the Albanese government and their weakness in the face of radical Islam now laid bare for all to see. Just last night, I had this to say in Revelations that Perth-born ISIS doctor Tariq Kamla was not dead as previously thought, but alive and behind bars in an Iraqi prison. And he is just one of a group of 13 Australians, so tells us the Iraqi officials, being investigated by them over allegations that they were terrorists for Islamic State. 01:57 To date, as we know, it's the women and the children who've returned here. 02:01 Soon it'll be the men. Mark my words. Now, is Australia involved here? 02:08 Is our government or are our officials any part of this? Are they across it? Are they being briefed? 02:17 Again, no comment from Home Affairs. 02:21 But knowing what I do about how Canberra works, not for one minute do I believe that Australian authorities are out of the loop on any of this. Not for one minute do I think that this front page of the newspaper today was a surprise to Tony Burke or his Home Affairs Department. I just don't buy that. 02:43 I suspect that's precisely why Home Affairs refused to make a comment. 02:52 Well, I was right. 02:53 Today we learn, again via the Australian newspaper, that not only does the Albanese government know all about this Dr Jihad, but they've known about him for years. Yes, years. And they've kept it a secret. 03:07 Reports today that Penny Wong's Department of Foreign Affairs was briefed about Kamala's survival four years ago in 2022 and again last year, exposes just how compromised the Albanese government is when it comes to the issue of ISIS returnees, be they male or female. 03:27 As a reporter, Mohamed Al-Farez and Paul Garvey have said today in The Australian, and they got this from a DFAT source, officials knew about Dr Jihad from a tip-off by US agents in Iraq, but, quote, decided to stay out of it and not get involved. Well, they are involved. Deciding not to get involved is a decision in itself. Because as the Iraqi authorities said in their media statement yesterday, the potential repatriation of Tarek Kamla back to Australia remained, and I quote, an open yet conditional pathway. 04:07 And so by leaving it to Baghdad to take the running on this bloke, this alleged terrorist, he It all but guarantees he'll face little opposition returning to this country. And when asked, Albanese will just claim his government's doing nothing to assist Dr Jihad's return or that of the other 12 men that the Iraqis report all want to come back to Australia. 04:31 But deciding not to stop the return of this man is helping him. Not imposing an exclusion order is helping him. 04:43 you know, not stopping him at all in any way, is absolutely getting involved. Now, Albanese, you are fooling no one here. 04:54 Has Dr Jihad already lodged an application for a new passport? Well, I want to know that. 05:00 Has he had a prison visit from any Australians, Muslim mates or government officials? Has his Perth-based family had any contact with him? 05:11 Is this where Tony Burke's political ally, Dr. Jamal Riffey, is going to deploy his repatriation efforts next? 05:21 Now, all of these questions deserve an answer. 05:24 I can tell you from experience that if DFAT has had a briefing on this individual, other departments will have been briefed as well. Absolutely Home Affairs and the Prime Minister's own department. 05:38 Reports today say ACO is across it. Well, I bet they are. And our international intelligence arm, the agency ACES. 05:48 I don't know, but I would highly suspect it's also been an issue discussed in the National Security Committee of Cabinet, the NSC. And I bet they did it under the line, as an under-the-line item to limit the paper trail. Because it is dynamite. And it's dynamite because Labor's political dependence on the Muslim vote in the key seats they hold, like Tony Burke's own seat of Watson, compromises them in every way. 06:20 Burke holds his seat and the Albanese government turns a blind eye to the return of these ISIS sympathisers. That's what they are at best. Active terrorists is what they are if the worst of the claims are in fact true. Now, if you think I'm angry here, you bet I am. I know you are angry too. 06:38 Not only are we being lied to, but as we've seen so clearly on the beach at Bondi, radicals in this country will cost Australian lives. Terrorism is real, sadly, in this country now. It's not an abstract thing anymore. It's not just happening in other countries. It's real and it's here. 07:01 And unless we move fast and rooted out, we will never be safe. 07:05 Now, right now, without any need for additional powers or new laws, Albanese could act to keep these men out right now. 07:14 Now, as outlined here on the show last night, that's exactly what he can and should do. And here's that expert we often talk to about counter-terrorism, former Federal Police Superintendent Detective David Craig. 07:30 Give us a sense right now of what he's got on his desk that he could use to keep this man out. 07:39 Okay, well, not even just this man, Peter. Pardon me. 07:43 OK, the first thing the government needs to be doing is using these temporary exclusion orders. Now, I've seen Tony Burke say that there'll be a constitutional challenge or that the High Court won't like it. Well, the fact is no High Court has actually tested the validity, constitutional validity, of temporary exclusion orders. So that's a nonsense. He's scared of something that doesn't actually exist. If this is going to push our laws to the High Court, then this is the case to do it on. 08:12 Angus Taylor, I really want to see you and the opposition take this fight up to the Prime Minister. Now there's a whole lot of questions I've already outlined tonight that you need to demand are answered. 08:25 And it can't be tolerated that departments, when asked to comment on issues like this, just refuse. 08:32 Yesterday, Home Affairs was silent. The Minister, Tony Burke, well, he went to ground. The Prime Minister, too. And today, DFAT's gone missing. Now, Foreign Affairs has literally hundreds of staff in its media team. Penny Wong, quite a few staff in her press team as well. And what no one, no one can tell us anything about this bloke. No one's willing to give the Australian voter the truth. 08:58 Really? 08:59 We deserve answers. And I want Albanese pursued on this as well, because there may be a way right now to strip Dr Jihad of Australian citizenship and not even need to use an exclusion order. 09:15 Now, if I remember rightly, you didn't have to take up the citizenship of another country to lose your Australian citizenship. You just had to have the ability to do it. Now, presumably, in the case of the Dutch mother, at least, he could avail himself of Dutch citizenship. Can we, under the current laws, cancel his ability to return to Australia, knowing that because of his mother, potentially his father, he will not be rendered stateless? 09:42 Look, I think that's a real possibility, Peter. I know the High Court has looked very carefully at removing citizenship as a punitive measure, but if there is an alternative place, alternative nation-state where they can go, I think it might be looked unfavourably. 09:58 OK, this too. How is it that Labor's Attorney-General, Michelle Rowland, could sign off warrants to arrest war hero Ben Robert Smith within hours... 10:08 And yet it took weeks, weeks in relation to the ISIS-connected women now charged with terrorism offences and slavery. 10:17 Just in terms of the consent to prosecute, how long did it take the Attorney-General to sign off on the ISIS bride's consent to prosecute? 10:26 The CDPP wrote to the Department seeking the Attorney's consent on 20 November 2025. 10:34 20th of November 2025. And the consent was provided on the 15th of December. So approximately just over three weeks compared to the one day with Ben Robert Smith. Okay. 10:53 There you go. I mean, how can we as a country have spent $300 million investigating our own soldiers who put their lives on the line to fight the terrorist Taliban, 41 of them who never came home alive, and be so weak here on these men and women who willingly left Australia to join Islamic State? 11:16 How? 11:18 I just wish that they would put the same vigor and resources into stopping ISIS fighters returning to our country as they have in prosecuting some of our ex-veterans. 11:29 100%. I know you've got strong views on this as well. Enough is enough. 11:42 As I said, the journo who broke this story will join me at the desk a little later on. Let's go to Canberra now. For the headlines, Sky News political reporter Trudy McIntosh. 11:51 Parliament has cleared out as the Labor faithful gather in Adelaide for the party's national conference. 11:57 After an early stumble on the escalator, the Prime Minister revealed plans to revive a new court to resolve workplace disputes. 12:04 Good for workers, good for business, good for the country. 12:08 He also took a swipe at One Nation. 12:10 All those trips around the world to talk Australia down, that none of them have anything new or anything positive to offer our country. 12:22 Seeking to steal the spotlight, the opposition leader was just down the road visiting Adelaide's central market. 12:28 And I'm out and about talking to small business people and the Labor Party is talking to itself. 12:33 After an eventful week for One Nation... I think, sit down! ..the party is now trying to capitalise, selling Barnaby-inspired dog leashes. 12:43 The Foreign Minister skipped the start of proceedings. She's still in the Philippines for ASEAN talks. Condemning China's recent missile test, Penny Wong also warned of the consequences if Iran or the US impose a toll on the Strait of Hormuz. 12:57 People suffer when a strait is weaponised. And we all know that the cost of tolls on any choke point is not only solely economic. 13:07 Back in Adelaide, Labor's National Secretary, Paul Erickson, had to reject China's demand to eject Taiwanese officials from attending. Trudy McIntosh, Sky News, Canberra. 13:18 All right, as you heard, there are all eyes on the ALP National Conference kicking off in Adelaide today. It will run, of course, until Saturday. Joining me now, one of our men on the ground in Adelaide, Cam Redden. Well, Cam, we saw those comments in the papers this morning from Wayne Swan, warning that one nation is Labor's biggest threat. That was clearly the focus too of the Prime Minister today. Now, I found that quite extraordinary. He's playing to the hometown crowd, 300 or 1,000 people, 3,000 so delegates, Labor delegates, union delegates in the room, and yet his focus is on One Nation. 13:58 Who would have ever thought we'd be in this situation three years ago, Peter, let alone 12 months ago, where all of the Labor faithful in the country have descended on Adelaide, and all anybody's talking about is Pauline Hanson and One Nation. For so much of that address, the keynote address that the Prime Minister gave, and yes, there were a couple of policy announcements in there as well, nothing to knock it off the front page, but the focus on One Nation here seemed so deliberate. And Peter, many of us in this space have been wondering for a few months now just how real that One Nation surge is. We all see the polls and we all hear the concerns about, well, maybe it's just a bump in the road, maybe it's a temporary thing, they'll all fall apart. 14:34 Well, they haven't fallen apart yet and clearly it's real enough for the Prime Minister to make it such a significant part. of his speech and go on the attack for One Nation. I don't think a few months ago, Peter, any of us would have expected this sort of attention to be given to Pauline Hanson. But that's where we found ourselves today. It was such a focal point on what is supposed to be something that's all about the Labor Party. 14:57 I'm going to speak to the journalist from The Australian who broke the story about Dr Jihad, but we've got Tony Burke, Penny Wong, their department, the Prime Minister, his department, all hiding from scrutiny and obviously the revelations today that Labor knew about this, they knew about this four years ago. He's, you know, like a rabbit in the headlights there, he can't run away from the conference. I hope you or Andrew Clennell get to him and Burke and Wong over the weekend... 15:28 Yeah, we've all brought our runners, so they'd have to run pretty fast for that, Peter. We're doing our best. I know if the PM is around, I'll do my best, but I know Andrew will get him if he can. 15:39 You are a good man, Cam. I know you will. So we will stay across that for next week, of course. Joining me now for my panel, Sky News contributor Carolee Katzenbarnas and Shadow Defence Industry and Personnel Minister, a former veteran, of course, Phil Thompson. Welcome to you both. I'll stay with the conference if I can, Phil... 15:58 Overnight, worth noting, Linda Burney told The Australian, and I quote, she said, I think it was a devastating outcome. This is in relation to The Voice, but it gives us a base to work from, she said. Now, come on, that must mean that they're going to come back with another hit to divide Australians by their skin colour. 16:22 I think that Linda Burney and her comments are out of touch with what the Australian people voted on and what they wanted. And to say that we should be looking at going down this path again, A, I think it's a waste of taxpayer money, but I also think that there are more important things that this Labor government should be focused on. You know, I got an email just today in my electorate office where a single mum was talking about at the end of the month, it's either going to be food on the table or school supplies. 16:54 People are doing it tough. And, you know, the virtual signalling and the culture wars that this Labor government are going through now, I think, is just out of step. Look at the comments around the union movement and the Labor Party and the lack of conviction from Minister Claire O'Neill around the want to change the Australian flag. I think this is ridiculous. And they should be focused on what matters to all Australians, not just what matters to some small segment in the Labor caucus. 17:25 I'll come to Keralee in a moment, but I've got to ask you, I've gone through the top of the show, the detail about Dr Jihad, and I know 41 veterans never came home from Afghanistan, killed at the hand of the Taliban. We know that this Dr Jihad, who's imprisoned in Iraq... 17:42 has been known, his existence has been known to the government now for four years. Everybody's gone to ground. No-one's answering any questions. It's my hypothesis that the women came back and that was planned, that was the soft touch, and there was always this agenda to then get the men back. And this is the start. We'll start with the, quote, humanitarian doctor, and away we go. What's your reaction to what we've learnt over the last two days? 18:13 He should not be allowed back to Australia. There are temporary exclusion orders that are there. They were put in place by the coalition in 2019 where someone can be refused entry, Australian citizen can be refused entry for two years, then reviewed for another two years, then reviewed again and again and again. I want to see that as the bare minimum. 18:32 And it's interesting, Carolee, last night David Craig said there's already an arsenal of law... at the government's disposal. They actually don't need new law. But if they do, Phil's saying he and the coalition would stand ready to assist. Alexander Downer made clear on Chris Kenny's show an hour ago that as foreign minister, he regularly cancelled passports. He did it with a lot of severity, sure. But it can be done. It should be done. He said that's what should happen here. Labor's not serious. Labor want them to come home clearly. 19:02 Well, they do. I mean, you have to wonder, which side is the Australian government actually on? I mean, it's also horrific because, at the moment, Australia's borders seem to be being dictated by activists at the ALP conference. I mean, there's a thing that they want to allow illegal, illegal... 19:19 arrivals, if they're held in detention for more than 90 days, to be let free. These are illegal arrivals. There are 70,000 overstayers currently in Australia. And I can also remind the viewers as well that the Administrative Appeals Tribunal was disbanded in a vanity project by the former Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, to be the Administrative Review Tribunal. There are now 127,000 active cases, the backlog is 61 weeks minimum and can I just say it was a political hit job done by Dreyfus and Albanese removing some very competent tribunal members and what a mess Australia is in because this is a green light to people smugglers and it is undoing all the great work of the Abbott government and the Howard and Costello era as well and And this is not good. 20:12 This is putting the lives and the safety of Australians at risk. This is dreadful. And the worry is we know that these so-called wacky proposals at the ALP conference, they'll be in a bottom drawer and years down the track, they'll be brought up. We've seen what happened 10 years ago. They've brought Bill Shorten's thing forward and it's dangerous and it just shouldn't happen. 20:33 Let's leave that there, Carolee. I've got to get a comment from you. A lot of demonisation about who Pauline Hanson meets with. Everything she does is disclosed, unlike others. There was a lavish dinner this week reported in the newspapers. The Prime Minister sitting down with the very rich son of a Chinese developer. This is in Point Piper and Dan Andrews and a whole lot of others are there. The talk is it was a million-dollar donation that got the PM to turn up. Well, listen to this. Tony Burke can't answer questions about Dr Jihad. 21:05 He's gone to ground. But if you've got $1,000 in your pocket, you can get over to Adelaide and see him front a band made up of him and others in the Labor caucus. He's charging $1,000 for this pub gig on the sidelines of the conference. I mean, you are kidding me. 21:24 Well, I can tell you it's $1,000 for a Taylor Swift ticket, but it is interesting. His band is known as Left Right Out. And what I will say is Australians are being left right out of all the decisions that should be being made in their interest. Older Australians, they're left right out of aged care. People are left right out of the NDIS. We're left right out of energy. We're left right out of jobs. And it's absolutely disgusting that they can even think of doing it. 21:51 We were also left right out when Tony Burke went to welcome the Palestinian refugees from Gaza secretly. We didn't know anything about that unless the media exposed it. It's absolutely disgusting, and he should hang his head in shame. 22:05 Right, I'll leave it there. Thank you to you both. Phil, again, please give your veteran mates all our very best. We're thinking of them. And as I said, keep up the fight. We'll leave it there, but just before we go, welcome back to my friends in Bendigo. Of course, that is Jacinta Allen's seat, the seat of Bendigo East, hotly contested, coming up to November. You've not been able to see us, have you, because of that fire earlier in the year and damage to transmission towers? Yes. Pleased to say everything's back on track. So if you're watching us, make sure your neighbours and everybody else in town know that they can watch us free to air on digital television now right across Victoria, but in particular that area, which means a lot to Victorians. 22:48 come November. All right, let's leave that there. Barnaby's dog, I want to just mention this one before the break too, all that outrage. Do you know the ABCs out there now questioning whether there was even a dog in the first place as some sort of conspiracy? Have a listen. 23:04 People want to know, Hamish, whether there really was a dog in that interview. I think, look, I think I heard a dog and I think on the recording you can hear this is very important. This is, I hope people are paying attention. This is the... Matters of state, hang on this. I think there really was a dog, but I like the idea that maybe there wasn't. 23:22 I mean, give me a break. Give me a break. Barnaby's wife, Vicky, well, she's got out there today. She's put a bit of proof of life of the beautiful dog, Stella, out there on social media. All right, after the break, we'll get into the whole story of Dr Jihad from The Dogged Reporter, who has really exposed labour on this. And talk that Jacinta Allen will be dumped next week. I'll give you an update after the break. 23:52 Welcome back. Coming up, fresh speculation. Jacinta Allen, of course, hasn't won an election. She was installed as Premier by Dan Andrews. Well, the talk is that she won't even get to the November election. She'll get rolled when Parliament returns next week. Will she? We'll get to that in a moment. First, I'm going to return to the bombshell revelations that Tara Kamla, Dr Jihad, is confirmed as alive and behind bars in an Iraqi prison. Now, as I said last night, I didn't believe that Labor was in the dark on any of this. Well, lo and behold, news broke last night in The Australian that, in fact, DFAT had been briefed about his survival first back in 2022 and again this year. 24:35 Joining me now, one of the reporters, Paul Garvey, I know he's assisted as well. But the bloke who broke it first, the Australian's Mohamed Al-Farez, Well, I think it's the story of the year so far and it keeps coming back. You know, more revelations today. I know your colleague in Perth has spoken to his family. 24:57 Walk me through what the government knew and when. 25:05 Thank you so much for having me on your show tonight. So the government knows everything, in my opinion, and what the Iraqi government told us, the Australian, is that the embassy in Baghdad is following his case, and not just his case, the case of every Australian national in Iraq. So what that tells us is that The embassy in Baghdad operates for the Australian government. 25:36 And what they also, our sources have said that DFAT was briefed on this back in 2022. 25:45 And in 2019, obviously, as we reported, Kamala was captured. 25:53 So they've also been briefed again in the past year, and this has come from US officials who have been tracking Tyra Kamla because he was married to an American woman. 26:06 And I'll just catch people up at home if they didn't listen last night. The speculation is that he's had four wives, perhaps even more, that there's a number of children, and I guess that's why we've got the American loop open there. 26:20 Yeah, exactly. He's understood to have been married to four women, had a number of children. 26:27 What happened to those children, no one really knows. But there are speculations that one of them was repatriated to France and the other to the United States. But those are unconfirmed reports at this stage. 26:40 At my experience of government, if you and your sources are saying that Baghdad's across it, if Baghdad's across it, they're not a lone outfit. Canberra will be across it. And if DFAT's across anything in Canberra, well, Penny Wong's office is also across it. And once the Foreign Minister is briefed, there's no doubt in my mind that this has been discussed in the NSC committee. 27:05 Your sources... 27:07 We know that there's another 12 individuals in this cohort that the Iraqis, and they have been far more forthcoming with information than Australia has. 27:19 All up, there's about 13 individuals, all men. Are they all behind bars? What do we know? 27:24 Yeah, so they're all men. They're behind bars in Iraq, understood to be in Baghdad. 27:31 And the Iraqi government, in conjunction with the US right now, are going through a filtering process where they look at combatants versus non-combatants. And some of these non-combatants have been freed already. 27:47 When you say freed, freed into... 27:51 Freed from prison. 27:52 Into Iraq or freed to be extradited from Iraq? 27:56 Freed to be extradited from Iraq back to their home nation. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so that's already taken place. But in the case of Tariq, Whether he's going to be released in due time, we'll have to see. But the fact is that he's claiming to be a non-combatant right now, even though, you know, it's been well reported that he's a medic, Dr. Jihad. 28:20 So how that plays out in the Iraqi judicial system will be very interesting to see and, you know, wage up what the punishment is going to be, whether it's 10 years, whether it's a year. 28:34 And there's always the chance that, you know, he gets released, goes to the embassy, gets a passport, hops on the first plane back to Australia where he would most definitely be arrested. But it's still a possibility. 28:47 I know you said to me off camera that his family is shattered by all of this. Yeah. 28:55 Shamed and everything that we'd all hope and expect any Australian family would be. 29:02 Has he been in contact with them, do we know? 29:04 We don't know if he's been in contact with the family. 29:07 My colleague Paul Garvey had the opportunity to sit down with the father yesterday and he spoke about the hurt, the devastation that they went through because they raised a doctor and they were very proud of him. 29:23 So for him to betray them and travel into the caliphate with a bloodthirsty you know, terrorist organisation was devastating for them and they're still very much suffering to this day because of that decision. 29:41 I spoke to my colleagues who are at the ALP conference and they're going to pursue the Prime Minister and Penny Wong and Tony Burke. I know you've tried really hard. They've all gone to ground. So have their departments, which I find extraordinary, but I hope you keep it up. This has been an extraordinary exclusive for you. 29:58 Thank you so much. 29:59 Thanks, Mohamed. I'll tell you what, we're not going to let this rest. Let's go now to that speculation in Victoria that a whole lot of Labor MPs are plotting to remove to Centre Allen, that she won't even get to the election in November. The talk I've heard through people in Adelaide directly to me this afternoon is that power brokers are meeting in the margins of Labor's conference and that she's unlikely to survive next week when State Parliament returns. Part of the issue is... they haven't really agreed, who will replace her. Victorian political editor at The Australian, Anthony Galloway, though, he might know. 30:31 He joins me now. 30:33 You've reported today, effectively, Anthony, that there was a rebellion at the recent caucus retreat because the Premier and the senior members of her team just refused to acknowledge just how much on the nose she is with voters. What more can you tell us? 30:52 Yeah, it was this caucus retreat in Ballarat. I'm told the weather was freezing, but it was also frosty in terms of the relations between everyone. And that's really because going into Ballarat, a lot of Alan's critics within the caucus, they didn't want a stump speech from the Premier and her team. They wanted an acknowledgement of where they sit politically, where the public polls show... 31:19 them heading potentially towards a defeat despite having a 16-seat majority at the November state election. And they wanted her to be a lot more open in conceding that issues such as the CFMEU corruption scandal have really dogged the government. Police Minister Anthony Carbines kind of launched an extraordinary tirade really at one of these meetings on Tuesday morning where he said we need to start talking about matters of integrity and transparency and said the government hasn't adequately responded to this scandal over corruption on taxpayer funded big build sites. 32:04 Alan's speech was just a stump speech, as I said. It really told colleagues that she doesn't get it. 32:12 Her chief of staff gave a long speech to everyone, which basically said that everything's tracking and all of the public announcements are tracking like they were heading into the 2022 election. 32:28 That told Labor MPs that, geez, he doesn't get it. In 2022, there wasn't a single poll that told us we were losing when the polls now have them on a primary of 26% and suggest they are facing potential defeat. So they wanted something different. They didn't get it. And they are looking, talking, speculating about pursuing a challenge next week. It's really their last opportunity. 32:59 Yeah, it is. And earlier when there was talk she was going to get rolled, people said, no, no, no, if it's going to happen, it'll happen in July and it'll happen after the national conference. Are they still talking Ben Carroll? I've got football on my brain. Ben Carroll, is that the likely successor if it happens next week? 33:19 Yeah, Carol's the only candidate. There's no real candidate from the left. Senior Cabinet Minister Gabrielle Williams would be the only viable candidate from the left, but she's ruled herself out. 33:32 The members of the left who have been pursuing a challenge or want to change, their immediate view after Carol kind of squibbed it a little over a month ago is where he promised Jacinta Allen, he looked her in the eye and said he wouldn't challenge. You know, they temporarily went off Carroll. They kind of thought, oh, he doesn't have what it takes. He doesn't want it enough. But, you know, they're probably back on him just because there is no other candidate. They want him to challenge. 34:01 Let me just jump in there. Let me just jump in there. 34:05 He could still take the top job and be consistent with what he said if she falls on her sword. So if the colleagues come and knock on her door and say, you've got to go, you've lost your numbers, you're going to get rolled, it'll be humiliating, we need you to resign, then he can keep faith with that. And I presume you'll tell me this now, Anthony, I presume then you avoid that circus of having to canvass votes for about four weeks, isn't it, between the caucus and party faithful to elect a new leader? 34:38 Yeah, yeah, that's totally right. That's why there's this talk of a cross-factional delegation from senior members of the left and right to kind of go to Jacinta Allen early next week and tell her it's all over. That's what Carol wants. He wants to avoid all of that bloodletting. 34:57 Well, I think he has to otherwise rolling the female who hasn't even faced the electorate. And given I think the electorate is angry, they want to punish her themselves. I think that's a problem that Labor wants to avoid. Anthony, thank you. All right, coming up, the billion-dollar blowout, multi-billion-dollar blowout of the battery scheme. And most of those billions are being sent offshore to foreign manufacturers. That's next. 35:24 Welcome back. Coming up, China calls on Labor to boot a Taiwanese delegate from its Adelaide conference. I mean, who's running this country? Is it Canberra or Beijing? But FIRST reports today that Labor's home battery subsidy schemes blown out from $2.3 billion, this is over a four-year budget period, to an estimated $8.5 billion. And the average subsidy per battery... has soared some 75%. 35:50 Just to make you even crankier tonight, I'm sorry for this, just three of the 136 approved battery manufacturers, just three, are Australian. Here to discuss it, the Head of Energy at the Centre for Independent Studies, Aidan Morrison, Well, okay, you tell me this. I watch Question Time, I look at Chris Bowen, he gets up in the chamber and he bangs on about how successful this program has been. Not once has he said the budget's blown out by almost 300%, not once, and he doesn't say anything about most of this money being sent to foreign manufacturers. 36:30 Yeah, that's exactly right. He's absolutely proud of how much money he's splashing around here. But there's a little bit of a correction I'd like to make to this story. It's been said that this price has gone from $2.3 billion to $7 or $8 billion. That's not actually correct. The blowout, if you read through the MyEFO papers, the projection was to go to $14 billion. 36:48 The $7 or $8 billion figure is after they had pared it back, right? So they had a program that was expected to do $2.3 billion. It blew out to $14 and they pared it back and agreed they would spend $7 or $8, okay? And now it's up to $8, so it's blowing out even more beyond that level. So this is an absolutely insane amount of money. And it's quite transparently clear now exactly how they did that because they priced their subsidy, it was meant to be about 30% of a battery, on the most expensive premium battery they could find in the market. 37:20 And they gave that same dollar figure to everyone that upsized to very big batteries and very cheap manufacturers from China, which often paid over 60 or 70% of the value of the battery. You could wind in a whole solar system as well and still get more than half of a giant solar and battery system covered by the government. So that's why there was an absolute stampede. And the lobbyists from the Smart Energy Council that put it together would have known exactly what they were doing. And this has been the most absolutely profitable piece of lobbying for the Chinese dominated battery industry that I think must have happened anywhere around the world globally. 38:02 And we're talking when we get into all of this stuff anyway. You know, Chinese dominate the solar panel market. The Chinese dominate the wind turbine market. And the problem I have with the spend in this area, it's not like a road which will last us decades. This stuff has to be replaced. We get, what, 14 years out of a wind turbine. engine, we get maybe 20, 25 out of solar panels, photovoltaics, probably less if they're on the roof at home. And how long do we get out of these batteries? We're not buying batteries forever. How long do they last on average? 38:34 Something like 10 to 15 years is probably what you might get from a battery at the moment. That's the sort of level that you have for warranties at the moment, 10, maybe 12. The very big commercial one's a little bit longer than that. So that's not that long compared to most other energy infrastructure types like coal-fired power plants. They're sort of planned to go for 40 if you maintain them well or do refurbishments can go a lot longer than that as well. So this is pretty short-term infrastructure. And so we haven't yet experienced the rush of how to recycle or dispose of these things. And that's what gets me really angry because I focus on the economics. 39:05 Because the experience of how to dispose of this has not really been experienced, they just often assume that it costs nothing at the end of life cycle and the total system life costs of these are much lower than they really are because we haven't got to the end of life of the scale of batteries and solar that we've really had. So it could be an environmental disaster and certainly an economic disaster as well. 39:28 Not wrong. Got to leave it there. It's a bit shorter than I wanted tonight, but thank you very much. We will stay on that one as well because my list, my to-do list is getting longer and longer every night. All right, after the break, more on that extraordinary pressure applied today from China to Labor, to the Labor Party, about kicking out a Taiwanese attendee at the national conference. And did you know this? Listen to this. Penny Wong, well, she's back bankrolling Gaza. After the break. 40:01 Look, we'll come back to the international panel in a moment. Welcome back, of course. I've got some breaking news for you. There has been a letter written by Pauline Hanson to opposition leader Angus Taylor. This is in relation to Dr Jihad and the 13 men we know that are in prison in Iraq wanting, we are told, to return to Australia. There's probably more of them elsewhere, but this is what we know of in terms of Iraq. And she has asked for a meeting with Angus Taylor. She says there is a commitment, an offer from One Nation to support legislation to keep these ISIS-linked individuals out of Australia. 40:36 She says One Nation will vote with the coalition in any piece of legislation that strengthens Australia's counter-terrorism laws. 40:45 She also makes it very, very clear that they will work together with the coalition to draft the legislation. So that's just now gone from Pauline Hanson to Angus Taylor. 40:56 It's an offer I'd be taking up quick smart. Okay, let's get into our international panel now. Sky News contributor, Kosha Garda. Former Labor MP Michael Damby, welcome to you both. Thank you. 41:07 A lot to talk about and a lot of it's got internal labour ramifications, Michael, and there's no-one better than you to take us through them. And ramifications for Australia. 41:19 You're watching as a stalwart of Labor this conference in Adelaide, I suspect with horror, not just about Israel, but a whole manner of positions now that have been thrown out by your old party, where they are now, I think, no better than the Greens on so many aspects, particularly foreign policy, and even this weakness they have with China. 41:45 There's so many concessions being made in order to get the left to agree to put the AUKUS deal through. That would be so embarrassing for Albo and Wong not to be able to continue to support that. Yes, that's what it's about. So even poor old Josh Burns being used as a human shield by Penny Wong, it's all part of... of a strategy to keep the left on board. They've got the numbers. The Labor Party has transformed, as I've been saying on this station, for years from a mainstream centre-left party to a party of the socialist left. 42:19 Not quite as bad as the DSA in the United States, but nearly there. 42:24 And what do you make of the revelations that we are back as taxpayers funding Gaza, which let's call it as it is. I mean, Gaza is still really in control of Hamas. And even if they change their name, it'll be the same sort of individuals with the same sort of ideology. 42:41 Mm-hmm. I think there's layers to the story, all of which are infuriating. So the first is just government spending. There's no respect for taxpayer dollars. That's why you've got a trillion dollars in debt just going in one direction. Then you layer on top of that the Anrua and Hamas connection. So they're either susceptible to lobbying for that. They're potentially susceptible to what the base wants because It's a wrapper, sort of safe wrapper you can hide behind the UN, but you're actually pandering to that portion of the base that is much more favourable to that side. And it's sort of seen as a cheap political win with no counterbalance for care for tax dollars, which I don't see changing anytime soon, sadly. 43:19 Or worse, they believe in it themselves, which is part of the story too. 43:23 What did you make of the Chinese government or officialdom certainly trying to punt a Taiwanese attendee from the conference in Adelaide? 43:31 Well, the Taiwanese were marginalised as a general observer. I'm glad they stopped the Chinese embassy from chucking them out. They used to regularly come round to my office and stand at the door and demand that I not meet Tibetans or Falun Gong. Once I only went to a Falun Gong meeting because they demanded that I not do it. 43:52 People are counter-suggestible in a democratic society. But the real context is Dan Andrews and the pro-China lobby meeting on the road to Mandalay, the big mansion in Sydney, for a huge donation from that part of the political spectrum. 44:10 And the fact that we have only 2.1% of Australian GDP being spent on defence... If we really want to send the Chinese a lesson about the missile tests over the Pacific, increase the percentage in real terms to 3%, like all the NATO countries are being forced to. 44:28 Wong's remonstrations of China, how much is that real and how much is that for show? 44:36 Peter, she's going all over the Pacific. She's seeing that these people are serious. She's probably being briefed by DFAT that this is all real. And all of her ideology and the branch and the parliamentarians who've got no interest in these kind of things are not aware of all of the kinds of things that she's seeing. That ballistic missile test right across the Pacific should scare the hell out of anyone. And I think she's being forced by reality to say stronger things about China. 45:06 Let's go to Iran. I'll tell my viewers I flew home through Dubai, I flew home through the Middle East. 45:11 Gutsy. 45:12 Felt safe, felt absolutely safe. 45:15 I trust the Emiratis, the plane would not have taken off and we would not have been able to land if it wasn't safe. What's the latest, what's the read on this? I know we've got midterms knocking on the door, but the US, a lot of the avenues now appear to be closing. Mm-hm. 45:30 And the off-ramp just gets narrower and narrower. But in the last week or two, it does look like President Trump, despite all the opposition at home and the risks of the midterms, is, if not doubling down, I would say 1.5-ing down on the military aspect of it. So definitely not wanting to do boots on the ground, because he knows that is political anathema, but everything else to shore up the military angle. 45:52 On some level, it's a war of attrition. It's a waiting game where Iran is aware of the domestic political pressures and is trying to run the clock out. Simultaneously, Trump's calculation must be that if we continue to decimate them militarily enough, you'll reach that tipping point where they'll give up or give in. And that seems to be a high-stakes maneuver, but that's where we are. 46:11 Michael Yolte? No boots on the ground, but the worst thing for him would be to lose, to run away from there with his tail between his legs, oil prices going up, and the Iranians in control of the Straits of Hormuz. So Kosh is right. The bridge off-ramp is narrowing, but his only choice is to keep the pressure on the Iranians. And the economic blockade that that very brilliant Treasury Secretary that Trump's got is, I think, the key way of forcing the Iranians into some kind of reality. 46:39 I'm just about out of time, but give me your take on the Saudi deal. 46:43 It won't work. Where goes Saudi Arabia, goes the UAE and all of these other countries? Nuclear proliferation is the worry. And it's got to get to Congress and be approved. It'll be years before it happens. 46:55 The Saudis are not the worst element in the Middle East. 46:58 All right, I'll leave it there. Thank you both. 47:01 That's it. Great to be back. I've had a great week. I hope you've enjoyed having me back at the desk. I will see you Monday. I'll give you a big wrap of the ALP conference and more. Up next is Andrew.