Steve Price:
Okay, let’s bring in our Thursday night panel, Sky News contributor Karalee Katsambanis and Deputy Executive Director of the IPA, Dan Wild. Welcome to you both. Great to have you with us. I want to go back to what I just touched on with Michael McCormack before the break, but I want to go quickly first to the front page of the Herald Sun today and a magistrate’s decision to protect the two women accused of painting crude statements on Melbourne RSL buildings, two of them. Heidelberg was one.
Karalee, these alleged vandals even were allowed by a magistrate to sit in the magistrates court in Melbourne in the courtroom wearing masks or a disguise. The magistrate asked why, and their defence lawyer said it was for health reasons. What do you make of that?
Karalee Katsambanis:
Absolutely pathetic. These two Australian women are pathetic. I mean, you wonder what side the legal system is actually on with the protections. This is deplorable. They have attacked the men and women of Australia that have not only given their lives, but are currently giving their lives around the world in defence. What a pathetic excuse, to wear a mask. Were there any medical certificates produced? But what’s more is, there are men and women… So these are two women, age 22 and 20. There are men and women those ages that are currently serving in the Australian Defence Force to allow us to enjoy the standard of living that we have and the Democratic rights that we have in this country.
It’s absolutely appalling. The irony is that Banneron Field said that the courts have no jurisdiction because this is Aboriginal land. Isn’t it ironic that these two Australian women are actually applying to the court for protection themselves, and it’s purely speculative? I mean, it is absolutely disgraceful. What I would say, not that they’re going to do it, but anyone that actually knows them is, remember what is said on Anzac Day, “At the going down of the sun, we will remember them lest we forget.” Maybe they actually need to go and read up on proper Australian history, not the convoluted rubbish and their ridiculous brains.
Steve Price:
Daniel, I’ve covered plenty of court cases. People who are heading up outlaw motorcycle gangs, you don’t let them go into the court with their faces disguised. I mean, what’s happened to the magistrates court system where you can allow someone who’s facing serious allegations of serious graffiti vandalism, talking about death to the ADF, how do you let them sit in court with a disguise on?
Daniel Wild:
Well, exactly. I think the problem here really is, as you’ve outlined and as Karalee outlined, is the double standard. I mean, would these same standards apply to anybody else? Probably not. You mentioned the Ben Robert Smith example a moment ago, and that just shows that we have a double standard. Now, suppression orders have an important role to play. We don’t want people undertaking vigilante justice and taking matters into their own hands. We are a nation of laws and we want people to go through the right system.
But the problem is people don’t trust the system anymore. This is the issue. We went through COVID. We had the double standards there with the courts and with the police. We remember the police took a knee to Black Lives Matter protests as they could go through city streets, but anybody else was going to get shot with rubber bullets. So this has happened time and time again, the double standard, which is reducing trust in our legal system. I think that’s one of the biggest problems we face.
Steve Price:
Daniel, Pauline Hanson’s press club appearance yesterday, I called it last night oppressive. I think it showed I think she’s more confident now than ever before. Supporters were loving it. I just want to play one grab to you and Karalee that I shared with the audience last night where Hanson talked about poverty in 2026 Australia. Have a look.
Pauline Hanson:
19% said they’d eaten food from a rubbish bin in the past 12 months. 91% said they had skipped meals, and 32% said they do so on a daily basis. 35% said they survived on only one meal a day. 49% said they go to public places like shopping centres to keep warm or cool. 51% can’t afford a doctor, dentist, or optometrist. 51%. And 46% can’t afford prescription medicine. This is unacceptable, highly unacceptable to me and my colleagues, and my party.
Steve Price:
Daniel, no wonder the polls for Hanson are surging. She nailed that.
Daniel Wild:
Yeah, I saw your analysis off this last night as well and I thought you were spot on. I thought it was a very significant speech, not just in relation to the part that you played there, but I think what Senator Hanson is now doing is she’s taking on a lot of sacred cows in Australian public debate. For example, her attack on multiculturalism I thought was very significant and very important, discussion of net-zero and everything else that goes with that. I think what’s happening now is the strictures of debate are being opened up.
Whether you’re a one nation supporter or you’re someone else, what we need in this country is the ability to debate things more freely. I think by presenting this information to the National Press Club, which as you know, is basically the home of the Canberra Swamp, this is all of the lobbyists, all of the corporate types, all of the media types that have actually been a part of the degradation of our country. It’s not just the political system, but everything that goes with that, which has seen our economy go down, our society fragment, our political system get out of touch.
I thought it was quite a significant speech and delivered very powerfully. So I think you’re right. I think it probably resonates with a lot of people on the street.
Steve Price:
Karalee, those statistics, people eating out of rubbish bins, people going to shopping centres to keep warm, you see it. She’s not making that up and it’s not just a book of stats. That’s fact.
Karalee Katsambanis:
Sure is, and we see it in my local area when you walk down Chapel Street. You see homeless people, you see people there also in the CBD where Peta Credlin showed last week when she went on the beat with Brad Baton, the shadow police minister. I think what it also highlights, what Pauline Hanson has also highlighted is that when we hear things like the ISIS brides coming back getting special treatment from the Australian Federal Police, they’re back on welfare. They’re going to be entitled to absolutely everything.
We see aged people in Australia that are unable to get aged care assessments or the treatment that they’re on as well. That’s what really rankles most Australians, people that haven’t been a drain on society in Australia, that have paid their way, that are owed some compassion. But the system doesn’t actually back anybody that’s tried to improve themselves. I think that yes, as I said, these return of these ISIS brides, their passports, you and I couldn’t just come up with $426 or whatever it is for a passport.
The compassion that is shown to them by the Albanese government, even though they say they have no part of it, of course they’ve had a part in it as well. That’s what really gets the goat of most Australians, this double standard for most law-abiding citizens that haven’t troubled the school board in their whole life, and we see this juxtaposition all the time.
Steve Price:
Just briefly before we go, crime stats out in Victoria today we see a 1.9%, some people are saying, less decline in four years of crime. Now that’s nothing. Buried in this report, 60% of crime committed in this state, Daniel, were committed by teenagers, 55% of carjackings, 48% of home invasions, plus 20,800 offenders arrested 77,000 times, Daniel, in Melbourne in one year.
Daniel Wild:
Yeah. Well, it’s not even a drop in the ocean, is it, that decline? You’re starting from a massive, massive number that’s going on. It’s just people’s lived experiences. The reality is people do not feel safe, particularly in Melbourne and the surrounding suburbs, in a way that they used to. It goes partly to what we’ve been discussing, which is a legal system that’s not doing its job, partly because the cops can’t do their job because they have a catch and release thing, which is whenever you get someone that’s doing the wrong thing, they know there’s going to be no penalty.
So then they let them go off, so that discourages and demoralises the coppers that want to do the right thing. Then we know quite often there’s basically no consequence for doing this. So, of course, people keep doing it.
Steve Price:
It’s ridiculous. Daniel, Karalee, thank you very much. I’ll talk to you-
This transcript of Daniel Wild talking on Credlin Sky News Australia from 18 June 2026 has been edited for clarity.
