Rita Panahi:
Joining me now is Deputy Executive Director of the Institute of Public Affairs, Daniel Wild. Dan, just a reminder that the ABC gets more than 1.2 billion of our money every single year.
Daniel Wild:
Yeah, that’s exactly right. And of course, this comes on the back of the Gina Rinehart skit, which they were forced to apologise for and backtrack on, although in a very mealy-mouthed sort of way. And I think it just shows that they are a law unto themselves, aren’t they? They have a charter of responsibility. They’re supposed to be impartial because, as you said, they are receiving taxpayer funds, but where is the government on this? Where is the prime minister? Where is the communications minister on this? Because at some point, the buck stops with them. Ultimately, the ABC is subject to those charters that I mentioned. The communications minister can reel them in. And of course the government can threaten their funding if they’re not adhering to their charter responsibility. So I think this must be a line in the sand. And the question for Anthony Albanese is, does he agree with the statements of this individual or not? Does his government agree that they choose Hamas over Israel? Is that what they think? If not, then they need to do something about it.
Rita Panahi:
Dan, the sad reality is that given the ABC’s reporting on the Trump administration and US politics in general, a lot of their audience may be on board with what this character has to say.
Daniel Wild:
Well, I suspect there’s some of that. And I think there’s two other things. One is they know it’ll create controversy. I mean, I don’t think anyone watches this programme or probably no one’s heard of it. So if they do this, then people have heard of it. They get a few more ratings out of it. And I think the other thing is, look, they’re really just rubbing the noses of Australians in it now, because what they’re showing is that they can do whatever they want. They can have whoever they want on, they can say whatever they want to say, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Yeah, okay. They’ll put out an apology a month later, “Oh, it didn’t meet our editorial standards and so forth.” But this is to show Australians that they can do whatever they want, that the government will do nothing about it, and you’ve got to pay for it and too bad.
Rita Panahi:
Now, students skipped school and took to the streets on Friday to protest One Nation and Pauline Hanson. Let’s have a quick look at some of the young ones.
Dan, you can blame the schools, you can blame the culture, but you also have to look at the parents in many of these cases. And among the most disturbing things I saw online, not necessarily what we played there, was the number of young people calling for political violence. The videos are out there. There’s sadly a lot of them, but young Australian kids, mainly females, advocating for murder or physical harm to be incited against Pauline Hanson.
Daniel Wild:
Well, I think those that are doing it, they need to have a knock on the door from the cops and their parents need to have a talking to, because you’re not allowed to do that in this country. I don’t know if they know that, but having violence against other people is something we don’t have in this country, unlike a lot of other countries around the world, but I assume they’re not told that at whatever school they’re going to. But I love it. It just shows the ignorance. “She’s going to be president, minister. Look, I don’t know.” It’s all a bit too hard for them. So look, I mean, they need to be responsible for what they say, but I also feel sorry for them because really there’s just some corrupt software programme operating in their brain that they’ve been told by people, whether it’s at schools or elsewhere on social media, they’ve picked up this nonsense.
And they’re just a mouthpiece for an unwitting ideology that they don’t really understand or comprehend. So that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be held to account for what they’re saying. But I guess overall, I don’t know how old they are, 15 or 16, I just feel sorry for the fact that our country has let them down so badly by having a school system that puts this into their brain and then says it’s okay to go out there and protest while there is many other productive things they could be doing. So yeah, I feel sorry for them.
Rita Panahi:
Now, figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics reveal a slump in new loan commitments across owner, occupier, investor, and first home buyer categories. Dan, that’s the incredible bit of news there. In a speech at a nationals conference in Canberra on Saturday, leader Matt Canavan accused Labour of destroying the property market and vowed to scrap Labor’s tax changes. Dan, this really is further evidence that the budget measures, the tax hikes are having a devastating impact for property owners on the property market. To have a reduction in home loans for the first home buyers though is astounding because we were told the entire reason they’re doing this is to assist first home buyers, but loans are down for that category.
Daniel Wild:
Yeah, I agree with you. I think that’s the most concerning thing. I don’t quite understand why they’d be down for that category. I mean, if prices are coming down as they are in every capital city now, I would assume that loans will be going up rather than coming down. So there’s something else going on obviously. I think when we go back to the government’s budget, what was always clear is they never really knew what it was they were trying to achieve or they never were willing to communicate it. I mean, you remember the budget itself outlined a pretty modest increase in the number of home buyers as a result of their policy changes and a pretty modest change to house prices. I mean, they did say house prices would moderate in their growth, but not that house prices would actually start coming down in absolute terms.
So I think if you go back and look at those budget papers, I don’t know whether they deliberately put in information that was false or they just didn’t get it. I mean, did they just not understand that if you do this kind of stuff, that prices will come down? But the evidence is in and we know what’s happened. So I think compare what they said in the budget to what’s happened, and it’s pretty interesting reading.
Rita Panahi:
Absolutely. But it was entirely predictable, Dan. This shouldn’t be a shock. It’s almost not even an unintended consequence because anyone with a functioning brain, anyone with any appreciation of economics or even history would tell you this is what was going to happen. We discussed it at length on this station, but we saw it when they did this previously and they had to reverse course because it had such a dramatic impact on rents. We’ve seen New Zealand do it more recently. And again, they’ve done a 180. So I don’t know why they thought this time around it would be any different.
Now let’s talk about climate change and energy minister Chris Bowen. He’s under pressure over the performance of Labor’s secretive capacity investment scheme. The government’s refusing to divulge CIS pricing data or assumed returns for taxpayers. Opposition Energy Spokesman Dan Tehan said, “The lack of transparency around this scheme is a national disgrace.” Dan, it seems pretty obvious this scheme is being used to prop up renewables. It’s being used to prop up renewable projects across the country.
Daniel Wild:
Yeah. And a lot of those are foreign-owned as well. I mean, I’d love to see the funding of this going straight to foreign-owned companies. I mean, we did some research on this a while ago, finding that the vast majority of the major wind companies are foreign-owned. So I’d imagine that if they’re eligible for this scheme, that they’re getting some of that taxpayer money as well. The whole thing is a rort really. I mean, it’s always just been one big boondoggle to use other people’s money to subsidise an industry that would never be able to survive on its own. Meanwhile, it’s giving us higher prices, a less reliable energy system as well. And what’s interesting to me is when you look at Chris Bowen’s latest address to the National Press Club a couple of weeks ago, he didn’t even mention the words net zero once in his speech.
So he’s running away from the idea of net zero because we know that net zero is dead and he’s still pushing out these schemes because they know it’s unpopular. And that’s why he said it’s secretive. They don’t want to tell people because they’re losing money hand over fist, giving it away to foreign companies in exchange for an inferior, more costly energy system. I mean, this has got to be one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen.
Rita Panahi:
And he’ll tell you how popular these schemes are because, well, people are taking up batteries and solar panels. It doesn’t mention the fact that they’re heavily subsidised by the taxpayer and all that market interference that’s going on. Now, before you go, Anthony Albanese has entered a political danger zone with his popularity hitting rock bottom, but last week he did pass Paul Keating to become Labor’s fourth longest running prime minister. Jeff Chambers’ writing in The Australian newspaper said that Labour MPs remain upbeat about the Prime Minister because, “The thinking is that as long as the conservative side of politics is a mess, Albanese and the ALP can win the next election.” He added, “Labour MPs are hoping voters will give them credit for tackling housing affordability in a way no other government had the courage to address.” Well, Dan, I don’t know if that’s just wishful thinking because they seem to be causing havoc in the housing market. I don’t know if that’s solving the housing crisis or not.
Daniel Wild:
Well, I think what’s probably going to happen is they’re going to get pretty arrogant over the next year. I mean, yes, it’s true that if we go to the next election and the Liberal Party’s on a 17 primary vote and One Nation’s on 20 something, then Labor’s going to win by a whole bunch. I mean, that’s obvious, but there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge between now and then. And I think what you’re going to see is a very arrogant government. A lot of very relaxed ministers and backbenchers that aren’t taking their domestic constituencies all that seriously because I think they’re going to win no matter what. So I think what you might start to see is, are the conditions brewing for a bit of an upset of the next election if this continues to go? I mean, certainly Australians don’t like being taken for granted.
And if they start to get a whiff that they’re being taken for granted by the prime minister who’s taking it easy because he thinks he can just fall over the line, then there will be repercussions for that. But obviously a necessary condition for that to take place is for the centre-right of politics, whether it’s through preferencing, whether it’s through more of a formal coalition arrangement to actually become the new anti-Labour block to oust the government. In the absence of that, it’ll be difficult.
Rita Panahi:
Absolutely. If the centre-right parties get their act together and actually have some sort of a formal arrangement, whether it’s some loose coalition or preference deal, something that’s targeted towards defeating labour rather than destroying each other. Dan Wild, thank you so much for your time.
