2GB Drive with Chris O'Keefe – Full show July 4 01:50:22

On Sydney's 2GB, this is Drive with Clinton Maynard filling in for Chris O'Keefe. Good afternoon. Tuesday the 4th of July it is. Clinton filling in for Chris O'Keefe. Chris is back on Monday. We are in the middle of winter.

So we can't really complain about the cold, but it has been cold this week. It's actually 18 degrees on the coast at the moment, but it's been very, very chilly in the morning. When did puffer jackets become so popular? I was walking through the city on the way to work this morning. It seemed that every second person...

was wearing a puffer jacket. It's not a really good look. 131873 is the number coming up on the show. We'll bring you up to date with everything that's been happening in Canberra over the past hour. From the Palestinian protesters who managed to reach the top of Parliament House and unfurl their banners, how did they make it that far? Plus all the latest on Fatima Payman, who obviously has now confirmed that she has quit the Labor Party and will continue to sit in the Senate as an independent candidate.

Do you still take rubbish to the tip? Sydney's landfill sites are filling up rapidly. There's a fear they will be full by 2030. We'll have a close look at that and what we can do about it. And fewer kids are playing sport. It's certainly been hard over the last few weekends because it's been so wet in Sydney. But children are pulling out of organised sport. And there is debate today over a sugar tax. Well, maybe we should actually focus on getting teenagers...

Fit again. Playing sport. We'll look at that. I want to hear from you. 131 873 is the number for you to have your say. And if you see something we need to know about, send me a text message. 0460 873 873.

Nine past three. Well, as you've heard in the last hour, Fatima Payman has quit the Labor Party, but she will remain in the Senate as an independent. She has described what's happened in Gaza as the greatest injustice of our time. Our actions must align with our principles. When history looks back,

It must see that we stood on the right side of humanity even when it was difficult. Sadly, I do not believe our principles align with those of the leadership of the Labor Party. With a heavy heart but a clear conscience, I announce my resignation from the Australian Labor Party. I have informed the Prime Minister that effective immediately, I will sit on the crossbench to represent Western Australia.

Fatima Payment, she said Labor has always defended the marginalised. And unlike her colleagues, a bit of a dig there, she knows what it's like to be on the receiving end of injustice. Her family fled Afghanistan. Not Palestine. Afghanistan. She claims to have the support of the Labor rank and file, party volunteers, unionists, but she was under pressure to conform and toe the party line. And again, suggestions she's made under questioning about intimidation.

intimidation from the Prime Minister's office which Anthony Albanese in Parliament has now rejected. The Senator says she saw no middle ground, it was the hardest decision of her life. As I've said all week, this is just wrong. The way the rules work is actually unfair. It's unfair, it's undemocratic for Senators to be able to quit their parties, the parties they're elected to represent and then sit as independents. Below the line, at the last election,

Fatima Payman received 1,681 votes in WA. And now she is serving a six-year term. Above the line, Labor in WA, the Labor ticket, received 511,226 votes.

Yet she remains in Parliament. Those 511,000 people did not vote for Fatima Payman directly. They voted for the Labor Party, for the Labor ticket. She was the third person on that ticket. She might, well, and that's her feeling, that what's happened in the Middle East is an injustice. But in another way, this is also an injustice.

Because it's not democratic. Because those 511,000 people are not being represented by the person that they elected. The only reason she is in the Senate is because Labor Party supporters voted for her. It is morally corrupt for her to continue as an independent. And we've seen it on all sides of politics. She's not the first. Look what happened with Lydia Thorpe and the Greens. Look what happened with Cory Bernardi. It's happened too often and the rules need to change because it is not fair, it is not democratic.

But as has been reported, there are deeper issues at play here. The government believes it's all about harnessing the Muslim vote in Australian politics. It's been widely supported. Reported that she was in conversations with the so-called Senate whisperer who has helped minor parties manipulate the voting system effectively. And she's confirmed. She spoke to him. Senator Payman confirmed she has been in contact with community leaders in Sydney, but she says she is not yet affiliated with a Muslim-based group.

Perhaps a Muslim-based group that is looking to field candidates in seats targeting the Labor Party. This could be as damaging to the Labor Party as it is to the Liberal Party with Teals. That's what the PM's worried about here. Muslim-based candidates, particularly in seats in Western Sydney, there are at least six Labor MPs who could be at risk if Muslim-based candidates run against them. Now, Fatima Payman says she's remaining an independent, but effectively she may well turn out to be a figurehead for this new party.

And it's not democratic because she was not elected as a Muslim. She was elected as a Labor candidate, a Labor senator, not an independent one, not a Muslim one. And we are heading down a dangerous path. If we start electing MPs based on religion in this country, we live in a country of many religions. Christianity is still the dominant religion, but it's not shoved down our throats by politicians. If we start electing MPs based purely on religion...

We've got something wrong here. Because we'll then have MPs in Parliament who will make policy decisions based on that. That will be their role if we do that. And I don't want to see politics go in that direction. I think in the future we are going to see more minor parties. We are going to see more independents. That is the way we're heading. It's happened overseas. There's a lot of dissatisfaction with the two major parties. In New Zealand, the new Conservative Prime Minister serves with the Coalition, a hodgepodge of greats.

of groups that came together after the election. It's very common in European countries. Government's made up of many different parties. Because I think a lot of us are dissatisfied with the Liberal Party or the Labor Party. And look at the primary vote of Labor at the last federal election. It was a record low. It was less than 33%, and they formed government.

So I think in the coming months you're going to see independents pop up and minor parties, Frank Carboni for instance in Sydney South West, he may run for the Senate. We'll see some more teals. The Smoke More Dope Party will most likely be out there. And this is a danger to stable government.

Because when you have coalitions, you have instability. Look what's happened in New South Wales politics just in the last week. You've had the Liberals and the Nationals in Macquarie Street fighting. They've been in coalition for more than 90 years, yet the Liberals are threatening to break up over something that was nothing more than a catfight, a personality fight.

And I think we're going to see more of these coalitions in the future, whether it's on the conservative side or on the progressive side of politics. Special interest groups and parties representing minorities. And that's our right as voters to back that style of politics. But we're going to need to be ready for change. But I fear it may well bring volatile politics to Australia. If it's happening in Sydney, you'll hear it on Drive on 2GB. Quarter past three, still in Canberra. The scenes at Parliament House today were, I think, embarrassing.

that we could see a group of pro-Palestinian protesters. And you know what? It wouldn't matter if they were pro-Palestinian protesters, if they were climate change blockhead Australia protesters, if they were anti-tax protesters. The fact that they were able to get onto the roof of Parliament House and unfurl huge banners, it said so much about the efforts we actually make with security that a lot of it's just for show in our country.

One of the banners read "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." There was another one "War crimes enabled here, no peace on stolen lands." They were having a crack at Indigenous issues as well. Let's all agree these are just idiots, these protesters. The big story is the enormous security risk. More than 30 AFP officers worked to remove them. Four have now been arrested. But how did they get there in the first place? Needless to say, question time in the past hour or so

has opened up on this issue. Here is the Speaker of the House, Milton Dick. We are deeply concerned about this morning's event. It is unacceptable behaviour by the individuals. In relation to the specific events of this morning, I've personally spoken to the AFP Commissioner and requested a thorough investigation into today's events. In addition, I've also asked the Commissioner for a wider review of security arrangements. I do not want a repeat of today's events.

As an update, I can advise the House that today's protesters have received penalties and are no longer welcome in this building. They have been banned from this building.

Additionally, following recent events in this House, I've already commenced a process for strengthening this framework, including the introduction of additional consequences. The Speaker Milton Dick. These pictures are embarrassing. They will be seen all over the world, a little like what happened at the Opera House last year. Here's the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese. Peaceful protest has an important place in our society, but this was not a peaceful protest.

These actions have done absolutely nothing to advance any cause. Indeed, they have hurt.

the cause that those engaged in this reckless activity believe they are advancing. As members are aware, the security of Parliament House is of course the responsibility of the Presiding Officers and the Department of Parliamentary Services. When I was made aware of what was unfolding, I spoke to our Attorney-General who spoke to Commissioner Kershaw and

I am advised subsequently that four arrests have been made. They should face the full force of the law. And I've got a perspective on that in a moment as well that I'll share with you. There's been bipartisan condemnation. The leader of the opposition, Peter Dutton. We need to send a very clear message that it is completely and utterly unacceptable in our society, in our democracy, that we would see those messages hanging from the front of this parliament. They are anti-Semitic.

River to the Sea is a statement about wiping out, eliminating a race of people. Let's be very clear about it. There's been a lot of debate in this place about how that might work and whether those words have a different form of meaning or perhaps they can be justified in some way or other. They can't be and they never will be.

Peter Dutton also questions security. He questioned why it took 90 minutes for the protesters to be removed, which I find quite bizarre. Our national political editor, Michael Packie, is with me. Firstly, and I'll ask you about the 90 minutes in a moment, how did they get on the roof? Do we know? Look, we don't know exactly how they got onto the roof, but there's two ways that they can do it. And it does appear from some footage that's been released.

is that what they did is on either side of the entrance of Parliament House, there's grass. Yep, yep. And usually what people do is kids run up that grass and then roll down the grass. So are you still allowed to do that? You are allowed to do it up to a certain point. Because I actually took my kids to Canberra last year. I mentioned this to Michael McClaren last hour.

And we went from the lookout looking over Parliament House and they said, we want to roll on the grass. And I said, look, I don't think you can anymore because I just assumed security had been upgraded to the point you couldn't do that. Okay. What's happened is, is that people used to go right up to the top of the grassy knoll and then they used to roll down. All the way down. All the way down. What they've done is they put, in the last couple of years, they've put fencing up so you can go part way up.

So what the suggestion seems to be is that, and it's what some footage seems to show, is that about four people, three men and a woman, ran towards the fence that's been erected where the grass is. They climbed over the...

They climbed up and over the fence and were able to get to the roof. And then once they got to the roof, they unfurled the banners. The reason that they put the fencing up was so that people couldn't get to the roof. So these people, it seems, found a way of getting to the roof by climbing the fence. The other suggestion is that they got through security. They had the banners maybe in a bag and would have probably gone through if all of the bag was just material and if those bags weren't checked.

They were able to go to the public cafe, which is called the Queen's Terrace. And from the Queen's Terrace, there's an outside area which oversees, on which you can get onto the roof and oversee and overlook Parliament House and the forecourt and so forth. There's some suggestion it could have happened that way. But from the vision that I've seen, it does appear that what happened is that they did actually run up the grass,

climb over the fence and get onto the roof. And having a Parliament House, whether it's in Canberra or here in Sydney at a state level, having it open to the public is actually quite important because that's pure democracy. Absolutely. We should have a right to, for instance, sit in a public gallery with Question Time. That's right. But we have the leader of the country in that building and the alternative leader. That's right.

It's a sitting day. They're all there. Goodness knows what could have happened. Well, look, absolutely. And I mean, it depends, I suppose, on the level of security checks that would have gone through. And obviously...

To be fair, when you're going through that security, if you've got some sort of metal, whether it be on the back, it does buzz and then you are checked and you're patted down. There are a whole bunch of things. But if they'd climbed the fence, as you described. Yes. And we've seen these sorts of stunts before and even today. Do you know while that protest was happening, inside Parliament House, there was a bunch of climate protesters that had glued themselves to the floor. Now, the gluing to the floor and gluing inside the chamber was

It happened a few years ago. Remember when there was some protesters that glued themselves to the wooden panels inside Parliament House? So there was two protests unfolding at the same time. The one outside where the banners were being unfurled, the pro-Palestinian banners, and inside there was climate protesters that had glued themselves to the floor. Brett has just sent a text message and said, does anyone else find it strange that the senator sent a payment has resigned over Gaza on the same day a protest has occurred at Parliament House? Yes.

Is that because it's the last sitting day, though? I think it's the last sitting day. Look, there's no point being conspiratorial about it. I think it is the last sitting day. The protesters probably would have known it's the last sitting day for the next six weeks. And this was an opportunity to make their point. They probably also knew that Fatima Payment would resign over this conflict in the Middle East issue as well.

So what we know so far is that these people have now been arrested. An inquiry is underway because Milton Dickers, you played there, the grab of him, the Speaker of the House, has called on the AFP, the federal police, to conduct an inquiry into this matter. And I know the Prime Minister, we've heard from the Prime Minister and Peter Dutton, it's a consensus feeling about it.

Anything from the Greens or the minor parties? Look, I haven't heard anything from the Greens or minor parties at this stage. There's no doubt that they'll be asked. And, well, what we've heard earlier in the week about these sorts of protests is that Jordan Still John, who's a Greens senator, he's been saying that, well, it's a matter of freedom of speech.

So you wonder if those sorts of, it will be that same sort of rhetoric that comes from the Greens, that this is, you know, the public's building and it's freedom of speech, even though it could be putting people in danger. Thank you for your time, Michael. Michael Packie, our national political editor. I have a mountain of text messages and we'll give you an opportunity to have your say. 131873 is our number. 23 past three.

It's Clinton Maynard filling in for Chris O'Keefe. Chris is back on Monday. You'll see this on Nine News tonight. Police have now released some security vision of the man they're looking for who went on that rampage yesterday afternoon, breaking into homes around the Northmead area and attacking and robbing four women. It's actually now four women that were involved. This was all very early in the morning yesterday, as we were discussing, between five and just after six o'clock.

And the man is accused of stealing a car and then attacking people with a knife, with a kitchen knife, but also a hammer. He allegedly bashed in the windscreen of a car. He made off with phones and stole bags as well. Police are continuing the hunt. They had pole air in the area yesterday with a dog squad and they haven't found him. The vision depicts the man breaking into a home in North Rocks at about seven o'clock. So it was actually after the initial crime spree.

He's described as being slim-billed in his early 20s, olive complexion, a short black mullet. He was wearing a black beanie, a black balaclava, a black hoodie, black long pants, black gloves and black shoes. One would assume 24 Hours Lady's probably had a change of clothes by now. But if you know anything about it, once you see that CCTV footage, Crimestoppers 1800 333 000, 28 past three. On the text line, Greg says, regarding the protests...

If I ran out into a football field with a sign, I'd be crash tackled and removed in less than two minutes. But it takes 90 minutes to remove people from Parliament House. I think that's going to be part of this investigation, why it took so long, because they were there for all of us to see. They're all there on TV. 131873. G'day, John.

Hi, how are you? Good, mate. I just want to make a quick point about security. Quite a number of years ago, I was in America with my family. We were standing outside the White House and my son went up to one of the armed Marine guards and he said, excuse me, if some crazy person climbed up that fence, how far up the lawn would the guy get? And the Marine turned to my son and he said he wouldn't get to the top of that fence. Yeah, spot on.

Spot on. And we did see the invasion, you might call it an invasion, a riot of the Capitol building a couple of years ago after the last presidential election.

This is not unprecedented and there have been attacks on our parliament before. But to think that we knew there was going to be drama this week. It's the last sitting week before the winter break. We all knew as well that Fatima Payman was likely to resign today. So if any day there was going to be a protest, it was today. And as Maureen says, well, who was monitoring the security cameras at Parliament House? Hopefully they had their glasses on. I suspect they didn't. Let's check some news headlines.

And good afternoon, Rhiannon Solomon-Marron. Good afternoon, Clinton. Labor Senator Fatima Payman says her conscience left her no choice but to quit the party and sit as an independent. She last week defied her colleagues to support a Greens push for Palestinian statehood. Police have released CCTV footage of a man they're looking for over a series of robberies in Sydney's west and northwest. Three women were targeted in separate incidents yesterday.

Housing developments have declined in the state. 11,000 applications have been rejected in the last financial year. That's an 18% drop. And a New Zealand man has been arrested. Accused of stealing 241 blocks of Whittaker's chocolate, the alleged haul is worth more than $1,200.

In sport, former NRL coach Brian Smith has entered the race to become Parramatta's new head coach. 70-year-old Smith previously coached the Eels between 1997 and 2006. And Clinton, there'll be more news at four. Thanks, Rhiannon. Message from Transport for New South Wales. The Inner West light rail line, the L1, is going to be closed for track work this weekend. So both Saturday and Sunday, there'll be no trams.

between the Convention Centre and Dulwich Hill. They'll resume on Monday morning, so there's some essential maintenance that's got to be carried out. On protests, from one of our listeners, these Palestinian protests are getting out of control. Do people know that we're living in Australia? I don't see Jewish people protesting.

They're not winning public support. It's a fair point. Now, it's not the only protest going on. There's been yet another man charged with protesting in the Hunter Valley. These are the Blockhead Australia protesters blocking trains. 67-year-old man has now been arrested after he was accused of obstructing trains in Singleton. He's facing a string of charges. And of course, if he is found guilty of the charges, the magistrates have the ability to send him to jail for two years. But of course, they don't do that.

So we have Palestinian protests not just happening at Parliament House, they happen every weekend still in Sydney and they have no impact on what happens in the Middle East whatsoever. We have these blockade Australia protests going on about climate change and of course they're not protesting about what happens in China when it comes to emissions. No, no, it's just here. They're day after day after day and they have no impact whatsoever.

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On the text line 0460 873 873 Davo says why isn't anyone protesting the cost of living? Well that's an important issue. We don't seem to protest important issues all the time do we? It's 24 to 4. Did you play a lot of sport as a kid when you were growing up? I think it's such an important part of childhood and unfortunately with all the wet weather we've had over the last really two months in Sydney so much weekend sport has been cancelled and it means kids have been stuck inside on weekends.

And it's hard to keep them off the computer games when it's raining and then if they don't have organised sport to actually go along to. Right now, and I find this statistic a little alarming, a third of Australian kids are planning to drop out of sport. Allianz Australia has done the research. It shows 34% of children have actually asked their mums and dads if they can quit. Now, there's some pressure on parents as well because organised sport can be quite expensive depending on what they're playing. And that's an issue for a lot of mums and dads.

Parents, particularly with two working parents, are increasingly time poor. So the weekends means they might be ferrying kids around to different sporting fields. But then if they need to catch up with chores around the house and other duties, it might be difficult to fit sport in. Research also shows one in four kids with a disability are stopping playing sport and they feel anxious. There's also other issues around accessibility. It's a real shame. The Olympics are coming up in just a couple of weeks' time.

And we can use the Olympics to motivate people. We can use the Olympics to inspire young people to get active again. Dr Emma Steer is a clinical psychologist at the Olympic Park Sports Medicine Centre and she joins us. Thank you for your time, Doctor. Thank you for having me on the show. What do you make of these statistics?

Yeah, well, I think they're a bit concerning, but I also think it's a bit of a message about how do we turn this around and how do we use the Olympics and the Paralympics as, I guess, a perfect opportunity to try and get our kids engaged in sport and or re-engaged in sport and use the athletes as role models to try and inspire them back into sport. The research that shows 34% of kids are actually asking their parents questions

to stop playing sport? Why do you think the kids want to stop? Yeah, I think perhaps just general busyness of everyday life. And sometimes I think some kids get quite anxious in sport. I think they see it as quite a competitive thing that they need to be involved in. And I think we need to really work hard on reframing that and taking that message away and just showing that sport's something that you need to do for your health and wellbeing. And it's part of your self-care. It's just like...

good sleeping patterns, good eating patterns. It is a day-to-day type of thing that we need to get involved in, but it also can be really fun and it doesn't all have to be that high level sport all the time. - Well, you know, I was thinking back to when I was a kid and basically for me, when I was growing up, it was either probably play soccer or tennis. That was pretty much the choice we had. And then maybe cricket in the summer. But these days there is so much choice. Now, one of my daughters is not sporty. She's not particularly physical and we've always had actually had a bit of trouble trying to find the right thing.

GP recommended something to us, and I think it's an example of how much variety is. GP recommended to us a couple of months ago rock climbing. And we've started taking her rock climbing. She's now obsessed with it. First time she's ever been obsessed with something physical. My understanding is rock climbing has become very popular. I know quite a few young girls in particular who've taken it up. And I think just the strength that you develop from it and the coordination and communication

just the overall fitness. I also think it's something that is challenging enough, but it's also social. So I think a lot of the young girls in particular are going with their friends and they're having like set nights where they go off and it's actually quite a fun thing to get involved in. But we might need to think beyond if your kids are asking, oh, we want to drop out of the soccer team or the netball team, perhaps think a little bit outside the box. There are other physical activities out there to keep them active.

There are so many different sports out there. And, I mean, I work with Olympians and Paralympians from time to time. And, I mean, even I have been educated about some of those sports and how passionate they are about them in terms of, like, you don't always hear about those sports. I mean, everything from surfing to badminton to archery to, you know, martial arts, skateboarding is now involved.

like you've just got to think outside the square. And if your child doesn't want to get involved in the really popular sports or, you know, they're not such a team player, I mean, I think team sports are very important when they're young. It teaches so many different social competencies and how to negotiate and, you know, just how to work as a team. But as they go on, not everybody's going to be wanting to play team sports. So thinking outside the square and having a good, I guess, just...

letting them have as many opportunities as possible to expose them to all those different sports out there. I guess there's also the issue of cost, though, that we know that there's a cost-living issue at the moment. The active kids vouchers the previous state government had, they're now long gone. Is there a way to address that, you reckon? Yes.

Yeah, because look, the Allianz research showed that two of the key issues were time and cost. And I think some of these sports are expensive in terms of uniform and travel and membership fees. I think if that's not, I mean, it'd be wonderful if somehow we can address that issue as a society. I think if there's,

if that is a barrier for parents, just even getting physically active and going for a run around the oval or, you know, taking the dog for a walk or getting involved in even just, you know, your old-fashioned neighborhood cricket. Anything that gets kids out and moving and introduces them to the world of sport and how much fun it can be and making it really sociable I think is really important. Also, parent role modeling, parents getting out there too. I know sometimes there's an effort for all of us,

But if we can actually be active and show that we're involved, then I think the kids can see that, okay, mum and dad are doing this, but I'm going to get involved too, and mum and dad are supporting me to do this. Good advice. We should set the example. Thank you for your time, Emma. Thank you very much for having me. Dr Emma Steer, who's from the Olympic Park Sports Medicine Centre. It's good advice. We should probably set the examples as mum and dads. Now, this research is showing it's the kids asking mum and dad questions

if they can stop playing sport? Well, if they do, you don't want to be forcing your kid to do something from a recreational point of view they don't want to do because they're going to put the effort in. But maybe have a look at what other options there are, if there are some, because there's just so much variety. When you're watching the Olympics and when you're listening on the station in a couple of weeks' time,

You'll see there are so many different sports that don't come to the top of your mind when you think about enrolling your kid in a new sport. And maybe it's gymnastics, for instance. And that's, I think, the beauty of the Olympics. We, for a few weeks, put our attention to sports that maybe aren't usually in the mainstream. It's not always rugby league, and you know that I love rugby league, but it's not always rugby league or cricket in the summer or netball or soccer. There is so much that you can direct your kids to. And yes, some of these sports are expensive, no question. But

but just maybe do a little bit of research. We've found Lauren just has zero interest in physical activity. Suddenly she's become obsessed with rock climbing. That probably shows you there is a little bit of hope for you. 13 to 4, this had been alluded to a little earlier in the week. It is now being confirmed there are going to be job cuts at Service NSW. 125 positions will go and more services are actually moving online to their website.

And I think that's a great shame because it's rare that we actually praise government departments. I've had nothing but good experience with Service NSW. It was introduced under the former government, Victor Dominello. It was his baby. And it works really well. You go to a Service NSW, it's nothing like going to the old RTA where people behind the counter just didn't even want to talk to you. You walk into a Service NSW office...

And there's a concierge at the front door who greets you and then asks you what you need help with and then can direct you to the help. It's really genuinely good customer service. It's probably a first for a government.

But the staff will be cut. The customer services minister, Jahar Dib, told the Herald today that staffing levels have ballooned from 2,860 employees five years ago to 4,950. And the minister says that is not sustainable. He says many of the programs developed were in response to the pandemic and their natural disasters, and they no longer require the intensive crisis support program.

Staff have been told there is a revised operational structure. It'll affect contractors, temporary employees, as well as staff through natural attrition. None of the actual Service NSW offices are going to close down, so that's good. My understanding is quite a few of those 125 jobs will be senior managers, executives. Let's hope the quality of the service they offer doesn't suffer because, honestly, it is one of the rare government departments that does a very good job.

Opinions that matter. News you can trust. This is Drive on Sydney's 2GB. I mentioned at the start of the program, it's left me scratching my head why everybody seems to be wearing puffer jackets these days. Now, I realise it's been a bit chilly in the last week, but it seemed that every second person when I was walking through the CBD this morning was wearing a puffer jacket. They don't look that great. You sort of end up looking like the Michelin Man.

Got to find quite a few text messages on this. Peter says, puffer jackets are super warm and look good. You actually need one. But Jez says, no, no, no, puffer jackets are yuck. 131873 if you've got a thought on that one. And you can have your say for less with Amazing. Don't pay too much for your mobile plan. Break free from your expensive telco and escape to better value with the Escape Plan by Amazing. On the issues of kids playing sport. Hello, Sarah. Hi, Clinton. How are you? Good.

So my situation, I wore glasses from a very young age and we had the usual school-based softball. There was netball and I remember being taken at about age eight onto the netball area and as soon as they threw the ball at me, I ran the other way off the field straight to the library. That was it. It was rough. It was kind of all elbows and ponytails and I learned from there that

I was quite active, so I like running. I like soul pursuits. And I think the team thing can be quite intimidating for a lot of kids if you're not that way inclined and you're a little bit insecure about yourself. But every child should be given the opportunity to find the sport or the activity that they enjoy. Nothing worse, as you say, than being forced to enter into a team environment and you're not a team player anymore.

because for a variety of reasons, in my case physical, protecting my face with my glasses. And as you get older in life, you can pick up an interest that might have been formulated when you're a lot younger and you'll come back to it. I don't think it's a dead loss because you don't want to play AFLW or whatever it's called.

So, you know, horses for courses. But like you say, the rock climbing thing, soul pursuit. I was very good at archery. I was very good at ten pin bowling. It was competitive, but it wasn't. You didn't get hit by the ball or hurt or elbowed or smacked or pushed or shoved. And, you know, this soul pursuit. Yeah, there's a lot of hope for kids. Maybe we're evolving. I like to think so, you know, as an agent.

It might be cross-country running, little athletics, cycling. That's the beauty of what the Olympics shows us. The Olympics can give us some inspiration about perhaps sports that don't usually receive a lot of attention. Good on you. Thank you for your call, Sarah131873. Just while I'm on sport, Sydney Morning Herald has broken the story in the past couple of hours.

about the Parramatta Eels. If you're an Eels fan, you'll know that they are searching for a coach at the moment. The talk was they had a board meeting this week and they made a decision on who the coach would be, but they wouldn't announce it until after tonight's game. They're playing South Sydney tonight.

Usually what happens in rugby league, if there is a decision made, these decisions are leaked out. Josh Hanna, Jason Riles, Dean Young and Trent Barrett are all the contenders. Trent Barrett is currently the interim coach after Brad Arthur was sacked. Well, the Herald's revealed that Brian Smith, the long-term Eels coach, he coached the Eels between 1997 and 2006, has actually put his hand up to become the coach again.

If he was appointed, and it seems a long shot, he would then become the Eels' longest-effort serving coach. I'd be very, very surprised if Brian Smith made a comeback. But stranger things have happened. If you'd like to send me a text message, 0460 873 873. Now, on the protests in Canberra.

And we'll bring you news if anyone is charged. Four people are in custody. So it'll be the ACT police run by the AFP that will lay the charges. They'll be questioned at the moment. Milton Dick, who's the Speaker of the House, he has said they've been banned now from Parliament House.

But I would expect they would face criminal charges of some sort. John says, Michael Packie suggested that it was possible the protesters could have entered Parliament with the banners in a bag that you pass through security checks. Now, those security X-ray machines, for instance, pick up metal.

If you've got a weapon, for instance, a knife or a firearm, but wouldn't necessarily pick up a banner. The banners were eight metres long. They're huge. Now, that would not happen at an NRL ground. They check everything in your bag. They certainly do. John listening is in Hurstville. Look, I go to the NRL games at Toyota Park. Toyota Park, it's Pointsbet Stadium these days. Shark Park, I go all the time and they do search your bag.

But maybe that doesn't quite happen at Parliament House. Steve says, I'm wondering what you actually have to do beyond breaking through security and climbing up on the Parliament House roof to actually get shot by the security guards. We don't want to see people shot in our democracy. But Steve, in many other countries overseas, they wouldn't be waiting 90 minutes before they're bringing them down.

probably wouldn't even get to that point. Whether they would shoot them or not, who knows? But it seems very strange that they took that long. And the word, one of the lines I read in one of the reports earlier today was the police were negotiating with them. What's necessary for, why does there need to be a negotiation? Maureen says, all protests should be legal only in parks. You take your signage and then the other things you've got with you when you leave.

This wasn't an authorised protest. And the Palestinian protests that have been conducted week after week in Sydney and Hyde Park, they actually are authorised protests. So they are done with approval effectively of the police. This wasn't an authorised protest, which is why they can be charged. What we're seeing in the Hunter Valley, day after day after day with the blockheads, that's not authorised. That's why they are being charged hauled before the courts. Problem is, Maureen, the courts has given them a slap with a wet lettuce leaf.

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Now back to Drive with Clinton Maynard on Sydney's 2GB. 7 past 4, 131873 it is. Clinton Maynard filling for Chris O'Keefe. Chris is back on Monday. Polling booths have just opened a few minutes ago across the UK for the general election. They open at 7pm.

in the morning. We're hours don't open until eight when we hold a poll and traditionally election day is a Thursday in the UK, but they don't close until 10 at night. It may well be based on the opinion polls that we have a result an hour after the polling booths close. So they're open now. The final YouGov poll that's been released shows, and this has been predicted for some time, that Labor is on course for a massive victory.

And Keir Starmer, Sir Kerr Keir Starmer, will be the Prime Minister with a majority of potentially 212 seats. It would be the biggest majority of any party in the UK since 1832.

So the Tories, the Conservatives, would appear to be wiped out. There could be as many as 13 Conservative frontbenchers who could lose their seats in this election. Now, let's remember, polls aren't always right. Look what happened when Scott Morrison won the 2019 election. All the polls predicted that Bill Shorten would win. So anything is possible.

But all the word out of the Conservative Party in the UK has been their campaign has been about preventing losses so that they're not wiped out and have no chance at the next election. It's a huge parliament, mind you. It's a parliament that has more than 600 seats in it. One of the polls estimated that Labor would win 465 seats, just massive, and that simply the Conservatives would be left as a rump.

opinions that matter. News you can trust. This is Drive on Sydney's 2GB. We've got a stack of text messages, 0460 873 873 on the protests in Canberra. And there are now serious questions being asked. Firstly, how did the four protesters reach the roof?

And why did it take the police and security at Parliament House 90 minutes to remove them? One text message you hear says, I've tuned in four times throughout the day. I've not heard what the protest was about. Is that not relevant? That's actually a good question, whether it's relevant or not. Well, I did mention at the start of the show that it was a pro-Palestinian protest because clearly I read out what some of the banners were. One read, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. Clearly that's what the protest is about. But there's also an argument when...

Demonstrations and protests are held that we in the media probably shouldn't report what they're about. By reporting exactly what they're about, we're simply giving the protesters what they want, publicity.

We're simply fueling potentially more of these demonstrations. Now, why we have been reporting it through the day primarily is because there's a serious issue of national security. Parliament House in Canberra, I would argue, is the most important building in this country. It's not only the symbol of democracy, it is obviously where the country's leaders are on sitting days, all of them.

So if somebody with ill intentions wanted to get to our Prime Minister or wanted to get to the alternative Prime Minister in Mr Dutton, this demonstrated that, well, it's not beyond the realms of possibility that they could. Now, yes, we do have security that includes metal detectors and so forth, but it appears that these four people have scaled offence.

It appears that that's how they got to the roof. And yes, there are plenty of security guards and millions of dollars has been spent on security in the previous years, but it shows that it's not quite adequate. So I think it's actually more important to focus on those issues rather than what this protest is about. We know that it's another pro-Palestinian protest. We know that they occur in Sydney every single weekend. We also know they have no impact whatsoever. Now, the vision will be seen all over the world.

But in Israel itself, there are actually regular protests against the Israeli government from Jewish people who believe that what's happening in Gaza isn't right as well. Now, if Benjamin Netanyahu is still not, for instance, taking notice of those protests in Israel, if Joe Biden, the closest ally...

Israel has is the United States. If Benjamin Netanyahu is not taking the advice of Joe Biden and continuing with his strategy in Gaza, do you think he's really going to think, oh, there's those four blokes and those women down in Canberra who scaled Parliament House? All right, I better stop. I'll change the strategy. It's not going to happen. 11 past four. More on the text line. I mentioned in the last hour that there is some suggestions that Brian Smith is

Could be the next coach of Parramatta. Well, Brian Smith, the former coach of Parramatta, has put his hand up in the NRL. They're seeking a replacement for Brad Arthur, who was sacked about a month or so ago. The contenders are Jason Riles, also Dean Young, the former Dragons player, Josh Hannae, the current assistant coach of Queensland, and Trent Barrett, who's the interim of the City Morning Herald, is reporting that Brian Smith has put his hand up. This tip I have on the text line from David, it will not be Smith.

David claims the new coach of Parramatta will be Neil Henry. Watch this space. David might have some inside mail there. I'd be very caught up in that. I'd be surprised if it's Neil Henry, who's the former North Queensland Cowboys coach.

We'll see how that transpires. We should know in the next, if you're a Parramatta fan, we should know in probably the next 24 hours or so. Apparently the decision was made early this week, but nobody knows exactly what it is. Parramatta playing South Sydney tonight.

Drive on 2GB. Seen something? Send a text. 0460 873 873. The push is on again to introduce a sugar tax or a junk food tax. The idea is, for instance, to make soft drinks more expensive so people won't drink them. And there's no question...

We have problems with too many people who are overweight in this country. Obesity. Much of that is because we eat bad food. We were talking about sport in the last hour. A lot of it is because we're now growing up, many of us, not to be active, to be spending too much time indoors, in front of screens. A federal parliamentary probe is calling for a sugar tax and a crackdown on junk food advertising, which targets kids. They've made 23 recommendations.

There would be a levy on drinks, for example, based on how much sugar a drink contains, a 20% tax which could raise $6.6 billion. The opposition has now said they will not support the proposal. They're citing cost of living issues. And the argument has been that people on lower incomes consume more junk food. So by increasing the cost, it would hurt them more. But isn't that itself an indicator of the problem? That junk food is cheaper than healthy food.

One way of addressing that would be a tax, make the junk food more expensive. And look what's happened with smoking over the years. A lot of people have quit smoking simply because it's too expensive, but it's also fueled a black market. But what if we attack it from a different perspective? What if we go the other way?

pursue measures to make healthy food more affordable. Now that might mean government subsidies. I'm not sure. Greater minds than mine could come up with some ideas. But if healthy food was more affordable, would that not help? Now I'll give you an example. We have a vending machine here at 2GB. A can of Coke in the vending machine is $2.50. A bottle of water in the vending machine

is $3. So if you're watching your pennies and you're thirsty, are you going to pay $3 for the water? We do have a tap as well. Or $2.50 for the Coke. Why can't the bottle of water be the same price or even cheaper than the Coke? Surely that would be a way to address obesity, make healthy food more attractive to the general public. We certainly need to do something because we do have issues with too many people who are overweight. And in the long run, it's going to cost us all.

because we'll be spending more money down the track on the health system. But instead of a new tax, maybe we could put our heads together and figure out how we could do it to make healthy food and healthier drinks cheaper.

If it's happening in Sydney, you'll hear it on Drive on 2GB. 16 past 4, 131873 is the number. You can send me text messages as well, 0460 873 873. It seems Sydney's tips are filling up rapidly. We're running out of landfill space and as much as we are geared towards recycling, we

We are facing a looming problem. Increasingly, waste is being sent out to the city. There are four remaining tips or landfill sites left in Sydney. There's a big one at Eastern Creek. There is one at Lucas Heights, not far from where I live. It's been there forever. It's moved along the road there a few times. When you drive along Heathcote Road, I know a lot of you may be driving along Heathcote Road at the moment, you can actually smell the Lucas Heights tip. Depends which way the wind's blowing.

Well, it's believed these tips will reach capacity about 2030 or so, which is not a long way away. Gail Sloan is the boss of the Waste Management and Resource Recovery Association and can fill us in on what the problem is here. Hello, Gail. Hello. I love that word, boss. Yeah, I'm not quite the boss, but anyway, I'll take it. Thank you, Gail. The pending problem with landfill, are we seriously facing that maybe by 2030 we won't have any space left?

Well, we do have a challenge because the previous government didn't actually address the lack of infrastructure more generally across waste and resource recovery. What we actually should be focusing on is actually not putting more stuff on the ground back to your point before. We shouldn't be buying stuff and throwing it away. We should actually be focusing on how we can...

buy things that we need and use it longer so that we're not throwing it out and arguably recycling, reusing and creating more Australian jobs. That's actually got to be the pivot, not towards where are we putting this stuff that we've bought because who can honestly afford to throw things out? Are we getting, and I'm going to ask you about that, the disposable society I think we live in at the moment, which I think we're going too far with, but just on recycling, have we got recycling right? Because we've heard of some dramas in recent years where people have

thought they were doing the right thing with recycling, but they've been let down by some big corporations. Look, we did not in any way, shape or form have enough emphasis on what people make and what they put on the shelf. So the example you'd be talking about is packaging. We have way too much product like soft plastics put on the shelf because it's cheap, it's convenient and it's single use. We've seen a lot of moves with government policy to move away from single use, but what we actually have to do is help people avoid. So

you're spot on, those who make it need to be held responsible. And if they're actually responsible, like we've seen great things with container deposit systems, where we say, you've got to have a scheme set up, you've got to take it back, you've got to reuse it. And we've incentivized that circular economy and that recycling. And we've done that right. So we've shown we can do it.

We do not have enough of that. We still have too much. We have six million tonnes of packaging on the shelf. We've had a product stewardship scheme that has not worked. Government has said two years ago it's going to move towards a mandated scheme, but we're still years away from that. So what we have to do is help consumers buy products that can be reused and recycled, right, and fund the infrastructure to do that. We should not be building more landfills. That's just a waste and we create carbon and methane from that.

Do we need to get tougher with the manufacturers of what we're buying in the supermarkets, for instance? Yeah, we do. We need to hold them accountable for what they make, right? And we've shown through beverage containers that that can work, but it takes a lot of work. We need to make what we have in Europe is a positive obligation to say, if you put something on the shelf, and a classic example would be batteries, you've got to design them so that they can be pulled out of products.

You've got to do it in a way that they can be reused and you've got to fund the infrastructure to take them back. We don't have enough of that in Australia, which is arguably why we keep talking about landfill and waste rather than consumption and production.

What about the problem, which I think is a problem, the nature that we have, particularly with electronic goods, household appliances, that things are now thought of to be disposable. We don't keep, say, a toaster for the same number of years as my grandparents did, for instance.

Yeah, we very much are incentivized to consume. And we actually had a conference last week and we all talk about the $7 toaster. And I appreciate the point you had before about access for everyone on lower incomes to these products. But that $7 toaster has been made arguably in a country that doesn't look after its workers.

and gives them the same rights and entitlements as Australia. But also, we need to actually value what we have and look at our reuse and our repair options. In Australia, we don't actually have legislation that enables or gives us the right to repair. So we're actually losing a lot of those skills as well, and we're being driven to consume, which means we're using more products and we're throwing more materials out, which, again, is not good for the environment and why we're seeing...

the infrastructure challenges we are because we're not pivoting towards what we talk about reuse, recycling and repair, which is what our grandparents used to do. Yeah. These are long-term issues and they need planning years and years in advance. So even for the landfill, I know you don't want to see more landfill, but that involves probably governments going back generations in planning that. Has there been mistakes made in the last 10 years?

Absolutely. You know, 2017, we were very close to starting an infrastructure strategy in New South Wales, and for reasons the then ministers and the previous government may understand, that was deprioritised. Like, we have been really lucky with Penny arriving, and I think we've been annoying her to say, we need this strategic planning process done, and that is absolutely underway. Yes, it means we're under pressure, yes,

in relation to the 2028, 2030, but we actually need to accelerate and actually pull far more material out of landfill, look at other alternative technologies, everything from fuel through to energy from waste. I know topics people don't wanna talk about, but we actually, if we weren't putting stuff on shelves that couldn't be recovered,

We wouldn't be talking about energy for waste, and it's far better to be creating energy, for example, than actually putting it into landfill and creating methane, which is 28 more times problematic for the environment. Big challenge for us. Thank you for your time, Gail. Anytime. Thank you. Gail Sloan, who is from the Waste Management Resource Recovery Association. It's a big problem because we don't run out of space.

So whether you are engaged in recycling, whether you do reuse older items, for instance, whether you go to garage sales and buy things, we're going to have to tackle this as a society because we're about to run out of space potentially by 2030 in Sydney. 26 past four, some new research has been released about attitudes towards drink driving. And it is found that almost half of us do not know how many drinks we can have and still be able to legally drive.

It's a survey from Budget Direct, they're a car insurance company, that's found that 56.3% of drivers aged between 18 and 27 most likely have got no idea how many drinks they can consume before they're over the legal limit. For older people, say aged between 38 and 47, they're also unsure really how many drinks they can have.

14% of those surveyed admit they have probably driven over the legal limit in the past six months. And that result has doubled since 2021. 131873, of all the issues we've raised in the program, I didn't think puffer jackets would receive attention.

The biggest response. Sid in Glebe says... Bruce says... Sarah says...

I love the puffer jackets, the gloriousness of puffer jackets. Superior warmth, easy to stuff in a bag, and it hides the middle-aged spread with aplomb. Thank you for your text messages, 131873, on the issues of running out of landfill space. Our tips are filling up rapidly. G'day, Mark. Hello?

What's your view, mate? You know, I hate how everything's wrapped in plastic. If you look at paper towels, toilet rolls, they're all wrapped in miles of plastic sheeting. Yeah. There's a brand out now called iCare. It's wrapped in white paper. Okay. Well, finally someone's done it. Their brand name's on the outside of it, but

But I don't know why they don't all do it. Could you imagine how much plastic they'd save if they used their white paper? Well, obviously the supermarkets aren't allowed to give us plastic bags anymore at the checkout. We've changed there. But sometimes you think we've gone to all this effort to... And I find that very inconvenient. I do carry a bag around when I can, but I do find it overall inconvenient. But we're saving the plastic there. But then with inside the supermarket, on the shelves themselves, everything...

It's not just the plastic bags when you're picking up the fruit and veg. Everything on the shelves is covered in so much packaging. Charles says, and I mentioned to Gail this before, what do we do about the manufacturers? Can we get tough with the manufacturers of these products? Charles says, how do you get tough with manufacturers when they're in China? Cost of production has caused all the manufacturers to leave our country. Yeah, fair point. Grant says, and I mentioned cheap toasters.

For instance, we've got so many kitchen appliances these days that are cheap to buy, but we seem to accept when they break after three years, it's okay, we just go and buy another one. But then you end up having to turf out the original one.

Grant says, the problem with the $7 toaster, these products are cheaply made in China. They dump their rubbish on our shores. They're only designed to last a few years. My parents just last month threw away a Panasonic convection microwave oven and they'd had it for 35 years. It worked as good as the day they bought it. Good on you, Grant. We had a microwave that we only got rid of about two years ago. It was a wedding present and we've been married 19 years. So we had a 17-year-old microwave and it was fine. G'day, Mark.

Hello, Mark. We've lost Mark there. Hello, Michelle. Hi, Michelle. Hi, Quentin. Hi, listeners. What's your view on rubbish and plastics?

Yeah, we've had an awful lot of immigration in the last 12 to 18 months. And so when you start filing that many people into cities, do you think they don't produce more rubbish and more carbon and more issues for us and plastic and...

Yeah, I just can't believe how many people have come into the country. So, of course, all these things are going to be bursting at the seams until we get infrastructure as a whole under control, and that includes rubbish tips. Yeah, you're spot on, Michelle. And I had the Planning Minister, Paul Scully, on the program a couple of days ago. We were talking about the push for more apartments in Sydney.

And we had messages from some of our listeners talking about wastewater, for instance. Do we have the capacity in the inner city just for that? And he said, well, yeah, we're working on that. But immigration and the high levels of population, they bring all these issues. Hey, tell you what, Michelle, we're going to go and send you to the new Midnight Oil movie. It's actually in the cinemas today. It's called Midnight Oil, The Hardest Line, The Trailblazing Story of the Legendary Australian Band. For more than 45 years, they have shaped Australia.

Australian music. This is their story for the first time on film. It is in cinemas today. So Michelle, we'll send you along to that. Before we go to the news, a quick traffic report from Brian. G'day, Brian.

G'day. Just want to let you know of a major traffic snarl in Manly due to an accident. Pitwater Road and Oliver Street around near the lagoon, there's been an accident. The police, ambulance and fire are there, but the traffic is kind of chaotic heading towards, say, Warringah Mall that way. It's quite an issue. It's a bit busy at this time of the day at the best of times, isn't it?

Absolutely. Thank you for the message. That's Pitwater Road, so not far really from Brookvale overall in that area. 131873. Let's check our news headlines.

And with all the latest, Rhiannon Solomon-Marin. Hello. G'day, Clinton. Four men have been arrested after climbing onto the roof of Parliament House in Canberra, unfurling large banners with pro-Palestinian slogans. An investigation is now underway into the incident. Northern Territory Police say they found remains during the search for a missing 12-year-old girl who was suspected to have been taken by a crocodile.

Polling booths in the UK have officially opened and it looks like the ruling Conservative Party is heading towards a historic wipeout with PM Rishi Sunak's seat among those at risk. And a new survey shows the rise of social media photo apps like Snapchat and Instagram have coincided with a sharp decline in youth mental health.

In sport, new Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt has named his first team for Saturday's game against Wales. Queensland breakaway Liam Wright has been named captain, making him the seventh skipper in just over a year. And Clinton, there'll be more news at five. Thank you, Rhiannon. A few showers around this evening. It is dry across most of Sydney at the moment. 16 degrees. The mercury will likely fall below 10.

Text messages 0460 873 873. Chris on the text line says, regarding recycling and landfill, we can't even recycle coffee 7-11 cups. There's not one company who can break them down in Australia. And that'd just be cardboard, wouldn't it? Chris says, have a look on Google. You'll find it doesn't exist.

131873 is our number. Look, it's been such a busy day, we haven't even had time yet to have a look at the story the Daily Telegraph had today that Penny Wong instructed one of her underlings, the Assistant Foreign Minister Tim Watts, to randomly give a dressing down to the Israeli ambassador, warning him that if his country, Israel, invades Lebanon...

to put a stop to the terrorist organisation Hezbollah, that Australia will not stand with Israel. This is yet, and it leaves a lot of people scratching their heads, another feather in Penny Wong's cap, the driving force of what many now see as the most anti-Israel government we've ever seen in this country. And this is what confuses me. We have the Muslim activists firing up against the federal government. We've seen what's happened at Parliament House today. What else do they want the Labor Party to do?

We've never had a government that dislikes Israel so much, if you really think about it. Now, remember this. Israel's the only democracy in the Middle East. Half the carry-on from the protesters in this country, if they carried on in the Middle East like that, what do you think would happen to them? Israel's the only Jewish state in the world. If they destroyed all of their weapons tomorrow, what do you think would happen to them when they're surrounded?

Now, I'm not Jewish, but as far as I can tell, the federal government has almost completely turned their back on Israel. What does Senator Payman actually want her colleagues to really do? One of the first acts as a government was to remove the Australian embassy from West Jerusalem as part of Israel that would never be removed in any two-state solution and moved to Tel Aviv. When Hamas invaded Israel in the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust, an attack that included the murder of

The 66-year-old Australian, our foreign minister, Penny Wong, she took to Twitter not to condemn it but to call on Israel to show restraint. The PM, Anthony Albanese, has steadfastly refused to go to Israel. Other world leaders have. Scott Morrison has.

When Ms Wong, Senator Wong, finally visited, she didn't go to the sites of the massacres, the Hamas massacres, and it goes on. When the Israeli army accidentally killed an Australian aid worker, the federal government appointed a special advisor to Israel because clearly Labor didn't trust Israel to navigate the strike openly and honestly and investigate it.

Australia's the only nation that actually did that. Which brings us to today. Reportedly, the Australian government has decided to haul in Israel's ambassador to warn him that if Israel invades Lebanon to attack Hezbollah, they will not get support from Australia. Why would Israel even care what we have to say anyway? Would they actually know who Senator Wong is? Keep in mind that since October 7, Israel has been also under constant attack from Hezbollah and, yes, Israel.

Israel has taken extreme action in Gaza as well. But Hezbollah is a prescribed terrorist organisation in this country. They are funded by Iran. The sole focus is to attack Israel. And since October 7, Hezbollah has launched thousands of rockets over the border as well. They've killed Israeli soldiers. They've killed civilians. Look, plenty of people in Gaza have been tragically killed as well. But since the sighting began...

60,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate from their homes as well in the northern part of Israel. Almost 91,000 people from southern Lebanon have also been displaced. Hezbollah is raining terror in the Middle East. In the end, what we're seeing inside Gaza, in Lebanon, in Israel, it's horrible. But in the end, who started them on the 7th of October? And yet Penny Wong still tells Israel to down tools and simply put up with this.

Now, there are many Muslim Australians who feel the government's let them down. But if that's the case, imagine how Jewish Australians feel. We're all meant to be Australians. Look, and regardless of what's happening at the moment, we've had the Palestinian protesters on the roof of Parliament House today. We've had Muslim Australians now banding together to form this, it could be a new party, this Muslim vote organisation. And they've posted on social media that they're aiming to bring down the Labor government. They're probably going to target six seats today.

in the western suburbs of Sydney and the Prime Minister is worried. But what the Prime Minister has done, unbeknown to him, he's actually firmed up in consolidated support, not just for Senator Paiman, but also from a movement in Sydney's west. He actually may be shooting himself in the foot with this. This organisation, their website, lists 25 Labor seats in terms of percentage of Muslim voters and it rates each MP subjectively on their support for Palestine.

And while the organisation claims not to be a political party, they're reportedly looking to run candidates in key seats with large Muslim populations. We are a free country. But I worry about this. I'm not a religious person at all, I've got to admit to you. But we're not overall a religious country. Yes, Christianity predominates.

but it's also not shoved down the throats of the people. We separate church and state. We don't have politicians representing us based on their religion, whether it's Christianity, whether they're Jews or Muslims. Dave Sharma, Liberal Senator, who was also Australia's Ambassador to Israel, joins me from Parliament House. G'day, Dave. Good afternoon, Clinton. Good to join you. Do you worry about where we're heading here in terms of the sectarianism?

I do worry if we see emerge political parties who are there to only represent one faith or one ethnicity or one group and only have that part of the community's interests at heart, which they'll pursue at the expense of broader Australian interests. One of the great features in my mind of an Australian political system is the two-party system where both parties seek to represent themselves

the broad crossways of Australia from the regions to the cities, different states and territories, different industries, blue collar, white collar, male, female. And as a result, you have to make compromises, of course, to do that. But I think you ultimately govern in the national interest. I'd be

to see the emergence of political parties which would splinter our political system and have Muslims set against Catholics, set against Jews, set against Hindus. I mean, I think that's a recipe for social division and, incidentally, bad government as well. And in the end, if a representative of a party that is based around a religion, if they are elected to a seat, surely they then have a mandate from their constituents to actually fight for issues that are based on religion. Yeah.

Which is not great, in my opinion. No, I think that's right, if they're running as such. I mean, look, all elected members of parliament represent their communities. You know, I used to represent Wentworth, which has a big Jewish community. I'm not Jewish myself, but I represent the Jewish community's interest because that was part of my community. But that's how representative politics is meant to work. It didn't mean that the non-Jewish part of Wentworth I didn't pay any attention to. Of course not.

I represented them, the Russian community, the South African community, every other part of the community. And now as a senator for New South Wales, I seek to do the same. But if you're only running under one banner as a single issue or a single identity, I think all you're going to focus on in parliament is the grievances, if you like, and getting more of the pie for yourself, more money, more taxpayer dollars.

better tax concessions, more infrastructure. And you get to a sort of state of zero sum where basically if anyone else gets something, it's something you're missing out on and vice versa. The Prime Minister clearly is now becoming concerned about this because it could affect Labor-held seats. Do you think he has a right to be concerned?

I think he does, but I think he's brought a lot of this on himself. I mean, I think Labor throughout this conflict has tried to be all things to all people, and I think people have seen through it and seen weakness in it. I don't think they've tried...

their utmost to sort of bend over backwards to accommodate all sides. And I think on these issues, we need to clearly recognise that there is a difference between a terrorist group like Hamas and a democratic liberal state like Israel. There's a difference between a party that's attacked in the way Israel was attacked on the 7th of October and a party that's defending itself in response to that attack. But this government, in its desire not to offend certain communities, has been hesitant to call this out. And I think they're reaping

what they've sowed there because people have seen weakness and people have taken them on, including their own Senate team. And do you think they've taken that political tactic because there are more Muslim people in, say, Sydney, southwest, than there are Jewish people in seats that they currently hold?

Look, I think that's certainly part of it, but I also think that Labor is sort of always paranoid about the threat to them from the Greens, from the left of politics and inner city seats, which they also hold and which are also under threat from the Greens. And so you often see that the Greens take a political position and Labor is there a few weeks later. I mean, when the funding to UNRWA, a UN body which supports Palestinian civilians in Gaza, was cut because of their linkages

links to the 7th of October terrorist attacks. Funding was suspended. The Greens called for it to be restored. Lo and behold, the Labor government restored it just a few weeks later. And I think you see the Greens actually driving a lot of Labor policy in this area. With what transpired at Parliament House today, where you're coming to us from, are you concerned with the level of security in that building?

I was very concerned to see the protesters get as far as they got. And obviously, you know, they weren't seeking to harm individuals, but they breached a number of security measures and barriers, which means that if they did intend to harm individuals, you know, would we have been able to stop them? And, you know, we've seen tensions inflamed, if you like, in...

in the community around this issue, which I understand people can feel strongly about this, but I don't think we should be allowing it to escalate to the point of trespass, property damage, threats to life and everything else. And this is just another example where I think things have gotten out of hand and I think our security measures have failed and clearly need to be examined. Personally, I'm staggered by it, David, because I mentioned earlier in my program that I took my kids to Canberra last year and they wanted to roll down the grass. Yeah, you can't do it, can you? I said to them, I don't think you can do it anymore. Yeah.

I think I've tried to do hill sprints up there and I've been stopped quite quickly by security guards. The members of parliament can't get up there. Yes, exactly. Thank you for your time, David. Challenging times, mate. Thanks so much for having me. Dave Sharma, Liberal Senator, formerly the member for Wentworth. And Wentworth obviously has a large Jewish population. He is not Jewish, but he was the ambassador, Australia's ambassador to Israel. I just think we've got to remember that we are so far away from this conflict.

Whatever happens in our country is not going to make any difference towards finding a resolution to what happens in the Middle East. We are, I think, blessed to live in a country where people of different faiths, belonging to different religions, peacefully live side by side, and they have done for decades and decades. And if it gets to the point where people are elected to parliament based on religion, we're taking our politics down a whole new path now.

that is potentially dangerous because they will be in parliament to serve their religion. That's why they've been elected. Now, it might be a Buddhist, for instance. And if they're elected in a particular seat, they then pursue policies that suit the Buddhist religion. Great if you're a Buddhist, but what about everybody else? Well, the same thing happens if you're Jewish. The same thing happens if you're a Christian. The same thing happens if you're a Muslim.

I think we need to take a bit of care with this. 9 to 5, 131873. I'll come to your calls in a moment. You can have your say for less with Amazing. Don't pay too much for your mobile plan. Break free from your expensive telco and escape to better value with the escape plan by Amazing. There are dramas in the Chatswood area, you might have heard about this, over the plan to open a new McDonald's. The idea is for a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week McDonald's at Chatswood. It'd be actually what you might term an industrial area.

around Smith Street and it's worth about $8 million. So it's going to be a fairly big development. There'll be 26 parking spots for cars and one of those dual lane drive-thrus that a lot of the newer McDonald's have. So you can actually have 13 vehicles there, waiting bays as well. When, you know, sometimes you go through the drive-thru, you get to the front and they haven't made your Big Mac yet. So you've got to go and park elsewhere.

Anyway, there's submissions that have been made to the council. Locals are not happy because they're concerned about traffic congestion, noise pollution and rubbish, particularly late at night. I can understand why they may not want a 24-hour-a-day McDonald's. As somebody who works late nights, it can be very hard to find food in our city late at night that isn't McDonald's.

Sometimes it's only McDonald's that's open and unless you're going to start cooking at home at three in the morning, you're left with no other choice. 131873 is our number. The AFP has just confirmed how the protesters managed to slip past security at Parliament House. Rhys Kershaw says the protesters used diversionary tactics at Parliament House, which allowed them to get onto the building's roof. He's been questioned about this in a Senate committee.

that a separate group made false reports of protesters happening, a protest happening somewhere else. What that did, it sent police away. He says there were actually some deliberate actions from this particular group that they used diversionary tactics to move very, very quickly. He was then asked, how did they get on the roof? He says, the deputy commissioner has then said, they breached the fence at the top of the grass area on the side of the building. They were to get over the fence, triggering an alarm. Now,

You probably watch some crime shows on TV and movies. I'm no criminal expert, but I would have thought using diversionary tactics was something police and security would be aware of when they are providing security to the most important building in the country. I wouldn't think it's a shock that maybe those who are up to no good would pursue something like that. 131873. G'day, Frank. Hey, John Clinton. Good, mate.

Love the show, mate. Thank you, buddy. Look, I believe there should not be any religion in politics. I just think it should be all about what we do for every single member of society. It doesn't matter what you think, but I do believe religion should be just taken out. And by the way, my Mac has arrived just before you.

That was good, Tom. That was good. And it's getting cold and I'm... You better get into the Big Mac, Frank. Look, I agree with you. I think we've got to be really careful when we go down this path of splinter groups. We're going to see more minority parties, independents in parliament over the coming years. But when it gets to the point where they're there just to represent one particular religion, it doesn't matter if it's Christianity. It might be Christianity. It might be Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, whatever. That's where we're down a dangerous path.

I didn't realise I could stick with my industry super fund when I retired. Thankfully, I discovered if I stayed, I could set up a regular income, take money out when I wanted, and the rest can grow over time. Stick with your industry super fund in retirement. Visit compareyourretirement.com today. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance. Consider the fund's PDS and whether the product is right for you.

Now back to Drive with Clinton Maynard on Sydney's 2GB. Great to have your company this Thursday afternoon driving you home. If you're just joining us for the first time today, we have now got to the bottom of how the protesters, pro-Palestinian protesters, managed to reach the top of the roof of Parliament House and then unfurl their banners. We don't yet know why it took the police and security 90 minutes to bring them down.

They've now been banned from Parliament House. There are four of these people in custody. No charges have been laid. But the AFP Commissioner, Rhys Kershaw, has already given evidence to a Senate committee and it wasn't called for just this matter. But he's been asked about it today and he said they used diversionary tactics. They made false claims there was a protest somewhere else. That had the effect of sending police to another area of the building...

And while that happened, they moved very, very quickly to climb up the roof and over a fence. It seems a little bit odd. I would have thought the police were quite aware of when criminals, and well, they're going to be alleged criminals because I suggest they will be charged, when they get up to no good, that diversionary tactics is one of the things they pursue. We'll let you know if those four people are charged. Now, the other big issue in Canberra today has been the resignation of the federal senator, Fatim Payman.

She has quit Labor, but she has not quit Parliament. And as I've been saying all week, I think that's wrong. Now, she is entitled to her views, but she was voted as a Labor senator and more than 500,000 people in WA voted above the line for the Labor ticket. It's only something like a little over 1,000 people voted below the line for her.

But she says she's going to continue to represent WA. She's going to continue in Parliament for the rest of her term. It's a six-year term overall, as an independent, despite the fact she was voted in as a Labor Party MP. I think it's wrong. She's describing what's happened in Gaza as the greatest injustice of our times. This is Fatima Payman. Unlike my colleagues, I know how it feels to be on the receiving end of injustice.

My family did not flee from a war-torn country to come here as refugees for me to remain silent when I see atrocities inflicted on innocent people. Fatima Payman. Now, she has said today, again repeated this suggestion that she was intimidated by Labor. And she was asked about these intimidatory tactics apparently from the Prime Minister's office.

And she says, just in general, when it came to being escorted to the Prime Minister's office, almost on show for everyone to see what has happened, I received many messages from people that should not have known what was going on, or senators making it very clear that they did not want to sit next to me in the chamber. She says it was also controlling and constantly pushing me for an answer when I did not make a decision of whether I'd cross the floor or not. And on the record, as I mentioned, I decided to cross the floor once

on the Senate floor while divisions were taking place prior. Well, the Prime Minister has now responded to that and he has denied that he intimidated her. He was questioned by Paul Fletcher, the Liberal MP, during question time about whether he did intimidate Senator Payman. And he said, the answer is no, Mr Speaker. A short while ago, I received the message that she addressed me. The message said, dear Prime Minister, thank you for your leadership. It's been an honour and privilege to serve in the Australian Labor Party.

And it went on to indicate that she is resigning. Now, you just heard from Senator Payman there where she suggested that she is the only Labor MP to suffer injustice. And I was just starting to think, hang on, how would she know? There are dozens and dozens of Labor politicians and there are dozens of politicians on other sides of politics in Parliament. How does she know that she's the only one to suffer any sort of injustice?

And no one is disputing that she had a tough upbringing. She was born in Afghanistan. Her parents fled the country. But a quick glance at the Labor caucus would show that there are plenty of families who've had tough times. For instance, the Attorney General, Mark Dreyfus. His father, Jewish, George, he was forced to flee Nazi Germany to avoid persecution from Adolf Hitler. Josh Burns, his grandmother, also fled the Nazis.

What about the Indigenous Affairs Minister, Linda Burney? She grew up not knowing who her family was. She met her father for the first time when she was 27. What about Anne Alley or Peter Cowley? Their parents fled Egypt in the 60s and 70s. The list goes on. But she said she has faced injustice unlike her colleagues. Michael Danby was a long-time Labor federal member for Melbourne Ports. He is the former chair of the Federal Parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee.

And he joins us. Thank you for your time, Michael. Thanks for having me, Clint. As a long-time Labor man, what is your reaction to the Senate's decision today to quit? Look, people who join the Labor Party sign on to going along sometimes with things that you don't agree, but you sign on to it. You know beforehand. Unfortunately, the modern era of woke narcissism, and I don't think she has any right as a person from...

a particular area of suffering to say that she knows much more about it than anyone else. This woke narcissism means, you know, some people of that age think that there's no one else who has any experience in life or any particularly bad experience in life. Poor old Albo, he grew up in a single family in Housing Commission homes and he's become Prime Minister. You know, I may not agree with him, but I'm proud of Australia. And I just don't buy...

The senator's, you know, sense of, you know, she's the only person who's suffered. I do regret the fact that, you know, the issue of Gaza and Palestine and the massacre of the Israelis is a central issue in her life. I wish as an Afghan woman that she'd spoken up about the terrible treatment of young Afghan girls since 2008.

the Americans abandoned Afghanistan. What's going on there now? She'd have more credibility if she spoke on Gaza, if she'd said a word in her parliamentary career on the plight of Afghan women. Or how about the two million Uyghur Muslims in China? Now, of course, coming from West Australia, where the West Australian Labour Party is very pro-China and her particular mentors have come from that area,

to nothing, silence. So, you know, she's not the perfect, simple ingenue who's suffered at the hands of these labour bullies that she likes to paint. You know, I just don't buy the whole picture. What I do understand, this is the way it works, but what does not sit comfortably with me, Michael, is the fact, and it happens on...

all sides of politics that happen with the Greens, is that somebody can be elected on a ticket of a particular party and then put that party remain in power, particularly with the Senate. I think it's a little different with the lower house because you do directly vote for that representative, even though they run to the Labor banner, the Liberal banner, whatever.

But in the upper house, most people vote above the line. They were voting for a Labor representative because they hold Labor values. They like what the Labor Party was standing for at the last election. And now they're not represented. You're absolutely right. I mean, it was a freakish occurrence in West Australia at the last election that Labor got three. It was. And that she therefore gets up on 1600 primary votes of half a million people in West Australia who voted the Labor ticket.

And, of course, there's two Labor senators who'll come up in six years' time, so she'll never replace them, and we'll never get three again. So, I mean, I think she's just seen an opportunity, seen Glenn Drury, the press preference whisperer, and then tried to sort of virtue signal and cover all of her, frankly, Machiavellian politics with the rubric of, you know, I'm an...

an innocent young Muslim woman and I've been bullied by bad old Albo and the Labor Party, which I freely joined and I freely benefited from and I will for another four years. Well, she wouldn't be there without it. Absolutely not. And look, it's not, this isn't just a bashing up her exercise. Look what Lydia Thorpe did last year with the Greens. I'm against anyone who sort of gets elected on a party ticket and then sort of abandons them

and sort of goes woke or goes rogue. But it's her policy hypocrisy. It's her ethics that sort of, I think, should be more questions. It's the fact that, you know, you get questions like you're raising on 2GB, but you'd never get them on the ABC. I mean, if the ABC had...

put to Fatima Payman. Fatima, why don't you raise the issue of the Uyghurs or the Afghans at least as well? The situation in Gaza is not the worst military conflict in the world. The Israelis are fighting for their lives. It's a war over there. People are being killed. It's terrible. But it's a war. When the war ends, which hopefully will be soon, those civilian casualties will cease. Hopefully. Hopefully.

Thank you for your time, Michael. Appreciate it, mate. No worries, mate. Thank you. Michael Damby is a former Labor MP. Straight talker on that one. Now, Fatima Payman, in her statement, actually said, I have supported the rank and file. Really? I have supported the Labor volunteers. Really? People who were handing out the how to vote cards for the upper house in WA are now happy with that? Somehow, I doubt it.

Live on 2GB, have your say. 131 873. I think a lot of us, particularly parents, are concerned about the impact social media is having on children. And just last week, Meta, the owners of Instagram, the owners of Facebook, appeared before an upper house committee and they gave evidence on this issue. And they denied that social media causes young people any harm whatsoever.

Now, they're crazy. That is a ridiculous statement to say. There's proof of it. Well, there's been some research that's been released today that shows the mental health of young people, particularly females, has been affected by the growth of social media. The research has been conducted by the E61 Institute and the CEO, Michael Brennan, joins us. G'day, Michael. Hi, Clinton. Thanks for having me. Thanks for your time, mate. What does the research show?

Well, basically it demonstrates that when we look at these surveys of self-reported mental health, there's been quite a dramatic decline of the mental health of a female cohort aged between 15 and 24. And it happens pretty suddenly after the year 2011, 2012. So mental health of that group of young women was pretty stable up until then, but since then it's fallen away. And that coincides with social media. Yeah.

It does. I mean, that's around the time of the introduction of Instagram, of Snapchat, of the like button on Facebook. So it's true that it's really difficult to pin down causation on these things. So in many ways, often policymakers are left with just the fragments of evidence that you've got to piece together. But there are some reasons, I think, to draw out the basic conclusion that there's a connection here. And yeah, perhaps some more research and some more data would help. But I don't think it's a

simple as saying there's absolutely no causal connection. Yeah, and that's what Meta was saying last week. The research that looks particularly at the age group of 15 to 24 shows that it's girls in particular that you might say are addicted to social media almost.

Well, there's also evidence that women of that age group are much heavier users of social media. So around 90% of women between 15 and 24 say that they use social media either every day or most days. And that's a fair bit higher than males of the same age. And it's a lot higher than people over the age of 25. So again, there's a kind of a correlation or an association there, very heavy use of social media by that group.

and a pretty significant fall-off in mental health for that group that isn't really matched by the rest of the community. Part of the way social media works, a lot of it's about likes, generating likes and having a lot of followers or on Facebook, their term friends, a lot of friends. But I know that you've got what's called a friendship index and it shows that, well, that may not play out in real life.

Yeah, this friendship index is a thing that's actually embedded in this HILDA survey, this longitudinal survey that we've been looking at. And it's interesting because what it demonstrates is that actually the normal pattern is young people tend to identify themselves as having quite a lot of friends. And interestingly so to older people. It's the middle age where the friendship or the connection tends to fall away because I guess life gets busy, right? That's right.

What's demonstrated in these results is that for that group of young women, girls and women aged 15 to 24, their scores on this friendship index have fallen right away. And that kind of undoes what is that traditional pattern of young people having more friends, middle-aged people having fewer. And it's a little bit of a curiosity because, of course, people are going on social media and friending others and this sort of thing. And so there are a couple of

It might be that people are looking at the sort of...

Others, role models, lifestyles that are modelled on social media and thinking that their own circumstances don't measure up, maybe the quality of the friendships that are being forged over that medium just aren't as strong as the sorts of relationships you might forge in other more practical kind of connections in life. So it's hard to know exactly what's going on there, but that friendship index, I think, is again giving us some clues as to this decline in mental health. Yeah, it's important research. Thank you for your time, Michael.

Thank you, Clinton. Michael Brennan, who's from E61, they conducted the research. It's just another example. We touched on it last week when Meta made those statements before the Senate committee and said social media does no harm. It's not to say social media is evil. A lot of us, I'd suggest most of us use it in some way with Facebook, particularly for people of our age. With younger people, it's Snapchat or Instagram. Those ones, TikTok.

And it does a lot of good. It connects people. I know a lot of you would have now connections with people you maybe went to school with who hadn't seen for years and you've reconnected with them. Great. But just because you've got, say, 130 friends on Facebook or maybe 1,000 doesn't actually really mean they're your real friend.

If you've got a thought on that, 131873, of course, you can have your say. For less with Amazium, don't pay too much for your mobile phone. Break free from your expensive telco. Escape to better value with the Escape Plan by Amazium. 131873, 22 past five. 26 past five. Peter Overton just mentioned in the break there that they'll feature the Parramatta Light Rail system.

final stage of testing in their news board and coming up after six o'clock. I see Transport for New South Wales and the state government's come up with a very creative name for the new rail line. Now, it's not going to be called the Parramatta Light Rail Line. It's the L4. The L4. So the Dulwich Hill line, the inner west line is the L1. You have the eastern suburbs lines of the L2 and the L3, Randwick and Kensington. Now, Parramatta is the L4. And then you have the train lines of...

T4, T3, T1. And then we have motorways, the M4, M5, M1, M2. Now, I know it does make sense. M for motorway, L for light rail, T for train. It's not particularly creative or exciting, is it? 131873, our number. It's certainly all falling apart now for Joe Biden, isn't it? Now revealed that it wasn't a cold that was responsible for his terrible debate performance last week. It was jet lag. You see, he'd been travelling...

12 days before the debate. He spent five days preparing for the debate with Donald Trump at Camp David, but it was the jet lag that he suffered from the travel that he took almost two weeks beforehand that caused him to perform the way he did. It's untenable, isn't it? Seriously. How long does it take you to recover from jet lag? I usually work shift work, as you probably realise. I work in the middle of the night. So I know all about the feeling of jet lag. Most people can recover from an international flight,

Probably after two or three days at worst. Twelve days? That's the excuse for his quite frightening performance. And I say frightening because he's the man with the finger on the red button. Now, that doesn't mean that Donald Trump is the perfect choice either. But at least he's awake. I'm not a fan of Donald Trump. At least the bloke is awake.

Mr Biden reportedly has admitted to some people close to him that he might not be able to save his candidacy. Well, revealed today in some secret video that's been leaked to the Daily Beast that Donald Trump

seems to think that President Biden is about to pull out, if not already make the decision. What did I do with the debate the other night? Oh, you got that. You get that old broken down pile of s***. Yeah, it's a bad guy. He just quit, you know, he's quitting the race. Is that right? Yep, I got him out of the race. And that means we have Kamala. I think she's going to be better. She's so bad. She's so pathetic. It's so amazing. It's just s***.

So if you couldn't pick up all the audio there, what it is, I'll set the scene. He's in a golf cart. He's playing golf and he's got a mate in the cart and there's some other hangers on around him.

And he is saying that, look, my understanding is he's going to quit and he'll be replaced by Kamala Harris, the vice president. And he describes Biden as a bad man.

And then he says that Kamala Harris, she's so bad as well. She's so bad. And then goes back to Biden and says, well, how is he going to stand up to the Chinese president? How is he going to stand up to Putin? It's just not going to happen. He's a bad man. He's going to quit. We'll see how that plays out over the coming days. 20 governors today, Democrat governors, came out to support Mr. Biden, but they had a meeting with him. They then made some public statements saying they're 100%

behind him. Mind you, there are some Democrat governments who have not come out to actually support him. Likely, Kamala Harris is probably going to be the candidate. But you know, even if Joe Biden did make it through to the November election, and just say by some way that he managed to win the election now, do you think he's really going to last four years? I think that if you were an American, you were planning to vote Democrat, it's likely that Kamala Harris within the next term would be president anyway.

And let's check our news headlines. Hello, Rhiannon Solomon-Marron. Hello, Clinton. Labor Senator Fatima Payman has defected from her party over its stance on the war in Gaza. She says her conscience left her no choice but to quit Labor and sit as an independent. A Sydney man has faced court in Queensland over a buggy crash which killed his wife during their honeymoon. He's pleaded not guilty to several charges, including dangerous driving causing death.

Australian comedian and leading dog behaviouralist Tony Knight has been killed in an accident in France. It's believed he was struck by a falling branch. And a new study shows a quarter of Australian teenagers are dropping out of sport by the time they reach 15. In sports, striped-torn Parramatta are out to avoid four straight losses when they host South tonight in round 18 of the NRL. And Clinton, there'll be more news at six.

A weather update. We'll be here to help in unexpected weather. NRMA Insurance. The forecast for this evening, some more showers. There's a 70% chance of showers this evening. Tomorrow, more showers. Partly cloudy throughout the day. A top of 18 degrees. For the weekend, Saturday, yes. Good luck with the kids' sport, grandkids' sport on Saturday morning. Partly cloudy with the medium chance of showers, most likely in the morning.

hopefully clearing by the afternoon, a top of 18 degrees, a possible shower on Sunday as well. So more wet weather. We were talking the merits of puffer jackets a little earlier because a lot of people around Sydney are wearing puffer jackets at the moment with the cold. Now,

Sylvia, thank you for your message, Sylvia. She says, compared to woolen jackets and coats, the puffer jackets are lighter, they're warmer, some are waterproof, they dry quickly when they're wet, some can be compactly packaged. They fold up, I think, in quite a small little storage pack as well. They can be dressed up or dressed down. They can be spot-cleaned. They can be thrown in the washing machine.

They can be cheaper to produce. The kids love them. The older people love them. Better movement. Moths won't eat them. I think I made a pretty good case. It's time to get yourself a puffer jacket. You will not regret it. Chris is back on Monday. The text line 0460 873 873. Often bookmakers are on to things before the rest of the public. They get inside mail. Billy on the text line says, Betfair's latest odds. Trump to win the election, $1.70.

Second line of betting is now Kamala Harris. $5. Biden has blown out to $11. So there's more chance of Kamala Harris winning the election than Joe Biden, and she's not the candidate. That says something. Jet lag. Rob says Joe, who Joe Biden is now blaming jet lag from a trip 12 days prior to the election debate for his performance. Rob says Joe must have had Bill Clinton's stripper pole put back in Air Force One because it's worn Joe out.

Dave says, my first trip to the Philippines, no jet lag. But coming back to Australia, my legs were like jelly for three weeks and I was 45 at the time. Okay, so Dave did struggle with the jet lag. On 2GB Drive, sing like an angel. Shadow walks up and down to Santa Fe. Long line up.

We are going to send a lucky listener to go and see the Angels this Saturday night at the Factory Theatre. All you've got to do is sing for us. 131873. Yes, you're going to have to sing live on air. You need to sing the next line of this Angels classic. Backseat, backseat. You're looking. Body heat, body heat. Stop now, don't stop now.

131873. Can you sing the next line for me? If you can, you're not going to be embarrassed. Jump on the phone, jump on the radio and sing, and I'll be sending you to see the Angels this Saturday night at the Factory Theatre. Tonight for Deb Knight, hosting Money News from 7 o'clock is the legendary Scott Haywood. Hello, Scott. Clint J.

Clinton investors were singing today. They weren't singing to the angels. They were singing to the market being green on the screen. It's been a flat week for the new financial year for investors, but up 1.2%, 91 points, status 7,831. So a very positive day and a

day of weather too so they weren't even having to sing in the rain so very very positive that surprises me because the markets hate political instability and we we have all this instability at the moment in the united states with not really knowing whether joe biden's ever going to run in the election at the moment so i thought the markets might might react to that negatively or maybe we're waiting for wall street tonight

Well, yeah, Wall Street has its final trade night before they celebrate the 4th of July holiday. But look, our market in terms of political instability from the US, it's not really much of a factor for Australia. Look, they've got their own economic concerns. The major reason our market went up today was that there is some new foreign eyes on oil and gas giant Santos, of course, in 2023 would say that a crack didn't work. And now the Saudi Arabian two conglomerates are looking to weigh up separate bids for the Australian company. This is going to need a lot of regulation to get through in terms of

of the foreign investment review board so especially when natural resource protection is in the spotlight in the news so i think it's going to be doubtful what happens clinton but santos rose four percent to eight dollars energy sector up overall so some investors in that space did do well on the back of that news you've got some good news for renters on the program tonight massive news for renters we've got dr nicola powell chief of research and economics at domain

She's going to join me later or early on in the show, actually. And, you know, we've looked at latest reading on inflation. The rate, the rent prices in May 2023 to 2024 went up by 7.4%.

Now, Domain's latest rent report came out for the June quarter, and it seems that rent is starting to not only in the major cities decline, particularly in Sydney, but it's increasing at a slower pace or stop rising altogether. Now, that is going to be good news not only for renters, it's going to be good news for inflation because rent is such a significant part of inflation, which really is the dragon that we can't control when we're looking at CPI numbers and interest rate movements. So the first question I'm going to ask

well, not maybe the first question, but a key question I'm going to ask is if you're a tenant right now and you're trying to, you know, maybe struggling with a redundancy or maybe a pregnancy and you've got an income strain, can you start to renegotiate your rent down? Or if your lease is coming up, should you also be renegotiating with your landlord saying, hey, the market's starting to shift. It may have peaked. So that could be some very good news. So don't miss that on Money News from seven o'clock tonight. Yeah, good question, Scott. We'll hear you from seven. Good on you. Thanks, Clinton. Scott Haywood with Money News on 2GB after seven this evening.

On 2GB Drive, sing like an angel. We're going to give someone the chance to go and see the angels at the Factory Theatre tonight. Saturday night, Saturday night. You've got still a chance if you want to go along, just punch the angels into Google and you'll see how you can go and buy some tickets as well. But let's give Graeme a chance to win. Hello, Graeme.

How are you, Quentin? Good, mate. I'm going to hear your singing voice in a moment. Can you sing? No, not very well, but I'll give it a go. Have a crack at this one. The dogs are talking. The dogs are talking. The dogs are talking. The dogs are talking. The dogs are talking.

Well done, Graeme. I still remember when that song came out, it was on an album that was, oh, it was in high school. It must have been about 1990-odd. And one of my friends who had the nickname Bandit, I won't go into full detail why his name was Bandit, but he would sing that song around the playground all the time at the age of about 14.

Yeah, well, I was a teenager in the late 80s into the 90s, and so that's how I know all this stuff. Good on you, Graeme. We're going to send you out to the Factory Theatre Saturday night to go and see the Angels. Celebrating 50 years, they have the new album out as well. It's called 99. They're playing the Factory Theatre this weekend. Two sets of their classic catalogue, including The Dogs Are Talking, some new songs as well. Tickets at theangels.com.au.

13 to 6. Maybe Joe Biden can blame jet lag for his bad performance in the debate. Steve on the text line says, I arrived back in Australia from the UK on the 23rd, so the 23rd of July. I'm still fighting the jet lag and I'm only 54, not Joe's 81. Okay, I'm going to take an international flight in a couple of weeks' time to the other side of the world, Steve, so hopefully I can cope with it. A man who is on the other side of the world is Enda Brady following the UK election for us. G'day, Enda.

Hey, Clinton. Great to speak to you. Mate, polling booths have now been open almost two hours. Yes, I've just been to vote. I combined it with my little morning run. So I've been and I've done my duty. You're not obliged to vote here. It's not compulsory. So I think one of the big talking points in the next 24 hours here will be the fact that maybe only 40% of people turned out. Six in 10 generally do not vote. Really? Very different to Australia. It's that low, 40%.

Yeah, sometimes, yeah, honestly. Now, is it fear that it's going to be quite low this time because there's just dissatisfaction with both parties or there's not that desire to vote Labour in? I think a couple of things here. First of all, the weather. It is a stunning day. I'm in Oxfordshire, so I'm about an hour west of London. Blue skies. It's going to be 18, 17, 18 Celsius. It's absolutely perfect weather. The weather absolutely plays a factor in it because if it's

miserable or, you know, if it was a winter election and it was snowy or icy, you're just not going to get people out. So the weather is perfect today. And I think, in all honesty, I think people are so wound up and frustrated with politicians, I think we'll see a lot of people voting today. I think we will see a strong turnout, but generally...

It hits around 40, 42%. It's not good. I find that staggering. Now, there are 650 seats in the House of Commons, so it's so much bigger than our House of Representatives here. The Conservatives had 365 at the 2019 election, but all the polls are indicating they're going to be wiped out.

Yes. So if we believe the polls, and they're very sophisticated nowadays, it staggers me always how close they get us. But the big one everyone's talking about this morning here as Britain goes to vote is the poll that came in last night, which put Labour on 431, 431 seats out of 650, and the Tories reduced down to 102, the Conservatives 102. Now that is an implosion. It is

the biggest political massacre in living history, and it would leave Labour, if the poll is correct, it would leave Labour with the biggest majority since 1836. So, Keir Starmer, on the face of it, if everything goes according to what Labour are predicting and the polls are saying and what everyone's thinking, Starmer will be heading into Downing Street not so much on the crest of a wave, he will be surfing on a tsunami. And then that would then have an effect for the following term. So, it may well then be a 10-year Labour government.

That's what the Conservatives are telling everyone. They're calling it Starmageddon. They're saying that if he gets in, this is just the beginning that he would have unchecked power. But I think, you know, looking at the polling, I think an awful lot of chickens are coming home to roost. And Sunak, I think, will rightly feel that he inherited the hospital pass coming off the back of Liz Truss, her coming off the back of Boris Johnson. And it was very interesting the other night, the final penultimate night of...

of campaigning Johnson turned up to support Sunak. Boris. We were told at the outset, yes, we were told at the outset that Johnson would be a vital asset and he would deploy in the north and he would go to the West Midlands and he would shake hands and he'd give this booster effect. Basically Sunak and Johnson hate each other

And they didn't even shake hands the other night. So, you know, you see all these political rallies. Oh, welcome to the stage, my brilliant friend Clinton. And we hug and shake your hand and what a great bloke you are. And we might not even like each other off stage, but I'll tell everyone to vote for you. They didn't even shake hands. We will watch you on TRT Roundtable, your program, and you'll be back with me on my overnight program next week.

Thanks, Clinton. Have a great day. Ender Brady in the UK. So polling booths open. As Ender rightly points out, it's not compulsory voting. They're open until 10 o'clock at night, UK time, and that maximises the chances of people voting. But it's a lovely day. It's nice and warm, so people probably can't be bothered. All the staff here at the radio station today are wearing blue 2GB bucket hats. Well, if you're listening to my overnight program next week, I'm going to be exclusively giving away 2GB bucket hats. That's an incentive for you.

We've got $200 worth of fuel to give away thanks to Shell V-Power right now, thanks to the jewel for fuel. We have Colin online. Hello, Colin. Have you got your thinking cap on, Colin? Yeah, as long as it's not too small and doesn't cut the blood flow off. Good stuff, mate. Hold there. Hello, Steve. Hi. How are you going? I'm good, mate. I'm going to ask you first. I'm going to ask you some questions. You've got to answer as many as possible within 30 seconds. You ready to go?

Do my best. Okay. What year did Australia become a federation? 1901. Correct. What bank is CBA? Commonwealth Bank. Correct. True or false, Paul Gallen is the most capped Cronulla Sharks player? True. Correct. Which prison off the coast of Cape Town famously held Nelson Mandela, Robben Island or Alcatraz? Alcatraz. Alcatraz.

Incorrect. It was Robben Island. You've got three. Pretty good, mate. Let's try Colin. Hello, Colin. G'day. Okay, your questions start now. Which band released the album Dark Side of the Moon? Pink Floyd. Correct. Pink Lady is which kind of fruit? Pass. It's an apple. Apple. What is the name of a bicycle with one wheel?

Unicycle. Correct. And legendary singer Louis Armstrong was born in which year, 1901 or 1930? 1901. Correct. And finish this saying, people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw... Stones. Correct. You're the winner. Well done, Colin. Congratulations, my friend. Thank you. Bad luck, Steve. Thank you very much. Colin, we are going to send you out a $200 voucher for Shell V-Power Fuel, fuelling your drive home. Congratulations, my friend. Thank you very much. We'll have more fuel to give away tomorrow.

And now, a preview of what's coming up on Wide World of Sports. Pick your favourite Kia from the award-winning Kia Sportage to the street-cred delivering Kia Seltos or Kia's most powerful car ever, the all-electric EV6 GT. Adam Hawes hosting Wide World of Sports tonight wearing one of the new 2GB bucket hats.

It's very fetching. Yeah, well, mate, I took it off for the purposes of this show. Well, I didn't want to get tangled up with the headsets. You know I'd wear it around otherwise. I did try a little earlier. Yeah, it didn't work. Round 17 of the NRL kicks off tonight. Your paramount eels playing South Sydney. Yeah, well, both teams desperate for victory. The Rabbitohs are still a chance of playing the finals. The eels are desperate just to get some good news into the joint. Find a coach. Yeah, well, that's right. Brian Smith barely is coming. What's going on there?

Wouldn't that be a cruel irony because they went after Wayne Bennett and they could end up with Brian Smith. Those two hated each other. But the story in the City Morning Herald today was that he's put his hand up. It's not that they're actually going to employ him. He's not going to get the job. Who's going to get the job? Well, there seems to be a bit of a move towards Josh Hanna. It surprises me that Jason Riles was pinpointed from the start.

and he hasn't got the job yet. So maybe they've had a change of view, and maybe it is Hannah. Who knows, mate? There's been so many twists and turns. You could get the gig. Who knows? They don't want that to happen, let me assure you. What else is on the show? We've got Alan Alatoa, the Wallabies prop he's coming on because they've named their team for the first test against Wales. Big surprise with the captain, Liam Wright. Not too many people would know about Liam, so we'll ask Alan about that. We've got a little bit of badminton.

Getting ready for Batman for the Paris Games. I love playing that in the backyard. After six o'clock tonight, Adam Hawes with Wide World of Sports. Breaking news from Wales. The Welsh government has decided to outlaw politicians lying. Yes, they're introducing legislation in their parliament to stop the MPs actually telling fibs. Could we do that here, please? 15 degrees in the city. A few showers this evening. Thank you for your company on the drive home. We'll talk again tomorrow.