LISTEN: A $20 Million Pool That Cost $120 Million, The Ads Labor Runs Overseas & Why They're Frightened Of Pauline | Jeremy Cordeaux's Court of Public Opinion

Jeremy Cordeaux is back in the garage with Pete and Gary for a Court of Public Opinion that goes hunting for the taxpayer's money — and finds it missing. He asks a deceptively simple question: has any government project in Australian history ever come in on budget? The North Sydney pool was meant to cost $20 million and reopens after $120 million. Snowy 2.0 was pitched at $2 billion and is now tracking closer to $50 billion. Where, he asks, are the guardrails?

He also digs into why public housing costs so much more to build than private, why government charges and taxes swallow half the cost of a new home, and why building in Central Australia runs 150% above comparable housing elsewhere. Building costs are up 50% in five years, the Master Builders Association head has been threatened with death for arguing for transparency, and Jeremy says the ABCC should be restored — but won't be, while the government sits in the CFMEU's pocket.

Then there's the story he finds genuinely bizarre: a federal government selling its 5% deposit scheme to first home buyers while placing ads overseas, in Arabic and Chinese. Plus Channel Seven's Spotlight and what Jeremy calls a media campaign to shut Pauline Hanson up; Rupert Lowe of Restore Britain and the extraordinary suggestion that "Anglo-Saxon" is code for white supremacy; the Islamophobia report the government has sat on for nine months; Paul Keating's plan to merge the $4.5 trillion super industry with social security; and why over-regulation will send the AI industry — and its very portable capital — anywhere but here.

Jeremy also revisits his own brush with terrorism: the 1977 Hanafi siege in Washington, and the interview he landed live on air with the man who led it.

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