Steve Price: Australian Correspondent on about the caravan explosives, Kyle Sandilands brain aneurysm

A suspected antisemitic terrorist attack is being investigated by Police in Sydney after a caravan packed with explosives was discovered. 

Officials have said the incident would have killed "a lot of people" had the van blown up. 

Why was the Prime Minister not immediately informed of what could have been Australia's largest terrorist attack? 

Australian Correspondent discusses the details with Mike Hosking. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, in Australia see Prist morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Yeah, I think we. I might be wrong, but I
think we still. You found that out, Yes you do,
and haven't and Petty wrong. The foreign ministers refused to
cut the funding.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
And so suddenly Hamas is in the middle of UN
headquarters holding hostages. And if you were a foreign minister,
would you be interested in knowing that detail?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
I would have thought so. And you're quite right that
there is not anywhere here today. Might develop during the
duck once the opposition finds out about it, and with
Parliament came back tomorrow, so I would think that they
will get some questions about that in parliament this week.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Just to explain, by a way background, I followed this
with a great deal of interest. It appears Elbow this
is the caravan last week with the explosives. Elbow knew nothing,
Men's did. But Men's, who runs in New South Wales,
knew because he had talked to US local Feds as
opposed to the Fed Feds that might be talking to Elbow.
Elbow's refusing to answer questions. Was he kept in the dark?

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yeah, I think he was. It seems very odd, doesn't it.
I mean the New South I was premier, came out
yesterday and said, well what actually happened and just brief
back and this all happened back in jan nineteen. Cavan
gets found northeast northwestern suburbs of Sydney, loaded with plastic
exposives probably stolen from a mining company, anti Semitic messages
and an address of a synagogue in it. So it's

(01:18):
being treated as a potential terror attack. They say if
the van had been blown up, it would have created
a forty meter radius of damage, killing a lot of people.
Now you would think the Prime Minister of the country
would be immediately brief on such a thing, because this
would be the biggest largest terrorist attack in Australia forever.

(01:41):
Mins gets told on the twentieth of January. The next
very next day, the twenty first of January, interestingly, the
Prime Minister and the New South Wales Premier are at
the site of remember the childcare center that God daubed
with anti Semitic messages, not far from a local synagogue.
They were there together, they both gave media conferences and

(02:03):
we're to believe that Christopher Men's the Premiere, wouldn't have
taken elbow aside and said, listen, mate, got some bad news.
There was a caravan found up the road full of
plastic explosives. It just doesn't make any sense. Peter Dutton
has come out and said, look, if the Prime Minister
of our country is not across what was potentially the
biggest terrorist attack in our country's history essentially until the

(02:25):
public found out about it, I think that's an absolute
abrogation of his responsibility. A correct protocol Albaneze, he said,
was held and so we don't speak about operational matters.
No one's buying that argument exactly.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Speaking of Dutton, and I note that he was talking
about did he officially announce it over the weekend or
the clip I saw he was just talking to a
woman and an Asian woman who was sort of saying,
please reinstate the Golden visa. Has he announced that his
policy or not?

Speaker 2 (02:51):
No, that you're right. He was picked up on a
hot mike saying to a gathering of Chinese business people
that he was at with were fundraising for the election,
that this is going to suit you by the way
down to the ground, because I know you've always had
a great desire to kind of live here. Exactly if
you invest five million, which is small change for you

(03:13):
in to Australia, you get a Golden ticket visa. Now
these things existed under the previous Liberal government, but they
were dropped by the alban Easy government. So Peter Dutton
has aired his plan at this fundraiser and he says, look,
we will look at it. I won't promise to bring
it back right now, and I may do so in

(03:34):
the lead up to the election, but I will certainly
examine it once we get elected. What's this all about, Well,
it's all about getting the Chinese support during your election
campaign and making sure that they're talking to the Chinese
voters who might change their vote from Labor back to
the Liberals. That's what it's about. But that Golden ticket
visa will apparently now be reinstated. And it's pretty simple.

(03:57):
I mean, if you buy a decent house in Sydney,
that's what you're spending anyway.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
Exactly, and there's there's no test, there's no language test,
there's just another words handover the day you're.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
In that's exactly right. And if you invest in a business,
same thing.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
The Kyle Sandlan's to explain to people here, Kyle and
Jackie Ower thing on FM radio. They're a big deal
in radio, they're very successful, all that sort of stuff.
But this aneurysm is this this morning, that's just broken.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
Yes, he announced this on his radio Pregnant this morning.
So to put people in the picture, they've both signed
ten million dollar a year each contracts for ten years
on the radio network in which they appear. They rated
number and seen the amount of money. They rate number
one in Sydney FM and more often than not number

(04:44):
one overall. This year or last year's being beamed into
Melbourne very unsuccessfully, rating around about five five percent. So
they haven't worked in Melbourne. This is their second year
trying to do that. So Kyle goes on there this morning.
He was away up here on Friday and look, I've
had a real crack at the sky because of his

(05:07):
smutty content in a number of newspaper columns that I've
written and on television I've called him at buffoon. But
I hope all works out well for him. He's been
and had a scan and he's now got to go
and her brain surgery because they've found an aneurysm on
the brain. So I hope the surgery is successful, and
I hope he's okay.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
And do you know anything about when that happens? As
that happened today, tomorrow, this week.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
Nick eminently, jeez, this week sometime.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Hey, do you know Joe Halen the New South Wales
Transport Ministers. So she goes in what So she goes
and hires or books the ministerial driver to drive her
and her friends four hundred and forty six kilometers from
Sydney to a holiday home over the Australia Long Weekend.

(05:56):
And somehow she doesn't think that that's going to turn
out to be a problem.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Believable. I mean, it wasn't just to get to the
holiday home she went from the holiday she got the
Kia Carnival, which seats eight people. We're told in this
report to come to Cave's Beach, which is where a
holiday home is, pick her up and another minister and
their partners. They all pile in the Kia Carnival and

(06:20):
they head off to a range of wineries in the
Hunter Valley. So they've gone on a boozy wine tour
with a government driver who then the poor bugger, he's
worked twelve hours on the day in question. He's dropped
them back at the beach. Has and he's had to
drive all the way back to Sydney.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
Has she apologizing Orben sacked or no, no nothing, Okay,
all right, we'll see Wednesday. Appreciate it very much. Yet
it was four hundred and forty six kilometers fourteen hours.
Can't make the stuff up. For more from the Mic
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