Danica De Giorgio: I want to start with the year of Albo. I’ve just given my say on his failures. I want to ask you, how would you sum up 2024 for the Prime Minister and Labor?
Senator Henderson: Danica, great to join you and happy New Year to you and your viewers. It’s been a disastrous, not just 12 months, but two and a half years under Labor. Australians have gone backwards and it’s pretty ironic in his message, his Christmas message, the Prime Minister is talking about rough seas when what this government has done is force Australians onto a sinking ship. So the best way to deliver a safe and prosperous and positive 2025 is to get Australians off this sinking ship by voting Peter Dutton in the Coalition at the next federal election.
Danica De Giorgio: Look, absolutely, it’s time for a change and as I outlined, there’s been so many different policy failures. I could have kept going, senator, but I want to talk to you about a lot of issues tonight, including this one, Macquarie University has launched an investigation into academic Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, a future fellow in the Department of Sociology, after a series of social media comments. Now in one Instagram post, she wrote that ‘Israeli Zionist demons are murdering, torturing and raping with zero restraint, hourly, daily’ and the one you can see there ‘May 2025 be the end of Israel. May it be the end of the US-Israeli Imperial scourge on humanity.’ Now, our viewers might remember earlier this year, Dr Abdel-Fattah and Parents for Palestine organised a kids excursion where primary school children chanted ‘Intifada’ and ‘Israel is a terrorist state’ at the University of Sydney’s pro-Palestine encampment protest. Senator, I wonder how Jewish Australians on campus would feel about these social media posts?
Senator Henderson: Well, this is frankly a disgrace, and even worse is that the Albanese government is doing nothing to stamp out this sort of antisemitism. This is an academic who has supported Hamas by way of putting up positive posts on her social media. As she, as you say, led the kids excursion encouraging children to chant terrorist slogans. She’s called for the destruction of Israel, vile anti-Semitic messages. And frankly, it is a disgrace that the government has done nothing about this. $870,000 Australian Research Council grant, she should not be supported by the taxpayer. Frankly, I do not know how she can continue to remain at Macquarie University, but it is a shocking indictment on the Prime Minister himself and on the education minister, Jason Clare, that they have done nothing to shut down academics like this.
Danica De Giorgio: Well, just on that, sorry, I’ll let our viewers know that this woman is the recipient of an $870,000 research grant funded by taxpayers, as you’ve just mentioned, from the Australian Research Council. I mean, I’m quite staggered by that, senator. Surely that needs to be reviewed?
Senator Henderson: Absolutely and that’s why I wrote to the minister, Jason Clare, back in April demanding that the government cancel this grant. Why should taxpayers be funding this sort of shocking activism and hate? And it is hate. And, you know, we’ve also seen no action from the Australian Research Council. No action from Macquarie University. And now, of course, when you appease these activists, as the government has continued to do, by not taking a zero-tolerance approach to antisemitism that emboldens them. And now, of course, she’s ramping up the rhetoric. She’s ramping up the hate, bringing Macquarie University into disrepute. But again, reminding Australians that the Albanese government does not care about antisemitism in our community. It is all talk but when it comes to showing strong action, we have seen a complete failure of leadership, a failure of moral courage. And it is absolutely appalling.
Danica De Giorgio: Yeah, it certainly is, and it’s been disappointing all year as well from the university sector. The way they have handled those encampments, the way they’ve handled situations like this, it’s been appalling from the beginning. Now, senator, I want to ask you about this desperate attack by Victorian Labor on Peter Dutton with this social media post put out featuring his wife. Now, Dutton has since responded overnight, saying, ‘I can assure you the Liberal Party I lead will not be targeting Jodie Haydon’ of course, that’s the Prime Minister’s partner. He went on to say ‘I would ask the PM to equally respect my wife’ which is fair enough, senator, because families should be kept out of politics. But I’ve got to say, it was only then, at that point, that the Prime Minister ordered the Victorian branch to take down that post. How desperate is Labor to be putting out these sorts of ads in the beginning?
Senator Henderson: Danica, this is complete desperation politics. This is gutter conduct by Labor. A shocking smear against Peter Dutton and his wife. As you say, families should be kept out of politics. But it just goes to show that Labor has got no agenda. Labor has got no solutions to the cost of living crisis. Of course, particularly in Victoria, we have Victorian Labor and federal Labor running this state off a cliff. Of course, I’m a proud Victorian senator. Victorians have had enough. And it just goes to show how utterly desperate Labor is. There will be more of this to come, there is no doubt about it. But I think Australians have had enough of this. They want solutions, they want a positive agenda and that’s what we will deliver under Peter Dutton, a government determined to stand up for Australians to drive down inflation, to run the economy responsibly, to manage migration, to fix our housing crisis and to get Australia back on track.
Danica De Giorgio: Are you expecting an ugly campaign in the lead up to the federal election? I mean, we’re already seeing these sorts of ads. We know that Labor has really desperately gone to new lows with targeting nuclear. We’ve seen the three-headed fish, the distorted animals. Is this the sort of campaign the Coalition is expecting?
Senator Henderson: Oh, look, we don’t expect anything other than lies from Labor. We’ve seen, Anthony Albanese, he lied his way into the lodge, claiming there would be a $275 reduction in Australians power bills. We know, of course, that families have suffered increases in their power bills of up to $1,000. You cannot trust a word Labor says, whether it’s energy, whether it’s Medicare, whether it’s immigration. And frankly, I think even the prime minister in his Christmas message, he wasn’t even looking confident. I think he knows that he is the accidental Prime Minister, that he has grossly let down Australians and Australians have had enough. It is time, and really frightening, and you did mention this in your opening, Danica, we simply cannot afford a minority government, one controlled by the Greens, which would be absolutely frightening. So again, I call on all Australians to back the Liberals, back the Nationals. back a Peter Dutton-led Coalition government to get Australia back on track, because that is what all Australians deserve.