Billions more poured into AUKUS + Telco outages can be avoided. Here’s how

**Chris Spyrou** (0:08)
Hey, it's Chris Spyrou with you. Happy Friday and welcome to The Briefing. Australia's telcos are making record profits right now, and at the same time, their networks are suffering significant nationwide outages. While frustrating, is this just a feature of our country's complicated mobile network, or is it time consumers demanded better?

**Carol Bennett** (0:27)
The system should act in the public interest, particularly when it comes to safety, and that's the number one consideration. So it's time that we got serious about this.

**Chris Spyrou** (0:37)
That's coming up in the second half of this episode. First, though, let's get into the headlines with Sacha Barbour Gatt on Friday the 24th of July.

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (0:47)
Hey, Chris. Happy Friday. The government will today put another $4.6 billion into AUKUS. The money will go towards the shipyard at Osborne, south of Adelaide, where Australia's nuclear-powered submarines will be built under our defence pact with the UK and the US. About 1,100 people are already working on the site, where Defence Minister Richard Miles and South Australian Premier Peter Malinouskas will make the announcement this morning. It's expected to create 10,000 jobs in South Australia and takes the total spend on the yard to $8.5 billion.

**Chris Spyrou** (1:18)
The announcement comes as Labour's national conference continues today in Adelaide, but AUKUS won't be mentioned until Saturday, the last day of that conference, which is a time that most people and journos have tuned out. Today though, on the agenda is the NDIS, aged care, workplace issues and policies focusing on women and Indigenous Australians.
Gambling reform is also expected to get a run today too, with chatter of a potential national regulator. Now that's something we've spoken about before. You've actually deep dived it not too long ago.

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (1:50)
Yeah, I spoke to the independent Kate Chaney, who's been pushing for a long time for gambling reform. We'll pop a link to that in the show notes.

**Chris Spyrou** (1:57)
Yeah, but hopes aren't exactly high that, you know, any sort of significant announcement around that national regulator will be made today, especially after yesterday's conference failed to materialise on any meaningful policy change on that contentious gas tax. Delegates did yesterday, though, vote to open the door to wind back fuel tax credits for mining companies. And we do know that factional power brokers have been spending the week cutting deals behind closed doors. So the party looks very united to the public. That's been the big thing here. And Albo has been pretty big on that as well of like, we need to appear very united. We don't want to appear like really the coalition who are publicly arguing on policy positions.
Now, that's something that dumped front bencher and former industry minister Ed Husek yesterday called out.

**Ed Husek** (2:43)
If you can't argue your point on a conference floor or in a caucus room, how do you argue it outside this whole thing of being allergic to dissent, dispute? I don't think that actually works in our long term interests as a party.
We have had big brawls. And in fact, people in leadership positions now were involved in arguments on the conference floor. It was good then, it's good now, and it's good for democracy to see different viewpoints.

**Chris Spyrou** (3:12)
Yeah, so Ed Cusick is someone who has been a vocal supporter of a gas export tax. He wants the government to be much firmer when it comes to Israel and the Palestine issue. And he's also someone that's endorsed Indigenous truth telling. So his point here is that, like, stop doing this behind closed doors and trying to come up with a clean talking point or clean talking lines, like show the public that things like this can get messy.

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (3:36)
Well, I think it's actually a really interesting point that he's making because I think the major parties are running scared of one nation and the influence and the impact that Pauline Hanson and her party is having on politics in this country. I understand the idea of wanting to present a united front to be like, hey, look, we're measured, we're thinking hard about this, we can lead you effectively. I understand it, but it does sound, and with Ed Husek's comments, it sounds like it's completely manufactured. And it is important for us to have debates and hear different viewpoints. That's exactly what politics is about. So really interesting to see Ed Husek come out. And yeah, you mentioned he's a dumped frontbencher. So he obviously feels emboldened to be able to make these comments.

**Chris Spyrou** (4:16)
Comments made by Pauline Hanson about domestic violence, child support and the family law system have been unearthed as she continues to face scrutiny for her rhetoric on the issue. Just yesterday in the headlines, we covered comments she made on Brisbane's 4BC, in which she said domestic violence is a two-way street.