Newschat Panel with Gus Worland, Weekend Today
7 January 2023
GAVIN MORRIS: Welcome back to Weekend today. Prince Harry has been accused of committing war crimes by a senior Taliban leader after admitting he killed 25 enemy fighters in Afghanistan. It's seen a retired commanding officer accused the royal of turning against his military family and raised serious security concerns. Let's bring in today's talkers, Victorian Senator Jane Hume and Triple M's Gus Worland Good morning to you both. Good morning. Jane, to you, first of all, in the book. Harry says it wasn't a statistic that filled me with pride, nor did it make me ashamed. This is not going down well.
JANE HUME: No, I think that there are an awful lot of people in the British military and indeed military around the world, particularly those that participated in the Afghan conflict, that would be very disappointed in this, particularly the reference to his victims being, you know, seen as sort of subhuman. That really is inappropriate Look, in my mind, this book. The sooner it ends up in the remainder bin at Dymocks, the better. I really don't think Harry has covered himself in glory on so many levels. And this is just the next misstep that he's made. I don't know who is advising him, but his PR is terrible as well as his judgement.
GAVIN: Yes, absolutely. A really surprise admission there. Gus, what are your thoughts?
GUS WORLAND: Yeah, I agree with Jane. Whoever is sort of advising her at the moment, it's getting a completely wrong, you know, talking the way that he has spoken about the people that he killed. And the simple fact is, I'm not a military man. I respect everything that our military does. But if they're saying to us that this is inappropriate, then who are we to turn around and say that they're wrong? So I'm with them 100%. And I've been disappointed in Harry for quite a while now. Why would you want to be doing all the stuff that he's doing, the Netflix thing as well as the book? To me, it just comes across as someone who is being really poorly advised.
GAVIN: Absolutely. I've read some books on the SAS and they pride themselves on humility and treating the enemy with respect. Real surprise there. And he may ostracised himself, I think, from that community. Let's move on now. New roadside cameras that can see inside vehicles will soon be rolled out in Victoria the technology able to catch drivers using their mobile phones or not wearing seatbelts. Gus, the penalty for using a mobile phone while driving in Victoria is a $545 fine and four demerit points. Do you think this is going to go a long way to keeping our roads safe?
GUS: Look, I certainly hope so. I'm certainly changed my opinion over the last couple of years now that I've got three teenagers that are all driving and I know how connected they are to their mobile phones in particular, I think seatbelts now everyone's pretty much now that one down but yeah, these phones are so connected, always beeping and buzzing and so forth. So anything to stop them from touching this phone. We know, stats will tell us research will tell us that if they're touching their phone, they're more likely to have a crash or to have some sort of incident. So I'm all for this. I hope we bring it in right across Australia.
GAVIN: Yeah, it's distracting being in a vehicle a modern vehicle with so many screens there. Let's move to some exciting news now. Tennis golden girl. Ash body announcing she's expecting a baby overnight. Jane, how good is this?
JANE: This is fantastic. It's a party at the Barty house. This is great news. And apparently, you know, the internet went wild, Instagram lost its mind which is really good news. And we know that one of the reasons why Ash left tennis was because she was committed to her family and she wanted a family of her own. So this is just marvellous news. So now I think we need to get a book going on what Ash is going to name this baby. I think that that'll be a bit of fun. I'm going for ‘Ace’ I reckon she should call it Ace.
GAVIN: I think she's doing it perfectly. The Pursuit of Happiness is all about balance. She's had the career now focusing on the family Gus. Ash, well, she's kept it classy, right throughout her entire career. She's definitely going to be a great mum. She's already a great role model.
GUS: Absolutely. You know, and James absolutely nailed it on the head there. We were obviously felt a little bit robbed didn’t we, when she sort of gave up the game just at the time that she was so dominant. We're thinking we're going to watch her for the next five years. Dominate Wimbledon when the Australian Open again and so forth. But yeah, now we're going to watch this Jenny. She's been just so classy. She's someone that we can all totally respect and I hope that we give her a bit of privacy and through this stage of over having the bub and then of course who's going to get those first photographs to see the bubba and then everyone will start putting money on the baby whether it's a boy or girl is going to win win win and as well as the next couple of decades waiting for that.
JANE: Good luck to her and Garry, that's really good news.
GAVIN: It really really is. She just seems to be doing it so well. Very, very proud of it. Thank you guys. Thank you so much. Great subject matter there.