Transcript – Paul Murray Live, Sky News

Angie Bell MP

Shadow Minister for the Environment

Shadow Minister for Youth

Federal Member for Moncrieff

TRANSCRIPT

Paul Murray Live, Sky News

21 August 2025

Subjects: Benjamin Netanyahu interview with Sharri, Albo’s relationship mismanagement with key allies, March for Australia, South Australians feeling very unloved by Albo amidst algal bloom, Environmental stakeholder engagement.

E&OE…………………………………………………………………………………………………

PAUL MURRAY:

Thank you so much for watching. A conversation took place this evening between Sharri Markson and the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The whole conversation is up at skynews.com.au. He engaged with the criticism that he has previously levelled at the Australian Prime Minister and Australia’s decision to begin the process of recognising Palestine as its own country when the UN votes in a couple of weeks’ time.

[excerpt – Benjamin Netanyahu on Sharri]:

I think his record is forever by the weakness that he showed in the face of these Hamas terrorist monsters. When these people congratulate the Prime Minister of Australia, you know something is wrong.

PAUL MURRAY:

Also, when having a conversation about the next phase of the operation as to whether he’s going to go even deeper into Gaza, he said this was all about ending the war.

[excerpt – Benjamin Netanyahu on Sharri]:

My goal is not to occupy Gaza, it’s to free Gaza, free them from Hamas tyranny, free Israel and and others from Hamas terrorism. Give Gaza and Israel a different future.

PAUL MURRAY:

To discuss the Shadow Minister and the great MP from the Gold Coast is Angie Bell. Lovely to see you, Angie. And, of course, joining us right now, a man who one day may move to the Gold Coast. Until then, in the man cave.

JOE HILDEBRAND:

I love the Gold Coast. How are you, my friend?

PAUL MURRAY:

Yes, lovely, Joe Hildebrand. Hello. So, thoughts on the interview. Again, congratulations to Sharri for the exclusive. All news today, all news tomorrow. What do you think of it?

JOE HILDEBRAND:

Obviously, an incredible get. I know it’s not the first time she’s had Benjamin Netanyahu or spoken to him, but to get him on Australian TV talking about Australian domestic politics is a phenomenal get. But, look, I am, you know, as you would expect, I am Team Australia on this. I am Team Albo. I think I am a huge supporter of Israel. I love Israel. Going there and visiting was one of the most profoundly moving experiences of my life.

And I genuinely, absolutely, 100 per cent believe now that the biggest threat to Israel’s stability and security and its moral authority is Benjamin Netanyahu himself. Hamas are the most despicable act of dogs, pigs, whatever you can call them, that is the most offensive slur that you can visit on such extremists. But Netanyahu is playing completely into their trap. They did October 7 to provoke Israel into an outrageous overreaction that they could then use their own people as human shields against and then present that mass slaughter to the world as an example of why Israel is not a legitimate moral force.

And Netanyahu by saying, and again, I did not draw a line until this moment, but Benjamin Netanyahu now actually moving into Gaza City and occupying it is not only an outrageously inhumane thing to do, but it will turn global opinion, what little remaining global support there is for Benjamin Netanyahu, it will turn against him and it will breed another generation of terrorists. And so I think it’s a terrible strategic error. I know that the PM was extremely concerned when he spoke to Benjamin Netanyahu that he simply did not have a political outcome. What is the plan? What is the plan? How does this fix things?

PAUL MURRAY:

It is interesting to note again, when you say about the communication, we’ve seen the interview tonight, we saw the statement, we saw the tweet. It feels to me like the volume has been turned down as each of those has gone through. But yes, as you say, there has been that briefest of communications in and around that decision of recognition between the two Prime Ministers. Angie, your thoughts on the interview and how the Israeli Prime Minister presented himself about his criticism of our government. I think his decision to specifically not name the Prime Minister by name, if I want to read into that, is, in my view, an attempt to take half a step in a backwards direction. But what did you think?

ANGIE BELL MP:

Well, I think this is a classic case of Anthony Albanese mismanaging our relationship with some of our allies across the world. And obviously we’ve been very close to Israel for decades of foreign policy and now the Prime Minister has decided to put the cart before the horse, before a proper peace process and move towards recognising Palestine. Now what we want to see, we do want to see the war end. Australians want to see less suffering in the Middle East and the war end. But we also want to see the hostages handed back and the Israeli authorities believe there’s still 20 hostages who are in tunnels in Gaza. We want to see that end and we want to see the hostages given back. But what we’ve seen is damage to our relationship with Israel and clearly this comes back on the Prime Minister. Only he is to blame for his decisions that he has made. And we believe that his decision is wrong. We want to see a proper peace process first. And to Joe’s point, Hamas is a terrorist organisation and they are in charge of Gaza. And so, the Prime Minister’s pre-conditions just don’t stand.

PAUL MURRAY:

All right. Now, this is my inbox, right? The in-tray of stuff we have not discussed so far this week. So, let’s go fast, Okay, here. Joe, the March for Australia.

JOE HILDEBRAND:

Yes

PAUL MURRAY:

Again, I understand why people want to do it and I don’t want to be one of those smart asses that’s immediately going to try to wipe them aside when so many other protests on so many other issues are allowed to take days and days of being built up. They’re not referred to with all the adjectives like controversial, all of that business.

JOE HILDEBRAND:

Yep.

PAUL MURRAY:

But, of course, the danger for this event is if some of its organisers have been caught out saying things like, come on, let’s go, violence is the only way to change things. Well, as we would say of a protest on the far left, hey, come on, watch yourself here. I’d like it to narrow in its focus. What’s your thoughts on the phenomenon of the counter-protest?

JOE HILDEBRAND:

Yeah, well, my understanding is that this is something that’s completely jumped the tracks. It was the thought bubble of someone who said, hey, why don’t we have a protest to say, you know, stand up for being Australian and cut immigration or whatever it is. That had initially quite, I guess, innocent intentions. It was immediately hijacked by far-right groups, neo-Nazi groups, and that will always happen. And the left does the exact same thing because what these guys really want to do is just fight each other and…

PAUL MURRAY:

Punch on.

JOE HILDEBRAND:

..then punch on and say how tough they are and how much they fought the fascists and blah, blah, blah. And you can see, again, with the counter-protest, say, it’s our turn, it’s much they fought the fascists and you can see again with the counter-protest saying, it’s our turn, it’s time to fight the fascists. And so, you’ve had neo-Nazis hijack women’s rights rallies, and that’s had devastating consequences for both that cause and personal consequences for a certain Moira Deeming and others. And you’ve also got, and that is exactly what will happen here. I mean, power always flows to the most extreme people in these volatile situations. And, you know, the people are saying, oh, now we’re going to take to the streets to fight fascists. They’re almost as bad.

PAUL MURRAY:

Can I also say, though, and this is away from, again, this protest, right? I’ve said this a few times. If you would like to show your patriotism for the country, as it is in 2025, no sort of mythical, let’s go back to certain dates somewhere else, you can order an Australian flag, a flagpole, and put it out the front of your joint. Like, I love when I go to the United States and I see all of those flags.

I love the Union Jack that’s flying in its current fashion all around the UK. I’d love to see more of our national ensign so that people in the streets are not the ones trying to define it, be it either those that are going too far or way too far. Let’s talk about the algal bloom because, of course, you have responsibility for the environment for the opposition, Angie.

This algal bloom, Prime Minister turns up, sort of bounces through Kangaroo Island, can’t be assed to visit the Mayor, then pretends he doesn’t know who the mayor is. It’s all very selective about who he knows and what he knows at the time. Then he turns around and finds an extra, you know, a couple of million dollars here and there. But your thoughts on this situation? Because, again, I get so much correspondence from the heartbroken people of South Australia and this is a world of pain for them.

ANGIE BELL MP:

Well, they’ve been let down by Albo and he is the absolute last politician to turn up in South Australia. I’ve been down there twice, once the week before last and once last week with Sussan Ley inspecting the algal bloom and speaking to the locals down there, and they are devastated. They’re devastated for their environment that they have been working in for decades and decades. Generations of fishers down there have now lost their income. And the Prime Minister has trotted down there at the very end of all of this. The Environment Minister has utterly let down the people of South Australia. And he’s gone down there and not announced much at all, an extra $6 million bucks when he’s spending $600 million bucks on footy in PNG. South Australians are angry and they should be angry, Paul. They should be upset with their MPs there in South Australia and with the Prime Minister and with Murray Watt.

PAUL MURRAY:

Well, and also, you know, again…

ANGIE BELL MP:

It’s disgraceful..

PAUL MURRAY:

…you know, Joe, there’s this sort of back and forth about what word do we use. I’m not going to say crisis, but I’m going to say it’s a significant. Like, it is what it is. The maps that Angie just showed, the people who are on the news each and every night in South Australia. The conversations every morning on FIVEAA.

JOE HILDEBRAND:

I was going to say, I’m a regular on FIVEAA and I was chatting to them last Friday and they actually asked, they kind of, we normally just talk about federal politics and everything, and they said, can I just ask you, you know, question without notice, does anyone on the East Coast actually know this is happening? And that was a genuine question from someone who works in the media, an actual broadcaster, who said, does this actually get reported? Because they felt so neglected, so alone, and I assured them that absolutely at Sky News, we were banging the drum on it all the time, and I was very aware. But, yeah, and I think there is that sense. And I love Adelaide. I love it as a city. It’s probably my favourite capital city in Australia.

PAUL MURRAY:

But it happens so often, right? Again, the issues that are happening in the middle of the country, certainly the other side of the range, you know, Western Australia. I mean, the fact that, again, Tassie went through all of the political drama for the past ten weeks. This has been probably much the only national show relentlessly talking about every moment of the way through. And again, good to see Angie as part of the fight there as well. As you were having your own roundtable this week, talk about the environmental roundtable that you had.

ANGIE BELL MP:

The environmental roundtable that I had in Sydney?

PAUL MURRAY:

Yeah.

ANGIE BELL MP:

Absolutely. It was talking about innovation and technology and some of the solutions which of course are practical measures. Finally, some practical measures that will help our environment along and make sure that we conserve our environment because it’s so very important that we do that for the future generations of our nation.

And so, it was great to have some different stakeholders from around the country. And it was awesome to hear their solutions to some of the problems when it comes to recycling, when it comes to, for example, recycling tyres that go into building materials for high-rises. That’s just one example of some of the solutions there. It was fantastic to be in Sydney to talk with the environmental roundtable stakeholders and there were some great solutions that came to the table.

PAUL MURRAY:

By the way, Michael Pengilly is the name of the Kangaroo Island Mayor. We know because he’s been on this show and we met him when we were in Kangaroo Island. Sorry, Prime Minister, that nobody was informing you about a bloke who was very well known in that part of the world.

ANGIE BELL MP:

I’ve got a postscript on that too, Paul.

PAUL MURRAY:

Go.

ANGIE BELL MP:

And that is that this algal bloom is so big, you can see this algal bloom from space, it’s so big. It’s twice the size of the ACT. It’s big.

PAUL MURRAY:

Blimey.

ANGIE BELL MP:

It’s a national disaster and it’s a natural disaster.

PAUL MURRAY:

Alright, well I’m just mentally going to work out who you guys’ thought were winners and losers of the week. Otherwise, everyone can tell us on their socials, particularly the Facebook page.

Thank you guys, have a wonderful weekend.

ENDS.