Sky News host Caleb Bond says Scotland’s new hate crime laws are going to come to “the rest of the world”. Scotland has received major backlash for the new hate crime law which many have questioned over whether it goes against freedom of speech. “It’s one thing to incite violence, it’s one thing to incite some sort of physical damage to someone … but words are simply words,” he said. “When you start saying this is a hate crime, to utter certain words. “You can start with certain things that we might all agree are pretty awful and you probably shouldn’t say them, but then that leads to that, and then that.”

Hurting someone’s feelings “cannot be a criminal offence”, says former Victorian Liberal Party president Michael Kroger. His comments come after JK Rowling challenged Scotland’s new hate crime law in a series of social media posts. “Of course, JK Rowling should be able to say ‘I believe there are two sexes’,” Mr Kroger told Sky News host Paul Murray. “She’s not inciting hatred, she’s not inciting violence, she’s expressing an opinion. “An Islamic preacher who gets up in a mosque and says ‘death to Jews’ basically that crosses the line, that’s hate speech, that’s incitement of violence, that should be criminalised. “But hurting someone’s feelings cannot be a criminal offence otherwise all free speech dies in Western democracies.”

GB News host Nigel Farage has slammed a “dreadful health boss” for discouraging people from eating chocolate Easter eggs due to the amount of calories they contain. Mr Farage posted a photo to X of him gorging into an Easter egg with the caption “Bring Back the Easter Bunny!”. “For kids, there are three big events of the year – your birthday, Christmas Day and the Easter egg hunt on Sunday and then stuffing yourself with loads of chocolate,” Mr Farage told Sky News host Paul Murray. “I am 60 tomorrow, but I have to tell you, I haven’t grown out of that phase yet. “I don’t need some killjoy ruining Easter so I ate a whole egg.”

GB News host Nigel Farage says migration into the UK has reached numbers of which the country has “never ever seen”. A Labour-backed think-tank has urged the party to grant British citizenship to five million EU migrants currently living in the UK. “Legal migration is now running at three quarters of a million a year,” Mr Farage told Sky News host Paul Murray. “These are numbers of the likes of which we have never ever seen. “The country, many parts of it, are becoming literally unrecognisable from what they were 10, 20 years ago.”

Geologist Ian Plimer says farmers have “every reason to object” as they are being “treated dreadfully” by the Albanese government. Mr Plimer’s comments come after reports of the Labor government preparing to build Australia’s largest solar farm in Victoria’s famous Heathcote wine region. “They are having cheap Chinese panels just dumped on them,” he told Sky News host Rita Panahi. “Why should we take someone else’s garbage, owned by a foreign company, to actually destroy some of our prime land? “High-value agricultural land is actually turned into something worthless.”

Sky News host Caleb Bond has criticised Anthony Albanese and Chris Bowen for taking two separate flights to the same event. “I can’t get over this,” Mr Bond told Sky News host Sharri Markson. “They could have flown the Prime Minister’s plane into Newcastle. “The car trip from Newcastle Airport to Liddell would have taken about 40 minutes longer than the car trip from Scone to Liddell. “It’s not as though that would have been a major task for them to perform. “We know that one plane left half an hour after the other one anyway, so it’s not as though they were that worried about the time.”

Sky News Political Editor Andrew Clennell says the recent VIP flight debacle with the Prime Minister and Energy Minister shows the government acts “without fear”. Anthony Albanese and Chris Bowen both came under fire for using two RAAF jets to fly to the Hunter Region last week. Mr Bowen claimed that the decision to take private jets was in line with advice from the Royal Australian Air Force. “This should put them on notice; you can’t just be arrogant about these things and think you can get away with misusing VIPs,” Mr Clennell told Sky News host Peta Credlin. “If you’re going to talk about emissions, you’ve got to actually attend to that by not going on so many flights. “It builds into a narrative of an arrogant government, and Australians don’t like that.”

Sky News host Danica De Giorgio says executives of major companies are “so out of touch” with their customers. Figures released today by the Australian Electoral Commission show that the official ‘Yes’ campaign spent almost $50 million, compared with about $15 million from the official ‘No’ campaign. The Paul Ramsay Foundation contributed over $7 million to the Yes23 fundraising body. The biggest corporate donors to the ‘Yes’ campaign were ANZ, Woodside Energy, Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, BHP, Rio Tinto and Woolworths. “They put millions into this campaign – why? – virtue signalling,” Ms De Giorgio told Sky News host Andrew Bolt. “We are sick of these woke corporates trying to interfere in our lives and the proof is in the pudding.”

Writer and broadcaster Esther Krakue says Scotland’s new hate crime laws are “completely impractical”. The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 sets out in Section 4 the characteristics protected by the act, which include: age, disability, religion or cultural group, sexual orientation and transgender identity. The matter of sex was omitted from the act, with a separate bill to address misogyny to be proposed in Scottish parliament at a later date. “Who defines a hate crime is now at the hands of a small group of people who no doubt pander to these activists,” Ms Krakue told Sky News host Andrew Bolt. “I don’t understand how the Scottish government thinks it’s a good idea when there are real problems in Scotland to be dealing with. “It is completely ludicrous.”

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen has laid the challenge at the shadow minister Ted O’Brien to “come on and tell us your policy” on nuclear energy. “AGL has made it very clear, as other energy companies have, that they are not interested in nuclear,” Mr Bowen told Sky News Australia. The Climate and Energy Minister questioned why Australians would want to roll out “the most expensive form of energy”. “Release all the details, and then we will have a proper discussion about it – they have been flim-flamming around for the last 18 months,” he said. “It is time for Mr Dutton to get on with it and announce the full details of this nuclear fantasy.”

Sky News host Danica De Giorgio claims there is “clear discontent” within Labor’s ranks as the Prime Minister faces an “internal revolt” over the government’s emergency immigration laws. The government's attempt to rush its deportation bill through parliament failed last week after the Greens teamed up with the Coalition to block the legislation in the Senate. The bill would give the government new powers to impose travel bans on countries that refuse to accept back immigration detainees Australia wishes to deport. Three Labor senators have since expressed concern about the bill, warning Immigration Minister Andrew Giles would be handed powers that are too wide-ranging and without appropriate parliamentary oversight. Ms De Giorgio claimed the Immigration Minister has been caught like “a complete deer in headlights” as the Sky News host warned Labor cannot be trusted on immigration. “Labor wants us to believe they care about national sovereignty, but they can’t be trusted on immigration,” she said.

Australia’s biggest defence exporter Austal has received a takeover offer from South Korea's Hanwha Ocean. The offer is at $2.825 a share, which values Austal at just over $1 billion. Austal started in WA in 1988 and is known for its high-speed ferries and defence vessels. It now builds ships in Mobile, Alabama, for the US Navy as well as the Philippines and Vietnam. But those arrangements with different Governments may present itself as a barrier for the takeover – Austal notes approval is needed from Australia's Foreign Investment Review Board, the US Defence Counterintelligence and Security Agency and the US Committee on Foreign Investment.

Recent political gridlock in the US has "really hurt" their development but the disaster of the Baltimore Bridge could get a more "rational dispensation" toward infrastructure, according to The Australian Foreign Editor Greg Sheridan. "Donald Trump wanted to devote trillions of dollars to infrastructure and he couldn’t get anything through Congress, even when the Republicans controlled the Senate and the House of Representatives," Mr Sheridan told Sky News Australia. "Local authorities typically need some federal government money and it is just getting blocked by this terrible paralysis. "Nobody wants to allow the other side to claim credit for a good deal. "You would hope that America would get to a more rational dispensation about infrastructure but … looking at Biden versus Trump, all you see is more gridlock."

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen says two-thirds of the electric vehicles on Australian roads have been sold under the Albanese government as he admitted infrastructure and equipment need to “keep up”. “We have got 90 per cent more chargers out there than we had two Christmases ago,” Mr Bowen told Sky News Australia Chief News Anchor Kieran Gilbert on Monday. “This is just a bit of a quarterly update to say 100 new chargers in the first quarter. “Our driving the nation policy is really only just starting to hit its strides now. “We are putting chargers in where, in many instances, there is not even an electricity grid, so that takes some management and some planning.”

Former Labor Senator Stephen Conroy says Labor continues striving to ensure Australia has “sovereign capability”. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced a $1 billion dollar defence deal. The deal is the biggest of its kind in Australia’s history. It will involve supplying 100 Armoured Boxer CRV military vehicles to Germany. Mr Conroy joined Sky News Australia to discuss the government's new defence deal.

Former Labor Senator Stephen Conroy says there “should be a ceasefire” in Gaza. Mr Conroy told Sky News Australia that both parties need to “sit down”. “There’s been a number of peace proposals on the table over the last few weeks. “There’s suggestions there could be a further negation as soon as this week ends.” Mr Conroy joined Sky News Australia to discuss the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Former Labor Senator Stephen Conroy says Israel is “entitled to pursue their safety of their people”. Mr Conroy told Sky News Australia that Israel’s military response to Hamas needs to be done in “accordance with the rules of war”. “We want to see it done appropriately. “With minimum casualties.” Mr Conroy joined Sky News Australia to discuss the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen says the use of nuclear energy in Australia is a “fantasy”. Mr Bowen told Sky News Australia that nuclear energy is “slow to roll out”. “The most expensive form of energy available. “Why you would do that with these wonderful renewable resources we have in Australia is beyond me.” Mr Bowen joined Sky News Australia to discuss his energy plans for Australia and his refusal to use nuclear energy.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has demanded “full accountability” for the death of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza. Mr Albanese said the Australian government has already contacted the Israeli government directly. “We are contacting the Israeli Ambassador to ask for accountability here," he said during a media conference on Tuesday. “The truth is that this is beyond any reasonable circumstance that someone going about, providing aid and humanitarian assistance, should lose their life. “And there were four aid workers as well as a Palestinian driver in this vehicle. This is a human tragedy that should never have occurred, that is completely unacceptable. “Australia will seek full and proper accountability as you would expect for how this could have occurred.”

Independent Economist Chris Richardson says the latest unemployment rate in Australia is “spectacularly good”. Mr Richardson joined Sky News Australia to discuss inflation and the unemployment data in Australia. “The last bit of news we got was … spectacularly good at 3.7 per cent,” he told Sky News Australia. “Remember, when unemployment was at its low – 3.4 per cent a while back – that was the lowest in more than half a century. “So, at 3.7 per cent, the good news is that the slowdown of the Australian economy hasn’t cost a lot of jobs.”