Writer and broadcaster Esther Krakue has slammed Scotland’s new hate crime law as “completely ludicrous” and "impractical". “Who defines a hate crime is now in the hands of a small group of people who will 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. “The idea that for some reason now you have this protected group of people that can sue people for feeling offended, and the police are forced to take action … is ludicrous. “And unfortunately I feel like JK Rowling will become the poster girl for this sort of legislation – I do believe that some point she will find herself on the wrong side of the law.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Canada has joined calls for Israel’s “full accountability” for the deaths of multiple aid workers in Gaza. Mr Albanese praised the workers killed in the Israeli airstrike as “heroes”. “Canada’s Foreign Minister has also called for full accountability as has the United Nations,’ the Prime Minister said during a media conference on Wednesday. “So, Australia will join with all of those nations with a consistent demand for full accountability here. “We await for that to occur.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has praised the aid workers in Gaza as “heroes”. Mr Albanese addressed the death of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom in the Israeli airstrike. “These people are heroes,” he said during a media conference on Wednesday. “They are, as Secretary Blinken said, these are people providing support for people in need as risk to themselves. “That is an extraordinary circumstance that has occurred.”

Nationals Leader David Littleproud says the Coalition gave the Albanese government “every opportunity” to show why their migration laws “needed to be rushed through”. 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. 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. “We gave the government every opportunity to demonstrate why these laws needed to be rushed through, so much so that we helped them get it through the House of Representatives,” Mr Littleproud told Sky News host Danica De Giorgio. “There should be some scrutiny there. “The Prime Minister wasn’t able to demonstrate the urgency of this bill, I suspect, … has more to do with the factional trouble that he will have between the left and the right of his party.”

Sky News host Steve Price says “woke board directors” got the Voice to Parliament wrong because they are “completely out of touch”. The Australian Electoral Commission yesterday revealed the biggest donors to the Yes and No campaigns for the Voice to Parliament referendum. The Yes campaign received $55 million in donations, whereas only $25 million went to the No campaign. “They backed the wrong horse, they got it completely wrong, and they showed exactly how they’re completely out of touch,” Mr Price told Sky News host Sharri Markson. “These are a bunch of woke board directors.”

The US Powerball jackpot has skyrocketed to $US1.68 billion after no one was found holding the winning ticket. It is the fourth-largest jackpot in the game’s history. It has grown incrementally since New Year’s Day. To secure the jackpot, a person needs to beat a one in 292 million chance of winning the prize. The largest recorded win was in 2022 when a Californian won $US3.1 billion.

Taylor Swift has become an official member of the billionaire's club. The popstar officially joined the Forbes’ World’s Billionaires list for the first time after accumulating more than $1.5 billion. This is thanks to her earnings from her Eras Tour and the worth of her pop music catalogue. The singer ranked at number 2,545 on this year’s billionaires list. French luxury goods titan Bernard Arnault topped the list, followed by Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.

UNICEF Spokesperson Tess Ingram says the Gaza Strip is on the “precipice of a famine”. Israel has admitted the attack on the vehicles belonging to the World Central Kitchen was a tragic mistake, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying Israel will do everything for this not to happen again. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is demanding ‘full accountability’ and has called on the Israeli Ambassador to Australia to explain. “That that food is floating away is just devastating because we’re on a precipice of a famine here,” Ms Ingram told Sky News Australia. “Hopefully we can find a way to get it back.”

UNICEF Spokesperson Tess Ingram says the Israeli strike on aid workers is “another immense tragedy” and “heartbreaking”. Israel has admitted the attack on the vehicles belonging to the World Central Kitchen was a tragic mistake, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying Israel will do everything for this not to happen again. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is demanding ‘full accountability’ and has called on the Israeli Ambassador to Australia to explain. “It’s just another immense tragedy here,” Ms Ingram told Sky News Australia. “The news today rippled through the humanitarian community here in Gaza and it’s hard to believe that almost six months of day in day or that something like this can still shock you in Gaza. “It’s just heartbreaking.”

Sky News host Liz Storer has called JK Rowling “fearless” after the author dared police to arrest her following Scotland passing its new hate crime law. Scotland has received major backlash for the new hate crime law which many have questioned over whether it goes against freedom of speech. “I would follow this woman into battle,” Ms Storer said. “Like seriously, she is fearless. “She rightfully repeatedly points out free speech is dead, it’s gone and buried if people cannot accurately talk about the practicalities of biological sex and call it as it is.”

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.”