. >> joining us now live from sydney is lucy carter at the top of martin's place. rom your vantage point, what can you tell us? >> we are standing about a block away from the lindt cafe. i am on the corner of thunder and the street, -- hunter and philip street, central. all we have been able to see is tactical response police or the swat team as you would know them in america. there are a number of them around the corner from the cafe. havederstand the police had no contact from the man we understand his inside holding the hostages so at the moment but weice are in place cannot not know what level of contact they have had in the last hour or so. >> there have been reports of up to 10 staff working, possibly, according to the ceo, there could be 30 customers in place, up to 40 hostages possibly. what do we know about how definitive those numbers of hostages are and have any of the families reached out to media? at this stage, no numbers have been confirmed about hostages. the police commissioner held a press conference at short time ago and was quite emphatic and not

you are charlie brown running after the football that lucy keeps pulling away from you, and it's about time the republicans wake up. >> ash carter replace defense secretary chuck hagel. now, we know that there were other people who didn't want the job. this guy has great credentials. will he be a good defense secretary? >> i was on your show last week. we're talking about how nobody wanted this gig, right? >> he is very well respected on both sides of the aisle, and in the defense and intelligence communities. he is a bureaucrat who has been in the pentagon for a long time, so he really does know what he is doing. i don't think necessarily he is going to be a rubber stamp for obama, which might rub obama the wrong way because you'll recall, the first couple of secretaries of defense robert gates, leon pan et wra, and chuck hagel, rubbed the president the wrong way, and the commander in chief got rid of all of them. >> all right. well, this one would only have two years to serve anyway, but the other ones were quick too. we'll see. monica, thanks so much. >> pleasure. thanks. >>> so there are new developments in the investigation