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Episode 319 - Individual Freedom Vs The Common Good

Topics:

Satanic Stamps

Religious Discrimination Bill

Victoria is tackling Religious Privilege

The Protests – What is really going on?

Lionel Shriver on Vaccines

Governments essentially have four choices

Morrison’s on petrol and interest rates

Morrison on can Do capitalism

PJK

Is the bubble about to burst?

Inequality

Vaccines and Transmission Rates

Special links

From The Conversation

The BBC Link

Actuarial Eye

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Transcript
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Well, hello out there, Australia, the rest of the world.

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This is a podcast, The Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

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We're back after a two week break.

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I'm Trevor, a.

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k.

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a.

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the Iron Fist, with me as always, Shea the Subversive.

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Good evening.

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And coming in remotely, Joe the Tech Guy.

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Evening all.

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So, someone in Joe's family has got a slight sniffle, and so Joe, in the

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interests of our community, keeping us safe, not only is he fully vaccinated,

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but he's staying at home when necessary.

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Well done, Joe.

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Thank you for your consideration.

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Yes.

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It's alright.

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Thank you for restricting your freedom.

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On this occasion.

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Yes.

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So we're going to talk about news and politics, sex and religion, everything

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that's happened over the last two weeks.

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If you're in the chat room, say hello and join in.

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We'll try and get to your comments if we can.

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We're going to kick off and talk about News to the Temple of Satan

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and our meeting with Amanda Stoker.

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Then we're going to talk about these sort of rallies for Against vaccination

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mandates and rules and then we'll get on to some other things and see

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what rabbit holes we travel down.

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So Watley's online, good on ya Watley.

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So okay, let's kick off with Noosa Temple of Satan stuff.

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So Robin and I did meet with Amanda Stoker.

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Now this was a meeting that had been delayed because we were supposed to

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meet her a couple of months ago and she cancelled for whatever reason.

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And something else on.

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So we had our meeting and went all the way out to Underwood.

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And she was a bit late for the meeting, so we started with a couple

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of her underlings, and they said, oh, she'll be coming, but let's sort of

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start the meeting anyway, so yeah, we weren't that happy with that, because

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we really wanted to speak to her.

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But so we started off talking to her advisors, and just sort of running through

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bits of the religious discrimination bill, and basically checked with them

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and said, look, had they had any meetings at all, any non religious groups, like

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the rationalists, atheists, National Secular Lobby, Humanist, anyone like that.

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And I said, oh, we've consulted very widely with different groups.

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I said, yeah, well, faith groups, yes.

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But any of these other groups?

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And the answer was, well, can't think of any off the top of our

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head that we've spoken with.

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And I knew they hadn't, because I've asked these people, like, they haven't.

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So, so anyway, got that out of them, that they hadn't really consulted with them.

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And, and we, of course, were quite vehement in our opposition to the

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Religious Discrimination Bill.

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So.

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Essentially, there's three parts to it, basically saying, look,

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it's okay to protect people against discrimination, so that's fine if

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that's all that the Act is doing.

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People shouldn't be unfairly discriminated against because

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they are of a particular religion.

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But this Act, it seems, from what we've read, is actually going

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to allow more discrimination.

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It's not going to stop it.

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It's going to enable it.

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It's going to allow religious institutions to actually go out.

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Discriminate against people because of their religion.

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So it's a sword, not a shield.

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So that's our primary, you know, philosophical objection.

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Main objections in detail being the fact that schools can hire and

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fire teachers based on religion.

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Mm.

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Crazy.

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Mm hmm.

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And the Israel filial clause and, and then the sort of the pharmacist being able to

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withhold medication and things like that.

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So.

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We were quite strong in saying, you know, these are just wrong, shouldn't

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be allowed, explaining why, and we asked whether any other faith groups

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had been opposing these measures, and I said, well, some of the faith groups

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have sort of maybe objected here and there to little bits and pieces, or

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they've suggested changes, or You know, they've had a more nuanced

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approach, was the word that was used.

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So you know, our lack of nuance I took as a compliment.

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Yes!

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So I was able to ask them, you know, has any other faith group been as

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vehement in its opposition to this as we have been in this meeting?

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I said, Oh, no way.

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You guys have been the most vehement for sure.

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So that was good.

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Got that on the record.

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Yes.

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Yep.

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Most religions are relishing the thought of being able to be mean to people.

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Yes!

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Yeah.

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Even the small ones.

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Because I said, what about the small ones?

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Because essentially what this Act does is it gives large religions

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who have institutions extra rights.

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Because these institutions are given rights to discriminate against people.

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What about the other small religions who don't have institutions yet?

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And they said, oh.

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They're more or less happy with it, and I take that to be because they hope

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one day to have their own institutions.

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Yeah, that's right.

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Yep, and they can commit the same discrimination.

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Yeah, wow.

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So yeah, I was kind of hateful that some of the other smaller

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religions might have, but no.

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They're all kind of on board with it, so, so there we go, so in terms of their

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consultation, hasn't extended to the sort of secular world, the non faith world,

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and, but anyway, sort of after about 15 minutes, Amanda arrived, and look,

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she was very charming, sort of younger than I thought, and it was late in the

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day, like it was four o'clock by this stage, and I would imagine she's been

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going all day, but she was quite fresh faced and, and bubbly, I have to say,

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she gave us a very fair hearing and, and at a personal level, was very good.

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So, as we went through the issues again with her, we quickly went through

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them and we said, oh look, we've just been talking about this and this.

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And she would say, well, in relation to this issue, I say this, what do you say?

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And I'll respond and she was actually, and then we'd say, well,

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we agree to disagree more or less or whatever, but she didn't poo poo us.

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And she gave us what I would call a fair enough hearing that really no complaints

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from me in that regard at all, you know, top marks to her for that, at least.

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So in the end, Robin.

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Made a quick prayer of thanks to the Dark Lord, and she

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chuckled and so did her advisor.

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But you know, hard not to in the circumstance.

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And we asked her for a photo at the end and she said, uh, no.

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So anyway, you know, it wasn't a meeting where We're planning to change her mind.

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Yeah, that was never gonna happen.

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Yes She was never gonna change our mind, but at least we could

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get on the record our position Yes, as lodging your objections.

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Yeah, exactly.

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So that was our meeting with Stoker You know cost Robin a day of work.

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He had to come down from Noosa, you know It cost me most of the day because

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I Rob McCone down and we were chatting and we had to go all the way out to

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Underwood and all the rest of it, like, Oh, these things are time consuming.

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Yes.

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These things, for a half hour meeting.

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You didn't have your film crew in tow.

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No, didn't have the film crew in tow for that, but.

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So, anyway, we got a really good article in The Australian.

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So, there's a, there's a Struth column in The Australian.

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Alice Workman, I think her name is, who runs that column.

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She obviously Is into this whole thing.

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So she dedicated virtually her whole column to it in the Australian.

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Right.

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And she also put in another piece just yesterday or today, because somebody

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who's from the Republican movement wants Australia to become a Republic.

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Tried to meet with Stoker and Stoker said no, and so there was a bit of an

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article about how, well She's meeting with Satanist, but she's not meeting with

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the Republican movement, sort of thing.

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You of course know that struth is a contraction.

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It's a God's truth.

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No, is it?

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Yes.

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There you go.

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There you go.

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So there you are.

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You were published under God's Truth.

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There you go.

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So there's an article in Queensland about it, which online magazine.

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I got a phone call from Michelle Gratton who's like one of the most senior

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political journalists in Canberra.

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Wow.

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And she was basically sniffing around to find out what was in the bill and

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whether we had We've been able to work out what was in or out of the bill.

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So, once I said I didn't have a scoop for her, she was pretty quick to hang up.

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But, you know, she was chasing the scoop and so she ran,

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which was just interesting.

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And before we move on to other topics, the, uh, the.

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Joe, you'll like this.

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Tanya from the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Pastafarians.

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Yeah, our captain.

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Yes, your captain.

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She has been offered a slot at the Sydney Festival at the Domain.

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Apparently at the Sydney Festival, they're reinvigorating sort of

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Speaker's Corner at the Domain.

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So, you know, she's been given a one hour slot or something and has

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invited me to get on stage with her.

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And.

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Talk about, you know, religion in Australia today.

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And you don't have to wear a costume, so I can wear whatever I like.

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So, so yeah, that's on the 30th, I think more date, more details to

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come, but I've got to be in Sydney towards the end of the month, so I

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can tie it in with some other things.

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I probably do that.

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So that will be at Speaker's Corner.

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And I think it's like the crowd can sort of.

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Hear other speakers and you're sort of vying for attention and, and people

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can then sit down and listen to you.

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So anyway, we'll see what comes of that.

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So we'll just tell them some of our stories.

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True exit, yeah.

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Yeah, that's it.

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So, because the domain in Sydney, Che, was, had speakers calling where people

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would literally stand on a soapbox and And talk about news and politics and stuff,

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like it was, it was the place to get up and on your soapbox, have your say, so

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this is sort of a revival of that, but with microphones in the seats, so yeah,

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so that could be interesting, so yeah, so, so yeah, that's all the news of Temple of

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Satan stuff, still waiting on a decision on the court case, and it's coming up to

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like three and a half months now, hmm.

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The longer it goes, the more excited I'm getting.

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I shouldn't.

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I'm no chance, really.

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Tom the Warehouse Guy.

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But if you're no chance, he would have said by now.

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Yeah.

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Tom the Warehouse Guy, he's in the chat room.

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What do you reckon, Tom?

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The longer it goes, are our chances getting better?

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Or is it I don't know.

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It could be I think you've been saying to the judge, Am I ever

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going to see your face again?

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Right.

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So, it all depends on how busy the judge is.

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He might have had just a whole bunch of cases, couldn't get to it and

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whatever, but on the other hand, maybe he's Pretty interesting one.

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Yeah.

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I think you would make a bit of time for it.

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Yeah.

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So, it's a tricky one for him.

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So anyway, we'll see about that.

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A decision must come out at some stage.

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Could you imagine if we actually got a favourable decision right now?

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It would just go off.

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The timing would be great for a favourable decision.

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We lose, oh well.

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So, oh well, Tom the warehouse guy who was supporting me at the bar table.

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Die straight says have faith Trevor, and Tom the warehouse guy says I

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think the judge must be pouring over those written submissions.

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I agree, the longer it goes on the better.

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So, and also in the chat room, did I see Alison there?

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She was in the court at the time, if um, I've not seen Alison tonight.

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No, so, so yeah, that would be, that would go ballistic if we got a

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favourable decision right at this moment.

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So, okay, so let's move on to the Religious Discrimination Bill itself.

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So apparently it came out today and I have no chance to look, but apparently

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The Falau Clause was thrown out.

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Yes, as I understand.

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I'm not sure about the rest.

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Oh dear.

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What a pity Yes, indeed.

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What a pity.

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So it's still of course going to have in it the discrimination in employment

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And to me, that's the biggest one.

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Yes.

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That's the one I had the most issue with, actually, is this employment one.

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And so, so it's going to go to the House of Reps and then it's going to end up

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in the Senate and they're talking about a Senate inquiry, so who knows when

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they'll actually vote on it becoming law.

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I think it could be voted on in the Reps.

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Quickly, but then go to the Senate for an inquiry, which might

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take longer, amendments, back to the House of Reps, you know.

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The whole point is that he seemed to be doing something before the

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election, but doesn't actually get something done before the election.

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Could be, yes.

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So you can say he's, he's done this.

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So that's where that is at the moment.

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And if you're talking to your listener, to your friends and colleagues about

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this religious discrimination bill, and you're looking for an example

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or a metaphor of what's happening.

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Then, I've, this is my current one that I'm using with

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people, is a basketball team.

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Imagine you're the owner of an NBA basketball team.

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So, when it comes to, let's say you want a power center, which is

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a guy who stands in the middle.

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Trying to block shots, right?

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He's not one of these nippy guards on the outside taking three pointers.

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He's in the middle.

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You would be entitled to advertise looking for a power center must be six foot

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ten tall and that would not be Unfair discrimination, to put that in your ad

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and say look, really, for this position, we just need somebody who's really tall,

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like, you might be really great, but if you're only 5 foot, you're just not

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gonna be able to do it, it's impossible for the role we need, you must be tall,

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so, so discrimination can be fair.

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in circumstances where it's relevant to the job and the role

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that you're going to perform.

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So, in a basketball team, for that particular position, the team could

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advertise and say, you must be 6'10 don't bother, you know, applying otherwise.

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So, but you couldn't, for example, say, of course you've got to be

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white, we don't want any black fellas.

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Not relevant to the job.

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That's right.

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Not good for our society to be segregating people based on skin color.

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So, you know, that's the reason why one form of discrimination is

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okay and while another form is not.

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Now, the team might have, you couldn't for example say, oh, You must be

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Christian 'cause you go, well why?

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Like nothing to do with his role is related to Christianity.

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It's not part of it.

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So, but if for example you are advertising for the team chaplain, you

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might have an argument to say, must be a Christian because we want a Christian

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team, chaplain, you know, stretch.

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Even then we're stretching things a bit, but it's conceivable that

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you could say, well for that role.

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Okay, we'll let you, we'll let you say that you want a Christian

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for the chaplain arguably.

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You can see a connection for the role.

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So, so people just have to understand in their heads, sometimes discrimination

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is fair and sometimes it's unfair.

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It depends whether it relates to the job you're doing.

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Now, when you're looking at a school, a high school, What they're

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trying to say is that the math and the physics teachers, they can say

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we want a Christian math teacher.

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And what they're saying is, well, we have an ethos in this school where

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our lifestyle as Christians is all pervasive and cannot be separated.

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Every waking moment of the day involves Our faith and we, we can't divide the day.

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It's, it's just all pervasive and all encompassing.

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Yes.

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Well that is just like a basketball team saying it's all perva.

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We're an all pervasive Christian basketball team.

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. Yes.

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We played basketball in a Christian way.

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Yes.

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It's bullshit.

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We're we're a white supremacist bicycle team.

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Yes, indeed.

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And we would say bullshit.

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It's not.

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What you're doing.

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Realistically, you're not.

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You're throwing a ball in a basket and your Christianity's

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got nothing to do with it.

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Yes.

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And a teacher in a physics or maths class He's talking about, you know,

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all the theories of hard science.

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But hang on, hang on.

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It's important.

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It's important for history teachers and science teachers,

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because the science teachers have to be able to debunk evolution.

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Yes.

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And, um, the history teachers have to be able to show that the

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world is only 6, 000 years old.

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Yes.

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So arguably they should not be Christian in order to perform the

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role correctly, is what you're saying.

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Yeah, but that's the thing, like, even when I went to the rally for a

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protest in the Bigot Bill a few weeks ago, overwhelmingly, the people that

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were there were LGBTIQ members, right?

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Because they can see where this is headed, who it's going to be aimed at,

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but this is what a lot of people, and that's why your analogy is great, is

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because it can be more broadly applied.

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To people who wouldn't normally experience being discriminated.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And that's when you're having your conversations, you've got

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to talk to people about that.

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Unmarried cohabitors.

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Yes.

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People who find themselves divorced.

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Exactly.

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So in a Christian school, you know, they'd be saying something like, The physical

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education teacher must be Christian.

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So, this sort of, anyway, so I like the basketball team analogy in,

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in just, in sort of giving people some framework of understanding

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when sometimes discrimination is valid as opposed to invalid.

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So, incidentally, when we're talking about this with Amanda Stoker, she said.

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But state rules already allow this form of discrimination in schools,

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and we said, that's correct, and we're against them as well.

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So, that was part of our discussion with Amanda Stoker, so, so yeah, so

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that's the main thing that Hang on, but, you know We, we can't protest against

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slavery because other states allow slavery and therefore Yeah, she was

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like, why don't you let this go because it's already a state law and it's like,

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well, no, we say state law is a bad law anyway, so, yeah, so, yeah, anyway.

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What else is going on?

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Just briefly before I go, I'll come back to that, but Dan

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Andrews, down in Victoria.

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is looking at passing a bill.

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So they want to change the state law that currently allows

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this form of discrimination.

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So when employing staff, religious bodies and schools can only discriminate

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where conformity with religious beliefs is an inherent requirement of the job.

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In addition, when running a school or providing services funded by the

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Victorian Government, religious bodies will only be able to discriminate on the

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basis of the person's religious belief, not on other personal characteristics.

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So, individuals will not be able to discriminate in the circumstances

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covered by the Equal Opportunity Act in order to comply with religious beliefs.

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So, first of all, number one, Sorry?

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I was going to say that, but their get around is, but our religious

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beliefs is that homosexual sex is unnatural and therefore your religious

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beliefs can't align with ours.

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Correct.

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Unless you're penitent.

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And Andrew's bill is going to say you can't say that.

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So if it's a circumstance covered by the Equal Opportunity Act, you can't use that.

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You can't say, oh, our Christian belief is that gay lifestyle is wrong, therefore

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we're allowed to sack gay teachers.

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The Andrews Bill is saying, no, that's not on.

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And it's also saying, if you want to rely on religious faith It's got to

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be an inherent part of the job, i.

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e.

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a religious teacher, no doubt, so, so You've got to hand it to that man.

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Exactly.

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Seriously, he is a man that gets stuff done.

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If I were him right now, I would just be getting under my bed and staying there.

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I would be so afraid, but he's, he's just, like, passing bills,

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debating bills, doing his job.

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Yeah, yeah.

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So, you know, I know, for example, like, the Twelfth Man hates what Dan

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Andrews has done in terms of lockdowns and all that sort of stuff, but on

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the other hand, would presumably love the stuff he's doing in terms of

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secular laws, so it's interesting, so.

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Um, good on, full marks to Dan Andrews on, from my point of view on, on all scores.

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He is a tough customer.

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I saw him talking in Parliament about the threats that had been made to him and

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the dog whistling from Scott Morrison.

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He was good on his feet.

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He is, isn't he?

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He just stuck it to him.

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Yes.

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The double speak, which is exactly what it was.

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Yes, he was very good.

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So, so I've got here actually, we're going to get onto the sort of the

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protests, the freedom protests.

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Before I do that, just before I leave this religious discrimination bill, the

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Essential Report came out today with polling of people and they asked, to what

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extent do you agree with the following statements regarding freedom of speech?

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And one of them was.

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There should be stronger laws to protect people who express religious

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views in public, and only 37 percent of people agreed with that, so

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Hang on, but that's still 37%?

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Yeah, but in the scheme of things, Joe, that's You're right.

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You are right.

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But it's a third of people who think it's okay to be an arsehole.

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You're right.

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Why am I looking for a silver lining?

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The other stat in there was people should not be allowed to argue religious freedom

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to abuse others, and that was 64%.

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So, that's Yeah, you're right.

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I mean, what does it matter what the majority of people think?

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This government is full of religious nutters who are on an agenda all of

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their own, and what the public thinks, and what their party thinks, they

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don't care, they're just completely committed Pentecostal nutbags who are

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just committed to these ideologies, so.

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What's it even matter what we think?

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True.

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Let's be, let's stop being positive.

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Just in terms of that one about there should be stronger laws to protect

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people who express their religious views in public, for Liberal and National

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Party voters, that was 46%, Joe, so nearly half of them feel that way.

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Labor Party members, 36.

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Labor voters, 36%, I think.

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They should be stronger laws.

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You're right.

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That is depressing.

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Mm.

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Anyway, okay.

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Back to the protests.

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So I mean, there's been a lot of 'em around the country.

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It has, yeah.

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Yeah.

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And this is a recording from the one in Melbourne.

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So just have a listen to this and the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom.

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So Lord, we ask for your spirit to pour out upon each and every

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single person that is here today.

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To touch their hearts and to show them who you are.

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Lord, we thank you, that the reign of Daniel Andrews is only temporary.

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And that you will take him out at the appointed time.

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And we thank you, Lord, that Victoria will be a free state and Australia will

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be a free country again, under you.

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So not free then.

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We Lord, in your mighty name.

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I'm having vision Visions of Gilead here.

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, it's where were the people in that crowd saying, hang on a minute.

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I didn't sign up for this.

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What are you like?

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That's bad.

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That's, I think they did sign up, actually.

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Well, no, I, I think there's a real mixture of people in these crowd.

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They're big crowds.

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Big crowds, yeah.

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Yeah.

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And it's difficult because there is a mixture of people there.

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Mm.

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Some who are Nazi fascist crazies, some who are religious

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Christian fascist crazies.

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Many of them would be people who have just had a gut full of lockdowns and

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want a normal life again and want to get out and demonstrate to the government

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that they're not happy and to try and pressure the government through.

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Marching as you do in forms of a protest.

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So, I mean, there'd be people with families and kids who were there.

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Now, this is the problem.

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You go to something like that and.

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You end up, the organisers, you know, start saying stuff like that,

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and you kind of are swept into as being part of that nonsense.

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The shoe fits.

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And, but you might have gone, I just want to object to the lockdowns and to these

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vaccination mandates that we'll get onto.

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And I didn't want that sort of thing, but, and people That was my problem

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with, um, Extinction Rebellion.

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Because, you know, I, I agree with them on climate change, but then I went and

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read their website and they're anarchists who want to tear down modern government,

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who want to tear down capitalism.

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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There's a whole bunch of different QAnon groups.

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You've just finished a book on QAnon.

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Is that right?

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Yeah.

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It's sort of the crazies who are motivated to organize stuff

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who then get their hands on the microphone to say that sort of stuff.

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Yes.

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Which, it's just an inherent problem with demonstrations, if you're

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not sure of who's organising it.

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You, your numbers might be allocated to that sort of Yeah.

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Ideology.

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What's that, Joe?

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I was going to say, same with RI, isn't it?

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It's the volunteers.

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It's those who are full of passion that go and do it.

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Correct.

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So And they're not necessarily the people you want.

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Yeah.

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So it remains for the rest of us who weren't there, who are observing, to

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go, Well, what was that protest about?

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Because not everybody agreed with everything that So it's not just

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anti vaxxers, it's that Premier Daniel Andrews is trying to put a law

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through where instead of the Chief Health Officer calling the shot, it's

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the elected official of the time.

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Yes.

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And in, in that law, he's also putting penalties of about 48 grand for

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breaching the public health orders.

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Right.

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So quite strong penalties.

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Yep.

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So among the crowd, there'd be Some people that are just concerned about that.

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Apparently there was a QCs to Dan Andrews, raising concerns about the bill as well.

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So government overreach, government overreach, but yeah, in this book

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that I was reading, I think it's called Pastels and Pedophiles,

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understanding in the mind of a QAnon.

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And there is a lot of, a lot of people who are religious who get into the QAnon.

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It's not necessarily just your dummies, they range from highly educated

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people to a whole range of different people, and they just get hooked on

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the, like, the compelling nature of the stories and the guessing games

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and the community spirit of it.

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Yes.

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So I think there could be a lot more QAnon in that crowd

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than we're giving credit for.

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And I think we might need to stop being concerned about, like, the doubters and.

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Put some more attention on the devotees, because I think they're,

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I think they're dangerous.

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Yeah, well, it's also something about feeling special.

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Yes.

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You know, you, you know, something that the sheeple don't.

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Yes.

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And when you talk to people who are in QAnon, they do have that superiority,

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you know, like one of my friends, you know, why are you telling me all this?

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Because they'll babble for like 40 minutes without stopping.

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I don't, why are you telling me?

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Oh, to raise your consciousness.

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Right.

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That's why.

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Yeah.

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Cause.

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Is that why?

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Yeah.

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And how will you know my consciousness is raised?

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Yeah.

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Cause they've worked it out and you haven't.

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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I'm a sheeple.

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Yeah.

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It's multi level marketing.

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Yeah.

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So what's really going on here?

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If, if, if I was to sort of steal me in their position, I'd say tens

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of thousands of people is a lot.

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Yes.

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So, you wouldn't compare the number of protesters to the total

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population, that would be unfair.

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I think in Queensland I saw a statistic that up to 18 percent

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of people were vaccine hesitant.

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So much higher in Queensland than other states, it seemed.

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So, you know, I remember seeing overall figures of sort of less than 10 percent

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of people said they would never get the vaccine, but that was a, there's a lot

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of people who feel are forced to get it.

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So they'd say, yeah, I'm going to get it because I'm forced to.

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Well, there's a number of them who've been detoxing, who've been

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getting it and then detoxing.

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Right.

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Flushing the vaccine out of their system.

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In the belief that it gets the vaccine out very much.

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So he tends to follow.

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rural areas are less likely to be vaccinated.

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And I think it tends to follow that the places that really haven't seen

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the virus tend to be more hesitant.

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True.

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Those who've seen and have been physically scared, I think, are less hesitant.

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But still, in Europe and places like that, where they've seen plenty of

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death from COVID, they're still getting quite large protests there against.

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Vaccine mandates and things.

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So, you know, it's, I guess what I'm saying is it's a significant number of

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people, some of the people would say, Oh, what are you complaining that you

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can't, you know, do what you want to do?

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Because you can, anyone can go out now and get a cup of coffee and whatever.

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And, and they could say, well, now we are able to protest.

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So we are like, because we can now.

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So, so that's fair enough, but what are they protesting and what do they want?

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So I think they are not saying that lockdowns.

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Don't work.

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I think we've got past that.

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I think I don't seem to see online in things The argument

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anymore that lockdowns don't work.

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I think they've given up on that at least.

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So there's a recognition or an acceptance that lockdowns work.

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They just feel that they're unfair and over a blunt, heavy

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restriction of individual freedom that's unwarranted as opposed to

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the risk that they're designed to.

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Deal with.

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So yeah, lockdowns don't work, and certainly in Victoria I was going

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to say there's an ignorance as to how dangerous the virus actually is.

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Yeah.

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Yes.

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And I'll just go on here a little bit, Joe, hang on.

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So in Victoria they're definitely protesting that bill, but that

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bill is no worse than what's in New South Wales, is my understanding?

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Yeah, New South Wales already put it through.

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Yeah.

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So there's nothing particularly horrendous in it compared

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to the New South Wales bill.

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Yeah, a bunch of QCs from Sydney didn't send, so maybe there is a few.

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I thought there were, there were a few differences, but in

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the vast sweep, it is the same.

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So what they seem to be, I think you could say, that the crowd was saying

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is do not introduce discriminatory laws for the unvaccinated.

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Don't introduce lockdowns.

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For the unvaccinated.

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And they're saying we've got the right to be unvaccinated.

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And that laws that discriminate against unvaccinated are a

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breach of basic civil liberties.

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I reckon that is what that crowd was on about, it seemed to me, as if you'll

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find one thread that was common amongst them all, that would probably be it.

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In the sort of ordinary families, that would have been it.

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The judges have already discussed and dismissed that though.

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Yes, but in terms of workplaces and things like that, yes, but

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then can't trust judges, Joe.

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You know what, in, in, like, I, when I look at those protesters,

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I do don't really connect with.

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Why they're protesting, but I do connect with the rage, kind of like

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waking up one day and everything being totally different, you know,

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two years of plans out the window.

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The second thing I want to say is I actually not for this bill either.

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Right.

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Because I saw today in the news that they've exposed an email from the

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chief health officer in Sydney who wanted to lock down all of Sydney

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and Gladys decided to do her class discrimination of LGA's, LGA's, LGA's.

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Yep.

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So I prefer the situation where we have our chief health officer who

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interrupts politics as usual and says, this is how we're doing it.

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Right.

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I think these are such big decisions.

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I think the premier should be making them.

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I think they should get the advice.

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Yeah, if you have Dan Andrews, you'd be okay with it, but if you

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had someone you didn't agree with.

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I think these are such big decisions that somebody, an elected official has

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to be accountable for these, I think.

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Well, they still are, look, they still are.

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Anastasia's getting trashed every day in the Courier Mail.

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She's being held to a high level of accountability for this.

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The Courier Mail is just the Liberal National Party discussions,

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internal discussion newsletter.

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It's not a newspaper.

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We have to get that in our hands.

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If she was to walk outside and say, the sun is shining.

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Courier Mail would say, no, no, no.

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How dare she be so optimistic?

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It's raining.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, exactly.

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She's sort of taking credit for it.

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And when you look at the way we moved around this, we moved with urgency.

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We got stuff done.

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You know, if we take climate change again, we haven't moved

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with that level of urgency.

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Yeah.

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But no.

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We don't listen to our Chief Scientist, we don't get anything done, we

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just stall and stall and stall.

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These are such big decisions, Shay.

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You would want an expert!

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Well, okay, let's say, let me give you an analogy, okay?

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Do we go to war or not?

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Chief of Defence says, oh, yeah, we should go to war.

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You know, Taiwan's been attacked, we all along with USA.

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That argument would say, well, he's the expert on war, you know, we're off to war.

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But we say, no, no, no, this is a big decision.

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Clearly the Prime Minister and, well, I argue actually, not the Prime

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Minister, but the entire Parliament should be saying we, let's go to war.

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In fact, it should be a friggin referendum whether we go to war or not.

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So it depends on the.

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You know, should Peyton Road be 60k or 50k, we don't need the Premier.

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At some point there's a line where you say, this is a big decision that needs

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accountability from the top, and there are some decisions that are less important

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that you can delegate to minor officials.

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I think these, I think these ones should be in the hands of the Premier,

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who then But it should be open.

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What was the advice you got?

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Yeah, proper consultation.

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That's what you got?

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You decided to do something else?

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Okay.

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But don't lie to us to say that you were doing what the health officer said when

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in fact you were doing something else.

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But I think the The advice should be published and then the, then we

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know whether the Premier is relying on it or doing something different.

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So, yeah, well, I just wrote that policy paper, right, where I recommended that

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for, from in future, when we go to war, what we'll do is we'll amend, um, Section

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50C or whatever, the War Powers Act, where all the Parliament votes, right?

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Now, that could just be, like, Frankly, isn't the Liberal and the Labor Party

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probably going to vote the same way?

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It's probably not going to make a difference.

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To, to the result, but we'll have the policy.

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Indeed.

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Yeah.

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Who knows down the track.

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Which means we'll have consultation.

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We'll have debate.

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How long do we think the war is going to be?

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How much is it going to cost?

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How many soldiers do you reckon are going to die?

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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So we could still have all that and still have the chief health officer making her

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recommend his or her recommendations.

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Right.

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Can we afford to put our children in debt for future generations?

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Yes.

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Oh, we don't worry about future generations, Joe, in this generation.

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No, but you hear about the bleating about the cost of the lockdown.

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Yep.

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And how it's going to cripple future generations.

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Yes, yes.

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But I, I agree with Trevor that sometimes the cost is too great for society to bear.

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I mean, in theory, we could wipe out all communicable diseases.

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By locking everyone inside the house, there was a sex and relationship podcast

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I was listening to, who's going, great, when we come out of lockdown, people

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will go and get themselves tested, we will wipe out STIs, because people

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haven't had a chance to spread it because they've all been staying at home.

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If they get tested and treated.

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We'll get rid of sexually transmitted infections, but of course we haven't,

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and we've got a rebound effect.

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Yeah, yeah.

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You know, that gets back to, um, what we'll talk about at some point here,

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is the people who are against these, um, laws, if you like, they, they talk

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about freedom as if it's an absolute.

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And there's no nuance in their discussion, where clearly in our society, there

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are all sorts of restrictions on our freedom that we've decided to accept.

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And in many respects, this one isn't that much different to a lot of stuff.

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Like, at the moment, the government will take You know, 30 percent of every

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dollar you earn, you put it in its own pocket, like 30 percent of your

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time, or more, depending on your tax bracket or whatever, is taken off you.

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So, you know, there isn't this acceptance that there's a weighing

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up between individual freedom and And collective sort of responsibility, and

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there's a line here, they, they don't accept that you and I and Joe have

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made a calculation that we've looked at what's in the overall interests of

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our community now and into the future, and is it worth giving up individual

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rights for the benefit of the community?

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And we've done a calculation of deaths, problems in our hospitals,

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ongoing issues with long COVID.

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As opposed to what we hope will be temporary measures that will be eased,

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hopefully, in the next Six months, more or less, back to normal in many

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respects, and we've, we've done a calculation there, and they don't

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accept that we've done that calculation.

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They just think we are, are just stupid subjects of tyranny.

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Yes, they, they see the inputs to that calculation as being wrong.

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Because of the rejection of science, which started with the tobacco

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lobby and then became climate change denial, and now has moved into COVID,

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we cherry pick our experts to the viewpoint that we want to believe.

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Yeah, but they never want to argue the detail of that.

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They never want to get into the weeds of, your calculations are wrong.

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And here Are you really competent to judge the science?

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Hmm.

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I don't see any attempt when I read Spectator magazine articles or

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other articles give that viewpoint.

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They don't get into the weeds of the calculation properly.

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They make a lot of statements without references to peer reviewed articles

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and So, they just make bold statements about, ah, people who get vaccinated still

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get COVID and can still pass it on to people, so the vaccinations are useless.

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Like really bold, un nuanced statements like that, that just clearly lazy.

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You don't think it's a tactic?

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Look You think it's just You know, I think people have a

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gut reaction of what they want.

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They want their personal liberty, their personal freedom, they believe

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in that in an almost religious belief.

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And that merely saying that sort of basic statement is enough without justifying

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it with hard facts and, and intelligent looking at peer reviewed articles.

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Cause this is another thing I noticed about the QAnon people that I know

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is they talk a lot in concepts and one of their main things is

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like the erosion of public trust.

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So they'll start to talk to you about public figures and corruption.

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And frankly, at first, you'll think you're on the same page because we do

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need to clean up the corruption, right?

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It doesn't really matter where you're standing.

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We could get better structures.

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And certainly this book I was talking about before, they built

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the case around America between Bill Clinton and his like lies.

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And then there was another public figure who, who said he wasn't having

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some sort of relation with a 15 year old and turned out to be yes.

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And so this steady erosion of like, just.

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B.

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S.

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has assisted this anger, yeah, and the conspiracies and, yeah.

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Dean in the chat room says, where is that detailed cost benefit analysis, Trevor?

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Did our governments give us one before they locked us down?

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So the answer is no.

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They basically had rough ideas of what mortality rates would be and of what

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hospitalisation rates would be and And, and in the circumstances did a calculation

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that said, shit, if that's true, then we'll be inundated and we need to lock

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down because our health system won't cope.

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So the initial one was, it seems on the face of it, these are the figures.

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Now, probably over time, those figures.

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Haven't, the actual mortality rates and the hospitalization rates haven't been

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as severe as what was the initially thought, but still severe enough where

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even now we go, based on what we know with mortality and hospitalization,

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we're going to have a real issue in our hospitals if we don't do this.

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So there is that calculation.

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Look at India.

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That's what happened when it went through uncontrolled.

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And people were dying in the streets because they couldn't get oxygen.

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Now, there's an argument that we would have better infrastructure

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and it would never get to that.

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But their health system was overwhelmed.

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It could well have hit those rates.

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So, I think there was a calculation done, Dean, on, on what would happen

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in our hospital, hospitals and the number of ICU beds we had and

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the number of ventilators we had.

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If.

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if things were allowed to go unchecked.

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The other thing is I see people who argue against the lockdowns talk

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about mental health and suicides, and we've gone through statistics of

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that, and there hasn't been an uptick in suicides and mental health issues.

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In fact, the opposite, it's actually slightly down.

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So, you know, I think people are quite rightly able to complain about

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government support and should be, if the protest should be, you know what.

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We need the lockdowns, okay.

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But you haven't given us enough money.

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Like, you're allowing capital to still earn interest and, and money.

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We've been deprived our livelihoods.

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We needed better financial support.

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Like, that's what people should have been protesting about, was an

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acknowledgement we need a lockdown, but we need to be supported and

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we haven't had enough support.

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That's right.

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And that would have been a good sort of protest.

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Yep.

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So, you know, and even Dean, even on issues like, you know, if you

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have a, a people who have, oh, are we still going or have we lost Joe.

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No, Joe's just disappeared.

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I think he's just into the men's room or something.

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So, okay.

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So the other thing I was going to say was we look at things like, okay.

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The vaccinated people, what's their chances of contracting COVID?

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It's less, but by how much?

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And then what are their chances of passing on COVID to other people?

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It's less, but by how much?

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And I've looked at a number of studies and there's a huge variation there

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in what, in, in how it pans out.

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And so people who are arguing against the vaccination discrimination laws.

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Really should be going, well, this report from the UK says this number of

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people get infected by, unvaccinated people get infected and pass it

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on versus the vaccinated, etc.

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And you could have a discussion about that.

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Where you might actually have some legs and show, uh, maybe the differences

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aren't as much as what we thought, therefore the laws we pass shouldn't

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be as much as we thought, but I never see in the, in these discussion

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groups, references to those things.

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I have to go sort of find them myself.

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They just want to say.

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These laws are a breach of our individual rights, and therefore,

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they're wrong, without getting into the weeds of the detail, it seems to me.

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They're very good at pulling out the study that said viral loads are the

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same in vaccinated and unvaccinated.

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Yes.

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Whilst ignoring the fact that you're less likely to be infected

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in the first place, and you're more likely to clear the infection.

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quickly.

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Yes.

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And so the real risk is much, much less.

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Yeah.

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There's a dishonest cherry picking when you do see these arguments where

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they have not actually confronted the bad, the butt part that follows

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the bit that they've cherry picked.

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So there is a dishonesty there that I see when I try and same with the

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Oh, well, look, our death rates in Australia in 2020 were much

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lower than they've been in years.

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And you're going, yes, because we didn't have COVID and we were in lockdown,

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so we weren't doing stupid things.

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Yes.

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And I just find the people who argue in favor of it never

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provide a fucking reference.

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Like Ramesh Thakur in The Spectator.

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We'll, we'll write stuff about different statistics and things,

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and there's never a reference to where he plucked that figure out.

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And that to me, when I've tried to hunt down his stuff in the past,

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has shown he's a cherry picker who can't be trusted on these things.

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So If people don't quote their sources, then suspect they're either

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cherry picking or they're lying.

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Yes.

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Yep.

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So, so some of the things that you hear would be gullible in terms of

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the people like us Just gullible.

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Just when got vaccinated.

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Yep.

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Mainstream media is deliberately misrepresenting reality and

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is conspiring in a cover up.

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You know, when you can get a conspiracy of all the media on this angle.

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Not all the media.

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Well, that's just the ABC.

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Well, the mainstream media, like they will say mainstream, mainstream.

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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So, you know, that's an, it's one of the things you'll read.

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They talk about government overreach, that the pandemic is

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an excuse for government tyranny.

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They use the terms of medical apartheid, medical discrimination, things like how

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dare they award freedom for compliance.

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So Anastasia Palisade would say, congratulations, Queenslanders

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have been going really well.

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When we reach 80 percent then we'll do this.

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Yes.

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And you've done well.

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And they would see that as how dare you.

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That's right.

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Congratulate those people.

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Pretend to award freedom when actually you've taken a lot of it away.

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So they say that.

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They'll say, you know, the vaccine does not work in that the vaccinator

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gets sick and that they pass on infection, but they refuse to talk

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about how those are both reduced.

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There's a lot of references to YouTube anti vax heroes.

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And not much reference to written reports.

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Yes.

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Or, or BitChute.

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Yep.

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Because when you get thrown off of YouTube because you're

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so odious, you go to BitChute.

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Okay.

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You hear a lot of, I trust my body's immune system to fight the virus.

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Yes.

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Oh yeah.

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But, gee, when you've got an infection, for anything else, I bet you head down to

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the chemist and you get some antibodies.

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Here's the one I find particularly annoying, is Provax's us irrationally

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scared, and This one really just pisses me off, because we've done a calculation

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of, of, you know, I personally don't think I am in any personal danger myself.

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It's about the rest of the community, the, the, the commons that we've got

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going here, the demos that, that I'm worried about, not myself, and I think

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there's decent reasons to be worried.

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It's not an irrational fear.

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No.

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Arguably Suppressive drugs.

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Yeah.

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Yes.

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You've got it right.

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But arguably these people have an irrational fear of tyrannical governments.

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Like they seem to think, they seem to think that we're such sheeple that

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when this is all over we'll be happy to have all these restrictions that we'll

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just go along with because we've just succumb to it and we're unthinking dodos.

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Like, give us some credit.

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We're not scared.

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We're not stupid.

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We've done a different calculation to you.

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Yes.

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It's a value systems.

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Our value systems are different to yours.

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That's right.

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We're not as fucking selfish.

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It's essentially.

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What it's come down to.

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Yes.

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Well, you know, Mary Malone, her personal freedoms were taken

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away and she didn't believe it.

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Right.

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So, you know, you know the story of Typhoid Mary?

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Uh, tell the story, yeah, go on.

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She was a cook, I think in New York in the early 1900s and

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there were typhoid outbreaks.

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And they were traced back to the kitchens where she worked, and the

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first time she was tested found B positive to fairly sure she was tested.

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Anyway, they suspected she had typhoid.

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They told her she couldn't work as a cook anymore.

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And she tried to find an alternate work, but nothing paid as well.

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Yeah.

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So she changed her name and went back to cooking.

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And there was another outbreak in the kitchen in the household

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that she was working at.

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And the public health authorities found her, shut her down.

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And this happened three or four times before eventually they stuck her on

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an island in the middle of New York Harbor and basically locked her up

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and said, you are not able to cook.

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as a job, basically gave her a pension and stuck her in a sanatorium.

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Right.

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Because she was a danger to society.

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She didn't believe that she had the disease.

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It was impacting her livelihood and so she wasn't willing to stop cooking.

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Right.

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And I see these people as very much the same.

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Just a few other things I see in the comments on Facebook and stuff

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from these people as well is, I think that the Provaxers, us, are so

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certain in our convictions that we're unwilling to explore the other side.

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Not personally, I'm happy to explore the other options.

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Um, happy to explore the other arguments.

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Yes.

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Just make a good one.

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And they also, they also say that, that governments These governments actually

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enjoy imposing these restrictions.

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They seem to think that that Dan Andrews and Anastasia Paler actually

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enjoy imposing these conditions, and I would, it's all part of the great

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reset, I would say for any leader of any stripe, liberal or labor.

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I don't see them as genuinely enjoying the power of locking

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down and creating restrictions.

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I think that's right.

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And to me, I get the sense that they're genuinely uncomfortable about it.

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They've got friends and family, they're subject to the same rules,

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they happen to wear friggin masks and be as observant as everybody else.

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And they want to have functions in their home with more than three people

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and I just think It's a cynical, ugly view of the world that you think

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people are so nasty that they want to impose these just out of power.

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I think you've got it wrong.

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While I was, um, studying at uni, I went to meet my mum for lunch and who should

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walk in but the deputy premier sat behind us and our mum got a bit starstruck.

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And so she started trying to take a picture of him and she wasn't

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really good with the phone.

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So anyway, I was embarrassed.

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So I was like, I'm going back to uni and anyway, she, she wrote

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and her handwriting is terrible.

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Sorry to say mom, but it is, she wrote down on a napkin, great work.

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Such and such a thing.

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And then like trying to slip him the note and he said, he got the note and read it.

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And then he said, Oh, Jill, cause she put a name on it.

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Do you want to have a photo or something like, yeah, it was

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like really great with her.

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Anyway, I happened to meet him next week and I said, Oh, my mom's that fangirl.

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He had put that crappy napkin with the little note on, on his mantelpiece

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because he was like so fearful because.

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Often people try to take his photo to put on Twitter, like this prick

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out to lunch while, you know, New South Welshman trying to get across

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the border or like, yeah, so.

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It just goes to show, like, he so irregularly gets the

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compliment that that was, that made such a difference to his day.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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So they're people.

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Yep.

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They aren't enjoying it.

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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So, yes, Dean, you know, these people are drawn to power, but I think, I think the

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power of locking people down isn't the power that they're, that they're drawn to.

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I think the power of meeting powerful people, of, Of whatever agenda they have

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of religion, or in terms of conservative governments, you know, getting rid of

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tax and, and regulation and being pro business or whatever they want to do.

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I mean Or for all of them, making contacts that are going

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to serve them in later life.

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So, you know, involuntary house arrest of the healthy innocent is acceptable.

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You know, involuntary house arrest.

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It all comes down to This question of balance.

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It's individual freedom versus the community deciding collectively to, that

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they, that they're going to restrict individual freedom for a reason, which

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is essentially to protect our commons.

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So our public spaces, our institutions.

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It's part of our commons and, and those in favour of the restrictions are saying

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these are valuable institutions that we don't want trashed and we don't want these

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restrictions, but we're willing to put up with them for a time for a purpose.

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So where's, you know, it's, it comes down to that balance.

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So, you know, I see people just talking about absolutes of

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freedom and not recognising that.

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Our freedoms have been curtailed and restricted all the time, now,

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and we We adjust those all the time.

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I mean, you can't drive a car at 100km in a suburban street.

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We've said no.

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In fact, you need a licence and it's got to be 60.

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Now, we know that if we said on the highways, the highway from here to Sydney,

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you've got to travel at 40km We know that we would save lives by doing that.

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But we also, on balance, go, you know what, for the benefit of the

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community, it's important that people get around in quicker time.

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We're prepared to accept a few deaths.

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In order, and we'll let people travel 100k for most of the way and where

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necessary, drop the speed limit.

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Like, we do weigh up these things all the time, and this

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is part of that weighing up.

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That's right.

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If you stow your tray table and put your window shade up and put

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your seatbelt on, I don't know.

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I don't know that we have the data that's going to say, Oh, cause you

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put your window shade up, you lived.

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Whereas the other people died.

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Like we don't know, but we still trap you in an aluminium tube

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and you give us your freedoms.

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And in return you get to travel at 900 kilometres an hour.

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Yep.

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We provide some rules.

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Yep.

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So let me see here.

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Just the other thing is for the people who do protest the vaccines

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and the sort of mandatory nature of it, I just would really like to know.

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Did they line up and get, because they object to things being in their

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body, did they object when their daughter's got a rubella, you know,

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injection, did they, did they object when they got their antibiotics?

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Have they been the type of people who have been reading the label on

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everything that a doctor gave them and actually refused stuff in the

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past, or is it just on this occasion?

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And if it's only on this occasion, on a, on an item that has been

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distributed worldwide and in fact, we've got one of the greatest

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databases available on this thing.

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You've chosen this one, don't you think, if that's the case, to doubt

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this particular one, it's because you've, you've drunk some Kool Aid?

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It's, it's, no, it's a misunderstanding of science.

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It's the, we need to have it out there for 10 years before we can trust it.

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But did they apply that to everything else that's been injected to them

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in the last, in their lifetime?

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I, I'm guessing that they didn't even think about it.

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Because they may well have been new formulations of old.

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Yeah, just because we've always had a measles jab, we didn't

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know when we had the MMR.

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Yeah, it was a different formulation.

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But we know that the vast majority of side effects of a vaccine appear

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within the first couple of months, and that the number of doses that we've

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given has meant that very, very rare effects that we normally pick up five

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or six years later, just because it's so, we've given so many injections

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that we've seen the rare side effects.

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Yep.

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Such as the blood clots.

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So, and you know, we're aware that there is a very small chance of

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these blood clots, but we've done a calculation and gone, you know

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what, I think it's worth doing.

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And in fact, us waiting six months has made the difference because

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the rest of the world had the blood clots, discovered the hard way.

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We got to learn that this was a risk.

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We got to monitor patients and we now have the treatments.

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Yeah.

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The other cool thing is it's been well taken up, like even Mark McGowan,

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who's been, you know, criticized for his overreach on 90 90 percent

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he wants his community 90 percent vaccinated before he opens the border.

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And he's had 85 percent first shot.

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Right.

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In Western Australia.

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Right.

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He's got 85 percent of people who've had their first, like,

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that's all, like, that's awesome.

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Yeah.

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Yep.

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So here's a typical article.

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From the anti vax point of view, and this is from Lionel

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Shriver, Rodney and the Spectator.

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So I've previously quoted Lionel Shriver, who was very

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good on cultural appropriation.

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So she was the one who was arguing against Matt, Abdil Magid, whatever

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her name was, I can't remember exactly.

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Oh yeah, yeah.

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The one who was saying, That, you know, if you're a novelist, a writer of fiction,

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you can't write stories about an ethnic group if you're not part of the ethnic

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group or even, you know, life experiences that you haven't experienced yourself.

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So, you know, and I agree 100 percent with Lionel Shriver, that the whole purpose of

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writing fiction is to be able to transport yourself into somebody else's shoes and

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write about someone else's experience.

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And that's a good thing, that we should be trying to do that.

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So, and I thought she was great on that.

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So, so she says here, this is a typical sort of article or the argument.

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So, by spearheading the vaccine drives, governments have

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attached themselves to a product.

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They're implicitly in league with the pharmaceutical industry, not by

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means of a conspiracy, but because of perceived common interest.

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Successful vaccine, successful government.

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All good so far.

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Nothing wrong with that, Lionel.

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Like, if you've got a good product that the community needs,

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there's nothing wrong with it.

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The mainstream media and swaths of the medical establishment have also

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attached themselves to the product.

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All these parties are in cahoots to maintain a Mnichian social partition.

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And Mnichian is to follow the philosophy of Manicheism, which

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is an old religion that breaks everything down into good or evil.

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It means duality.

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So if your thinking is Manichean, you are thinking, you always

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see things in black and white.

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So she says, all these parties, mainly medical establishment, government,

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mainstream media, see things in black and white and want to maintain

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a black and white social partition.

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You must be all in or you're against.

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Any appreciation for the risks or limits of vaccines casts

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you as a dreaded anti vaxxer.

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So any feel for nuance makes you stupid.

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Any short of fanatical devotion to the perfect benevolence

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of vaccines makes you crazy.

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So, look, that's just an exaggerating straw man of the position.

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Like, I don't think people are crazy.

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I just think they've got a different value system, which I think they're

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just way too selfish and pro individualist and don't recognize.

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The real damage that can be done to our community, and I

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don't give a shit about it.

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So, I don't see them as necessarily crazy.

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So, going on with her article, yet the product is a bit of a disappointment.

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She's talking about vaccines.

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It reduces death and hospitalisation, but can't stop COVID from spreading.

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The virus continues merrily to sweep through heavily vaccinated populations.

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So, you know, it's not a disappointment.

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It's actually, I'm not disappointed in the vaccine.

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I don't expect a hundred percent perfect miracle.

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Oh my gosh.

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I, I, I think the answer is it's.

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It's a step, but it's not enough on its own.

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And the problem is, politicians have been waving it as some miracle cure,

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that everything will go back to normal as soon as we get to X percent vaccinated.

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Whereas realistically, this is not going to go away, this is not going

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to ever get Sorry, it will eventually, but it's not going to be very quick.

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We're not going to get back to normal any time soon.

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Yep.

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And you know, are they saying it?

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They're really saying, well, we're going to reduce a lot of

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these restrictions we've got.

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We all know we're heading for a hit at some point, it's going to come through

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the community and knock off a bunch of us and hopefully the system copes.

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But it has been said.

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Oh, we'll go back to normal.

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And the politicians have said that.

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Now, the scary thing is what Jill was saying about kids and vaccination.

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Your local epidemiologist, who is a blogger in the States, and she was saying

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that COVID last year was the eighth leading cause of death in young children.

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Higher even than school shootings.

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It is the leading preventable cause of death.

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Right.

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There we go.

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And that's in the population that isn't affected.

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I'll keep going just with this article.

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So, you know, the products are a disappointment and the virus

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continues to sweep merrily through the vaccinated populations.

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It's just giving no credit to the benefits from this vaccine.

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What we have here then is an advertising problem.

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The purveyors of products are inclined to over promise.

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Adverts for hair loss treatment tend to boast.

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Not stimulate some minor follicle growth, but rather cures balding.

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Having oversold their adopted elixir, governments won't retreat

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from the cures balding pitch.

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Won't keep you from getting sick or even from making other people sick,

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but prevents dying a lot of the time.

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And she calls that a lukewarm slogan, a product that prevents

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dying a lot of the time.

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I'm sorry, Lionel Trivert, it's not a lukewarm slogan.

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She says, I'm doubly vaccinated, gladly so unbalanced, but I've

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no fear of vaccine virgins.

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As the medical case for shunning the unvaccinated is unconvincing, VAX

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passports and employment mandates function purely as blackmail.

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As a judge decreed when staying Biden's edict, the mandate's true

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purpose is not to enhance workplace safety but instead to ramp up vaccine

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uptake by any means necessary.

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So I think it's both.

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When they mandate vaccines in the workplace, it's for safety

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of workers and it's to encourage people to get the bloody vaccine.

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It's, it's both.

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She finishes off, much Western public health policy is now irrational.

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Governments need to detach from the product instead.

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They've detached from the facts and like that's the typical sort of stuff

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I see when it comes to this argument.

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Vague statements that sort of say the vaccine doesn't work.

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You're all scared You're all sheeple, governments are overreaching

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and this is just crazy nonsense that you've all fallen for.

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There we go.

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You know, I kind of did get the vaccine because I'm a bit selfish.

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Right.

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Because I am Like at least 10 kilos overweight, spent the first 10,

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10 years of my adolescence from about 15 to 25 smoking cigarettes.

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Yep.

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So I'm not in great shape.

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It could kill me even though I'm young.

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So by being vaccinated, I'm actually making a choice where

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it could make me sick, but it won't, won't necessarily kill me.

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Hmm.

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Yep.

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Yeah.

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Yep.

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So from Crikey.

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Oh, actually the other thing is.

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A lot of people who complain about these laws are great defenders

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of western liberal democracy.

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But democracy, like, it's a democratic thing for duly elected officials

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to impose restrictions on people.

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Mm hmm.

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And They just haven't been paying attention to who they've

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been voting for until now.

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It's like these people are in favor of democracy until the democracy decides

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to restrict their individual freedom.

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What they really want is freedom.

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Is more important than the democracy.

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And that is a Milton Friedman sort of philosophy.

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So Milton Friedman was this part of the Mount Pelerin society.

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Basically the guy who invented neoliberalism, converted Margaret Thatcher

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and Ronald Reagan into neoliberalism.

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And.

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In his writings, you know, personal individual freedom was the highest of

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priorities, and democracy was something to be wary of because a democracy might

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actually decide to reduce those freedoms.

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Yes.

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So he saw General Pinochet in Chile as a necessary sort of interim measure

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because while he wasn't a democrat.

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In any sense, was Pinochet a democracy?

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He was supposedly instituting personal freedoms of a laissez faire economy.

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And that was preferable, you know, a dictator general like Pinochet

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enabling personal freedom was better in Friedman's eyes than a democracy

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that might actually restrict freedom.

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You know, the whole democracy.

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Issue is part of all this as well.

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Do I want to say what Crikey said?

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What did Crikey say?

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There's four options a government can do.

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Do nothing other than providing free vaccinations and educating people.

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So that's option one.

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It could impose soft restrictions such as travel on the unvaccinated.

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It could impose financial penalties on the unvaccinated.

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Which is an approach in Singapore.

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Singapore has said you're unvaccinated and you get sick and you come into hospital,

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you're gonna pay for it yourself.

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And the fourth would be fully mandate vaccines, like Austria.

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Austria is really moving to some quite strong laws in terms of vaccinations.

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I haven't kept up with the latest in Austria, but they're moving,

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because they've got one of the lowest take up rates in Europe.

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So, they're introducing Are they the ones that's about to go back into

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lockdown, or is that the Netherlands?

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There's a whole bunch of them over there, because they're coming into

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winter as well, is the problem, so, yeah.

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Now, let me just see, I might just skip a little bit to one thing I

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had, let me just see where this is.

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I'll put in the show notes.

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Dear listener, if you are a, actually, I'll put links in the normal show notes

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and the full thing in the, the patrons.

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Get the full show notes these days.

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You're not a patron, you just get a little short list of topics, but I'll

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actually put this in the show notes.

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And essentially I found two articles about the differences between

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vaccinated and unvaccinated people.

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How much they contract the disease and how much they pass on the disease.

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So, so one is from the conversation which talks about that topic, and another is

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from the uk, which was from the B, B, C, which painted quite a different picture.

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And then there was an article from this place called Actuarial Eye, which

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is this guy who's an actuary, who is trying to look at these different

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things and trying to work out.

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So there's a great disparity between, you could argue for quite a while as

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to, you know, you've got a group of a hundred people and you, some are

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vaccinated, some are not, how quickly viruses transfer in amongst them.

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I won't go into the weeds on it.

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I'll just, I'll just put the links and you can go and look at them.

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But these are the sorts of things that, that I think the

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anti vaxxers should Possibly.

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Talk about more, because there is something in there about, it's not

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exactly clear how effective the vaccines are in the sense of transmission.

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It's certainly very clear in terms of keeping people out of hospital,

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but in terms of the transmission rates, it's not so clear.

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Anyway, I'll put those in the show notes rather than going through the whole thing.

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But you couldn't show that to an anti vaxxer and have them believe you.

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I wouldn't see that as a credible piece of information, that's the trouble.

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Probably not.

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Well, and some of it is kind of in their favour though, so like, I think

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the BBC article was much more in their corner than the, than the article from

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the Conversation, so, you know, the data on that is not very clear at all.

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Okay, what have we got?

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You had a request to discuss Paul Keating, which I know you were.

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Yes, I'm going to put that on, he's coming up soon, just before I do.

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Morrison's.

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Sort of aiming for a, let me just get this, now I've lost that.

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Morrison's clearly testing slogans and things for an election.

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One of them was can do capitalism.

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How do you feel about that?

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You know, it's clever from the perspective of he does understand and

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shifts with public sentiment like that.

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It's something I wish the Labor Party would adopt a little more of.

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Being a bit more shifty, a little bit more agile.

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Let's say, you know, whereas Bill Shorten brought his big agenda

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and there was no appetite for it, there would be an appetite.

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For the kinds of policies they had the last time, but we're not going to shift.

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We're going to stick to this small tactic, small thing and possibly lose,

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but we're just going to hang on to it.

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Scott Morrison?

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Nah.

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It's what wins elections.

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If it's the can do capitalism, if it's bullshitting, if it's this, if it's that,

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his team, whatever it is, whatever's happening on Twitter, he will respond.

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Principles will be discarded and adopted in an instant.

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Depending on his own personal requirements for that particular five minutes.

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Yes, because you don't get the private plane unless you're the big dog.

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Well, I think he doesn't believe that he's ever lied.

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No, he doesn't.

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You don't think he does know he's lied.

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Surely, Joe, you don't really think he actually believes his own bullshit.

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People convince themselves.

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People convince themselves.

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So, it wouldn't surprise me if he Yeah, he could be convincing himself.

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So what did he say?

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He said, can do capitalism, not don't do governments.

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I think that's a good motto for us to follow, not just in this area,

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but right across the spectrum of economic policy in this country.

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This is Morrison.

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We've got a bit used to governments telling us what to

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do over the last couple of years.

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I think we have to break that habit.

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It's had its place, sure.

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He's talking about government as if He's not in.

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He's not in.

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It wasn't me.

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It's a matter for the States.

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You've got to appreciate the brilliance.

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The same with Barnaby Joyce.

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I played that clip once before about Barnaby Joyce when he's in

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the farm paddock going, I'm sick of government telling me what to do.

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I'm sick of it.

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We've got to remember there's the big fella in the sky.

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But he was like, I know, the sky daddy.

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But he was like, I'm sick of government telling me what to do.

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And mate, you are the Deputy Premier.

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That's it.

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I know.

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The Deputy Prime Minister.

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The powerlessness.

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Yep.

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So, um.

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Anyway, that's, uh, Can Do Capitalism was run up the flagpole to see how it

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flew, and The fellow who won the seat back from Maxime McHugh, the tennis

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player, who was the sit up bencher, yeah?

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Yeah.

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Is resigning.

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Yes.

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And it's rumoured that he's resigning because he was trying to get some

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good transport policy up and couldn't.

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He can't get the attention of the government because all the government

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wants to do is win elections.

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He wants a very fast train.

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They love their very fast trains, don't they?

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You haven't seen, uh, Utopia, obviously.

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Oh, yeah, I've seen Utopia.

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But John Alexander wants fast trains.

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Well, it's something.

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That's what he wants.

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But imagine, like, you have this safe Liberal seat, you're

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supposed to be forming policy, and your best option is to resign.

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What's the point?

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What is the point of the pursuit of politics?

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If you get to the top, and this is it, he's supposedly very disenchanted

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with, uh, how politics works.

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He sees them as being right.

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Um, just doing things for power rather than, the thing is he is there.

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He may as well make a difference while he is there, but he not just

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persuade somebody to build a very fast train, and he voted all the way.

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Well, he's tried to, Morrison Morrison's not interested, so he submitted stuff.

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Why does it change?

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Change politics, lock the door and set fire to the building.

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Exactly.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I don't know.

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You know, he's complaining now.

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I mean, he's nearly 70, so.

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Yeah.

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It's time to move on when you're 70.

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But then it's the same with Old Mate and the Labour Party as well.

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Who loves Cole and he's resigning as well.

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Greg Fitzgibbon.

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Okay.

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Yep.

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Yeah.

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He's, he's obviously no skills of persuasion, you know, like

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I'm fine with him leaving, but it's just like, why bother?

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Why become an MP just so you can throw all your toys out of the pram and leave?

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Like, is that really serving your electorate?

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It's probably a miserable existence as a backbench MP.

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I mean, yeah, but if you stick out your 10 years, you get your pension.

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And it's, it's probably only attractive to people who can't do

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anything else, to be a backbencher MP.

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Like, I mean, it's long hours away from your family.

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You've got to really love school fates and PNC meetings.

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And you are essentially powerless in that everything's decided in cabinet

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and You know, backbenchers are just told, this is how you're voting and,

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you know, depending on your character and whatever, you, you know, you, you

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could have many, many, many years of essentially not getting anything done.

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Yeah, but ten years and you're gravy trained for life.

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Yeah, so, yeah, it, it wouldn't be attractive.

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If you were told, everybody enters Parliament thinking they'll one day

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be Prime Minister, like they all do.

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Right, oh.

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Okay, but if you told people Enough, but even If you told, if you told

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me, Trevor, you can go in and you, but you'll be a lowly backbencher and

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you'll never arise to being a cabinet minister, you just wouldn't want to do it.

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Yeah.

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Would you?

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No.

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Yeah.

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But then even the prime minister is saying, it's a matter for

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the states, I've got no power.

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Yeah.

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What do you want me to do?

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Yeah.

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But it suits him.

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Yeah.

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And he doesn't hold a hose.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Paul Keating.

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National Press Club, Laura Tingle was sort of interviewing him, but basically

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asked questions and he would head off on a spiel for a good 10 minutes

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about China and thought it was good.

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You know, on two levels.

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One is I happen to agree with every single thing he said in terms of policy

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and the ideas, but the delivery and the intelligence that was behind it, just

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plucking references to history and to people that he knew and understood.

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It was impossible to imagine this current bumbling fool, Scott Morrison, ever

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being able to talk so competently and so well about any topic other than a

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Malaysian curry, perhaps, like Thank you.

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It really was, it was a moment where you went, Oh my God, how far we've fallen.

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Like, love him or hate him.

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You had to admit he was a smart guy and could tell a story and sell an idea.

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And.

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With a level of ambition and drive and take no prisoners and

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the colorful turn of phrase.

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Yes.

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The UK is an amusement park sliding into the Atlantic.

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Just stuff like that.

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Really, really good stuff.

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And, and quite depressing to think.

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But we've said it before, like when you looked at, you know, the Hawke

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cabinet, you know, just the brilliant men who were in that at the time.

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And this is the caliber that we used to have.

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Yes.

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And now we've got.

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He's, on the liberal side, evangelical nutbags, and on the Labor side, just,

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uh, union hacks who've done nothing.

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You know, it's just, it just shows how far we've fallen, and what do you do?

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I don't know.

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But it was a good moment, it was good to watch.

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I mean, the whole idea he was saying about China was, what are we doing involving the

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UK and America in something that's Asian.

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Like, you've got to look at geography and region and deal with the people

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in the region and he just sort of made the point that We've got the

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Indonesian archipelago above us.

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That's our natural defense.

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We should be spending time with the Indonesians like there's no tomorrow.

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We should have their military all doing their training in our military colleges.

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And we should be in theirs and doing all sorts of cross training where

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we know and understand each other.

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So if anything does happen, it comes through Indonesia and we work together.

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I thought we'd already done that.

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Uh, we trained them how to invade East Timor, didn't we?

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Yes.

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So, which, you know what, was one of the reasons why we were able to

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kind of get them out of East Timor was because we had trained them.

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So we did have relationships with them.

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And so the US, when we asked them for help with East Timor, said, no, you

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guys should actually do this on your own because we'll probably muck it.

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Well, not in so many words.

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But we'll probably, you were the guys to do this because you're

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on the ground and you know them.

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And, and in fact, America's staying out of it and just letting us do it.

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And we had personal relationships with our military and their military where

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we could, that was one of the reasons they did actually leave in the end.

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So I mean, this is what America did with Indonesia when I did that whole

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book review about the Jakarta method.

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In order to overthrow the government, they essentially took a long term

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strategy of inviting the military in Indonesia to America, and they're

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essentially the entire, after 20 years, the entire Indonesian

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military had been trained in America.

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So they were totally on board with America when they then wanted

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to overthrow the government.

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So it just makes sense with these countries that you, for us in

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Indonesia, that we should just have a really close relationship.

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So Keating is saying

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at UK in Southeast Asia.

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India, long history, India in Southeast Asia.

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We're going to rely on India as part of the quad to come across.

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Come on.

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It's just common sense and that we should be talking and negotiating and being part

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of the community rather than bringing in outsiders to protect us from Asia.

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We've got to find our protection.

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Within Asia.

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Oh, that's what he was saying.

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It was all good stuff.

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Yeah, I really enjoyed it.

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Hmm.

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So if you haven't listened to that, dear listener, ABC, iView or

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something, or somewhere will have it.

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It was good.

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Hmm.

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I thought, ah, how are we going for time?

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9.

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02, gee, we haven't got too much, have we?

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I, sorry, in the chat room have not been able to go through much there.

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What are people saying?

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Whatley's left us.

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Tom's the warehouse guy.

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Love Milton Friedman.

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His video on the pencil is amazing.

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Tom, what are you talking about?

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What is that about?

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Like, you know, actually, if you want to talk about Milton Friedman and

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neoliberalism, Joe, if you've got those photos on inequality of our images, so,

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dear listener, I came across a website which was the World Inequality Report.

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And, essentially, had some really interesting graphs that, maybe the other

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one, Joe, with, you're on the, the bubble, but this is the, yeah, that's the one.

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So do you listen, if you're looking at the screen, you see a red line going

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upwards from left to right, and a blue line going downwards from left to right.

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So, starts from 1980, goes to 2016 or so.

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So, the blue line is the share of national income.

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are the bottom 50 percent in the US and the red line is the share of national

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income for the top 1 percent in the US.

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So that just shows you that the 1 percent used to get about 11 percent

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and they're now up to 20 percent and the bottom 50 percent used to get about

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20 percent and they're now down to 13%.

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So.

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And that all happened as a result of the sort of near liberal policies that

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America adopted under Reagan as they took effect over the years following Reagan.

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The trickle up economy, is it?

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Indeed, yep.

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So, that's the US.

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The next chart shows same time period, same statistics, Western Europe.

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So, you can see that Pretty much a slight decrease for the bottom 50%,

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but not much, and a slight increase for the top 1%, but not much.

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Essentially, there's been nowhere near the changeover in

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income between the two groups.

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I'm guessing that excludes the UK.

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So, I don't know, Joe.

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I Links will be in the show notes.

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And people can It says Western Europe, actually.

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So, that would Well, does that exclude the UK?

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Dunno.

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Not sure.

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And then the third one shows Australia, I had to hunt this

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one down and make it up myself.

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Mm-Hmm.

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. So we are somewhere in between the US and the UK and the, and the Western Europe.

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You know, we haven't crossed over like the US but the direction

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we're heading is worse than Europe.

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This was sort of one of the things I've been saying in this podcast

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for the last six years is in a lot of things, we've got a choice.

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Are we gonna follow the Americans economically, socially, militarily?

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Or are we going to follow more of a Scandinavian European model?

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What are we going to do?

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Are we going to be the pro individual libertarian Americans?

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Or are we going to be more of socialist, democratic Scandinavians?

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And, yeah, I'd like that, but we hedging our bets, it's I fear we

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are dropping the American way more and more, and I wish we wouldn't.

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And so that graph on inequality just shows That the, hasn't crossed over, but

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it's, it's heading in that direction, Australia, somewhere between the

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European and the American experience.

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And there's another graph here that sort of shows, yep, Joe's got the same one up.

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This is for a longer time period.

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So this one goes back from 1912 to 2021.

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And, you know, the big change happens in 19, in the 1980s, essentially.

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Things were going great for equality until then, and then things changed,

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and it was all to do with Thatcher, Reagan, neoliberal policies that came

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about during that time period and haven't really been reversed in any sense, and

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in what's The policies that happened at that time are meaning that the top 1

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percent are getting more of income and the bottom 50 percent are getting less.

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And that's how it's working out.

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So that was interesting on inequality graphs.

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And was there anything else I wanted to quickly, Oh, let's go

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back to the bubble bursting, Joe.

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Just, dear listener, do not take financial advice from a podcast

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or this podcast in particular.

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So don't take what I'm about to say as advice that you should sell

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all your stocks and whatever and convert them to cash or do anything.

Speaker:

I'm not saying that, but just I'm saying read, get professional advice, look

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around and consider what sort of financial bubble we're currently in at the moment.

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So there's an article from Crikey saying that basically everything, every sector

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is in a bubble at the moment and According to Crikey, the author, it is going to

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burst and it's going to get messy, so everyone in going, the last bursting of

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a bubble was back in 2000, so in 1999, almost everyone knew that the bubble

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would burst at some point, but as the Citibank CEO said, as long as the music is

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playing, you've got to get up and dance.

Speaker:

So what that means is, well, if you've got a bit of money, dear listener,

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what are you going to do with it?

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Are you going to put it in chairs?

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Are they overvalued?

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Are you going to put it in property?

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Is that overvalued?

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You know, where are you going to put it?

Speaker:

So back then, turn of the century, the March 2000, you remember the Nasdaq,

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which was the tech stocks, dropped 77%.

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The Dow Jones dropped 20%.

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Back in those days, interest rates were about 8%.

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So our problem now is that interest rates are so low that everything is in

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a bubble and almost every asset class.

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From stocks to property to fine art.

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And according to this article, I'm not saying it's the case.

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It's just according to this article, don't take advice from me.

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Don't sue me for this.

Speaker:

If you're purchasing almost any asset now, you're essentially betting

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that central banks are able to influence interest rates in the medium

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term, which is highly debatable.

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And can maintain record low interest rates despite fears of inflation.

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So everything's expensive now because interest rates are so cheap.

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In the past, sorry, Joe.

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I was going to say Robert Reich regularly talks about this.

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There's a couple of documentaries he's done and his argument is these.

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Spikes in the markets happen when the rich have a lot of capital to

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invest and it eventually leads to a crash, which has a negative impact.

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And his argument is basically top rate attacks has an effect on this.

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So, top rate of tax being high leads to inflation.

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So, having high top rates of tax leads to inflation?

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Sorry, other way around.

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Having low top rates of tax leads to inflation.

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Okay, yep, because they've got money swimming around and that

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just gets speculatively invested.

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Creating inflation that would make sense.

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Mm-Hmm.

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. So in the past year, the NASDAQ is up 34%.

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The s and p up 34%.

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Crude oil is up 109% coal's up.

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117 Bitcoin up 300%.

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Australia's share market are relative.

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Laggard up only 21%.

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So there's a chart which Joe's got there, which is the US market in relative terms,

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which, so this first chart looks at the 10 year average price earnings multiples.

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And it's only hit 40 previously and it's just hit 40 again.

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So if you look at a chart like that, you'd think, Hmm.

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And there's another one, Warren Buffett's GDP to Market Capitalization

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Index, which is another chart.

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And again, you look at it and you go, Hmm.

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So.

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And then what else do you do?

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Do you also lock down your interest saying what you do.

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But hypothetically, would you extrapolate from that that there

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might be some actions to take?

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Like start saving your pennies for interest rate rises?

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Don't know what to do.

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2000 was the dot com bubble, wasn't it?

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Yeah, it's, yeah, I mean, it could be.

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Could go as another three years.

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Who knows?

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Who knows?

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It's just interesting times ahead.

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I reckon probably as soon as the Labor government gets in, that's

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usually when a disaster strikes.

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So, that could be it.

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So, uh.

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Although that's good timing because they actually bail us out.

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And finally, just on the, the can do capitalism with what we

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mentioned before with Scott Morrison.

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Part of the essential poll today, the question was, Which of the following

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options is closest to your views on how an Australian government should get

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involved in the management of the economy?

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And the first one was, I want government to have a more active

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role in managing the economy.

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62 percent of people agreed.

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I think the way the government manages the economy currently is 22%.

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And I want the government to have a less active role in

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managing the economy is 16%.

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So, that would indicate that the can do capitalism, let's get out of

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here and leave it up to the market, is not what people are wanting,

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according to the Cessential Poll.

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I thought that was interesting.

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Mm.

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It is interesting.

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It's interesting because the whole get the government out of the market is a furphy.

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Yes.

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Because the market works on regulation, works on laws, works on, and what

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they don't want is regulation.

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is free reign because then the poor people will say, fuck you,

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I'm not doing what you want, Mr.

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Bank.

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And they'll default on their loans.

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So they want the full power of the government when it suits them.

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They just don't want the full power of the government breathing down their necks.

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But even Adam Smith recognised the danger of unregulated capitalism and

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the ability of large players with market monopolies to distort the system.

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So the whole invisible hand.

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The whole idea of Adam Smith was, was relying on an acknowledgement

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that when businesses got too big, they could distort a market.

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And that wasn't capitalism and the free market in his eyes.

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Alright, just briefly, Mel says the Australian graph showed there was

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less inequality under Whitlam, Hawke, Keating through the 70s and 90s

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with a blip for Fraser, doesn't it?

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So.

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Let me just go back to that, and before we finish, inequality And the

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Australian one, what year was Hawke, 1980 to Yeah, what year was 1970.

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Yeah, 1974.

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Oops, I moved away from my friend, sorry.

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Yeah, I don't know, uh, Mel, I think the graph is a fairly Okay,

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there's little blips and things there, but I don't know about that.

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Anyway, have a look at it in your leisure.

Speaker:

Alright, dear listener, well, thanks in the chat room.

Speaker:

You guys have been going off in there, which is good.

Speaker:

Sorry I couldn't follow you all the way.

Speaker:

Good to see old folk like Dean Stretton getting involved.

Speaker:

I haven't heard from Dean for ages, so nice to see people like that coming back.

Speaker:

Tom the warehouse guy, I'm going to have to talk to you about Milton Friedman.

Speaker:

I'm a little bit worried about your thoughts there.

Speaker:

And look, panel will be back in two weeks.

Speaker:

I keep promising to do something.

Speaker:

I don't know if I will or not.

Speaker:

I don't know.

Speaker:

It'd just be a surprise if it does.

Speaker:

Not sure what I'm going to do.

Speaker:

Anyway, we'll be back at least in two weeks, maybe in a week.

Speaker:

I'll be back.

Speaker:

Not sure, but we'll talk to you then.

Speaker:

Bye for now.

Speaker:

Good night.

Speaker:

That's a good night from him.

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Show artwork for The Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove
The Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove
News, political events, culture, ethics and the transformations taking place in our society.

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