full
Episode 353 - Sometimes We Need a Witch Hunt
In this episode we discuss:
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:07 Witch Hunts
00:10:52 Fran Bailey
00:14:00 Murdoch and Crikey
00:21:40 Long Covid
00:23:55 Labor's Climate Credentials
00:26:26 Shaq
00:29:45 Stage 3 Tax Cuts
00:39:36 Student Loans
00:49:48 Electricity and Privatisation
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Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Well, hello there.
Speaker:Dear listener, the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove podcast.
Speaker:It's me, Trevor.
Speaker:AKA.
Speaker:Iron Fist with me, Joe, the tech guy How you going Joe?
Speaker:Evening All.
Speaker:So if you're in the chat room at any point, say hello and chat away,
Speaker:we'll try and get your comments.
Speaker:And we're just going to rattle through the events of the week
Speaker:and look at some other stuff.
Speaker:What's on the agenda.
Speaker:Witch Hunts, Murdoch and crikey long Cove.
Speaker:Stage three tax cuts, student loan, forgiveness, and
Speaker:privatization of public assets.
Speaker:So that's the sort of stuff that's on the agenda.
Speaker:I've got a few clips to show you.
Speaker:John's in a chat room.
Speaker:Hello, John, John and I are in the middle of a, Facebook messenger
Speaker:debate over small nuclear reactors.
Speaker:We had, John is still a fan and he feels that I have strong meaned that and,
Speaker:cherry picked a good name, the good DS of straw man, and cherry picked the
Speaker:good name of small nuclear reactors.
Speaker:So we're in the midst of the biting that, but, I don't think we're
Speaker:going to do that as a topic tonight.
Speaker:So, well, first topic we chance Joe.
Speaker:I mean, what's wrong with a good old fashioned we chant.
Speaker:I asked you burn the wage.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, I keep thinking of the Monty Python.
Speaker:Where they've dressed up that poor woman with a fake nose and as a
Speaker:witch and they want to burn her and she took to a nude, that's it.
Speaker:I keep thinking of it.
Speaker:We chant, you know, and which hands are bad, but Joan, what if they
Speaker:really ask them, which is out there as instant, bad faithful, it's
Speaker:probably time to hump and down.
Speaker:I would have thought maybe we can get them to eat 'em oh God, yes.
Speaker:Be some way of showing them well, appearing before an ICAC or
Speaker:something, is what needs to be done.
Speaker:So, so both that Trump and Morrison in particular are claiming that
Speaker:they're the victims of a witch hunt.
Speaker:And so, yeah, I'm working on a hypothesis that the problem in our society is
Speaker:that we haven't had enough, we chance.
Speaker:And so there's the conflicting arguments with both of these characters.
Speaker:On the one hand, we've got their supporters who are saying, oh, why pick
Speaker:on these guys it's over and done with this is just unnecessary, vindictive legal
Speaker:action against people because you don't like them and they're not of your tribe.
Speaker:And the other competing narrative is people saying there are serious problems
Speaker:that went on here in the USA, the capital rights, and in Australia, you know,
Speaker:signing up to five ministries in secret.
Speaker:And these things just can't be swept under the carpet and should be examined.
Speaker:And, you know, if he could just declare, oh, it's a witch
Speaker:hunt, you would never go back.
Speaker:And re-examine poor behavior, Joe.
Speaker:And I think one of our problems in our society of light is that there
Speaker:hasn't been enough shaming of people for poor behavior and poor decisions.
Speaker:Well, certainly there's not been enough shame, agreed to by the people.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So, I, in the park, in the past, if he got caught doing something, most
Speaker:politicians had the, good grace to, to look ashamed about being caught, doing the
Speaker:wrong thing and fell on their own sword.
Speaker:Whereas recently it's just been, oh, well, no, no, it never happened.
Speaker:I'm pretending it didn't happen.
Speaker:And plus the way through.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Or I haven't broken the black letter of the law.
Speaker:It wasn't strictly speaking illegal.
Speaker:It was just a convention and therefore it doesn't matter.
Speaker:Leave me alone, nothing.
Speaker:It doesn't matter whether it's right or wrong to these people.
Speaker:It's just, you know, am I legally liable?
Speaker:And if not, let's move on.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:So, yeah, it's a, it's the confliction, the conflicting thing they're saying,
Speaker:incidentally, Joe, I thought about it.
Speaker:Look it up.
Speaker:Witch hunt.
Speaker:metaphorically means an investigation that is usually conducted with matchy
Speaker:publicity, supposedly to uncover subversive activity, disloyalty and
Speaker:so on, but with the real purpose of intimidating political opponents.
Speaker:So Morrison, for example, would say, well, this is all about intimidating political
Speaker:opponents, but, I'd like to think that it's about uncovering subversive activity.
Speaker:That's where the emphasis is.
Speaker:I would agree.
Speaker:I mean, I don't see holding a minister holding a prime minister to account
Speaker:for their actions they did in secret.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Or even holding a former president to account for stealing documents and
Speaker:then keeping them in unsafe locations.
Speaker:And from what I hear.
Speaker:The classified documents were hidden inside unclassified documents.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:They had been taken from their original folders and mixed in
Speaker:with papers of other sorts.
Speaker:So it looks like there was a deliberate attempt to hide classified documents.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think the inspiration expression was they'd been unfolded.
Speaker:I think it was possibly a word that was kind of a hurdle and
Speaker:someone was saying, oh yeah.
Speaker:it was his blackmail, trope.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:These, these were all things that he was hoping to threaten to, to disgrace people
Speaker:by saying, look, look, you did this.
Speaker:I'm going to make this public.
Speaker:If you don't do whatever I tell you to.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And certainly that there was a Macron file.
Speaker:Certainly reeks of him getting some ammunition of some sort, but he might
Speaker:to have some payback by being toes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So anyway, Trump on the confidential documents, he says it's a.
Speaker:Conservatives on the Morrison ministries.
Speaker:They say that's a witch hunt conservatives on the robo debt inquiry.
Speaker:They say that's a witch hunt.
Speaker:And they started with pink bats.
Speaker:Didn't they?
Speaker:Yes, that's right.
Speaker:But you know, when it comes to the robot, did quite possibly Joe it's
Speaker:a witch hunt of a witch hunt because that, Alan targe, who was the, the, one
Speaker:of the ministers involved said at one point, we'll find you we'll track you
Speaker:down and you will have to repay those debts and you may end up in prison.
Speaker:So perhaps he was conducting a witch hunt and now there's a
Speaker:witch hunt of his witch hunt.
Speaker:It's all getting very meta.
Speaker:so.
Speaker:it's conflicting.
Speaker:There's all sorts of different people, in the chat room, by the
Speaker:way, everyone's going off already.
Speaker:Good on you.
Speaker:Alison Bronwyn ITTO and, and, and, and Tanya, I think T
Speaker:Watkins would be Tanya probably.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Keep talking in there.
Speaker:We'll try and get to you if you can.
Speaker:And, what I was going to say, Walid, Allie, are you a fan?
Speaker:Joe, so somebody posted a link to him and Christopher Hitchens
Speaker:on Q and a many years ago.
Speaker:Oh, what happened?
Speaker:Oh, Walid was being his usual evasive self about what Islam believed.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Cause Christopher was saying, so does this law firm say that homosexuality is
Speaker:fine and he's going, oh, well, you know, most Muslims and he's saying, no, no,
Speaker:no, it's not what most Muslims believe.
Speaker:What does Islam say?
Speaker:Yes, because he was calling his Lamar and I think of Christianity as being.
Speaker:and, and we're saying basically you just, you're not answering the question.
Speaker:I was trying to hold Willy to account.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I could imagine Hitchins nailing him.
Speaker:So, well, Allie, in a quarterly essay in 2010 road established institutions
Speaker:are to be cherished and preserved, but, in the last week or so, after Morrison
Speaker:announced, after it was announced about what Morrison was doing with the
Speaker:ministries, Waleed Ali is saying, why is it labor kicking him while he's down?
Speaker:And so when else would you kick him?
Speaker:Yeah, so, yeah.
Speaker:Well at Allie he's, off as a conservative and questioning,
Speaker:why are they doing this attack?
Speaker:So from a guy who previously wrote established institutions that will
Speaker:be cherished and preserved and who claimed to be a conservative.
Speaker:So it sounds like, he's revealing his tribalism there.
Speaker:So isn't important.
Speaker:Well, there was a guy RAF Epstein, and now I'm just wondering the Dali's wife
Speaker:was a member of parliament for labor, or is that somebody else over in potent?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I don't know who his wife is, but RAF Epstein.
Speaker:I think he's an ABC reporter of some sort.
Speaker:And I think of all the commentary I've heard, he probably said it best.
Speaker:So I'll apply a bit of this clip from him and, we'll see what he says.
Speaker:can I, can I say something about whether or not the inquiry is justified?
Speaker:Yeah, because a lot I want to get, there's a lot of debate about whether it's, which,
Speaker:you know, it was going to change anything, but we got to ensure one way or another.
Speaker:This never happens again.
Speaker:Do we need to do this?
Speaker:I think people have overlooked the significance of the
Speaker:solicitor General's opinion.
Speaker:Steven here, QC is the black letter of Blackwell.
Speaker:He's one of the very few people in this country that actually practiced
Speaker:it practices constitutional law.
Speaker:He has to get up in front of the high court and prosecute this stuff, getting
Speaker:them to use an adjective or an adverb is like getting blood from a stone.
Speaker:He says he fundamentally undermine fundamentally undermines the
Speaker:principles of responsible government, the functioning of responsible
Speaker:government and the relationship between the ministry and the public.
Speaker:The point that this is a very gendered government was surprised.
Speaker:The government was surprised that it was that it's huge.
Speaker:It's a huge compulsion to do something and to say for people
Speaker:who are, who tap themselves as conservatives to say that, I mean,
Speaker:by the Volvo, it's just a convention.
Speaker:If you went back to the constitutional convention before Federation
Speaker:and said, oh no, it's fine.
Speaker:This future prime minister, he didn't break the law.
Speaker:He just trashed all of the convention that you all rely on.
Speaker:Yeah, I think it put it pretty well.
Speaker:That's a little bit low.
Speaker:Sorry about the volume on that, but, It's important.
Speaker:And I think it's entirely justified.
Speaker:Insure label would be rubbing their hands together with a bit of glee with a bit
Speaker:of payback, but it is an important thing that needs to be done, particularly as
Speaker:we're looking at potentially some sort of Republican debate down the track,
Speaker:so issues to do with our constitution and the role of the governor general.
Speaker:I think it's a worthwhile exercise, even if it does work in nicely
Speaker:with labor's desire to, to keep him to kick him while his day on.
Speaker:So, so there was that.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So that's we chance, now it came out, Fran Bailey has come out in the news.
Speaker:So she was the former tourism minister and she's the one who I sickly, ordered that
Speaker:Morrison be sacked from his tourism job.
Speaker:And for years, people were asking.
Speaker:Why do you do that?
Speaker:What actually went on and there was this silence about, about what had happened,
Speaker:what his misdemeanors were in that role.
Speaker:And it was all very secretive.
Speaker:And, so she has declined, since 2006, the many requests to explain on
Speaker:the record what happened until now.
Speaker:So she, so infuriated with the recent disclosures about Morrison,
Speaker:secretly appointed himself to multiple ministries that she has agreed to speak.
Speaker:and she's made a profound point according to this article from John fine, and the
Speaker:age, Morrison was removed from tourism Australia for the same type of conduct he
Speaker:displayed in the multi minister scandal.
Speaker:Quote, what has changed my mind is that all of those characteristics that make up
Speaker:Scott Morrison the secrecy, the Supreme belief that only he can do a job, the
Speaker:lack of consultation with those closest.
Speaker:Those characteristics were evident 16 years ago.
Speaker:Perhaps we're seeing the end result of those now end quote.
Speaker:Well, why didn't you come out until everybody back then?
Speaker:What I'm going to know.
Speaker:She thought he wasn't going to go anywhere.
Speaker:She criticized she's criticizing his secrecy and that are
Speaker:which she kept secret herself.
Speaker:Just, you know, for people who want to come out and say good on you.
Speaker:Fran Bailey for revealing.
Speaker:I just say they'll add on new friend Bailey, keeping it secret.
Speaker:I don't know that anything would have been done, but at least you could
Speaker:have done the honorable thing and say, this guy is a secretive narcissist,
Speaker:Dinah pointing to any position of power, least of all prime minister.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:well, it was God who did it.
Speaker:Yes, that's right.
Speaker:I mean, a few people have made the same sort of criticism that I have just
Speaker:made and that we've been admonished by some on the left saying, oh, it
Speaker:was a woman who got him sacked and why as a woman being blind for Morrison
Speaker:getting through all this, and it says nothing to do with her gender.
Speaker:It's just in you.
Speaker:He was a secret of character and you kept it secret from us that he was
Speaker:secretive site and try and climb too much.
Speaker:Kudos for it is all I'm saying, John in the chat room says too little too late.
Speaker:She should pull her head back in again.
Speaker:I think she did it.
Speaker:Political expediency.
Speaker:Didn't she?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:She wasn't going to upset her party.
Speaker:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker:Well, he was powerful.
Speaker:Let him go.
Speaker:And now that he's got no friends, everyone can kick him while he's down.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I mentioned was it last year?
Speaker:About crikey and Murdoch.
Speaker:I don't know if I actually said it, but, how, how strongly I said it, but
Speaker:it seemed unlikely that Murdoch would actually Sue crikey because it makes no
Speaker:sense it will be unleashing, exposure of communication by the Murdoch family
Speaker:as to what they did and did not do.
Speaker:And so it just seemed to be obvious that this was going to
Speaker:potentially open a Pandora's box.
Speaker:And surely after all of these defamation cases in recent times where the
Speaker:plaintiff has ended up regretting starting the action, you would have
Speaker:thought that he would just let it go.
Speaker:But no, he actually did convince the action against crikey.
Speaker:So, We'll see where that one goes.
Speaker:It's going to be very interesting stories that pans out Joe, like.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:I would like, I, I think, whatever discovery is granted is going,
Speaker:gonna be very interesting.
Speaker:Hm.
Speaker:well, I mean, it's relevant to produce all material that indeed, that might
Speaker:lead to the conclusion that there was some agreement, some conspiracy, or just
Speaker:mere assistance for Trump in what he was doing or covering up what he was doing.
Speaker:It was just, it seems madness, but, he's doing it.
Speaker:So we'll, we'll see how that one pans out.
Speaker:That's going to be, with many stories over the times it goes
Speaker:through, and January 6th inquiry.
Speaker:yeah, just going back to Morrison with the secrecy stuff.
Speaker:What Lee, hello.
Speaker:What Lee says?
Speaker:I don't think any of the commentary is taking his religious fanaticism
Speaker:into account as his actions go and Bronwyn says agree wildly.
Speaker:When you believe you've been chosen by God, anything is justifiable.
Speaker:There are certainly a Messiah complex operating in the Scott Morrison mind.
Speaker:Did I mention there have been allegations that the only ministries he hadn't
Speaker:appointed himself to were the ones that were occupied by evangelicals?
Speaker:is that true?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I've not looked yet.
Speaker:Somebody had said it would be interesting if it was, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker:So it seemed to me at first blush, it was ones where the minister had a fair
Speaker:amount of personal decision-making responsibility under what the relevant act
Speaker:more so than some of the other ministry.
Speaker:Whether to approve a development, whether to approve a immigration visa
Speaker:for a Sri Lankan family, those sorts of decision-making powers that may be some
Speaker:of the other ministries didn't have.
Speaker:So it seemed to me ones where there were a high degree of
Speaker:personal power for the minister.
Speaker:And I just think Morrison didn't like the idea of anyone having more power than him.
Speaker:So, yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Back to, crikey and, this lawsuit.
Speaker:So they're doing crowd funding.
Speaker:I think they revealed, they've got something like 12 journalists work
Speaker:for crikey and he came out the figures for their income seemed fairly modest.
Speaker:It's quite a small organization.
Speaker:So if you haven't already and you like the idea of supporting them, then just
Speaker:get a subscription and private media.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:What's that private media is the holding company.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:For crikey, crikey, right?
Speaker:Yup.
Speaker:sorry, you might, support them cause they will need assistance.
Speaker:And also what we had here was comments by Malcolm Turnbull about the Murdochs.
Speaker:So if, well actually before I get into that, Joe Biden says Rupert Murdoch is
Speaker:the most dangerous man in the world.
Speaker:I mean, if you want to start suing somebody for defamation, maybe Rupert
Speaker:Murdoch could have started with Joe Biden.
Speaker:because he's propaganda network is one of the most destructive
Speaker:forces in the United States.
Speaker:So that's what J Biden had decided that Rupert Murdoch, I don't think
Speaker:you can Sue a sitting president any, no, I don't think he can eat well.
Speaker:Of course, it's going to be difficult.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's why Trump wants to get reelected.
Speaker:okay.
Speaker:What did Malcolm Turnbull say?
Speaker:Let's find out what he said about this whole thing.
Speaker:The role of, Fox news, which of course belongs to Rupert Murdoch,
Speaker:in the whole January six, attempted coup by Donald Trump is a matter
Speaker:of enormous public interest.
Speaker:The reality is the big lie that fueled that coup namely, that Trump had won
Speaker:the 20, 20 election and Biden had stolen it that big lie was propagated
Speaker:and amplified and promoted by Fox news.
Speaker:January six could not have happened without the toxic influence of Fox news.
Speaker:I mean, Rupert Marie.
Speaker:Has done more damage to American democracy than any other individual alive today.
Speaker:And he's done it through Fox news.
Speaker:And I can kind of tell you that may sound a bit controversial on the
Speaker:radio this morning, go to Washington.
Speaker:You would struggle.
Speaker:Oh, just the us, UK and Australia as well, I'd say.
Speaker:Mm Hmm.
Speaker:The problem is Laughlin is, is crazier than reap it.
Speaker:He's not as smart, but he's crazier.
Speaker:So at one point I was holding out hope that when Rupert would eventually, if
Speaker:he's not a vampire and will actually die at some point, maybe Laughlin
Speaker:so crazy that the whole rock shower will just fall into the ground fairly
Speaker:swiftly because of these mistakes come.
Speaker:Only one is possibly doing.
Speaker:just an evil malignant force in our community, responsible for a lot of stuff.
Speaker:And this is the part I, you know, this is one of my big arguments with, pull
Speaker:12 million over the years was Paul did not accept the propaganda effectiveness
Speaker:of the Murdoch empire and did not accept that journalists were cowed into
Speaker:complying with whatever the Murdoch doctorate was, editorial direction.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And actually sort of got into a, I didn't enter into an argument.
Speaker:I just, a friend of mine played squash with his sister was a sports
Speaker:journalist for, for Murdoch papers.
Speaker:And I think I was at a wedding of some sort where she was, and I started
Speaker:entering into this discussion and she was trying to say that there was no.
Speaker:Direction on her, in her activities.
Speaker:And I said, well, first of all, you're a sports journalist.
Speaker:And secondly, you know, you don't have to be told what to do, people figure it out.
Speaker:So, and I say, you only hire journalists to align to your views.
Speaker:Correct.
Speaker:It's all that, it, it, you know, do you accept the Noam Chomsky
Speaker:theory of manufacturing consent?
Speaker:And I think it's a pretty compelling argument and yeah, so it used to frustrate
Speaker:me with Paul 12 million that he, he would rarely accept that argument.
Speaker:I think also just the whole science done.
Speaker:I love fogs, but other murder rags, which is, you know, buying into the, find the
Speaker:one dissenting voice and amplify it.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Provided that voice is one that somehow is in line with your own.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Needs of some sort.
Speaker:okay.
Speaker:I got my fourth COVID shot this morning.
Speaker:Creamies three have been Pfizer, went from the Dern of this
Speaker:time just to mix it up feeling.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:No real effects on COVID fourth.
Speaker:No, no.
Speaker:I only have my third.
Speaker:I was, I got nagged by my gastroenterologist to get my
Speaker:fourth and then the kids got COVID.
Speaker:So I get the feeling given that I was in the house with the two of them and
Speaker:they were both sick for a week each.
Speaker:that I've only certainly had an exposure, probably had it hardly.
Speaker:Yup.
Speaker:Yup.
Speaker:so I've got that, but, long COVID Joe that, I think this treasury, I think
Speaker:has estimated 31,000 Australian workers are calling in sick every day because of
Speaker:the debilitating symptoms of long-term.
Speaker:Treasury data.
Speaker:Given the news Corp papers shows 12% of the labor force is staying
Speaker:home sick because of the long-term after effects of the virus.
Speaker:So we should slash wages, make them more keen to get back to work
Speaker:because of the, just the poorer they are, the more they want to work.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Sorry.
Speaker:And this is, I thought, you know, news gore they'd be advocating for such things.
Speaker:my daughter's friend who's 17 and she was all gung ho let's let's get COVID,
Speaker:let's get it over and done with, and she was sick for a week or whatever she
Speaker:had to give up a gym membership really cannot do any form of cardio exercise.
Speaker:And this is presumably right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You do hear these stories.
Speaker:Yeah, I know.
Speaker:It's not uncommon.
Speaker:Mm mm.
Speaker:Just, just, yeah.
Speaker:Being out of breath.
Speaker:after walking a couple of hundred meters, well people saying that
Speaker:their thinking is really fuzzy.
Speaker:They're not as alert for as long as they used to be.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, it's, it's actually been pointed out that it's not uncommon after any virus.
Speaker:It's just, it seems to be because almost all of them, or rather large
Speaker:numbers of people have had COVID we're seeing post COVID, viral fatigue,
Speaker:which are around and other viruses.
Speaker:We just don't usually recognize it.
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:So, long COVID, we'll see how that pans out over time.
Speaker:let's talk about our new labor government who, have come in and with a lot of
Speaker:Goodwill around the place, I think from the front, the media, at least, and
Speaker:from their own supporters and, you know, the sort of conservative supporters.
Speaker:I think accepted that the Morrison government was so bad, it just had to go.
Speaker:So they're sort of standing back and giving these guys half a chance.
Speaker:I, climate credentials out, looking real flesh so far for this new government.
Speaker:They, they told the world that the climate wars were either climbed.
Speaker:They will take climate change seriously, and they just approved 10 new ocean
Speaker:sites for oil and gas exploration.
Speaker:Just doesn't line up with what people might have been hoping and expecting.
Speaker:And the grains will be rubbing their hands together.
Speaker:I reckon with this, it doesn't surprise me.
Speaker:I thought labor were as bad.
Speaker:I mean, Palo Shay has been very much on board with Adani.
Speaker:I really don't see much of a difference between labor might be slightly better
Speaker:in terms of pushing for renewables.
Speaker:But yeah, they're still very keen to, I think there's far too much
Speaker:sponsorship, far too much money in Canberra from the oil and coal lobby.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And they've only had to show themselves just a little bit more progressive
Speaker:with, as opposed to the conservatives and that's not hard to do so.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You know, approving 10 new ocean sites and you're talking about being
Speaker:serious about this stuff and the more you just read in the paper about,
Speaker:but they weren't off of Morrison's electric and that's the important point.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:you know, the, the Greenland ice shelf, the droughts in England at the moment,
Speaker:you know, canals or Eastern rivers that used to run and try France dry.
Speaker:one of my English friends was actually saying they're finding
Speaker:more and more bodies as the reservoir levels are dropping.
Speaker:I'm sure.
Speaker:Why could you seem to, the Northern hemisphere is really facing some
Speaker:catastrophic stuff and we seem to be heading for another wet summer.
Speaker:It's, it's going to kind of catch up with us and it just
Speaker:looks like Morrison government.
Speaker:Isn't serious.
Speaker:It'll be interesting to see how the public takes it.
Speaker:Or the greens have just picked up another couple of notches in approval writing,
Speaker:I reckon as a result of that decision.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, Joe, if you were trying to, encourage people to pass a future
Speaker:referendum about the voice, would you be importing a large American basketball
Speaker:player as part of your media camp?
Speaker:I don't know whether he was imported or whether he was
Speaker:over here for something else.
Speaker:And is it because he is revered by the Aboriginal community?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:It did seem a bit left field.
Speaker:I think the argument from, Albanese was look we're at the point where we're
Speaker:just trying to raise awareness and we're trying to reach people who may not
Speaker:necessarily read the newspapers or read political sections or whatever, but who
Speaker:would, if they saw it, Shaq decide to pay attention to whatever he is here for.
Speaker:So I think that was the rationale was we've got to message this past the
Speaker:community we can't reach and a big American African-American basketball
Speaker:player will reach that demographic.
Speaker:Could you not have reached it some other way, other than
Speaker:importing a large American?
Speaker:Was it nobody in Australia?
Speaker:It was it now Australian indigenous.
Speaker:I, and you're not going to point out the point that he's a flat earth.
Speaker:Is it a flat earth cook?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:He claims that the plane that flew him here, didn't clue in a straight
Speaker:line because the earth is flat.
Speaker:Really?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I'm surprised he didn't say that.
Speaker:we're all paid actors because you know, the other flat earth
Speaker:conspiracies Australia is made up within the world actors.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think he might've been here for other reasons and it's sort of, I
Speaker:don't think they paid him a thing he did for free, but I just, if I was
Speaker:the Australian prime minister, I would just not be using American culture
Speaker:on such a vital Australian issue.
Speaker:It just to me.
Speaker:Rankles with me.
Speaker:And I, you know, there are, there's some successful indigenous basketball
Speaker:players like Patty mills or others who, I mean, the guy held the flag in
Speaker:the Olympics or whatever, like this there's all sorts of other people.
Speaker:He surely could reach that demographic with add, a big American who was
Speaker:admittedly a great federal opportunity.
Speaker:Just the size of the guy compared to Morrison was, was Banting
Speaker:get photographs, I guess.
Speaker:But, yeah, I just think relying on American culture for such
Speaker:an Australian problem issue
Speaker:and you know, how, how relevant to the day as, sports people toward
Speaker:the average Australian, as opposed to an indigenous rugby player.
Speaker:Mm mm.
Speaker:Anyway, that was that.
Speaker:Kevin says, well, there goes any respect I had for shack, and Brahman, why do
Speaker:we need the endorsement of a foreigner?
Speaker:We need to work these things out for ourselves.
Speaker:I know it's such an Australian issue to bring in a foreigner with no
Speaker:particular expertise, honestly, that move, I wouldn't have done if I was
Speaker:him anyway, stage three tax cuts.
Speaker:So while the conservatives were in power, they proposed some tax cuts and library
Speaker:grade to them at the time as part of the small target strategy and the tax cuts,
Speaker:not, were not to take effect immediately.
Speaker:They were to take effect at some time in the future, which will be
Speaker:during, this term of the parliament.
Speaker:So people are saying.
Speaker:Yeah, well, budget situation.
Speaker:Isn't looking that flash and you're supposed to be alive a government.
Speaker:So maybe you could think about not, you know, you could reverse this
Speaker:decision about the tax cuts so time.
Speaker:No, no.
Speaker:It's far too late in the day too many people have made financial plans based
Speaker:on this that we can't reverse it.
Speaker:When did they say that the election right.
Speaker:People have made commitments based on their tax cut.
Speaker:So we can't, eh, so I think it was either just before.
Speaker:I think it was just after the election.
Speaker:They said, no, no, we're going ahead with them because they do use kick in
Speaker:any time and people have already made.
Speaker:Because couple's on $200,000 who bought that investment property.
Speaker:we're doing this spreadsheet out into the next 10 years and had factored in more
Speaker:disposable money income because of a, of a tax break that they were going to get.
Speaker:And you know, that landlords are doing art at the moment.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, it's an argument.
Speaker:so what are the tax cuts anyway?
Speaker:So they're going to remove the 37 cents in the dollar tax bracket,
Speaker:and they're going to allow her the 32 and a half cent bracket.
Speaker:And they're going to rise the top tax bracket to start a 200,000
Speaker:where it used to be 190,000.
Speaker:So if you make 50,000 a year, the listener, which is kind of near the
Speaker:median income, not the average, but the median, you're going to save $2 40 per.
Speaker:But if you make 200,000 a year, you're gonna save 73 times of that.
Speaker:You're gonna save $174 a week.
Speaker:so the richest, 1% of Australians will get as much money from the stage
Speaker:three tax cuts as the poorest 65% combined and alive, the government
Speaker:looks like proceeding with this.
Speaker:so there's two arguments.
Speaker:One is you're alive.
Speaker:The government you supposed to be for the working class is supposed
Speaker:to be about trying to even out the inequality in our society.
Speaker:And the other argument is, well, you committed to this.
Speaker:And you promised people that you would pass these.
Speaker:It was all part of your small target strategy.
Speaker:If you were to go back on that promise, then nobody will
Speaker:ever trust you ever again.
Speaker:And so let's find the two arguments.
Speaker:I've got clips for the first one, which is, Rick Morton.
Speaker:I quite like Rick Morton.
Speaker:He writes for the Sunday paper and, I hear him on different things.
Speaker:And he's going to give the argument as to why live assured
Speaker:look at reversing this decision.
Speaker:So we'll play this one.
Speaker:I think this government is better than a poke in the eye with the
Speaker:burnt stick, which certainly is what the previous government offered,
Speaker:which was basically just terrible decisions after terrible decisions.
Speaker:So it's very easily.
Speaker:Let you do a competent job.
Speaker:And I think they are doing a competent job competent, solid, not spectacular.
Speaker:And in fact, quite disappointing in some areas.
Speaker:and you know, it's a really low bar that they've cleared, disappointing them.
Speaker:What areas?
Speaker:Ah, well, I think we've got a cost of living crisis and I've, I'll be banging
Speaker:on about this until the day I die.
Speaker:But, if you are particularly from the labor party or a party that cares about,
Speaker:you know, workers and people who are not the top end of town, and you've
Speaker:got a cost of living crisis and you get into power and you don't do anything
Speaker:to help the people at the very bottom of that ladder, that why do you exist?
Speaker:I really, I really wonder about that and I know what they would say, which
Speaker:is that we are trying to be a government that's here for three terms or longer,
Speaker:and you can only do good things when you're there for a long time.
Speaker:And I totally get that, but I worry that, you know, people who are
Speaker:starving now can't wait three tenths and that's, that's the problem.
Speaker:Common sort of, talk is that live has got their eye on a decade in power.
Speaker:I think that the liberals are so crushed that if they play this correctly,
Speaker:they'll be in payoff for a long time.
Speaker:I'm now arguing.
Speaker:The other way would be guy Randall from crikey.
Speaker:He wrote an article.
Speaker:So I'm gonna read some excerpts from it.
Speaker:He says label won't reverse the stage three tax cuts taxes by civilization
Speaker:only works in a social democracy.
Speaker:Now working class families, what their own life course reneging on cats would
Speaker:be a political killer, says Rundle libel would be committing political self-harm
Speaker:of the first order by canceling or even modifying the stage three cats.
Speaker:It wave them through when they were brought to parliament
Speaker:2019, which was something that Rundell was arguing in five ROV.
Speaker:In order not to get snarled on the issue politically in pursuit of a
Speaker:lighter majority, it was absolutely right to do so, had it not done.
Speaker:So its opposition to the cuts, my well of being the means by which it was held
Speaker:below a full majority, having lost in 2019, partly due to the franking credits
Speaker:stuff up, it was leaving nothing to chance the decision and its ramifications
Speaker:indicate where we are all at what libraries now and what's possible.
Speaker:Spoiler alert, not much.
Speaker:So, so far Rundle sign, they had to do it in order to get the majority that
Speaker:they got and not to repeat the franking credits disaster of the shorten election.
Speaker:he goes on, there has been an implicit and explicit called a focus tax
Speaker:policy around collective commitment and the common good, but he says,
Speaker:this is nostalgia for the Whitlam.
Speaker:When we are on the road or trying to be to a social democracy in which individual
Speaker:and family Goodwill band up with common good, but that possibility is gone.
Speaker:It's been gone for some time and it really only existed for a few decades
Speaker:after world war two and was decisively killed off by Orkin Keating initiatives.
Speaker:So there was only a brief time post world war two, according to Randall, that we had
Speaker:the chance to convert to a more European social democracy and we didn't make it.
Speaker:And now most Australians look over a social landscape in which the
Speaker:long journey to self and family life must be managed as an individual.
Speaker:it's a tough to Rhine to try and say taxes by civilization.
Speaker:And he basically says people aren't going to buy it.
Speaker:The labor party should concentrate on taxing corporations and.
Speaker:Yeah, it goes on essentially saying that Australia doesn't value community
Speaker:and paying taxes for our civilization.
Speaker:It wouldn't have one.
Speaker:It doesn't want it now where essentially moved in the American
Speaker:model rather than the European model.
Speaker:We're all about individual freedom and our family buggered the community and
Speaker:he couldn't have done the tax cuts.
Speaker:And if he was to do then people wouldn't appreciate it.
Speaker:So they're not going to do it.
Speaker:That's the sort of guy run ball theory on it, which is quite depressing.
Speaker:But I am saying the chat room.
Speaker:And if you tax corporations rather than individuals, I think most
Speaker:people would get on board with that, especially the way there.
Speaker:I think a lot of people are very upset with the offshoring of wealth.
Speaker:Yes, they'll let you go as hard as you possibly can on these
Speaker:multinationals, but it's not easy.
Speaker:Just actually designing the text to do it, having the, yeah, I mean it's possible.
Speaker:And essentially that's what God is saying is forget the tax cuts on personal income.
Speaker:Let it go and try and make up for it with corporate techs.
Speaker:So, I guess it shows in the recent royalties changes with the Caltex
Speaker:in Queensland, where they really bumped up significantly and you
Speaker:know, a bit of moaning and grounding of course, from the mining sector.
Speaker:But the average Joe on the street hasn't been, hasn't been
Speaker:crying any tears for the minors.
Speaker:So that's a good example, I guess.
Speaker:all right.
Speaker:what do we got here?
Speaker:And also it's a profits based tax.
Speaker:So if mine is to doing it hard, they don't pay any tax, correct?
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:So if there's a super profits arising through super high commodity prices, then
Speaker:actually it's based on price per time.
Speaker:I think so.
Speaker:Not quite profit, but essentially profit though.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, yup.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:so we'll see how that pans out, but it's, the money at the moment seems
Speaker:to be online and not doing something, but some people think they might.
Speaker:alright.
Speaker:Did you have a student line, Joe, when you were in the, I never went to uni.
Speaker:Oh, right.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:You did an apprenticeship wrong, right?
Speaker:You have an apprenticeship line, right?
Speaker:I got paid to study not much, but I did get paid.
Speaker:In the U S the Biden administration has decided to, write off some student
Speaker:debts and this, I think between 10 and 20,000, or the amounts that have been
Speaker:written off and it's causing a bit of a problem in the sense, not so much
Speaker:people saying we can't afford this, although there's a bit of that, but the
Speaker:main argument is I paid my debt off.
Speaker:Why these people should be paying their debt off as well.
Speaker:It's unfair.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I, it was on a Jordan Peterson who was going, I worked 60 hour weeks and the
Speaker:holidays and 40 hour weeks whilst I was studying and paid my way, I did, I had
Speaker:zero student debt at the end of uni.
Speaker:why shouldn't other people pay their way basically is yeah.
Speaker:most of the people who say this actually we're in the time when university degrees
Speaker:were either very, very cheap or free.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So most of the politicians here, most of the politicians, the U S well, you
Speaker:know, not necessarily went through because it'll be a lot of winter
Speaker:Ivy league, but there were community colleges that you go to for free.
Speaker:yep.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And there, isn't a massive problem in America with people who get a degree,
Speaker:can't get a decent job with it, end up with a debt and quite a lot of
Speaker:people with a debt around the $10,000 mark that they'll just never pay off.
Speaker:And it's an, a real, penalty around their neck.
Speaker:So, so it's interesting where people who, some of the biggest critics are people.
Speaker:Essentially had a debt themselves and pay it off and say, well, you
Speaker:can't let these people get off.
Speaker:They've got to learn somehow how to do it.
Speaker:It's a little bit mean-spirited isn't it.
Speaker:I didn't go as a university.
Speaker:I think the problem is we've made university.
Speaker:It used to be, you finished secondary school.
Speaker:Some people went to university.
Speaker:If it was relevant to a job, or we've now said, oh, you need a degree to do this.
Speaker:You need a degree to do that.
Speaker:And I don't think we do.
Speaker:I think we are, we we've devalued the vocational training apprenticeships.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:and we are telling everybody that they need to go to university and they need to
Speaker:borrow a large amount of money to do so.
Speaker:I think we should make university free.
Speaker:and say, we're paying for these particular skills that we
Speaker:need these particular traits.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:If you want to do anything other than that, and you know, maybe
Speaker:some of them are arts degrees.
Speaker:but, but I think we need to cap this and say, right, it's free for
Speaker:the best students in these areas.
Speaker:so you would be happy with something that subsidized degrees that led to
Speaker:definite jobs thinking I'm thinking, teaching engineering doctor, for example,
Speaker:maybe not so much if it was a generalist humanities arts degree, which examined
Speaker:English, literature, history or something like, again, I think there's some value
Speaker:in that, but does nursing need to be.
Speaker:Nursing historically it was a vocational trade it's optional these days.
Speaker:I think you can either do it kind of in-house working or through a degree.
Speaker:I think, I think my son has two different pathways mandatory, but I could be wrong.
Speaker:I think it's got two different pathways.
Speaker:I think the problem is we've liberalized the market.
Speaker:now, now tertiary education is a for-profit industry.
Speaker:so they're desperate to get people through their doors.
Speaker:And I think that's the biggest problem is it's gone from being, we want to
Speaker:educate these people to, we want to make as much profit by selling them
Speaker:courses that they don't necessarily fit.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:We've got KPIs measure money.
Speaker:Yup.
Speaker:And numbers, and don't necessarily measure.
Speaker:Well-rounded individuals.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, you know, I, I, years ago I would have been very much of the view that, you know,
Speaker:probably should be, subsidized for degrees that were leading to a specific job.
Speaker:But as I get older and older, I just think we need, I like the idea of humanities.
Speaker:I think people just, learning stuff about history and about
Speaker:philosophy and other things.
Speaker:There's just not enough people doing that stuff.
Speaker:So I think our society is, suffering because not enough people have been
Speaker:reading and understanding that stuff and contributing at that level.
Speaker:So we've become quite illiterate, you know, in a philosophy since so, and
Speaker:this little podcast, dear listener, isn't it an attempt to redress that.
Speaker:So, Yeah.
Speaker:So anyway, that's student debt in America.
Speaker:So some of the comments I was reading on Twitter was, from a Caitlyn Bern,
Speaker:she wrote, if you have a problem with the student line cancellation, because
Speaker:you already paid off your loans, just pretend it's a tax cut for the rich that
Speaker:you also never got that mysteriously.
Speaker:Didn't complain a bit like that one.
Speaker:I saw a Maman that charred, Jesus with the loaves and fishes.
Speaker:And it said something like the people who brought their own lunch should be pissed.
Speaker:And, a headline from the shovel, Ted Cruz tells students to become a bank
Speaker:if they want their debt forgiven.
Speaker:And, this guy, Jim banks, a Republican politician said student line forgiveness
Speaker:undermines one of our military's greatest recruitment tools at a time.
Speaker:actually said it.
Speaker:If we were, if we wipe off these lines, people won't need to join the
Speaker:military as a matter of necessity.
Speaker:Cause that's one of the things about joining the military is
Speaker:they'll pick up your student loan.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Actually said it.
Speaker:So, what are they saying?
Speaker:The chat room?
Speaker:Alison heck started the year after I got my degree.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think Alison, I think six months after mine, six, I make
Speaker:her have to pay six months.
Speaker:Can't remember I sort of part-time at the end, so yeah.
Speaker:And John's saying that rich people tutor their kids and
Speaker:therefore they get better grades.
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:is there a better way of measuring merit?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And well, Joe is merit something that should be rewarded anyway
Speaker:because the meritocracy argument.
Speaker:Look back a hundred episodes or so was really making the case that marriage
Speaker:is not a good way of rewarding people.
Speaker:Cause it, relies on a whole bunch of things beyond people's control.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But are they the alternative to that is bringing mediocre students into courses
Speaker:that they struggle to keep up with.
Speaker:don't want to let any of that.
Speaker:None of these things are easy, but I think, I think it's crazy particularly
Speaker:in the U S because that's what I tend to read more of the, the level of debt that
Speaker:people are saddled with, is just, you cannot bankrupt yourself out of that debt.
Speaker:It's one of the few things that's right.
Speaker:Almost any other debt you could claim bankruptcy, but not the student debt.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I did read that somewhere as well, so yeah.
Speaker:Alright.
Speaker:I did have here on a list, some stuff by Caitlin Johnston
Speaker:been she's such an angry woman.
Speaker:I admire that she maintains the rage as she just continually criticizes the USI.
Speaker:And, she just cops it on Twitter from all sorts of people, calling her a simp for
Speaker:the, for the Chinese and for the Russians.
Speaker:But she's basically says the U S empire is the biggest bunch of Boston running
Speaker:around this planet by a long shot.
Speaker:So we should be concentrating on criticizing them in while
Speaker:the other guys aren't perfect.
Speaker:They're nowhere near as bad as these guys.
Speaker:And that's where she's going to continue to, to focus her efforts.
Speaker:So I quite like reading her stuff because she's just got a
Speaker:good turn of phrase quite often.
Speaker:And just an example, we, Joe, apparently in the last 24 hours,
Speaker:Biden has asked Congress to approve a $1.1 billion arms sale for Taiwan.
Speaker:it's important.
Speaker:These guys really know how to market, you know, send someone over
Speaker:Pelosi, stir up more trouble and, and get your market really riled
Speaker:up and then sell them some weapons.
Speaker:yeah, it's Caitlin Johnson says anyone else getting deja VU and,
Speaker:and we continue to hook ourselves up with these guys and Marco Rubio.
Speaker:he had something to say about this stuff.
Speaker:So let me play a clip from him.
Speaker:So by this one and our job, honestly, the most important job I will.
Speaker:If we get reelected.
Speaker:Well, we got to do real things here.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:But we need to focus the federal government on what matters.
Speaker:I don't, we don't need a military focused on the proper use of pronouns.
Speaker:We need the military focused on blowing up Chinese aircraft carriers.
Speaker:yep.
Speaker:We needed a military focused on blowing up Chinese aircraft carriers.
Speaker:So because we're just responsible citizens in the world that everyone should love.
Speaker:What if, why don't people love us in America?
Speaker:He's probably asking.
Speaker:So just shameless warmongering by these characters.
Speaker:And, and the propaganda just keeps, keeps supporting them, public assets
Speaker:and the privatization of public assets.
Speaker:I sort of thing on Twitter, Joe, about, electricity bills
Speaker:in the UK are essentially.
Speaker:For small businesses, five times what they were being, what they were paying before.
Speaker:So you might have a bakery where your annual electricity bill was
Speaker:something like 10,000 pounds.
Speaker:And now that's 50,000 pounds with that incredible price hike in
Speaker:electricity, businesses, all over the place having to shut down.
Speaker:I've just got no capacity to pay the extra electricity charge.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I've got friends in the UK who are very concerned that come winter.
Speaker:They're not going to be able to heat to survive.
Speaker:so apparently residential has got a cap, so it's not quite as bad as commercial.
Speaker:Maybe they're paying two and a half, three times what they were
Speaker:paying previously, but the sort of cap doesn't apply to commercial.
Speaker:So just a whole bunch of small business.
Speaker:faced with this enormous increase in their electricity.
Speaker:And it's not bullshit.
Speaker:Like they're producing the invoices and the letters that they're getting from
Speaker:the, from the, electricity providers.
Speaker:And it spills it out really clearly how much extra they paying.
Speaker:So many businesses are going to go bust in the UK.
Speaker:If you were there, you'd want to get out Joe places hidden for ruin.
Speaker:At what point do you buy your own generator?
Speaker:Well, and apparently lots of people are buying solar, but
Speaker:solar, the UK is not exactly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, the generator needs to go to run on diesel.
Speaker:Haven't you?
Speaker:I mean, how much is that going to cost?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:Twice as much as it used to, but okay.
Speaker:But does it still work out, but you could value your business?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's gotta be a breakeven point where it's cheaper to, to run your own
Speaker:generator than to buy off the grid.
Speaker:Quite possibly.
Speaker:What possibly.
Speaker:So, incidentally John in the chat room with our argument about nuclear,
Speaker:if I was in, the Northern hemisphere in Europe or somewhere, I might be a
Speaker:supporter of it because it might work out.
Speaker:But here in Australia, we have so much wind, so much solar that
Speaker:it's clearly the case that we're doing the math in Australia,
Speaker:that we should be on renewables, not considering nuclear at all.
Speaker:But if I was in a rainy, either cast small European country that couldn't
Speaker:generate solar or wind and had huge population basement compared to the
Speaker:land mass, maybe nuclear would work.
Speaker:We'd have to be the option there.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I used to live about 40 kilometers from an equally pass station.
Speaker:So from the, from the roof of my parents' house, you could
Speaker:see, Flamanville power station.
Speaker:And kept a log nuclear reprocessing plant, which I looked on Google
Speaker:maps the other day is all pixelated.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:When you zoom in, just in case a terrorist wants to do some scouting.
Speaker:but I remember when we got the power cable laid across the bit
Speaker:of water between us and them.
Speaker:And yeah, we used to have, how are two hour long breakdowns on a regular
Speaker:basis of power and suddenly we were getting cheap French electricity.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Which was all nuclear was great.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:If you went back, you'd probably still getting outages now because of the erosion
Speaker:and the fact that they can't cool, the nuclear reactor because of the warm water.
Speaker:But yeah, we discussed the other day possibly because after, Brexit,
Speaker:the price of the Euro has changed.
Speaker:Indeed.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, I've got an article here now.
Speaker:I'm going to read a fair bit of settling in.
Speaker:Because it's by yanas for a Farkas and regular listeners would
Speaker:know that he's the only person.
Speaker:I only, only guy I admit to having a bit of a man crush for.
Speaker:So love yanas for far, cause he's such a he's delivery.
Speaker:When you're hearing speak.
Speaker:It's got an interesting way of talking and love his ideas
Speaker:and he's a straight shooter.
Speaker:And, yeah, so he's talking about, electricity in Europe.
Speaker:So I'm gonna talk about that and then I'm gonna swing around to Australia, and make
Speaker:it all relevant to the Australian context.
Speaker:So, James says I was going to say that about, or horses for courses
Speaker:are about my, my main crush on yanas.
Speaker:Anyway, Athens.
Speaker:The CNC ferric pharmacy in project syndicate Athens, the blades of
Speaker:the wind turbines on a mountain range, opposite my window.
Speaker:A turning, especially energetically to die.
Speaker:Last night storm has abided, but high winds continue contributing extra
Speaker:kilowatts to the electricity grid at precisely zero additional cost or marginal
Speaker:cost in the language of economists.
Speaker:But the people struggling to make ends meet during a dreadful cost of living
Speaker:crisis must pay for these kilowatts as if they were produced at the most
Speaker:expensive liquefied, natural gas, transported to greases shores from Texas.
Speaker:So it's cheap wind power, but the Greeks have to pay as if it was expensive.
Speaker:Natural gas imported from Texas.
Speaker:You'll explain why, it stems from the delusion that states meaning government.
Speaker:Can simulate a competitive and efficient electricity market
Speaker:because only one electricity cable enters a home or a business.
Speaker:If you lift matters to the market, it would lead to a perfect monopoly
Speaker:and outcome that nobody wants, but governments decided they could
Speaker:simulate a competitive market to replace the public utilities that
Speaker:used to generate and distribute power.
Speaker:But our Yannis is going to argue that they can't.
Speaker:So the EU obliged its member states.
Speaker:It's a hard thing.
Speaker:Part of the hearing to privatize the power stations, to create new
Speaker:companies, which would compete with one another to provide electricity
Speaker:to a new company that owned the grid.
Speaker:And this company in turn would lease its cables to another host of companies
Speaker:that would buy the electricity house.
Speaker:And compete amongst themselves for the retail business of the homes in
Speaker:firms sound familiar, previously, government owned it and sold it.
Speaker:Now, banter, power stations, competing with each other to supply it to
Speaker:an artificially created entity who then sells it to a bunch of other
Speaker:companies who are competing at that retail level, the money by building
Speaker:infrastructure that they don't need.
Speaker:And then charging interest on that infrastructure.
Speaker:I that's not the argument he makes in this one.
Speaker:We'll get to it.
Speaker:so, yeah, so the theory was competition amongst producers would
Speaker:minimize the wholesale price while competition amongst retailers would,
Speaker:would lead to lower retail prices.
Speaker:So if you are the, competition mindset, competition fixes everything.
Speaker:This seemed to be the ticket.
Speaker:less, none of this could be mine to work.
Speaker:So part of this is that this model faced a contradiction.
Speaker:It had to ensure a minimum amount of electricity within the grid and
Speaker:it needed to promote green energy.
Speaker:So the solution proposed was fold.
Speaker:They had to create another market for permissions to emit greenhouse gases.
Speaker:so there would be penalties that you had to pay if you
Speaker:were emitting greenhouse gases.
Speaker:So that would, try to entice groups to guy for greener power.
Speaker:And the other part of this was, introduced marginal cost pricing, which meant that
Speaker:the wholesale price of every kilowatt should equal the costliest kilowatt.
Speaker:So if you've got multiple people providing money into the grid,
Speaker:you might have a wind farm.
Speaker:It's essentially able to supply $20 per megawatt, and you might have, some other
Speaker:solar farm able to provide it at 40, but you might have some guests turbine.
Speaker:That's providing it at 120, and then everybody gets paid 120.
Speaker:And, that was the way they set it up to make sure that there'll be enough,
Speaker:supply in theory, the more industry that relied on fuels like brown, coal,
Speaker:the larger, they would have to pay for their sort of emission permits, which
Speaker:would drive up their price and would encourage people to switch to renewables.
Speaker:And this marginal cross pricing was intended to ensure that, there would
Speaker:be a minimum level of electricity supply and, the low cost guys would
Speaker:not undercut the high cost guy.
Speaker:Instead that would just make a super profit on it.
Speaker:And that would encourage people to go for the low cost renewable, power supply.
Speaker:Cause they'd be making these super profits.
Speaker:So to see what the regulators had in mind consider a hydro electric
Speaker:power station and a coal-fired one.
Speaker:The fixed cost of building the hydro electric station is large,
Speaker:but the marginal cost is zero.
Speaker:Once the water turns a turbine, the next kilowatt, cost nothing in contrast,
Speaker:the coal-fired power station is cheap to build or cheaper to build, but,
Speaker:there's a marginal cost reflecting the fixed amount of coal that you need to
Speaker:burn her kilowatt by fixing the price of every kilowatt produced, in the
Speaker:hydro electric situation to be no less than the marginal cost of using brown.
Speaker:They wanted to reward the hydro electric company with a fat profit
Speaker:to encourage them to keep doing it.
Speaker:And for people to build more renewables.
Speaker:meanwhile coal-fired guys would be operating at almost zero profits.
Speaker:So they'd be wanting to sort of get out of the market, but the reality was less
Speaker:forgiving for this theory as the pandemic wrecked or wreaked havoc on global supply
Speaker:chains, the price of natural gas rose and before trebling, after Russia invaded
Speaker:Ukraine, suddenly the most polluting fuel ran coal was not the most expensive.
Speaker:So, the most expensive was natural gas in people who were burning coal
Speaker:would be getting the price from burning the expensive natural gas.
Speaker:So they were making good money, keep burning coal, Marginal cost pricing
Speaker:helped power companies extract huge rents from outrage, retail, consumers,
Speaker:who realize that we're paying much more than the average cost of electricity.
Speaker:So when the public saying now benefits from these wind farms,
Speaker:we're thinking, what the heck have we got these wind farms fall?
Speaker:So, the rising cost in natural prices exposed, problems where
Speaker:you try and simulate a market.
Speaker:We try and artificially create one.
Speaker:So, it's he says it's time to wind down simulated electricity markets.
Speaker:What we need instead are public energy networks in which electricity
Speaker:prices represent Everage costs.
Speaker:Plus I small mock-up.
Speaker:So when you look at the situation in Europe and the rising cost of
Speaker:electricity, It's not just that the price of gas went up because
Speaker:of Russia and all the rest of it.
Speaker:It's just that also these cheaper forms of energy, the hydro electric and the
Speaker:brown coal, we're actually able to charge that higher price as well because of
Speaker:the way that the market is structured.
Speaker:So it wasn't just one segment of the market, but got expensive hallmark.
Speaker:It shot out.
Speaker:Irrespective, where did the money go to large corporations who happened to own?
Speaker:Imagine Joe, if you owned a hydro electric power generator, it's cost nothing.
Speaker:Having bought it to generate electricity and you're able to recoup at the price
Speaker:of super expensive natural gas now.
Speaker:So, this is the problem with selling off public infrastructure.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And what you could do actually is take those profits and use them to pay to
Speaker:insulate houses and work basically to make your electricity use much more efficient.
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:single government operating it.
Speaker:You could be discharging people, the average cost of the electricity.
Speaker:And meanwhile, you could be directing the market into the types of
Speaker:production that you wanted to do.
Speaker:these artificial mechanisms have failed.
Speaker:Well, I'm not the whole whinge about the carbon tax was going to make
Speaker:our electricity use more expensive.
Speaker:And therefore we're going to pay more on the power bill.
Speaker:The whole point was to make us use the less electricity.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:The point was to make it worthwhile, to insulate your house rather than just
Speaker:turn on the air conditioner every day.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:it seems to that they're just, there's this lack of, Hey, maybe
Speaker:we should use less electricity.
Speaker:How do we do that?
Speaker:If you remember the whole, the millennium drought, there was a big push by the
Speaker:Queensland government on water reduction.
Speaker:And so they said, right, we'll pay for a client, a plumber to come
Speaker:out for free and he will replace the gaskets on your leaking taps.
Speaker:And he will put a shower rows in that uses less water.
Speaker:Yup.
Speaker:Yup.
Speaker:Yup.
Speaker:and there was a thing about late install, a power meter that would measure
Speaker:your parents or over a bunch of your light bulbs for compact fluorescent.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:But we need to be looking at that more and more about consumption.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:I cheap loans to replace.
Speaker:Shitty windows with thesis windows that actually, keep a bit of the heat out
Speaker:or to put good insulation in your roof.
Speaker:I mean, that was the pink bat scheme, but we don't know how effective that
Speaker:was, but we need to look more at how do we reduce the average energies?
Speaker:And there was also, talk about the problem with rooftop solar, which
Speaker:is getting more and more is the infrastructure is not designed to
Speaker:handle the generation of electricity in residential areas and moving it
Speaker:to, you know, during the day you're generating it and residential areas and
Speaker:shipping it to industrial areas and the infrastructure is not designed for that.
Speaker:And so there's discussion about, neighborhood level batteries where
Speaker:the rooftop solar charges it during the day and then at night, The
Speaker:local area uses the battery that they've charged during the day.
Speaker:And that means that you don't need as large cables going into or out of an area.
Speaker:And it makes sense to decentralize these things as well.
Speaker:So when there is a disaster it's limited, you don't have
Speaker:all your eggs in one basket.
Speaker:I'm still getting my head around Paul wiper in Canberra, giving 56
Speaker:cents per kilowatt or whatever, even for the electricity users that was
Speaker:systemizing to put it into the grid, even if he just used it himself.
Speaker:Incredible.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So it's not, I think if you use it, cause I had a friend who was
Speaker:on a similar score scheme up here.
Speaker:It was you, you paid 50 cents for generating it and then you bought
Speaker:it back from the power company.
Speaker:So you paid them, sorry they paid you 50 cents.
Speaker:And then you bought it back from them at whatever your standard meter rate.
Speaker:Yeah, I don't think you were getting the difference.
Speaker:I think the Canberra deal was even better than that.
Speaker:Paul was describing it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:He was literally using it.
Speaker:And then pied, even though he was the one using it is.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It made sense to, I think use electricity during the evenings
Speaker:on the, on the old scheme.
Speaker:And now it makes sense to use that electricity because basically if
Speaker:you're using the electricity, you're generating during the daytime, are
Speaker:they going to pay you less for that?
Speaker:So you're paying less per electricity.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:than if you're buying it from the grid in the evening.
Speaker:anyway, that was last week with Paul, now in Australia, ah, it just going
Speaker:back to that, I'm going to get to a book by a guy called Lev small.
Speaker:I think his name is.
Speaker:it'd been recommended to me, essentially.
Speaker:It's saying that we consume why too much, in terms of electricity, but
Speaker:also just things like, fertilizer that is needed for growing the crops that
Speaker:feed the world relies on, on fossil fuel to generate the fertilizer.
Speaker:I was going to say there's a, there's a world earth day or something,
Speaker:which is basically the day in the year where we've used up enough
Speaker:resources that we so a year's worth of resources for it to remain renewable.
Speaker:So we're not depleting the Earth's energy or the, what are the years
Speaker:that I think it's sometime around may or June I currently, yeah, it is.
Speaker:We've used up a year.
Speaker:A year's worth of.
Speaker:yep.
Speaker:Resources.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:So even if we build this infrastructure of renewables, we're still gonna be
Speaker:faced with, having to reduce consumption.
Speaker:And so things like the amount of energy that goes into producing fertilizer,
Speaker:which is producing crops, which were then feeding into animals and then eating
Speaker:the animals, it's inefficient where we should just be eating the crop rather
Speaker:than running it through an animal and having their protein and, just the amount
Speaker:of energy that's required for steel and concrete and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker:So I'll get to that book, but I think consumption is going to be a big issue.
Speaker:there's a big push towards wooden skyscrapers now.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I'm just saying, I saw something about how they're getting
Speaker:bigger and bigger skyscrapers.
Speaker:They're getting the strength out of what they call manufactured wood.
Speaker:So where they're building up laminate.
Speaker:Of, multiple layers, much like plywood and it's much, much stronger than natural
Speaker:wood because it doesn't have the defects.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:The best ones is one day on near, the exhibition down there at bound Hills.
Speaker:Oh, okay.
Speaker:A mate of mine, are quite dense lives in it or lives beside it.
Speaker:It's sort of about eight stories high, I think.
Speaker:And the reason they made it of wood was because it's over the tunnel and they
Speaker:needed the white to be reduced in order to build, top of one of the tunnels that was
Speaker:sort of not that deep in that vicinity.
Speaker:So that's why they used a wooden interesting skyscraper.
Speaker:They now back to Australia and, bringing in this electricity idea eventually.
Speaker:And let's talk about Paul Keating and like.
Speaker:So many people think of privatization as a policy of
Speaker:conservative parties in Australia.
Speaker:However, it was Paul Keating's labor that initiated a gigantic
Speaker:fire sale of public assets.
Speaker:in the 1990s, Paul Keating's labor government kicked off one of the most
Speaker:aggressive waves of privatization seen in the developed world, resulting fire,
Speaker:Sal transferred a vast amount of public wealth to the private sector, Keating
Speaker:cyl of Quantis and the Commonwealth bank of the two most notorious examples.
Speaker:But the damage was deeper and wider than people realize he made sweeping
Speaker:reforms that lied the groundwork for two decades of privatization and
Speaker:outsourcing, Cornea this article, which is from Jacobin magazine.
Speaker:That'll tell you how it's a lefty.
Speaker:It's a very lefty, it's so left, but it's criticizing, for locating
Speaker:the, again, it says Keating's near liberalization of the Australian economy
Speaker:paved the way for his liberal success.
Speaker:John Howard, who went on to accelerate the transformation that Keating started.
Speaker:and we can now draw up a damning balance sheet of the whole experiment.
Speaker:So Hawk abolish tariffs, floated the dollar, introduced the prices of income
Speaker:accord that drastically undermined the ability of trade unions to organize.
Speaker:These reforms lied the basis for labor's privatization wave.
Speaker:there was a national competition policy review known as the Hilma committee and
Speaker:it inspired a national competition policy.
Speaker:And it was all about creating competitive markets in Australia
Speaker:society and in 95, 19 95, Keating's federal government endorsed every
Speaker:recommendation of that Hilmer report.
Speaker:So every state government, every state and territory, government followed
Speaker:suit and soon governments across the nation were aggressively enforcing a
Speaker:competitive market logic in crucial sectors like electricity, gas, IVI should
Speaker:finance, transport and communications, crucially it impose competitive
Speaker:neutrality on public enterprises.
Speaker:So previously publicly owned services and institutions had benefited from
Speaker:advantageous frameworks or were able to borrow money at cheaper government.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:They are exempt from tax and they weren't required to turn up.
Speaker:So competitive neutrality changed all this.
Speaker:It insisted that governments had district public companies have these
Speaker:advantages, forcing them to function like private corporations and compete.
Speaker:John Howard took this to its logical conclusion by
Speaker:initiating the sale of Telstra.
Speaker:And then Julie Gilad sell the last of Telstra.
Speaker:Proponents of neo-liberalism have argued that competitive markets deliver services
Speaker:cheaper and more efficiently, but the public know that this to be a lie.
Speaker:And since privatizations, since privatization levels of productivity and
Speaker:efficiency in the electricity system have declined while the costs have ballooned.
Speaker:And there was a report from the Australia Institute and what it found was.
Speaker:Real output per employees in the electricity sector has fallen by 37%.
Speaker:under private ownership, the number of managers employed by electricity
Speaker:providers has doubled the number of silo.
Speaker:Staff has quadrupled, but over the same period, the number of actual electrical
Speaker:trades people as around about 21%.
Speaker:So people actually do stuff directly related to supplying
Speaker:electricity, but it's more efficient.
Speaker:So they got rid of half of them.
Speaker:I only grew by 21%, the sales staff quadrupled and, the management doubled.
Speaker:So incredibly the electricity sector now spends more on finance and banking.
Speaker:Then it does on the fuel that powers its generators.
Speaker:This is just the takeover of our economy by the.
Speaker:Finance insurance sector.
Speaker:Anyway, I had guys on, in 95, there were a couple of economists released an animal
Speaker:and an analysis showing that, Australia is publicly owned pharmaceutical company,
Speaker:the Commonwealth serum laboratories, CSL, the privatization of that cost taxpayers.
Speaker:This is a 90, 95, $607 million, partly because he's trying
Speaker:government now had to buy services from the newly privatized CSL.
Speaker:And partly because of loss of revenue and assets, the fiscal impact of the cyl
Speaker:is the same as if the government would have borrowed 607 million competed commit
Speaker:itself to paying interest on that Sanford.
Speaker:and simply dissipate the funds.
Speaker:So as disastrous for the public CSL is near the most valuable corporation
Speaker:listed on Australia stock exchange the market capitalization of 140 billion.
Speaker:And in 95 we sold it for 607 million.
Speaker:Ah, excellent.
Speaker:Him night.
Speaker:Would it basic, so successful?
Speaker:Had we not sold it?
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Yes, indeed.
Speaker:Indeed.
Speaker:That's the question?
Speaker:actually it says here in 93, Katie and seldom for 299 million, roughly
Speaker:half a billion in today's money.
Speaker:So that's where the 140 and keying solid for half a billion in today's money.
Speaker:And they underestimated the true cost of it because.
Speaker:the Commonwealth government just solved a deal that involves paying CSL $1
Speaker:billion to purchase medical products.
Speaker:The company had developed when it was owned by the government, ah,
Speaker:to die the largest shareholders of Telstra, Quantas CSL, and the
Speaker:Commonwealth bank are multi-national hedge funds and investment banks.
Speaker:Have you had a black rock?
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:BlackRock and the Vanguard group can be something on BlackRock in
Speaker:the weeks to come huge company.
Speaker:so what it says here is essential services like electricity or
Speaker:telecommunications were formerly provided at cost, but now consumers must
Speaker:subsidize private profit margins and the increased running costs associated
Speaker:with the bloated corporate structure.
Speaker:between 96 and 2016.
Speaker:So a 20 year period electricity prices increased by 183%, three times
Speaker:more than the right of inflation.
Speaker:That's what a competition gets.
Speaker:You.
Speaker:It's better for the consumer though.
Speaker:The few remaining, publicly owned electricity supplies have also hiked
Speaker:their prices because they have to follow the principles of competition.
Speaker:And why wasn't there objection to this privatization and any internal
Speaker:labor party review, after the loss to Howard identified that this
Speaker:privatization was one of the main reasons amongst the disillusionment
Speaker:among labor's working class voters.
Speaker:And so Keating did it, and it was one of the major reasons why
Speaker:he lost a working class voters.
Speaker:Remind deeply opposed to the south of public assets.
Speaker:And as an example, Queensland's a clear cut example.
Speaker:In 2012 Queensland ly bar dropped from 51 seats to just seven after Anna Bligh
Speaker:pushed through deeply unpopular program of privatizing major ports, roads, and rail.
Speaker:So, both parties have been pushing through the sale of
Speaker:assets, ordinary people, object.
Speaker:They're a result of all this extra competition is all paying more money.
Speaker:So these things are structural.
Speaker:The why the been designed to create artificial markets that have provided
Speaker:sweet deals for the corporations involved.
Speaker:It's not just all about Russia and a sudden shortage of gas.
Speaker:It's a case where that particular event is just amplified because of these crazy
Speaker:pricing mechanisms that are in built.
Speaker:And, so it's, it's more to it than just blind potent.
Speaker:It's actually blind Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
Speaker:And neo-liberalism whoa, how this is accelerated of what could have
Speaker:been as much smaller problem.
Speaker:Milton, is it Milton school of an economics boys?
Speaker:Yup.
Speaker:Yup, yup.
Speaker:And architect of all that.
Speaker:So, ah, is that not a sad and depressing title and yeah, I mean, I was knocking
Speaker:around at the time, but it you're busy.
Speaker:You're raising kids.
Speaker:I didn't, I wasn't paying attention to these things.
Speaker:It's like, ah, it must be.
Speaker:You don't, you're not taught to think about the future.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:Did you look at it askance at the time though?
Speaker:Or do you think I've going to get some of this I'm going to, I'm going
Speaker:to buy some of these Telstra shares.
Speaker:Cause they're too cheap.
Speaker:I was a teenager and that bought shares in British gas in my name.
Speaker:and then, you know, basically I think we sold them off the next
Speaker:day because we got on the IPO yeah.
Speaker:And made a couple of hundred quid on it.
Speaker:Some, some Palmy friends of ours came out to Australia, just like
Speaker:the UK was doing it before us.
Speaker:and they had seen these privatizations happening over there.
Speaker:And what would happen is the government would, would sell this stuff off
Speaker:cheap because I, they were convinced by the brokers and B it would look.
Speaker:That it was all sold.
Speaker:It was seen as a success if you managed to sell off all the shares.
Speaker:And, there were well over subscribed and people were making huge profits.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:And everyone was profiting in the sales.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So in all of our, when these Palmy friends come to Australia, as Australia started,
Speaker:doing this sort of stuff, now we're into every one of them are piling them
Speaker:up and, and subscribing to these things because it was just money for nothing.
Speaker:These things were being just sold too cheap.
Speaker:And, you know, future generations gonna look back at some of this
Speaker:stuff and just, be really angry.
Speaker:I, it was interesting because, Jersey telecom was small government owned
Speaker:and my former boss got involved with trust drafting the legislation
Speaker:when it was due to be privatized.
Speaker:and I had a long chat with him about.
Speaker:and he was talking about the fact that, the richest customers or effectively
Speaker:subsidizing the poorest customers to the tune of, I think he was saying 50
Speaker:pounds a month previously, previously.
Speaker:So, so the banks, the banks, we were making huge profits.
Speaker:There was a single bank, which was 50% of our revenue, one bank,
Speaker:because it was off shore finance and effectively it was subscribed.
Speaker:It was subsidizing every single home user 50 pounds.
Speaker:and was saying, when you deregulate people will come in and pick up
Speaker:the cream and leave the crap.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And he says, there's two ways of doing it.
Speaker:Either you force the companies to.
Speaker:For every one premium customer, they have to take whatever it is, five home users.
Speaker:Yup.
Speaker:Or you tax them.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And you say for every one of these, you have to pay the incumbent or
Speaker:whoever's looking after the, the average customer to, to pay the difference.
Speaker:And I think that's, what's happened with Telstra is the Bush customers.
Speaker:Telstra is subsidized by because most of the other operators only operate in
Speaker:the regional cities in sorry, in the capital cities or in the major cities.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Because infrastructure is relatively cheap and you get good profits.
Speaker:Whereas you talk out, out in the Bush, if you huge investments
Speaker:to get a phone line out there.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And you, what's the phone company that starts with a V I think Birgit.
Speaker:No, the other one.
Speaker:If you get the main ones are Telstra, Optus and Vodafone, Vodafone.
Speaker:And so they can just put up a few towers and just pick and choose which
Speaker:ones they're going to lease in the, in the most profitable areas and
Speaker:leave the regions for somebody else.
Speaker:There are certain things that should just remind in public Haines and, okay.
Speaker:Interestingly enough, that's what happened in New Zealand.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So they might time.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Well, teleco was split into two, so there was retail and then there was
Speaker:infrastructure and infrastructure has remained a, I don't know if
Speaker:it's government owned, but certainly all they do is effectively what
Speaker:NBN co is supposed to be doing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I'm pretty sure it's government owned.
Speaker:They retained ownership of it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:and the other, yeah.
Speaker:Even with NBN co the fact that we said it had to turn a profit,
Speaker:has just made it unfeasible.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:The other part in one of these articles I skipped over as well was just, in
Speaker:this Keating thing where they'd started introducing consultants as well.
Speaker:And so the amount of money that is now spent on consultants rather than employing
Speaker:people directly is just criminal.
Speaker:So I had another friend who was involved in it in the police service and, you
Speaker:know, they just had lost all of their capacity in house to do it and had to pay
Speaker:outrageous sums for the outsiders because they'd completely lost all expertise.
Speaker:The banks are insourcing.
Speaker:Now they've discovered that outsourcing is, Hey, a false economy.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:Yeah, there we go.
Speaker:Well, D listener, I'm going to, we're up to an hour and a half.
Speaker:That's plenty of time.
Speaker:I hope you enjoyed that explanation of electricity markets in
Speaker:Europe, in Australia and the.
Speaker:Craziness of privatizing these public assets and we just let it happen,
Speaker:to our eternal shame and future generations will rightly criticize us.
Speaker:Hopefully we can get something right in the meantime so that
Speaker:they will forgive us a little bit.
Speaker:So there we go, or ideal listener, I've enjoyed it in the chat
Speaker:room you've been going well.
Speaker:Thanks for that.
Speaker:Talk to you.
Speaker:next week will be part B of the discussion with Paul wiper, which was about cultural
Speaker:Marxism, which then the following week I can follow up with a bit of
Speaker:postmodernism any earlier terminology.
Speaker:Correct.
Speaker:So there we go.
Speaker:All right, guys, thanks for tuning in.
Speaker:Talk to you next time.
Speaker:See you in Sydney Friday week.
Speaker:If you are going to join in your patron bye for now.
