full
Episode 369 - Pell, Perrottet and Prince Harry
In this episode we discuss:
(00:00) intro
(02:17) Cardinal Pell
(12:24) 21st Birthday Nazi
(16:41) Pokies
(29:30) Stamp Duty and Land Tax
(33:58) Exploding Heads on Inequality
(35:14) Book Club
(37:04) Sunak
(39:26) Prince Harry
(49:36) Indigenous People Are Not That Different
(55:17) The Right To Strike
(57:49) The Biggest Obstacle To Real Freedom
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Transcript
We need to talk about ideas, good ones and bad ones.
Speaker:We need to learn stuff about the world.
Speaker:We need an honest, intelligent, thought provoking, and entertaining
Speaker:review of what the hell happened on this planet in the last seven days.
Speaker:We need to sit back and listen to the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.
Speaker:Well, hello there.
Speaker:Dear listener.
Speaker:You're actually interrupting a conversation.
Speaker:Joe and I were having, this is the only podcast, dear listener.
Speaker:We had 100% of the co-hosts suffer from Crohn's Disease as well as operator
Speaker:podcast, and we were having our little society meeting about our symptoms,
Speaker:treatments, and all the rest of it.
Speaker:So, We'll put that on pause Joan, and talk about it another time.
Speaker:How are you, Joan?
Speaker:That's fine.
Speaker:I'm girding you.
Speaker:Oh, not too bad.
Speaker:Had my MRI yesterday and some magnetic thing spun around me for a while and I'll
Speaker:find out from the gastro how I'm going.
Speaker:So we'll find out.
Speaker:I think I'm okay.
Speaker:It's just double checking on things.
Speaker:Now you glow the dark.
Speaker:Mm, that's right.
Speaker:So, yes, a podcast.
Speaker:Dear listener, news, politics, sex and Religion.
Speaker:If you join us in the chat room, please say hello and look
Speaker:what are we gonna talk about?
Speaker:Well, if you've got a podcast app that shows chapters, you could just
Speaker:look at the chapters in your podcast app and you'll see the headings for
Speaker:the things we're gonna talk about.
Speaker:And if there's a topic you don't like to look of, you can just skip past it.
Speaker:Or if there's one you wanna listen to twice, that'll make it easy.
Speaker:But we're gonna be talking about new South Wales to kick off with Dominic
Speaker:Par with his 21st birthday Nazi costume.
Speaker:And pokies and gambling in New South Wales.
Speaker:Bit on the wonderful world of stamp duty and land tax.
Speaker:And we'll cross over to the uk, the Prime Minister over there, prince Harry.
Speaker:A little bit about indigenous stuff.
Speaker:We'll just wet your appetite for the arguments that will be
Speaker:coming down the track this year.
Speaker:And I think that's oh, a couple of other things that we've got
Speaker:there, but we'll, we'll get those.
Speaker:So, right.
Speaker:Well the first news though, Joe, is I promise not to talk about crazy
Speaker:Christians and goddamn Cardinal Pell decides to kick the bucket.
Speaker:Kick the bucket.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I wouldn't put him though in the crazy Christian category when
Speaker:I think of crazy Christians.
Speaker:I think Pentecostals I guess New Age muscular sort of Pentecostals.
Speaker:I think Cardinal, Pell, I don't think crazy.
Speaker:I think calculating schemes.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Very smart guy.
Speaker:I was listening to a podcast that had David Maher talking about him.
Speaker:And essentially PE was just the ultimate manager.
Speaker:He was a good administrator and he knew how to turn businesses around, protect
Speaker:businesses from, if not reputational damage, then at least financial damage.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And really in another life, the guy should have been a CEO of, of a major company
Speaker:where he could have used his talents.
Speaker:Well, yeah, maybe he was in the right spot.
Speaker:You know, if, if you're gonna be scheming and using that sort of
Speaker:managerial talent as an authoritarian.
Speaker:I, I read a, an article by who was the guy who got used for the defense?
Speaker:The law in New South Wales where you couldn't sue the Catholic Church?
Speaker:Ellis Defense.
Speaker:Sorry.
Speaker:The Ellis Defense.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I, I read an article where Ellis either wrote it or was interviewed mm-hmm.
Speaker:, and he said, I, I don't think he lacked empathy.
Speaker:He obviously empathized with me, but then I saw him make a decision
Speaker:to protect the church and bug.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, you know, tough luck to the victims.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And he said when he delivered an apology to me, he wouldn't
Speaker:even let me in the eyes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:He said he thinks he had a conscience and it weighed on him.
Speaker:But he was all about protecting the church and, you know,
Speaker:everyone else was second place.
Speaker:His priority was the church and in particular his role and job.
Speaker:and his career in the church.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. Because when all that stuff was happening in oh, what's that funny
Speaker:little town in Vic Ballarat was it?
Speaker:It was Ballarat and really everybody knew what was going on.
Speaker:Pel knew what was going on.
Speaker:He did nothing about it.
Speaker:He failed to protect the children and, you know, so, the, yeah, I mean there
Speaker:was a number of people going, well, I dunno what you are all on about.
Speaker:He, he was found not guilty by the Court of appeal.
Speaker:And it was like, but the Royal Commission found that he knew
Speaker:and did nothing about and worse.
Speaker:That he was complicit.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And that he was shifting people around.
Speaker:Exactly, yes.
Speaker:So it was just damning the Royal Commission and Absolutely.
Speaker:So it's, it's not, you just can't say, oh, he was, you know, not found guilty
Speaker:and therefore stop all you're complaining, but, , if you were reading the news
Speaker:court papers and also reading commentary from liberal national party politicians,
Speaker:you would think the guy was a saint.
Speaker:You would think none of that happened or what did happened.
Speaker:And these allegations were some crazy obscure leftish sort of allegation
Speaker:unfounded that was besmirching the reputation of a fine man.
Speaker:I, I just find it, you know, Dutton, who proclaims, he was on the drug
Speaker:squad and the, the child protection squad and how he's after all these
Speaker:criminals and there he is, yapping it up about how great Pel was.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:These conservatives are the ones who on any other issue of child abuse mm-hmm.
Speaker:are, are rabid, you know, they're already defined child abuse gangs in pizza,
Speaker:shop basements, you know, with Hillary and all, all sorts of crazy notions.
Speaker:But when their, when their own people are associated with this,
Speaker:they just give 'em a pass mark.
Speaker:They let it go.
Speaker:You know, ordinarily coppers a Queensland copper in a, just the idea
Speaker:that he would be defending somebody who's enabled so much child abuse Yeah.
Speaker:Is just antithetical to what the typical idea of a Queensland
Speaker:or any copper would be.
Speaker:So, it's just interesting that there's this perception that he was part of
Speaker:the conservative side and they're in with the conservative side, and
Speaker:therefore they're not gonna criticize him and Yeah, and hold him up.
Speaker:It's, it's terrible.
Speaker:So, in the chat room, Tom, the warehouse guy, good on you.
Speaker:Tom says, evening all one can never forget the Richard Dawkins and Cardinal Pell.
Speaker:. Hell showed he was intelligent but got destroyed that night was the first time
Speaker:I suspected child abuse from him too.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:I dunno.
Speaker:I've seen that one.
Speaker:I have years ago, but Right on some sort of q and a or something like that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I just wonder.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:There was also hitchins with, oh God, who's the guy from the project?
Speaker:The, these W Ali?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:W Ali.
Speaker:And might have been Powell as well.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And was Allie defending Powell or No, no, no.
Speaker:This was Hitchins was calling Wally Ali out for refusing to condemn right.
Speaker:Islam.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:He's going.
Speaker:You, you may think that it's fine to be homosexual, but your own
Speaker:Holy book says it's bad and you, you refuse to disagree with it.
Speaker:You refuse to say it's wrong.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:would've known the Holy Book better than Waard Ali.
Speaker:Almost certainly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Actually I'm thinking it might've been Lawrence Krausen Powell as well.
Speaker:Actually, Don TV says Charlie Pickering, but doesn't sound right.
Speaker:Anyway but interesting.
Speaker:Tom, the warehouse guy used the word PE got destroyed that night.
Speaker:And, you know, you often see on YouTube a debate.
Speaker:So and so gets destroyed.
Speaker:Jordan Peterson destroys somebody, or this person destroys somebody.
Speaker:It's a favorite word destroy.
Speaker:But when it comes to Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens or those characters,
Speaker:they, they did their fair bit of destroying of their opponents in debates.
Speaker:That's true.
Speaker:So, so yeah.
Speaker:Hugh Remington did a post, which was by my count seven articles over
Speaker:five pages in today's Australian lauding, the late Cardinal Pell Like
Speaker:tell himself not much evidence of reflection or of room for other views.
Speaker:I feel like I'm back in church as a school boy with grim men laying down the truth.
Speaker:That's true.
Speaker:I've canceled my Australian subscription, but they're still
Speaker:letting me read it at this point.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Even though it's gone over now a few weeks and it was full of
Speaker:stuff, most of it, quite positive.
Speaker:If there was anything negative, it was quite subdued.
Speaker:And went on to sort of praise him as being a once in a generation sort
Speaker:of leader in child rape Catholic.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:, no.
Speaker:Leader of the Catholic church.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, you know, anybody who was angry about him was just woke.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, oh yeah, Taylor, the Daily Telegraph had a heading.
Speaker:Why The Woke loved to hate George Pell.
Speaker:and Peter Murphy said, when did being angry about child
Speaker:sexual abuse become woke?
Speaker:I saw a picture.
Speaker:One of the pictures showed the icor judges filing out of a church and shaking
Speaker:hands with Cardinal Pell on the way out.
Speaker:That would've been one of the law masses high court that found him not guilty.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Different members.
Speaker:And you know what?
Speaker:Legally speaking, probably, you know, a correct decision at the end of the day,
Speaker:probably with that, like, I can't fault the high court on that, but it's not a
Speaker:good look judges when you kick off the law year with a, a mass held by these
Speaker:guys who there's a one in 15 chance that you're gonna be trying them over.
Speaker:It's child abuse case.
Speaker:Cuz that was the figure up from the Royal Commission was one in
Speaker:15 Catholic priests was Yeah.
Speaker:In the St.
Speaker:John of God order.
Speaker:It was one in two.
Speaker:Really?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean just, there's that old saying that was it the law must be seen not, not
Speaker:only to be a beyond reproach, but must be also be seen to be beyond reproach.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So apparently the guy who lost that, that case against pe mm-hmm.
Speaker:gave a very gracious statement, more or less understanding the
Speaker:high court decision in the case.
Speaker:So, it would've been a very interesting testimony to hear that
Speaker:guy in Missouri, the parents of the one who ended up committing suicide.
Speaker:Apparently I'm going ahead with the civil case against his estate and the church.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Okay, here we go.
Speaker:So, what other comments have we got here?
Speaker:Yeah, so that was the main thing with Pell.
Speaker:What can you say?
Speaker:Except, you know, it's the company institution, lapel.
Speaker:The thing about the Catholic church is that it's got such a grip on our
Speaker:institutions in our society now.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:so many schools.
Speaker:So many hospitals.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:So many employment agencies, so many nursing homes, retirement villages,
Speaker:like they've just got a grip of so many institutions that even when they have
Speaker:these appalling characters, they the grip holds on because they've just got so much.
Speaker:institutional power.
Speaker:What can you do?
Speaker:Well, we were saying more so in Ireland.
Speaker:I mean, here is bad, but Ireland was worse.
Speaker:And they're slowly prying the, the claws off the levers of power.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:In the chat room.
Speaker:Good on you for joining in there.
Speaker:Don Toy's there.
Speaker:Tom, the warehouse guy, and James has just joined us.
Speaker:Good on you, James.
Speaker:I'm gonna be in Sydney next month.
Speaker:James, I'll send you guys some details.
Speaker:Dominic per, he's been in the news.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:I mean, Joe, who hasn't at their 21st birthday party, if not a Nazi outfit,
Speaker:maybe a chairman now, or a she, or, I don't know, like some crazy outfit.
Speaker:We've all done stupid things as young people Yes.
Speaker:That we regret.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So he's got, he's been hauled over the coals because.
Speaker:It hasn't come out yet, but he was warned that there was a photo about of
Speaker:him at his 21st, you know, Nazi uniform and that it was going to be publicized.
Speaker:So he kind of had to come out and beat the publication and say, I
Speaker:believe there is this photograph.
Speaker:Yes, I did do that at my 21st, where a Nazi outfit and of course terribly
Speaker:ashamed, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:So a bit torn about this one, Joe.
Speaker:I mean, it is odd.
Speaker:Well, you know, people do do stupid things even at 21, and I dunno, I, I guess
Speaker:I'm leaning on the side where I'm a bit sympathetic for what people do at 21.
Speaker:You're still really stupid and let's face it.
Speaker:What was his upbringing at that point?
Speaker:What was his life experience?
Speaker:Fairly cloistered in conservative circles.
Speaker:You know what's important is what he's doing now and whether he regrets it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And is he showing Nazi tendencies now?
Speaker:And you know, what is the guy must be in his forties, I guess I'm talking 20 years
Speaker:ago if everybody, he gets hauled over the coals for something they did 20 years ago.
Speaker:I mean, you know, it wasn't like he raped somebody or sexually assaulted
Speaker:somebody, put on a stupid outfit and yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm kind of a bit sympathetic to that.
Speaker:So, in terms of some of the things I saw on Twitter got a lady vaccine said I
Speaker:thought PER was a normal anti-abortion, non-voluntary assisted dying.
Speaker:Ex young liberals president raised in the ultra conservative, historically
Speaker:fascist op Oprah's Day faith.
Speaker:and now we find out he was doing weird Nazi shit at uni.
Speaker:Frankly, I'm shook to the very, cause this is true.
Speaker:That's the stuff to focus on, that he was anti well, that he is anti-abortion,
Speaker:anti involuntary assisted dying ultraconservative, APUS Day Bay member.
Speaker:That's, and, and something about the Catholic funeral, Catholic burial
Speaker:grounds or something wasn't there?
Speaker:Yeah, there was all sorts of funny stuff with financing of
Speaker:cemeteries and stuff going on.
Speaker:So that's the stuff to, to haul him over the coals for some other comments I saw.
Speaker:One was from black and black saying I'm a Jew.
Speaker:I think what Dominic per did in dressing as a Nazi was poor taste, and
Speaker:he showed a serious lack of judgment.
Speaker:But does that in and of itself make him a Nazi sympathizer?
Speaker:That's an awfully long stretch of the bow.
Speaker:Let's not forget Prince Harry also dressed up as a Nazi.
Speaker:It's true.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I remember the scandal.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And Ross said, I dislike Dominic Peri, I just stay in the ideologies.
Speaker:He espouses, I detest the way he treats the poorest and most
Speaker:vulnerable people in our society.
Speaker:And also don't think it's right that a stupid mistake as a
Speaker:young man is such a big deal.
Speaker:So, and just one other one was Daniel Andrews got more negative
Speaker:media coverage for falling down steps and breaking his back than
Speaker:Pero did for wearing a Nazi uniform.
Speaker:I guess that's true because the Nazi, while he did get some negative
Speaker:press, it was all over and done with in sort of 24, 48 hours.
Speaker:Chris Daniel Andrews falling down a set of stairs has been going on
Speaker:for years, although Par has been referred off to the police for
Speaker:some reason not to do with that.
Speaker:Surely.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:What?
Speaker:Yeah, I saw something about he's been referred off.
Speaker:I, I've no idea what, I didn't know it was even a criminal offense.
Speaker:Goodness me.
Speaker:Goodness me.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, there we go.
Speaker:What else have we got?
Speaker:Had to get rid of somebody who had a advertising in the chat room.
Speaker:You've got Yeah.
Speaker:Handled that person.
Speaker:Definitely.
Speaker:Well done Joe.
Speaker:So one of the theories going on, Joe, is that is actually seemingly quite keen
Speaker:to take on the poker machine industry.
Speaker:And there was sort of whisperings.
Speaker:People felt that this was a movement by the poker machine industry
Speaker:releasing this stuff, damaging Perone as a warning to back off.
Speaker:Well, I've just seen mm-hmm.
Speaker:, it's the shooters, fishes, and farmer's party.
Speaker:Is arguing that he potentially broke the oaths act when he signed a, a
Speaker:liberal party pre-selection document, declared that he had nothing to disclose
Speaker:that could could embarrass the party.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So it's not over the wearing of the uniform, it's whether
Speaker:he lied on that form.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Cuz when you sign up you have to say, there's nothing in my history
Speaker:that's gonna embarrass me or the party that I haven't already told you.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And I guess he would say, well I forgot about my Nazi outfit.
Speaker:Not something that first jumps to mind immediately.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I think he probably surely our police well surely that
Speaker:won't go any further anyway.
Speaker:You know, don't like Dominic Peri, but on this one mm-hmm.
Speaker:, bit of sympathy.
Speaker:Anybody in the chat room disagree?
Speaker:Anyone thinks he should be hauled over the coals?
Speaker:Let us know.
Speaker:Tom, the warehouse guy, where you think, what do you think?
Speaker:So yeah, back to the pokies.
Speaker:New South Wales.
Speaker:What they're looking at there is is looking at bringing in, well actually
Speaker:I read this article from Crikey.
Speaker:This is by Stephen May, who was the founder of Crikey.
Speaker:Writes the occasional column and he's now a shareholder activist.
Speaker:And he's actually got shares in that major poker machine, aristocrat, and
Speaker:he's gonna try and get on the board and try and turn, turn things around.
Speaker:So, he wrote an article in Crikey saying that the New South Wales labor
Speaker:leader Chris Mins, has come up with a minimalist package of changes, which
Speaker:will do little to reduce the record.
Speaker:7 billion a year, lost.
Speaker:On the 90,000 plus electronic gaming machines in New South Wales.
Speaker:90,000 machines in New South Wales, 7 billion a year.
Speaker:The opposition leader in his pitch for the upcoming election.
Speaker:His mach his policy is that the v i p lounge signs will disappear from outside
Speaker:pubs and that they can no longer donate to the Labor Party and that only $500 in
Speaker:cash can be loaded into a poker machine.
Speaker:And that's it.
Speaker:But according to this article, new South Wales will retain its high
Speaker:intensity, $10 maximum bet machines.
Speaker:So in Victoria, the maximum is $5 at $10 a bet, Joe, you can crank
Speaker:through a series amount of money.
Speaker:I think it's a hundred dollars an hour a hundred dollars a minute.
Speaker:Would be quite possible with a $10 bid Rumbly.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. So, it, it, it's a logical fall fallacy tax, isn't it?
Speaker:If you don't understand the fallacy that the house always wins, then yes.
Speaker:Well, it's working on dopamine levels and these people are, are subjects in
Speaker:a terrible sort of rat and a laboratory type experiment where they're getting
Speaker:dopamine hits from a conditioning process that they've undergone.
Speaker:There.
Speaker:There was also the whole prepaid card where you would load it up
Speaker:before you started your session and before the dopamine had kicked in.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And that was all you could gamble for the night.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And that's what Perta is introducing.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And labor has not agreed to that.
Speaker:What is, what sort of labor party is this in New South Wales?
Speaker:The very people one that doesn't care about the working pool.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:The very people who are victims of this, of this monstrous
Speaker:industry are labor party voters.
Speaker:And so Perise firm commitment is to eliminate cash from the machines.
Speaker:Whereas Labor's proposing a 12 month trial, Joe in violating just 500
Speaker:machines, and they're promising that they will compensate the pubs for any
Speaker:losses suffered as a result of the trial that's gonna be done on 500 machines.
Speaker:Wouldn't want them to lose any money.
Speaker:No, absolutely not.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, that's a, a trial of, of no cash where.
Speaker:Per saying, let's just all of them move to no cash and mm-hmm.
Speaker:, plenty of studies around the world showing the effectiveness of that.
Speaker:You don't need another trial like it's been done before.
Speaker:And you know, may maybe we should fund the tobacco manufacturers for their
Speaker:losses in people giving up smoking.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Let's put, let's put packaging, which shows ugly lesions and cancerous growths,
Speaker:and let's compensate the tobacco companies for this trial that we are running that's
Speaker:quite possibly gonna harm their business.
Speaker:What are the, what, what does men's got into Parliament for?
Speaker:What did he struggle all those years for?
Speaker:To get leader of the New South Wales Labor Party, if that's what you're
Speaker:going to do, honestly So in terms of the Labor Party when they announced the
Speaker:package, and it's a fair chance that labor will win the next state election.
Speaker:The aristocrat share price finished higher by 8 cents.
Speaker:So the stock market looked at the labor policy and thought, Hmm,
Speaker:that's pretty good for Aristocrat.
Speaker:Bumped the price up by 8 cents.
Speaker:Incidentally, aristocrats shares were originally floated at $2 90 a share in
Speaker:1996, valuing the company at 303 million.
Speaker:Today it is worth 21.8 billion.
Speaker:Yeah, that's that in, what did we say that was?
Speaker:1996.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. So 20 years.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:From 300, 3 million to 21.8 billion just by making be worth a couple
Speaker:billion just on inflation alone.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Just from making a fairly simple machine.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, nothing particularly whizzbang about it.
Speaker:Well, actually a lot of whizzing and a lot of belling and ringing, but well actually
Speaker:no, the, the gambling machine industry is the, the electronics is relatively simple.
Speaker:It's all the compliance that you have to, because they have to state that they will
Speaker:pay out a minimum of X every so often.
Speaker:So there, there are some fairly strict rules around how the machines work.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Spend a lot of money on psychologists saying, how do we
Speaker:road people in more effectively?
Speaker:So, oh no, you just do AB testing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So, so you try your new firmware out on machines or whatever
Speaker:it is, on half the machines.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And the ones that Make more money you keep.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And the other ones you convert to whatever you've done.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So, Tom, the warehouse guy said, I can't stand per Nazi uniform or not.
Speaker:That said he did know about it and didn't disclose it or make an apology.
Speaker:That's all he can be criticized for.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Still on this topic from Tim Costello writing in The Guardian, I think
Speaker:Tim Costello is the brother of Peter Castello and different character.
Speaker:So Gambling does the most harm to people of New South Wales and
Speaker:Labor's the, the very people at Labor is supposed to represent.
Speaker:So there's about New South Wales.
Speaker:The state has half of the nation's pokies and incredibly New South
Speaker:Wales has 35% of the world's poker machines in its clubs and pubs.
Speaker:In New South Wales alone, what an amazing statistic.
Speaker:35% of the world's pokies are in New South Wales.
Speaker:So Australia has the greatest gambling losses in the world.
Speaker:40% greater than the nation that comes second.
Speaker:And the turnover in New South Wales each year, $95 billion.
Speaker:Holy, these smokes.
Speaker:These are big numbers.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:How much of that goes to the state government?
Speaker:Tiny little percentage, but yeah.
Speaker:On the surface, some of Labor's policies seem to have merited but dig deeper and
Speaker:you realize they lack real substance.
Speaker:That's because they don't commit to the reform that matters most.
Speaker:And which Dominic per has already proposed.
Speaker:And that is the introduction of universal cashless gambling card that requires
Speaker:pre-commitment to a spending limit.
Speaker:Honestly, labor.
Speaker:How hard can it be?
Speaker:A guy who wore a Nazi outfit on his 21st birthday is
Speaker:showing you what compassion is.
Speaker:I guess he's also showing what leadership is.
Speaker:Joe, I, I'm guessing that Hitler also banned gambling.
Speaker:I tell you what, he wouldn't have been afraid of the fight.
Speaker:He would've looked at the, yeah, looked at the gambling industry.
Speaker:Anyway.
Speaker:A loss limit capped at $1,500 a day is hardly an infringement on civil liberties.
Speaker:So why don't labor support this and this?
Speaker:Costello says the answer is politicians remain beholden to the gambling industry.
Speaker:Trials have been held.
Speaker:I was gonna say, with that amount of money floating around, it wouldn't surprise me.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. Trials have already been held in New South Wales and there's overwhelming
Speaker:evidence from overseas that mandatory pre-commitment of losses before
Speaker:gambling reduces gambling harm.
Speaker:You know, Joe, the, it's not just the people, the families of these people, I
Speaker:feel so sorry for them with their partner heads off gambling and then the family's
Speaker:got nothing left for the rest of the week.
Speaker:Who's doing it right?
Speaker:Funnily enough, Norway is the gold standard since it began its reforms
Speaker:in 2007 by banning slot machines.
Speaker:It's possible for a government just to ban a slot machine and introduced machines
Speaker:which could unplayed with cashless cards.
Speaker:Oh, here we go.
Speaker:Had a mandatory limit on the amount players could gamble.
Speaker:Mandatory Blake breaks in play, lower bets, lower prizes,
Speaker:and player exclusion options.
Speaker:That's Norway Gold Standard.
Speaker:A link to that in the show notes.
Speaker:Apparently all pokies in Australian casinos will now have a cashless card
Speaker:as a result of the shocking crime and predatory revelations in various
Speaker:royal commissions that's in casinos.
Speaker:Tasmania is gonna have cashless cards on a bipartisan basis.
Speaker:Obviously, mins in the Labor Party in New South Wales is just kicking
Speaker:the issue into the long grass.
Speaker:The spin rate on machines should also be slowed and losses disguised
Speaker:as winds should be banned.
Speaker:That's when a machine dings as if you have won, but you've actually lost, and it is
Speaker:one of the most addictive design features.
Speaker:I mean, they would've had to give a guy a bonus at Aristocrat.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:whoever was the character and said, you know how we make these
Speaker:machines ding when people win.
Speaker:And that encourages 'em.
Speaker:Why don't we just throw in a few deans when people lose.
Speaker:Yeah, it's brilliant, God, what's it called now?
Speaker:A love's dog or No, no, no.
Speaker:There's ba basically if you don't reward somebody every
Speaker:time, but only intermittently.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:They can't predict when they're gonna win.
Speaker:And that actually makes it even more addictive.
Speaker:Correct?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So, it concludes the article by saying it's astonishing that Australia's blind
Speaker:spot is gambling just as the USAs is guns.
Speaker:The rest of the world is in disbelief how one industry could pull us off.
Speaker:Good point.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Our blind spot gambling and schools, religious private schools.
Speaker:Private schools.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:That's our, our version of gun control.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Scroll through there.
Speaker:Stamp duty.
Speaker:And land tax.
Speaker:Joe, we have previously talked about this and discussed last week.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:We mentioned this.
Speaker:Did we do this article last week?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:No, no, no.
Speaker:So nearly all economists and most politicians agree that stamp
Speaker:duty is a bad tax, but nearly all state and territory governments
Speaker:rely on it to keep the lights on.
Speaker:So it's a bad tax because it taxes homeowners every time they move,
Speaker:merely because they've moved.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:doesn't really make sense, does it?
Speaker:It's not, isn't a great cost to the government, the fact that
Speaker:somebody's moved, moved a house?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Why should they be paying because of that?
Speaker:So, at $40,000 per move on a median priced home in Sydney or Melbourne, that would
Speaker:be the figure, the average stamp duty.
Speaker:It's even a de facto tax on divorce when a family home is sold to allow assets to be
Speaker:split, each member of a separating couple needs to pay stamp duty to purchase again.
Speaker:So it's unfair.
Speaker:It hits the younger households that move around the most and it leaves alone
Speaker:the old residents who stay put, ie.
Speaker:Boomers.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. So there's new modeling by the Center for Policy Studies that Victoria
Speaker:University finds abolishing stamp duty and replacing the revenue lost with
Speaker:land tax would put downward pressure on the price paid by buyers of about 4.7%.
Speaker:So Australian Capital Territory is in a program where they're switching over
Speaker:in it's a 20 year program, gradually swapping over and back to New South Wales
Speaker:in the lead up to the March election.
Speaker:, whether they're coming up with their policies what the coalition government
Speaker:has legislated to offer firsthand buyers the option of paying an annual land
Speaker:tax rather than stamp duty if they buy a property worth up to 1.5 million.
Speaker:That's a good one.
Speaker:Interesting idea.
Speaker:That's offering the option.
Speaker:That's not a very expensive property though.
Speaker:One and a half million.
Speaker:No, it's probably, probably the low 10% of Sydney, isn't it?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But I think I think it's a bit of a scale.
Speaker:You'll still no.
Speaker:Maybe that is the limit.
Speaker:Not sure on that.
Speaker:So from this week, first home buyers New South Wales can choose between
Speaker:paying stamp duty or an annual land tax on properties up to 1.5 million.
Speaker:Under the initiative.
Speaker:First homeowners will instead pay an annual fee of $400 plus 0.3%
Speaker:of the properties at land value.
Speaker:So it's not the total value, just the land value.
Speaker:So that's what you pay rates on.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Unimproved land value.
Speaker:So Joe, I did a quick calculation.
Speaker:If we're talking about a property that has to be 1.5 million in total mm-hmm.
Speaker:maybe the land is worth 800,000 so that annual land tax would be 2,900 per annum.
Speaker:So yeah, I would imagine lots of people would go for paying that annual fee
Speaker:rather than, I mean, if you bought and sold within a few years, you'd
Speaker:be way ahead just by paying that.
Speaker:. Yeah.
Speaker:State governments get a lot of money from a proportion of their budget,
Speaker:so stamp duty revenue as a share of the total tax revenue for the
Speaker:states and for the various states.
Speaker:Victoria, it's over 30%, it looks like about 34% New South Wales, about
Speaker:28 Queensland, a little bit lower, maybe about 26% of total revenue for
Speaker:the state governments is, is in that 20 to 30% range just from stamp duty.
Speaker:So it's a significant amount of the budget on something you're
Speaker:doing every 10 or 20 years maybe.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So makes sense to convert everybody over and okay.
Speaker:And the other thing is that . Whereas homeowners can avoid paying stamp duty
Speaker:by refusing to move land can't be moved, meaning land tax can't be avoided.
Speaker:That's the other point as well.
Speaker:So you would have a more reliable, consistent revenue stream where
Speaker:you are imposing this annual fee.
Speaker:Yeah, makes sense.
Speaker:The other thing, territory doesn't have freehold, true leasehold
Speaker:in 99 year leases in mm-hmm.
Speaker:, Canberra.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, right?
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:That's New South Wales coming up to an election, even though we are based in
Speaker:Queensland, we've got you across it.
Speaker:At different times we talk about inequality on this podcast,
Speaker:and here's a conversation.
Speaker:I like this guy's expl.
Speaker:This is a, ah, they're on Twitter or maybe they're not on Facebook.
Speaker:It's called Exploding Heads.
Speaker:So yeah, on Twitter, look up exploding heads and follow these
Speaker:guys cuz they're quite good.
Speaker:And here's some thoughts.
Speaker:Sounds like a conversation I've had with maybe righting Tony at one point.
Speaker:We'll just see.
Speaker:Hang on.
Speaker:Look, it's really quite simple.
Speaker:If you are posh and middle class and you think society should be more equal,
Speaker:then you're a champaign socialist.
Speaker:And that's the thing.
Speaker:And that discounts my opinion.
Speaker:Of course it discounts your opinion that that's a nice view
Speaker:from your ivory tower Grow up.
Speaker:What if I were poor and working class?
Speaker:Well that's the politics of envy.
Speaker:You don't want to see anyone else achieve just because you can't let us live.
Speaker:You.
Speaker:You Grinch, what if I grew up poor but became wealthy?
Speaker:Well then you've betrayed your working class roots and
Speaker:you simply cannot be trusted.
Speaker:And look, it's simple.
Speaker:If you are any of these three groups, you are automatically discredited.
Speaker:It's a crying shame.
Speaker:But those are the rules.
Speaker:Well, you made up the rules.
Speaker:Those are the sums it up.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:in the chat room.
Speaker:Alison has joined us.
Speaker:Good on you Alison.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Actually don't have a follow up on inequality.
Speaker:I just saw that one and I thought well said.
Speaker:Now couple of other little things to mention.
Speaker:Joe, we were talking about books last week after the podcast.
Speaker:You came up with a good idea.
Speaker:Maybe we should do it as like a book club.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So, I think that's a good idea.
Speaker:And so as we're gonna work through some of these books, what
Speaker:we're gonna do is a book club.
Speaker:So do you listener, your book to read and get ready by the end of February is
Speaker:The Carbon Club by Maryanne Wilkinson.
Speaker:And the other Paul in Canberra has already started reading it.
Speaker:I've got it to read and I, you know, details will be provided.
Speaker:But if you wanna read the book and wanna join us in a sort of a book
Speaker:club, talk about the Carbon Club then Let me know and we'll get you involved
Speaker:somehow, and we'll talk about the book, which will become part of a podcast.
Speaker:But it really is the truth Behind Australia's two decades of climate
Speaker:inaction and tells a story of how a loose confederation of influential climate
Speaker:change skeptics, politicians, and business leaders sought to control Australia's
Speaker:response to the climate crisis.
Speaker:So if you are wondering why Australia never did anything and why we were
Speaker:so slack compared to the rest of the world in responding to the climate
Speaker:crisis, then the Carbon Club tells you who all the players were and what
Speaker:they did and the ins and outs of that.
Speaker:So John Howard and people like that will get a good look in.
Speaker:So if that interests you, grab the Carbon Club, get ready for book club
Speaker:sometime in February toward the end.
Speaker:And the other one is just I've got a second podcast happening
Speaker:called I F g Evergreen, which I'm just playing around with.
Speaker:It's on a different system, so look for that.
Speaker:And yeah, so that's a little few items there.
Speaker:Now back to the UK and Prime Minister sunk, how do you pronounce his name, Joe?
Speaker:I can't never remember.
Speaker:Sak sunk.
Speaker:So here is an interview that a journalist had with him, and just another example of
Speaker:this is what journalists need to do, and if you are watching the video, you can see
Speaker:the uncomfortable look on Sun Next's face as he's not allowed to get away with stuff
Speaker:and he realizes, oops, here's a journal who's just not letting me do what I really
Speaker:want to normally do in this situation.
Speaker:So here we go.
Speaker:Still Prime Minister after that election, would you accept the
Speaker:result of that defacto referendum?
Speaker:I tell you, what I'm focused on is delivering the people in
Speaker:Scotland, today's announcement, but that's not what I'm asking you.
Speaker:I'm asking about the, the possibility of a defacto referendum of the
Speaker:next general election, which is what the first ministers proposing
Speaker:you spoke to about it last night.
Speaker:Would you accept the outcome of that?
Speaker:We, we didn't talk about the next general election.
Speaker:What we did talk about though, is the things that we can do to deliver for
Speaker:people here in Scotland by working constructively together and today's
Speaker:announcement of two new Freeport.
Speaker:But, but you're completely ignoring my question, which is about the
Speaker:possibility of the next general election being a defacto referendum.
Speaker:Would you accept the outcome of that?
Speaker:But what I'm focused on, but that's, but that's not what I'm asking.
Speaker:What your folks, I'm asking to focus on this because there's a lot of
Speaker:people in Scotland are very interested.
Speaker:Would you accept the outcome of a def fact or referendum?
Speaker:Do you know what I was, I was out all of yesterday evening.
Speaker:I've been out all of today.
Speaker:And what people are talking to me about is what we can do to actually make their
Speaker:lives better in the, we're not gonna talk about what they're talking about.
Speaker:You're just gonna ignore my question.
Speaker:You're just gonna ignore my question about Scotland's constitutional future.
Speaker:Is that what you're doing?
Speaker:No, I think what when it comes to are, when it comes to a general election,
Speaker:people will make up their own minds of what they want to vote title.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So it's not, it's not really for me to talk about that.
Speaker:Well, cause that's what I'm asking you.
Speaker:But it sounds like, like you, you're ignoring the mani
Speaker:and the Scottish Parliament.
Speaker:You're ignoring a mani, potentially a westman's election.
Speaker:Are you ignoring democracy?
Speaker:Absolutely not.
Speaker:What we are doing is delivering it goes on.
Speaker:But I like that that's such classical line.
Speaker:Is it?
Speaker:What we are focused on here, what people I've been talking to, are
Speaker:focusing on is jobs and growth.
Speaker:I I, I disregard your reality and insert my own.
Speaker:Yes, indeed.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well done to that reporter.
Speaker:The reporter was Colin McKay.
Speaker:Good on you.
Speaker:Colin McKay, Joe prince Harry put out a book spare.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:It's over here.
Speaker:Very popular book in terms of sales.
Speaker:Is it?
Speaker:I think it's, yes.
Speaker:I think it's was one of the fastest selling Okay.
Speaker:Books on the, on the books.
Speaker:All those anti monarchists on this Alicia Gossip.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think there's been so much by the Murdoch Press in particular.
Speaker:Dissing the guy that it's just created interest in the book.
Speaker:So, apparently one of the things he wrote in there, he apparently, when referring
Speaker:to Rupert Murdoch in the book, Harry says, indeed, I couldn't think of a
Speaker:single human being who in the 300,000 year history of the species, , he's done more
Speaker:collective damage to our sense of reality.
Speaker:Well, yeah, fair enough.
Speaker:Makes you wanna go out and buy the book?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Maybe not, maybe not.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. So in the book he talks about killing people when he was in Afghanistan,
Speaker:and a lot of press about what he had to say in the book about that.
Speaker:So I'm gonna read a bit from The Guardian.
Speaker:Now, Joe, you would expect the guardian on a topic of this to be relatively
Speaker:centrist or anti or promo or anti royals?
Speaker:Anti royals.
Speaker:Certainly anti-war.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Okay, good point.
Speaker:This is from the Guardian army.
Speaker:Veterans criticized Prince Harry's claim.
Speaker:He killed 25 Taliban in Afghanistan.
Speaker:I profile British veterans have criticized the Duke of Suss Sussex's claim.
Speaker:It's not easy.
Speaker:Joe Sussex's claim he had killed 25 Taliban soldiers while serving
Speaker:the British Army in Afghanistan.
Speaker:The retired Army veteran colonel Tim Collins, said the prince's kill
Speaker:count talk was crass, and we don't do notches on the rifle, but others said
Speaker:Harriet appeared wrongly to dehumanize the insurgents by describing them as
Speaker:chess pieces removed from the board.
Speaker:While the Taliban accused the prince of committing war crimes
Speaker:on his tour a decade ago.
Speaker:Just read the next bit.
Speaker:Later the prince acknowledged he had dehumanized those
Speaker:who he had shot in battle.
Speaker:When I found myself plunged in the heat and confusion of combat, I
Speaker:didn't think of those 25 as people.
Speaker:They were chest pieces removed from the board.
Speaker:Bad people eliminated before they could kill good people.
Speaker:This guy Collins again, says amongst his assertions is a claim that he
Speaker:killed 25 people in Afghanistan.
Speaker:That's not how you behave in the army.
Speaker:It's not how we think.
Speaker:Just badly let the side down.
Speaker:We don't do notches on the rifle, but we never did.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, he's, he's said this has been taken outta context.
Speaker:He was talking about other members of the armed forces.
Speaker:He's very much involved in veteran affairs and suicidal ideation.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And he says part of that is the guilt of killing people.
Speaker:And he was trying to normalize the fact that if you're a soldier sent
Speaker:off to war, you do kill people.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, which is why he says, look, I have killed people.
Speaker:It's, it's not something I'm proud of, but it's not something I'm ashamed of either.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:So when you trying to normalize the fact that this is a, a
Speaker:part of being a soldier mm-hmm.
Speaker:So the emphasis in the article was quoting extensively this guy saying,
Speaker:we don't do notches on our rifle butts.
Speaker:That's a terrible crash thing to do.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, he's letting the side down, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:When you actually read the passage in the book and you get quite a
Speaker:different impression of Harry, and so this is from a guy called James
Speaker:O'Brien, who is on LBC in the uk and he's gonna read a bit of this passage.
Speaker:It's actually a long section, goes for three minutes and 45 seconds.
Speaker:Cho, if you need a toilet break, here's the opportunity.
Speaker:sounds like a plan.
Speaker:So I'm gonna play this one and have a listen, dear listener, as to.
Speaker:, you know, you've just heard from the Guardian, and now have a
Speaker:listeners have a listen to this.
Speaker:The thought experiment is this, try if you can, to come to this cold.
Speaker:Imagine if you heard this coming out of your radio, or you read this in a
Speaker:book and you didn't know the author.
Speaker:The author wasn't famous.
Speaker:It was just a military memoir rather than, well, so it's quite long.
Speaker:Well, I'm gonna read all of it.
Speaker:Afghanistan was a war of mistakes, a war of enormous collateral damage,
Speaker:thousands of innocence killed and maimed, and that always haunted us.
Speaker:So my goal from the day I arrived was never to go to bed, doubting that I'd
Speaker:done the right thing, that my targets had been correct, that I was firing on Taliban
Speaker:and only Taliban, no civilians nearby.
Speaker:I wanted to return to Britain with all my limbs, but more I wanted to go
Speaker:home with my conscience intact, which meant being aware of what I was doing
Speaker:and why I was doing it at all times.
Speaker:Most soldiers can't tell you precisely how much death is on their ledger.
Speaker:In battle conditions, there's often a great deal of indiscriminate firing.
Speaker:But in the age of Apaches and laptops, everything I did in the course of two
Speaker:combat tours was recorded timestamped.
Speaker:I could always say precisely how many enemy competence I'd killed, and I felt it
Speaker:vital never to shy away from that number.
Speaker:Among the many things I learned in the Army, accountability
Speaker:was near the top of the list.
Speaker:So my number 25, it wasn't a number that gave me any satisfaction, but neither was
Speaker:it a number that made me feel ashamed.
Speaker:Naturally, I'd have preferred not to have that number on my military CV on
Speaker:my mind, but by the same token, I'd have preferred to live in a world in
Speaker:which there was no Taliban, a world without war, even for an occasional
Speaker:practitioner of magical thinking like me.
Speaker:However, some realities just can't be changed.
Speaker:While in the heat and fog of combat, I didn't think of those 25 As people.
Speaker:You can't kill people if you think of them as people.
Speaker:You can't really harm people if you think of them as people.
Speaker:They were chess pieces removed from the board, bads taken away
Speaker:before they could kill goods.
Speaker:I'd been trained to other eyes, them trained well on some level.
Speaker:I recognize this learned detachment as problematic, but I also saw it as
Speaker:an unavoidable part of soldiering.
Speaker:Another reality that couldn't be changed.
Speaker:Now why bother sharing that with your readers when you can just tell them that
Speaker:he's painted targets on, on, on the back of his own children and then ring up?
Speaker:The woman upon whom Edina in absolutely fabulous was based in
Speaker:order to get her to talk about the terrible PR damage that he's done.
Speaker:I'm not exaggerating the second bit.
Speaker:The daily mail's actually done that today.
Speaker:Why bother actually sharing the actual words that he actually wrote when you
Speaker:could instead turn it to get another firework display or opportunity to attack
Speaker:him without having all the facts, you need to have a fully formed opinion.
Speaker:It's almost like every single thing he said about British newspapers was
Speaker:true and they're proving it today.
Speaker:I just thought that was a, a remark.
Speaker:Very different picture.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. And look, I don't know what ghost writer he had.
Speaker:Probably a couple of 'em.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:But anyway, probably, you know, little bit endearing of the guy.
Speaker:Like clearly you know, that that all was I don't know, sounded like a sensible
Speaker:guy trying to make sense of an experience that he had and tell it honestly.
Speaker:And you just get bagged Mercer mercilessly in the media and a different, and,
Speaker:you know, the same press that had that been a member of the SAS would've
Speaker:been lording him for his revelations.
Speaker:Indeed, indeed.
Speaker:Just a double standard there.
Speaker:So, it's just an example of propaganda.
Speaker:A classic example of propaganda because the powers that be have decided that the
Speaker:royal family at this point in time must be maintained in their current position.
Speaker:And Harry is a threat to that.
Speaker:So he's gotta be dealt with.
Speaker:And I did see somebody earlier today in one of the chat forums, I'm a member
Speaker:of saying, well, if this person got in trouble for what they said about Megan,
Speaker:, that makes him a racist, doesn't it?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Because you can't have a valid criticism of Meghan Markle without it
Speaker:being anything to do with her race.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Race will get tossed into things all the time.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:So I said, well, you know, she's an American and she's a divorcee.
Speaker:And that was enough for old Eddie to step down, wasn't it?
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:So it's, you know, and it's such a blatant propaganda against the
Speaker:guy, like, okay, not saying he's a saint or whatever, but people with a
Speaker:visceral hate of, of him and his wife.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, he's swallowing the propaganda.
Speaker:He's bagged the firm, hasn't he?
Speaker:Mm, indeed.
Speaker:Traitor.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, not as bad as his mother.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:He was gonna take the air off to America to raise him.
Speaker:Was that what she was gonna do?
Speaker:She was gonna take, she was shacked up with Dody.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:She was gonna take him both off to America and live with Dody.
Speaker:Oh, that was never gonna happen, was it?
Speaker:That was, that was the allegations as to why she was knocked off.
Speaker:Oh, was it?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Oh, I hadn't heard that.
Speaker:Didn't know that.
Speaker:But, well, and and the allegation is she was intentionally killed.
Speaker:So, yeah.
Speaker:Look, when, I remember when I first heard about the sort of conspiracy
Speaker:over, he shot JFK in the grassy Nu and I was like, oh, what a complete load
Speaker:of conspiracy, nonsense or whatever.
Speaker:More you think about it, the more you go, oh, maybe.
Speaker:Who knows?
Speaker:Who knows?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Speaking of racism, Joe Oyster, Parliament's gonna be coming up.
Speaker:There was an Yeah.
Speaker:And you're racist if you're against it.
Speaker:Yes, indeed.
Speaker:There's no doubt.
Speaker:No doubt I will be you, you're not allowed to have valid questions that makes you a
Speaker:racist as soon as you say anything at all.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Meanwhile, I'm defending China at every opportunity against what
Speaker:is really often a racist attack.
Speaker:Like the, the whole forcing people coming from China to undergo special
Speaker:testing for Covid a couple of weeks ago while Covid is running rampant around
Speaker:the world in case they have kung flu.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That was just, that was just a racist policy and I expect
Speaker:better from the Labor Party.
Speaker:Well, do I expect better?
Speaker:Maybe I'm not surprised, but disappointed yet again.
Speaker:Anyway, an article by Guy Anthony Dillon.
Speaker:Oh, who's Anthony Dillon?
Speaker:He's writing a news.com.
Speaker:He works for acu.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So he identifies as part Aboriginal Australian is an academic with the
Speaker:Australian Catholic University and is a commentator on aboriginal affairs.
Speaker:So he certainly looks as if he's of Aboriginal heritage.
Speaker:Can you even say that, Jane, you've, are you allowed to say that?
Speaker:I dunno if you're allowed to say it.
Speaker:on this podcast.
Speaker:You are.
Speaker:Anyway, he's certainly not white with blonde hair looking very Nordic.
Speaker:Yeah, I guess it doesn't surprise that a clearly dear listener, he's gonna have
Speaker:a slightly contrarian view, slightly contrarian, and it doesn't surprise
Speaker:that this comes out of somebody at the Australian Catholic University.
Speaker:So, anyway, just, it's a few extracts from his article where he says, First,
Speaker:if the voice does get up, its highest priority should be to abandon the
Speaker:prevailing ideology that indigenous Australians are fundamentally different
Speaker:from non-indigenous Australians.
Speaker:I believe the number one reason why we are not seeing the gap close,
Speaker:despite considerable investment in programs that aim to improve the lives
Speaker:of indigenous Australians, is because they have been cast as having vastly
Speaker:different needs from other Australians, but they essentially have the same
Speaker:fundamental needs as other Australians.
Speaker:My default position when I took an interest in indigenous affairs was that
Speaker:the commonalities between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians
Speaker:far outweigh any differences.
Speaker:Nearly three decades, decades later, and I have not seen any evidence to the
Speaker:contrary, and it goes on a bit further.
Speaker:Finally, once recognizing that indigenous and non-indigenous
Speaker:Australians are far more alike than they are different, the voice should
Speaker:abandon the preferred view that.
Speaker:Only indigenous Australians are considered capable of understanding
Speaker:and helping indigenous Australians.
Speaker:I'm not saying indigenous business and service providers should not exist.
Speaker:I'm all for them.
Speaker:As many do a great job.
Speaker:But what I am saying is that caring and competent non-indigenous service
Speaker:providers are just as capable as helping indigenous people as
Speaker:indigenous service providers are.
Speaker:To question this is to question if indigenous service providers are
Speaker:capable of helping non-indigenous people, of course they are.
Speaker:And to suggest otherwise is racist.
Speaker:So, Joe on, you know, I don't think I mentioned New Year's Eve,
Speaker:I was on a boat on the river.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:and one of a friend of a friend I met on the boat had worked as a nurse in Hey.
Speaker:Yeah, boy, oh boy.
Speaker:Stories.
Speaker:She was there for three weeks.
Speaker:She harassed.
Speaker:Police and teachers were in a secure compound, but Queensland Health didn't
Speaker:have nurses in a secure compound.
Speaker:I've heard.
Speaker:Thursday Island is not a good place to go as a nurse either.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:Really dangerous.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:In terms of of just getting from their accommodation to the hospital
Speaker:and just some of the stories.
Speaker:Oh my goodness.
Speaker:Me just, you know, of course, dear listener, the problem with that community
Speaker:is that you've got five or six tribes who were all hustled into this one town,
Speaker:ex sort of missionary type town, and there's just all this tribal conflict.
Speaker:It's just still ongoing and any amount of money or resources thrown
Speaker:at that, I cannot see a solution other than closing the entire town
Speaker:down and moving people separate ways.
Speaker:But that's never gonna happen there, there is no solution to that.
Speaker:One.
Speaker:Good luck to people in the voice making representations to Parliament about what
Speaker:should happen in communities like that, that are actually gonna fix the problem.
Speaker:Yeah, she'd been in some other remote towns as well in Central Australia.
Speaker:It's another world out there, Joe, not like the leafy western
Speaker:suburbs of Brisbane . Ah, right.
Speaker:Nobody in the chat rooms commented on that one.
Speaker:We've got through that unscathed.
Speaker:Joe, you saw this one?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. It was about Supreme Court in the USA hearing a labor dispute essentially,
Speaker:where there were cement truck drivers who went on strike while they still
Speaker:had wet cement in their trucks.
Speaker:And they basically returned the trucks to sort of depo and kept the, the
Speaker:machines turning, but then walked away.
Speaker:And it would've been a mad scramble for supervisors and management staff to empty
Speaker:the trucks out before it said Yes indeed.
Speaker:So there's a case going before the Supreme Court about the right of
Speaker:strike, of, of labor to strike in circumstances where there might be some
Speaker:sort of, well, some obvious ancillary.
Speaker:well, consequential damage might flow, so see what happens.
Speaker:Do you have any strong thoughts about that one or you just it's
Speaker:a concern that a very, make it up as you go along Supreme Court.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:is likely to say, oh, well, you know, the unions are liable for
Speaker:any costs that an employer might face whilst they're on strike.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Which is, yeah.
Speaker:Deliberately trying to push the costs of a strike.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Any loss of profit, any loss of ongoing revenue.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Basically making it impossible to strike without getting sued.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:So in this case, you know, none of the trucks were damaged
Speaker:by concrete setting in them.
Speaker:So, but the employer decided to take on the union with a friendly court
Speaker:in session and see how they go.
Speaker:So, There's been previous cases, milk truck drivers who went on
Speaker:strike, even though the strike risked spoiling some milk and a similar
Speaker:thing with striking cheese workers.
Speaker:So, see how that one goes.
Speaker:Might be more difficult for people to strike.
Speaker:Even this Biden government did that thing with the railway workers.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:forcing them back to work even though the majority wanted
Speaker:to keep going with a strike.
Speaker:So, yeah, not very labor friendly.
Speaker:I did hear about it.
Speaker:It's probably on opening arguments, isn't it?
Speaker:I think I've read about it.
Speaker:I haven't heard the story on openings.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:No, no.
Speaker:I read about it somewhere, but I would've thought it was something
Speaker:that Andrew Torres would cover.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. Right.
Speaker:And just gonna finish off with a bit of reading of Caitlin Johnston.
Speaker:So she's a blogger and.
Speaker:She's got some good thoughts, I think, because what have we been looking at here?
Speaker:It's you know, Cardinal, Pell Child Abuse enabler, getting positive
Speaker:coverage in the national newspaper.
Speaker:We've got poker machine industry crippling so many families yet
Speaker:still charging on and the Labor party not doing anything about it.
Speaker:Realistically.
Speaker:Mining industry, coal mining in particular.
Speaker:Indeed.
Speaker:And we've got the mining industry overthrowing and an elected government.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Kevin Rod.
Speaker:Yes, indeed.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:So anyway, I'll read some of the Caitlin Johnson.
Speaker:If you live in one of the so-called freedom democracies of the Western world,
Speaker:the worst mistake you can make is to buy into the hype to believe you are a free
Speaker:individual in a nation that respects and protects your freedom and individuality.
Speaker:Whenever I broach this subject, I always get a deluge of objections along the
Speaker:line of, well, I'd much rather live where I live than under an authoritarian
Speaker:regime like in Iran or China.
Speaker:You would never be allowed to criticize your rulers the way you do
Speaker:if you lived in one of those places.
Speaker:Actually, Joe, I get this all the time in the podcasting community cuz people who
Speaker:are working on new podcasting protocols and other stuff in the tech side of
Speaker:podcasting, it's all out of America.
Speaker:They're really pro libertarian, pro crypto, anti-government, and
Speaker:they often, and like some good guys in there, like they're doing
Speaker:voluntary work they're really.
Speaker:Doing a lot of hard work voluntarily just for the industry,
Speaker:not making money themselves.
Speaker:They keep throwing in these anti-china comments and stuff like that along
Speaker:the way justifying why they're why they're keeping it open source,
Speaker:because you know, of the government.
Speaker:And then, and then they'll throw in, of course, you know,
Speaker:authoritarian regimes like China.
Speaker:It just shits me off that they do it.
Speaker:Anyway, I'll, I, I've digressed back to Caitlin Johnson and I always
Speaker:wanna ask them, what do you think drove you to make that objection?
Speaker:Why are you falling over yourself to defend your country and the people
Speaker:who rule over you while condemning foreign countries that your own
Speaker:government happens to dislike?
Speaker:Would it be because that's how you've been trained to behave from
Speaker:a young and impressionable age, and that your objection is arising from
Speaker:the same place as a cult member's objections to criticisms of their cult?
Speaker:. That's what I'm thinking about.
Speaker:A lot of things Joe is in looking at economics and a lot of sort of
Speaker:standard economic theory is being blown outta the water by mmt.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. And a lot of, you know, the more history you read about the stuff
Speaker:that America's been up to in terms of foreign intervention in
Speaker:other countries never happened.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's, it's like, it's like religion.
Speaker:When you went, you were a kid and you were told these fairy tales and eventually
Speaker:you pick up a Christopher Hitchens book or something and you go, oh shit,
Speaker:I've been lied to thoroughly haven't I?
Speaker:Like, of course, this was complete nonsense.
Speaker:I really hate having the wool pulled over my eyes by people deceiving me,
Speaker:Joe, I hate it and I hate swallowing.
Speaker:bullshit.
Speaker:If I find myself doing it, it's terrible.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, I'm finding my response to challenging standard sort of economic
Speaker:theories like I have been recently.
Speaker:And course the US heger money in that as, as a ref, as a reaction to having,
Speaker:you know, swallowed that whole neoliberal pro western line as a stupid 21 year old.
Speaker:Like, oh, I, you know, at my 21st birthday party, I wouldn't
Speaker:have been wearing a Nazi outfit.
Speaker:. I would've had some pretty stupid ideas in my head that would, should
Speaker:make me, you know, unelectable.
Speaker:But hey, I think I've changed since then.
Speaker:So anyway, subject to propaganda, that's the way that I thought.
Speaker:It's only that I'm reading more widely now, and if you are dear
Speaker:listener, you know, you join this podcast initially because of.
Speaker:Our anti-religious stance, pro secular stance.
Speaker:Then there's a bunch of other topics where maybe the wool has
Speaker:been pulled over our eyes and we need to look at them just as hard.
Speaker:So, she goes on.
Speaker:But that's ultimately what holds power structures together in the
Speaker:US aligned nations of the global North indoctrination, the same
Speaker:thing used to program religious extremists and cult members.
Speaker:The only difference is that rather than scripture and religious leaders,
Speaker:the means of indoctrination is school, mainstream media and Silicon
Speaker:Valley algorithm manipulation.
Speaker:In reality, we are not truly freer under our rulers than people are under
Speaker:the governments that our rulers hate.
Speaker:Sure, people can post criticisms of their elected officials online, but
Speaker:those criticisms will be dismissed and ignored by everyone who matters.
Speaker:They are being directed at political figureheads with no real power,
Speaker:and they're coming from minds that have been deeply indoctrinated
Speaker:into power serving worldviews.
Speaker:Your rules do not care if you're a Democrat who hates Republicans or
Speaker:a Republican who hates Democrats.
Speaker:As long as you're plugged into one of the authorized reality tunnels as Na
Speaker:Chomsky put it, actually, name Chomsky is amazing, Joe, in the guy's output.
Speaker:Like he's, he's still on, he's still doing podcast interviews everywhere.
Speaker:He's in his nineties.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Still sharp as a attack as name Chomsky put it.
Speaker:Propaganda is to democracy.
Speaker:What the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.
Speaker:In a totalitarian state, people are physically abused into conformity
Speaker:and obedience In a democracy, people are psychologically abused into
Speaker:conformity and obedience, in a sense.
Speaker:Someone who lives under overt totalitarianism.
Speaker:China, Russia is freer than a westerner who's been indoctrinated by the most
Speaker:powerful propaganda machine ever devised, because at least they've got their minds.
Speaker:At least they know who their persecutors are.
Speaker:I love telling that joke.
Speaker:I use a dinner party a lot, Joe, even though I haven't been
Speaker:to dinner party for a while.
Speaker:But about the Russian guy meeting a American guy on an airplane,
Speaker:and as he's heading to America, and the American says, what are
Speaker:you, what are you coming over for?
Speaker:And he's said, oh, I've, I've come over to to learn about American propaganda.
Speaker:And the American says, what?
Speaker:Propaganda?
Speaker:And the Russian says Exactly,
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:can't tell as well as I normally do.
Speaker:I forgot the word exactly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's hard to even imagine how much freer our mental lives would be if we weren't
Speaker:being continually herded into artificial confines for thinking about the world.
Speaker:It's actually pathetic how constricted and confined minds are inside the
Speaker:indoctrinated mainstream worldview.
Speaker:Have you ever marveled how some of the most intelligent people,
Speaker:you know, can buy into the most obvious articles of propaganda?
Speaker:Some people though, Joe, take this line of thinking too far and we are
Speaker:thinking of anti-vaxxers and do your own research and yeah, I mean, the
Speaker:smarter you are the easier it is to rationalize your your reasons.
Speaker:So you come to your conclusion and then you make up your reasons afterwards.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And the more intelligent you are, the easier it is to rationalize
Speaker:and make up your reasons.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So when I rail against some of the economic thinking or
Speaker:others, am I just another.
Speaker:anti-vaxxer, who thinks I've done my own research by watching a few YouTube videos,
Speaker:possibly, might possibly hang, hang on.
Speaker:The difference is they never question.
Speaker:That's true.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:But maybe by questioning and then discarding, I'm just rationalizing it.
Speaker:. Oh, possibly.
Speaker:At least you wants to further along.
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:We who live in a so-called free liberal democracies like to tell ourselves a
Speaker:fairytale that we live in a society that respects and prioritizes individuality,
Speaker:but the truth is the exact opposite.
Speaker:Our society does everything it can to stomp true individuality out of
Speaker:existence and hurt us through conformity manufacturing processing systems.
Speaker:What's presented as individualism increasingly means having the freedom
Speaker:to express, express your uniqueness by having endless brands and varieties of
Speaker:products to choose from, while thinking the same thoughts as everyone else.
Speaker:About your government, your economic systems, your nation, and your world.
Speaker:Real individualism would encourage radical individuality
Speaker:and divergence from orthodoxies.
Speaker:Our project then, as prisoners in a profoundly unfree society, is to help
Speaker:awaken as many people as we can to the reality of how unfree we really are.
Speaker:To be voices whispering in the matrix, beckoning the dreamers towards the
Speaker:real world in whatever ways we can, engaging in our creativity and finding
Speaker:more and more ways to get people to question if everything they've been
Speaker:told about their world is really true.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:There was a second one there.
Speaker:I'll read it for next week, Joe.
Speaker:We're done.
Speaker:We're not gonna get the hour a half for the next few weeks, I reckon.
Speaker:Shark Tank.
Speaker:Landon Landon doesn't leave me any messages anymore.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:We we're gonna have to invite Shay back on just to Yeah, actually Shop Tank.
Speaker:You probably can't even find the speak pipe link cuz website's not really.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:You all mucked around so Yeah, you have to fix all that up.
Speaker:Sorry, Landon, you can't even do it if you wanted to or dear listener.
Speaker:Well, thanks for tuning in.
Speaker:Tell your friends about the podcast.
Speaker:Tell 'em about the chapters, if they wanna skip through bits and have a
Speaker:look at the I F V G Evergreen Podcast because more and more bits and pieces
Speaker:have being thrown up there and I think it's a good one for people.
Speaker:If you want to introduce your friends to the podcast, then maybe they don't
Speaker:wanna go through an hour and a half of some old stories of politics, but there's
Speaker:some good stuff in that Evergreen one.
Speaker:So have a look there and talk to you next week.
Speaker:Bye for now.
