full

Episode 377 - The Lost Art of Plain Speaking

In this episode we discuss:

(00:44) Introduction

(02:45) Nazis in Melbourne

(13:00) Robodebt

(15:03) AUKUS

(52:21) Silicon Valley Bank

(55:39) The Voice Opinion Polls

(01:04:57) Benevolent Dictator


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Transcript
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Suburban Eastern Australia.

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An environment that has over time evolved some extraordinarily

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unique groups of Homo Sapians.

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But today we observe a small tribe akin to a group of mere cats that gather together

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a top, a small mound to watch question and discuss the current events of their city,

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their country, and their world at large.

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Let's listen keenly and observe this group fondly known as the

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Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

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Hello and welcome back to your listener, another episode of the Iron

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Fist and the Velvet Glove podcast.

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We are up to episode 377.

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I just keep rolling on by.

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It is 21st of March, 2023.

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We're gonna be talking about news and politics and sex and religion.

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What's gone on in the last seven days?

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I'm Trevor a k A, the Iron.

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Fist with me as always.

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Scott, the Velvet Club.

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Goodday.

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Trevor, Goodday.

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Joe Goodday, listeners.

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How are you all?

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We're all well And Joe, the tech guys back as well.

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Evening.

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All right, so what are we gonna talk about?

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Well, probably submarines, . No, we'd never talk about them.

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Yes.

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But in a roundabout way.

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Yes.

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Yes.

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We will be.

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We talking about Paul Keating.

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Keating going off.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And really the reaction to what he said and how he treated the

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journalists is interesting.

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Even if you ignore the things he had to say about submarines.

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Just the whole, yeah.

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Social experiment.

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It was a little bit crass, the way he treat that journalist.

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You think so?

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You know, we'll get onto that in a second.

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Yeah.

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Just also, we'll quickly talk about robo debt.

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We're gonna talk about Nazis and they did Nazi, they coming . And

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a few other bits and pieces.

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Oh, recent poll came out on the voice.

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A few interesting changes in the polls on people's attitudes to the voice.

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I also mentioned to you guys did you consider this at all, but what you would

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do if you were a benevolent dictator, any changes you would make in Australia?

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Did you get a chance to think about that or you I did have a bit of a thing.

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Good.

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Okay.

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We're gonna talk about that as well.

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Is so you can think about that one dear listener.

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Is if you were suddenly in power as a benevolent dictator in Australia,

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what changes would you make?

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So, alright.

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Before we get on to submarines and Paul Keating, let's

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quickly Scott talk about Nazis.

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Shall we?

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Melbourne?

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Yes.

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Mm, so there was a Ukraine?

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Yes.

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Ukraine as well.

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Yeah.

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Everywhere.

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Brazil.

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They're everywhere.

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So yeah, there was somebody who was speaking, some anti-trans sort of

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activist woman was down there and people came out in support of her and also

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people came out to protest against her.

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And in support of her was a bunch of about maybe 15, 20 guys all in black,

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giving sort of Nazi salutes, obviously intending to promote themselves as Nazis.

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And.

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I don't think they had SWAs stickers, but they were clearly pro Nazi.

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I think SWAs stickers are actually illegal now in in Victoria.

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Yeah.

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I think that might be as well.

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And no, it wasn't Margaret Court.

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Dawn . And so it was, yeah.

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So the police were holding back the, the people who were the, the

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contra protest, the ones who were protran and anti-Nazi mm-hmm.

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were being held back by the police while the Nazis and the, and the

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anti-trans were conducting their uh, well exercising their civic rights.

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Mm-hmm.

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such as it was interesting scenes really, I thought.

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And there's talk about the Andrews government moving to ban the Nazi

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salute because of the way the gesture was used in this protest.

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So, Gentlemen, thoughts on that whole episode and potentially laws, which the

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other states are considering as well for, for banning people doing a Nazi salute.

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What do you reckon?

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I, I've always been against any form of banning protest,

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banning political symbolism.

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Mm-hmm.

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Because those hate speech laws can easily be turned around

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and used against other people.

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Mm-hmm.

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Yeah.

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Historically the hate speech laws were used by the powerful

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to oppress the minorities mm-hmm.

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and I think they will be in the future.

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I, I think implementing hate speech laws doesn't protect anybody,

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at least not in the long term.

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Mm-hmm.

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, I, I think there are better ways, I think.

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Social, ridiculous.

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Considerably better.

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Mm-hmm.

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, rather than making things illegal.

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Mm-hmm.

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, Scott, you sound like you're about to sit on the fence.

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You've got an uncomfortable look on your face.

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It's one of those things I, I tend to agree with.

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I tend to agree with Joe, but, you know, I do not wanna be accused of

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being pro Nazi or anything like that.

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Mm-hmm.

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, if you could guarantee the hate speech laws were gonna be directed only at Nazis,

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then I wouldn't have a problem with it.

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But I do agree that with Joe, that, you know, they have devolved in the past

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to be used against minorities and that sort of stuff in the, in the country.

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So it's pretty difficult when it's a gesture as well.

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Yeah.

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This, this is not.

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Even speech as such, as a gesture.

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And there's already in this group a sort of an upside down Okay.

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Sign is some sort of Nazi signal as well oxy groups.

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Yeah.

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And oh, it's the same as the diving symbol, I believe.

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The diving symbol.

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Yeah.

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When, when somebody, when you're diving, somebody goes, are you okay?

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So, so there are perfectly benign reasons to make the sign.

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Yes.

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Right.

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Okay.

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Okay.

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And you could be in under, in your scuba gear going, what are

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you doing a Nazi signal for?

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So, yeah, look, it's tricky when it's just a gesture and these

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people would invariably look at other gestures, although they

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really wanna use the Nazi salute.

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They're a tricky one to go near.

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Obviously we don't want people doing things that are going to.

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, you know, we have public nuisance laws, for example, where if people conduct

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themselves in a way that is against the grain of what's considered common

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decency, then we already stop that.

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Like, if you were to walk down the street protesting by swearing, using really

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terrible sailors language, for example, you, you'll be locked up if you keep doing

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it because we do already say we find that offensive and against community standards.

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And sometimes these community standards change.

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So a hundred years ago blasphemy, a form of speech that was against

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community standards was punishable.

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But these days under separate law.

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Yeah.

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Well, yes.

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And, and, and, and you, you wouldn't be locked up.

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I think these days for swearing in public.

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because I believe that the recent court cases, the, the magistrates

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have said that's the kind of language you'll hear on the street.

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It's, it's no more offensive.

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Mm-hmm.

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. Mm-hmm.

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, because I think they've tried to charge people with swearing at police.

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Mm-hmm.

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, I don't know.

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There's, there's some specific thing that they were trying to charge someone

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and that the magistrate threw it out and said, actually that's perfectly

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normal language in this day and age.

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Okay.

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There you go.

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I think it's a risky line to go down as well.

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Really, it's kind of handy having people self-identify as Nazis.

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It's like, put your hand up if you're a Nazi.

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Oh, it's good to know.

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Now we know who you are.

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It's kind of, I'd rather know who they are than.

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and have it all go underground and be kept secret and Exactly.

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And that is the whole point, because at least while they're out, out in that sort

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of stuff, you can have the special branch photograph them and you know mm-hmm.

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You've got, you've got a record of who they are mm-hmm.

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. And then after that you can always they can always be raided by the

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cops and all that sort of thing.

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Mm-hmm.

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Shalene says that was an accidental love heart.

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What does that mean?

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Was it that the upside down?

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Okay.

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Signs shalene.

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I dunno what you're talking about there.

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I've haven't kept track.

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

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Don's there, Shay's there.

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Sticky bits is there.

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So, wasn't, wasn't it one of the ACL people who got photographed

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with a bunch of white power guys?

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No proud boys.

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Yeah.

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That pillow guy was with them.

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And I think they were doing some sort of upside down Okay.

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Sign.

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Yeah.

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It was something like that.

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Yeah.

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So, sticky Bits says there's a human right to be free of the incitement of hate.

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So

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there's also human rights about free speech.

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Mm-hmm.

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as well, isn't there?

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There's the problem with rights at that level that are so broad

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is that they invariably conflict with each other at some point.

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So, it'll be great line that one.

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And I, I'm sure that Saudi Arabia are very proud of their laws against

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people who incite hatred of, of Islam.

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Mm-hmm.

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So tricky one to legislate on gestures very not just speech,

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but gestures really hitting its dangerous territory with that one.

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So, And, you know, very ac you know, I, I think also the Weimar

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Republic historically actually locked up the Nazis Nazi leaders

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for breaching hate speech laws.

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Mm-hmm.

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It didn't stop him.

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Mm-hmm.

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It, it's arguable whether it's slowed them down at all.

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I, I think the, the problem is you, you're giving this power to people

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who will misuse it when they get into power and you're not stopping

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them from getting into power.

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Mm-hmm.

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. And I think at this point in the movement of modern day nazim in Australia, I think

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we're still at the point where we could just take a moment to watch what develops.

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We don't have to rush into something immediately.

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Let's just see where this movement goes as well, I think is something we could do.

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So, so.

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Sticky bits.

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You're gonna have to be more specific if you want us to to respond cuz

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you're speaking in very general terms there of denying what we're saying

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but not actually providing any detail.

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So provide some detail and we'll respond.

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Alright?

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Where are we up to?

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So, so yeah, that's happened in Victoria and the woman behind the

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anti-trans movements trying to head to New Zealand, see what happens there.

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There was a, there was a, a coalition politician involved in the movement, Moira

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redeeming and there were moves to have her thrown out of the parliamentary party and

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I'm not sure where that's got to, but not everybody was in agreement on that one.

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So it's gonna be tricky for the Victorian opposition in dealing with that one.

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So, a real right mess for them.

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So, so yeah.

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Anyway, that was Victoria and.

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And really quite shocking really, the vi the vision, if you see it, of the people.

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Actually, I think I've got it here in a picture on it.

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So, the vision of the people doing their Nazi salute pretty full on.

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So, there you go.

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That's democracy at work as well.

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All right sticky bits.

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I've already cited.

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Article 19, what's it say?

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Sticky bits, article 19.

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So what I'm saying is that there's in the human rights legislation, you get

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conflicts between your right to do something and somebody else's right

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to do something, and they overlap.

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That's the problem with human rights in general.

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So one person's right to practice their religion, eg.

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Israel, fau telling people what he thinks about homosexuals interferes

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with somebody else's right not to be.

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Have hate, hate speech against them.

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So that's the problem there.

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So, and yes no expert in human rights ever says what you're saying, eh, none of

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them, eh, it's a pretty broad statement.

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Alright.

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That's good.

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Somebody in the chat room, having a ess and and having to disagree, which is good.

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Robodi, briefly, gentlemen, , I'd heard about this averaging and I really

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didn't quite get what they were what they were saying with the averaging.

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And basically it worked like this where people might have, people might

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have worked for six oh, or been on the, on the unemployment benefits for

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say, six months from July to December.

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Then they get a job in January and work from January through to June.

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. And then what the department was doing was looking at their tax return, seeing

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that they'd earned, let's say $30,000 and assumed that they had earned that

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over the course of the whole 12 months, meaning they'd earned 15,000 during

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that period when they were unemployed.

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And that's how a lot of this averaging worked, where people

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had been on unemployment, told the department, I've got a job, and got

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off unemployment and then had this averaging provision put on them.

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Pretty clear that that was just a very unfair arrangement.

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So that's oh, that's how, that's how the averaging worked.

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So actually when I first heard that they were averaging and that sort of stuff,

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I thought to Jesus Christ, they're gonna get themselves in hell in a lot of

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trouble there because, You know, you look at me, I was unemployed for six months

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and then I got off unemployment and I went and got a very well-paying job,

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which would have had, they have actually applied it and that sort of stuff.

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They would've, they would've really fucked me over and they would've

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said, well you, you have to pay back a hundred percent of your dollar.

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Mm-hmm.

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And in the chat room, sticky bit says, do you know Australia is a secular society?

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Scott Morrison didn't think so, but yeah.

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And sticky bit.

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Scott and I did actually stand for the secular party at a Senate election.

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So we do know a little bit about it, but we wish it was a secular

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society hasn't quite reached it.

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That's what we're here for.

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Alright.

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Let's talk about orcas and more of the fallout from the submarine issues.

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Scott, even though I know you are bored with the topic of the submarines.

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I've been banging on about it for a long time.

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Of course.

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And did you, did you listen or watch Paul Keating with, at the Press Club?

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Did you see it at all?

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Yeah, I did see it.

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I didn't, I didn't watch the whole thing, but I did see snippets of it.

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Okay.

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And I thought he was far too rude to that particular journalist and you know, he

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really, he really tore him a new one.

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And I just thought to myself, okay, Paul, you've gotta calm down here,

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but, but this was the journalist behind the Herald articles that

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ran for three days beating up a propaganda of, of a war against China.

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Like a pretty dangerous act.

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But anyway, there's sort of two parts to this.

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What did he say about submarines and then what did he say to the journalists?

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So, I'm gonna play a little bit of a clip of what he said about submarines.

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First of all, just some of the basic sort of stuff before we get into

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his mean words to the journalists.

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So, here he is Paul Keening.

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So the only way the Chinese could threaten Australia or at,

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or attack it, is by, is on land.

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That is, I bring an armada of troop ships with a massive army to occupy us.

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This is not possible for the Chinese to do because you would need an armeda of

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troop ships and they'd need to come 13 days of steaming 8,000 kilometers between

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Beijing or Shanghai and Brisbane, say in which case we, we just sync them all.

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Let me say this, China has not threatened us, and despite five years of this

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China threat appearing in the city, morning Herald, particularly, you

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know, written by, you know, provocateur like Archer and people, it's all been.

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. Untrue.

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So untrue because it's 8,000 tons.

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That's big.

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They're discoverable.

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They'll be discoverable from space.

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And what's more, they are too big for the shallow waters of Australian coast.

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A 4,000 ton boat like the Collins work perfectly around the

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Australian coast because it was designed to protect Australia.

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It wasn't designed to sit off the Chinese coast, sinking Chinese submarines.

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Right.

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So now we've got a big 8,000 ton clunker.

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You can't impute threat meaning, meaning invasion with putting a, a

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tariff on wine or maybe a silly enough to think that, you know, do you think

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you are silly enough to think that Mr.

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Keating cyber attack?

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Well, what do you think Americans and the Russians are not into cyber attacks?

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Who, who in the world is not into cyber attacks?

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Or do you think we are not?

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You know, just, just remember this The best friend we had in Asia

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was a f was a former president of Indonesia, bar two Yono.

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You know, he's the best guy.

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We had barren for us.

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You know, those dopes in asis tapped his telephone and out

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of his wife tapped his phone.

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I mean, this is what states get up to.

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If you let these security agencies Ning, nogs take control, you know,

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but you can't impute as your, as your question imputs, that that attacks or

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a tariff on wine or Bali is equivalent to, to, to an invasion of the country.

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China does not threaten Australia, has not threatened Australia does

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not intend to threaten Australia.

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You can have all the commercial rows you like.

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We can have diplomatic or dust.

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Remember, this all happened.

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After Maurice Payne, you know, the great non minister of our time went on

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the insiders program and said, we're gonna have weapon inspection, weapons

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type inspections of, of Wuhan to find out what was the cause of the virus.

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It was out of that came all of this, you know, so you can't put a question without

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it, you know, I mean, contextualization may not be your long suit, but that's

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what you should contextualization may not be your long suit.

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Was that mean Scott, was it?

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Or is it weird?

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That part was fair enough.

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No, that part was fair enough.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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It's just the part that was reported was saying that he, he, he basically

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abused the guy, I thought, anyway.

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We'll, we'll get onto that to the Sydney Morning Herald guy.

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So, but anyway, in these, and I agree with, yeah, I, I agree with Keating.

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China has not actually directly threatened Australia.

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It hasn't.

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But they have made some rather provocative noises about Taiwan.

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And Taiwan is a democracy of 25 million people.

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Which, but, but, but these are all noises that the but the

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world community all agrees with.

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They've said everyone agrees to the one China policy, don't they agreed to.

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America agrees to it.

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Everyone agrees to it.

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Believe the Americans and the Australians would be a lot happier if the, if

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the one China was, was actually run outta Taiwan rather than Beijing.

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But it can hardly be, it can hardly be a provocative statement when

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Australia and America in most of the Western world are on the same

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page with the one China policy.

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Like isn't, how can that be provocative to simply state what everyone else agrees?

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I don't get it.

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Yeah, but they're talking.

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They haven't said, we're gonna charge you next week and take over.

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No, I know that.

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But they have actually, they have actually conducted military exercises and all

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that sort of stuff, very close to Taiwan.

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Mm-hmm.

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, and they have threatened the independence of that country.

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You know, I've said to you before that I honestly believe that China should

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actually accept that they won that civil war and that Taiwan is just a remnant of

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that is just a remnant of that civil war.

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So, you know, they've just gotta accept that.

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Mm-hmm.

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. Taiwan has evolved into a democracy.

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It wasn't a democracy for a long time.

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It was a military dictatorship under Shanghai shek, I believe.

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Mm-hmm.

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He was the bloke that set it up and that sort of stuff.

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So it was a military dictatorship for a long time.

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Then, then after that, once it started to go democratic and that sort of

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thing, they had a situation that they called them the old timers.

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These were these old timers that were still representing they were still

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representing people in mainland China and that sort of stuff, despite the

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fact they hadn't been elected for years, and that's why the nationalists

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had control of the government.

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Mm-hmm.

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. But over time they did actually, they voted themselves out of office and that's

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when the, when it became a true democracy.

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Mm-hmm.

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. So that is why I think that I think that China's actually gotta sit down

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and talk to them more than saber rattling because if they talk to

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them and that sort of stuff, it's going to diffuse the whole situation.

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Now, one of the things I think that they could actually agree on is

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that that the south Sea is something that can belong to mainland China,

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and that Taiwan can renounce their claims over the South China Sea.

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So that is something that they could do.

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It wouldn't be a hell of a lot, but it would be something that they could do.

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They, they could renounce their claims over parts of Mongolia

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and and areas like that, that the Taiwanese are still claiming to

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which I, I agree with you there.

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They, they should renounce all those claims because they lost that.

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They lost the Civil War.

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Mm-hmm.

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You know, the nationalists lost the Civil War, so they've gotta

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actually accept their their.

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What's the word I'm groping for?

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They're much smaller part of the territory and that sort of stuff.

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They've got to accept it and they've got to accept it.

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So if they accepted it, then that would be something that China could then

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say, okay, these guys are actually starting to make some more sense.

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Mm-hmm.

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? Yeah.

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But I honestly believe it's time that I honestly believe it would be

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preferable if China would actually grow up a bit and actually not.

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Not threaten Taiwan anymore.

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What, what threat?

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Okay.

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Well, they have, honestly, the threats.

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They have not actually threatened them, but they have, they have conducted

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military exercises very close to Taiwan.

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How could they not conduct a naval military exercise

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that's not close to Taiwan?

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It's impossible that that would be, could they not?

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Had they have accepted that Taiwan was an independent country, then they

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wouldn't be lobbing shells into their, into their . But you, you can't say the

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fact that they're doing it off their own coastline is a provocative act

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because where else are they gonna do it?

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Yeah, but they're not, they're not actually, they're not actually lobbing

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shells or anything into their own.

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. You know, if you actually, if you actually looked at the distance and

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that sort of stuff between the two, then you'd have to divide it between.

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You'd have to say, well, okay, 50% of this belongs to the prc, 50%

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of it belongs to the R o C, but that would be a two China policy.

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Yeah, I know.

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Which is where I'm headed to.

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And I believe that.

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I honestly believe that that's where we've got to get to that.

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We've got to have something like that.

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Mm-hmm.

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, because that would be preferable to them just beating their

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chest and that sort of stuff.

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Now, I honestly believe it was, there's no chest beating.

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There is chest beating Trevor, there is chest beating.

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They're lobbing shells at them and all that sort of stuff.

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They haven't lobbed a shell on Taiwan.

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No, they haven't, but they've lobed shells in their waters.

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Well, well, it's like us flubbing shells into Morton Bay almost

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like it's, it's not that.

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It's not Morton Bay.

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Morton Bay is Australian territorial waters.

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Yeah.

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You know, look, in terms of provocative acts, there's so much greater

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provocation by, for example, United States completely encircling China.

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That's provocation, like honestly conducting their own military exercises.

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But we've been over that before.

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Just diverting back to Paul Keating.

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So essentially he was making all the same arguments that I've been making

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all these years, is that it's an inappropriate to have a nuclear submarine.

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You want something small and nimble that can hide it's way too expensive.

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And and ridiculously, what the hell, there is no threat from China anyway.

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It's all just bullshit.

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And how, how would China invade us?

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Because they'd have to have this massive ahorre of troop ships,

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which is incredibly difficult to do.

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And we could pop 'em off easily because we've got plenty of notice

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as they make their way day on here.

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So, so he was really, I could have written his, the, the, the part that

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he wrote in his written speech, I could have written that, that was.

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That was a summary of, and I agree everything inside.

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I agree with Keating that, you know, there is no, there is no threat to Australia.

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And that is why I just thought to myself at the time that it was just a little

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bit ridiculous that we were considering buying nuclear submarines and then we went

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down there out of actually buying them.

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And now, you know, three outta the 68 billion.

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Mm-hmm.

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That is a ridiculous sum of money.

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Mm-hmm.

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And you know, if we went back to the original, the original plan for

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the submarines, it was by Abbott and that sort of stuff, he said

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he wanted to buy them from Japan.

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Now, how do you have actually spent 12 billion buying 12 submarines from Japan?

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Happy days because we'd have, we'd have the, we'd have the capacity and that sort

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of stuff to protect ourselves over here.

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We would not get involved in any adventures.

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. Correct.

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In the South China Sea, we would've defensive submarines

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rather than offensive.

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Exactly.

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And that is the whole point.

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Like, you know, it appears that the Yanks looked at, looked at us and

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said, okay, well we're gonna need to, we're gonna need to expand that.

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We're gonna need to expand our bases and that sort of stuff, so we're gonna

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need to put them down there and that type of thing so they can go ahead

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and make a nuisance of themselves.

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One thing that Keating said in his statement, which was news to me that

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was amazing, was that basically Scott Morrison called them in him Penny Wong and

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Miles, and said, I've got this Orca deal.

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And What do you reckon?

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And within 24 hours the Labor Party agreed to it.

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Mm-hmm.

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Something as massive as orcas.

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Within 24 hours they agreed to it and Keating was scathing about that,

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saying, what the hell are you doing?

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Agreeing to something as momentous as that within 24 hours.

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And he's got a really good point there.

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So he was quite scathing of penny Wong and suggesting or saying that

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she had a policy where she just didn't want any difference between labor and

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liberals when it comes to defense, cuz she didn't want any wedge issues.

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So essentially the entire, you know, labor program has been to fall in line with the

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conservatives on defense issues so that they wouldn't be wedged in an election.

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bugger any principles that you might have about what our policy

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should be on these sorts of things.

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It was just, let's not create a target.

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Let's not allow ourselves to be wedged and let's just agree

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to whatever they're doing.

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What a pathetic, pathetic arrangement to come to.

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And shameful.

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And obviously Paul Keating knows exactly what's going on in the Labor Party, so

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there's nothing fanciful about that.

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He's not making it up.

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That's what would've transpired.

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Penny Wog just been a chicken and a coward and willing to just give up the

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idea of an independent labor foreign policy just to avoid a fight with the

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liberals in an election, pathetic, and to, and to agree to ORs within 24 hours.

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Just an abdication of duty by all concerned.

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and it's really got me worried about prospects for what Albanese might do over

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the next he's gonna do anything about Julian Assange or other issues like that.

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So, hard to imagine.

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Well, he made some sort of positive statements and all that sort of

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stuff pretty shortly after he was elected about Julian Assange.

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So we'll have to wait and see on that.

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Yeah, it may well be, it may well be a part of the backroom dealing and that

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sort of stuff, saying, well, you know, you want us to pay $368 billion for

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these for these submarines that have a off-the-shelf price of $10 billion ahead.

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Mm-hmm.

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, you know, I think you're gonna have to come good with Julian Assange.

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So, yeah, I, I was hoping that's what he would be doing in the background

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and I was hoping that when it comes to stage three cut tax cuts, he'd be

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saying, prior to the next election.

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Guess what?

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We're not gonna allow that.

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Yeah.

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I'm having serious doubts about the guy.

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So, so it wouldn't surprise me that stage three tax cuts could get

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knocked on the head before the budget.

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Yeah.

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Because it's it's one of those things.

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Yep.

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Now let me just get onto the other part of Keating's speech, which was

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where he was getting into journalists.

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So in particular, the guy from the City Morning Herald.

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So this is the so-called nasty bit with with what he was up to.

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So I'll play a bit of this, Matthew, not from the Sydney Morning

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Herald and the age has a question.

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Hi Mr.

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Keating.

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I'll ask two parts if I could.

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You've been extremely critical.

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Of the Albanese government including ministers uh, Richard Miles and Penny

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Wong, are you concerned that your comments today could represent a

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fundamental rupture with the party?

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You've already said that the Prime Minister hasn't responded to your

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request to brief him on this.

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And secondly, you have a, a tremendous skill for invective and criticism.

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Could I ask you now to turn some of that to the Chinese Communist Party and its

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treatment of Uyghurs, for example, its treatment of pro-democracy activists

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in Hong Kong will you be similarly critical of them as you are of people

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in your own party and journalists?

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After what you co-wrote with Har last week in that shocking presentation in the

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Herald on Monday, Tuesday, and when you should hang your head in shame, I'm, I'm

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surprised you even have the gall to stand up in public and ask such a question.

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Frankly, you know, you ought to do the right thing and drum yourself

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out of Australian journalism.

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You know, , I mean the, that's the, the most egregious, the worst,

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the most biased presentation.

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You pick up four specialists.

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You could have picked up John McCarthy, a long-term specialist Alan gk.

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You pick up four China Hawks, the, the biggest of the mall, gen, gen

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Jennings you know, Davina Lee.

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These are all China Hawks.

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You represent them to the community as having an independent view where you

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know full well that you've sat, you've, you've, you've, you've selected them.

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Two that do this thing.

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And here you are asking me about Uyghurs and you're asking me about if I said to

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you, and I did say when I saw her last time, here's the Prime Minister over,

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there's all everyone over in India.

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Not one question from any one of you about, about Modi shutting in the Muslims

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in Kashmere, in the pro Hindu policies.

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Nothing.

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But there is still a question, Mr.

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Keating, about the Chinese treatment of the Uyghurs.

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Yeah, well understand the treatment of the Uyghurs.

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I'm not to defend China about the Uyghurs.

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I mean, there's disputes about what the nature of the, of, of the, of the

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Chinese affront of the Uyghurs are.

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There's a spirit about that.

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But one thing we can't be sure what if the Chinese said, but look, what

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about deaths in custody of aboriginal people in your, in your prison system?

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You know, wouldn't that be a valid point for them?

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Wouldn't it be a valid point?

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In other words, great power diplomacy.

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is cannot be about reaching down into the low social end trails of these states

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any more than they can with us, you know?

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But the Sydney Morning Harold, frankly, has, has lost as, as it's, it's, it's,

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it's a newspaper without integrity.

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And, and, and, and the age follows it in Paul Little, like

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a little pup running behind.

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You know, I mean, if I were you mate, I'd hide my face and never

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appear again on, on the subs.

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For the record, Mr.

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Getting, we're, we're very proud of our journalism and, you know,

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we think that's made an important contribution to the national debate.

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But can I just clarify, do you think that it really is in dispute about

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what China has been doing in Jang?

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It's been a very well chronicled by the United Nations, which

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issued a detailed report last year.

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Right.

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Well, let me ask you, do you, what do you believe Modi and his Hindu party is?

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To, to the Muslims in Kashmir.

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You've got a view on, there's not a question about China back to one because

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you are, because you are not honest enough to recognize that the guy you support.

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Mai has the same sort of problems as, as the Chinese have.

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You know, we we're reported on problems in, in India as well,

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but we're talking about China.

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No, you don't.

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You're all a soft touch on India.

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That's a, was that so rough?

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Really?

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He basically said the three pages, the three days of articles by you guys

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was a terrible piece of journalism that was irresponsible and dangerous.

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And it was, yeah, it was.

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Now there, there's no argument.

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So, but heating still has not answered the question about

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the treatment of the Uyghurs.

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And yes, the journalist never asked the question of the, of the Modi regime

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and that sort of stuff over their treatment of the Muslims in cashmere.

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Okay.

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Separate issue though.

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The Uyghurs are a separate issue, but, but on the, on the claim of abuse, but just,

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let's just deal with the abuse claim.

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Well, he was very rude.

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Well, does somebody deserve respect?

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Who utilizes a major newspaper outlet and runs a campaign that's against Australia's

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interest and is incredibly dangerous?

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What that's gonna be called out, hasn't it?

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Like, and he basically called him out and said, you should hang your head in

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shame for printing that he said, he said that, you know, you, you've, you ought to

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hang your head in shame, which is let's.

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What's wrong with that?

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A little bit over the top.

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Is it?

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Is it over the top?

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It was just a little bit over the top.

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If, if, if somebody is drumming the, you know, beating the drum of war

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unnecessarily and inciting Australia to enter a war by, by outright propaganda,

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an incredibly biased report that had nothing from the other sort of argument,

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isn't, isn't that about as bad as it gets?

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What, what?

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I mean, the guy could zig hale down the main street 24 7, it'd be

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nowhere near as bad as, as, as what he's doing with these newspaper.

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Like, that's one of the worst things an Australian could do, would be to try

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and get us into an unnecessary war and to try and beat up an unnecessary war.

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I, I think Keating went light on him.

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I, to me, it seemed an incredibly, it didn't seem over top at all to be.

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to be putting it on somebody like that and saying you, what you've done is shameful.

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I'd have to take that way and think about that.

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Okay.

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Might have convinced you a little bit.

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You've made me question myself.

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Hmm.

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I, yeah.

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Dunno, it could be my old liberal party roots and that sort of stuff

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coming outta me and that sort of thing.

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Thinking if Keating says something, it's obviously wrong.

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Mm.

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But Keating hasn't said too much wrong there.

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I just think that he was just a little bit too rude to I don't think

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he, just a little bit too rude.

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That's all.

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And with the other journalists, what I saw when I watched it, and I've watched

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it sort of probably twice now cause I was trying to pull out clips and things was.

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Often journalists would frame try and frame a situation with a question.

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It wasn't necessarily genuinely, what do you think?

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Because some of the questions, like there was one journalist who asked a question

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about how this affected our relationship with Indonesia, and Keating was absolutely

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straight up and down and, and dealt with the issue of what that meant with

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Indonesia because it was a good question.

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Like it was a question that was relevant.

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And Keating really treated it with a straight bat and I dunno that's the

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right expression, but basically paid respect to the question, answered

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it, and didn't abuse the journalist.

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And there was another question of a similar ilk where basically Keating

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just dealt with the question, but others would enter it by, by framing and

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saying, well, you know, in the light of China's provocations, , blah, blah, blah.

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Here's my question.

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And he would say, stop right there.

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What do you mean provocation?

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Why are you using that word?

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So, are you so naive as to think that that, you know, wine

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tariffs are, are an attack?

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So to me it was plain speaking and it was pulling people up and

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genuinely listening to what they were saying and responding to it.

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So whereas politicians now basically say whatever they want to and totally

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ignore the question, like that's what we get most of the time now is politicians.

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Doesn't matter what the question was, they will head off with a spiel of

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whatever they wanted to talk about.

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He at least had the courtesy to say, I've listened to what you've said and

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I truly understand the way that you've framed it, and I'm gonna deal with.

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the way you framed it and the question, and I thought it was very well done.

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So, like Keating made a heap of mistakes in government, like way too many.

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But so he wasn't right on everything by any means, but he's right on this one.

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So, yeah.

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Well, I did have to agree with Keating when he said that we had to find our

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security within Asia, not from Asia.

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Mm-hmm.

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I think he was right there.

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Mm-hmm.

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You know, it's one of those things.

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Mm-hmm.

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So, so anyway, and it was interesting that in the aftermath of the Keating

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interview, people were talking more about the style rather than the substance and,

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and couldn't really engage properly.

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So, it was all an interesting exercise, so, Hmm.

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Right.

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Let's just divert back sticky bits, mate, or whoever you are, you,

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you're rattling off 50 messages.

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There's no way we're gonna be able to deal with all of them.

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We can't interrupt every train of thought to deal with

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everything that you wanna say.

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So, but let's just backtrack a little bit then for Article 19 human Rights

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Act, which yeah, let me just go back to the chat and what do we say here?

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Article 19 h speech explained a toolkit, article 19.

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Article 19 says, everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

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This right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to

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seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media.

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And regardless of frontiers.

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Doesn't really say much about hate beach in there.

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It seems to be on the side of saying, say whatever you like,

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doesn't really provide many caveats.

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You've got the right to express yourself, the freedom to hold

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opinions, to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media.

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So, I just returned to the Israel for hour situation where he would say under Article

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18, everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscious and religion.

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This right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom,

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either alone or in community with others and in public or private to

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manifest his religion or belief.

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So, conflict between the two.

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That's what happens when you have general rights.

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So, so yeah, that's back to the the problem of competing.

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Human rights.

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Right.

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What are we up to next?

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I've found it, I follow Hillsong survivors on Facebook.

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And I have to say, I've, it's a content page is mostly memes.

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Mm-hmm.

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and I, I was getting fairly turned off by them actually recently because

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they seemed to be very homophobic.

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So they Hillsong survivor group.

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Yeah.

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Right.

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So they were still Christian, just not Hillsong anymore?

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Well, I don't know.

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I mean, they seemed to be atheist, so lots of atheist memes.

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Right.

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But particularly pointed at the Evangel evangelical Church.

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Mm-hmm.

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. But, but lots of jokes about.

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How various people are gay and how they're all having gay sex in the prayer

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room, and lots of things like that, which just seem to be unwarranted, Joe,

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if you're gonna hang around Hillsong chat rooms, even ex hillsong chat

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rooms, anyway, don't, don't hang around.

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They're hoping for great things.

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They, they, they put five posts up about how Keating was a dog and how

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dare he talk about anyone like that.

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Ah, and I said, so we're gonna have posts about this, but not about the

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fact that they've jumped straight on board an LMP thing and gonna spend

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however many billion dollars on this.

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And they said, well, yeah, of course that's bad.

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Okay, but where are the memes?

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Where are the posts?

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You know, here you are bagging Keating, but you've said

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nothing about the submarines.

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Yeah.

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So just back to the Uyghurs.

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Yes.

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What Keating said was, look, I don't know about the Uyghurs Uhhuh , essentially.

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and it's disputed as to what is going on with the Uyghurs in China.

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But he said essentially, you don't ask these questions about India.

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Why?

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Why do we have to deal with them with China if you're not

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prepared to ask them about India?

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And fair point, like, fair point.

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It, it is in dispute what's going on with the Uyghurs.

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Who knows who honestly, who knows where the propaganda from either side starts

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and finishes with that one, particularly when one of the guys behind it was some

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crazy evangelical guy, was the main source of a lot of the stuff going on there.

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So I really, honestly dunno what's going on with the Uyghurs.

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And it is genuinely disputed.

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And that's all Keating said was it's in dispute.

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He didn't say the Chinese were innocent.

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He said he's not there to defend them.

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He's just saying, really, why are you raising this if you, you are not

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prepared parties that we do India.

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It's, it's hypocritical.

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It's a double standard.

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And they could just as easily turn around and talk about our treatment

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of indigenous people in prison and deaths and custody, et cetera.

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Well, I dunno that they could No, but that's what he said.

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That's a fury.

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But yes, that's what he said.

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But um, and we are selling uranium to India.

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Yeah.

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We're selling Iron ore to China.

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Well, presumably to make the bombs, but they're gonna drop on us.

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Whatever happened to the, you know, what's the pig Iron?

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Pig Iron.

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Bob Pig Iron Bob.

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Right.

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Because he was selling pig Iron to Japan.

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Yeah.

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Which was turned into steel and that sort of stuff, which was used to make the ships

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and that sort of stuff that sailed south.

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So prior to the second World War, the wary said, looks like we're

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heading to war with these Japanese, what are we doing selling them?

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Pig Iron.

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. Mm-hmm , it's gonna end up as artillery or some weapon to be used

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against our boys and had to stop it.

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If these people were genuine about fears about China wanting

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to invade us, what are we doing?

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Selling them Iron Ora

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doesn't make sense.

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Okay.

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So that's Paul Keating.

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That was good.

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What else we got here?

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Albanese has said it's a different world now to what Paul Keating was dealing

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with, and I had an article by guy called Michael Pasco basically talking about

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how people were complaining about what Keating said or how he said it, but they

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couldn't really complain about what he said and we hadn't really had a debate.

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And so that was a good article there.

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Right what we're nearly done with subs and I promised, dear listener

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Scott, I'll make this promise now.

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I will not mention the submarines again next week.

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Okay.

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This is the last little bit here, here and now.

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Okay, fair enough.

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Are we gonna talk about the Hillsong papers and that sort

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of stuff that the independent Tasmanian Wilkie Wilkie, that's him.

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We will, as soon as I finish with my last bit on submarines, Excellent.

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, which is just what did the, what did, what did people think?

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What's, what's public opinion with this stuff?

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So, Australia's need for nuclear powered submarines, so essential poll asked people

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in Australia and said, these submarines, it's gonna cost up to 368 billion.

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Which of the following is closest to your view on Australia's need

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for nuclear powered submarines?

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And 26% said we need nuclear submarines and it's worth paying that amount.

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27% said we need nuclear powered submarines, but it's not worth that much.

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28% said we don't need nuclear powered submarines.

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And 19% said they were unsure.

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So only 26% of the Australian population, according to this survey,

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thinks that we need the submarines and it's worth paying that much for them.

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And tell me, do they all read the Australian, those 26%?

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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So that's a problem for labor down the track.

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Great for the greens, would've thought So how does this pan out in terms

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of a breakdown of male and female?

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So that one about people who n who like the idea we need the submarines

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and they're willing to pay the price.

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35% of males think that, but only 17% are females.

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So that's a big difference.

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35% male, 17% female.

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Lots of males who like a shiny, expensive submarine to shoot

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things and only 17% of women.

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So, the other statistics there were not that interesting.

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And lemme just go for one more here on submarines is this one here?

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My age 18 to 34.

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Age group.

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. Only 20% I think we need them at that price.

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But in the older age group, 55 plus it's 32%.

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And then just one more on submarines, on statistics would be voting patterns.

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So 41% of coalition voters would say Australia needs those submarines

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and it's worth paying them.

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Only 26% labor.

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So essentially, if you are old, if you are male, if you are a coalition voter, that's

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the demographic that wants a submarine, a nuclear submarine at that price.

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Anyway, so I thought the gender one was a really striking one.

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So any of that surprise you guys?

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No, none of that surprises me.

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Mm-hmm.

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, so.

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Alright.

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I think we're just looking at the LMP demographic, aren't we?

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Yeah.

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So Scott Valley Bank collapsed.

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Just one thing before we move on.

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Yep.

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The stage three tax cuts are projected to cost 245 billion over the next 10 years.

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So that goes, say that again, Scott.

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Sorry.

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That's gonna cost 245 billion over the next 10 years.

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That's the stage three tax cuts.

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Mm-hmm.

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. Now, if they knocked them on their head, they've gone a very long way to covering

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the whole cost of the 368 billion.

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Now, you know, I think that there's a hell of a stronger argument

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to knock that on the head, cuz you've gotta sit up and down.

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You're gonna say, which do you want?

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Do you want these tax cuts or do you want these nuclear subs?

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You would think at the next election that's what they would do and say.

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Because we need these subs and because it's more expensive than we thought.

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That's our reason for deciding to cancel the stage three tax cuts.

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You would think so?

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Mm-hmm.

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But I don't know.

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I just, I'm lost a lot of faith in this labor government.

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Yeah.

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Which is no doubt that you have lost a hell of a lot of faith, which is fine,

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but it's just I still think they'll do it, but I'm not so sure as I was, yeah.

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I was really confident previously that they would just do it bef because they

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don't come into effect until another three years or something anyway.

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No, they, they're still a long way on.

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They're start, they're starting, they're starting, they're starting to

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implement them before the next election.

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Mm-hmm.

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. So that is the whole bloody problem that they've got is that, you know,

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Albanese was able to implement the changes to superannuation because

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he says, if you don't like it, don't vote for us and kick us out.

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which is fine, but he hasn't got the same sort of, he can't say the same

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thing about the stage three tax cuts.

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Mm-hmm.

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, because they're the implement, the implementation policy and the

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implementation of the policy and all that sort of stuff has already been voted on.

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That sort of thing.

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It's gonna start before the next election.

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Mm-hmm.

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. So that is a, that's a bit of a bugger for him.

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When he said that he was, he was committed to the tax cuts.

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Mm-hmm.

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Which was just a little bit foolish, I would've thought.

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Mm-hmm.

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John in the chat room made a good point.

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Sticky bits.

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You are welcome to reach out via email.

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Go to the website, Iron Fist velva Glove dot com au.

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Send me an email and we can discuss your heart's content the things

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that you're talking about here.

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But I mean, I didn't cherry pick, I did actually put the hole of Article

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19 on the screen, ring it out so, I read the whole thing and how I could

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have been accused of cherry picking it.

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That was it.

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The whole thing.

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Alright yeah, we're just gonna have to put you on quiet for a while.

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Sticky bits.

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Scott.

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Mm-hmm.

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Silicon Bank.

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Yeah.

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Went belly up.

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Mm-hmm.

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So this was a bank, dear listener based in Silicon Valley and

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had an old, an old-fashioned bank run, essentially occurred.

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It wasn't your typical bank.

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This was a bank that had a lot of wealthy people with large

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amounts of money in there.

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So this was a lot of people connected with the PayPal Mafia teal and

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Watson was in PayPal, wasn't he?

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Oh Musk.

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Yeah, exactly.

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All that crowd had a lot of money in in that.

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Bank.

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So, essentially it wasn't, when you're dealing in those sorts of numbers with

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those sorts of people, when somebody like that does a quick runaround to 20 of his

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closest mates and says, I think the bank's in trouble, let's get our money out.

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Or I've got my money out, I think you should too.

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Then it's easy If you are ever gonna construct a run on a bank, then that

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was the bank to do it on where you could quickly get people on board.

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So, and they they had issues where they had had these bonds

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which they owned, which were government issued treasury bonds.

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And because interest rates have increased, the value of the bonds, which were at

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low interest rates were decreasing.

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And they don't have to show that on their books.

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Until they actually sell them.

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So even though the market value of these bonds had decreased,

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they didn't have to show them.

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So their books kind of looked better than what they were anyway.

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We are really entering a period, dear list note where we've had record low interest

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rates since the global financial crisis.

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And coming out of that where we go back to more normal rates of interest

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is not gonna be necessarily that easy.

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And there's gonna be people stuck with low interest treasury bonds, which

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are then devalued, and it's just not gonna be the easiest thing to work back

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into a normal interest rate situation.

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So it'd be interesting to see what happens with TR treasury

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bonds, though, usually worth more because they're government backed.

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They, they're a conservative investment, yes.

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With a guaranteed rate of return.

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, like the bond, you know, says it's a 3% bond or whatever.

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Mm-hmm.

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. But the problem is when people, when the interest rates go up to five or 6% Yeah.

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Then the value of that bond is now decreased because people go,

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oh, what do I want a 3% one for?

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I could have a 6%.

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So what would that bond be worth if it was paying 6%?

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And so yeah, that's where it gets into trouble with the, they do drop in market

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price when the interest rate increases, which is essentially what you're talking

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about there, is the, is the is the secondhand value of those bonds because

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they were, you know, if they were, if you were just, if you were just valuing at

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the, at the list price and that sort of stuff, you just, you wouldn't move it.

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Right.

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Which is where the bank got into trouble because it wasn't actually reducing the

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value of the, of them on their books.

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Hmm.

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And So, and they're a long-term thing, so mm-hmm.

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, it'll be interesting to see what happens with with these guys.

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So, alright.

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The voice Mm mm Support to the voice has dropped significantly.

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Okay.

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So, support for the voice overall.

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Back in February 23, only a month ago, 65% in favor, 35% against.

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In favor has now dropped 6% to 59.

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That's a big, that's a big drop.

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59 from 65 to 59%.

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Just breaking that up into different demographic segments.

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So those in favor, males, 56%, emails, 63%.

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Also age group, if you are young, 18 to 34, 70 9% in favor of the voice.

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If you're old 55 or older, only 40% in favor of the voice.

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I'm starting to see a similar demographics, Scott, to submarines here.

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Ooh, interesting.

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Here.

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It's, it's gonna line up pretty much the same way.

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By state in favor of the voice.

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New South Wales, 61%, Victoria, 67% Queensland, 49% South Australia, 62%.

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Western Australia, 55%.

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So Scott, for a referendum to get up, what, what do we need?

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You need a majority of states with, you need a majority of the

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population saying yes, and you need a majority of states saying yes.

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Mm-hmm.

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So that would look, if you were to look at that, then Queensland would be voting No.

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Wa Yeah.

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Then you'd, it's probably intentional.

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Tasmania is, I wonder why Tasmania didn't get on there.

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Dunno that chart.

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Yeah.

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Maybe they didn't have enough respondents for a, for a good sample

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size because Tasmania doesn't count.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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So it's only got half a million people down there.

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It's bloody ridiculous that their own state.

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Anyway, Queensland on that chart.

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The only state at this stage okay.

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This is the interesting one for the, the hard Yes and the hard no.

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Mm-hmm.

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and, and guys, do you remember last time we talked about this in the greens?

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There was actually, I've got it on the next slide.

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I'll go forward.

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One.

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The slide at the moment is the February slide and people who voted

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greens but were a hard no was 3%.

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And at the time Jay, you were pointing out that was probably me.

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, yeah.

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Guess what?

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Thirteen's percent?

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Yeah.

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From 3% to 13% Greens voters who are a hard No, that was a really

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interesting statistic, but.

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A hard yes and a hard no is oh, I suppose it's little chance.

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I thought it was zero chance that their mind would change.

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Cuz I'm gonna say these people have changed their minds.

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Yeah.

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But the thought there is that maybe with Lydia Thorpe and what she was saying,

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where she was kind of, saying just like against the voice because she's thinking

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it's seating sovereignty, for example.

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So maybe more people in the greens along the lydia thought line where

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there's saying no because it doesn't go far enough or because it potentially

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seeds sovereignty rather than the other reason why people say no.

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What do you reckon could, what do you think's most

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likely happening there, Scott?

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Well, I think it's probably, you think you've probably hit

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the nail on the head there.

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It looks like the, it looks like the green voters and that sort of stuff that they're

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were asking were being asked probably from the hard left faction of the greens.

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Yeah.

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And they are very much on Lydia Thorpe side.

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Mm.

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Wanting a treaty first, for example.

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Yeah.

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Or not because they don't ultimately want this this sort of voice, but

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they want other things first or they wanted increased even more.

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So, you wouldn't have picked that a month ago, Joe, when I was in the 3%.

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If I'd have said to you then, you know what, like within four

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weeks that 3% is gonna be 13%.

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You would've, yeah.

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I mean, that's what I was smoking it, it seems to be.

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If it is that then.

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That survey really doesn't, it, it shows what people intend to vote,

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but not why they intend to vote it.

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Yes.

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And therefore can be misrepresented Yes.

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A as being a people aren't in favor of the voice because they're racists.

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Yep.

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Yep.

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And I'm sure it will be used to bandy about, look at other country of racists.

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We are mm-hmm.

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. Mm-hmm.

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. So, so yeah.

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So that's interesting.

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The movement there is interesting.

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We're still a way off from any referendum.

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Why has it moved so much?

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I, I dunno.

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I see.

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Look, you look at the Labor party vote, and you've only

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got 20, you've only got 50.

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You've only got 77% of that being.

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Yes.

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Now it's 50% being the hard Yes.

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And 27% being the soft.

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Yes.

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Now what was that originally?

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I dunno, I'd, I'd have to go back through it all.

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But yeah.

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Overall, is this one of those things?

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I would, I would just be very interested to see, I would be interested to know

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why it's moving in that direction.

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Mm-hmm.

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It's just, we haven't really started the campaign or anything like that,

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so there's nothing that you can actually say, oh, look at this.

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Mm-hmm.

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Anyway, it's, it's gonna get ugly.

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Oh, it's gonna get extraordinarily ugly.

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Mm-hmm.

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It's not a, it's not gonna be at all pretty mm-hmm.

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. Mm-hmm.

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, you know, and it's one of those things like

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yeah, I won't say it, but you know, up here in Rocky and

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that sort of stuff, you do see.

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A hell of a lot more indigenous people out on the streets up here

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than what I just saw in Mackay.

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Mm-hmm.

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. And unfortunately you do tend to see the not so nice right.

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Of them, which isn't pleasant.

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Mm-hmm.

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. So it's one of those things.

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And I just think to myself, if a voice is actually gonna stop this

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sort of nonsense, yeah, let's have it.

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But I just don't think that it will.

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And of course, Queensland has a large regional population.

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Yeah.

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We do.

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Compared to other states.

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Yeah.

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But surely so does the territory.

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We didn't have the territory result.

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Oh, okay.

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Yeah.

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But so does wa No, not nearly as much regional as you know, a lot.

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wa people are really stacked in around Perth and Yeah.

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That corner of, of so, so it's Perth and the mines and that's it.

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Yeah.

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Australia's got Queensland's got a lot more higher sort of, regional

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population than any other state.

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Mm-hmm.

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. Yeah.

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In the chat room Landon says the voice is an issue that people will

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care about if they are feeling good and secure about their own lives,

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cost of living, et cetera, are bigger issues for the average Joe now.

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So, but does that mean they'd vote No.

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Just because they're not feeling secure or they're just not paying attention?

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Hmm.

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Yeah.

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True.

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See where it all ends up?

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What's the timeline for this?

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Have we been given one?

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It's sometime later this year.

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They're talking about October, I would've thought.

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Yeah.

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They're currently deciding on in the Labor Party as as to how to

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organize the show and how much.

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Money if they need to give to the different arguments and stuff like that.

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So.

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Hmm.

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We come from the racist.

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See, that is the whole bloody point about this, is if you can, you know, I can just

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see it coming that you're gonna have, you're gonna have people on the Yes side

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that are actually saying, unless you vote for this, you are obviously a racist.

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And it's just going to, the whole thing's gonna fall down exactly the

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way Hillary Clinton did when she said, you know, same as Bri said.

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Exactly.

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You know, and, and I wish I knew that the guy, that name of that bloke that

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said that, you know, we'd just got a, we just gotta look at what we did

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wrong here and that sort of stuff.

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And, and thankfully we'd moved on and then we had Hillary Clinton saying, oh,

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I could put half of Trump's supporters into a basket of deplorables, you know?

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Mm-hmm.

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, and that was when mm-hmm.

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, that was when she, she lost the election.

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Mm-hmm.

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, you know, it's one of those things, um mm-hmm.

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. Hmm, John, John in the chat room says, I think you guys need to

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review the comments a bit more.

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John, what we're gonna do at the end of this one actually is we're gonna

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scroll through the, the chat at the end and which might take a little

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while, but I'll do it at the end cuz it might get edited out because of this.

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So much delay.

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But before we just under the final segment that I want to do, so my

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son was helping me shipping some furniture down the coast the other day.

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So we were in a truck together for an hour and a half each way.

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And most of our discussion on the way down was on whether I,

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I maintain that the reserve bank should not be independent anymore.

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It should be a proper function of government and we're

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crazy for delegating this.

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And he was arguing the opposite.

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He thought it was still a good idea to have it as an independent operation.

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Basically he did agree with his son basically because he

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felt that our democracy is so terrible and works so badly the.

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He was better having a non-Democratic controlled, you know, that Reserve

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Bank, Scott would've just, Scott Morrison would've just made himself

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head of the Reserve Bank as well.

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He would've as well if he'd name or two and wouldn't have told anybody.

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Just exactly.

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Yeah.

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But anyway, and then part of our discussion then as well was what would

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you do if you were suddenly installed as a benevolent dictator and so you could pass

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whatever laws you wanted to in Australia as some sort of benevolent dictator.

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And it was good sort of thought experiment to do.

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And I thought I'd quickly run through some ideas with you guys and see what you had

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in your mind as a benevolent dictator.

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But you know, as I was thinking about it, probably.

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, you know, I thinking you could make all these changes, but then

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eventually you're gonna die.

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And if you can't install your son as , as the next benevolent dictator,

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then everything that you've possibly tried to do could just be unwound

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very easily by the next dictator.

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I, I, I don't know.

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I think there are some social institutions that were you to dismantle

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them, it would be very difficult to get the support to recreate them.

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Yes, yes.

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But I was probably gonna, yes, you're right.

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If you destroy something, yes.

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That's probably a long lasting reform.

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Yes.

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Then if you create something that could easily be torn down, so for example, if

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you wanted to get rid of Medicare mm-hmm.

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, then getting rid of it, easy, hard to reintroduce.

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Yeah, yeah.

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I, but I, I think.

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Medicare is one of those that would have the political support that people would

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say, I want that back, but hang on.

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Yeah.

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Yes.

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So anyway, part of my thought process was that, you know, as a,

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as a benevolent dictator mm-hmm.

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, who really wants his reforms to be long lasting.

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Mm-hmm.

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Even beyond my lifespan.

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Cuz hey, it's no fun just to get everything you want in life.

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You want it to be on everybody else forever as well.

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What I, what I was thinking was that I'd want to somehow control the education

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curriculum to ins install media literacy, critical thinking, citizenship history,

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and religious education in some sort of mandatory subjects that every

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kid did, such as people understand.

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What's going on in the world and are basically enabled to figure

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it out as they go along and how to look at things, how to research, how

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to think, how to think critically.

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And that would probably be the most important reform I think I would want to

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do beyond the other things we'll get into.

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But number one was just be trying to undergo some mass education

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project where people really understood a lot of these issues.

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So when you moved on, they would be better at position to decide whether

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to keep 'em or throw 'em away.

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Or be carry on.

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Yeah.

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I mean, if, if you taught formal debate the ability to particularly,

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I mean, at my school, the teacher very much would throw us in the

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opposing camp to our personal beliefs.

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Yep.

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To force you to think through the issue and to str uh, to, to steel

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man your opponent's arguments.

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Yes.

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By, by, you know, deliberately picking you and putting you in, you know, the opposing

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camp to, to your personal beliefs mm-hmm.

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, that, that would force you to investigate the best arguments on the opposing side.

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Yep.

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And challenge you the, your, your, your own s Yep.

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Which I think is good.

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And somebody's mentioned science, literacy you know, growing up even as

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a com, finishing school and having done physics at a level I, I still thought

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that science was a body of knowledge.

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Mm-hmm.

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, I didn't understand that it was a process.

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Mm-hmm.

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, and, and that to me, I think is the biggest thing I think

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that schools are failing at, is to say, science is not this.

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This single thing.

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It is a way of thinking.

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Yep.

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And our approach, it's a way of challenging beliefs.

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Mm-hmm.

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And, and seeing through our own personal dogmas to arrive at an

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answer that we can all agree on.

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Mm-hmm.

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And like everyone would have to learn some basic statistics, which I think

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the you know, COVID 19 situation really demonstrated when I was having

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arguments with was and with Paul about these various studies and what

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they were saying about lockdowns and the effectiveness and mm-hmm.

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vaccines and the effectiveness and, and, you know, people would point to studies

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of 50 people . It was like, that's not a, yeah, that's not a proper study.

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That number is insignificant.

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The margin of error on that is way too high, you know?

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Yeah.

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Just.

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Some basic statistical knowledge so that people don't get conned

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by these reports as well.

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Are, are you across the whole mask report that came out a couple of weeks ago?

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The what?

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Report?

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Mask Wearing Report?

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No.

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So Cochran, who are a they, they produce meta-analysis of scientific reports.

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So they'll go and pull the best scientific papers on a medical study, on

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a medical issue and collate the results.

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And then do so you can take a whole bunch of 50 people studies, which are small

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and group them together, assuming that they have similar trial outcomes mm-hmm.

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, and effectively make them into one single big study.

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Okay.

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And there was one that was done, which effectively said, , there is no evidence

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for or against wearing masks in public.

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Right?

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And that was touted by the anti-vaxxers as, Hey, your masks don't work.

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And realistically the report said, look, we don't have good e evidence either way.

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And that's, that's what the report said, but that's not what was read.

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Mm-hmm.

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, and the science-based medicine people have said, this is the problem.

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We take evidence.

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And we take, and it's the same with homeopathy and things like that.

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We take a bunch of studies and look at them in aggregate.

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And, and the problem is the underlying science just doesn't exist.

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This idea of homeopathy folds at its first hurdle when you look at the science.

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And the same with mask wearing the physics says, , if you have water droplets,

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which contain the virus, which is what most of your breath out is mm-hmm.

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is water droplets.

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A mask in front of your face is gonna catch the majority of those water

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droplets and is gonna reduce the number of virus particles in the air.

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Mm-hmm.

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. So effectively performing these studies is irrelevant.

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Yes.

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Because we know the underlying science.

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Yes, yes.

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Yep.

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And this is the problem, is the misuse of studies to prove a point.

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Mm-hmm.

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. Now I remember I did that one where Rowan Dean did that

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thing on hydro, what was that?

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Hydroxy Chloro.

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Hydroxy.

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Oh yeah.

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And he referred to the study of studies and yeah.

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Delved into 'em.

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And some of these studies were, even as a layman, I could look at it and

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go, this is just a rubbish study.

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But so yeah.

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Sort of an.

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educating people about that sort of stuff?

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I think yeah.

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I mean one of the studies was the same num, the same people had been repeated

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multiple times to up the numbers.

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Right.

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So they'd got 50 people and then repeated it six times to get 300 people.

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Mm-hmm.

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, and some people had died before the study had even started.

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Mm-hmm.

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. So they were obviously fudging the numbers.

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There was a whole load.

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Eventually the paper got pulled.

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But that, that, because it was such a large study that skewed

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the output of the meta-analysis.

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Yeah.

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Even if the rest had been perfect.

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That one study was so big in terms of number of people that

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it just skewed the output.

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Yep, yep.

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Things like history.

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People need some basic, you needed some basic Chinese history to

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understand the relationship between China and Taiwan and to understand.

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China's reaction to Australia proposing to have weapons inspectors come in

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and check out their wet markets.

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You know, if you weren't aware of the a hundred years of humiliation,

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you don't grasp the significance of that insult to the Chinese.

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Yeah, so a whole, I think that's a critical thing.

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I think that'd be, if I could control the education curriculum and, and do it long

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enough to get people thinking in a certain way, then that would be possibly my number

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one aim as a benevolent DIC dictator.

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Other ones, I have war powers, so at the moment some dickhead, like

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Scott Morrison with Stuart Robert and a handful of other mates can

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just decide if he was Prime Minister.

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Well, we're off to war.

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It's just the Prime Minister and a group of close friends

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just doing a captain's pick and.

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There's just no reason why it's not a joint sitting of

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parliament for the war power.

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So, so that would be another one.

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Wealth tax.

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I reckon I'd introduce central Bank, not independent private banks,

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get rid of them and nationalized power generation and distribution.

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And of course no funding for private schools or private hospitals.

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They were, and to nationalized private schools and also telecommunications

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infrastructure, road infrastructure.

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Yeah.

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I wouldn't fund the private schools, so they would quickly fall over and I

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would just pick them up for nothing.

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So well, yeah, that's how I would see that playing out.

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What about you, Scott?

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Benevolent dictator, Scott Clark, what would you be?

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Putting forward, you're gonna make me sound like an extreme right-winger

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here, but I would actually, I would actually reintroduce conscription,

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but I would make it illegal to have conscripts serve abroad.

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I think that conscripts should only be serving in Australia.

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Conscription.

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Mm-hmm.

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Army training.

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Yes.

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How to shoot a gun.

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Yes.

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What, what other skills are you seeing as necessary in this conscription?

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It's just a, it's just a thought that I've always had that I just think to

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myself it's, it wouldn't hurt if you had a trained body of people that

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could be called up if you needed them.

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So that is why I think to myself that it's not a bad idea that you have a

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trained body of people that you only have to do 12 months full-time, and then

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after that you go into the reserves.

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and you stay in the reserves probably for a couple years compulsory.

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And then after that you can just decide whether not you're gonna remain

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in the reserves for good or not.

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So kind of like Israel.

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Yeah.

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Suppose antimilitary service in Israel.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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You know, it's one of those things is wow.

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Well, okay.

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Would would it be across genders?

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Yes, it would be.

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And that is exactly what I was about to say.

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I think it should be both men and women should be called up.

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It's one of those things, I just honestly believe that it's something that, it

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would be better if you call up both men and women and that type of thing.

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And if you do have conscience ob objectors, then you would also have

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you'd then have, you'd have them go and do something that would be different.

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You'd have them, you might have to do, you might have to do it for five years, but

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you'd have them doing something different.

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Well, how about a peace call?

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Well, you could do that.

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Yeah.

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, you don't see any danger in having military people able to indoctrinate young

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minds for 12 months and tell 'em about the evil Chinese and how they need to be able

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to point this gun correctly and take that hill and Well, and I think that you've

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gotta look at, yeah, I think you should gotta look at some of the countries around

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the world that still have conscription in their countries, which is the Netherlands.

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Mm-hmm.

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. Okay.

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Do they Yeah, they do Switzerland I think as well.

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Switzerland's got compulsory military service.

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Right.

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And Sweden's only just got rid of theirs.

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Right.

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It's just one of those things.

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I just think to myself that if you look at these bastions of Western

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democracy, Then they have a compulsory military service, which is part of it.

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So I don't have a problem with that.

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In the chat room you were, you were asking about, you were asking about military.

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You, you're asking about being a benent dictator.

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And that's something I would do.

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The other thing I'd do is I'd also abolish the state governments.

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But anyway, that's a good one.

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Actually.

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I'd come back to that in the chat room.

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If you are a benevolent dictator and you had the chance to pass

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laws then what would you do?

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Tell us in the chat room.

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So, Scott, I like, I forgot about that one.

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States.

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Mm-hmm.

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Irrelevant really, aren't they?

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Oh, they are.

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Mm-hmm.

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And it's absolutely crazy that, you know, you've got Tasmania with a

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population of half a million people.

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It's got 12 senators.

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Mm-hmm.

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, you got a population of New South Wales being what, five, 6 million?

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They've got 12 senators.

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Yep.

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You know?

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Yep.

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And just you know, the different education departments for example.

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Yeah.

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Like why?

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Some central education of course cuz of my plans with education.

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I need it centralized.

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So, yeah.

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Really local government say, needs to be of a good size.

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So like Brisbane city council is a good size for being big

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enough to get stuff done.

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One of the crazy things in Sydney is they have all these tiny local councils,

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councils that are way too small.

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So, get rid of the state governments and put in and in some of the local

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governments, make them a bit bigger.

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Do you not remember when they amalgamated all the state

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gov, the local councils here?

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But as soon as the liberals got back in Nua Livington and a couple of the others,

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d amalgamated as soon as they could.

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And it was, that was pure politics.

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. Yeah.

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But remember there could be tears, but I'm a benevolent dictator, so it just happens.

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Well, yeah.

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So that's, we're not talking about realistic things here.

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I'm, I'm thinking we ought to have a good review into all the land that

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has been given to the churches over the years, particularly in CBDs.

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Mm-hmm.

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. It was handed to the churches because they were deemed as

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a force for good in society.

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I think they've proved that they aren't.

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I think we should take that land back.

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There we go.

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Yeah.

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It's, it's prime land in cbd.

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We can use that money to recompense the victims of the churches.

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Mm-hmm.

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I, I think we need a good review on taxation.

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Mm-hmm.

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, in fact, this, these Hillsong papers, there's been some

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questions around transparency.

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Mm-hmm.

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, I think we could, and, and this is the sort of thing I'm talking

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about, the, the soft theocracy.

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That gets away with it because of historical rights.

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And I think if that soft theocracy was demolished, it would be very difficult for

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them to regain it because that would be exposed to the scrutiny of public debate.

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Yes.

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I, I think whilst it's the status quo, the public don't think about it.

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But if it was introduced and, and yeah, it doesn't matter with the

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10% of Squealers, it would be very difficult to get it through parliament

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because most people would say no.

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I'm again, that Yep.

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True.

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Yep.

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So, Scott has a benevolent dictator.

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Anything else that you'd be up for?

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I think the whole review of taxation would be very good.

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You know, it's just, I, I think it is ridiculous.

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Like, you know, those, those Hillsong papers were

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absolutely outrageous, you know?

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. And I think that with that, you know, I think there's a very strong

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argument for the government to actually say, nah, enough's enough.

Speaker:

Mm-hmm.

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, you know, because, and particularly with Hillsong, because it was,

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it was talking, there were in the papers that were talking about the

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amount of money that was generated from commercial activities, which is

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their music and that type of thing.

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And that is no longer ex, I don't think that is, that is

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definitely no longer acceptable to have that as tax-free income.

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Mm-hmm.

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for a church.

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Yep.

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They're, they're operating as businesses and Exactly.

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And their so-called charity work, they should be proving

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rather than just being assumed.

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I, I think we split out the charities from the churches.

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Mm-hmm.

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And so the churches are a not-for-profit.

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And they can run as a not-for-profit.

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And if they turn a profit, we tax 'em as a business.

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Yes.

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And the charities run as independent charities that are

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nothing to do with the churches.

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Yes.

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Yep.

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Yep.

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Alright.

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And if they want to keep their tax for exempt status, they've got to

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actually they've got to comply with the overwhelming desires of community,

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which is that, you know, that gay people are fine, that trans people

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are fine and that sort of thing.

Speaker:

I think that they've actually got to start living up to that.

Speaker:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker:

. Yep.

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Just scrolling back through some of the chat stuff John said in

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our previous conversation about the subs, don't be worried.

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Trevor, US Congress will never approve the sub sale.

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Well, they're gonna give us.

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, secondhand clunkers.

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They don't want anymore.

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That's what we've gotta get.

Speaker:

So they probably will give us that.

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They'll be very happy rather than having to decommission, they flog 'em off to us.

Speaker:

Yeah.

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Or or even less.

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They have to put in, they'll have to put in a new reactor, won't they?

Speaker:

Because these reactors are sealed and that type of thing.

Speaker:

So they're not so I thought we were actually buying British subs.

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We are buying British subs as part of the second phase of it.

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But the first phase is we're gonna buy three of the Virginia class.

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Virginia class.

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Yes.

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They're Virginia class submarines that are manufactured in the United States

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that are superfluous that they don't need.

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Exactly.

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So we are looking at purchasing three of them, but at the same time we've

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got to, we've got to shell out money for the US to go and build a third

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manufacturing line and that sort of stuff so they can build more sub submarines.

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So, you know, it's, it's looking more and more like Keating was right?

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That we are the mugs that are paying for it, you know, we are indeed.

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Alright John, I flicked back through the messages.

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A lot of it was sticky bits complaining about wanting me to look at Article 19

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and then when I eventually did not being happy . So, how was a question about,

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he sent you an email on some interview.

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I dunno.

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I'll come back to John separately about that another time.

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So, okay.

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We were a little bit distracted dear listener at the beginning of this cuz

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there was so many from sticky bits that, that were just sort of a bit I was a

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bit distracted anyway, so, there we go.

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Mark Kenny interview.

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Mark Kenny interview.

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To be honest, John, if you send me video stuff often just don't have the time.

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Like, if it's an article or something, I can quickly skim

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through and see if I like it.

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But if somebody sends me a video, YouTube video that's long.

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I don't really wanna devote half an hour to watching it.

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It's just too time consuming.

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Like, send me an article or gimme a bit more information.

Speaker:

So, yeah.

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Shalene says, come on, you're dictators.

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What do you need a review for?

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? Shalene, what are you doing as a dictator?

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Tell us.

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So, alright.

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I think that's enough for this, this episode.

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We're at 9 0 4 and we've done all right, I promise.

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Look, even two weeks, no submarines.

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Absolutely done and dusted on submarines.

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Really until the next August thing comes out, we really beaten a dead horse there.

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So we'll let that one go.

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We'll see what happens during the week.

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Maybe we'll talk about Russia a little bit.

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Other things that come across, who knows what's gonna happen between now and then?

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I would never have suspected that that 3% figure of green's voters who are against

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the voice would be 13% a month later.

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You never know what's gonna happen.

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So.

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Alright.

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Oh, and a reminder book club next month is gonna be Kenneth

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Malik, not so black and white.

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A history of race from white supremacy to identity politics.

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Get hold of that one.

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That's gonna be the book review at some stage.

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Oh, and I did get a message from Paul from Canberra.

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He wasn't happy with us making fun of the Governor General's wife.

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He wants more of it, he thought was being, he thought it was being unfair

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and picking on her and that she was Yeah.

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All I can say I did, I did email back.

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Look, if she was just joining the local choir coral group.

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and telling her stuff, there's no way I would criticize that would be poor form

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to make fun of somebody in that situation.

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Like, yeah, but she's knock yourself out.

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But you're, if representing Australia at government functions,

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you are not the governor General, you're the governor general's wife.

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And it's apparent that you've inserted, she's inserting herself

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into these by giving these lame songs as some form of speech.

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And it's a poor reflection of us.

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So we are entitled to criticize.

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If it was things you were doing in private of our own accord, I would not criticize.

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But when you're purporting to represent the rest of us, I think you're fair going.

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Oh, I agree wholeheartedly.

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You know, besides, she's a bloody awful singer, right?

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So, well, you see, Paul thought she was in tune.

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And his sentiments weren't nasty.

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But anyway.

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Alright we're off.

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We'll talk to you next week about something.

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Not sure what.

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Talk to you then.

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And bye for now.

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And a good night from me.

About the Podcast

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The Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove
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