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Episode 407 - Positive News is Hard to Find
In this episode we discuss:
- Good News
- Recreation Day
- RBA Rate Rise
- The IMF has ideas
- Gaza
- Trump
- New Patron
- Submarines
- Professor Marcia Langton has called for 'uniform alcohol restrictions' across the NT
- UN Resolutions
- Greens threaten Brisbane landlords
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We have a website. www.ironfistvelvetglove.com.au
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Transcript
Suburban Eastern Australia, an environment that has, over time,
Speaker:evolved some extraordinarily unique groups of homosapiens.
Speaker:But today, we observe a small tribe akin to a group of meerkats that
Speaker:gather together atop a small mound to watch, question, and discuss the
Speaker:current events of their city, their country, and their world at large.
Speaker:Let's listen keenly and observe this group fondly known as the
Speaker:Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.
Speaker:Welcome
Speaker:back to your listener.
Speaker:Yes, another episode.
Speaker:Episode 407 of the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.
Speaker:Currently just two meerkats, myself and Joe, expecting a third meerkat
Speaker:in the shape of Scott to come in at some point, but he's been
Speaker:having trouble connecting, so...
Speaker:Joe has put his tech guy hat on rather than his UK correspondent hat and is
Speaker:busily trying to fix Scott's problem.
Speaker:In the meantime, Joe, just to prove you can double task, how are you?
Speaker:All going well?
Speaker:Yeah I'm up in Coventry at the moment, but staying with a friend and we're doing
Speaker:a lightning tour of many towns in the UK, seeing other friends that I met during
Speaker:the pandemic on various video calls.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So it's been great catching up with lots of people and that
Speaker:sounds like Scott joining us.
Speaker:It was great.
Speaker:I mean, you talk to somebody over a video call once a week
Speaker:for two and a half, three years.
Speaker:And, and it's lovely to finally see them and catch up.
Speaker:And you look at them and say, you're much shorter than I thought
Speaker:you'd be or anything like that.
Speaker:Actually, we met someone last night and my friend I'm staying with went, Oh, you're
Speaker:much shorter than I thought you would be.
Speaker:But, but usually it's sort of only this bit of the body we get
Speaker:to see, so you, you've no idea.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:It looks like Scott's with us.
Speaker:Scott, are you with us?
Speaker:Yeah, I'm here.
Speaker:I'm here.
Speaker:I can hear you and everything like that.
Speaker:Can you hear me?
Speaker:Yes, we can.
Speaker:Bring the microphone a little bit closer, maybe, or not.
Speaker:In the middle of dinner, Scott, you're also multitasking.
Speaker:I am in the middle of dinner, yes.
Speaker:Okay, very good.
Speaker:I'll wolf this down quickly and I'll put it inside once we actually start filming.
Speaker:Alright, well, we are filming.
Speaker:We're up and away, Scott.
Speaker:Are we?
Speaker:Yes!
Speaker:Yeah, it's 7.
Speaker:34.
Speaker:We're four minutes into this podcast.
Speaker:So, you keep going there.
Speaker:Well, I won't bring you in until I really need you.
Speaker:In the chat room, John is there, and also James.
Speaker:G'day, James.
Speaker:How are things going in Sydney?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Let's look at the agenda.
Speaker:What are we gonna talk about?
Speaker:Well, I promised you last week something positive, didn't I?
Speaker:I was a bit over the sort of negativity of everything we've been doing.
Speaker:I thought, well, let's try and get some good news and , let's
Speaker:meet Scott, shall we?
Speaker:Let's just, I'm gonna mute him until he, he's gone.
Speaker:So, I thought, I'll try and look up some good news stories, and, you
Speaker:know, I just Googled good news, and there's a whole range of websites,
Speaker:like there's the Good News Network, the ABC has a good news category, so
Speaker:there's nine news, there's a Positive News Society, And even the BBC has like
Speaker:a good news topic category section.
Speaker:So a lot of these news sites, Joe.
Speaker:And Gideon's has the good news.
Speaker:Ha, ha, ha, got about that one.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I'm surprised that wasn't on your list of hits.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm surprised as well.
Speaker:Maybe the algorithm has worked out.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Mind you, I do go to a lot of Christian sites, so.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Anyway, you know, so yeah, there are these good news sites out there when you
Speaker:just want some good news rather than, you know, what's the latest in Gaza
Speaker:or other disasters around the world.
Speaker:And so the BBC was an interesting one, and I've got a, I'm just looking at
Speaker:a screenshot of the first 16 articles on the BBC Good News Category website.
Speaker:And of the first 16 articles, four of them, dear listener, are cat stories.
Speaker:Cat missing since March, found 60 miles away.
Speaker:That's the top good news story.
Speaker:Number five, a cat that waits for train commuters.
Speaker:I assume it sits on a platform somewhere, waiting for train commuters.
Speaker:I was going to say when I was at school one of the lads who caught
Speaker:the bus with us, his cat used to wait at the end of the road every day for
Speaker:the bus to arrive, and looked forlorn the day that he wasn't on the bus, so
Speaker:I picked it up and carried it down.
Speaker:It used to get up on his shoulder and walk back with him.
Speaker:There you go.
Speaker:So, there you go.
Speaker:Would have made the BBC News, because at number 15, missing
Speaker:cat found 140 miles from home.
Speaker:As opposed to the other one, which was only 60 miles.
Speaker:And Bronze Medallion to Sainsbury Social Media Cat.
Speaker:This is the calibre of good news story that is out there, dear listener.
Speaker:What were some of the other stories?
Speaker:Lorry Driver Thanks Wife After His Breast Cancer.
Speaker:Beavers Saved From Drowning In Storm Drain.
Speaker:Oh, here's a good one.
Speaker:Naomi Campbell, the famous model.
Speaker:She's been honoured by Cambridge College.
Speaker:And there's a guy here who's nearly 80, Jimmy, Jimmy Cooper,
Speaker:and he's still working as a nurse.
Speaker:It's slim pickings, dear listener, on the good news front.
Speaker:I'm just going to have to revert back to sad news, because I can't
Speaker:delve into cat stories all day.
Speaker:Yeah, there we go.
Speaker:Watley sent a message during the week.
Speaker:He said the stock market is in the toilet, and he thought that was good news.
Speaker:Stock market going down.
Speaker:Maybe it is for our...
Speaker:For our economy.
Speaker:It is if you shorted those stocks.
Speaker:Mmm.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Or just generally if you're not in stocks.
Speaker:Maybe it's good that some of these valuations become more realistic.
Speaker:Anyway.
Speaker:Here's a good news story.
Speaker:Happy Recreation Day for people in Northern Tasmania.
Speaker:We're back on Monday, yesterday, because Northern Tasmania get a
Speaker:day off called Recreation Day.
Speaker:It was legislated in 1991, probably because Northern Tasmanians were
Speaker:sulking that Hobart got Regatta Day in February, so they're not
Speaker:celebrating anything in particular, except having a Recreation Day.
Speaker:Well done, Northern Tasmania.
Speaker:Should be renamed Cocaine and Hookers Day, I think.
Speaker:I think lots of Melbourne businesses close.
Speaker:on a Monday before Melbourne Cup Day anyway, because people get a long weekend.
Speaker:I know the business that I work for does that.
Speaker:Yeah, lots of in France, quite a lot of public holidays for some reason I
Speaker:think fall on the Thursday from memory.
Speaker:And...
Speaker:Taking the Friday off is known as making the bridge.
Speaker:What happens on a Thursday?
Speaker:I think the public holiday falls on a Thursday, and so people will take
Speaker:the Friday off to make a long weekend.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And it's so, so common that there's actually a phrase in French called
Speaker:making the bridge, which is where you bridge your day off and the weekend.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, it's a bit of an art form for people maximizing their holidays and
Speaker:taking days off and all the rest of it.
Speaker:So, yes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Anyway, there's a good news story.
Speaker:Northern Tasmanians managed to have a public holiday for no reason
Speaker:at all, other than Hobart was getting one, so they got their own.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Back to sad news, bad news or just news.
Speaker:Reserve Bank.
Speaker:Today, Joe decided to raise interest rates a quarter of a percent to 4.35%.
Speaker:Which that, of course, forms the basis of housing loan rates.
Speaker:If the ordinary people aren't hurting, then the economy's not doing well.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Well, the reason for it, of course, is that the Reserve Bank's mandate...
Speaker:is to grab inflation by the balls and make sure it just doesn't happen.
Speaker:That's its own purpose, the Reserve Bank.
Speaker:But it doesn't do that by stopping actual inflation, it does that
Speaker:by making poor people unemployed.
Speaker:So they don't have any money to spend.
Speaker:With the bluntest of roundabout implements, the only implement it has...
Speaker:It decides, well, we'll just raise interest rates, which of course, Joe, are
Speaker:coming to the calculation of inflation.
Speaker:So when you raise interest rates, you automatically raise inflation because
Speaker:it is part of the basket of goods that go into measuring inflation.
Speaker:Well, yes.
Speaker:They keep raising interest rates and going, why is this inflation going up?
Speaker:Well, the basket of goods includes interest as a component.
Speaker:You consumers out there have got it too good, and that's why
Speaker:we're raising interest rates.
Speaker:Because you consumers out there insist on buying things, and according to the laws
Speaker:of supply and demand, your demand is so high that you are forcing prices higher.
Speaker:Therefore, we must raise interest rates on your mortgages.
Speaker:Which will cause you financial pain, so you'll stop buying stuff, and therefore,
Speaker:the prices of things will go down.
Speaker:Look, look, you poor people, stop buying food and clothes and
Speaker:start buying investments instead.
Speaker:Is, is Scott back?
Speaker:No, he's still, he's delayed.
Speaker:No, no.
Speaker:Okay, he's still missing.
Speaker:So, the problem with all that is, it's assuming that...
Speaker:Inflation is caused by consumers having too much money and spending too much on
Speaker:stuff and causing prices to increase.
Speaker:If only it were that simple.
Speaker:And well, before we even get onto that.
Speaker:The whole point of the Reserve Bank being independent of government and its
Speaker:sole mandate being inflation and that the government not being able to do
Speaker:anything about it is completely nuts.
Speaker:Like, the interest rates in our community are a really important thing.
Speaker:And to leave that up to an independent body...
Speaker:Who is told your sole mandate is to control inflation, and fucking don't
Speaker:worry about the rest of the economy.
Speaker:Your only metric that we're going to measure you by is inflation,
Speaker:but we're going to put you in charge of interest rates.
Speaker:He's just asking for trouble.
Speaker:So...
Speaker:You know, it's such a critical part of running an economy that the government
Speaker:should just take control of, of that policy and not just leave it up to
Speaker:a bunch of unelected guys, because the government's role in society is
Speaker:not only to look after inflation, but also look after unemployment levels,
Speaker:look after growth in the economy.
Speaker:Look after the economy and the community as a whole and therefore make decisions
Speaker:as to what's in the best interest of the overall Australian economy, not
Speaker:just one metric of, you know, inflation.
Speaker:So it's going to be a completely nuts situation that we're in, but even if
Speaker:the situation we are in made sense.
Speaker:And you said, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a good idea, let's put the
Speaker:Reserve Bank in charge of interest rates and let them look after
Speaker:inflation, and that's their sole job.
Speaker:And oh, guess what?
Speaker:People are spending too much money, so you raise interest
Speaker:rates, they don't spend as much.
Speaker:It's because it's people spending money that causes prices to go up.
Speaker:According to Ian Varenda at the ABC, if only it were that simple.
Speaker:Our annual growth is sliding.
Speaker:Take away the effects of our massive population growth.
Speaker:Guys, that's a lot of...
Speaker:Immigration been happening.
Speaker:You aware of that?
Speaker:All those filthy foreigners coming over here taking our jobs.
Speaker:Lots of them coming in.
Speaker:It's not the filthy foreigners.
Speaker:Apparently a lot of them are nurses.
Speaker:I think the highest category of intake is nurses.
Speaker:It wouldn't surprise me.
Speaker:Because there was a meme I saw where Pauline Hanson was criticising
Speaker:the high immigration rate because it was putting pressure on our
Speaker:hospitals and lowering our wages.
Speaker:And the person was saying, well, the highest category of immigrant is
Speaker:actually nurses, which is going to help our health system and increase wages.
Speaker:But anyway, I've digressed.
Speaker:Take away the effects of our massive population growth, and you
Speaker:could argue we're in a recession.
Speaker:Household spending is waning.
Speaker:Building approvals are dropping.
Speaker:Saving buffers are in decline.
Speaker:And wages growth has remained well below inflation.
Speaker:As for inflation, it's been dropping.
Speaker:It's now 5.
Speaker:4 percent, a steady rate since last December's 7.
Speaker:8 percent.
Speaker:And many of the things that have helped push prices higher in the
Speaker:most recent September quarter were beyond the control of consumers.
Speaker:Rents have been soaring because of huge immigration program, while exorbitant
Speaker:lifts in power bills were pushed through during the quarter that will not be
Speaker:repeated in the next few quarters.
Speaker:Just remember that.
Speaker:Like, consumers don't, through overspending, put
Speaker:up the price of power bills.
Speaker:That's not how it works.
Speaker:Petrol prices also soared.
Speaker:People just have to fill up a tank of petrol when they have
Speaker:to fill up a tank of petrol.
Speaker:Like, you just do what you have to do.
Speaker:And it's not because of excessive driving by Australians because
Speaker:they're feeling so well to do that...
Speaker:Hetral stations have decided, oh, I reckon here's an opportunity to put up prices.
Speaker:It's actually interesting to put them up and we have to suck it up.
Speaker:But look at the, look at the commuter car parks for the train stations.
Speaker:And see how busy they are.
Speaker:You can tell the cost of petrol by how many people are in a car park.
Speaker:Can you?
Speaker:You can.
Speaker:I'm not joking.
Speaker:What, if it goes up 20 cents, the car park's got more people in it?
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Is that right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, I didn't know that.
Speaker:I'm not a commuter like that.
Speaker:So, there we go.
Speaker:So, these are things beyond the control of consumers.
Speaker:And raising interest rates is not going to...
Speaker:Have an effect in that Y.
Speaker:Scott, what do you think?
Speaker:You're back on board with us now, you've finished your dinner,
Speaker:your microphone's tuned on.
Speaker:I've had my rant about the Reserve Bank.
Speaker:You think they should have, should there be a Reserve Bank holding control of
Speaker:interest rates with their only criteria being inflation, or should they?
Speaker:No, it shouldn't be their only criteria.
Speaker:It shouldn't be their only criteria.
Speaker:The criteria was that they were to control inflation and also
Speaker:aim towards full employment.
Speaker:Now, their argument would be that we are at full employment right
Speaker:now, so inflation is the only boogeyman they've still got to slay.
Speaker:But, they're using a very blunt instrument called interest
Speaker:rates to control inflation.
Speaker:Now, again, I found myself...
Speaker:Approving of what the Green member said, Max, whatever his name is.
Speaker:He was arguing for a super profits tax because as he's, as he pointed
Speaker:out, Coles and Woolworths have both just reported super profits.
Speaker:At the same time, they were jacking their prices up.
Speaker:The banks have all reported super profits at the same time
Speaker:as interest rates have gone up.
Speaker:So his argument was that if you actually put a tax on, if you
Speaker:put a super profits tax on these companies, then you'd have extra
Speaker:money that you could then funnel in to
Speaker:reduce the impact of inflation on households.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm not sure how we'd actually do that because you'd have to have it, you'd
Speaker:have to have it very heavily what's the word I'm groping for not incentivised?
Speaker:Anyway, you'd only pay out, you'd only pay out those people that really
Speaker:genuinely needed it, rather than everyone.
Speaker:Can you just move the microphone a fraction closer please, Scott?
Speaker:No worries.
Speaker:You'd have to, you'd have to pay it out to only those people that
Speaker:genuinely needed it, not everyone.
Speaker:So anyway.
Speaker:Well, I think, I don't think they have a mandate of looking after full employment.
Speaker:It doesn't seem to me that all you ever hear from them is inflation, inflation,
Speaker:inflation, and the whole point of raising interest rates is to cause unemployment,
Speaker:to reduce demand for consumer items.
Speaker:I agree.
Speaker:To thereby lower prices.
Speaker:So, Which is one of those things I think they have lost sight of their
Speaker:second and more important more important thing was to aim for full employment.
Speaker:Anyway, that's a situation we're in and we get situations like Government
Speaker:Services Minister Bill Shorten was asked about the Reserve Bank's
Speaker:upcoming decision on interest rates.
Speaker:And he acknowledged the Reserve Bank is independent of government,
Speaker:but said, I hope it stays static.
Speaker:So we've got a government.
Speaker:Unable to do things.
Speaker:Just looking on as a reserve bank says, well, we're going to raise
Speaker:interest rates, yet the government of the day seemingly can do nothing.
Speaker:Crazy.
Speaker:Well, it's, one of those things,
Speaker:you've got the, capital expenditure budgets and that sort of stuff of
Speaker:governments, and they're actually threatening to delay or potentially kill
Speaker:off some of the projects and that sort of stuff that are up here, haven't they?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I haven't read it.
Speaker:So some capital spending.
Speaker:Yeah, some capital expenditure has been under the review microscope and
Speaker:that type of thing with the, with the threat of them closing them down.
Speaker:Oh, winding it back.
Speaker:Well, you know, there's not enough money around.
Speaker:Once you've spent, once you've allocated nearly 400 billion to
Speaker:submarines, then, there's nothing left.
Speaker:We'll be talking about submarines soon.
Speaker:Don't worry about that.
Speaker:Got some more stuff about submarines.
Speaker:Yeah, more stuff about that.
Speaker:Just in the lead up to this talk about interest rates, we had the IMF,
Speaker:International Monetary Fund, who with the World Bank have caused all sorts of
Speaker:problems around the world, particularly in the Global South, my favourite
Speaker:part of the health of the Australia's economy.
Speaker:prior to this interest rate rise.
Speaker:And they said that they called for sweeping policy reforms,
Speaker:including lower income taxes.
Speaker:Gosh, imagine that.
Speaker:International Monetary Fund calling for lower income taxes.
Speaker:A higher GST rate, so punish the poor, punish the poor, yes, to help
Speaker:state governments replace stamp duty with annual property taxes.
Speaker:That was one of the calls from that economist who was talking about basically
Speaker:unearned rent was what it was called.
Speaker:So, I'm pausing there because out of the three ideas so far, lower income taxes,
Speaker:higher GST rate, we've now moved into something that might actually make sense.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Replacing stamp duty with an annual property tax, if it was high enough.
Speaker:The problem is, this IMF was talking about raising the GST rate.
Speaker:To help state governments replace stamp duty with annual property taxes,
Speaker:meaning the new annual property tax would not be equal to the stamp duty,
Speaker:so they'd need a higher GST rate to make up the shortfall.
Speaker:Well, why not just make the new property tax sufficient to cover the
Speaker:lost stamp duty, would be what I'd say.
Speaker:Or even more, perhaps, and lower the GST rate.
Speaker:Anyway and they also called for an economy wide carbon price.
Speaker:That's what the IMF thinks we should do.
Speaker:See, again, that's probably one of the few things that progressive
Speaker:people would be calling for.
Speaker:And actually, that makes sense.
Speaker:Yeah, you put a price on energy, or sorry, put a price on carbon, and then use it
Speaker:to subsidize low income households to make their properties more efficient.
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:So they're using less energy.
Speaker:In the chat room, Eric says, I like the IMF more when it was Tom Cruise
Speaker:and the Impossible Mission Force.
Speaker:Thanks, Eric.
Speaker:Yeah, Impossible Mission Force, right.
Speaker:Yeah, so that was the IMF and the Reserve Bank.
Speaker:Should we move on to more positive topics like Gaza?
Speaker:Well, we could do.
Speaker:I, unfortunately, my daughter put me onto this guy, Sean King, who posts videos
Speaker:on Instagram of, I think he started when Black Lives Matter started, and so
Speaker:he gets a lot of social media videos, and he, of course is just publishing
Speaker:lots of stuff coming out of the Gaza from people on the ground, and pulling.
Speaker:You know, bodies out of the rubble.
Speaker:It is just appalling what is going on there.
Speaker:It is unbelievable that it's happening, and it seems like the
Speaker:Israelis are determined to commit one of the worst atrocities in
Speaker:human history, like a very knowing atrocity that they're committing here.
Speaker:The victims of a terrible atrocity, the Jews, are just engaged in, ah,
Speaker:something that's just going to go down in history as one of the worst.
Speaker:It's...
Speaker:It's not looking good, and it's probably what Hamas were hoping for.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:It's almost certainly, the aim of their attacks was to draw a disproportionate
Speaker:response that was going to innocent, sorry, injure innocent people in
Speaker:the middle, caught in the crossfire.
Speaker:I did read something that Amas was pissed that Saudi Arabia was starting to cozy
Speaker:up to Israel in certain ways and...
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, and that's...
Speaker:In order to generate...
Speaker:That's probably all the...
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:In order to generate sympathy from their Arab neighbours, and this was
Speaker:one of the tactics as part of that.
Speaker:Possible?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, as Caitlin Johnston says, it is the most 2020s thing in the world
Speaker:that there, there's an active genocide currently underway, and it's people who
Speaker:oppose it who are being called Nazis.
Speaker:I agree there, the sort of Orwellian doublespeak that is going
Speaker:on in our world over all sorts of issues just flabbergasts me.
Speaker:But there's also been quite a lot of anti Jew rhetoric, so, so
Speaker:it's not just Jews out of Israel, it has been kill all the Jews.
Speaker:Yeah, there is, there is no right side in this.
Speaker:Nope.
Speaker:No, there's not.
Speaker:It's a mess.
Speaker:You know, they've got that those protesters and that sort of stuff.
Speaker:They're out the front of the Opera House and that sort of stuff.
Speaker:That's had a sign saying gas all Jews.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:You know, that sort of thing.
Speaker:Now that's.
Speaker:That does nothing for their cause.
Speaker:Now, their cause is quite just, but when they actually say stuff like
Speaker:that, no one's listening to them.
Speaker:There's a guy called Mario Cavallo who wrote Wow, people
Speaker:hate me for this simple straight question, just answer it yes or no.
Speaker:If the bad guys who murdered your wife and kids were hiding in one of the apartments
Speaker:of a 30 story apartment building, with 500 people in it, in your city, Would
Speaker:you tell the police to blow up the entire building to get the bad guys?
Speaker:A similar analogy, he's got a point.
Speaker:Yeah, he's got a very similar analogy, yeah.
Speaker:He's got a very good point.
Speaker:Luckily for the entire region Scott Morrison and Boris Johnson
Speaker:Have landed on a bit of a tour.
Speaker:Haven't these people suffered enough, I ask you?
Speaker:ScoMo said...
Speaker:Bojo and ScoMo are going on a world tour, are they?
Speaker:Yeah, they're in Israel.
Speaker:And just putting on flak jackets and helmets and wandering
Speaker:around handing out opinions.
Speaker:And guess what?
Speaker:They're kind of pro Israeli.
Speaker:Funny that.
Speaker:ScoMo in particular being Pentecostal, I'm sure.
Speaker:needs the rapture needs Israel to be in charge of Jerusalem
Speaker:for his rapture purposes.
Speaker:I mean, it was under Scamo that we decided that Jerusalem would be the
Speaker:Israeli capital or something like that.
Speaker:It was something that he, he planned on, he planned on moving the
Speaker:embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Speaker:I don't think actually Weber went through with it, but he certainly did raise it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And I think Trump did that at the same time.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Trump.
Speaker:Trump did it before.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Before komo did all the evangelicals really, really want it?
Speaker:They want war in the Middle East.
Speaker:I know they do.
Speaker:Yeah, they do.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And they want Israel winning.
Speaker:The Jews winning.
Speaker:So they control Jerusalem.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:. Because that's somehow connected with the, then the return of Christ.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:The return of Christ.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Which sounds nuts, but it's so much of what's driving American
Speaker:thought on this whole thing.
Speaker:Scamo said, Do you provide a pause and a ceasefire to allow Hamas to regroup?
Speaker:To get themselves in a position to resist even further?
Speaker:I mean...
Speaker:This is the play from Hamas, and we've got to be careful not to be suckered into it.
Speaker:Meaning, no ceasefire as far as GOMO is concerned.
Speaker:And, from his side of politics as well, James Patterson, Shadow Home Affairs
Speaker:Minister, argued against a ceasefire, saying Israel's removal of Hamas
Speaker:was a legitimate military objective.
Speaker:A ceasefire would just allow Hamas to regroup.
Speaker:Yeah, I'd heard England and Australia had sent a clown show
Speaker:across to entertain everybody.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:With Scomo and Bojo.
Speaker:Yes, Scomo and Bojo, yeah.
Speaker:Ah, what a mess.
Speaker:No resolution there.
Speaker:And, um hmm.
Speaker:Trump came across, I came across some polling.
Speaker:So this is, he was in trouble yesterday?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:He's been in one of these court cases.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:. This is the one where they are accusing him of overvaluing
Speaker:properties for getting loans.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And then undervaluing them when it came to paying tax.
Speaker:That's it.
Speaker:I think it's the state of New York is saying that they want him
Speaker:banned from business in New York.
Speaker:Yeah, they want to revoke his license, I think.
Speaker:And the case is at the point where basically the judge has already
Speaker:found that he is guilty of doing that and it's now just a matter of
Speaker:assessing what the penalty will be.
Speaker:I thought it was, they, they've assessed, they've assessed that the
Speaker:company did it, but they've not found out who in the company was responsible.
Speaker:Ah, okay, that could be the case, yeah.
Speaker:So, the really weird part in this one is, Trump has got an
Speaker:in for the judge's associate.
Speaker:Yeah, he really went to town on Earth, didn't he?
Speaker:It was explain to me in a, in a podcast I was listening to this afternoon, it
Speaker:was the Scathing Atheist or someone like that, they were saying that
Speaker:Trump had been gagged and that sort of stuff from levelling any sort of
Speaker:threats or complaints or anything like that, but he realised that the,
Speaker:his lawyers weren't actually gagged, so he got his lawyers to level the
Speaker:complaints about the judge's associate.
Speaker:And then the judge actually turned around and said, no, you're all
Speaker:gagged now because this is ridiculous.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But also on the stand, apparently he was reigned in Thora.
Speaker:Oh, yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I can't remember the exact language.
Speaker:It was beautiful legal language and that sort of stuff.
Speaker:But this judge really went to town on him.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Told him to shut his mouth.
Speaker:So the judge's associate, dear listener, is just the judge's assistant, who
Speaker:is often just a recent graduate.
Speaker:He's...
Speaker:I think in one day they might become a barrister.
Speaker:And it's just, sits next to the judge and hands them papers and stuff.
Speaker:Like, they're not a, they're not a participant in these things at all.
Speaker:But I think Trump found that this associate had been on social media, had...
Speaker:Appeared in some sort of anti Trump rallies, or something that indicated
Speaker:the Associate was not a Trump fan, and that's been enough for him to
Speaker:go to town, but, you know, they're above a bailiff, but their influence
Speaker:on proceedings is, is zero, and he's just fixated by this Associate.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Because he knows he's going to lose the case.
Speaker:And he wants any possible, this was the only thing he could find to throw mud
Speaker:to pretend that it wasn't a valid case.
Speaker:And the judge's gag order was pretty, a pretty good one, which basically
Speaker:said, okay, you can say I'm biased or things about me as a judge, I
Speaker:don't care, but you just can't attack the court staff, like my associate,
Speaker:or the bailiff, or the prosecutors.
Speaker:Or their families, because when you start attacking them, your
Speaker:crazy people go and find out where they live and start firebombing
Speaker:their cars, so it was a pretty...
Speaker:Well thought out gag order that really allowed him to complain about
Speaker:corruption in the court system if he wanted to, but just not to, to tackle,
Speaker:to, to, to make it a personal thing.
Speaker:Yes, yes.
Speaker:Against people whose jobs are just fairly menial jobs in the, in the whole system.
Speaker:So quite all that.
Speaker:Still going unbelievably well.
Speaker:So I've got some stuff here from ACBS news poll.
Speaker:YouGov survey, and the margin of error on this is 3.
Speaker:3 percent on anything I'm about to tell you here.
Speaker:So, people were asked will you be financially better off, financially
Speaker:worse off, or stay about the same if Biden wins or if Trump wins and
Speaker:defeats him in an upcoming election?
Speaker:And, 45%.
Speaker:They'll be better off if Trump wins 18 percent think they'll be better
Speaker:off if Biden wins financially.
Speaker:And financially worse off, 48 percent if Biden wins, if Trump wins, 32 percent and
Speaker:about the same to make up the difference.
Speaker:So essentially, there's a significant majority of people.
Speaker:In America, you think they will be financially better off if
Speaker:Donald Trump beats Biden in an upcoming presidential election.
Speaker:And in terms of the chances of the US being in a war, a substantial
Speaker:majority think it's more likely that the US will be in a war if Biden wins.
Speaker:I think they're right about that, actually.
Speaker:I mean, Trump previously wasn't disposed to using the military overseas.
Speaker:He wants to keep them in America so he can use them for himself as part of some
Speaker:insurrection type thing that might happen.
Speaker:And Israel they felt that Biden would is, would support Israel
Speaker:too much compared to Trump.
Speaker:And when it came to Russia and the Ukraine if Biden wins, they think Biden
Speaker:will support the Ukraine over Russia.
Speaker:If Trump wins, they think Trump will support Russia over the Ukraine.
Speaker:And in the final one, the one that counts, choice for president.
Speaker:48 percent Biden.
Speaker:51%.
Speaker:He is the favourite at the moment, still, despite everything.
Speaker:It's quite incredible, isn't it?
Speaker:I find that really bizarre.
Speaker:We've been saying it for months, that all of these surveys...
Speaker:Are showing him in front.
Speaker:Yeah, I know.
Speaker:It's just, Joe Biden is too old.
Speaker:He is far too old to be still running, you know, and Kamala
Speaker:Harris hasn't set the world on fire with her, with her performance.
Speaker:So, I
Speaker:don't know.
Speaker:It's amazing.
Speaker:It is one of those things that...
Speaker:Yeah, it is one of those things that I hope that what's her name the
Speaker:former Vice President's daughter.
Speaker:Former Vice President?
Speaker:Evang Oh.
Speaker:Yeah, what was his name?
Speaker:Mike Pence's daughter?
Speaker:No, the former Vice President under George W.
Speaker:Oh, Jane.
Speaker:Cheney Is it Cheney?
Speaker:Is that the one?
Speaker:Anyway, whatever he is, whatever his name is his daughter was, his
Speaker:daughter was booted out and that sort of stuff when she was, because she
Speaker:actually voted to impeach Donald Trump.
Speaker:And she went up against an absolute nutter from the right and that sort of
Speaker:stuff, Liz Cheney, thank you, Alison.
Speaker:I hope that she actually runs on her own ticket to split the,
Speaker:to split the Republican vote.
Speaker:You know, because that would actually, you know, I really do hope that she
Speaker:runs and she runs as hard as she can.
Speaker:She will lose, but I think that, I think that's one way that
Speaker:she can guarantee Donald Trump would never be president again.
Speaker:Because that would split the Republican vote, it would give Biden a clean run.
Speaker:So, anyway.
Speaker:Mmm, what a mess.
Speaker:Who's Marianne Williamson?
Speaker:Yeah, it talks about Marianne Williamson.
Speaker:Don't know who she is.
Speaker:Don't know.
Speaker:But there you go.
Speaker:A divided country.
Speaker:A lot of mixed up people.
Speaker:We're a divided country here.
Speaker:Just as an aside, one of the arguments in The Voice was Indigenous
Speaker:people know what's best for them.
Speaker:And I just think, Australia voted in Scott Morrison.
Speaker:Did we know what was best for us at that time?
Speaker:51 percent of Americans want to vote in Donald Trump.
Speaker:Do they know what's best for them at the time?
Speaker:People don't necessarily know what's best for them.
Speaker:Well, no, no, but we're always better off under a right wing politician than
Speaker:a left wing politician because they give us tax cuts and that's the only thing
Speaker:that impacts our the money in our pocket.
Speaker:Yes, yeah.
Speaker:Hey, we've got a new patron Lloydberg signed up.
Speaker:I think Lloydberg might have been an old patron who's returned.
Speaker:I'm not sure, but thank you, Lloydberg, for signing up as a patron.
Speaker:It's easy to do, dear listener, look at the show notes in your
Speaker:app and you'll see a link.
Speaker:And get onto Patreon and make a donation.
Speaker:That would be much appreciated.
Speaker:Now I threatened to do this and talk about submarines because it's been a while.
Speaker:And if you were to do a word search on the show notes on this
Speaker:podcast submarines would be one of the words that shows up the most.
Speaker:And I've got some more information about submarines.
Speaker:So this is from David Shoebridge.
Speaker:Writing in the Saturday paper, and and he says, Australia's Defence
Speaker:Force should be focused on defending Australia, not threatening our neighbours.
Speaker:This seems obvious, but is actually a contentious statement.
Speaker:Based on the conclusions of Australia's most recent Defence Strategic Review
Speaker:that adopts the goal of Australia being able to engage in impactful projection
Speaker:against countries to our far north.
Speaker:So our basic Defence Strategic Review.
Speaker:Is wrong, because rather than focusing on defence of Australia, it wants to
Speaker:project impactfully to our far north.
Speaker:Anyway, at the centre of all this, of course, is the 368 billion AUKUS submarine
Speaker:deal to give us nuclear submarines and project our military force 4,
Speaker:000km north into the South China Sea.
Speaker:So it's not about protecting Australia, it's about threatening China.
Speaker:That's what these submarines are about.
Speaker:Now, even on its own terms, if that was a good idea, then the deal, the AUKUS
Speaker:submarine deal, even if you accept that it's a good idea to project power 4,
Speaker:000 kilometres away, this particular deal is such a dog of a deal, it's...
Speaker:Incredible.
Speaker:So, he returned from a trip to Washington where he was talking with insiders
Speaker:and they agreed that he could use the information but without quoting them.
Speaker:So he was in Washington speaking to leading experts
Speaker:under the Chatham House Rules.
Speaker:You guys ever heard of the Chatham House Rules before?
Speaker:Yeah, you go and you talk to them and that sort of stuff, but you
Speaker:can't actually say the exact quote or something like that outside of that?
Speaker:You're free to use the information received, but neither the
Speaker:identity nor the affiliation of the speaker may be revealed.
Speaker:So you can say what you heard, you just can't say who told you.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:So, so this is Shoebridge David Shoebridge in America talking to people.
Speaker:And we're going to squander our wealth, we're going to antagonise
Speaker:our neighbours, we're going to invite further escalation from China.
Speaker:And we're going to get a highly speculative and marginal military
Speaker:asset and so we're supposedly acquiring eight nuclear submarines.
Speaker:The first three to five of these submarines are meant to be Virginia
Speaker:class submarines purchased from the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:The last 3 5 submarines that make up the 8th boat fleet will be AUKUS SSN
Speaker:nuclear submarines built in Adelaide from a yet to be finalised British design.
Speaker:So that's the deal as we know it at the moment.
Speaker:3 5 from the US, 3 5 UK designed.
Speaker:Adelaide built subs.
Speaker:So the ones that we're getting from the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:supposed to arrive in the 2030s with the next seven boats coming
Speaker:over the following 25 years.
Speaker:The problem is the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:doesn't have enough subs.
Speaker:They're running short.
Speaker:They don't have enough and they can't build them quick enough.
Speaker:So, five submarines from the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:represents about 10 percent of their total attack class submarine fleet.
Speaker:And while they've got plans to build two submarines a year, Their
Speaker:current capacity is stretched at 1.
Speaker:2, so, by the early 2030s, the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:is going to be 20 boats short of its targeted fleet size.
Speaker:And that's supposedly, at the time they're going to hand over
Speaker:to us, five of these submarines.
Speaker:There's no way they're going to do it.
Speaker:And in order to do it, they would have to increase their projection from 1.
Speaker:2 votes a year to 2.
Speaker:2 votes a year.
Speaker:But there is no plan or spending commitment to make this a reality.
Speaker:So, there's a hazy commitment from us to give 3 billion To the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:to help them with their shipbuilding.
Speaker:Anyway, it's not going to address the shortfall.
Speaker:So, they're just not going to have the subs to give us.
Speaker:And in the 2030s, whoever's in charge, and we say, Oh, we had this
Speaker:deal with Joe Biden back in early 2020s where we'd get these submarines
Speaker:and we'd like them now, please.
Speaker:Who knows who's in charge at that time, who's gonna say fuck off,
Speaker:we do we do then?
Speaker:It's gonna be Nottingham Junior.
Speaker:Then we go cap in hand, then we go cap in hand to the Japanese and say will you
Speaker:provide us with 12 submarines at 1 billion dollars each, and they'll say yes we will.
Speaker:We'll be going cap in hand to the Chinese, asking them for the subs
Speaker:at the rate we're gonna be going.
Speaker:Bear in mind.
Speaker:U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:attack submarines currently requiring maintenance is almost double the
Speaker:historical average, running at about 37 percent of their fleet.
Speaker:These things are in the dock a lot of the time.
Speaker:So, that was that, that, that, that, that, assuming, against all odds, the politics
Speaker:come good and the boats are delivered, what will be the military impact?
Speaker:Sometime in the 2040s, we might have, at most, maybe, five
Speaker:Virginia class nuclear submarines.
Speaker:The standard Virginia class nuclear submarine 12 Tomahawk cruise
Speaker:missiles, with a few torpedoes.
Speaker:Taking into account crew rotation, maintenance and transit times.
Speaker:Even with a maximum fleet of eight submarines, the best case scenario for
Speaker:2054, we'll see two or three of those in the South China Sea at any time.
Speaker:So that's realistic.
Speaker:Even if we've got a whole contingent of eight submarines based on maintenance
Speaker:crews, et cetera, maximum we'll have is two to three in the South China Sea.
Speaker:So what are we bringing to a conflict?
Speaker:24 or maybe 36 Tomahawk missiles.
Speaker:With 450kg conventional warheads.
Speaker:Each such warhead is enough to destroy a moderate sized building,
Speaker:or potentially sink a ship.
Speaker:And once the missiles are fired, the submarines need to
Speaker:return to Australia to restock.
Speaker:before they can, weeks later, return to the conflict.
Speaker:Who, in their right mind, would spend 368 billion to deliver 36 bombs to a fight?
Speaker:Well, so the Tomahawks don't have to carry conventional.
Speaker:Munitions.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Oh, that's, we're going to put nuclear weapons on them.
Speaker:We could.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Because once we've got the capability, once we've got the capability, we could.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And that's what we would want to do.
Speaker:Possibly.
Speaker:Engage
Speaker:in a nuclear war.
Speaker:Who knows what the underlying strategy is?
Speaker:He says here, to deliver 36 bombs to a fight, to put it in
Speaker:perspective, that's less than the payload of a single B 52 bomber.
Speaker:I mean, if we wanted to drop nuclear bombs, we could put
Speaker:them in a B 52 bomber, I guess.
Speaker:You know, Hiroshima Nagasaki style.
Speaker:Yeah, it's a lot harder to get one of those to China.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's proving, at 368 billion, to get 36...
Speaker:So this is the interesting part, dear listener, that we haven't explored
Speaker:before, is just the limited amount of, sort of, missile power that
Speaker:you get for your submarine as well.
Speaker:So they're great for knocking out ships that are coming to attack
Speaker:you, but their value in terms of landing bombs on China's mainland.
Speaker:Landing special forces, on the other hand, is another thing
Speaker:that's done from submarines.
Speaker:Yeah, but that wouldn't be, that would be special forces rather than a...
Speaker:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker:You're not going to carry a, an army across the sea in that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Do we want special forces landing on the shores of China to start running around?
Speaker:It depends.
Speaker:What?
Speaker:It depends.
Speaker:What?
Speaker:We wouldn't deliver special forces to mainland China, or is it?
Speaker:No, I'm just saying, if you are involved in a scrap and that sort of
Speaker:stuff, then you could actually have to do, you could actually have to deploy
Speaker:special forces, and perhaps the best way to deploy them is off a submarine.
Speaker:I'm not actually advocating, I'm just saying that it could
Speaker:be, it could be a solution.
Speaker:So, so.
Speaker:Delivering special forces to a fight.
Speaker:During the Falklands, they landed special forces in Argentina to provide
Speaker:advanced warning of air attack.
Speaker:And so if there was a Taiwan war, it's possible that they'd want intelligence
Speaker:assets on mainland China giving advance warning of incoming strikes.
Speaker:Do
Speaker:we need a nuclear powered submarine to deliver the special forces?
Speaker:If you need to operate...
Speaker:We could put many old slow moving...
Speaker:If you needed to get out of Australian waters and you needed to get up to
Speaker:China, then yes, you would actually need a nuclear powered submarine because
Speaker:they don't actually have to refuel.
Speaker:Are we seriously saying it's a valuable contribution of a
Speaker:nuclear powered submarine to deliver special forces to China?
Speaker:I'm not saying it's a valuable contribution, I'm just simply
Speaker:putting out that, you know, it could actually come back to be something
Speaker:that you could actually use them for.
Speaker:I'm not actually suggesting it's a good idea, I'm just saying that
Speaker:they could actually have a use.
Speaker:Anyway, that's the latest on subs.
Speaker:You're up to speed, dear listener, on subs.
Speaker:Underwater, possibly.
Speaker:Essentially, Lord Don has done something there, he says, you know,
Speaker:they could probably find an allied base closer to them, so they wouldn't
Speaker:necessarily have to restock in Australia.
Speaker:They could probably find an allied base closer to them, which is very true.
Speaker:They could probably just go down to the Philippines, pick up some more Tomahawk
Speaker:cruise missiles and return to the fight.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Or they could go back to Taiwan to pick up Tomahawk cruise missiles.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:And, you know, while they're there it's not like the Chinese would
Speaker:fire on them in the Philippine dock while they're getting reloaded.
Speaker:Wouldn't happen.
Speaker:They could well do that.
Speaker:They could well do that.
Speaker:It all depends on whether or not the Philippines gets involved in the war.
Speaker:If the Philippines is a neutral country and that sort of stuff, then they...
Speaker:If we're restocking, then they're involved.
Speaker:Yeah, they could be.
Speaker:Anyway, it's such an enormous amount of money being wasted on such a stupid
Speaker:deal and this goddamn Labor government agreed to it within 24 hours of
Speaker:being told by ScoMo and were proud of themselves for their bipartisan support
Speaker:of a Scott Morrison board bubble.
Speaker:It could be worse.
Speaker:They could have supported the Stage 3 tax cuts.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:They did it just longer than 24 hours.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:They did actually support the stage 3 tax cuts only because the coalition
Speaker:wouldn't actually split the bill.
Speaker:So they had to actually vote for the bill in its entirety, the whole lot.
Speaker:Stage 3 tax cuts.
Speaker:They could have said when we come into power, we will get
Speaker:rid of them, but they didn't.
Speaker:I agree, they should have done that, but they didn't, because they tried
Speaker:to make themselves a small target.
Speaker:Right, there was a review into alcohol in the Northern Territory and Professor
Speaker:Marcia Langton has called for uniform alcohol restrictions across the Northern
Speaker:Territory to help reduce rates of domestic, family and sexual violence.
Speaker:So she says we need to restrict alcohol access across the entire
Speaker:Northern Territory, an absolutely necessary public health measure
Speaker:to reduce domestic violence.
Speaker:You have to have alcohol restrictions in place at all times, no exceptions.
Speaker:Not just in Aboriginal communities, otherwise grog
Speaker:runners will exploit the system.
Speaker:And she suggested a permit system could be implemented which is
Speaker:already in place across some remote areas in the Northern Territory.
Speaker:Allowing responsible drinkers to consume alcohol.
Speaker:Gentlemen, what do you think about a sort of blanket alcohol ban in the
Speaker:Northern Territory, except if you've got a permit and you're allowed to
Speaker:drink because you're responsible?
Speaker:I'm actually not.
Speaker:I'm okay with it.
Speaker:No, no, I'm okay with it.
Speaker:I think, i, I, I don't see a problem with us bringing in
Speaker:drinking restrictions for people.
Speaker:I know people will not appreciate it, but if you said it's a two drink
Speaker:a day, which is the safe drinking limit if you're drinking more than
Speaker:that, I don't know whether these will be transferable, whether you
Speaker:can build them up for a weekend.
Speaker:I would say the vast majority of people aren't going to hit that.
Speaker:The people that are going to get hit by that are alcoholics.
Speaker:I think if you have the permit, you're probably just allowed to buy the drink for
Speaker:yourself and as much as you want, but...
Speaker:So if you're a problem drinker, your permit gets revoked?
Speaker:Looks like it.
Speaker:Apparently so.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So the, what are they gonna do?
Speaker:Are they gonna, are they gonna find out from the cops
Speaker:who the problem drinkers are?
Speaker:Are they, I don't know if you get drunk, if you get done for drunk and
Speaker:disorderly, you you'll lose your permit.
Speaker:Perhaps.
Speaker:I don't know how it works.
Speaker:Are, are they gonna put the health resources in place to deal with
Speaker:people who have a problem and are.
Speaker:Using alcohol to hide, mask, whatever the problems that they've got, put
Speaker:the mental health services in place so these people don't turn to drink.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Because all they're going to do is abuse other things.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And that's the problem.
Speaker:If you take alcohol away, all they're going to do is turn to other
Speaker:things, to get drunk, or to get high.
Speaker:Because, because generally people who do this are escaping something.
Speaker:Something shitty has happened in their life.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:If you're interested in drug addiction, dear listener, read...
Speaker:Just chasing the screen.
Speaker:Yeah, there's there's some questions about how Truthful he
Speaker:was in some of his interviews.
Speaker:Mm hmm But I think the premise is good if you just keep in mind that everything
Speaker:not everything you read may be factual.
Speaker:Mm hmm so anyway, that was Marcia
Speaker:Langton and Find out more detail about that Let's see what happens.
Speaker:The other question is what happens, do you get grog smugglers just coming
Speaker:in from Queensland and WA instead?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:How they police that, I don't know.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:United Nations resolutions.
Speaker:So, I think we spoke last week about the resolution that
Speaker:was proposed for a ceasefire?
Speaker:For a ceasefire, and Australia was one of the ones that abstained.
Speaker:Because the resolution didn't have enough words in it saying
Speaker:that Hamas were the bad guys.
Speaker:There wasn't enough context for it.
Speaker:There was another resolution demanding the end to sanctions against Cuba.
Speaker:And the vote was 187 to 2.
Speaker:Demanding an end to sanctions by the United States against Cuba.
Speaker:Dear listener, two guesses on which countries voted against the resolution.
Speaker:And one of them was the USA, because they're the guys
Speaker:implementing these sanctions.
Speaker:Given that you're bringing it up, the other one must be Australia.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:No, Israel.
Speaker:Israel.
Speaker:Ah.
Speaker:And, there was one...
Speaker:Abstainer.
Speaker:Abstention, and that was Ukraine.
Speaker:And that was Ukraine.
Speaker:So, so the people who are beholden to the US for weapons.
Speaker:Correct.
Speaker:187 to 2.
Speaker:Demanding the end to sanctions against Cuba, voting against USA
Speaker:and Israel, abstaining the Ukraine.
Speaker:That tells you everything.
Speaker:Yeah, yep.
Speaker:Well, I don't blame Israel and Ukraine.
Speaker:It's like dirty Cubans, they don't need their...
Speaker:No, no, no!
Speaker:they're so bad.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I don't blame them because they're in the middle of wars and they want ammunition.
Speaker:And if that's the price, then it's a small price.
Speaker:Yes, just a vote at the UN.
Speaker:Right, this will be an interesting one, Scott.
Speaker:The Greens say they will introduce an effective rent freeze across
Speaker:Brisbane by enacting massive land rates increases for any property
Speaker:investors who increase the rent.
Speaker:So, if you put up the rent, we'll put up your rates, says Jonathan Shree,
Speaker:and it would run for two years.
Speaker:And it will require landlords to keep rents below the January 2023 levels.
Speaker:And if you don't, so if you increase the rental then the rates will be 750
Speaker:percent of the standard rates bill.
Speaker:So 7.
Speaker:5 times your normal rates bill.
Speaker:If you put up the rent.
Speaker:So examples cited by the party include a hypothetical CBD unit
Speaker:with a 1, 500 a year rates bill.
Speaker:A 50 a week rent increase would bring 26, 000 a year in extra
Speaker:income but would result in an extra 9, 750 in additional land rates.
Speaker:So clearly a landlord just wouldn't do it.
Speaker:Scott, what do you think of a, as a potential Greens voter, in a
Speaker:Council election in Brisbane, are they saying, freeze rents, otherwise
Speaker:seven and a half times the rates?
Speaker:I don't vote for Brisbane Councils or anything like
Speaker:that because I live in Mackay.
Speaker:It's one of those things, I just think that the Greens are actually desperately
Speaker:to try and get their, they're trying to get their rent freeze across and that
Speaker:type of things that they've actually.
Speaker:They're actually targeting each of the elections and that type
Speaker:of thing that they're going for.
Speaker:Now, does Councillor Shri does what's his name Shri have any chance of winning?
Speaker:Probably not.
Speaker:So he can, he can go out and he can, he can say all this sort of crap
Speaker:now and that sort of thing and he won't actually have to deliver on it.
Speaker:It's one of those things, I just think to myself that The whole
Speaker:lot is a, it's a lot of puff and blaster more than anything else.
Speaker:Do I actually agree with it?
Speaker:No, I don't.
Speaker:You know, it's one of those things, a rents increase and that type of thing, you
Speaker:can't actually blame a, you can't actually only blame a landlord for increasing rent.
Speaker:Rent is a, rent is a cost of renting a place.
Speaker:And that is determined by the market, more so than anyone else.
Speaker:Now I know they can say that, they know that they can say that, Oh,
Speaker:well they're the ones that are increasing the rent, which they
Speaker:are, I've got no doubt about that.
Speaker:But you can't actually then come down and clobber them by saying, Well, you know,
Speaker:you get 750, 750 percent of the rates.
Speaker:You know, and, and what's, have they actually say anywhere there that they
Speaker:were going to, you know, if it was an increase of rent on 2023 prices, was
Speaker:it, or 2022 prices, or 2020 prices?
Speaker:Freezing it at January 2023 levels.
Speaker:For how long?
Speaker:Two years, was it?
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm not convinced of it.
Speaker:What we've got is a federal level of government that has provided tax
Speaker:incentives for Property investors.
Speaker:And now we've got a different level of government trying to reverse those
Speaker:incentives with sort of penalties to disincentivise property investment.
Speaker:So...
Speaker:It's a Band Aid solution to other issues, is what I'm looking at.
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:So there's two different, three inputs, I would say, to your cost of a rental.
Speaker:One is the cost of the mortgage that's underlying it, one is
Speaker:the cost of the maintenance of the unit, and one is profit.
Speaker:And the problem is, at the moment, the profit is a larger component of the
Speaker:cost of the rental than the other two.
Speaker:So you need to be able to allow landlords to service their mortgage
Speaker:and to provide adequate maintenance, because otherwise what will happen is
Speaker:you'll end up with a load of slumlords.
Speaker:So, so how do you, it's less around the first two costs because controlling
Speaker:the overall cost is a blunt tool.
Speaker:It's really the profits that you need to be looking at and whether these people
Speaker:are paying off their mortgages more quickly than expected or whatever it is.
Speaker:What do you guys think previously of other moves by local councils
Speaker:to either increase rates if the property was vacant or increase
Speaker:rates if it was an Airbnb situation?
Speaker:I think that's fine.
Speaker:If the property is vacant most of the time, you know, because, you know,
Speaker:is it, is it going to be affecting people who've got weekenders or not?
Speaker:I think Because your place down the coast would be, would be considered to be
Speaker:vacant, wouldn't it, for most of the time?
Speaker:Used three days a week.
Speaker:So, okay, three days a week, then you probably get away with it.
Speaker:So it's one of those things.
Speaker:So that would be, that would fall under the, under my definition of a weekender.
Speaker:So if weekenders were, if weekenders were subject to an increase in
Speaker:rates, then I'd be opposed to that.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:Do I really have a problem with Airbnbs and that sort of stuff?
Speaker:Not really.
Speaker:You know, it's, well, Some communities, for example, their teachers, their
Speaker:essential service people, were finding it really difficult to rent
Speaker:In the community because there was no long-term rentals available.
Speaker:It was all Airbnb, but, but also weekenders.
Speaker:If you, if you were a teacher in Kang, gata, how easy is it to get a a, a, a unit
Speaker:That is a reasonably reasonable traveling distance because of all of the Brisbane
Speaker:people who have a weekender down there.
Speaker:I, I know on the Sunshine Coast, it's been very difficult for teachers.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Say you're a young graduate teacher trying to find a rental.
Speaker:On the Sunshine Coast.
Speaker:I know It's virtually impossible.
Speaker:But how many of those are Airbnb and weekenders and how many of those are
Speaker:just retirees from Melbourne and Sydney who've come up for the better life?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I can understand the social desire of the Council to say we need to be massaging
Speaker:our property mix here so that we, so our essential people can live here.
Speaker:And if this is the only tool we've got, it's the only tool we've got, like, I
Speaker:sort of get it from that point of view.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:I, I think a society is poorer if if you don't have a mix
Speaker:of people living in an area.
Speaker:If your essential workers have to travel large distances that financially impacts
Speaker:them because they then have to pay travel costs and they lose time away from family.
Speaker:Just in the commute.
Speaker:So I, I think it, it, it makes sense to have a varied demographic inside an area.
Speaker:And if you have to do it by blunt instruments like rates increases,
Speaker:it's probably not the best answer, but how else do you do it?
Speaker:Anyway, when it comes to
Speaker:Councillor SRI and the Brisbane City Council and whacking up rates 7.
Speaker:5 times the normal rate.
Speaker:If you've increased the rent really, it's a, in that situation you're just trying
Speaker:to do a rent freeze, which is, meh, more a state government or a federal government
Speaker:issue, but it'll be interesting to see how things pan out over the next election.
Speaker:There's a lot of grief in the, in the young community over rent and property
Speaker:prices, and there'll be a lot of sympathy for the Greens position, where they're
Speaker:at least talking about these things.
Speaker:L Landon's just made a comment.
Speaker:Amazing.
Speaker:Profits on rentals are not as amazing as many people think they are.
Speaker:They are great if you own the property for 20 or 30 years, but
Speaker:that's not every landlord's position.
Speaker:That would be true.
Speaker:When people have paid top dollar for a rental, they
Speaker:might have paid on the basis that they own the property.
Speaker:Either needed and the style of, of of income or, yeah, yep.
Speaker:It's one of those things, like, if they've, if they've, if they've...
Speaker:If they had to re, if they had to buy it and that sort of stuff, they
Speaker:borrowed it with borrowed money there, depending, 80 percent of that would
Speaker:be loaned, which they'd be getting charged interest on and everything else.
Speaker:So...
Speaker:It's really hard to wind back this situation of...
Speaker:When we've reached over inflated property levels.
Speaker:Oh yeah, I agree.
Speaker:We've had to wind it back now.
Speaker:And that is why I was very that's, you know, why I was taking Liam to task over
Speaker:that because if you actually, if you actually engineer a decline in rental,
Speaker:in value of property, then you end up engineering a failure in our economy.
Speaker:Ah, but to the Greens credit, federally, they were looking at phasing.
Speaker:If you recall, the changes to tax laws was quite clever, really,
Speaker:and I'm in agreement with it.
Speaker:It was about phasing out that 50 percent capital gains and...
Speaker:And phasing out some of the tax deductions over time.
Speaker:So that, that was clever by the Greens, federally.
Speaker:Yeah, I know.
Speaker:It's one of those things.
Speaker:Are they going to replace that, are they going to replace that with the old way
Speaker:of calculating capital gains tax or not?
Speaker:I can't was, Scott.
Speaker:or were they just going to phase it down so you end up paying 100
Speaker:percent of the profit on tax?
Speaker:Yes, I think the 50 percent discount was phased out over time.
Speaker:five to ten years.
Speaker:Whatever it was.
Speaker:So, so does that replace...
Speaker:was that then replaced with the old system where you're
Speaker:calculating capital gains or not?
Speaker:I can't recall.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I'm talking about Airbnb, by the way we rented a place in Manchester last week.
Speaker:The cost was 148.
Speaker:Pounds, but they include, on top of that was a 60 pound cleaning
Speaker:fee and a 32 pound service fee
Speaker:So, so it went from 150 pounds to 240 pounds.
Speaker:Is that a nine?
Speaker:Is it?
Speaker:Yeah, so I, I, it's just, you know, I, I wonder about Airbnb and
Speaker:what profits people are making.
Speaker:Yeah, yep.
Speaker:Because you go, oh, this is the rental price and then suddenly the
Speaker:rental price isn't the cost you pay.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:James in the chat room says, too many people using housing as an investment.
Speaker:That is what the stock market is for.
Speaker:Couldn't agree with you more, James.
Speaker:Just have to change the rules.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Well, I reckon that's enough, gentlemen.
Speaker:Keep some of these topics for next week.
Speaker:Particularly gender pay gap, etc.
Speaker:That'll do us.
Speaker:So pay doesn't exist.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, yeah.
Speaker:Anyway, we'll talk about that next week.
Speaker:Are you around, Joe?
Speaker:You gonna be near a internet connection and a computer next week?
Speaker:I believe.
Speaker:I am.
Speaker:I'm traveling back down to Devon on Sunday, so yeah.
Speaker:I should be around Tuesday morning my time.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:What about you, Scott?
Speaker:Yeah, I'll be here.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:You have finished your dinner before?
Speaker:Well, I finished my dinner and the reason why I had to go is because with my MS
Speaker:One of the holes in my brain is, is in the part that controls your swallowing
Speaker:and I was trying to eat too quickly and I've got some food stuck in my throat,
Speaker:so I had to go away and There you go.
Speaker:Vomit it up.
Speaker:So it wasn't very pleasant.
Speaker:I'm glad we muted you.
Speaker:Yes, exactly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yes Right, dear listener Thanks for joining, thanks for tuning in.
Speaker:We'll be back next week.
Speaker:Talk to you then.
Speaker:Bye for now.
Speaker:And it's a good night from me.
Speaker:And it's a good night from him.
Speaker:Good night.
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