full
Episode 416 - Chinese Spy Pidgeon
Topics:
(00:43) Intro
(05:09) Dutton Wedged
(08:22) Poor Conservative Electorates
(11:33) Median Wage
(21:34) Essential Poll
(28:55) Hecs Vs Mining Tax
(34:11) Boys School Turns CoEd
(39:23) Iran Iraq
(43:56) Chinese Spy Pidgeon
(48:11) Imran Khan
(56:31) Saul Eslake
(01:04:19) UK Version of Robo Debt
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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:It just occurred to me that I don't know the collective
Speaker:noun for a group of meerkats.
Speaker:Is it a pack, a tribe, a herd?
Speaker:Joe, help me out here, because I was just about to declare that, you know,
Speaker:we've got the full complement here.
Speaker:Scott the Velvet Glove, who was ill last week.
Speaker:Apparently it's a mob.
Speaker:A mob, okay.
Speaker:We have a full mob of meerkats for you on this podcast, dear listener.
Speaker:Streaming live to you from Brisbane, 8pm on Mondays.
Speaker:And, yeah, a podcast where we talk about news and politics, sex and religion.
Speaker:Like a small mob of meerkats, we're on our little hill, looking out on the
Speaker:world, trying to figure out what's going on, and trying to explain it to each
Speaker:other and to you, the dear listener.
Speaker:I'm Trevor, aka The Iron Fist.
Speaker:Returning from an illness is Scott the Velvet Glove.
Speaker:Tell everybody how you are, Scott.
Speaker:I'm very well thanks, Trevor.
Speaker:I'm, uh, back over it and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker:I was, it nearly knocked me on my arse for two days.
Speaker:I didn't feel all that good on Sunday night, but I went to bed early and woke
Speaker:up feeling really shitty on Tuesday.
Speaker:So, aside from that, I was over it on Wednesday, so I, um, on Monday
Speaker:actually, so on Tuesday I tested myself again, was still showing
Speaker:a faint line of being positive.
Speaker:So I tested myself again on Friday.
Speaker:And it was almost gone, so I tested myself on Saturday
Speaker:morning, it was completely clear.
Speaker:Very good.
Speaker:Of course, COVID is what Scott had, everybody, so, and uh, with
Speaker:five vaccinations under his belt, he was able to deal with it.
Speaker:That's probably why I was able to get over it so quickly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And Joe, you've had your own medical episodes, but we won't go into the
Speaker:details of those because they're quite messy, really, and we don't, we don't
Speaker:want to ruin anybody's dinner with that, so we'll just leave that as it is.
Speaker:Yeah, so if you're in the chat room, say hello.
Speaker:Nobody there yet, but people normally turn up.
Speaker:What's on the agenda?
Speaker:Well, you know, it's a podcast about news and politics, sex and religion
Speaker:in Australia and around the world.
Speaker:We're going to start with Australia with the tax changes, stage three.
Speaker:And the fact that Dutton is now getting wedged by this.
Speaker:There's an essential poll came out guys, I didn't give this to you in
Speaker:the notes, but we'll run through Australians and their views on,
Speaker:uh, Stage 3, Gaza and the Republic.
Speaker:Um, we'll talk about, uh, a bit of statistics, because we were
Speaker:mentioning average wage the other day.
Speaker:And I came across another article talking about how do we talk about average wage,
Speaker:median wage in Australia, and, uh, a school tragedy that has parents crying,
Speaker:a spy pigeon, a Chinese spy pigeon.
Speaker:Scott, do you, one of my favourite animal stories that we did
Speaker:was, uh, Dexter the Peacock.
Speaker:Do you remember Dexter the Peacock?
Speaker:That was the, um Uh, the Travelling Companion Bird, wasn't it?
Speaker:The support animal.
Speaker:Support animal, yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, it was quite an impressive peacock.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Full sized peacock.
Speaker:And the person arrived at the airport and, um, expected to be able to
Speaker:board the plane with their support animal, which was text to the peacock.
Speaker:That's going back a long way.
Speaker:That was in the first handful of episodes, I reckon that one's got.
Speaker:It's probably pretty early.
Speaker:Yeah, going back about eight years or so.
Speaker:Dexter the Peacock.
Speaker:Wonder whatever happened to Dexter.
Speaker:And, um, might get on to Imran Khan.
Speaker:I think we'll get on to Imran Khan and Pakistan and what's happened there.
Speaker:No surprise, but it's going to involve some foreign policy meddling
Speaker:by the United States of America.
Speaker:And, um, Saul Eslake described the worst policy decision by
Speaker:an Australian government ever.
Speaker:Uh, Scott Morrison's hands are all over it, so we'll mic in onto that.
Speaker:So that's on the agenda.
Speaker:There's chapters for this podcast.
Speaker:If your app is smart enough, you should be able to see some chapters.
Speaker:You can scoot around the topics, skip some, listen to some twice.
Speaker:It's up to you.
Speaker:But, uh, okay, let's get going.
Speaker:Saw an article that said, um, Opposition leader Peter Dutton's seat of Dixon,
Speaker:which is your electorate, Joe.
Speaker:Yep, never voted for it.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Can't blame you.
Speaker:In the analysis found 85 percent of taxpayers would be better off under
Speaker:Labor's plan, um, than the original format for the Stage 3 tax cuts.
Speaker:He hasn't declared what the I don't know what the Liberal Party is going
Speaker:to do when the revamped tax cuts come before Parliament, but, um,
Speaker:he's got no choice, has he, Scott?
Speaker:No, he's got absolutely no choice to back them.
Speaker:I mean, it was, it was bloody criminal stupidity that the
Speaker:Labor government actually backed the original Stage 3 tax cuts.
Speaker:Now, I said right from word go that all he had to do was actually during
Speaker:the election campaign, he said, look, we're committed to Stage 3, but
Speaker:we're not committed to the way that Stage 3 has been originally written.
Speaker:So, assuming we win, we will have a look at them and we will rejig
Speaker:them and that would have been fine.
Speaker:And they were worried about being wedged.
Speaker:Yeah, I know.
Speaker:And look, lo and behold, they're now wedged in Dutton.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Because it just makes sense.
Speaker:The original policy was so bad.
Speaker:I know.
Speaker:If you can't take a bad policy And explain it, offer an alternative and
Speaker:wedge your opponent on that, then you just shouldn't be in the game.
Speaker:So, uh.
Speaker:But you do realise that Dixon will still vote Dutton back in?
Speaker:Of course.
Speaker:God alone knows why.
Speaker:Yes, of course.
Speaker:Yeah, because I gather that Dixon isn't one of the wealthiest
Speaker:suburbs of Brisbane, is it?
Speaker:No, well, it's the outer suburb.
Speaker:Yeah, no, so it wouldn't be, you wouldn't have many millionaires
Speaker:out there, so, God knows.
Speaker:I mean, it's not like, even, um, the, the guy that's, um, Max,
Speaker:whatever his name is, the, um, Green.
Speaker:You know, he represents Bulimba and Hawthorne and all that sort
Speaker:of things, which are really the premier suburbs in Brisbane.
Speaker:And, you know, I, I just think to myself that Dutton is really You know, I cannot
Speaker:believe that he was actually going to try and make out that this was a terrible,
Speaker:ghastly thing that the Prime Minister did by breaking an election promise.
Speaker:You know, it's one of those things, like I remember at the time you
Speaker:were saying that either the shovel or something else was saying, oh,
Speaker:but we didn't think he was serious.
Speaker:Sue Albanese, you know, which is just, it's one of those things.
Speaker:It was so blatantly obvious that it was wrong that anyone that actually tried
Speaker:to defend it need their heads read.
Speaker:Yeah, because the vote is here.
Speaker:We'll be looking at Facebook adverts from Dutton, which will
Speaker:no doubt spin it in his light.
Speaker:Well, I've joined the Liberal tribe and as part of their loyalty to
Speaker:the tribe, they will vote for them.
Speaker:Even if the policies are against their best interest.
Speaker:Their personal interest, yeah.
Speaker:Because Labor raises taxes.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And they're gonna be worse off under a Labor government.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And because Liberals are much better economic managers, just all those things.
Speaker:But there's really an interesting class thing happening here because
Speaker:traditionally, you know, the Liberals and the Nationals were
Speaker:the conservatives who were seen as, as the party for the well to do.
Speaker:And if you look though, at their actual electorates that they're
Speaker:representing, because they've been pushed out into these.
Speaker:Regional suburbs, regional areas have actually been pushed out
Speaker:where their remaining base is the lower socio economic group.
Speaker:So, I saw this tweet from Koz Samaras, um, saying that, uh, did you know that
Speaker:the National Party with the LNP and to a lesser extent the Liberal Party
Speaker:hold well over half of the top 20 poorest federal seats in the country.
Speaker:Um, they now hold none.
Speaker:Of the top income electorates.
Speaker:So they really need to work out, um, which class they want to represent.
Speaker:And it's because all those electorates fell to the Teals.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:You know, it's just.
Speaker:Yeah, or to the Greens.
Speaker:Or to the Greens.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, so they still think of themselves as a party for the upper class Mmm,
Speaker:sort of financially, but they've pitched themselves Through sort of culture war
Speaker:issues, I guess To a policy platform.
Speaker:The lower middle class.
Speaker:That that is It's really only finding favour in the regions where people are
Speaker:poorer, so this party of the upper class is now representing, effectively, the
Speaker:lower class at the electorate level.
Speaker:They're the party of theocracy, and a lot of the poorer, certainly the
Speaker:western Sydney suburbs are the more religious, it's the hills, uh, I think
Speaker:it's much more the party of family values rather than the party of Um, The Rich.
Speaker:I mean, yeah, economically it definitely is the party of the rich, but socially
Speaker:it's the party of family values.
Speaker:Yeah, so they've just reached this point where their policy talk on
Speaker:things like tax and, and the, well, what did, uh, Nationals leader, uh,
Speaker:what's his name, uh, David Littleproud?
Speaker:Littleproud, yeah.
Speaker:By the way, my wife taught him when he was in primary school in Chinchilla.
Speaker:Really?
Speaker:Yeah, they're fun fact for you.
Speaker:She obviously didn't hit him hard enough.
Speaker:Now, now Joe.
Speaker:Yeah, I think his father was some sort of state member.
Speaker:at the time.
Speaker:I think it was, I think he did, he did have that sort of lineage
Speaker:that his father or something like that was some kind of other.
Speaker:He was obviously a National Party man and he was probably in the State
Speaker:Parliament because back then anyone could get in if you, if you just held
Speaker:your flag up and said I'm a National Party man you'll get a job there.
Speaker:Yeah, so, um, so that was Chinchilla.
Speaker:Chinchilla, by the way, was, um, considered just east of
Speaker:Too Far West because it was a three and a half hour drive.
Speaker:So, if you really had something on in the weekend, you could
Speaker:make it back to Brisbane.
Speaker:So, anyway, I've digressed.
Speaker:But, um, what did he say?
Speaker:He said that, um, um, the tax cuts in their original format were
Speaker:about giving everyone a fair go.
Speaker:And that, um, 190, 000 a year is not a lot, is what Lizzie Price is saying.
Speaker:I suppose it's not when your starting salary is 210, 000 a year, you know?
Speaker:Yeah, I think maybe I'll skip forward to, um, what is a lot, or what is the average?
Speaker:We're going to say 190, 000 is a lot.
Speaker:So, um, guys it was a bit further down in the notes, but
Speaker:let's just skip through to it.
Speaker:Um, because the Prime Minister noted that under the revision to the tax
Speaker:scales, an average wage earner on 73, 000 per year would be 1, 500 better off.
Speaker:So, Albanese was saying that the average wage earner is on, uh,
Speaker:comes out at 73, 000 per year.
Speaker:If he's correct, then when Little Proud says 190 is not a lot,
Speaker:I think Little Proud's wrong.
Speaker:But, um, yeah.
Speaker:So Two and a half times as large, isn't it?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um, so when they were selling the package, because remember,
Speaker:this is a goddamn policy.
Speaker:It's nearly six years old, like stage one, stage two, stage three.
Speaker:The craziness of this is policy written six years ago that has
Speaker:finally sort of come to the point where it was due to be implemented.
Speaker:Um, so back in 2018 when the Morrison government was Morrison, it was one
Speaker:of the conservative governments, was selling the idea and um, at that time,
Speaker:um, of the budget, they were saying the annual wage was 84, 000 per year and the
Speaker:treasury forecasting a rise to 103, 000.
Speaker:So um, if, if the budget was talking about the average as being 84,
Speaker:000 back then, how can Albanese be saying it's 73, 000 now and what
Speaker:exactly is the average income?
Speaker:And, as this writer in an article says, and you get the article in the
Speaker:show notes, dear listener, it's Harry, uh, Chamai, writing in, I'm pretty
Speaker:sure it was the John Menendee blog.
Speaker:Um, he says, if you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything.
Speaker:We found that during the COVID, um, yeah, time.
Speaker:Boy, did we torture some data, or did some people torture some data?
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:We won't go there.
Speaker:Um, so what he says, on closer inspection, the PM's reference to 73, 000 is a
Speaker:reference to the average current taxable income across all full time workers.
Speaker:Um, and, um, back in 82, oh, sorry, and back in 2018, um, it was the
Speaker:annualised average weekly earnings of a full time adult at the time,
Speaker:rather than all full time workers.
Speaker:And, um, what we've got, of course, is, dear listener, the incomes at
Speaker:the top end are extremely high, which skew the average to a higher point.
Speaker:Then if you had lined every Australian up and walked along the line and
Speaker:stopped at the halfway point, thereby getting the median wage.
Speaker:So that to me Would seem like the best measure of the average Australian.
Speaker:Scott, would you agree that if you just lined everybody up, poorest
Speaker:to, well, lowest income to highest income and stopped halfway, that's
Speaker:a better assessment average?
Speaker:Well, I would have thought so, but um, I'm a fairly simplistic bloke.
Speaker:I just like to add it up and divide by the numbers, that's all.
Speaker:Really?
Speaker:Joe, what's your preference for talking about an average Aussie income?
Speaker:Well, see.
Speaker:There are three averages, isn't there?
Speaker:There's the mean, median and mode.
Speaker:And the mode is, is actually the most numerous of all incomes.
Speaker:So you, you take, you break people into bands or whatever, and then you
Speaker:take the most popular of those bands.
Speaker:And that probably is the better outcome.
Speaker:But the median is considerably better than the mean.
Speaker:That's a myth.
Speaker:The mean is, the mean is simple, but it gets skewed by outliers.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I know, which it does.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Alright.
Speaker:So that's, you know, I understand what you're saying.
Speaker:You're criticising my choice of mean, so.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm surprised by your preference for it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's one of those things, you know, I'll take anything.
Speaker:You know, I'm not going to sit there and actually calculate it myself, so
Speaker:I'll just take the mean, the medium.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:Let me scoot forward to get to, um, um, uh, he says in this article,
Speaker:the suggestion that 200, 000 might be a middling income, uh, must
Speaker:surely push the bounds of credulity.
Speaker:And um, uh, he says the median is not 200, 000.
Speaker:Um, basically, ah, what does he say here?
Speaker:Um,
Speaker:uh, data indicates that the average full time adult worker Yeah,
Speaker:earning 85,000 in 2018, um, is earning around 99,000 in May 23.
Speaker:So average full-time adult worker.
Speaker:The median full-time earnings, um, uh, back in 2018 was
Speaker:76,000, and now it's 88,000.
Speaker:So if you're looking at full-time job.
Speaker:Um, then the median full time job, uh, salary in Australia
Speaker:is currently around 88, 000.
Speaker:I think that's a sort of a fair, seems about right to me.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:A long way short of 190, 000.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:So, let's go back to, um, Essential Report.
Speaker:And let me just find this, um, So they've been polling people about their
Speaker:reactions to the, um, to the Stage 3 tax cuts and what's been going on.
Speaker:And basically, overall, um, only, now it depends on the poll that you look at.
Speaker:The essential poll says Only 22 percent of people want the Stage
Speaker:3 tax cuts to remain unchanged.
Speaker:So that's a huge proportion of the population agreeing with Labor at
Speaker:least that it needs to be changed.
Speaker:And that's the wedge that Dutton is facing.
Speaker:That if he was to insist on no changes, only 22 percent of
Speaker:people would agree with him.
Speaker:Um, uh.
Speaker:Actually, maybe I can share this screen.
Speaker:Let me try and do that.
Speaker:I suppose that, um, you know, how big a threat are the
Speaker:Greens and that sort of stuff?
Speaker:Could they actually cross the floor and vote to actually No, they wouldn't
Speaker:actually keep them, would they?
Speaker:If they did, they'd look very bloody stupid, wouldn't they?
Speaker:Oh, the Greens will try and push for, um Yeah, I know they're going to push
Speaker:to have more of it heading down the lower end, but I just think to myself
Speaker:that they've got a choice in the end.
Speaker:They either take what Labor has offered them, or they actually, um, vote to
Speaker:maintain the current package, which would make them look very bloody stupid.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, um, top chart there is basically overall.
Speaker:Because they ask people a year, um, sort of In November 23, what they thought,
Speaker:then they asked them again in January 24, nothing changed much, but essentially 22
Speaker:percent of people say leave it as it is.
Speaker:The rest, to some degree, want things changed.
Speaker:And, uh, males, 27 percent want to leave the tax cuts as they
Speaker:were designed by Scott Morrison.
Speaker:Females, 17 percent want to leave them, so Uh, women more likely
Speaker:to want the tax cuts changed.
Speaker:And age wise, this one's interesting, 18 to 34, um, 17
Speaker:percent want them to continue.
Speaker:Um, middle aged Australians, um, also want them to continue, 26%.
Speaker:It actually decreased a bit for the boomers.
Speaker:So the boomers aren't as bad as they normally are when it
Speaker:comes to that age demographic.
Speaker:They're not earning income.
Speaker:Yes, that's it at that point.
Speaker:You're right, Joe.
Speaker:They're asset rich and income poor.
Speaker:Of course.
Speaker:Ask them what they think of franking credits and you'll get a different story.
Speaker:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker:We'll get on to franking credits.
Speaker:And Coalition, according to Essential Poll, 33 percent of coalition
Speaker:voters wanted to leave the tax cuts as they were originally designed.
Speaker:Uh, everybody else is around the 16%.
Speaker:So, that was, um, that was on the, uh, sort of Australian view on the tax cuts.
Speaker:Um, just while we're here on the Essential Poll, uh, next one coming up is Attitudes
Speaker:to the Israel Palestine conflict, and the third one on the chart is the one that
Speaker:gets me here, guys, is to what extent do you agree with the following statement?
Speaker:And the statement is, the Israeli response is proportionate, and 12
Speaker:percent of Australians agree with that, and 20 percent somewhat agree, and 45
Speaker:percent neither agree nor disagree.
Speaker:So, to some extent, 32 percent of Australians think that the
Speaker:Israeli response is proportionate, and 45 percent just don't know.
Speaker:That leaves only 22 percent of Australians who think that the
Speaker:Israeli response is disproportionate.
Speaker:Does that seem, um, strange to you?
Speaker:Well, I think 45 percent of people just don't care.
Speaker:Yes, you did right.
Speaker:45 percent just don't care.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Gender wise on that one, let's see what the, um, break up is.
Speaker:Uh, and the Israeli response is proportionate.
Speaker:39 percent of males agree, only 25 percent of females agree.
Speaker:And voting intention.
Speaker:Ah, the Israeli response is proportionate, uh, 45%, 44 percent of coalition voters
Speaker:agree, 15 percent of Greens voters.
Speaker:It's just interesting that something that's, you know, a conflict in the
Speaker:Middle East between two countries splits opinion here so much along
Speaker:party lines, party political lines.
Speaker:It's like Our political parties don't have strongly stated foreign
Speaker:policy views going into an election.
Speaker:Nobody really looks at foreign policy and it's just amazing that it breaks down on
Speaker:party lines so much what people think.
Speaker:Yeah, but Dutton did make a big song and dance about it and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You know, he accused the Labor Party of being anti Zionist or
Speaker:something like that, didn't he?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:He used to be very anti Semitism.
Speaker:But Palestine has long been a, a thing of the left.
Speaker:And therefore it doesn't surprise me that, um, the greeds voters, 'cause I
Speaker:really don't consider labor left anymore.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:Possibly centrist.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:Um, and, uh, you know, LMP voters are again, theocrats
Speaker:who want the end of the world.
Speaker:And the sooner that the Arabs and the Israelis keep killing themselves,
Speaker:the sooner Jesus comes back.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:In Australia?
Speaker:Have we reached that point in Australia, Joe?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I don't believe it's that large a proportion, but No.
Speaker:But there is certainly part of it.
Speaker:Part of it is that thinking.
Speaker:You know, there is some within the Liberal Party that would actually hold
Speaker:that view because their mates over in the Yanks in America believe that.
Speaker:They also polled people about Australia Day and asked people, um, will you
Speaker:be doing something to celebrate Australia Day or will you just be
Speaker:treating it as a public holiday?
Speaker:And, um, basically, people have tended towards treating it as a public holiday
Speaker:and not necessarily doing something, um To celebrate the Australian ness of it.
Speaker:But if you look at the age breakdown, the older you are, the more likely
Speaker:to you are to celebrate Australia Day as Australia Day, rather than
Speaker:just enjoying the public holiday.
Speaker:And just finally, they also asked people about support for
Speaker:Australia becoming a republic.
Speaker:And Scott, strongly support.
Speaker:Young people recorded the lowest.
Speaker:So, um, only 12 percent of the young people, 18 to 34,
Speaker:strongly supported a republic.
Speaker:Whereas the, um, the older age groups, that was either 22 or 23 percent.
Speaker:So you're a, you're still a card carrying member of the, um,
Speaker:Yeah, of the Republican movement.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Uh, that doesn't surprise me.
Speaker:Um, I think that, um, probably the Republican movement's biggest
Speaker:problem is that we're facing a generation of they don't care.
Speaker:So as a result, uh, you, it really doesn't surprise me that people
Speaker:don't care and that type of thing.
Speaker:So that's where you've got those sorts of numbers coming up.
Speaker:It's one of those things that, um, I did see something with it.
Speaker:They reckon that the crown has had probably a bigger impact on the Republican
Speaker:movement than anything else has.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That series on Netflix.
Speaker:Yeah, it did.
Speaker:It did actually paint.
Speaker:The old girl is a complex figure, you know.
Speaker:Complex, yes.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:A complete bitch at times, and you know, at other times.
Speaker:A complete bitch at times, but at other times quite a human being.
Speaker:One of those things, apparently she has watched it and that sort of stuff.
Speaker:And she actually admitted that, um, she does feel somewhat bad for
Speaker:the way she treated her sister.
Speaker:This is Queen Elizabeth.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Was it, was it produced before she died?
Speaker:Yes, it was produced before she died.
Speaker:Oh, right.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:There you go.
Speaker:I only just saw her.
Speaker:Been out for a while.
Speaker:I only just saw her.
Speaker:Been out for a long time.
Speaker:Six months ago.
Speaker:Something there, that's how far behind the times I am.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Yeah, it's, it's apparently that, um, she admitted to someone that she feels
Speaker:Badly for the way she treated her sister.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Over her marriage to Peter Townsend.
Speaker:Mm hmm.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:So, you're right.
Speaker:The younger group have a bit more ambivalent about it all
Speaker:and don't have any strong views.
Speaker:So, yeah.
Speaker:Anyway, that was Essential Pole.
Speaker:Get rid of that from the screen.
Speaker:Um, yeah.
Speaker:And Alison's in the chat room and says she saw a report that said two
Speaker:thirds of people earning over 200, 000 or above support the changes.
Speaker:I saw a similar thing.
Speaker:I think that was from the Australia Institute.
Speaker:That was it, yes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, oh, look, just briefly, one more chart to show you because I've
Speaker:got it here, which was just a chart showing how much is carved off from
Speaker:helping the top end and And then comes in to assisting the bottom end.
Speaker:So that was a good chart, if it shows up correctly on there.
Speaker:But, uh, does it?
Speaker:Hang on.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's showing up.
Speaker:Yeah, good.
Speaker:So that was that one.
Speaker:I think that, honestly, they've got to be very comfortable with
Speaker:it because they're getting four and a half grand out of it all.
Speaker:Which, on a weekly basis, turns out to be 86 bucks a week, which is fine.
Speaker:You know, you compare that to the 9, 000 they're originally going to
Speaker:get, then that is just too high.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, um, so there's a guy, Richard Dennis, from the Australia Institute.
Speaker:He, um, used to have a podcast that I listened to whenever it came out.
Speaker:It was the, um, can't think what it was called, but he was a, he's an economist.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And he does actually, he turns up sometimes on 7 a.
Speaker:m.
Speaker:too.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Talker.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:He's got some things to say about mining tax and hex.
Speaker:Here we go.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I listened to it.
Speaker:Listen to this.
Speaker:Consider the fact that in Norway, they tax the fossil fuel
Speaker:industry and they give university education to their kids for free.
Speaker:In Australia, we subsidise the fossil fuel industry and we charge
Speaker:our kids a fortune to go to uni.
Speaker:Choices matter.
Speaker:And the Australian government collects more money from HECS than it does
Speaker:from the petroleum resource rent tax.
Speaker:Thank you, children.
Speaker:You're the backbone of our economy, not the gas industry.
Speaker:That's an interesting statistic.
Speaker:It's really fucking wrong, isn't it?
Speaker:If you could just reach people and tell them that, you wouldn't have to argue
Speaker:too long to say this is clearly wrong.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Look what these other guys are doing, maybe we should be doing the same.
Speaker:How about we do it?
Speaker:If you don't like it, don't vote for us, but if you do like it, vote for us.
Speaker:It's one of those things, I just think that, I just think to myself that,
Speaker:um If we actually did follow Norway's example, do they honestly believe that
Speaker:the coal miners and the gas frackers and everything else that are over
Speaker:here in this country, do we honestly believe that they would actually
Speaker:pull up stumps and move elsewhere?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:They wouldn't.
Speaker:They come here and they invest here because our ground is full of shit that
Speaker:they can dig out and sell overseas.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Just criminal.
Speaker:Future generations are going to be so angry with our generation.
Speaker:And even if they did have sticks, the stuff's still in the ground.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Wait for someone else to come along who's willing to play the game and
Speaker:say, Okay, here's a deal for you.
Speaker:You're still making lots of money.
Speaker:Just obscene amounts of money.
Speaker:It's criminal.
Speaker:Future generations are going to look back on Australia in the last 50 years.
Speaker:And just go, what a chompy bunch you are.
Speaker:And they're going to be very rightfully very angry about it, you know?
Speaker:Well, I mean, the whole, um, wasn't it Sussan Ley?
Speaker:Who was held originally to be responsible for future generations, the state of
Speaker:the climate for future generations?
Speaker:I know it was overturned on appeal, um, but is that not precedent for
Speaker:suing governments for inaction?
Speaker:Just over the amount of money that's being wasted.
Speaker:On behalf of a future generation.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I don't know what the current legal position is on that.
Speaker:I do remember there were those cases.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So they won in the lower court and I think it was overturned
Speaker:in one of the higher courts.
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:But it might have been on a technicality.
Speaker:Possibly.
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:There really should be a Minister for Future Generations who
Speaker:gets to say, Hang on a minute.
Speaker:This is just, um, lining the pocket of the current generation at the
Speaker:expense of the future generation.
Speaker:Well, I think that's really bloody crooked that, you know, the HECS
Speaker:is higher than the mining resource rent tax, for Christ's sake.
Speaker:Mmm.
Speaker:Yeah, there we go.
Speaker:But even when things are obvious like that, can a government actually sell it?
Speaker:And, of course, we had Shorten could not make it into, um, being the Prime
Speaker:Minister on the basis, probably, of the franking credits and how, um,
Speaker:that panned out and, uh, there we go.
Speaker:There's a chart showing that the richest 10 percent received 70 percent
Speaker:of the franking credits in 2020, 2021.
Speaker:But they need them.
Speaker:It's one of those things that I find incredibly frustrating.
Speaker:Oh, man.
Speaker:I was very much in support of it and I just said to him, I
Speaker:said to him once, I said, why?
Speaker:You know, it was designed not to be a, it was designed not to pay you back the tax.
Speaker:It was simply designed to stop you being double taxed.
Speaker:And it was just something that Peter Costello invented because he was
Speaker:embarrassed by the amount of money that was flowing to the government.
Speaker:So they had no choice but to actually give it back to people.
Speaker:Governments in good times are really dangerous.
Speaker:Oh God.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:They're Costello Government was dangerous.
Speaker:They could do all sorts of things.
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:And lock us into systems and become really hard to turn around.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:. Yeah.
Speaker:Um, oh, here's another clip for you.
Speaker:Um, like, you know, I unfortunately in high school went to an.
Speaker:All Boys School, and it's one of the, I don't know if you can say regrets of
Speaker:life, but, because I didn't have any say in it, but boy I wished I'd gone to a
Speaker:co ed state school, and um, it took me years to overcome what had been done to
Speaker:me there, and um, and so I was really determined that my kids would go to a co
Speaker:ed school and have a normal childhood, which they did, thankfully, but um, Let
Speaker:me just get a clip here, because one of the schools in Melbourne, I think it
Speaker:is, has I believe it's Sydney, isn't it?
Speaker:Sydney, was it?
Speaker:No, I think it's Sydney.
Speaker:Um, previously a boys school has, a principal has decided to make it a co
Speaker:ed school, and here is the reaction.
Speaker:I'm an old boy at the school, and my son is also an old boy, and the intention
Speaker:was always that I'd have a grandson.
Speaker:But I won't bring him to a co ed school.
Speaker:It's all part of this sort of woke, toxic masculinity type palaver.
Speaker:I'm sorry, but I'm not a, uh, a co ed person.
Speaker:It's a boys school, it's always been a boys school, and, uh, uh, there's
Speaker:no, um, justification, no explanation, no evidence to support this move.
Speaker:I know my grandson was rejected from going to, uh, to year three in a
Speaker:couple of years time because they had, uh, Thoughts of young ladies.
Speaker:We are protesting against the school's decision to, uh, Uh, not
Speaker:notify the parents and gag the parents and the students from having
Speaker:a free voice to be heard about the school and the headmaster's
Speaker:decision to make the school co ed.
Speaker:It wasn't as strong as I would have liked to have seen today.
Speaker:Well, I just think it's, uh, ridiculous that after 160 years of thinking
Speaker:it's a good idea to have a boys, you know, a boys only school for the
Speaker:development of boys through, you know, a very developmental part of their
Speaker:lives without being influenced by.
Speaker:Considerations of what, you know, they should look like or how they
Speaker:should act in front of girls.
Speaker:Why is that wrong after 160 years?
Speaker:We have another meeting tonight that we're going to try and
Speaker:look at more at the legal side.
Speaker:Yeah, 160 years.
Speaker:I mean, it's, it's not like we've ever seen evidence of, of private
Speaker:school boys behaving badly.
Speaker:Traditionally, it's just peer pressure from dead people.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:It's one of those things.
Speaker:I mean, you know, it's one of those things when I was at my old boys school
Speaker:and that sort of stuff, I remember thinking at the time that I would be
Speaker:better off in a co ed school because guys behave differently in front of
Speaker:girls than what they do on their own, because they behave like utter wankers
Speaker:when they're on their own, you know?
Speaker:The bullying and everything else would evaporate overnight
Speaker:if you put girls in there.
Speaker:Oh, I'm not so sure about that, but Well, it would help.
Speaker:Educationally, I think boys do better off in co ed and girls do worse off.
Speaker:Absolutely, they do.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:Which is one of the things that I thought to myself that, um, because they say that
Speaker:girls do better in single sex schools, but boys do better in co ed schools.
Speaker:So My kids went to, you know, just a state high school, co ed, obviously,
Speaker:and they reckon at university You could pick the kids who had gone to a single
Speaker:sex school, like, their disbehaviour was really obvious, I reckon, so, um, yeah.
Speaker:Alison, are you still there in the chat room?
Speaker:Did you go to an all girls school, Alison?
Speaker:Um, did you find at university a difference between, uh, kids Boys who
Speaker:went to an all boys school, for example, where they I wouldn't be surprised
Speaker:that, um, anybody that'd go to a co ed school and that sort of stuff would
Speaker:probably say that boys were just a little less mature and that sort of
Speaker:stuff by the time we got to university.
Speaker:But the girls as well!
Speaker:I know that, um, my daughter's daughter said that, uh, girls.
Speaker:Mackaya State High School is where Alison went to high school.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But Alison, when you went to uni, did you notice any difference between those, you
Speaker:know, who had your fellow students who had been to single sex schools or not?
Speaker:Just curious as to whether you noticed anything.
Speaker:So, yeah, there we go.
Speaker:So that's private school.
Speaker:First world problem there.
Speaker:I can't believe that guy was crying.
Speaker:Yes, you know, it's it's one of those things like I was gonna have a
Speaker:grandchild, but I can't have one now.
Speaker:Yes I thought it was weird that all private school boys
Speaker:all wore the same clothes.
Speaker:There you go So I had a certain type of dress style.
Speaker:That's what Alison is saying.
Speaker:I think at university Hmm.
Speaker:Okay That was that Let's look around the world now Get away
Speaker:from Australia, uh, Iran, Iraq.
Speaker:So now we've got, um, there was an attack on a U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:Army base, um, in Jordan.
Speaker:Killed three U.
Speaker:S., three U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:soldiers.
Speaker:Um, the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:is blaming, um, Iranian backed militants.
Speaker:Uh, some sort of drone, I think, came into the camp.
Speaker:Um, and they've then launched attacks on what they say are
Speaker:Iranian facilities that are in other neighbouring countries and places.
Speaker:So they're saying it's Iran's fault and they've bombed a few
Speaker:Iranian place, Iranian backed places in non Iranian territory.
Speaker:Because, hey, they're the US and if you're not bombing some brown people in
Speaker:the sandy desert somewhere, then just, you know, you're not doing your job.
Speaker:And uh, of course, Iraqi resistance is claiming responsibility.
Speaker:Um, uh, and the base is actually mostly in Syria and is used by the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:to steal Syrian oil and the Iraqi government wants the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:to leave as well.
Speaker:So there's still enormous numbers of U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:personnel and U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:bases in these countries.
Speaker:Despite the new government's wanting them to just piss off and go home,
Speaker:but they insist on staying there.
Speaker:So Guys, you reckon they might, you know, we did predictions at the beginning of
Speaker:the year and I don't know that anybody predicted a sort of a hot war in the
Speaker:Middle East Like getting quite sizable, but I don't think it's going that way.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:They're really keen to blame Iran for stuff They talk about the Iranian
Speaker:backed Houthis And they're clearly trying to pin Iran for this, and Iran's
Speaker:one of the bigger militaries able to Yeah, they've wanted to pick a fight
Speaker:with Iran for a long time, but Yes.
Speaker:I think they've always been scared off because it is one
Speaker:of the bigger militaries.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:That's why they've backed Saddam for so long.
Speaker:It's one of those things, if it does actually come to fisticuffs and all
Speaker:that sort of stuff, I've no doubt that the US will eventually succeed.
Speaker:But, they're going to have to withdraw their support from Ukraine and
Speaker:everything else, put everything into the Middle East, and they will succeed.
Speaker:It's going to take them a very long time.
Speaker:But they will do it.
Speaker:Succeed as well as they did in Afghanistan?
Speaker:No, it's one of those things, they're just gonna, they're just gonna leave behind
Speaker:a wrecked country and all that sort of stuff that wasn't perfect but was stable.
Speaker:And they're gonna fuck it up completely and then they'll withdraw.
Speaker:Yeah, they'll succeed.
Speaker:They'll succeed in transferring funds from the hands of taxpayers into
Speaker:the pockets of big corporations.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:The military industrial complex and the makers of weapons and Yes.
Speaker:Mills Steel complex, but but also the, the private security industry that
Speaker:follows along, behind and builds all the infrastructure rebuilds the country.
Speaker:Mm, yeah.
Speaker:That was Dick Chinese company, wasn't it?
Speaker:Holywell or something like that?
Speaker:Or Holywell was one of the companies.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, it was also sort like that Black something.
Speaker:Black rock.
Speaker:Black Rock.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:I can't remember what it was.
Speaker:I thought it was Black Rock, anyway.
Speaker:Yeah, so, anyway, they're spoiling for a fight over there, and You know, if
Speaker:they want to fight and that sort of stuff, they're going to get a fight.
Speaker:But then their only, their only, their only support in the region is going to be
Speaker:Israel, which will make it all that sort of a hell of a lot of a mess for them.
Speaker:And, you know, it's, you know The 67 war, the Israelis won.
Speaker:I'm not convinced that it would actually win another concerted effort
Speaker:of Arab countries if they, if all, if all three of the Arab countries
Speaker:actually took on Israel again this time.
Speaker:But they do have nukes.
Speaker:I know they've got nukes now, and I honestly believe that Israel would
Speaker:actually be prepared to use them.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Yeah, I think they would.
Speaker:Blackwater, according to Don.
Speaker:Thanks, Don.
Speaker:Um, yeah.
Speaker:Anyway, they're spoiling for a fight over there.
Speaker:See what happens.
Speaker:Um, that's, um, the Iranians, and I like this one about the spy pigeon.
Speaker:So Yeah, I was reading them, I thought to myself, Jesus Christ,
Speaker:how the hell did that happen?
Speaker:Anyway.
Speaker:A pigeon has been released in India after being held in detention for eight months
Speaker:on suspicion of being a Chinese spy.
Speaker:The pigeon's ordeal began in May last year when it was captured near a port in Mumbai
Speaker:with two rings tied to its legs carrying words that appeared to be Chinese.
Speaker:Yeah, they could've got used.
Speaker:They could've got them They used in the past.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But they could've got them translated, couldn't they could have actually got
Speaker:the, they could have actually got the words and that sort of stuff translated
Speaker:into Hindi and that sort of stuff.
Speaker:And then there was, oh yeah.
Speaker:It's not a spy pigeon, you know?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So , uh.
Speaker:But, um, Don in the chat room says you do know that the birds aren't real,
Speaker:they're all surveillance drones, yeah?
Speaker:Because you've heard about that person starting that movement, Birds Aren't Real?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So you've actually got dickheads out in the US actually dragging around
Speaker:signs saying birds aren't real.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So the guy who started it did it as a joke.
Speaker:Yeah, I know.
Speaker:It seemed like there were enough people who were prepared to sign up
Speaker:to the belief that it became a thing.
Speaker:But, uh, yeah, anyway.
Speaker:The animal turned out to be a racing bird from Taiwan, which had
Speaker:escaped and travelled to India.
Speaker:So it was in Chinese.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Joe, when you said they've done it before, Like, they've used
Speaker:carrier pigeons to pass messages.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So, so there's an April Fool's, so on the internet, there's a bunch of standards
Speaker:that are called RFCs, and quite often there's an April 1st RFC, and one of
Speaker:them is IP over Avian Carrier, which was literally sticking a thumb drive
Speaker:onto a carrier pigeon to send messages.
Speaker:And it has been done in real life.
Speaker:Somebody decided to print out a message, a computer message, onto
Speaker:paper, stick it on the leg of a carrier pigeon, er, a racing pigeon, send
Speaker:it across town and then decode it.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:See, some people have just too much time on their hands.
Speaker:Obviously.
Speaker:Anyway, with typical Indian efficiency, it took them eight months to figure out that
Speaker:it was just a harmless, um, racing pigeon.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Apparently, it's not the first time a bird has come under police suspicion in India.
Speaker:In 2020, police in Indian controlled Kashmir released a pigeon belonging to a
Speaker:Pakistani fisherman after a probe found that the bird which had flown across the
Speaker:heavily militarised border between the nuclear armed nations, was not a spy.
Speaker:And, um, yeah, so it's not the first time, and I thought, blowing it, blowing it.
Speaker:What are they going to do with a bird?
Speaker:What are they going to do, put a gun to its head and say you've
Speaker:got to confess or we'll shoot you?
Speaker:Well, you know, it's just one of those things, you just Well, I don't know.
Speaker:They could just shoot it, and it would be dead.
Speaker:It's a very, it's a very effective method of transferring messages.
Speaker:We used to do it.
Speaker:Yeah, it is.
Speaker:Back up until the end of the First World War.
Speaker:Exactly, but you know, you could find out what that message actually said.
Speaker:They just actually have to take the paper off it, get it translated
Speaker:into Hindi, and they say, oh fuck, it's got nothing to do with it.
Speaker:But it's in code.
Speaker:Yeah, and you know Indians got lots of important stuff that China would
Speaker:just want to find out about, so.
Speaker:I don't know about China, there's only Pakistan.
Speaker:I know that China would like to know what India's up to, but it's just,
Speaker:you know, they have come to blows over their Indian Chinese border, but you
Speaker:know, it's just one of those things.
Speaker:I just I don't believe that they kept a bird in custody for eight months.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Anyway, um, it was in ABC News, reported by the Associated Press, so one
Speaker:assumes that the incident is correct.
Speaker:So, had you guys been following Imran Khan at all?
Speaker:And Yeah, I Had you had any understanding of what's going on there?
Speaker:It's one of those things I didn't re I know that he had actually
Speaker:spoken out against the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:and all that sort of stuff before I actually read the
Speaker:whole thing that you sent us.
Speaker:And it's one of those things, uh, was he too cooperative with Vladimir Putin
Speaker:and Chinese President Xi Jinping?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:It's just one of those things.
Speaker:He's probably too close to the Russians.
Speaker:But anyway, he's also, he's the Prime Minister of an independent country.
Speaker:He's entitled to have any sort of relationship he wishes
Speaker:to have around the globe.
Speaker:Uh, I honestly do not believe that what he was actually crucified for was that bad.
Speaker:All he said was, you've got to actually solve this, you've
Speaker:got to solve this, um, fight diplomatically, not on the battlefield.
Speaker:Which is a perfectly valid thing for a country to say.
Speaker:Aggressively neutral, I think it was described as.
Speaker:They might call it aggressively neutral, maybe, eh?
Speaker:Why are you being so aggressively neutral on this issue?
Speaker:I just think to myself that Imran Khan, you know, he was probably the
Speaker:best that Pakistan had to offer and all that type of thing, so I'd Joe,
Speaker:were you going to say something?
Speaker:Sorry.
Speaker:Yeah, I thought that, um, he was scarily religious in some things.
Speaker:Yeah, but he wasn't as religious as some of the others.
Speaker:His wife is very, um, wears the full burqa, I think, or a fairly full covering.
Speaker:A niqab, doesn't she?
Speaker:Maybe not the burqa, but the next level.
Speaker:Yeah, a niqab, doesn't she?
Speaker:Yeah, I think she might be quite, uh, religious, but Yeah, I thought there
Speaker:was something about blasphemy that, um He'd made comments on, or he'd brought
Speaker:in some blasphemy law that was, maybe he wasn't such a As much of my, as I'm pro
Speaker:secular, whatever he did in that line isn't enough to justify the US coming
Speaker:in and organising regime change and having him thrown in jail for 10 years.
Speaker:So, um, which is what's happened.
Speaker:So, there's an article from Jeffrey Sachs.
Speaker:You guys probably don't like Jeffrey Sachs because Uh, he was kind of taking
Speaker:my, well I was taking his line on Ukraine and stuff, so, um, um, anyway.
Speaker:So, in this article by Jeffrey Sachs, he says there's strong
Speaker:reasons to suspect the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:is behind, uh, the overthrow of Imran Khan, and, um, he says of
Speaker:course, regime change by the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:is routine, and there's a link to a report that counts 64
Speaker:covert regime change operations.
Speaker:The U.
Speaker:By the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:between 1947 and 1989, that's a lot, and he says that Imran Khan's sin was to be
Speaker:too cooperative with Putin and Xi Jinping, and while seeking to just have normal
Speaker:relations with the United States, and Khan from the start said the conflict should
Speaker:be settled at the negotiating table rather than on the battlefield, like, guys, stop
Speaker:killing each other, and start negotiating.
Speaker:Um, he probably sealed his fate though when he held a large rally and he berated
Speaker:the West and particularly EU ambassadors for pressuring him to condemn Russia.
Speaker:And he also, uh, complained about NATO's war against terror in
Speaker:Afghanistan as having, um, It's been very devastating for Pakistan.
Speaker:And he told the cheering crowd about, uh, the US ambassadors wrote a letter
Speaker:to us, meaning Khan and Pakistan, asking us to condemn and vote against Russia.
Speaker:What do you think of us?
Speaker:Are we your slaves?
Speaker:That whatever you say, we will do?
Speaker:He said, we are friends with Russia.
Speaker:We are also friends with America.
Speaker:We are friends with China and with Europe.
Speaker:We're not in any camp.
Speaker:Pakistan will remain neutral and work with Um, those trying to end the war.
Speaker:So, one day after that rally, there is an Assistant Secretary
Speaker:of State for the Bureau of South Central Asian Affairs, a Donald Lu.
Speaker:So he's the American, um, he meets with Pakistan's ambassador,
Speaker:um, an Asad Majid Khan.
Speaker:And basically, um, a cable is then sent from Khan back to So, from the Pakistani
Speaker:ambassador back to Pakistan and um, the cable quotes the American guy as saying
Speaker:to the Pakistani ambassador, um, the people here in Europe are quite concerned
Speaker:about why Pakistan has taken such an aggressively neutral position and then
Speaker:said, quote, uh, I think if the, if the no confidence vote against the Prime
Speaker:Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven.
Speaker:Um, so basically telling the ambassador that the US will forgive Pakistan
Speaker:if there's a no confidence motion against Imran Khan and otherwise
Speaker:it's going to be tough going ahead.
Speaker:So five weeks later after that threat, the Pakistan's military, um, controls or
Speaker:has a hold over the Pakistani parliament.
Speaker:and ousted Imran Khan in a no confidence vote.
Speaker:And then they, according to Jeffrey Sachs, um, brazenly manufactured
Speaker:charges of corruption against Imran Khan, put him under arrest.
Speaker:And when Khan made known the existence of that diplomatic cable and the threat
Speaker:made by America, the new government charged Imran Khan with espionage.
Speaker:And that's what he's been convicted of for 10 years.
Speaker:So the Americans threatened Pakistan, basically saying, life's
Speaker:not going to be good for you.
Speaker:Unless you do a no confidence motion against Imran Khan.
Speaker:And when Imran Khan revealed that message, he was in charge with espionage
Speaker:against Pakistan and given 10 years.
Speaker:Ah.
Speaker:When asked about Khan's conviction, the State Department had the
Speaker:following to say, quote, it's a matter for the Pakistani courts.
Speaker:And there we have it.
Speaker:A man in another country thrown into jail for 10 years.
Speaker:For being aggressively neutral.
Speaker:It's quite a story, isn't it?
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:Joe, any thoughts on that one?
Speaker:Any hesitation?
Speaker:Any sort of sounds about right?
Speaker:Or you're like, yeah, it's a bit of a beat up?
Speaker:Or you just don't know?
Speaker:It's Pakistan.
Speaker:I can't say I'm surprised.
Speaker:Um, there's a lot of corruption in there, as far as I know.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:There is, but as, as to whether or not Kahan was actually knee deep in
Speaker:it, like they allege is another story.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:, you know, it's, and fine.
Speaker:Sorry, go on.
Speaker:It's one of those things I, I don't think we're ever gonna
Speaker:know exactly what the truth is.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But if he, if he wasn't, and his opponents were, it's a good thing
Speaker:to smear him with, isn't it?
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Apparently that, that um, that message is in the public domain
Speaker:now, it's been leaked and it seems it's legitimate, so, there we go.
Speaker:A successful regime change.
Speaker:Chalk up another one for the United States.
Speaker:And finally, in the show notes that the patrons get, will be
Speaker:an article from Saul Eslake.
Speaker:Um, he says, so, you guys um, ever heard Saul Eslake speak?
Speaker:Never heard him speak.
Speaker:I've read a lot of what he's written.
Speaker:Never heard him speak.
Speaker:Very, very smart guy.
Speaker:Oh, he's a very intelligent bloke, for sure.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I was at some talk about financial planning stuff and, uh, he just spoke for
Speaker:an hour and just had everybody captivated.
Speaker:Like, intimate knowledge of all sorts of statistics.
Speaker:Really quite a bright guy.
Speaker:Anyway, he says, I regard the changes made to the carve up of
Speaker:GST revenues among the states and territories by the Morrison government.
Speaker:in 2019, um, as possibly the worst Australian public policy decision
Speaker:of the 21st century thus far.
Speaker:Big statement.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Could it be worse than AUKUS, I ask you?
Speaker:I don't know that it is, but it's probably a close run thing.
Speaker:And essentially, the story is this, that when the GST was created, and it's the
Speaker:federal government collecting money, which is then distributed to the states,
Speaker:and There was a principle of Horizontal Fiscal Equalisation, which was if some
Speaker:states are financially better off than other states, then they'll get less of
Speaker:the GST pie, a very sort of socialist approach to carving up the GST money.
Speaker:And for most of our history, uh, Victoria and New South Wales Um, would have been
Speaker:the most prosperous states, which would sort of lead to them getting less and
Speaker:the other states getting more per capita.
Speaker:But of course, we've had a massive mining boom in Western Australia, huge boom.
Speaker:And um, similar, as he says here, from 2004 onwards, Western Australia
Speaker:Got, um, as Paul Keating would say, kissed on the arse by a rainbow.
Speaker:Where the iron ore price rose to over 100 per tonne.
Speaker:So, for example, Western Australia's iron ore production, um, in 1999 was 3.
Speaker:7 billion, and Um, in the last six years, it's averaged 111 billion.
Speaker:So in, in 14 years, uh, it went from 3.7 to 111 billion per annum.
Speaker:So, um, massive, um, production and similar stories in
Speaker:relation to gold and um.
Speaker:LNG, um, as well, like Big Boom, obviously, in Western Australia,
Speaker:and, of course, Western Australia will get royalties from all of that.
Speaker:Which means that Western Australia is doing very, very well and is
Speaker:outpacing the other states because of that, more than any state has
Speaker:ever outpaced the other states.
Speaker:And, um, what Morrison did was changed, well, called for a Productivity Commission
Speaker:report, but basically stitched things up so that the report was not done properly.
Speaker:Um, Saul Estlake says people who worked on it were not happy with the way it was
Speaker:done and some people resigned afterwards.
Speaker:And the result was that they, um, changed the GST carve up.
Speaker:So that, um, Western Australia would never get less than 70 percent per
Speaker:capita of what it would have got had there been none of this equalisation.
Speaker:So essentially, the previous system of, of less money to the wealthy
Speaker:states was, changed by that system.
Speaker:And why would the other states agree to it?
Speaker:Well, Morrison put in a deal that no other state will be worse off
Speaker:for the next like, uh, let me see.
Speaker:For like 15 years or something like that.
Speaker:So it was a thing that a government could, one of the other states
Speaker:could just um, kick down the road.
Speaker:Not, not going to be their problem, not going to be around in 20 years time.
Speaker:So, so basically Morrison did a deal that was extremely favourable
Speaker:to Western Australia, where it gets to keep a much bigger share of the
Speaker:GST carve up than it would have.
Speaker:And why did it allow that to happen?
Speaker:Because They were about to throw their toys out the pram.
Speaker:Because they had a number of Western Australian representatives.
Speaker:Correct.
Speaker:So, a relatively large contingent of, um, So, since the 2013 election,
Speaker:the Liberal National Party Coalition held all but three of Western
Speaker:Australia's seats in the House of Reps.
Speaker:And after the narrow victory in 2016, they knew that if they were to have
Speaker:any chance of retaining government in 2019, they needed to keep as many
Speaker:Western Australian seats as possible.
Speaker:So that's why the LNP, Liberal National Party Coalition, agreed, well, did this.
Speaker:Why did the Labor Party agree to it and vote for it?
Speaker:Because they wanted to pick up Labor.
Speaker:They thought that they would then, if they didn't do that, they were
Speaker:no chance of picking up seats for Labor in Western Australia.
Speaker:So, Labor agreed to it, and um, so conversely the Labor opposition knew
Speaker:that if it were to have any prospect of winning government at the 2019 election,
Speaker:they had to win at least some of those seats from the Liberals, um, yeah.
Speaker:And the title of the bill is, wait for it, uh, Treasury Laws Amendment.
Speaker:Making sure every state and territory gets their fair share of GST, Bill
Speaker:2018, harshed both houses of federal parliament with overwhelming majorities,
Speaker:even though it was a crummy deal for everybody outside of Western Australia.
Speaker:Problem with this podcast, it gets quite depressing.
Speaker:So many bad stories.
Speaker:So many bad stories.
Speaker:Let's just add that to it.
Speaker:Were you guys aware of that one at all?
Speaker:Yeah, I was aware of it.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Yeah, I never knew the details like that.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:I knew that, um, I knew that Western Australia had some kind of sweetheart
Speaker:deal on it, but I couldn't, I couldn't tell you what the numbers were.
Speaker:Yeah, so there we go.
Speaker:Good job I saw S Lake explaining that in quite some detail,
Speaker:which I've just paraphrased.
Speaker:So, there we go.
Speaker:Well Guys, we've finished on a sour note, I reckon.
Speaker:Imran Khan and the Western Australian GST carve up.
Speaker:Have you guys heard of the UK Post Office scandal?
Speaker:Yeah, that is bloody crook what's going on over there.
Speaker:Tell me about it, Joe.
Speaker:It's their equivalent to Robodat.
Speaker:Um, so, the UK Post Office, which basically is the government
Speaker:department in small villages.
Speaker:Uh, it was all outsourced, and they rolled out a new computer system,
Speaker:which was overpriced and late, what a surprise, and suddenly said
Speaker:that all of these postmasters had been, um, siphoning off money.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And, uh Accusing them of fraud.
Speaker:Accusing them of fraud.
Speaker:So, a whole bunch of them got sacked, and the government demanded money from them.
Speaker:A number of them were actually charged with criminal offences, and it turns out
Speaker:that the computer program was at fault.
Speaker:And that the government, this, this happened well over ten years
Speaker:ago, uh, and that the government is only just admitting to it.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:So, you know, there are literally thousands of people whose lives
Speaker:have been turned upside down by a computer system that the government
Speaker:maintained was perfectly accurate.
Speaker:Like I said, Shadows of Robo Death, all over again.
Speaker:Yeah, very much a Robo Death thing.
Speaker:Anybody got a happy story?
Speaker:No, I don't have a happy story.
Speaker:It's, one of those things, I find it really bloody crooked that a, something
Speaker:like that could go that you've got to the point where people were imprisoned.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And they had to prove that they were innocent, more so than the other
Speaker:side proving that they were guilty.
Speaker:Had the proof, had the, had the onus of proof not actually being
Speaker:reversed, had the proof been on the prosecution, then someone would
Speaker:have found out that the computer system was fucked a long time ago.
Speaker:You know?
Speaker:I imagine they probably had suicides and just a bunch of marriage breakups.
Speaker:They did have suicides and marriage breakups and God knows what else.
Speaker:Ugh.
Speaker:I know.
Speaker:Come on guys, something positive.
Speaker:I'll work on it for next week.
Speaker:Sorry dear listener, but there you go.
Speaker:That's the state of the world at the moment.
Speaker:Um, I guess we'll be back next week with more news and
Speaker:politics and sex and religion.
Speaker:We'll 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.
