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Episode 434 - 9 years of watching democracies fail.
Reflections on 9 Years of Podcasting and Critiques of Modern Democracy
In the 434th episode of the Iron Fist Velvet Glove podcast, the hosts Trevor, Scott, and Joe celebrate their nine-year anniversary and discuss a range of topics focusing on democracy, political integrity, and systemic reforms. They reflect on their past achievements and the ongoing influence of propaganda in shaping public opinion. They critically analyze the financial management of past governments, the influence of powerful oligarchs on democracy, and propose ideas for reducing corruption and enhancing political transparency. The episode also touches on topics like the failure of ‘The Voice’ referendum, the importance of unbiased media, and the impact of wealth disparities on governance. Finally, they express optimism about potential changes through preferential voting and stress the need for fundamental political and institutional reforms.
00:00 Introduction and Anniversary Celebration
00:52 Reflecting on Achievements and Challenges
02:42 Debating Democracy and Political Systems
06:24 The Influence of Propaganda
11:40 Proposing Radical Political Reforms
24:04 Media Influence and Political Competency
32:06 Political Landscape: No Major Differences
33:30 Climate Change and Energy Policies
35:59 Post-Politics Careers and Corruption
37:09 Freedom of Information and Government Secrecy
39:52 War Declarations and Public Service Outsourcing
44:01 Electoral Reforms and Abolishing States
48:38 COVID-19 Response and National Infrastructure
55:39 Julian Assange and Political Repercussions
01:04:22 Concluding Thoughts on Democracy
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Transcript
Hello and welcome back to the Iron Fist Velvet Glove podcast.
Speaker:I'm Trevor.
Speaker:With me is Scott, the Velvet Glove.
Speaker:Hanging on to a beer there, Scott, in regional Queensland.
Speaker:How are you?
Speaker:I'm good, thanks, Trevor.
Speaker:Yourself?
Speaker:G'day, Joe.
Speaker:G'day, Trevor.
Speaker:G'day, listeners.
Speaker:I hope everyone's well.
Speaker:Yeah, and Joe, the tech guy, is with us as well.
Speaker:Evening, all.
Speaker:So yes, episode 434.
Speaker:Dear listener, 1st of July.
Speaker:This podcast, uh, our very first episode, was on the 4th of July.
Speaker:9 years ago, or almost 9 years ago.
Speaker:So, kind of like the 9th anniversary edition.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:Congratulations to us for 9 years.
Speaker:I know we're going to make 10.
Speaker:I don't know if we're going to make 11.
Speaker:I'm just not so sure.
Speaker:Or it might be quite different.
Speaker:We'll see how we go.
Speaker:Scott, you were surprised.
Speaker:It was a very long
Speaker:time.
Speaker:Yeah, I was very surprised, actually, for 9 years.
Speaker:I just think to myself, my hair is certainly great in those years.
Speaker:And um, it's no longer salt and pepper, it's now salt, and
Speaker:um, yeah, it is what it is.
Speaker:I consoled you with a list of all of our achievements in that time.
Speaker:Yeah, which I then pulled you apart on, so anyway.
Speaker:Because yeah, we haven't really achieved, I feel we've achieved nothing, but anyway.
Speaker:Um, if you actually look at what we have attempted to achieve,
Speaker:we have not achieved it.
Speaker:However, we have, we have got a conversation that has
Speaker:started, and even amongst some of my more right wing friends.
Speaker:They have indicated that socialism is no longer a dirty word.
Speaker:Right,
Speaker:thanks to
Speaker:us.
Speaker:Well, partially because of us.
Speaker:Um, I also had to remind them that had the government not thrown out its
Speaker:neoliberal policies and all that sort of stuff during the pandemic, that Australia
Speaker:would have been in a world of hurt.
Speaker:So, you know, it's just one of those things.
Speaker:I think that, um, You're probably right, it probably was a good one for
Speaker:the Labor Party to lose, you know, because had they have come in and been
Speaker:in government at the time, would the Tories have got it out of the way?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:But would the Greens have actually blocked the extra spending?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:So, I think to myself that it would have Look, the big argument
Speaker:is always that the, is that the Conservatives are the
Speaker:great financial managers.
Speaker:Yeah, which is a load of shit.
Speaker:When Rudd spent all that money on, on his emergency, blew out
Speaker:the budget, looked really bad.
Speaker:But then Morrison went and did it just as hard, so
Speaker:it's a
Speaker:great, it was a great election to lose.
Speaker:Yeah, but
Speaker:the difference is, um, Rudd gave the money directly to the people
Speaker:who needed the money, whereas Morrison gave it to his mates.
Speaker:That's true, big difference.
Speaker:Yeah, so, um, so yeah, this episode, you know, I decided to do
Speaker:something a little bit different.
Speaker:Even before I remembered that this was the ninth anniversary, but
Speaker:anyway, it works out quite well.
Speaker:So, um, you know, I was, I've been contemplating democracy, Scott.
Speaker:As I look around, you reckon it's failed.
Speaker:As I look around the world.
Speaker:And I, you know, I witnessed the presidential election,
Speaker:we'll talk about that.
Speaker:I'm witnessing French elections, we're about to see a UK election.
Speaker:I'm looking at, um, you know, Fatima Payman in the Senate at the moment.
Speaker:I just, I'm just looking at democracy, Scott, if,
Speaker:if it's what the people want, even if it was what the people wanted, but
Speaker:the people have been brainwashed by powerful oligarchs So you're really
Speaker:just getting what the oligarchs want.
Speaker:Is, is it democracy?
Speaker:If, if, if you've successfully brainwashed a population on a policy
Speaker:and convinced them to have it.
Speaker:Is it, is it democracy?
Speaker:Well, that was always the argument, wasn't it?
Speaker:The working class were not capable.
Speaker:They didn't follow politics.
Speaker:They weren't engaged.
Speaker:They didn't have the time.
Speaker:They were too busy earning a living.
Speaker:So why would they get the vote?
Speaker:I don't kind of see the point.
Speaker:I'm going, maybe
Speaker:Even the upper class don't understand the issues.
Speaker:Well, no, no, I know that.
Speaker:But maybe you need a voting license.
Speaker:Maybe you need to sit an exam to prove that you're actually engaged
Speaker:in politics and you understand what all these things mean.
Speaker:I think some of the most engaged, most engaged intelligent people are
Speaker:completely brainwashed and coming up with the craziest, of ideas.
Speaker:So I'm struggling to find a solution for this because, you
Speaker:know, as I said in the sort of
Speaker:Benevolent
Speaker:Dictatorship.
Speaker:Yeah, in the, in the, so the promo thing was, you know, I'm done with democracy and
Speaker:I'm ready for the Benevolent Dictatorship.
Speaker:Because I just see that, um, how do you overcome this situation where
Speaker:democracy at its heart says, um, let the people express their will.
Speaker:And then, you know, hopefully our leaders do what they want.
Speaker:But if you've allowed oligarchs to convince people to hold certain positions
Speaker:that suit the oligarchs, I don't see how you can stop that at any point.
Speaker:I think you have to change the laws to stop capture of the
Speaker:system by interested parties.
Speaker:Yes, yes.
Speaker:So, uh, taking money out of politics?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Funding arrangements, uh, in America, that Citizen United was a horrible decision.
Speaker:It was.
Speaker:Um, you know, so anything like that.
Speaker:And I think, uh, there was a revisit on The Voice, I can't
Speaker:remember where I saw that.
Speaker:Oh, that's right.
Speaker:Um, all of these retrospectives on why The Voice, uh, The Voice vote failed.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That was an article.
Speaker:Um.
Speaker:But the newsletter.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:A bunch of books have come out.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um,
Speaker:yes, all of which were.
Speaker:As far as I'm concerned, completely off.
Speaker:If, if you understood the real meaning of equality, you'd understand
Speaker:that it meant that some people were more equal than others.
Speaker:Yeah, dear listener, in the, in the weekly, well, actually this newsletter
Speaker:goes out three times a week where I grab articles and throw it in there,
Speaker:and one article is a review of books that have come out that are sort of, um,
Speaker:reflecting on The Voice and why it failed.
Speaker:And the very first book This author basically blames Australians for having
Speaker:an unsophisticated Um, view of equality, and if only we had been more sophisticated
Speaker:we would have come to a better decision.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, um, you know, imagine,
Speaker:I'm trying to get to with this, is we want politicians who have the
Speaker:interests of the masses at heart.
Speaker:The middle.
Speaker:And lower classes, you would hope, which are the majority of people.
Speaker:And why not everybody?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Well, you'll never please everybody.
Speaker:And because you're actually going to have to take some stuff off.
Speaker:The top 10 percent But that's
Speaker:not necessarily in their disinterest though.
Speaker:True,
Speaker:yes.
Speaker:They may
Speaker:It would be cruel to be kind.
Speaker:Well, but also, you know, um, a working society, a working
Speaker:economy would benefit everybody.
Speaker:Yes, they won't see it that way though.
Speaker:No, they weren't there
Speaker:that way.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, just, just the leadership we've got at the moment, the way that politics
Speaker:is set up with, at least in our major Western countries, Australia, US, UK,
Speaker:we've had this sort of two party system.
Speaker:And, you know, even in the Labor Party, Which, in theory, should
Speaker:be a little bit immune from this.
Speaker:We've still got the jobs for the boys afterwards.
Speaker:Like, you can have these guys sort of making decisions, granting contracts
Speaker:to, um, in defence and whatever.
Speaker:And they leave office and, and less, you know, 12 months and one day later, they're
Speaker:working for some, um, Lockheed Martin defense contract company or, or whatnot.
Speaker:And
Speaker:I'm just trying to find ways that would incentivize, you know, one
Speaker:thing I had this was idea was, I think actually maybe they did this
Speaker:in Greece or Rome or something, was a random sort of selection for.
Speaker:Uh, our leaders, you know.
Speaker:I thought that was in Rome, in Greece, wasn't it?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I thought at one point I thought, you know, maybe having a random,
Speaker:um, ballot for leaders would be good because, um, that would at
Speaker:least have a chance of avoiding the control of, of powerful interests.
Speaker:But if powerful interests have propagandized the majority of
Speaker:the population, then that's not going to sort of work at all.
Speaker:And maybe the breaking up of media is an answer.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:I think so.
Speaker:I'm just seeing more and more that propaganda is the sort of,
Speaker:um, the thing that is really hard for us to, to somehow overcome.
Speaker:Because it's eroding democracy, where it is manipulating people.
Speaker:People's, um, uh, genuine attempt to understand issues.
Speaker:And it's, it's, it's basically causing our democracies to become dysfunctional.
Speaker:They're not, they're not, um, we're not getting the people we want in charge.
Speaker:Look at, at this present rate with America faced with Donald Trump or
Speaker:Joe Biden, the system has worked in such a way that that's the choice
Speaker:for the Americans at the moment.
Speaker:It's drastically wrong.
Speaker:Psycho democracy has just failed completely.
Speaker:Um.
Speaker:Well.
Speaker:I don't know what you
Speaker:want.
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:you've got a
Speaker:system of primaries in the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:where they actually have votes against each other and everything else.
Speaker:They have a runoff and then they decide who their most preferred candidate is.
Speaker:And that's why Joe Biden got to the top of the tree.
Speaker:But the system has created two parties and Yeah,
Speaker:I know, it's created two parties because you've only got a first past
Speaker:the post system in the United States.
Speaker:There's no room for a third party.
Speaker:You know.
Speaker:And also, um, even when they win the primaries, because,
Speaker:um, what's his name, dude?
Speaker:Bernie Sanders.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:Bernie Sanders came very, very close to actually winning
Speaker:the Democratic nomination.
Speaker:I've got no doubt there.
Speaker:No, no, he won it in the popular vote.
Speaker:It was the super votes that the Republican, the Democratic Party had.
Speaker:Oh, okay, gotcha.
Speaker:It was the committee that chose Clinton over Bernie.
Speaker:Bernie.
Speaker:Bernie.
Speaker:Okay, gotcha.
Speaker:So, the will of the people spoke and was overridden by the party.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:Fair enough.
Speaker:Yeah, I wasn't aware of that.
Speaker:I'm just trying to think of ways, institutionally, if we were to create
Speaker:a new constitution that could somehow
Speaker:In an ironclad way, help to sort of reduce this influence of powerful people
Speaker:distorting the public will and distorting the kind of leadership options we get.
Speaker:So, I had this one crazy idea.
Speaker:This would be an idea, I reckon, for a dystopian sort of science
Speaker:fiction type novel, Scott.
Speaker:I don't think I've mentioned this one before.
Speaker:But imagine a situation where you said to all politicians.
Speaker:In the federal government, for example, that, um, that at the conclusion of
Speaker:their term in office, they're going to, um, they're going to go into a lottery
Speaker:and, and there'll be a 25 or 20 percent chance that they will be reduced to
Speaker:the poverty line in terms of wealth.
Speaker:If you said to them, there's a 25 percent chance that at the end of your time in
Speaker:parliament, Uh, the number will be rolled, you roll a dice, and, and you'll be poor.
Speaker:Well, I quite
Speaker:like the idea of
Speaker:their super going into a super fund the same as the rest of us.
Speaker:Well, well, the point is, that I reckon the decision making that would occur
Speaker:would be completely different if people in their decision making went, shit.
Speaker:In 3 years time, or 5 years time, I might be one of these people.
Speaker:I'd better make some, I'm going to make sure that the various social
Speaker:services are working as well as they can, or as well funded as they can.
Speaker:Cause there's a chance I'm going to be one of them.
Speaker:And it's a kind of a dystopian sort of, um, you know, novel type idea, but
Speaker:that's sort of, I'm, I'm searching for an incentive that would be realistic
Speaker:that would achieve that sort of thing.
Speaker:Talks of ancient societies where the king was selected by picking
Speaker:a bean out of a bag or something.
Speaker:So they became king until the bad times happened, at which point they would
Speaker:be sacrificed to appease the gods.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, the problem is, if you've got people to pick a bean out,
Speaker:they've been propagandised, so you'll still get Yeah, but
Speaker:then the bad times happen and we sacrifice them.
Speaker:Yeah, and then you just insert another person who's also been propagandised.
Speaker:So, well, you sacrificed them.
Speaker:Yeah, you start to just run out of time.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I'm thinking, um, cause what do we do on this podcast is, I was just
Speaker:thinking about it before, is, um, uh, we point out really bad policy
Speaker:decisions or inaction by our leaders and we summarise a rational argument.
Speaker:And then we bemoan that our leaders refuse to do the right thing, because
Speaker:either, uh, our leaders are wanting to keep or gain power, or they're
Speaker:afraid of upsetting powerful enemies, or they're part of some tribal
Speaker:solidarity, uh, quite often religious.
Speaker:Or they're just plain ignorant, or maybe they're greedy because they want
Speaker:a job with, um, some defence group afterwards or something like that.
Speaker:So, so we just don't get what would be good for society, um, uh, and then we
Speaker:sit back here on this podcast and observe how propaganda shifts public opinion, uh,
Speaker:to approve the bad ideas such that the bad ideas are whitewashed as acceptable.
Speaker:Um, because not enough people object.
Speaker:And that's, it's just a litany of bad ideas we've looked at for nine years.
Speaker:Clearly bad ideas.
Speaker:And the only two where anything has happened have been voluntary
Speaker:assisted dying and marriage equality.
Speaker:And I think that's because in both cases people could have a personal experience
Speaker:Where, uh, you know, marriage equality.
Speaker:They would have a son, a daughter, a niece, a nephew, a friend, a
Speaker:relative who was gay, lesbian.
Speaker:Whatever.
Speaker:And they had personal experience and thought, well, that's just unfair.
Speaker:And, or when it came to voluntary assisted dying, they had an elderly
Speaker:relative who had a bad death.
Speaker:So they had a close personal experience on those issues, which overcame all
Speaker:of the normal, uh, sort of effects.
Speaker:And we ended up with some sort of progressive change.
Speaker:Not a lot else.
Speaker:Has actually changed, Scott, in nine years.
Speaker:Can you think of anything progressive other than those two things?
Speaker:Well, those two things, there was
Speaker:no money in
Speaker:it.
Speaker:There was no money in having a vested interest.
Speaker:It's not like someone was getting rich out of either direction.
Speaker:Yes, that's true.
Speaker:Uh, that is true, actually.
Speaker:There was not a money interest involved.
Speaker:A powerful money interest.
Speaker:Um, good point, Joe.
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:Sad.
Speaker:A sad but true point.
Speaker:Um, yeah, I think, um, you know, we talked about a long time ago, um,
Speaker:shock Doctrine and by Naomi Klein.
Speaker:And the whole idea of Shock Doctrine was that these countries, poor and struggling,
Speaker:would be put under enormous pressure and eventually some shock would come,
Speaker:whether it was a massive devaluation of their dollar, maybe a natural
Speaker:event like a typhoon, or some other calamity would befall these countries.
Speaker:And the neoliberals would jump in, um, while people were still in shock
Speaker:and say, well here's what you've got to do, institute all these austerity
Speaker:measures, you've got to privatise the public services, you've got to
Speaker:cut out all these social services, you've got to let foreigners come in.
Speaker:and buy stuff up and you've got to, um, expose yourself to
Speaker:world trade, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:While people were still in shock and had no capacity to respond.
Speaker:And
Speaker:it's literally, here's, here's the playbook, we've written it
Speaker:for you, just go and implement.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:You don't even
Speaker:have to think.
Speaker:Yeah, and,
Speaker:and people couldn't
Speaker:object because they were still in shock.
Speaker:And when it all goes to shit, I think we need to have some sort of
Speaker:new constitution Sitting on a shelf, ready just to quickly dust off.
Speaker:And, and, and say, we've been waiting for this moment and here's what we need.
Speaker:Because we got into this position because of all these systemic problems and we need
Speaker:a new constitution that looks like this.
Speaker:Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, do you fix education so that people are more sceptical,
Speaker:more, better able to see through, um, indoctrination in terms of propaganda?
Speaker:Hmm, media literacy.
Speaker:Media literacy, which of course goes against the vested interest,
Speaker:so that's never gonna happen.
Speaker:Yeah, well, that's why you need the shock, and when the, when the, when
Speaker:the, when the, so really, shit has hit the fan and there's marching
Speaker:in the streets or something like that, like, it's all pie in the sky.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Do you, do you rewrite your political laws in terms of, uh, funding of institutions,
Speaker:government institutions, the parties?
Speaker:In the UK it used to be, when I was growing up in the UK, you couldn't
Speaker:Advertise politically, there was no political advertising allowed,
Speaker:um, every party was given their own half ass lot on public broadcast,
Speaker:uh, and, you know, you could tune in for the party political broadcast
Speaker:of whatever party it was that day.
Speaker:And there was no other political advertising allowed.
Speaker:So there was none of this.
Speaker:Bring it back.
Speaker:Bring it back, I say, Joe.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:absolutely.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:These are the sorts of ideas you could think about in the cold light of a
Speaker:day now, while you've got plenty of time, and then, um, When the emergency
Speaker:comes, you can say, Well, we've thought about all this, and here's the
Speaker:document, sitting here, ready to go.
Speaker:These are the reasons.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, it's all just thought experiment, pie in
Speaker:the sky stuff, dear listener.
Speaker:I'm not seriously suggesting any of this is going to happen tomorrow or next week.
Speaker:How about
Speaker:if anybody's personal wealth goes above a hundred million?
Speaker:We take it all off them and they're put on dole.
Speaker:So there's no incentive race to get as much money as possible, because
Speaker:once you hit that a hundred million cap, we're going to take it all away.
Speaker:Uh, and leave them.
Speaker:Oh, okay.
Speaker:Take everything.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:You can have up to the a hundred million.
Speaker:You go above that and you lose the whole, Oh, Joe, Joe, I like that one.
Speaker:It's actually number two in my, in my list here, the new constitution
Speaker:wish list, which I sort of was quickly knocking up this afternoon,
Speaker:um, in the event of an emergency.
Speaker:Number one was, Uh,
Speaker:number one was, um, the members of parliament subject to the poverty ballot.
Speaker:So that was the one where they'd be forced to, to think very seriously
Speaker:about making sure that, um, welfare systems are working really well and are
Speaker:well funded because it could be them.
Speaker:Uh, I had down a law against excessive private wealth of anyone,
Speaker:Joe, I really liked that one.
Speaker:That not only are you, is there a maximum.
Speaker:But, you know, I was always thinking, well, if you go past the maximum,
Speaker:we just keep skimming off the top.
Speaker:But yours is, we will penalise you, take the whole lot off you.
Speaker:You better be careful.
Speaker:No,
Speaker:I don't think that you should penalise them or anything like that.
Speaker:I just think you've got to actually let them hit the hundred million.
Speaker:But this is the ultimate incentive.
Speaker:Yeah, I know.
Speaker:But the thing is, let them hit a hundred million dollars.
Speaker:And then after that, you know.
Speaker:Anything above a hundred million dollars, you forfeit to the
Speaker:government at a hundred percent.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:In the chat room, Landon Hardbottom says, hold on, hands off my hundred mil.
Speaker:Yeah, I know that because Landon would be very defensive of his
Speaker:hundred million, wouldn't he?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And he says you've got more facial hair than you had nine years ago.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Well, that's
Speaker:very true.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, um, Robin says, did propaganda shift public opinion on The Voice?
Speaker:Uh, I would, I would say it did, um, I think it did, Robin, certainly.
Speaker:The opinion changed.
Speaker:So the question is how, why?
Speaker:And certainly some of it was disingenuous, um, racism argument, but some of
Speaker:it was, um, genuine moral argument.
Speaker:So there was certainly a component of, I mean, what's propaganda, but, um, Some of
Speaker:it was disingenuous allegations of racism.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:There was no doubt about that.
Speaker:It did change.
Speaker:Now, you know, probably the master stroke was getting the
Speaker:white guys to stay out of it.
Speaker:And then, um, after that you have the, um, the black opponents to it.
Speaker:You have, Jacinta, Nampatimpa Price, and who was the other guy?
Speaker:Warren Mundine.
Speaker:Warren Mundine.
Speaker:You know, they were the head of the No Case, and they were both Indigenous.
Speaker:Now, that was probably why it was successful, because you
Speaker:had those two there that were out there arguing against it.
Speaker:Now, I wasn't.
Speaker:Turned by their opinions or anything like that.
Speaker:I thought they were both rather poor arguments.
Speaker:However, I just thought to myself, well, you've got these two arguing for it.
Speaker:It's going to be very hard for anyone else to overcome that.
Speaker:Number three on my list, laws to control propaganda.
Speaker:So obviously media ownership laws are a problem and Um, I don't know
Speaker:the specifics of how you would do it, but when you've got, you know, here
Speaker:in Brisbane, Courier Mail owned by Murdoch, Australian Murdoch, so any old
Speaker:fogey's reading a newspaper, that's what they're getting is whatever Murdoch's
Speaker:pushing, and there has to be ways to,
Speaker:to somehow limit the propaganda one media mogul can.
Speaker:Can levy against a population.
Speaker:I don't know how.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:but then you've also got the same problem with, um, the Fairfax papers
Speaker:that are now called the Nine Papers.
Speaker:You know, they're no longer a patch of what they were.
Speaker:You know, they're no longer as good as what they once were, but, um
Speaker:There's no money in, um In
Speaker:print, no.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:There's still power and influence.
Speaker:Yeah, God knows why, it's just one of those things, it's gonna be,
Speaker:it's gonna be a dying influence and all that type of thing.
Speaker:It's um, we're probably only gonna put up for another 20 years until
Speaker:the last, the boomers are dead.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But there's still the internet.
Speaker:Yeah, there is still the internet, yeah.
Speaker:As we saw last week, the whole CIA propaganda.
Speaker:See, I just look at um, you know, China for example, when, when um,
Speaker:Uh, Abbott was hosting, you know, Chinese leaders and, and Gillard was
Speaker:organising mutual defence um, exercises.
Speaker:And everyone was perfectly fine.
Speaker:And that all changed, not because of anything that China did, but because
Speaker:of a massive propaganda undertaking.
Speaker:And that's been in the era of declining newspapers.
Speaker:Sales, and, you know, they still manage an effective propaganda
Speaker:campaign, even with failing newspapers.
Speaker:And, and Russia, as, you know, Russia, and it's difficult to understand
Speaker:until you've actually looked at it.
Speaker:They are They are not just propping up Trump, they are
Speaker:deliberately sowing division.
Speaker:They will pop up adverts for Trump, adverts against Trump, with the same,
Speaker:all they're trying to do is sow discord and discontent, because all the time
Speaker:the West is squabbling amongst itself, it's not paying attention to them.
Speaker:So, I just don't know how we do it, but certainly, number three was, uh,
Speaker:somehow, laws to control propaganda.
Speaker:Number four is an IQ test for parliamentarians.
Speaker:Um, just basically, I don't think Joe Biden had passed it at the moment.
Speaker:Scott and Joe, did you watch parts of the debate?
Speaker:I don't know that IQ is the thing we need to be measuring, but
Speaker:certainly a common sense test?
Speaker:Well, I think that Joe, Joe would pass that right now, but if he actually, if he
Speaker:actually measured his cognitive decline, Then you would actually conclude that
Speaker:the guy is senile and all that sort of stuff and is no longer fit for office.
Speaker:I would like some sort of mental competency test.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:Somebody can sit and concentrate on something for eight hours.
Speaker:For five days a week.
Speaker:I was going to say Donald Trump.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:Neither of them would possibly pass.
Speaker:No, exactly.
Speaker:You know, they're stuck in a position where It's tricky to get rid of somebody.
Speaker:Like, you really need to have a sort of an in place test.
Speaker:of mental competency that happens every 12 months.
Speaker:And if you fail, you just fail.
Speaker:Like you have to sit at every 12 months.
Speaker:Just otherwise nobody's going to institute this sort of, uh,
Speaker:competency test on a, on a leader.
Speaker:It's too hard to do.
Speaker:It should be in place as an automatic thing.
Speaker:And the two terms for an American president was brought
Speaker:in by an American president.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:It's kind of a, you've got to have somebody going, this is too powerful
Speaker:an institution, we need limits on it.
Speaker:So you need somebody who doesn't have a vested interest going, right,
Speaker:we do need, um, competency tests.
Speaker:It's all part of the new constitution, Joe.
Speaker:Someone was saying Bill Clinton was a president 30 years ago and he's still
Speaker:younger than both Trump and Biden.
Speaker:Yes, yes.
Speaker:So, so yeah, one
Speaker:of those things, I think the Americans have got to get over this, um, age and
Speaker:experience thing that they've seemed to inhabit with because two of their
Speaker:better presidents were younger men, you know, JFK was only 40 something
Speaker:when he was in the job, wasn't he?
Speaker:You know, if you were running a major international organization
Speaker:where you needed and experience.
Speaker:You'd be, you know, looking for somebody in their fifties, something
Speaker:like that, sort of ideal, sort of age, I would have thought.
Speaker:It's
Speaker:one of those things, I was listening to a podcast this morning that they're actually
Speaker:saying that, um, if the Democrats could replace Joe Biden with a 55 year old,
Speaker:Governor, right now, they reckon he'd win because they'd be able to wipe the
Speaker:floor with Trump, but no one actually has.
Speaker:broached the subject with Joe and said, well, it's time for you
Speaker:to stand down or anything else.
Speaker:And nobody's in
Speaker:crisis
Speaker:talks, wasn't he?
Speaker:He was in crisis talks.
Speaker:There's no doubt about that.
Speaker:It was, but again, it was only with his family and his family is only going to
Speaker:tell him what they know he wants to hear.
Speaker:And nobody in the last two years could have positioned themselves to be this
Speaker:obvious next person because in doing so, you're seen to be undermining the deal.
Speaker:And therefore you would be ostracised and driven out, so.
Speaker:Which is precisely the problem, you know, it's one of those
Speaker:things like, you know, um,
Speaker:like we all like to laugh at the speed at which we tend to go
Speaker:through Prime Ministers down under.
Speaker:But I do think there is some sort of validity to that, that um,
Speaker:you can actually serve only at the pleasure of your opponent.
Speaker:colleagues.
Speaker:I do believe that having that sword of Damocles hanging over their necks and that
Speaker:stuff keeps them a little bit more honest.
Speaker:So you think they need a cabbage for U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:President?
Speaker:No, I don't think they need a cabbage.
Speaker:They actually need, they actually needed, no, a lettuce was the um, a lettuce was
Speaker:the thing that they put on that woman.
Speaker:Liz Truss.
Speaker:Liz Truss, yeah, you know, they said will she last longer than
Speaker:this, longer than this lettuce?
Speaker:And the lettuce lasted longer than she did.
Speaker:Um, where was I headed with all of that?
Speaker:No, it's gone.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:But um, you know, is it a democracy when
Speaker:Prime Ministers are chosen by the Parliamentary Party
Speaker:and not by the public anyway?
Speaker:Like, it's such an important position that, you know, nobody voted for, for
Speaker:No, but does it really matter who's running the job?
Speaker:You're voting for the party and not for the person.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:You know what, in our current state, it doesn't even matter which party.
Speaker:Like, honestly, we got Albanese in here.
Speaker:Yeah, he's
Speaker:about as inspiring as a dishcloth.
Speaker:Not a lot different has happened that wouldn't have happened had
Speaker:Morrison got back in again, except Assange would still be in Belmarsh.
Speaker:What, what else?
Speaker:Oh, stage 3 tax cuts, I guess.
Speaker:The stage 3 tax cuts would probably have gone through if
Speaker:Morrison was still in office.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:um, but otherwise, you know, the bullshit in terms of quantum computer
Speaker:deals where we've given 900 million to different groups, the freedom of
Speaker:information, um, knockbacks that Rex Patterson's getting all the time where
Speaker:this government's very secretive.
Speaker:The Whistleblowers who have been persecuted, imprisoned, um, uh,
Speaker:basically continuing to sell, uh, uh, allow spare parts to go to Israel for,
Speaker:for, for deals and, and government money going to Israeli companies.
Speaker:All that shit is all still going on.
Speaker:This is There's not much difference between what we've experienced, um, and
Speaker:what we would have got under Morrison.
Speaker:Had Morrison had actually won that last election, then we wouldn't have had
Speaker:any movement on climate change at all.
Speaker:Well, what movement have we had?
Speaker:Well, we've actually had some in, we've had some investment in renewable energy.
Speaker:But, you know, this Labor government's been, you know, approving more.
Speaker:Um, mining and gas fields and all sorts of stuff.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:but they've been improving mining and gas fields for export more
Speaker:so than our domestic consumption.
Speaker:Yeah, I know, it's just going to be burnt overseas, which is okay.
Speaker:It's just one of those things, it's just going to throw a lifeline to the coal
Speaker:miners and that sort of stuff so they can continue to sell their poison overseas.
Speaker:But, you know, here you are, there's virtually no difference, I don't think.
Speaker:Minimal difference between the two parties.
Speaker:If you look at America, minimal difference, minimal difference
Speaker:between the two parties.
Speaker:You know, it's hard to talk about things that would be done
Speaker:differently under either party.
Speaker:Um, who knows what's going to happen in the UK, whether, whether
Speaker:this Labor party is going, under Keir Starmer, is going to do.
Speaker:Anything particularly different to what the Tories have been doing?
Speaker:They've been a really small target.
Speaker:They're just saying, vote for us because we're not the Tories have
Speaker:been shafting you for the last 10 years, but they haven't actually
Speaker:shown They haven't actually said anything different, have they?
Speaker:Yeah, so It's just one of those things.
Speaker:I hate the small target.
Speaker:Like, you know, it's, it was set up under, um, Paul Keating, he decided he was gonna
Speaker:be a small target when he went, when he was trying to knock off John Husson.
Speaker:Did, did.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:. Yeah.
Speaker:John, John Husson went in with a very detailed plan
Speaker:about what he was going to do.
Speaker:Fight back.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Fight back.
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:And that was torn apart by Keating.
Speaker:Now, you know, it's, it was destroyed by Keating.
Speaker:Keating made this, made the small target, the new political science.
Speaker:And that was it.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:. But just think about a dear listener.
Speaker:Not only does it not matter who our leaders are, essentially, and often
Speaker:we don't get to choose because it's done by a parliamentary party, but
Speaker:even if the actual parties change, the end result, it's not that different.
Speaker:Um, our democracy is not offering us a sort of a choice.
Speaker:And on a lot of issues, they're, they're contrary to what most people
Speaker:would, would want at any time.
Speaker:So, um, so yeah.
Speaker:Uh, number five on my list.
Speaker:Strict control of post politics careers, because it just gives me the
Speaker:shits, these guys who, uh, basically can't be accused of corruption when
Speaker:they're awarding contracts to various defense contract groups, but then 12
Speaker:months later, get a job with them.
Speaker:And this is all considered perfectly fine.
Speaker:Like it just shouldn't be on, because it leads to the understanding.
Speaker:Well, of course, you then say to the next incumbent, You know what happened
Speaker:to the guy who did the right thing by us?
Speaker:Um, got a great cushy job with us.
Speaker:Now, of course, can't promise you anything, but just
Speaker:look at our track record.
Speaker:When people are good to us, we're good to them post their parliamentary career.
Speaker:And that's a, that's a dangerous incentive where billions of
Speaker:dollars just go down the tube.
Speaker:So it's just be, should be a full stop.
Speaker:No, you're not working for any company that had any involvement with any
Speaker:portfolio you were, you were dealing with.
Speaker:So, um, I reckon this one, Freedom of Information.
Speaker:Um, so much of, we haven't even dealt with the deal listener, we've given like 900.
Speaker:Million dollars or something to some quantum computer group to,
Speaker:to build a computer in Brisbane.
Speaker:And the deal is really sketchy.
Speaker:And the problem is, we don't even know what the deal is.
Speaker:We don't know whether we got equity or loan.
Speaker:We don't know what our return on investment is, because we get
Speaker:this bullshit response of, Oh, it's commercial in confidence.
Speaker:We can't tell you what the government has done 'cause it's commercial in confidence.
Speaker:Complete crap.
Speaker:Um, so I like the idea where, um, essentially all documents, I'm done
Speaker:with the secrecy on these things.
Speaker:Even conversations, prime Minister.
Speaker:Basically, every conversation you have as Prime Minister
Speaker:should be recorded, Nixon style.
Speaker:And publicly available.
Speaker:I was going to say, presidential record takes in the US.
Speaker:And 12 months later, or at a certain time in the very, very
Speaker:near future, it's released.
Speaker:So when you're doing a discussion or a deal or something.
Speaker:In a very short time you're going to feel a lot of pain if
Speaker:you've done the wrong thing.
Speaker:I think that's all in my new constitution, Scott.
Speaker:Do you like that one?
Speaker:Yeah, I do.
Speaker:I was going to say a corruption commission that actually has teeth.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:One that's actually prepared to investigate things.
Speaker:Like, I can't believe I'm not allowed to
Speaker:investigate things.
Speaker:Well, it's just one of those things that God knows why they didn't
Speaker:investigate the, um, why they didn't, why they didn't investigate those nine
Speaker:people that referred to them under the Royal Commission into robo debt.
Speaker:You know, that was bloody crook, what the hell the government was doing back
Speaker:then.
Speaker:See, that's the sort of thing, Morrison, you would have expected.
Speaker:And we got the same from Albanese.
Speaker:That's what I'm talking about, as in getting the same
Speaker:shit from this label group.
Speaker:And they're
Speaker:worried that it's going to come for them.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:But see, you know, the National Anti Corruption Commission was
Speaker:set up with a, you know, a Blaze of Glory and everything else.
Speaker:It had, you know, nine people were handed to it by the Royal Commission.
Speaker:You know, their heads were already in a platter, ready to be served up to us.
Speaker:And they elected not to investigate it.
Speaker:So God knows why.
Speaker:Now someone's actually investigating their neck now to find out why they
Speaker:decided not to investigate them.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Investigation of the investigation of the non investigation.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So clever.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um, number eight of mine's a favourite, War can only be declared by Parliament,
Speaker:so none of this bullshit of just the Prime Minister deciding after
Speaker:consulting two or three friends.
Speaker:You need joint sitting, House of Reps, Senate and a majority to agree to war
Speaker:and every six months that you're in that war, you have to revisit that vote
Speaker:and decide whether to continue with it.
Speaker:Is this non defensive wars we're talking about?
Speaker:Any
Speaker:war where we're lobbing bombs at somebody in any sort of use of our military against
Speaker:We have to wait until Parliament sits.
Speaker:How long does that take?
Speaker:No idea.
Speaker:Yes, yes, Joe, it's not that hard to, it's not that hard to gather people together.
Speaker:I don't care if some of them are electronic or not.
Speaker:I don't care.
Speaker:But it's not that hard to get all of them together and, and say, hey.
Speaker:They started loading troop ships in China and they're heading this way.
Speaker:Do we want to declare war or not?
Speaker:Or, the US have asked us to engage in a war against the Yemens.
Speaker:Or, um, you know, in Afghanistan, or Iraq, or like, or in Vietnam, or Korea.
Speaker:Like, none of these wars were so urgent that we couldn't have
Speaker:held a full parliamentary debate.
Speaker:None of them.
Speaker:End.
Speaker:It wouldn't be that hard to be able to rack one up within 24, 48 hours
Speaker:if it was a really dire emergency.
Speaker:Particularly in the lead up to a war, things are heating up and you're
Speaker:saying, Hey everybody, make sure you're close to the internet because
Speaker:we might need to make a decision soon.
Speaker:So, I don't see that as a problem.
Speaker:That's a great difficulty.
Speaker:If it's important enough that we go to war, then let's just get
Speaker:everyone together to make sure that we agree that we should go to war.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:Ah.
Speaker:Limit the outsourcing of the public service.
Speaker:Our public service now needs consultants to advise it how
Speaker:to, how to hire consultants.
Speaker:They've completely lost capacity to do stuff.
Speaker:So,
Speaker:um, Mariana Mutzogid, sir, who, whatever her name is.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:As a thing about, um, government outsourcing and saying that basically
Speaker:you lose all your skills in house.
Speaker:Corporate knowledge,
Speaker:corporate memory.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And you're then just left at the mercy of these consultants.
Speaker:You've lost the ability to even know whether your consultant's
Speaker:advice is good enough or not.
Speaker:So, you know, there's a regular task that you know a government is going to need.
Speaker:You keep people in house to do that.
Speaker:I saw a charity that, um, was outsourcing all of its, um, infrastructure,
Speaker:and they had no knowledge.
Speaker:They had, basically every time any change was done, you had to
Speaker:do a scoping exercise to go out and find what equipment was there.
Speaker:To be able to say, alright, this is what's there, this is what we need to change.
Speaker:This is what the future state will be.
Speaker:But there was a re engagement every time, and the managed service provider
Speaker:was the cheapest one they could find, um, and it just, it didn't work.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, but you know, people have fallen for the propaganda of public service
Speaker:bureaucracy is a waste of money, these fat cats, when in fact The fattest
Speaker:of the fat cats are in the consulting industry, which is where you're going
Speaker:to have to resort to if you don't keep it in house, so that's on my list.
Speaker:Um, no lobbyists in Parliament House, no donations, or um, uh, Scott, it makes
Speaker:no sense that we have parliamentarians representing districts, the seat of
Speaker:Ryan, or Dixon, or something like that.
Speaker:Like, in our federal parliament.
Speaker:I think we should just have X number of politicians and a proportional voting
Speaker:system, and that they don't represent any particular district at all.
Speaker:Because they end up having to attend every fate and um,
Speaker:other minor things, pretending to represent these local constituents,
Speaker:when they're there to be really passing policy on national issues.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm not really sure how I feel
Speaker:about that.
Speaker:How do you get your FaceTime in front of a politician,
Speaker:if you don't
Speaker:have a politician for your area.
Speaker:See, that's a very good point.
Speaker:I don't know, but we could find a way, surely.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:I'm saying that is the one upside to having a locally representative
Speaker:politician, is that in theory you could write to them and they are
Speaker:supposed to represent your interests.
Speaker:But, you know, when your local parliamentarian is some right
Speaker:wing Christian and he goes saying, I want to, um, I want you to
Speaker:stop funding private religious schools, it's falling on deaf ears.
Speaker:So, that's where you'd like to be able to It's falling
Speaker:on deaf, it's falling on deaf ears with your local politician, until you actually
Speaker:say to him, OK, that's no problem at all, you're not going to help me, I'm going to
Speaker:talk to your opponent, and you're going to go raise Mary Hill with his opponent,
Speaker:Doesn't do you any good.
Speaker:You go to the Senate and then after that you get the crossbench involved and then
Speaker:after that they start to Raise merry hell about it until something's actually done.
Speaker:So Yeah, I'm not convinced of that Trevor.
Speaker:I've got to think about that.
Speaker:Mm hmm.
Speaker:Well, I was gonna get rid of states
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:They should go there.
Speaker:There is there there there a Handbrake on the country there, a old
Speaker:colonial hangover, they should go.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:Keep local government.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, um See,
Speaker:what you can actually do with that is if you divide the states up into 12
Speaker:areas and all that sort of stuff, you could have the mayors of those states
Speaker:The 12 mayors of the state would then become the 12 senators of that state.
Speaker:So the Senate wouldn't sit every week or anything like that.
Speaker:They wouldn't actually sit down there together.
Speaker:They'd get everything emailed to them and then they'd come back up with their own
Speaker:votes and that type of thing afterwards.
Speaker:And then you only pull them down there for the more important votes.
Speaker:Uh, I don't know that I'd want to mix up their jobs of being mayor of a local
Speaker:government and being in the Senate.
Speaker:Um, I think it's too much to get your head around.
Speaker:Each job is a pretty big job, I would have thought, but you couldn't be on top of it.
Speaker:Everything, if you had that much on your plate.
Speaker:But anyway, we could get rid of the states, and
Speaker:Yeah, I was gonna say, local government, there's a mayor and there's a CEO,
Speaker:and the CEO actually does the work.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:It's one of those things, I just, I I understand where you're coming from
Speaker:with abolishing states, that would be absolutely no problem whatsoever.
Speaker:I think that if you're gonna do that though, you gotta merge Victoria
Speaker:and Tasmania into one state.
Speaker:Because it's a little bit ridiculous that you've got 12 senators.
Speaker:There wouldn't be any state.
Speaker:There wouldn't be any state.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:But for the Senate, each state gets 12 senators.
Speaker:Well, we'd have to change that.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Which is a ridiculous thing that Tasmania gets 12 senators.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So we have to get rid of that.
Speaker:That's, that's undemocratic.
Speaker:The, um, the way that works as well.
Speaker:Add that to the list.
Speaker:Um, what else have I got on my list here?
Speaker:They're the main ones.
Speaker:I start repeating myself, I keep going.
Speaker:The
Speaker:states don't get protected us from ScoMo during COVID.
Speaker:They did.
Speaker:Yeah, they did.
Speaker:It was the states that actually did stuff, and ScoMo just sat there and looked lost.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:True.
Speaker:You see, that's the whole point.
Speaker:Everyone forgets about the states until you're actually in a crisis.
Speaker:And that, um, COVID crisis did actually bring out the best and it also brought
Speaker:out the worst in us as a country.
Speaker:And the best of it was probably when the states were in control.
Speaker:The worst of it was when the Commonwealth's trying to go in control.
Speaker:You know, it's one of those things, like, I honestly believe that we were
Speaker:very fortunate to be an island nation, girt by sea, that we're just surrounded
Speaker:by a natural moat and everything like that, and we just blocked it out.
Speaker:We kept it out, and we didn't have those refrigerated vans and that sort
Speaker:of stuff, sitting outside hospitals dealing with the dead, you know?
Speaker:We were lucky.
Speaker:Oh, we were exceptionally lucky, you know, and Britain, you know, they had
Speaker:a ridiculous number that were killed over there from the disease, you know,
Speaker:and um, Boris Johnson was apparently circling the drone pipe too, you know.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Missed opportunity.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:Hand
Speaker:now, Joe.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I guess, uh, I don't know how long I could keep banging on about
Speaker:this, but I just think that, yeah, looking back at the last nine years.
Speaker:An enormous number of policy failures that are just obvious.
Speaker:Top of the list being submarine hawkers, working our way down.
Speaker:Nothing really changing.
Speaker:Democracy fundamentally flawed in that it's relying on the will of the people.
Speaker:And we have a system where the will of the people can be
Speaker:manipulated by powerful interests.
Speaker:And I don't know how we go about stopping that from happening, but
Speaker:I also think it needs to be in the constitution.
Speaker:National infrastructure needs to be owned nationally.
Speaker:So no selling off of national infrastructure, and I think CSIRO needs
Speaker:Permanent funding for long term scientific research that is in the interest of
Speaker:Australia has no financial reward.
Speaker:You know, the things that um, low cost medication that are, people are reliant
Speaker:on, that there's no business case that we have to go, oh yes, we're going to
Speaker:make millions of dollars back on this.
Speaker:If it's a loss, it's a loss.
Speaker:It's uh, it's an investment into the well being of the Australian population.
Speaker:Profit doesn't come into it.
Speaker:The other one along those lines as well would be, if we're extracting minerals
Speaker:out of the ground in this generation, the proceeds from that should not be
Speaker:spent by this generation with nothing left for the future generation.
Speaker:That should be, if, if you're actually.
Speaker:If you're selling off capital, then it should be quarantined forever
Speaker:as capital, and you could only ever access the income that comes from it.
Speaker:So, otherwise, it's just a current generation ripping
Speaker:off a future generation.
Speaker:So, add that to the list.
Speaker:Um, yeah.
Speaker:But until, until some fundamental structural changes are made,
Speaker:we're just gonna head more and more down the toilet, I think.
Speaker:The only thing that might save us is, is our preferential voting system here in
Speaker:Australia might get more of the greens.
Speaker:You'll be pleased to know Scott involved.
Speaker:And that's going to potentially shake things up.
Speaker:Or all the United States doesn't have it.
Speaker:UK, does it have preferring?
Speaker:No, that's past the postcode.
Speaker:It used to have,
Speaker:um, single transferable for something, but they've just changed that.
Speaker:I think councils, um, local councils were, and they changed it.
Speaker:Yeah, um, so, um, Um, that might be the only thing that delays our spiralling
Speaker:demise that, to match the UK and the US, is our preferential voting system
Speaker:allowing us to get the Greens in, and, and they, to me, appear to be a voice
Speaker:that largely is listening to what
Speaker:the masses need, I think.
Speaker:But, um, anyway, remains to be seen.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:I wasn't going to throw any other bits of Two Cents worth in, because
Speaker:I'm done on this one I think.
Speaker:Oh, did we mention on air about the nuclear reactors and what they
Speaker:were worth in terms of capacity?
Speaker:No, we didn't actually do anything.
Speaker:That was on a, that was on something that Trevor sent around to us.
Speaker:And it was, the estimates were that it would produce approximately 4
Speaker:percent of the electricity that the country would actually need by 2050.
Speaker:So, uh, I don't think the national party is right when they're saying
Speaker:that this would remove the need for large renewable projects.
Speaker:It's a pipe dream and a very expensive pipe dream at that.
Speaker:That was basically.
Speaker:Looking at the current generating capacity of, of standard nuclear power
Speaker:stations, and assuming they put two of them on each of the seven sites.
Speaker:Yeah, so it was 2.
Speaker:4 gigawatts was the The largest power station that's been
Speaker:built, I think in Europe?
Speaker:It's in Finland, I believe.
Speaker:And so, seven of those at 2.
Speaker:4 kilowatts is, uh, 18 kilowatts?
Speaker:18 gigawatt
Speaker:or something like that.
Speaker:Sorry, 18 gigawatts, yes.
Speaker:And they
Speaker:were talking about us needing 300 and something gigawatts by the
Speaker:time the 2050 was turning around.
Speaker:I mean, we have to be realistic.
Speaker:We are very profligate in the way we use energy over here.
Speaker:Absolutely we are.
Speaker:Um, I, I, you, you show an Australian house to any European and they would
Speaker:fall over laughing that the levels of insulation and, um, energy efficiency,
Speaker:um, it was shocking when I first moved over it, how flimsy the houses were.
Speaker:And I'm very glad that I live in a subtropical climate because
Speaker:Hobart is the same distance from the equator as the south of France
Speaker:is, if I remember correctly.
Speaker:And we consider that cold.
Speaker:And you try and build a Hobart house in the south of France and you get
Speaker:shot down by the planning laws.
Speaker:Yeah, so, um, uh, John's just made it into the chat room and we're
Speaker:about to just finish off, John.
Speaker:Um, he's been at a Labour Party meeting.
Speaker:Um, yeah, so.
Speaker:We're not touching on Assange?
Speaker:Julian Assange is out.
Speaker:He's coming back to Australia.
Speaker:Um, well, I'm happy that he's out.
Speaker:Yeah, so am I.
Speaker:But it's sad that he had to take a plea deal.
Speaker:Um Because
Speaker:effectively, well, now, now they've validated that they can charge a
Speaker:And a reporting journalist, yeah.
Speaker:Who was not on US soil for committing a crime that wasn't a crime in either his
Speaker:home country or where he was at the time.
Speaker:It's one of those things I just think to myself that um, he had to take the
Speaker:plea out because the Americans weren't going to back down or anything else.
Speaker:That obviously said, John, look, we're just, we're just Give your time served
Speaker:and then you'll be on your way home.
Speaker:It's probably the best deal he could hope for.
Speaker:Now, I understand that the legal team and everything else is starting to argue
Speaker:with him and all that sort of stuff about getting him a pardon, which I
Speaker:don't think they should bother myself.
Speaker:I don't think the Yanks are actually going to give it to him.
Speaker:Have a rest.
Speaker:The thing, my thought on the whole thing is, Guys like, uh, James
Speaker:Patterson and other people like that, we're just, what are we doing?
Speaker:We should have let the US have him and he should rot in jail, the damn traitor.
Speaker:I think, you know, this sort of language, Simon Birmingham
Speaker:might have been of a similar ilk.
Speaker:And, uh, you know, just other comments you see from other people,
Speaker:and you just go, God, some of you people are just miserable shits.
Speaker:Like, honestly,
Speaker:some of these people are just goddamn awful.
Speaker:No matter what you thought of, of the guy, he's had a pretty harsh time, and you
Speaker:would have thought, well, enough's enough.
Speaker:But these guys are just mean spirited assholes, is what I, is the impression
Speaker:I got from some of these guys.
Speaker:The whole, um, sexual assault case, and if he's still bringing that up now, um,
Speaker:one, yeah, there was something there, I think there was a chance to put it
Speaker:to bed, um, I think there was no desire to put it to bed, and I think it's been
Speaker:a very useful thing to smear him with.
Speaker:It would have been nice to have seen that as a court case and see what
Speaker:the actual facts of the case were.
Speaker:Hmm, yeah, anyway.
Speaker:Um, you know, watching the guy get off the aeroplane and that,
Speaker:you'd just be He's a broken man.
Speaker:You'd just be thinking, his head would just be spinning totally out of
Speaker:control with all the emotions and the sensations would be going on in there.
Speaker:Like, I'm really glad that they kept him away from making a statement, and,
Speaker:um, you would imagine somebody in that position really needs Some time to
Speaker:just digest where they're at and um, it would have been really unfair to shove a
Speaker:microphone in his face and And get him to start answering questions at that point.
Speaker:So I'm glad they sort of looked after him in that sense and, and, um, kept
Speaker:him away from an interview of sorts.
Speaker:When they showed him landing in Saipan, I saw the video of that and
Speaker:thought, that's a very familiar face going through those doors with him.
Speaker:And it turns out it was, it was Kevin Rudd.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, um, who, who, who knows how much sort of credit to give the Albanese
Speaker:government and Rudd and where all of the credit lies and doesn't lie.
Speaker:But his legal advisor was pretty clear in saying that, um, that
Speaker:Assange was certainly giving Albanese plenty of credit.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:Well, I think it's because Albanese was the first of our PMs that
Speaker:actually Took it up for yanks.
Speaker:Yeah, you know, it's one of those things, you know I don't know what the
Speaker:hell happened over that sexual assault thing either You know, it, I think Joe
Speaker:could have, could have hit the nail on the head, then it could have been
Speaker:something to besmirch his character with.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:However, I honestly believe that we shouldn't lose sight of that was the
Speaker:original complaint was sexual assault.
Speaker:Anyway.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:and apparently he was willing to go to Sweden if they guaranteed they
Speaker:wouldn't extradite him to the US.
Speaker:Yeah, I know that.
Speaker:Uh, so had they given that guarantee, we could've had this dealt
Speaker:with, what was it, 15 years ago?
Speaker:Uh, it does all seem to be.
Speaker:It was an excuse to pick him up, to hold him whilst they got their
Speaker:ducks in a row to extradite him.
Speaker:So, uh, yeah, I, whether it's been blown out of proportion.
Speaker:And just finally, uh, Senator, Senator, very much.
Speaker:Payments got, um, crossed the floor and voted with the
Speaker:Greens for a set up of Palestinian state.
Speaker:Yes, for recognition of a Palestinian, of Palestine.
Speaker:And, uh, the Labor Party have, uh, said that's, uh, contrary to
Speaker:caucus solidarity and have basically
Speaker:pushed her to the outer and, uh,
Speaker:They haven't kicked you out of the party or anything like that.
Speaker:They have Everything.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Almost.
Speaker:They have kicked you out of the caucus and John Seaman says, I have
Speaker:a bit of feedback on the Senator suspension, maybe, maybe next week.
Speaker:So if you've got his email address, better email him and find out what
Speaker:he knows and, um, find out whether it's okay for us to talk about it.
Speaker:But what do you think of the principle of the party
Speaker:selling to members?
Speaker:Ah, the principle, no, that is one of the, one of my main objections to the Labor
Speaker:Party is that, um, at least in the Liberal Party, you can actually cross the floor,
Speaker:and
Speaker:they can't actually kick you out.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Now, the Labor Party has made it a article of faith and all that sort of
Speaker:stuff that says we will kick you out.
Speaker:If you actually cross the floor, which is absolutely ridiculous because you then got
Speaker:that, um, you've then got that decision that was made when What is it, what's his
Speaker:name, was the leader of the Labor Party?
Speaker:No, lost it.
Speaker:No, before him, Latham.
Speaker:When Latham was leader of the Labor Party, they all rolled up to the Senate
Speaker:to vote for John Howard's changes to the Marriage Act that would make it illegal
Speaker:for same sex unions to be recognized.
Speaker:And who had to go and do that?
Speaker:Penny Wong, an outwardly lesbian woman.
Speaker:Who has since got married and adopted a child.
Speaker:Oh, no, she didn't adopt a child.
Speaker:She had to, I'm pretty sure her wife gave birth and that sort of stuff.
Speaker:You know, yeah, that was utterly crazy, you know, that they had to go and do it.
Speaker:They had to dutifully obey their leader and go in there and she
Speaker:voted against her own interest.
Speaker:Yeah, that was wrong.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:What was Labor Party policy at the time?
Speaker:No, the Labor Party policy at the time was that they were
Speaker:opposed to same sex marriage.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Because the Labor Party policy at the moment, I believe, is that they're
Speaker:in favor of a two party solution.
Speaker:A two state solution, they are.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Which is why I think to myself My
Speaker:problem with this payment issue is It seems to me that she's pretty
Speaker:much in line with the Labor Party, with stated Labor Party policy.
Speaker:So to me, uh, you know, maybe I'd have less sympathy if she was maintaining a
Speaker:position that was, um, that was completely against stated Labor Party policy.
Speaker:Policy, but she seems to be somewhere within it to me.
Speaker:So that's why I'm a bit sympathetic to her and saying, Oh,
Speaker:that's your policy.
Speaker:She's within the bounds of it.
Speaker:There you go.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:John Seamans
Speaker:is going to be in Brisbane on Wednesday night.
Speaker:I'd like to stop here for a coffee with you.
Speaker:I
Speaker:will not be in Brisbane, John.
Speaker:So I'm still down the coast.
Speaker:Background you can see.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Well, there we go.
Speaker:A little bit on the current issues of the time, a little bit on the
Speaker:big picture, where, uh, I think we need some major institutional
Speaker:changes that won't come, but, um, who knows, we'll see what happens.
Speaker:But, um, yeah, just looking at other countries in particular, America,
Speaker:UK, France, now, pretty diabolical what's happening to democracy.
Speaker:Democracy is, is throwing up as the options.
Speaker:In our own democracy here has given us An Albanese government that's still
Speaker:doing deals with private contractors, not telling us what the deals are because
Speaker:it's commercial in confidence, still locking up whistleblowers, um, still
Speaker:supplying, um, Israeli defense contractors with money, still passing laws to enable
Speaker:further mining, a whole host of things that we would have expected from Morrison.
Speaker:All happening.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:I've run out of solutions.
Speaker:All right, John, message me separately.
Speaker:I'm not going to give you my, uh, over the, over the public chat where we are.
Speaker:So, right gentlemen, uh, thanks Scott for nine years and Joe as well.
Speaker:No worries.
Speaker:And, uh, onwards and upwards towards number 10.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:We'll talk to you all next week.
Speaker:Bye for now.
Speaker:Sentence you to time served.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And that's a good night from me.
Speaker:And a good night from him.
Speaker:Good
Speaker:night.
Speaker:Good night.
