We need to talk about ideas, good ones and bad ones.

We need to learn stuff about the world.

We need an honest, intelligent, thought provoking and entertaining

review of what the hell happened on this planet in the last seven days.

We need to sit back and listen to the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

Yes.

Sit back and listen to the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove and Joe, the tech

guy who was here, but he's disappeared.

He's coming back.

. This is another episode of the podcast, the Iron Fist and

the Velvet Glove episode 374.

Scott's been here from half of them, probably Scott, over the years.

Maybe I would've thought so.

I was very regular back when I lived in Brisbane.

Yeah.

Yep.

So you're returning to form.

Good to have you back again, Scott.

How's your week?

He's been very good.

Thanks, Trevor.

Yeah, it's good.

Good.

Trevor Goodday.

Joe Goodday listeners, how are Yeah, the changes in the in

the chat room, he says you are.

Yes, we are Landon.

Hardbottom is in the chat room.

We are late.

Scott.

You weren't too perturbed by the proposed changes to the putting a

cap of 3 million on your super fund.

You've decided to No, I wasn't, I wasn't to pay some money

outta that to reduce it down.

No, I didn't.

I didn't, I didn't do that.

No, I didn't think, I didn't think that the changes today

were all that unreasonable.

Mm-hmm.

, okay.

If you really want to talk about it.

Mm-hmm.

, I think Chalmer's flat flatly refusing to index the the superannuation amount

when the higher tax cuts in that is setting up the younger generation to

pay for this expenditure that has come and benefited our generation.

Oh, okay.

So in 20 years time now, you know, now look, the, the average superannuation

account balance now is only $150,000.

So it's very reasonable for them to say that $3 million,

you are not gonna get paid.

I agree.

But in 20 years time, salaries will be much higher, which means the

contributions going into salaries, going into the superannuation contributions

will be a lot higher, which will end up, meaning that $3 million may become.

Possibly not the average, but it'll become a lot closer to the average, which

means that it certainly looks and smells like they are plugging expenditure holes

with revenue gains out into the future.

Which I know is fairly controversial for me to say that, but that's just

what it feels and smells like to me.

Mm-hmm.

But these are gonna be, by the way, Joe, the tech guy is

with us, but his video is off.

Hopefully his audio's on.

Joe, are you actually there?

Well, Joe, are you there, Joe?

There we go.

Right.

He's with us.

His computer's on go slow.

So, fair enough.

Chime in, Joe whenever you can.

And we'll see how we go.

Joe's not in his normal place, so he is on a, he's in a secret location.

Can't tear any more than that.

Alright.

Okay.

Back to the superannuation, cause that is the story of

Australian politics of the week.

And yeah, so basically the story is that labor government and Jim Chalmers

has said, you know what, if you've got more than 3 million in superannuation,

You're really probably using it as, we didn't put in these words, but

effectively exactly what he was saying.

It's more like a tax dodge.

Yeah.

Yes, because I agree with him.

It probably is.

Yes.

And that really it's 30 years a hundred thousand a year, isn't it?

Yeah, exactly.

Yes.

You can live quite nicely on that.

When the idea of superannuation was to fund a dignified retirement,

not necessarily an exorbitant, luxurious retirement, so mm-hmm.

, it was to keep people off the age pension and self-funded

for a, a retirement indignity.

And really because of the tremendous tax breaks in it, of course, very wealthy

people look at it and go, gee, well why don't I put my money into superannuation

and that way I'll pay less tax.

And you can't blame people for doing it.

It's just a case that this is what governments are for, is to look at things

and go, okay, we need to change that.

And superannuation is something that's been changed a lot over the years,

so, this is just another change to it.

So just some of the stuff that came out.

So yeah, you can still have more than 3 million of super in there.

You just, just that more tax on, you're just gonna pay more tax.

So instead of 15%, you're gonna pay a rate.

You pay 30.

on the balance in excess of $3 million or $3.

Yeah.

What you earn, what you earn on, what you earn on the balance, up to

3 million bucks, you only pay 15% on.

Yep.

So it's just going to basically make the taxation of superannuation

very progressive, you know?

Yeah.

And it'll still be better than the 45% that these people

otherwise most probably beyond.

So there's still, you know, this is big saving.

What's, what's capital gains?

Well, capital gains is, capital gains is calculated based on when you sell

the asset , how much you sell it for.

You end up getting a 50% discount on the actual profit that you make on something.

And then you, then that goes into your amount, goes into your income of

that year, your income for that year.

But I think you've got an averaging provision.

If you're on the top marginal rate and you sold a property made of capital gain,

you would pay tax on the capital gain.

Yeah.

At the top marginal rate.

So it gets thrown on top of your other income and taxed at that rate.

It does.

I it was just, yeah.

How would that compare, if you'd invested, rather than putting your money in c p,

you would put it into the stock market?

Well, this is the, you could still put in the stock market just in the, in the

superannuation, you know, framework.

Well this is the, I'm just wondering what the tax rates are gonna be.

Yeah.

Whether it's advantageous still to put it into super.

Well it is cuz buying shares you could just buy the shares but do it within

a super fund and you'll pay tax.

Mm-hmm.

, even if you've got 3 million worth of super, you'll pay tax at 30%

rather than if you're in that sort of realm, likely paying tax five.

Yeah.

So it still makes one of those things.

I had this conversation with the better half tonight and you know, we were talking

about the the failure of charmers to index it and he said if you had a 20 year

old kid now, would you be advising them to sock extra money into super or would

you get them to invest outside of super?

That's a very good question.

I don't know what the answer is.

Who should put it in Super.

Yeah.

You, you'd only ever, I don't know, Trevor.

I think that

one of the things that does worry me is that, you know, they're

going down the road of saying that superannuation is purely for your

retirement, which I agree with.

However whatever's left over, I should be able to go to my estate to be, to, for me

to divide up amongst my, those people that are gonna inherit it rather than it going

to the superannuation industry for them.

Use as, as some sort of bonus for themselves.

Because I died before I had expended all my super.

No, it doesn't get lost.

No.

I'm just, the balance in super still is distributed.

If you are required to roll it over into an, an annuity pension mm-hmm.

For life, then they're gonna pay out your balance until you die.

And that's what I'm saying is if you die before you run out of

your money, then you've, you've forfeited that to the Superfund.

Okay.

But that be, if they make the change of forcing people into that style

of, and that is, that is the problem that, you know, we were talking about

this and and I agree with him, it's possibly the next thing along well.

But, but, but a pension, A pension has always been a gamble.

The people who live longer are funded by the people who live let long That's true.

And, and Scott, there's always a gamble with anything.

You could have just your money in the bank or whatever, and the

government could change the laws and say, oh, we're now gonna introduce

some inheritance tax or some other wealth tax or something like that.

Yeah, I know.

Which I've got absolutely.

No, I've got absolutely no, no problem with inheritance tax.

Yeah.

You know, because I won't pay it.

My, my estate will end up paying it, you know, because I'll be dead.

Mm-hmm.

You know, I'm gonna know what hell's gonna happen.

My, there's daughter's just started her first, well, just starting her first job

and, and I told her that she's paying super because she's part-time and not.

Yep.

And she was going, you, you mean they're already taking money from me, right.

And I'm saying, yeah, this is to fund your retirement in a long time.

And she goes, but I want my money now to be available for me to spend on my

uni fees, which I'm gonna pay Yeah.

Interest on.

And to pay for all of the things she says.

The money I, I, I, she understands saving early, but she's saying at

the moment, why is she taking out a loan to go to uni to pay for a

superannuation, when in theory she's gonna qualify, she's gonna get a good job.

She'll be able to better fund her superannuation further down the track.

And she thinks she shouldn't be starting paying her super this early.

She should be able to use it for her expenses.

As a young person.

Yes.

If you view super as something that you are not getting that money in

your wage and it's being taken out of that, but is it extra to your wage

It's putting put in there, you know?

Well, that's the whole point.

Well, you know, it's one of those things I, I'm very glad I work

for a company that doesn't quote superannuation as part of your salary.

They just, they pay it over and above what they've gotta pay you.

Yeah.

It always annoys me.

You, you quote a figure when the, you're going for a job, you quote a

figure and they say, oh, it's so, is that totally, is that including spr?

And I'm going, no, that's after tax.

You know, after tax.

Well, if they quote a stupid figure, right?

If they, if we're agreeing a salary, then superannuation is on top.

This is not the total bundle.

Agree.

You know, my office expenses, you know, the, the lighting, the air

conditioning, why not take all of that outta my wages as well?

Alright, well, you know, I guess, I mean it's all came apart around

with Hawke and Keating, wasn't it?

It was the Accord.

It was, it was cutting deals.

It was all part of the Accord . They, they cut a deal with the union movement

and they said, look, in order to get you guys on board, what are we gonna do here?

And they said, well, we want compulsory superannuation.

And they actually did it then.

So that was where most of it, that's where it all started from.

Now if you listen to Paul Keating, he thinks that, he thinks that the way he

invented it was perfect, but he, I don't think he foresaw, you know, there was one

or two superannuation accounts that were 400 million, you know, that sort of money.

Yes.

Now that, that is, that is clearly someone who has saved up that amount

of money in a tax effective way.

Yep.

Now, I honestly believe that had, had Paul Keating been the.

Great man that he was, then he would've been able to foresee that and he

should have actually done something about it when he designed the system.

Mm-hmm.

But now we've had to come along, we've had to change it now, you know, a lot of

it has a lot of it has already changed.

You know, the Tories did actually pull apart a hell of a lot of the

superannuation savings they did.

He said, oh, hello, there's Shay.

He recently came out and said the Accord is no longer serving us.

Okay, fair enough.

You know, they did actually reduce some of the superannuation tax concessions

that were involved in that sort of thing, so that, that has already been

largely pulled apart, but they didn't actually take it that step further

and actually tax the very well to do.

Yeah.

There's been various changes over the years.

I can remember there were these post 83 or post 86 contributions treated differently

pre 83 and it's been a bunch of them 83.

It's interesting that they didn't sit down at the beginning and think, how

will the rich exploit this new rule?

And, you know, really it's like, solar panels when they were so

generous with solar at 53 cents.

Really nobody, nobody sat down and did the sums and went, you know what,

there'll be a bunch of smart people out there with a fair bit of spare

money who are gonna just load up their roofs and their carport with solar

panels and this is what's gonna happen.

What's on that?

Well, initially no caps no.

Right.

So it was an overly generous scheme where people in government

didn't sit down and just think, if somebody's got a lot of money, how

can they use this to their advantage?

Lawfully and Super was one of those where they've been tinkering with it

for a while and this is yet another sort of tinkering that's clean,

necessary Game of Mates argues that it's actually 10 to the union movement.

The cheaper was brought in.

Yes.

Well, I think so as well.

I think it, it did neuter, I think actually Hawke and Keating actually did

a lot of neoliberal type of stuff there.

Really?

No, they did, they did bug the power.

I think unions, I don't, they sort of, there's no things getting down about that.

Yeah.

And we're gonna show a chart later on, on terms of strike action

and industrial disruption and how it's disappeared from our economy.

Kind of in line with when wages stopped growing.

, the argument is that the unions now own shares.

Yeah.

And therefore they're unwilling to take the strike action that puts the

shares they are managing and therefore the fees they're earning at risk.

Yes.

Well, I think that's probably an argument more for the industry.

Super funds that are now the union movement doesn't benefit

from those industry super funds.

They are actually designed to benefit only the members of the, of the fund, but

the unions are behind them . So I think you've got a reasonable argument there.

Sorry.

And the unions take management fees.

I dunno that the unions take management fee, I think, or or at least the super

funds have input into the unions.

Well I think the unions actually have to, I think the unions provide

50% of the directors, don't they?

But yeah, they might provide members of the board Yeah.

Under an obligation to manage the fund for the welfare of members.

Sorry.

But it, it's, it's more that the unions are less likely to take strike action

if they believe that their members superannuation is gonna be at risk.

Yeah.

Look.

By the way, this is not a podcast for financial advice, although

Joel no, didn't listen to us.

Joel in the chat room has said, I've put all my money in my space shares,

so , hopefully Joel's not running any super funds out there for anyone else.

good luck with that one.

Good on you, Joel.

There's lots of people in the chat room having a good chat.

Make your comments.

We'll try and introduce them.

Eric's there, Tom, the warehouse guy was there.

Tom's saying they invested nine to 12% of your income and they lose it.

Just depends.

You can shop around and yeah.

Okay, so let's just get some facts and figures out there as well.

So less than 1% of people have got more than 3 million in super.

The average amount, as you said, Scott oh, for people who've got, for people

who've got at least 3 million, the average for those people is actually 5.8.

So the people who are caught by this new change on average have 5.8 million

in, and we all know what averages are.

Yes.

So, Peter Dutton is against it.

He said that it's about introducing new laws.

It's, it's basically just another tax, so he's against it.

So he would be, because he's not or anything, he's just against everything.

Yes.

Well, as described, I think by the writer in The Guardian I think

it was Murphy who said that Peter Dutton is a Tony Abbott tribute band.

I thought that was a good line to know all over again.

J Greg Jericho wrote that the Australia Institute estimates that

the cost of the tax concessions for superannuation is on par with

the cost of the entire age pension.

So I mean, one of the ideas ofs was so that the government wouldn't have

to pay the age pension and it's the tax concessions have reached now

the cost of the entire age pension.

So that's an interesting statistic.

And a couple more statistics for you.

Those people with an income above 150,000 would be 7% of all individuals,

yet they make up 32% of all personal superannuation contributions.

So obviously rich people pour in a lot more money into super than poor people do.

That'll make sense.

And the share of people with a super fund above 2 million was

just 0.5 of a percent, just 80,000.

and 384 of those were people under age 30 they're doing well.

See, that's a big money coming from Mum and dad, isn't it?

Yeah.

And and those 0.5% of people account for 12% of all superannuation funds held.

Wow.

The top 0.5% account for 12% of all of the Superfund Superfund money held.

And the conclusion in this was much like negative gearing is a tax

dodge disguised as a housing policy.

Too much of superannuation has become a tax dodge disguised

as a retirement income policy.

I think that sums up pretty well.

How much is self-managed super as compared to industry or fund?

Yeah, it doesn't matter.

Doesn't, I mean, the thing you are, the more likely you have a self-managed.

Yeah, well, they're saying is that the bigger, the bigger balances

are in the self-managed funds.

Yeah.

So it's, it's clearly a tax dodge that they've set up for themselves

. So, Yeah, it's one of those things

with what the government has said.

Now, before you go into ATIC spins my good friend Pat's out there, I'm sure you'll

know exactly who I'm talking about, but I've used your nickname rather than your

real name to protect your innocence.

You are never gonna have 3 million in a superannuation account, so

there's nothing for you to complain about, and I'm sure that we can

expect you to vote labor next time.

All right.

Is he like these Americans who are just temporarily disadvantaged millionaires?

Mm-hmm.

, , very poor Americans who continue to vote for policies that enhance

the lifestyles of the rich.

Cause they figure one day they will be rich.

He's not like that.

He's, he's very realistic about where he is gonna get to or anything like that.

But you know, he has said to me before that he wants to die on the

pension , and he was gonna pour all his money into his, into his extravagant

home in a beachfront place that he can still collect the pension.

I thought to myself, okay, more disclosures.

Alison, she's in the chat room.

She declares, she's not the one person who has over 500 million.

Super.

So she's no good for a loan then?

No.

So one reactions around the place, Z Ste said people make many decisions

and saving choices during their working life, like salary phrasing.

And this should not now be punished with a knee-jerk policy

by the Albanese government.

But those of you who are wondering whether the Steggles of the world were

really just liberals, old-fashioned liberals with . You don't wanna get,

you have no interest in your bedroom and have a climate friendly agenda.

But otherwise, economically and tax wise, triple liberals really?

So that's Steggles.

Yeah.

So , lean Hardbottom, he's disclosed that it is him.

In fact, that's got the $500 million balance here.

Oh, got on your Landon.

Yep.

And another one here relevant to this, let me just see if there's one more.

Oh yeah.

And I like this person.

This, this Twitter handle.

The handle of this person is participation trophy wife . That's a good one.

rights.

If you're worried about 3 million not being enough retirement, spend

less on coffee and smashed avocado.

Oh, it's it's good theory, right?

I like what ge, Jeff Greg Jericho said, he said, oh, bless Ali STL suggesting

a 3 million cap could hurt those who have done the salary sacrificing.

Next, next will be told this cap could hit nurses and teachers.

Yeah.

Isn't the salary sacrifice only if you are earning under a certain.

No, I, I'm, I'd do it.

You know, it's just, no.

Okay.

I don't think, I don't earn more than $150,000, but it's

just one of those things.

If you, you used to get, you used to get a much bigger contribution

. If you earned less than, oh, I

would match your contribution.

Yeah, that's right.

But that has now gone by the wayside.

You know, salary sacrificing, there's no, there's nothing magical about it.

You just gotta say to them that you want extra super money put aside, sir.

Hmm.

Okay.

Right.

Let's talk about inflation, unemployment and the reserve bank

policy and wages and, and tie all this in together in a coherent fashion.

And first of all, before we get on to some of the commentary that I've got from some

articles, let's just look at some figures.

And the first one there is a chart showing what the real, the largest real wage

drop in Australian history looks like.

By the way, dear listener, if you are listening to the audio of

this podcast, then these charts will be like chapter images.

So if you are listening on the iTunes app or most other good apps, I'll show

the chapter images, say, look at your.

And there's a half a chance that these charts and images that we're gonna be

talking about will just appear on your phone, which will be pretty handy.

So there you go.

That's chapters.

Now, so you can see that the real wages in Australia have plummeted

since may of 2020 especially.

So there's a chart there that shows that quite an amazing jump.

Meanwhile, I've got a chart showing the ASX 200 and Scott since early 2020, the

sheer market increase till today is 60%.

Yeah, I've read that in an article.

I thought that can't be right.

And then I looked it up and I it is.

But, but hang on.

That's disingenuous because there was a full beginning of 2020.

Yeah.

Massive drop.

So it's regained.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So at the beginning of lockdown, it, it plummeted.

Yes.

And it's regained what it lost.

Yes.

But it's quite an extraordinary thing to get a 60% increase

in essentially three years.

Amazing increase.

So here is that, you're right.

What's the other chart I've got here that might be relevant before we go on?

Now that is just, that is just the prices of shares more so Yes.

Than what their profits have been that are under the shares.

True.

But it's usually a reflection of, yeah, it's usually a reflection unless you're.

Commonwealth Bank and you announce a record profit , and the next

day every bastard sells them down.

So you go down below a hundred bucks a share.

But anyway, yeah.

so, so disgruntled Commonwealth Bank shareholder,

So what we've got, dear listener, is our reserve bank and central banks

around the world worrying about inflation, which has definitely been

the case that there's been inflation that we haven't seen for a while.

And the response by our reserve bank and other central banks has

been to increase interest rates.

And the first question is, well, why do they do that?

Why do you increase interest rates to somehow combat inflation?

And the answer is that the theory is that by increasing interest rates,

you will dampen the economy such that well backing up just a bit.

Reserve Bank and central banks have been talking about this wage price

spiral, essentially that wages go are going up as a consequence,

prices have to be increased to take account of the increased wage cost.

Because of the increased prices, people demand higher wages, which leads to

increased prices, which leads to higher wages and increased prices spiraling

upwards is, is the theory that central banks have basically been working on.

And so to counteract that wages, price spiral, the theory is that if you increase

interest rates, you will dampen the economy to the point where businesses will

start putting people off, start laying them off, and jobs will be harder to get.

People will be worried about losing their job and that they will therefore

not ask for price for wage increases.

And that then is a circuit breaker to stop the wages price spiral.

And this is all part of a a theory called the Phillips Curve.

And the problem with that is that around the world, they are looking

at unemployment figures and finding that there is record low unemployment.

So there's still not enough workers out there, despite the fact that interest

rates have been going higher and higher.

So the people who subscribe to this theory, we need to dampen the economy.

To increase unemployment, to make people scared so that they

won't ask for wage increases.

Looking at the situation and going, gee we just need to increase the interest

rates even higher, then really crush the economy so that people will be

fired or worried about their job and hence not was for a wage increase.

And so that's the risk we face, dear listener, is that that central

banks are, are relying on this theory, which could be complete bs.

And if you look at the world and we've discussed before about

unemployment figures, how it's kind of meaningless as a figure.

There's a danger that these guys just dunno what they're talking about.

That they're locked into this old style of economic theory and if

they keep going with what they wanna do and increased interest rates,

they're going sub to subject us to a recession that we didn't have to have.

Scott or Joe, what do you think of right above it?

Well, Robert Reich argues that we don't have a labor shortage.

Yes, we have a shortage of jobs paying a decent wage.

Right.

People actually want.

Right.

And so people aren't taking the shit jobs anymore.

Yeah.

It's like during lockdown when, or sorry, just after lockdown when

we had, didn't have backpackers in to work, you know, slave labor.

Yep.

. And, and locals were begged to come and do it.

Yep.

And the locals went and did it and went, hang on.

Sure.

I'm earning this great amount of money, but they're taking

half of it off me in rent.

Yeah.

My actual money at the end of the week in my pocket is less

than if I was on the doll.

Mm-hmm.

, why would I travel to Outback Queensland to go down less than I get on the dock?

Yes.

Yeah.

Scott, Scott theories, the Reserve Banks Reserve Bank and Central

Banks going to ruin us theories.

I agree with what you are saying there because it is based on that

economist from the 1950s in New Zealand, something rather Phillips, you know,

he was the one that first said that you've got this wages price spiral.

Now.

It's one of those things that I would've thought they would've moved

on from by now, but apparently not now.

You know, I really agreed with Sally McManus the other, the other day.

She sent an email to us , and she said that we are living in a cost of

cri the cost of living crisis, but it's got nothing to do with wages.

It's got everything to do with the gouging that big that companies are doing.

In the chat room.

Shalene says, doesn't account for supply chain problem or company profits.

Sha comment, you should be on a podcast Sha.

Mm-hmm.

Maybe.

Anyway, keep going.

Scott.

Talking about company profits.

Didn't Qantas just post a, a slight profit?

Yes, they did.

Qantas made an enormous profit and now, you know, it's one of those things like,

you know, their subsidiary Jetstar is, well it hasn't fallen out of the sky yet,

but it's threatening to, you know mm-hmm.

It appears that the service and maintenance has been Let's slide.

Yeah.

Qantas made a profit of 1.43 billion for the half year.

So just remembering that they benefited by 2.3 billion in handouts

from the Morrison government.

And at the time the Transport Workers Union said Maybe we should

be taking that as equity rather than just giving it to Qantas.

Of course, Morrison was never going to do that.

Apparently, other governments around the world did.

We could be, yes, at least half owners, the Australian public

of Qantas, but aas we are not.

So we gave away 2.3 billion and they are now rotting us with hefty plane

fares and earning 1.43 billion, which would be okay if we were the

shareholders of that, but we're not.

Mm-hmm.

, another missed opportunity.

The other ones who are making big money at the moment are the banks.

And so, let me see.

Commonwealth Bank reported a record profit 5.15 billion for

the six months to December.

Now, Scott and Joe, was it because the Commonwealth Bank suddenly found ways

of being more efficient of growing their business and exploring new markets of,

of amazing initiatives and new ideas that have, have created this new wealth?

No, it was good.

Over their employees and their customers.

No.

What they did was they, they have increased the margin on what

they're making on their money.

So, you know, they're borrowing money at the, essentially the same

rate, which is lower than what they charge people, which is fine.

But with the Reserve Bank jacking interest rates up, the amount

they've had to pay out to their depositors hasn't gone up as quickly.

Yep.

But you know, as soon as, as soon as the interest rates go up, as soon as the

interest rates go up by the Reserve Bank, then mortgage rates go up immediately.

But the deposit rates , they take a lot longer to catch up.

And the gap, the gap between what they pay for deposits and what they charge

for lines has got wider and wider.

Yes.

So that's why the Commonwealth Bank is making all that sort of money and all

the banks do, it's easy to make money.

As a bank in a, in a period where you've gone from record, low interest to sort

of, you didn't need to qualify that.

It's easy as a bank to make money.

. Yes.

Cuz you've essentially given a license to do precisely that.

Make money via a simple ledger transaction.

That's exactly right.

Just in this article it says Australia's biggest bank made no pretense of

claiming its performance was all a result of better serving its customers.

Rather it implicitly acknowledged it was screwing them, saying that its inflated.

Bottom line was in large measure, quote, driven by a recovery in net interest

margins in the rising rate environment.

Put another way as Central bank lifted official rates, the Commonwealth

Bank took advantage by jacking up the amount it charged its

borrowers more than what it paid.

Its depositors.

So you're quite correct there, Scott.

Very good.

Other also big announcements of profits coals up 17% on the previous year.

Woolworths no up 14%.

Don't know about over here, but certainly in the uk the big supermarkets got in

trouble cuz they were playing their suppliers up to two years in arrears.

So effectively they've been sitting on the profits for two years before

they go on and pay their suppliers.

Wow.

How do supplies, how do they survive?

Yeah.

Let me just see what else I've got here.

So yeah, so when the Reserve Bank raises interest rates, there's a section of the

economy that finds that a stimulus in fact rather than a depressing effect,

which the bank is in theory trying to do in order to cancel people's jobs.

So, it's a really blunt instrument that the Reserve Bank has remembering that

the unelected officials, and in my view, the functions of a reserve bank should be

revert back to the government of the day.

Who should?

No, I don't agree with that.

I think you've gotta maintain an independent board.

Oh.

Because they're doing such a good job, Scott.

No, not because they're doing such a good job, because you've just gotta

keep 'em independent of government.

Why?

Why?

Because if you've got them, if you've got them in the gov, if, if you've got the

government making the decision, they're going to be more inclined to do exactly

what the public wants, which right now would be to keep interest rates low.

Sounds like democracy.

Yeah, I know it's democracy.

But then we could in that, with the whole thing going outta control again,

but, but the, but see, we've got a reserve bank who says our priority

is inflation and we don't give a shit about people being employed.

Yeah.

And maybe the public says, well, actually we'd.

Policies focus.

That's employment.

That's why I think we've gotta have, well, that's why I think we've

got to have a board made up with a larger group of people, well, not

a larger group of people, but a different cross section of people.

Mm-hmm.

Because you, you know, you used to have, you used to went, you used to

have union rep representation on the board that's now gone by the wayside.

Mm-hmm.

, you know, I think that if you had unions, if you had a union representative

on the board, if you had an employer representative on the board and you had

a, if you had an academic economist and then you had a market economist, and

then they elected a, then they, then they elected the head of the board.

I think that would be better, rather than the board, the head of the board being

appointed by the federal government.

So we just let the oligarchs choose the board members.

No, you wouldn't.

You wouldn't, you, the board members would still be appointed by the government.

Mm-hmm.

. But I think that if the government had that sort of idea and they,

and then, you know, I don't know how many members are on the board.

Say you've got seven members on the board, so they'd appoint all seven

and then they had to, then they had to appoint a head of the board from that.

Then that would be preferable then what it is currently.

Hmm.

We did a story on a guy who was a member of the Reserve Bank of

Australia and how difficult he found it to get information and.

To sort of work against the prevailing side geist.

That was sort of 18 months, two years ago.

I might try and find that one.

So just a couple more comments on this before we move on.

Rod Sims, former hair former Chair of Australian Competition and Consumer

Commission points out Australia's got a lot of monopolies and oligopolies

compared to a lot of other countries.

So two main supermarkets, three main energy retailers, three

telecommunications players, four banks.

They all act in unison.

There's only one a ACCC are in west competition there.

Yeah, , it's, it's monopoly.

Yeah.

Yes, ex indeed.

Good one Joe.

And then here's another one.

This is from a guy Warrick McKibben, professor of

economics, a n u Crawford School.

And he says Reserve bank spends far too much time worrying about workers' pay,

even if wages were to increase faster.

He says it would have a much smaller impact on inflation than the R B A.

Thanks.

This is because the share of labor in Australia's gross output of goods and

services has been widely overestimated.

The r b assumption is that when Australia produces something, labor

accounts for 65% of the inputs and capital accounts for the remaining 35.

Yeah, so he's saying the RBA assumes labor is 65% of the input cost of stuff.

In fact, the globalized world where so much of inputs into what we produce

comes from elsewhere, domestic labor only accounts for about 18% of inputs.

So McKibbin ads, you can get 82% of inflation coming from

things outside the labor market or the Australian labor market.

So, that's the bigger picture of what's driving inflation.

It's not local labor in a sense.

That's an interesting idea, Scott.

Worrying too much about wage, we should move our production to an

even cheaper source of slave labor.

No, but we should not worry about wages, increasing prices because ultimately

it's a very small component of stuff.

Exactly.

They probably had an argument for it when Australia used to

make virtually everything, but you know, those days are gone.

You know, you, you can't you know, I had to move heaven and earth to find an

Australian made toothpaste the other day.

You know, it's one of those things you just don't.

Sorry, you were looking for Australian made toothpaste.

Made toothpaste, like a Dick Smith type quest for Aussie.

No, I did.

Yes I did.

Just sat in your head, you wanted a Aussie made toothpaste.

Well, I did.

So I went through, you know, I have dear listener, I have gone through and

I have upgraded my, I have upgraded, have upgraded everything in my bathroom

. So it's Australian made.

So it's just one of those things I found it bloody difficult to find stuff

that was actually made in Australia.

Can you get a page on the website of Australian products that Scott recommends?

Can you get I don't, my toothbrush, I haven't, haven't looked for

an Australian made toothbrush.

You know, I've still got a hell of a lot of toothbrushes over

here, so Yeah, couldn't tell you.

Okay.

And anyway, now of course the one thing that would cut

inflation is a Super profits tax.

Yeah, exactly.

Yes.

If they had a super profits tax, then that would actually, that would actually

go a long way to keeping the baskets in check with their price increases.

You know what, maybe it wouldn't, maybe they would just charge the higher prices.

It's just the profit from it would end up in the hands of the Australian government.

But the prices would still be high, wouldn't they?

Yeah.

But then surely if the Australian government has more money to spend, yes.

That feeds back into.

Spending subsidizing something else, which goes back into the

pockets of ordinary workers.

Yes.

But my point is, technically the prices should still be high.

It's just that the profit from it would come to us rather than

rather to the corporations.

And bear in mind, dear listener, so much of Australian so many much of

Australian corporations are foreign owned.

So when we are talking about these profits, there is a chart

there which shows the green, how much is going offshore.

Yeah.

On these various companies.

The sort of teal colored bar is US investors.

And the orange yellowish is Australian investors.

And this is the top 20 companies in Australia.

And essentially so much of our big companies is actually

owned by US investors.

And so the first two were Australian government that got spun off.

Yep.

Commonwealth Government and CSL was mm-hmm.

. Yeah.

Telstra was got sold off, although that's mostly Australian owned.

Yeah, probably because of the way it was sold off maybe.

But a huge percentage of Australian, I dunno what happened to my, I didn't

actually have the numbers on it.

Interesting.

ResMed.

So, ResMed makes C happen.

, other devices, they're down the bottom.

Another mostly Australian owned.

Yeah.

So, if you've got sleep apnea, they make devices for that.

Oh.

So I presume that they're Australian market and overseas

investors just aren't interested.

Yeah.

Australia's 20 biggest companies 15 are majority owned by US based investors,

and three more are at least 25% US owned.

So all four of our big banks are majority owned by American investors.

So the story we're telling earlier of how easy it was for banks to make money

in a market where the interest rates are going up, all four of our big banks are

majority owned by American investors.

The Commonwealth Bank, it's more than 60% owned by American investors.

Ah, it's depressing.

. And the biggest ownership is bhp.

Yeah.

It's 70 something percent is US owned.

Yeah, indeed.

Alright we'll move on to any other topics you guys done with that one.

You okay with that?

Yeah.

That's rather depressing actually to see how much of the

country's owned by the yins.

Yeah, it is.

Okay.

And, and we'll have to do one at some stage on these companies, BlackRock and

others that you don't hear about often.

So, Let's see, Alison says, Grant's toothpaste is Australian owned.

Now, I dunno, I bought Cele.

Is that owned by Grants?

Dunno, I couldn't tell you.

Anyway, so Alison, if you wouldn't mind answering that

question then it'd be great.

Yeah.

Tom, the warehouse guy, says Woolworth are the only store and they have stock of it

in five stores only in New South Wales.

Who would've thought that our chat room was such experts

on Australian low toothpaste?

Good on you guys.

It's one of those things I just mentioned it and I didn't realize

I start a conversation like that.

Anyway.

Very good.

So, okay.

Oh, and John says afford it online and get it shipped.

Yeah, no, I, I'm managing to buy it in Wooleys, but I couldn't buy

it in, I couldn't buy it in Kohl's, but I could buy it in Wooleys.

Mm-hmm.

, just getting back to John says Scott's transport went under on Monday.

They were a huge supplier to Kohl's and Woolworth's I think is one of Cosworth.

I think you're saying Coles in Woolworth.

So Scott's Transport went under maybe?

Yep, they did.

Yep.

Supplier struggling.

Okay, so keep up the comments in the chat room, we'll try and get to those.

I mentioned there's chapters that we use in this podcast, so if you like a

topic, you can look at the chapters.

Head back to it and listen to it again.

Or if you don't like a topic, you can skip over it.

And there is a newsletter if going onto the website, i fife club.com au.

You can subscribe to the newsletter, which is basically during the week

as I find articles and sort of, in them a little start to look at later.

That will, those articles will appear in the newsletter.

So if you're looking for a, a newsfeed, that's a good one.

Donations, you can do that.

Joe.

Here's your chance for your funny QR code Patreon or PayPal.

You can do that.

Descript editing.

I run the audio for this that appears on the podcast through

an editor called Descript, which gets rid of the ums and rs.

It's pretty good.

It's a little bit choppy at times, but generally takes out five or six

minutes of stuff from a podcast.

If you don't like that, then you can listen to the YouTube version

cuz that doesn't happen on that one.

And if you're a PayPal donor, the show notes are available in a Dropbox, let

me know and I can give you the link.

Otherwise, people with Patreon, they they get the show notes and

the episode today is gonna be a big one in terms of show notes.

So, so yeah, that's all sort of admin type.

and right time for a bit of humor.

Now, I, dear listener, last week, so I was in Sydney and I had a laptop.

We are all sorted, had all the necessary cords.

We're talking like this beforehand.

Everything's going swimmingly.

I'm in an, a hotel with an amazing internet, like 500 down

and 300 up, like crazily fast.

And but then when we started the podcast because I was scrolling through

a Word document that was enough for my computer to have a heart attack.

No, no, no.

You're scrolling through a 3000 page Word document.

Let's do that.

. So I've since changed now where I, I just, I don't have the all previous

390 odd 370 odd episodes on the Word document that I use during the podcast.

It's a shorter one now.

So I won't putting, gonna publish it or something, crunch

my computer like that again.

So we did our best, but there was some stuff there and I decided,

look, I was gonna try and edit it and try and produce it, but in

the end it just didn't work out.

So we're gonna play, we're gonna deal with a few things that were discussed

in that episode that ended up.

just not being published.

So if you are in the chat room during that, you're gonna hear

a few repeats of a few things.

Sorry about that.

But hey, it's gonna be an extra long episode to keep Shay out of the Shark

Tank because both Shay and Landon are in the chat room at the moment.

So gotta keep keep them happy.

So, okay.

Let me just see here.

So one of these videos which was oh yeah, we'll start with this one.

So, and Scott, I asked you whether you had an electric car

yet and you don't have one yet.

I don't have electric get one, maybe or not.

Well, not something, not that king.

It's probably something that I end up down when I end up living closer to home.

I wouldn't mind.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So this is Kamala Harris talking about electric buses and I'll just

play a bit of what she has to sing.

No exhaust, no diesel smell, the bus has wifi and even u s

b outlets next to every seat.

I mean, come on, imagine you can charge your phone on your way home from work.

That's good stuff.

Yeah, just a heartbeat away from the biggest job on the planet, Scott.

Yeah, I know.

It's a little bit of a concern, isn't it?

Yeah.

You know, she was getting really very excited over something like that.

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

I'm the USB charging port.

Yes.

I've got a hybrid rental and it doesn't have the USB charging

port, and I was very disappointed.

Mm-hmm.

It's disappointing because I went to plug my phone in on the drive up here.

Yeah.

And sure.

12 volts socket.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

Because I pulled the instruction manual out and it said it's an

option and it's in the center box.

Center console.

Yep.

And I checked in there and no, the option wasn't fitted.

So you had to get the cigarette lighter adapter type thing if

you wanted to charge your phone.

Yeah.

Right.

Wow.

There we go.

Okay.

I was just surprised in this day and age.

Yeah.

That is surprising.

Yeah.

, what else have I got here?

Sharon.

Yeah.

Sharon says, I wonder how excited she was to learn China has spider balloons,

you know, because let's face it, Kamala, the bus you're getting so

excited about would've made, been made in China, I would've thought.

Yeah.

Okay.

You know, forgive me dear listener, if I happen to have a predisposition

to, to an interest in all things satanic and demonic, but you

know, you gotta watch it out.

There's gonna be demons in Congress apparently.

So, here's what a, an American preacher had to say about this.

Well, I'm gonna tell you something.

Here comes the glory.

Here comes the glory.

It's coming on in, and the glory will invade the halls of Congress.

And the glory is gonna come in like a mist right there in the middle of it.

And de demonn possess.

Congressmen are going to manifest right there in front of everybody.

You're going to see some of them react.

And don't be surprised if suddenly there's a joint, there's a session

of Congress on television, and it's the same old boring sound with the

gavel and all this stuff going on.

And all of a sudden in the back you hear somebody say, and all because the

anointings gonna come on the floor and it's going to draw these demons out

into the public for everybody to see.

Don't be, don't be surprised when that happened is when he goes surprised.

He goes,

some reason I find that incredibly funny.

That's the, isn't it?

It's a sad thing to see mental lumin illness affect someone though, isn't it?

Ah.

Are these guys mentally ill or are they just selling stuff and

they it's, or are they an asset?

Yes.

Are they just selling stuff?

It's, you know, how much of this is conniving?

Snake oil salesman?

The seeking donations from gullible people and is, it's hard.

Surprise me.

So, here's another one.

This was sent by yet another pink affair over there in Western Australia.

You recognize him?

Yeah.

I don't even wanna give you his name.

Talking about his private jet.

Yes.

Kenneth Copeland.

Kenneth Copeland.

Okay.

Here all.

So look, do you listener, it's either this or the Governor General's wife singing.

So probably no, we did not wanna hear again anything but that.

Anything that will go with this one.

Alright.

This is a good one.

If you are watching, just the face of this guy is quite incredible and

I prayed about it and I thought, I'm not missing that dedication in

Jerusalem without the airplane that we have, that I bought from Tyler Perry.

And I didn't pay anywhere.

Tyler's one of the greatest guy.

He made it, he made that airplane so cheap for me.

I couldn't help but buy it.

Well, my question then, well, well, okay.

All right.

But I wanna get to the demons cuz people are very concerned about that comment.

Give me a chance here.

Inside edition.

Okay.

I love your.

Do you ever use your private jets to go visit your vacation homes, for example?

Yes, I do.

Okay.

Again, getting back to the comment, you said that you don't like to fly

commercial because you don't wanna get into a tube with a bunch of demons.

Do you really believe that human beings are demons?

No, I do not.

And don't you ever say, I did . We wrestle, not with flesh and blood,

but principalities and powers.

I think that's the theme for this podcast.

We wrestle not with, was it flesh and blood, but principality of power?

Yes.

That's, I think that's gonna be byline line, his reaction.

There you go.

Is that guy San what he's, I had serious doubts at that point.

Yeah, yeah.

I think that she was, she was quizzing him the purchase of his third private jet.

Yes.

Well, and whether he really needed it.

Well, the guy he bought it off made it so cheap he couldn't help but buy it.

Jack.

Absolutely.

I mean, who amongst us has not been in that position where the price on

the plane is so cheap, price plane just so cheap, just had to buy it.

I, I think it was Lou who went out.

Somebody went out to try to interview him and they drive up to the ranch

and get turned away, and then the local police turn up and basically

try to arrest them for trespass.

Mm-hmm.

. It's impressive.

Yes.

He, because he lives in small town America.

He's basically loved by the local sheriff's department and he just

has to pick up the phone and I, if you cross him, you're in trouble.

Yeah.

Wouldn't doubt it at all.

So, alright, so that was a bit of comedic relief in between foreigners

owning our banks and screwing us all over as we've described.

Now we mentioned, again, this is, we spoke about this one last week,

but it ended up on the cutting room floor, so I can't help myself.

I have to revisit this topic to do it some justice.

And that was that oh, let me just see, is to do with Seymour Hirsch and

the revelation about America having blown up the Nord Stream pipeline.

And so the thing about this is there was an article from Mint Press News

and basically talking about the lack of coverage in American media.

Like this is a huge story respected journalist giving a coherent

explanation of what happened.

Even if you thought it was bs it would be something that you

would cover in mainstream media.

And what they found was that they analyzed 20 of the most influential

publications in the United States.

They are ABC News, Bloomberg News, business Insider, Buzzfeed, c bs News, C N

B C N N, Forbes, Fox News, the Huffington Post, msn, BBC, N B NBC News, the New

York Post, the New York Times, NPR People Magazine, politicos USA Today, the Wall

Street Journal and the Washington Post.

All of those collectively in a one week period after the

revelation came out, all of them collectively could only produce five.

Sorry.

Four mentions of the report.

There was 166 word mini report in Bloomberg, a five minute segment

on Tucker Carlson, 600 word roundup in the New York Post, and a shrill

business insider attack article.

And that was it for one of the largest stories.

And it's even more incomprehensible.

It's not incomprehensible, it's just an indictment on the media because

they all get a feed from Reuters.

And Reuters was pummeling them with stories, had given them

14 separate reports that they could just take copy and paste.

And all of those organizations actively rejected each and every

one of those 14 Reuters reports to do basically no reporting at all.

So, look, Scott, you were a bit on the fence as to whether

Seymour Hirsch's argument was a good one or not, or trustworthy

or whether to believe it or not.

But the fact is you don't have to believe it.

It's just, it's clearly a big story and for American public

to not be exposed to the story.

And I you on that, I agree with you on that.

The whole thing was, I was on the fence as to whether or not

the Yanks did actually do it.

I concluded that, you know, the, the, the only real beneficiary was Ukraine, who's

the only one that can actually pull the trigger and get something like this done.

The Yanks.

Now I believe that Joe pointed out that the Norwegians

probably had a hand in it too.

So, you know, but the Norwegians wouldn't do anything without the Yanks approval.

So, you know, I agreed that the cover of the cover of NATO exercises

and all that sort of stuff would've given them the perfect opportunity

to lay their device that they'd then just detonated to lay a date.

So I concluded that it was probably the Yanks that did it as to

whether or not the Russians did it.

I also concluded that the Russians wouldn't bother, or they'd do as

just turn the tap off and the middle finger to Germany if they wanted.

Good on you Scott.

The other thing to add to that is the main beneficiary wasn't the

Ukrainians, was the Americans.

Because guess who's selling the energy now to the Germans?

Well, they're selling the Americans Norway Natural gas to the Germans.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, you know, I also agree that they're getting a hell of a lot

more from Norway, aren't they?

Yes.

They're getting increased supply from Norway as well.

Yeah, yeah.

So, so it's just one of those things.

It's anyway, so that was just interesting in that the lack

of coverage in the US media.

So just on the Russian Ukraine war this is how Lindsey Graham

US Senator, maybe Congressman, no, what, what's Lindsey Graham?

I can't remember.

But this is what he had to say about he likes the way that that

things are set up at the moment.

I like the structural path we're on here.

As long as we help Ukraine with the weapons they need

and the economic support, they will fight to the last person.

There we go.

He, he likes the way it's set up cuz it's, it's a fight to the last

Ukrainian, what, from an American point of view, what could possibly, yeah.

So he was honest there.

I think likes the way that's set up and look, it's not a coincidence

because he was also asked about Taiwan and what's happening.

And we're gonna strangle the Russian economy as long as they're the

largest state sponsor of terrorism.

So if you wanna receive what Putin did, try to go into Taiwan, they're

gonna fight to the last man in Taiwan.

They're going to fight to the last man in Taiwan.

It's a clear strategy.

conduct these proxy wars and, and get your bales to fight to the last man.

Yeah.

I don't think that the Yanks would be able to sit there and actually

do the same thing in Taiwan as to what they've done in Ukraine.

They're gonna try to, well, they might try, but I think they can

get themselves dragged into it.

I, I suspect that China is probably better prepared than Russia was.

Exactly.

And that is the whole point.

That's, that's why I think that China is China is gonna be a, a far tougher

adversary than, than Russia is.

I, I had a wonderful quote, Russia, if I didn't invested in a large, modern

army, the problem was the bits that were large weren't modern, and the

bits that were modern weren't large

Russians are going, okay, they're not going Okay.

Trevor.

They've had their ass.

They're not, you know, we, we all expected by the end of March last

year of the Russian Army, army, they have done incredibly poorly.

They have done incredibly poorly.

Oh.

Premier, they'll keep the Don bass.

Yeah.

But you know, that might be okay if you got them to a negotiation table and

you actually got them to sign over.

You know, if you could do that sort of thing, then that would be fine.

But I don't think anyone could trust Vladimir Putin again.

Well, you know, it's just one of those things.

He has proven to be a megalomaniac thug.

Mm-hmm.

He, he promised to respect the sovereign, the sovereign borders of Ukraine.

And he didn't, when the Ukrainians handed over, let, let play devil's

advocate when the Ukrainians, the Ukraine to abide the agreement.

Yeah.

So, you know, they were bombing people in the Don, they, they

handed over the nuclear weapons.

They did hand over the nuclear weapons.

The, the mince agreement.

They, they did not agree to, they were bombing people in the Donbass

region and they were clearly saying we were just on a go slow cuz we've

got no intention of complying with it.

See, you know, you can look at it from both ways.

There's fault on both sides here.

I think there's more fault on the Russian side than there is on the Ukrainian side.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Nice fault.

All round.

Anyway, there's, there's more than enough.

There's more than enough blame for both sides.

But I just think to myself that, you know, you'd have to, I think the lion's

share of falters on the Russian side, more so than on the Ukrainian side.

Mm-hmm.

, you know.

Exactly.

And you know, I agree with Shea there.

She says, I highly recommend Russia if you're listening,

listening on the ABC Listen app.

Which verifies what Joe just said.

Yeah.

Listen to Usher if you're listening.

Yeah, it's, it's very good.

Yeah.

There it is.

Jaylene said, Shaa just said then it was supposed to be a

three day, three day capture.

It failed, you know, they, they had a plan to take it.

They had a plan to take out Vladimir Vladimir as a long skin in the

first three days that failed.

Mm-hmm.

You know, they were gonna try and decapitate the Ukrainian

leadership that failed.

Mm-hmm.

And, you know, and like, like, you know, when he, when he is on the phone to Joe

Biden, the day it happened , he, you know, and Joe Biden said, look, we can

have a plane there in a couple of hours.

And he said, I don't need a ride.

I need ammunition.

So that was a very brave man that stood up to him.

Yeah.

Well, if, if people think that the Ukrainians are gonna prize the Russians

out of their current positions no.

Not now, but, you know, not now, but you know, they're gonna hold that territory.

They're gonna hold that territory now.

Well, the, the big, the big question will be how the Russians perform

with their impending offensive.

, if they perform just as poorly as what they have after the first 12 months,

then after that you might actually get the bastard to a negotiation table.

But you know, it's one of those very big butts as to how

well they're gonna perform.

Yeah.

Terrible images of I think it was probably Finland all over again.

Mm-hmm.

. Yeah.

When they said, oh, we, we just need this tiny sliver of land.

Yeah.

When the, the, the intention was, you know, invading the full country

and they got the nose bloodied.

Mm-hmm.

, it's looking very much like trench warfare from World War I.

Some of the images that you see.

Yeah, for sure.

Dug in and just carnage for, you know, really zelensky should just surrender

those strips and be done with it.

Like the lives carving up more of his own country.

It's one of those things you can't continue to a dictator, you know,

we've learned lesson in the language.

To Sevastopol, which is where, you know, a fair amount of the attack

on Ukraine came from this time.

All it would mean is that he can build up his forces in Ukraine, in, in Crimea.

They were reliant on that bridge that the Ukrainians blew up and

they had big problems getting infrastructure, getting Army.

You're getting logistics into that place.

If you give them that land bridge through the Doba, then they can build

up a huge army from the South, attack, from the North attack, from pra.

It just gives them the, the launching post for next time to wipe out Ukraine.

Mm-hmm.

And Zelensky is never going to accept that because he knows that all you're

doing is buying time for the Russians to build up for the next defensive, which

is precisely the point that was made this morning on a podcast I was listening to.

I think it was abc Daley, something like that.

I was listening to that and Sam, whatever her name was, interviewing an expert, and

he said exactly that point that Joe just said, you know, you've just gotta wait.

And if they, if he, if he, if you give him enough time, he will use the time

to build up his army to go in again.

Well, Zelensky could use the time to, to, rather than try and reclaim

lost territory, to build up defense, to stop the the further invasion

beyond the, the current skirmish line.

But this, but then what if you allow them, if you allow them that landbridge,

then you get attacked on multiple fronts and it becomes a lot harder to defend.

Mm-hmm.

Well he's just burning human lives at the moment.

So he's running out, Zelensky is running out of Ukrainians faster than

Russians are running out Russians.

Yeah, I know.

And the Russians are, the Russians are just grabbing people off the street

and saying, you're in the Army now.

So where the Ukrainians Yeah, I know the Ukrainians were so they both

are, but they were, yeah, exactly.

What's that?

They were attacked, but they they were attacked.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Their, they, their country was under threat.

The Russians weren't Well, were they under threat or not?

And, and yeah, I, I think realistically the only way this is

gonna end is by Putin being toppled.

I think it's gonna end.

Doesn't star mate where they are right now.

So I think that's where it's gonna end.

And the Americans will just keep pouring weapons and money in there

and and I think it'll just be stuck right where they are now.

And or maybe Russia will proceed even further.

But I just can't see the UK Ukraine surprising them out.

Trump will become president in 2024 and will go in and negotiate peace ment.

That's the only man who could do it.

Yeah.

So, but Chinese tried to negotiate a or made suggestions for a

settlement and yeah, and that was told him very balanced settlement.

That I thought that, I thought reasonable was kind of Russian should get out and

Ukraine should not join NATO and Exactly.

And America said, don't be ridiculous.

Yeah, I know.

Which I think was entirely reasonable because Ukraine has already said,

look, you can forget us joining nato.

They're never gonna have us.

Yes.

Alright.

That's Ukraine and Russia for the moment.

Locally, we've got some polls.

Now this might be a little bit old.

There might have been another essential poll since this one.

But leaders favorability ratings, and we've got Anthony Albanese

amongst labor voters is enjoying 75% approval positive rating.

So, I'm impressed by the 25% coalition who approve of Albanese.

Yes, indeed.

So I'm worried by the 16% of labor voters who approve of Peter Dutton.

But there you go.

So there's a big worry That is a concern.

Yeah.

And 53% of coalition voters approve of Peter Dutton who's going to challenge

Peter Dutton if there's a challenge.

Scott, who's the library?

I don't know.

Now.

You know, that was, they were talking about the, the deputy leader, I can't

remember her name apparently, that she's already got herself in a position that

she could challenge if, if need be.

Mm-hmm.

But I didn't even know what her name is.

Mm-hmm.

Susan Lee.

That's it.

Right.

So, such And Lee, sorry, you're saying Susan Lee is a, is a potential leader?

Is that what you're saying?

I, yeah.

Susan Lee.

That's what Shade has said now, surely it's one of those No, no, no.

It, it's Sass, right?

Yes.

Cuz she added an extra s to a name because of numerology.

Yes, exactly.

And, and anybody who changes the name because of a numerologist deserves the

best taken outta them Well, fair enough.

Yeah.

It's just a caliber of people on the on the coalitions side.

Yeah.

Is, is pretty poor.

So, anyway, she was, she was touted as a potential leader.

Mm-hmm.

Is it any worse than go saying he was put there because God wanted him there?

Yeah.

Who said that?

Schmo.

Right.

Just, there's nobody who looks like a likely candidate that I can think of.

They're all hopeless.

Meanwhile, just back to labor there was an Australian law reform report came

out talking about recommendations with, to do with the religious discrimination

legislation that's currently in limbo.

And it made, it made the recommendation that religious schools should not be

allowed to preference teachers of a particular faith and, you know, not

discriminate against a, should not be allowed to discriminate against atheists.

And of course, there was a big uproar from the religious groups about that.

And yeah, didn't they lose their mind?

Yeah.

And in response to a question about the controversy on Tuesday, the Prime

Minister told Labor's caucus that quote, we made our position clear a

long time ago that faith-based schools can employ people of their own faith.

Now, before the election, labor was committed to protecting students from

discrimination on any grounds and to protect teachers from discrimination

at work while maintaining the right of religious schools to preference.

of their faith in the selection of staff.

It's hard to tell exactly what Labor's position is at the moment, but it

looks suspiciously like they kind of want to allow religious schools

to be able to discriminate when it comes to teachers, but not students.

Yeah.

Not good enough labor, if that's the case.

Mm-hmm.

. No, it's one of those things I, you know, I hope Alison's still

in the chat room if you are.

Alison, congratulations on that.

Latest courier mail.

Yeah, I just read it today.

I'm not sure if it was only just produced today or what have you,

but that was really good news.

So, Alison Cortez has been waging a, well, two or three woman war against

the Queensland Education Department over religious instruction, and she seems

to been kicking a few goals lately.

She's been eating a bit of press in the Korean mail up here,

which is no, no small feat.

So, congratulations, Alison, doing a great job and a little bit of luck in that.

There just seems to be a reporter at the Courier Mail.

He seems to have it in for him.

Yeah, he's, he's interested in the topic.

Yeah.

And seems to be on the side of the secular side.

So, yeah, that's yeah, a, a reporter who.

He's interested in the topic.

Alison, you're always welcome to come on the podcast and describe

the current situation if you think that it's a good idea.

But I can understand if you think that being associated with such a disreputable

person as myself, rules it out.

I totally get that.

That might be the case.

So, an article tomorrow, hopefully another article tomorrow.

So that's good.

So, well, yeah.

Alison, you wonder whether the courier mail is just bashing a labor government?

Yeah, I dunno.

No, I think it's a journalist with just a genuine interest and he's got the, the

capacity and ability to write article.

Article that interest him the editorial direction.

Yeah, I thought, I just get the impression it's just a, a journalist

with an an interest who's prepared to write the stories in there,

letting him write 'em for the moment.

Mm-hmm.

. So, yeah.

So, so there we go.

Alright John says, how do we follow your advocacy, Alison?

And the answer would be there's the Facebook page for the Queensland

parents for secular state schools.

I reckon you would get most of it there.

I think Alison, and if you're not in Queensland, theorists in New South Wales.

South Australia, not sure about Victoria.

Well, Victoria doesn't have anything to worry about anymore because Andrews

has actually moved him outta school time said you have to, if you're

gonna away something to worry about.

Yeah, I know.

But you know, it's just one of those things he has done exactly what we've

been asking for and what's happened.

Membership, you know, enrollments in these RA classes has plummeted, so, you know,

that just proves that the only way these bastards have got any chance of getting

it on board is to keep it compulsory.

Mm-hmm.

. Well, and so while it was before or after school, guess what?

Kids didn't wanna do it, so Exactly.

Mm-hmm.

and parents didn't want to go to the effort of changing their lifestyles

to make sure they went, so, yeah.

Oh, John says, I don't do Facebook.

Sorry.

Anywhere else?

Okay, Alison in the chat room, you'll have to tell I'm a bit with John.

I have not been on Facebook much in recent times less frequently, so I miss

a lot of things on Facebook these days.

Can't be bothered with it.

So, right.

Quick little diversion into French parking lots.

Dear listener.

So the French government has passed legislation which is going

to legislate so that parking lots have to install solar panels.

So these will be ones which obviously the cars can park underneath.

So they get shade from the hot sun and the solar panel above collects

energy, puts it into the grid.

And so just briefly on that, car parks that hold at least 50 cards roughly

are gonna be subject to this law of having solar paneled canopies installed.

And look, it's a good place to do it because maybe while your car is

parked at the shopping center, you can charge it up, charge it up.

That makes perfect sense.

And it's a bit more costly to raise them high enough above the ground

so you park a car underneath.

But it still makes economic sense.

And what they're saying is that the capacity they've estimated if

half of France's parking lots are covered is to generate between

roughly six and 11 gigawatts at a cost maximum of about 14 billion.

And they've currently got 56 nuclear power plants in, they do months averaging

about a gigawatt per nuclear power plant.

So we said before these car parks would generate between six and 11 gigawatts.

So sort of the.

Of six or 11 nuclear power plants.

Total cost would be, as we said, maximum around 14 billion.

And in this article it says that one of the nuclear power plants under

construction in Flamanville has ballooned to co Do you know Flamanville?

Do you Joe?

Yeah.

I used to live opposite it.

So there's already a nuclear power station there.

They must be building a nuclear new reactor.

So we lived opposite capital hog, which was the nuclear reprocessing plant and

Flamanville, which was the power station, and the reprocessing plant used to take

nuclear waste from all around the world.

So the ships were past Jersey with all the attendant risks to go there

to be reprocessed and send the renewed fuel back out to be reused.

And you were in, living in the middle of a radioactive hub

during your formative years.

Joe basically explains a lot.

That's, that's, that is explaining.

Oh,

Anyway, it was good when we got the power cable to France.

Cause when we got cheap electricity from the French.

Yeah.

And you could see each other at nighttime without lights on.

Yes.

It's good.

Anyway, that power plant Joe that one power plant is gonna

cost of balloon to 14 billion.

So one nuclear power plant costing 14 billion.

And we've got car parking.

Solar system generating between six and 11 nuclear power plants worth

of energy for the cost of one.

So all around, according to the math in this article, it makes

it a hell of a lot cheaper.

Yeah.

And I like the idea of obviously France as a country which doesn't have the wide open

spaces that we have here in Australia.

So rather than covering up agricultural land or something

like that, let's face it.

I mean people talk about the ugliness of, of wind farms for example, but

just a bitman car park on its own is a fairly ugly piece of infrastructure

and covering it with a solar panel actually makes it more attractive

cuz you've got somewhere cool to park your car underneath the shade.

So if all that is correct, I wonder it's a good story heat Thailand effect

because all the hot tar el tarmac heats up in summer and raises the

average temperature of paved areas.

And I wonder if a solar panel that's generating electricity is

gonna reduce some of that heat.

Maybe.

So whether you'd, whether you'd actually get less heat gaine in the cities in

summer because you've got less paved area.

Hmm.

I know friend of mine does gliding and he does it up at . And so when you're

gliding you are looking for thermals.

And as they're flying around looking for a thermal, if they see a patch of

farmland that's been recently tilled so the soil's turned over and if,

if it's a particularly black soil, then that's the place for a thermal.

You head over there with your glider and on a hot day yeah, obviously

the heat coming up off the black soil creates thermals for gliders.

So un fact for you, right?

What happened to the chat room?

Did Alison suggest anything other than Facebook?

Twitter.

What's that?

Twitter.

Twitter.

Ah, and handle.

Did we get that?

At psss?

That's the WordPress website.

Alison, what's your Twitter handle for Queensland.

There we go.

At s s s, QL D, it's the Twitter.

There we go.

That's your do, John.

Alright, let's get on Gerda loins and talk about some more controversial topics,

which we often leave towards the end.

Did you see Senator Thorpe protesting during the game?

Mardi GRA parade?

Yeah, I didn't.

I just think she's actually, she appears to be a prote, a professional

protestor, and she found something that she could interrupt that

would gain her some notoriety.

So she decided to protest there.

And she said that she was doing it because it was in memory of the blacks

who had been persecuted by the police.

Exactly.

Like she was still being persecuted by the police.

Now, anyway, I just think she was beating a drum over something that has been

well and truly beaten to death by now.

So that ought to be enough of it Anyway, I, I'm not, she's not

my favorite person right now.

Hmm.

Okay.

Yeah.

So, according to her Twitter post, black and brown trans women

started the first pride march as a protest against police violence.

Today we still face violence from police.

Proud to have joined the hashtag pride in protest in Sydney to say hashtag no

pride in genocide, hashtag no pride in prisons, and hashtag no cops in pride.

So basically saying Police have not been great for black and brown trans women.

What the hell are they doing with a police float at a gay Mardi Gras?

It's kind of what was saying.

Maybe they're gay police people who wanna represent themselves.

Mm-hmm.

That is exactly the porno is gonna make Joe, they, they do actually have

left footers on the police force.

People left footers . Yeah.

Really?

I've never heard that Ex am I living in a cave?

I hadn't heard that expression.

Left footers.

Oh, it's a very old expression.

But anyway, have you been to the gay Mardi Gra No, I've never been to the

Mardi Gras or anything like that.

It's one of those things I used to think to myself, ah, I should probably

go, but I've never got round to it.

Right.

I heard an argument that, yeah.

For a significant proportion of the gay community, they resent the depiction

of the oiled up hairless, sort of over the top version of gayness that

is exhibited at the gay Mardi Gras.

And they think this is a false representation of, of what gay people is.

It's, it's, they've overtaken what it means to be a gay man, for example.

And I mean, Scott, you are not the sort of oiled up vision negative

see, to Mardi Gra for example.

You are much, you, you, it's not obvious with you until you actually tell somebody.

You know what I mean?

So do Yeah.

I suppose so.

You don't, you don't feel, feel that.

This is a version of, of, of expression of male gayness that you think, eh, that's

just, it's actually misrepresentation.

We all like this.

I don't like the way that you don't have any resentment about how gays are depicted

in almost a caricature by the Mardi Gras.

I don't have that sort of feeling.

The only, the only feeling that I get from it is I think to myself, oh,

that's playing to a very young crowd.

Mm-hmm.

. So I feel like I'd be a little bit old if I went down there.

Right.

Anyway, it's just one of those things I, I, it's the, that's the only

real, it's not even really objection.

It's just one of those things that I just think to myself.

Yeah.

I've never been a big fan of the sort of hairless oiled up look,

if that makes you feel any better.

, . It's just, it's just one of those things I just think to myself, nah,

they're not really doing it for me.

And the, you know, just the whole wearing angel wings and all that sort of stuff.

Nah, that's not me.

So.

Okay.

You know, were you saying but to each their own.

To each their own, you know, it's just one of those things.

I just think to myself, if that's what people get, get off on,

then they should be able to do.

Yeah.

It's really not my cup of tea.

Yeah.

Alison has an uncontained glitter phobia, which prevents her from ever

going to the Mardi Gras as a supporter.

I, I think of the next pub meetup.

We should smuggle in a little packet of glitter.

No, we won't went to Alison.

Okay.

So yeah, what you thought, what do I think?

I dunno.

I mean, why not protest at a Mardi Gras?

Why not sort of say, what the hell is there a police float here?

There's still really, do you wanna make a point that she feels that the police

are not helping out the gay community?

I, you know, I'll read an article.

I found this one from Guy Ru in Crikey.

Interesting.

I don't think I, you guys got this in the original notes.

I sort of tacked it on later on.

So, God ru sometimes has a good turn of phrase, so he writes well at times,

even if it is a bit confusing and all over the shop at other times.

So here's a good paragraph.

I thought that someone was boo because she was booed as well and

the crowd would sort of get stuck into her for lying down in front of

the float and disrupting the march.

So he writes that someone was booed by the Mardi Gras crowd for protesting that

had occurred in the first Mardi Gras to have a serving Prime Minister marching.

That the people who then condemned Thorpe for her protests included

nationals leader David Little.

It just shows you, shows you well, what event has so many angles that had it

not occurred, political tutors would've had to invent it as a teaching aid.

That's a good sentence.

Good sentence of writing event had so many angles that had it not occurred,

poli poli politics, tutors would've had to have invented it as a teaching aid.

So, he writes, the point was absolutely spot on.

Mardi Gras organizers have given float space to private corporations,

including American Express, but denied groups such as the New

South Wales Teachers Federation.

Sure.

Mardi Gras had to change that went from illegality to inner city popularity to

global nation branding phenomenon, but the embrace of platform and finance capital

and the exclusion of actual community groups is a pretty sad place to get to.

The event was long ago, taken over by fairly apolitical types and they haven't

had much resistance in recent years.

Claims by the LGBTQI plus left that queer is inevitably radical.

Utterly bogus.

Queer is now the house ideology of middle brown knowledge, class culture

as tediously wrote and moralistic as was once the Christianity, it went up against.

Queer is now the house ideology of middle brow knowledge class culture.

You're part of the mainstream now, Scott, of just high brow, middle class culture.

Do you feel that?

No.

Okay.

I've never really don't feel excluded from it though.

No, I don't.

I, I, you know, it's I suppose I do actually watch what

I say in front of people

. There's like, I'm not out at

If someone asks me, I'll tell them, but I never actually make a, I never

make a song and dance about it, you know, I might actually tell them, I

don't know, I'll keep going with this.

He says guy Rundel crok even.

So the inclusion of the AFP is next level.

The AFP is a sinister, politicized, self-serving force, casual about doing

damage in the pursuit of its goals.

Often self-serving Marty GRA may have become a semi-public owned

event, but it's got to be something of a bit more than Homo Mumba.

Otherwise its meaning dissolves altogether.

No police force should have a role in it.

I'd say exclude the fire service as well, but I suspect that would not fly.

I think that's because of the desire to see oiled up firemen on a flight.

Exactly, yes.

The co-option of the.

Who's saying Y M C A?

Yeah, the village people.

Village cop, village people, isn't there?

Yeah.

I think there was Yeah.

Yeah.

A motorcycle cop, wasn't he?

Was he a motorcycle cop?

Possibly.

Think the helmet.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think Google will tell me.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'll keep going.

The co-option of Mardi Gras to the point where it is indistinguishable from state

tourism and national branding is the same as the soft totalitarian process

governing the politics of the voice, where we're heading the latest episode of this.

So he's talking about the voice.

The latest episode of this was Professor Megan Davis telling a

university's Australia conference that the organization representing the

places whose core role is unrestrained and un and unguided free inquiry

and thought should adopt a pro Yes.

Position on the voice.

So Professor Megan Davis telling university's Australia

they should be pro Yes.

On the voice.

And she says, universities say they don't wanna be political, but the decision

not to take a dance for the voice to parliament is a political decision.

And Davis in saying this at the University's Australia conference,

Was doing it in response to the Vice Chancellor's Association calling

or saying that it would have no official position on the voice.

And at that conference, Davis's speech was a hundred thousand strong people there.

They gave it a standing ovation.

So we've got a professor Megan Davis at Universities Australia

saying universities should come out saying vote yes in the Voice.

And we had the Vice Chancellor's Association saying that we

shouldn't be making any official position at all in the voice.

And the Megan Davis one got a standing ovation.

Any thoughts, gentlemen, on whether universities and groups representing

multiple universities should be providing a position statement on the voice?

Universities know lecturers individually.

Sure, exactly.

I agree with Joe.

Or just can if they want to.

Oh, I think can, if they want to.

I don't think they should be restricted from mm-hmm.

. Yeah, I agree with Joe, but I think this is the same as Brexit.

I think there will be a very shallow, ignore any real criticism.

And accuse anybody who says no of being a racist.

Yep.

And then we'll be very surprised when they lose the vote and we'll

go, oh my God, I didn't realize we had so many racists out there.

So rather than enga engaging the real concerns that people

have, just ignore it all.

, racism and plow on regardless, and wouldn't be surprised

when you lose the vote.

Yep.

So there's a podcaster and by a guy called Eddie Yakovich, which I

occasionally listen to, sort news and politics podcast a bit like

this one where they review the week.

They're kind of Canberra insider type guys, EM'S mate, and obviously

on the left wing bent that was super critical of the Morrison government.

And anyway actually I think I've got it here as a on the

PowerPoint slide to show you.

I now, I've gone one back to Tiff.

I'll go back to this.

So this is a tweet that he put out, which was looking at a poll wow.

42% say no to the voice as Faith Bandler said in 2001.

Racism is well organized in Australia.

No beating around the bush.

Vote no equals racist.

That's the sort of thing you're talking about, Joe.

Just if you Yep.

If you are gonna argue a vote no in this one, you're gonna be

immediately pre a racist and look just because it's so well put.

You get another rendition edited down of what this guy said on tonight, Lee.

I mean, first of all, Brexit said, what the fuck happened there?

Well, the left employed a cunning two prong strategy by one calling

every lead voter a racist.

And two failing to put forward a positive case forma.

Right?

Weird how not engaging 17 million Brits and slacking them off instead.

Didn't win them over, but at least yelling racist online, made us

feel good about ourselves and had no bad long-lasting side effects.

The UK has voted to leave the European Union.

Ah, shit.

Well, don't worry.

After Brexit, we learned our lesson, and then the US election came along.

We thought, Nahash, let's just do that again.

You could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call

the basket of deplorables.

Not surprisingly, the left campaign of vote for us, your pieces of

shit didn't pan out so well.

Brexit, basket of deplorables.

And the voice is shaping up in the same way.

It's gonna get ugly.

It's gonna get very ugly.

And I, I, I think that the proponents of the voice have to actually take a long,

hard look at themselves and they should actually look at that as a warning.

And that if they rely on racism to get them over the line, it's not gonna work.

No.

Just telling people they're racist.

Exactly.

Just, it's just gonna backfire on them.

Mm.

Let's give some opinion.

I might think, I, I think the average person is just gonna go,

but I'm not racist, so fuck you.

Exactly.

Which is what happened in those other situations as well, so.

Mm-hmm.

, there's a chart support for the voice parliament and it's a

little bit what's it's about you find it here so I can read it.

65% in favor of the voice department, 35% against on that particular one.

Now if it's, if it's a referendum to change the constitution mm-hmm.

Does it not require two-thirds majority?

No.

It requires a, it requires a majority of, yes.

In a majority of states, you've gotta get an overall majority, and that has

to come from a majority of states.

Mm-hmm.

. So, no, there's no two thirds involved.

Okay.

Maybe that's a US thing.

Yeah, exactly.

Maybe.

Yeah.

In terms of voter strength on you know, in terms of the

voice department, a hard Yes.

38%.

A soft Yes.

26%.

A soft no.

14% and a hard no, 21%.

So that's how that locked up.

Well, if they wanna, if they wanna see the soft Yes.

Move to the, to the soft, no.

Then all they've gotta do is just go out there calling people racist.

Indeed.

You know, because all that's gonna do is get their backs up

and then it's gonna think, well fuck you, I'll vote against it.

Mm-hmm.

. So there's a chart with how it breaks down in terms of political allegiance.

No surprise that labor voters 50% hard.

Yes.

27% soft.

Yes.

So total of 77%.

Whereas the coalition, a hard no is 40% and a soft no is 49%.

So 59% against, and the greens are a hard Yes.

62% soft.

Yes.

28%.

So a total yes vote of 90%.

It's a 3% hard No.

In the greens voters.

Interesting.

So sounds like some of us.

Yes.

Yes.

That's where I am.

Dear listener.

Mm-hmm.

voted greens in pretty Now.

Am I a hard No, I'm a soft No.

Probably at the end of the world if it happens.

It's not the end of the world if it happens, but, but I'm, I'm

quite firm about the answer, but there, I'm not rabid about it.

Like the world isn't gonna collapse, but I, I think you could be changed

to a yes, given certain caveats.

Yeah, no, no.

The caveats would completely change the nature of the voice department.

So it's no longer voice.

I think so.

In my case.

So then you're a hard No, probably am.

Yeah, probably am.

But, but yeah.

Without being crazy . No, exactly.

Yeah.

So it wouldn't be that good.

I reasons why are people thinking this?

Why are people supporting the most parliament and the most popular

reason was it would give indigenous Australians the ability to help inform

decisions that impact their lives.

Next was it will help governments make more informed policy decisions

regarding indigenous Australians.

Next was, it is what indigenous leaders are asking for.

And then the fourth one in terms of popularity was it would unify Australia

allowing us to reconcile with our history anchoring our democracy in

65,000 years of culture and law.

See, that's probably the weakest argument.

Yes.

I think it's gonna end up dividing us years of culture and law.

That's what they reckon.

But you know, it's just, ugh.

Anyway, we won't go down there.

That's the reasons and the reasons against the most popular was it would

not make a practical difference.

Second was it would give indigenous Australians the

ability to influence policy, which other Australians do not have.

Third was, it does not have the support of all indigenous Australians.

Fourth was indigenous Australians already have representation in parliament.

So I have to say all of those seem far more appealing reasons, common

sense to me than the other ones do.

So that's those right.

Let me get back to my notes then.

Get rid of that.

We don't need the chart anymore.

And so Joe, we had cuz we didn't expand it, that's why the comments still appear.

That's good.

Okay.

Right.

Let me scroll through to, there's a book out at the moment, which was essay.

about various people's reasons why they would say no.

And unfortunately this wasn't a book, I think promoted by people on the

National Party or something like that.

Some people, some characters who I normally would not engage with.

But anyway, one of the writers is an economist, Henry RGUs, and he

cites the principle that all citizens should have the same weight in the

process of political decision making.

He believes that a voice would give a named national minority that

is indigenous Australians special access to the legislative process.

You're right, it should be reserved only for major corporations.

Yes.

Through, through lobbying via yes.

Large donations.

Indeed.

Yes.

He writes What's wrong with that in ER's view to institutionalize Group.

Representation of that kind suppresses differences of opinion within the

group and exaggerates the group's loyalty to values and identities

that they think define them.

This scenario disturbs RGUs, but others would welcome it as

confirming indigenous Peoplehood.

I think this is an interesting argument that the people who are on the voice, it's

going to , encourage them to exaggerate the group's loyalty to values and

identities that they think define them.

I think that is inherent in creating a group like that.

It's been an argument in the UK with Islamic groups that are in, you know,

brought in to consult on various things.

Yes.

And, and gay Muslims and apostates have said that they feel excluded

by this process because they are a target of brown people hating, I,

I'm not gonna call it Islamophobia.

Hmm.

And, and these people who do not represent them are speaking up to

put input into government decisions.

Yeah.

So, and they say they feel excluded from, from the whole process.

Yeah.

And, and this argument that people would be, if, if for example, you were part

of the voice and you were going to say, oh look, that law, we're all the same on

that, you know, indigenous whites, Asians we're, it's, it's no special thing for us.

That's, that's not what's a likely scenario when you set up a group

designed to try and find special mm-hmm.

interest for special groups, their, their role is to try.

Find difference rather than find commonality.

That's what you're there for.

Yeah.

And you're going to be looking for it rather than the opposite

about some special exemption.

Yes.

I think that is an interesting sort of point that he made and he says by

perpetuating the idea that indigenous Australians are essentially different

from other Australians, he argues it would fuel demands for a formal

treaty, which would make Australia a sort of a binational state.

So that was that book.

Hennon Malik actually has written a very interesting book that I am working

my way through called not So Black and White, which is a history of race from

white supremacy to identity politics.

And I have from the very first page is absolutely loving it.

I'm up to page 65 and I can tell I'm gonna love the rest of the book.

Cannon Malik, really good writer.