Suburban Eastern Australia, an environment that has, over

time, evolved some extraordinarily unique groups of homosapiens.

But today, we observe a small tribe, akin to a group of meerkats,

that gather together atop a small mound to watch over them.

Question and discuss the current events of their city, their

country, and their world at large.

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

Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

Hello and welcome back dear listener.

Yes, episode 426, Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove podcast, news

and politics, sex and religion.

I'm Trevor, Coming in loud and clear from regional Queensland,

Scott the Velvet Glove.

How are you, Scott?

Good, thanks, Trevor.

G'day, Trevor.

G'day, Joe.

G'day, listeners.

I hope everyone's doing well.

And coming in loud and clear from Peter Dutton's

electorate, Joe the Tech Guy.

Good evening.

Hopefully I fixed the audio.

Yes.

So, right, dear listener, what's on the agenda?

Well, you know, I, I start the, well, every week.

Basically starting immediately upon the conclusion of the previous episode,

with my little word document, adding things as they, as they pop up.

And I hadn't really added the, sort of the marches about violence against

women until the end, until today actually, maybe even this afternoon.

So we're gonna talk about that, bear with me if my notes are a little

bit sketchy, and just looking at the number of deaths and just Posing some

interesting statistical questions, and then also looking at, you'll

recall, dear listener, that I was very pleased to see from the Australian

Bureau of Statistics that crime rates generally across the country were down.

And so it's been one of my favourite things of late, is to say to people,

you realise crime rates are down.

And, Last week, between last week and now, maybe it's somewhere in there, a

report came out from the Courier Mail which was reporting statistics from

the Queensland Bureau of Statistics, or whatever it's called, detailing crime

rates in Queensland, which seemed to show quite a spike, quite an increase in crime

rates of around 15 percent on average.

And this, of course, the Courier Mail delighted in, because they

could then blame Stephen Miles and the Labor government for it.

And they've been running a campaign in the Courier Mail for the last

two years on violence and blaming the Labor government for it.

So, I was a bit perplexed.

How could the Australian Bureau of Statistics on the one hand be saying crime

rates are down, and then on the other hand, the Queensland crime statistics

seeming to indicate massive increases.

Scott, did you see any of that at all in your report?

About the Queensland crime rate and the Courier Mail reports and any of

that come across you or not really?

Not a hell of a lot because I don't read the Courier Mail, so I

did see a front page when I was in the shop the other day and it said

something about there was a spike, so

Yeah,

so I've had a chance to do a little bit of digging and I'll try and

figure out what's going on But well there's an old saying isn't there, there

are lies, damned lies and statistics.

Hmm, I thought you were going to say there are lies,

damned lies and murder newspapers.

Yes.

One of those things I did see this car sticker years ago, it says is it true

or did you read it in the courier mail?

I'd love a car sticker like that, yeah.

So, I'll try and explain that, and maybe we'll do a bit more

on Israel and Gaza, and maybe a little bit about, um, China and U.

S.

complaints about China being, sort of having overcapacity,

and the desire of the U.

S.

A.

to start imposing tariffs and other protections.

And, and look at the history of the United States of America in relation to tariffs.

So That's where we're heading.

See how far we go.

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

Looks like Joel's there.

Joel, you had a really good one at the end of last week's.

We didn't make it.

It was something about a pyramid scheme or something.

It was a good comment.

We just missed it.

But if you're in the chat room, say hello.

We will try and incorporate your comments.

And, yeah.

So, look, I turned on the, do you guys watch like the six o'clock news?

No, I watch the ABC streamed.

Okay, so you watch the ABC News Bulletin that Yeah, I do.

Right.

Yeah.

Joe, do you watch any news I don't watch TV.

Right.

Okay.

I just thought you might, somewhere along the track.

I, I, I get, I use Apple News, which has all sorts of news

feeds coming into it, but not

TV.

Right.

Okay.

There you go.

Well, I do.

Not always, but you know.

So, so Sunday night, turned it on, Channel 7, and of course the first item

was showing, you know, demonstrations, before sort of the explanation came

through, and it just showed thousands of people marching in the streets.

And I thought to myself, Fantastic.

Australians are finally complaining about Israel and Gaza.

It's so good to see.

This'll be great.

And then, I was quite shocked.

Well, I wasn't shocked.

But it was like, then it turned out it was actually a, a series of marches

organised, to protest, violence, gendered violence against women.

And, so so then I thought, well, I better pay some attention to this, seeing

thousands of people are on the street.

what were you laughing at then, Scott?

Oh, just something that St John the Lord Don said.

He says, Oh, watch the Cartoon Network on Fox tell their

stories are more believable.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, so what were the marches about?

And according to the Guardian, 26 women have been violently killed

in the first 114 days of the year.

Yeah.

According to data compiled by advocacy group Destroy the Joint, they have a

project called Counting Dead Women.

So that's what it's about, and in a statement posted to X, formerly Twitter,

Albanese said, Counting Dead Women.

Counting Dead Women.

A woman had been killed every four days so far this year, so he

was accepting that statistic of 26 women in the first 114 days.

And More from the Guardian report was, protesters said they were horrified

and outraged by the growing violence with figures from the, Destroy the

Joints, Counting Dead Women and Femicide Watchers Red Heart campaign

showing that an average of one woman is murdered in domestic violence incidents.

Every four days across the country.

Last year that figure was one woman a week.

Now, that's the report by the Guardian, and where it says one woman is murdered

in domestic violence incidents every four days, If they're actually relying

on the figures provided by Destroy the Joints, they admit that their figure

includes the five women killed in Bondi.

So of the 26 killed this year, they've said five of them relate to that incident,

which they call gendered violence.

But you could hardly call that domestic violence.

I wouldn't think.

You might call it gendered violence because he seemed to specifically target

women, but it's not domestic violence.

So, as I'm reading all this stuff, I'm seeing a confusion between,

violence, Homicide and domestic violence or domestic homicide.

And also there's a difference, there's domestic violence and

there's intimate partner violence.

Yes.

Because domestic violence is also apparent against children

and also other way around.

Yes.

Generally with elderly relatives.

Yes.

We'll get on to some statistics about, family violence being by siblings, by

children, and by intimate partners.

So, so sloppy reporting by the Guardian and just as I'm reading stuff, it's sort

of clear that the nature of the protest seemed to be about family domestic

violence situation of men committing violence against women that they know.

But then using the statistic of the Bondi, for example, to beef up the figures.

So, look, where am I getting to with all this?

Is just, let's try and understand what's happening.

By all means, gather in your thousands in the street and protest about, People

being killed unnecessarily, like, but let's just I'm gonna be giving you some

statistics that I came across and facts and figures and other things to think

about, so From the age a woman is being violently killed in Australia every four

days, It used to be one woman a week, but this year an Australian woman is being

violently killed every four days, so, quoting some people here, we're looking

at a shocking rate of violent deaths of women this year that exceeds anything

Australia has experienced in recent years, and um, and quoting the organisers.

Remember, these are just the women that we are hearing about.

How many women are murdered or missing that we do not hear about?

We don't even have a proper funded counting mechanism to tally and record

details of women lost to violence.

We don't know the true numbers.

And the Facebook page, Counting Dead Women Australia, which is maintained

by volunteers using verified police reports of women's homicides is

recognised as the most accurate tally of women killed by violence.

I don't think any of that is correct, and I'm going to refer you to a government

site and an article from Crikey.

I mean, there are some government statistics about, about homicides,

So we'll get on to that.

Also, which none of the left wing media will want to

acknowledge, unfortunately, seems to be very much community based.

As in, Aboriginals are considerably over represented in these numbers.

And it's going to be a horrible, horrible balancing act between going in and

being authoritarian, and ignoring the, the weakest of the underprivileged.

Yes.

What to do about it?

Yeah.

yeah.

Before I get onto that, because Bernard Keane talks about what do we do about it?

As I was watching this report, dear listener, on Channel 7, Sunday

night, So the lead article was the demonstrations and this reporting

of 26 women killed so far this year.

After about 10 or 15 minutes there was another, article in the same news report.

Workers deaths.

People killed at work.

34 so far this year.

Last year it was 175 for the whole year.

And of course the listener.

Most of them are men.

according to SafeWork Australia, 93 percent of work related fatalities

in 2022 were men, 7 percent female.

So, so while this news report talks about 26 women killed in violent sort

of homicides, domestic or non domestic.

The same report's got 34 men killed at work with not nearly

the same amount of outrage.

I just watched The Red Pill the other day and that was a documentary where,

this lady was very much a feminist and she'd had decided to report on those

crazy guys at the men's rights agencies.

And sort of at the conclusion of it, decided maybe she

wasn't a feminist anymore.

And the sort of theme of the documentary was that there were a lot of, bad

things happening to men as well.

So the particular angle in the documentary wasn't that we should ignore what's

happening to women, but at the same time there's a lot of Gender, sort

of unequal things happening to men.

And I think, sort of workplace deaths were one of the statistics that they

were talking about there as well.

So, anyway, not saying don't go out and protest, just saying, well,

bear in mind these other things.

What do we do about it if we say that there is a, a large amount of,

Either domestic homicide against women, or or just general homicide.

Bernard Keane, writing in Crikey, gave a really strange article.

It was a really odd one, because he's saying that the problem can be addressed

and he refers to data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data, so

this is a government organisation, showing domestic and intimate partner homicide

rates have more than halved since the 1980s, and, So that's one, in the article

he's kind of calling for higher penalties, but he does quote the statistic that since

the 1980s, domestic homicide and intimate partner homicide has nearly halved.

And he says that there should be harsher penalties.

according to Bernard Keane, nothing changes behaviour more than potential

offenders knowing they're much more likely to be punished and much more

likely to be jailed for longer.

I don't know if that's true.

No, I think murder is one of those ones where it provably isn't.

Yes.

I don't think the murder rates are any less in places that have capital

punishment as compared to places that, you know, Scandinavia for instance.

Yeah, so I don't think that just people go, Maybe I won't kill this person

now because They've mumped up the penalty rates by an extra 10 years last year.

Yeah, it's one of those things, I just think, I think

Joe's hit the nail on the head.

If you're going to commit murder, you're not really in your sound

mind, you're just going to do it.

I just don't think you're going to be considering the penalties.

Yeah, John in the chat room says, those men weren't killed by women

though, the ones in the workplace.

true, they were killed and, there wasn't much of a fuss made about it.

anyway, what else did he say there?

oh, he said, yeah, jail them longer and that'll fix the problem.

But then he says, true, this runs against arguments about the need to keep

Indigenous men and boys out of jail.

Oh.

and he says, as it's noted by the AIHW, which is this government report,

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were disproportionately

represented in intimate partner violence homicide offenders.

So, 27 percent of the offenders and 27 percent of the victims,

even though they're only 3.

2 percent of the population.

So, it's a really strange article to be saying.

Yeah, we need to crack down on harsher penalties, but it's probably not going to

be real good for the Indigenous community because they are a significant part of

the problem here and we really don't want to be throwing Indigenous people into

jail if we can avoid it.

I have read a couple of articles recently that were saying, really, we need

better mental health support and better community support out in regional areas.

To stop people getting to a point where they get drunk and abusive, because

generally it's alcohol involved.

Yeah, yeah.

So, anyway, in the Bernard Keene report, article, he refers to this Australian

Institute of Health and Welfare.

Data, A I H W, and I thought, well, I'd better go and have

a look and see what it says.

And there's a link in the show notes for the Patrons.

now, the report was Current as of 2021.

Some information has been updated in 2024, but not, I believe, to the stuff

that I'm going to be talking about here.

So, these are 2021 figures, which seem to be the latest figures.

on family, domestic and sexual violence, according to this government report.

So, 2021, one woman was killed every 15 days, by an intimate partner.

But, one man was killed every 28 days by an intimate partner, same period.

So women, every 15 days, a man every 28.

And, what else did they say?

There were, in 2021, 78, actually, domestic homicide victims were made

up a third of all homicide victims.

So, I'm going to use that in these figures as a rough rule of thumb, that,

that of all homicide victims, let's just assume that about a third are domestic.

Because that's what it was in 2021.

So, in 2020, 2021, 78 domestic homicide victims, 38 were killed by an intimate

partner and 40 were killed by a family member who was not an intimate partner.

So 14 killed by a parent, 11 by a child, four killed by a sibling, and

11 killed by a family member other than a child, parent, or sibling.

Maybe an uncle or aunt or something like that.

So, so yeah.

and so females 25 were killed by their intimate partner.

13 men were killed by their intimate partner.

Scott, it's possible, I guess, their intimate partner was a gay partner.

Yeah, potentially, but, I

It's also possible that the females were killed by a

female intimate partner as well.

Exactly.

I haven't actually I couldn't tell you about the whole domestic violence

within same sex relationships.

All I can go is by You know, an anecdote is not data, but I haven't seen any

domestic violence or anything like that amongst my group of friends.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, so yeah, a significant number of men, are also killed.

and so do I actually give that figure then and all that?

let me just find here.

let me just give you the figure.

So in all domestic relationships, so 45 females, 33 males for a total

of 78 in the 2020 2021 period.

So I bet that is a surprising statistic to a lot of people as to the number of

men who were killed in domestic homicide.

33.

And females was 45.

So, and you know, of the 33, 13 were, intimate partners.

Who knows if that's a male friend or not.

but again, with the females, who knows if it was a female friend or not,

but you know, all these assumptions.

So,

interests.

The US CDC actually have, one year, so they do a yearly report on, violence.

And one year they had my, sexuality of the victim.

and yeah, the figures bear out that actually gay relationships have the

lowest forms of intimate partnership.

Sorry, male, gay male relationships.

Okay, so we probably wouldn't see a significant number of men in the Killing

of men, men killing men column there.

It would probably most likely be females.

Yeah.

Based on that.

Okay.

Right.

What other statistics are in this government website?

the intimate partner homicide victimization rate decreased from 0.

7 to 0.

2 per 100, 000.

basically in the 30 year period from 1990 to 2020.

And, proportion of women who experienced physical or sexual violence by cohabit,

a cohabiting partner, decreased from 1.7% to 0.9% between 2016 and 2021.

So, so there's just some interesting statistics to keep in

mind about what is happening with domestic, homicide that in fact.

It's a strong rate of, of male victims in this, and um, other family members

are involved in committing it, and

yeah.

Is that male victims of other males, or male victims of women?

We don't know, it just, when it says intimate partner, it doesn't say

whether the intimate partner is same sex or, same gender or opposite gender, so.

But telling you you're safer than you used to be doesn't sell newspapers.

Yeah, and, anyway,

there's, there we are.

What more can I say without getting

into trouble?

I mean, talking, talking of that, I saw a news headline on Friday,

Saturday, I can't remember.

Yeah.

Courier fail again.

you know, boy abducted at knifepoint, 11 year old boy

abducted at knifepoint in Logan.

Yeah.

And you go, Oh my God, that's horrible.

And then I saw a follow up article probably on the ABC that said, Yeah,

he was pulled into a car by people who alleged that he'd thrown rock at the car.

So it wasn't another Daniel Morecambe where he was being abducted.

Yeah.

It was these people had seen him vandalizing the car and decided to

take matters into their own hands.

Now that's not a good thing.

I'm not, I'm not advocating it, but that wasn't what the headline was.

Yes.

Yes.

Yep.

Yeah.

Headline made you feel that you could be innocently, a kid could be

innocently minding his own business, abducted, where in fact there was

a little bit of a backstory to it, which didn't justify abduction.

No, not at all.

Yes.

But, but did kind of explain what had happened.

Yeah.

So anyway, that's the, fun facts, if you can call them that, about,

Domestic violence and just trying to understand the situation a bit better.

Now,

John's pointing out 49 truck drivers killed in Australia.

Yeah.

and, yeah, I mean, that is Shocking because that's

almost certainly overworked.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Truck drivers, presumably not doing it for fun.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But, it's, it's going to be overtired, falling asleep at the wheel and

that's a danger to everybody.

Yeah.

They die, but also they kill people.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, So anyway, that's that story.

Um, now I mentioned in the, in the intro how chuffed I was to find Australian

Bureau of Statistics saying that crime had been dropping, which was contrary

to the propaganda of the courier fail.

And then to my surprise, Amazement, The Courier Fail comes out with Queensland

statistics showing that seemingly crime has been on the rise for two years.

And things like, in this report that came out, assaults up 15%, other

offences up 51%, sexual offences up 5%.

Robberies up 16, only one down being Homicide down 14, actually Other Homicide.

I don't understand Other Homicide down 14, but Homicide up 31.

a whole bunch of, sort of, bad news for the Labor Miles government.

And, I'm all ready for my friends who I were talking to before, so you

realise that Courier Fowl has been running a campaign and the crime's

down, next time they see me they're going to go, Well, Trevor, what

about the Queensland crime statistics showing that, in fact, crime is up?

And, I've had a look, and I'm, I'm, looked at the figures, and what it seems to be

indicating is that there was a way, a change in the way the statistics looked.

were created or the motivation for entering the statistics.

So according to the, now let me just get this straight, where are we talking about?

Um, it's a report, I haven't got the actual name of it, but it's, it's from

the government, looking at the government, Queensland government statistician.

So what it shows is that according to this report, I'll quote them,

that, there were three times as many assault victims recorded in

2022 23 than nine years earlier.

And most of the increase, 68%, Recorded in the last two years.

And it says here, since the police recording change was implemented

in July 21, driving the upward trend in assault victims were

common assault and serious assault.

Scott, we can hear you loud and clear when you're typing, sorry.

Thank you.

so, driving the upward trend in assault victims were common

assault and serious assault.

but, but what it seems to be is that, a recording change in 2021 and what it

did was from 1st of July, 2021, police officers are required to record all

criminal offences associated with domestic and family violence investigations.

So it seems to be that there was a change that took place, forcing

police officers to record stuff.

That they weren't recording before in relation to domestic and

family violence investigations.

And maybe that is what has caused this spike in figures, because then

interestingly, the State Labor Government pulled out figures for the last nine

months showing that total crime had gone down 1 percent in the last nine months.

That of course was buried in the Courier Mail article about three

quarters of the way in very small type.

So, the headline being Crime up, you know, 16%, and then buried in

a paragraph was, of course, in the last nine months, it was down by 1%.

Don't you worry about that.

So, anyway, it all goes to show that you can muck around with statistics.

If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything.

That's the one.

Didn't we

learn that in the COVID epidemic?

Oh yes.

Yeah.

So, anyway, I will, try and get that.

Straighten my head and maybe look a bit more at that over time.

But that seems to be the explanation.

And the other thing that really complicates it is that COVID 19, of

course, in In that period, there was a lot less movement of people, a lot more

restrictions, crime was down because of the movement restrictions on people.

So

Well, certain crimes were down.

Yeah, but it certainly had an effect.

And again, they say that in these statistics.

So with statistics, it's always good to compare apples with apples, and

that's sometimes really hard to do.

Yeah, there we go.

The third item from this Channel 7 news report on Sunday night that, that

got me was, was, they, they reported that our Australian government, thanks

to Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Myles, has decided to

give a hundred million dollars in aid.

for Ukraine.

And as the report, as the newsreader said, experts say it's the least that we

could do having reneged on our agreement to provide helicopters, blah, blah, blah.

And I'm listening to this and when they said experts say, I'm going, in my

mind, Which fucking experts are these?

Like, who, who is saying this?

Who are these experts say?

And a little bit later on, out gets trotted Peter Jennings, Executive

Director of ASPE, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, and He basically, of

course, was the expert who was saying this, and of course, the average person

is not given any context at all about who Peter Jennings is, who API is,

how the organization is funded by the Defense Force and defense suppliers.

And of course, they want military equipment used so

that more can be provided.

It's got the lack of context.

Just gave me the shits, basically.

I was railing at the TV.

Can you blame me?

No, I can't blame you.

I just think you've got to stop watching The Seven Years.

It's one of those things, I used to watch the Nine News until it

just got so ridiculous, I thought to myself, I've got to find some

real news, so I went to the ABC.

Now it's getting a little ridiculous, so I'm going to SBS.

Yeah,

yeah.

so I don't know about the Australian funding, but the American funding

that's just passed Congress.

Yes, is actually not being given to the Ukrainian.

What really is happening is they're giving the old equipment that is getting out of

date and needs replacing to the Ukrainian.

That's what we're doing too.

Right, and buying brand new with the money.

Yes.

So, so realistically, A, we're not giving them that amount of money, we're

saving ourselves decommissioning costs.

Because we have to decommission this equipment.

Because you can't, you can't just take a gun down to a scrapyard and

say, here you go, mate, chuck it in the pile with the rest of it.

You actually have to do something to make it safe before you can get rid of it.

Yes.

So, so, and there's a cost involved in that.

So realistically, what we're doing is we're giving them our second

hand goods and buying ourselves brand new stuff off the shelf.

Correct.

That is true as well.

Absolutely spot on.

Yes.

So it's not like a crate of cash is sent across to these people and they're said,

you know, buy whatever you want with this.

It's, well, we've ordered, or we've figured out what you're going to be

supplied with and we'll be paying these people and it'll just arrive.

Yeah, and it's probably our secondhand shit that we don't want anymore.

It's like going through your pantry and going, right, all of these

tinned goods are about to expire.

I'll take them down to the food bank, but I'm going to claim the cost of

my new shopping against the groceries that I've just handed away despite

the fact it was gonna go out of date.

Correct.

Or in a week.

And I'm gonna pat myself in the back and go, oh, I've, I've donated.

X amount of dollars to charity, where in fact, yes, this is

precisely what is going on here, Joe.

Yeah.

And, experts say, and that's, Channel 7 News drove me crazy, but gave me 37

minutes of content for episode 426.

So for that, for that, I'm grateful.

Oh, grateful.

I forgot to do, what are we grateful for?

I'm grateful for Dr Seuss books, because you've had to read books to grandchildren.

I quite like clever rhyming books, and of course Dr Seuss is often very

clever, and it sort of, it entertains me at one level and entertains

them at another level, so yeah.

It wasn't until my daughter was old enough to have books read

to her that I realised how bad most children's poetry is, and how good A.

A.

Milne was.

and Roald Dahl are in comparison.

A.

A.

Milne?

Yeah, so Winnie the Pooh.

Oh, okay.

Is it rhyming?

Is Winnie the Pooh rhyming?

Winnie the Pooh, well, so, his other books, he's done a whole load of poetry.

Okay.

And it is very, very good.

and then, Roald Dahl did Horrible verse, something verse, which takes

the historic children's nursery rhymes and turns them on the head.

So, Goldilocks was a horrible girl who broke into this poor

bear's house and broke all their furniture and ate all their food.

I've got to find that.

It's

brilliant.

Rob Taylor's very amusing.

Yes.

Yeah, okay.

Pity about him being an anti Semite, but anyway.

Oh, I was in anti Semite, wasn't I?

Oh, God,

yes.

Okay, gotcha.

Well, you know, the U.

S.

is full of university professors who apparently are anti Semite as well.

Yes.

John in the chat room says, that's the way it's always been done, the Marshall Plan.

Correct, John?

Yes, indeed, as as Cameron Reilly says.

Talks about, when referring to the Marshall Plan, how, yeah, it was

essentially money provided to American businesses and, from American taxpayers.

So, yes, there we go.

That was, that was that one.

What am I up to next?

Um, Israel, Gaza.

Israel is thought to be preparing to send troops into Rafah, which is the

area in the southern part of Gaza.

Where they're all told to evacuate to?

Yes.

They're ready to wipe them out.

I just Yeah.

Well, I mean, if you hear Jared Kirshner, he wants Israel to go in

and finish the job off so that they can get that nice waterfront property.

Yeah,

so these poor people have been just crammed into a corner down the

bottom and you know, you just couldn't put anything past Israel at this moment.

It looks like they're going to completely demolish them down there and say, well,

you didn't leave Rafah and we told you to.

Yeah, but you know, if they, if they stay in the North,

they get shot at by the Israelis.

If they, now they're in the South, so they're getting bombed by the Israelis.

Yeah.

You know.

I know that we've got to be critical of Israel and I am critical of Israel,

but I honestly believe it now is the time for us to put some pressure

on the Egyptians to open the border and let these poor bastards out.

How many should we take?

Sorry?

How many should we take?

I don't know.

You know, I just think to myself that we've got to, no, I don't think you

actually want them to leave because you want them to be there to actually be the

backbone of the new Palestinian state.

But, I honestly believe they should open the borders up to allow them

to leave into Egypt temporarily.

If they can come over there for six months

Temporarily?

Do you reckon the Israelis, if they're forced out over the border, do you reckon

the Israelis will ever let them back in?

No, they won't.

But

So it'll be

permanent.

Sorry?

It will be

permanent.

That's why Egypt never opened the borders.

Yeah.

Anyway, I just think to myself that Egypt's got to actually You know,

Egypt was the first country that had a, did diplomatically recognize Israel.

It was after their failure in the Seven Day War, and I just think to myself

that it's time for them to actually use their long standing relationship

with Israel to apply pressure to them to say, do not bomb Rafah.

And if they do bomb Rafah, then they're going to have to open the borders

up, let the people out and that sort of thing, and then they've got to

try and shove them back in there.

If the Egyptian argument was, don't bomb Rafah, otherwise we'll open

the borders and let them into here.

Then they will bomb Rafah.

Precisely.

It's one of those things.

What they would

want to hear.

Yeah.

It's one of those things.

Anyway, remember UNRWA, which was a UN group that was providing aid relief?

And because Israel said, look, there's about a dozen employees

who we reckon are members of Hamas, out of thousands of employees, the

Australian government and others,

I thought the allegations were

actually that they'd been involved in planning the, whatever

it was, the October whatever.

October 7th attack?

Yes.

I just thought it was that they were Hamas.

I didn't know.

Are all Hamas guilty of being involved in planning the attack?

No idea.

So, I, I, I only heard that they were accused of, of being Hamas.

But in any event, a UN report has come out demolishing Israeli propaganda campaign.

In January, Israel claimed, without evidence, that some

UNRWA staff were members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

And had participated in the Hamas led attack.

There you go, Joe.

So the allegation from Israel was that they had participated

on the 7th of October.

Israeli allegations promptly caused the US and other Western nations to cut funding.

The Guardian reported on the 22nd of April, what's that, seven days ago?

A week ago, yeah.

That the Kelowna report, which was commissioned by the UN in the wake of

these allegations, found that UNRWA had regularly supplied Israel with lists of

its employees for vetting, and that the Israeli government has not informed UNRWA.

Of any concerns relating to any UNRWA staff based on

these staff lists since 2011.

That's pretty amazing that, UNRWA was actually giving the Israeli

government its employee list.

the review, this Colonna Review, Colonna Review, was drafted with the help

of three Nordic Research Institutes.

It'll be published later on Monday.

Confirms Israel is not as yet to provide any evidence of its claims.

And it notes that in March, Israel made public claims that a significant

number of unright employees are members of terrorist organizations.

Quote, the report says, However, Israel is yet to provide

supporting evidence of this.

So, UN group, saying thanks for nothing Israel when it

comes to that sort of stuff.

China.

Update for episode 426.

we've just had Blinken over there in China.

His Secretary of State?

Yes, he is.

Prior to him was Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

She was over for four days and, she says Washington will not accept new industries

being decimated by Chinese imports.

Yellen used her second trip into China in nine months to complain that China's

overinvestment has built factory capacity, far exceeding domestic

demand, while fast growing exports of these products threaten firms in the U.

S.

and other countries.

Basically, China is making too much cheap stuff for export.

It's a threat to U.

S.

industry.

I think I have, I think I will find a video about this.

Be with me one second.

Um, Oh, hang on.

Let me try that again.

A source, video.

Nearly there.

Here's Yellen coming up.

Janet Yellen.

What's she yelling about?

Yeah.

Now we're seeing an increase in business investment.

And a number of new industries targeted by the PRC's industrial policy, and

that includes electric vehicles, lithium ion batteries, and solar.

China is now simply too large for the rest of the world to

absorb this enormous capacity.

Actions taken by the PRC today can shift world prices.

And when the global market is flooded by artificially cheap Chinese products,

the viability of American and other foreign firms is put into question.

God damn that Adam Smith and the whole free enterprise

and let the market work.

Sort of stuff.

Well,

she did say artificially,

Jim.

She did say, yes.

Well,

I just think that, it's like I was listening today on, 7am.

They were talking about the, Australia, you know, the future of Australian

manufacturing and all that sort of thing.

And he said that he reckons it's been designed to be a string of announceables

up here in Queensland to try and bolster, Albanese's chance in the next election.

And he makes a hell of a lot of sense because he says, you know, if we're

actually going to try and subsidize manufacturing of solar panels in this

country, we're going to end up, you know, we'll never be able to outsubsidize.

We'll never be able to outsubsidize what the Chinese can produce them for.

You know, I just think that we've got to take the wins where we get them.

And that is that China is able to produce solar panels a hell of a

lot cheaper than what we can here.

So we just got to buy them from them.

You know, it's one of those things, you know, had the,

unless we, for the security reasons, decide we need.

Some sort of manufacturing capacity so that when there's a pandemic we

can make ventilators or something.

Like we might decide economically it doesn't make sense, but just in case

the world goes to shit and international shipping closes, we, we might need

some capacity to make some stuff.

So we just, we'll uneconomically subsidize it.

I agree with that, but they are such small industries and that type

of thing that you could have them.

You can have them government owned and that sort of stuff that you just know

you're always going to lose money on

them.

You know, that's no problem at all.

But I think that with solar panels, we've just got to accept that that

race has already been won by China.

Yeah, I mean, we should have been inventing the technology, not

trying to manufacture the shit.

Well, we did actually invent the technology all those years

ago, but then the guy left and went over to China and that sort

of stuff and he set up over there.

Cause our government had no vision.

Interest in it.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

It was, it was, at some, at one point in the past, I think it was 20 or 30 years

ago, Australia had the largest solar manufacturing industry in the world, but

we couldn't produce them at the same, the same rate that China could and the,

the same low price that China could.

So they ended up moving over to China.

And the

guy that was actually over here, he was studying at the

university of New South Wales.

And he was actually Chinese.

He came over here, studied, set it up, got her working and all

that sort of stuff, said to the government, will you help me out?

They said no.

So he went over to China and he said to the Chinese

government, will you help me out?

And they said, oh yes, we will.

And

now they dominate the planet with, with solar cells, like, you

know, the solar cells on my roof are all Chinese manufactured, you

know, the battery is Korean, the inverter is Korean, but the cells

themselves are manufactured in China.

I'd like to see, the UQ, yeah, UQ, we're talking about doing biodiesel.

Growing it with algae.

And that is the perfect replacement for the mining industry is huge algae

farms out in the coal fields because all you need is a source of water,

doesn't have to be particularly clean, some sunlight and large area.

And they reckon they can manufacture diesel at around the dollar.

Wow.

Yeah.

Which considering how much we pay To ship it in from overseas.

yeah, that's, that's true.

They have been looking at that for a long time.

There was, They were using it as a way of, they were trying to

supplement the, geos, sequestration.

They were saying, well, we can actually suck the carbon diox out of

the air growing, de growing, algae.

And then after they, they did converted into the diesel.

Anyway, Yellen is completely hypocritical and the US government,

because now they're talking about it's unfair that China is so cheap

and they're wanting to impose.

You know, tariffs and other restrictions to protect American industry, whereas

since the Second World War, the U.

S.

has been demanding that other countries open their, open up to free trade

to allow American multinationals to come into the country, and in fact

has worked with the IMF and the World Bank to ensure that the U.

S.

Developing countries could not get loans unless they opened up their

countries to, foreign investment, foreign ownership of, essential infrastructure

and, and reduced all tariffs.

And now that the US is, you know, looking again at tariffs to protect

its industry, It's coming around full swing because, you, the good ol US of

A was built on protectionist policies.

So, drawing from Wikipedia here, dear listener, Britain was the first.

However, its most ardent user was the US.

This is for protection mechanisms and Britain initially didn't want to

industrialize the American colonies and implemented policies to that effect.

So they banned high value added manufacturing activities.

in the US colony.

So, the American Revolution was to some extent a war against this

policy, in which the commercial elite of the colonies rebelled against

being forced to pay a lesser role in the emerging Atlantic economy.

And this explains why, after independence, the Tariff Act of 1789 was the second

bill the Republic signed by President Washington, which imposed a tariff of 5%.

And, during that period of the early American, days, most American

intellectuals and politicians during the country's catching up period felt

that the free trade theory advocated by Classical economists was not

suited to their country, and the U.

S.

went against the advice of economists like Adam Smith, Ricardo, and

Jean Baptiste Say, how would you pronounce that in French, Joe, S A Y?

Ah, Say.

Just so, okay, and tried to protect its industries and, that's what they

did all the way up until the Second World War, so, let me see, between 1792

and the war with Britain in 1812, the average, the average tariff was 12.

5%, then they doubled to 25%, and by 1820, America's average tariff was 40%.

And that, dear listener, is how American industry was born, because they were able

to protect these industries and get them growing and feeding the local economy,

and then once they were competitive, they were then ready to take on the world.

And so after the Second World War, with America dominant, they then said to

the rest of the global South and other countries, well, you guys have to, What do

you, what do you mean you've got tariffs?

You gotta get rid of those?

Free trade?

Yeah, I mean, the Second World War, of course, America was

spared the destruction of Europe.

Yes.

And, and loaned, yeah, I mean, they, they loaned, they didn't give.

the equipment to their, their allies, so the allies were in debt.

Yeah.

So it's just a turning of, the original roots of, of the American

economy back to some protectionism.

And, there you go.

A bit of the story there.

And finally to finish up with, what do you think of a four day week?

I'd love a four day week.

I knew people who worked a four day week, but it was four ten hour days.

Right.

As opposed to four eight hour days.

See, that

honestly wouldn't worry me if it was four ten hour days.

Well, why not let's have four eight hour days?

So, there was an article in the John Menardew blog, John Wiggan in his post

saying four day workweeks are inevitable, saying that pro productivity has risen

in the last 50 years, but the hours we put in at work haven't changed.

And

yeah, but that's all gravy for the, owners, business owners.

Yes.

Yeah.

well, he says at first sight, that might indicate a 20% fall in productivity.

As measured by output per worker.

But the fall would be less than that because in most occupations there are

diminishing returns to working hours.

That would be true.

There's a lot of people filling in time, watching the clock go around.

You could get their work done in four days.

I was guilty of that myself.

You know, you'd be watching the clock for the final two hours.

Yes.

So, he's got a website you can support, 87 percent of the time.

Yeah, but you could make

them work for longer hours, back up to you.

40 a week and then just sack more people and save yourself more money.

You could.

so Australia's got a bit of a reputation as being a bunch of slackers

when it comes to work, you know.

We're not actually.

No, we're not.

So there is a chart here which shows that hours worked per year

on, with high income OECD countries.

And let's just start at the top for the, for the countries where

the people work the most in terms of number of hours per year.

Korea.

I'm assuming that's South Korea.

Well, we're talking on the OECD countries.

So yeah, South Korea, Israel, United States, New Zealand, and then Australia.

Now the countries I list from now on, dear listener, work less hours than us.

Canada, Japan, Ireland, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Belgium, France,

Finland, Luxembourg, Iceland, Austria, Sweden, Netherlands, Norway, Denmark,

and right down the bottom, Germany.

So we, tend to compare ourselves with Americans and we know that

they're overworked, but, we put in more hours than the Japanese.

And they're supposed to be the epitome of a workaholic.

And look at the Germans, they shut down everything on Sunday, where

the Lutherans take all the Catholic public holidays as well as their

own, and the Catholics take all the Lutheran holidays as well as their own.

And Germany and Australia are closely matched in terms of per capita income

and other indicators of material living standards, and the Germans

can achieve that with much less toil.

And in fact, If you knocked 20 percent off our annual working hours, we would

still be working longer than the Germans.

Yeah, but you see the Germans CEOs are paid less than Australian CEOs.

Yes.

And that's just not fair.

Yes.

So, so there's a good argument for the, that's the best argument we've got for

the four day working week, is that, even with it, the average number of

hours worked by Aussies would be still, less than what the Germans are doing.

Same.

There we go.

Try that with your boss next time you have a performance review.

Do you listen?

If it doesn't work out well, don't blame me.

Well, ChatGPT is going to replace us all anyway.

Did you try any of that AI stuff, Joe?

well, yeah, I summarised

some videos with it, but that's about it.

Yeah, I've been using it to produce the show notes, so it's

been okay, I think, for producing the show notes and for finding the

chapter timestamp marks, so, yeah.

It's, it's,

Okay, as a starting point, it's quite good at doing rote work,

but I wouldn't want to use it for anything particularly intellectual.

It's perfectly good for the Murdoch press.

Yes, that'd do the job there, but there's no way AI could have

produced It does do the job there.

Yes, there's no way it could have produced a podcast as fine as

this one that you've enjoyed, dear listener, for the last 61 minutes.

Well,

Dan Savage.

Who does a podcast, love and sex podcast, relationship advice, wrote

his intro to one of his episodes, with one of the chat GPT models or

one of the large language models.

And it just sounded, it was full of fluff.

Yes.

It had no substance to it, it was very saying a lot but not saying

anything of any substance.

It always strikes me when you ask it, like I hardly use it, but it always

sounds like, imagine you've set an assignment, or a test, Tell me about XYZ.

And there's a kid who's never read any of the material, just uses bullshitty

language to try to give the impression that he does, by drawing out what

he can from the actual question.

Yeah.

Not

really adding much to it.

So, yeah, a lot of fluff and not a lot of insight, but anyway,

who knows where it'll finish up.

Right, Scott, you've got to go to bed early.

Yes, I do.

Yep, I've got stuff to do.

Joe's got stuff to do.

He's got tech guy stuff.

Maybe not.

Dear listener, hope you enjoyed that episode.

We'll, we'll be back next week with something.

Talk to you then.

Bye for now.

And it's a good night from me.

And it's a good night

from

him.

Good night.