We're back, dear listener.

Episode 442, Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

I'm Trevor, no Scott tonight, but we've got Joe the Tech Guy.

Joe, how are you?

I'm good.

Evening, everybody.

Already in the chat room, we've got Landon Hardbottom,

who can barely contain himself.

Yes, he was telling us that he was waiting, waiting, waiting.

So, , we are here, Landon.

Dunno where Scott is.

So, might had to go to bed early.

Not sure.

Hope Scott's well.

Um, we'll find out.

Actually, we're gonna change the time to seven 30 to make it a bit earlier.

Which is going to suit us, and uh, might suit Scott a bit

better as well, so, so anyway.

Yes, we normally talk about news and politics and sex and religion.

That's what Joe and I will be talking about.

We'll talk a little bit about an election in the Northern Territory.

We're going to focus a bit on gutless Labor and their decision about whether

to count gay people in the Census.

And, um, lots of news with, um, uh, Twitter.

X is banned in Brazil.

The sort of founder of Telegram has been arrested in France.

Sort of issues about free speech and stuff like that, we'll talk about.

For a bit of comedic relief, I'll play a few Donald Trump

clips, just to break things up.

And, um, yes, Landon says time is money.

Thank you, Landon.

So, uh, So yeah, that's a rough agenda, but if you're in the chat room, propose

a topic because I'm in a mood lately where I'm happy to be diverted down any

rabbit hole that you want to send me.

So feel free to raise an appropriate topic if you're in the chat room.

Uh, let's see.

Um, well, before we go on, um, Joe, I'm getting quite depressed.

I used to think that it was important to figure out the best policy And hope common

sense would prevail in the voting public, and through voting pressure either parties

would amend policies, or new parties would emerge with those correct policies.

But I am just, um, I've lost all hope in that now.

It doesn't matter how clear So,

the laws keep being changed to make it harder and harder for new

Yes, that's true.

That is true.

But, um, I just am becoming more and more convinced that it's basically

because of Garza and Orcus, where in my mind, those are so obvious.

what the correct thing is to do.

In the case of Orcus, cancel the damn thing.

Like, it's so obviously a stupid, crazy idea, no matter what side

of the political fence you're on.

Even if you want shiny, bright machines, you should be against Orcus.

Um, and the same with Gaza, where we can't,

we can't agree on the abomination that is occurring there.

And I just, well, I think that's down to Murdoch, isn't it?

I mean, I think the Guardian is very much, I don't know about Orcus,

but certainly Gaza is, they're, they're reporting on the atrocities.

Yes.

Yes.

So it's the, it's the, the propaganda of these issues that has to be overcome

before you even begin to talk about it.

Well, let's rationally look at these issues one by one and consider what's

the best approach because there's sometimes a lifetime of indoctrination

that has to be overcome before we can even get to a rational thought process.

Um, so we started off with religion on this podcast.

I don't know that I ever thought I was convinced, gonna convince people that

religion was a bad idea, but you'd think you could convince politicians in terms

of schools and private schools and things of what a disruptive influence it is

and it's bad, but of course you can't.

They're just fully indoctrinated.

I guess I'm at the position, Joe, where it's the difficulty of, of clearing

the air of, of preconceived propaganda that's seeped in and just doesn't allow

a rational discussion to take place.

Um, so it's not even any point in thinking about it.

That's where I'm at, Joe.

It's quite a depressing point.

Maybe even this, um, the census question.

Have you heard about that?

Yeah.

So a simple proposal.

That.

Hey, let's introduce a new census question where we ask people

wasn't previously asked.

I don't think so.

It was an introduction question.

Okay.

I thought it was asked, um,

last time around.

Yeah, I don't think so.

Okay.

Okay.

And a simple question just to ask, you know, are you gay or lesbian?

Or, you know, a simple question along those lines because a significant number

of the amount of the population is Mm-Hmm.

. And it's important to know about significant numbers so we can

make policies um, and have an understanding of our society

if we sort of know the numbers.

Yeah, yeah.

And a Labor government said, no, we're going to shy away from that.

Yeah, a

religious Prime Minister in a Labor government.

Yes.

For two reasons.

One, because he Didn't want to do something that could be

divisive because he thought that the opposition would oppose it.

Oh, they will.

Um, because there are second and a secondly, it could

cause concern for faith groups.

And I

just think so.

He's worried, he, he's willing to upset the 10% of gay voters for the 2% of

religious voters that actually care.

Yeah.

Just, you know, you've made it all these years, the meetings you've gone

to, the time you've spent, you've, you've finally ascended to a position

of the Prime Minister of this country.

All along the way there must have been shit that you wanted to get

done, and thought, once I'm there, whoa, what am I going to do?

And something as simple as this They were spooked by not

feeling confident that they could

sell a story to the Australian public.

Yeah, we think it's a good idea to count the number of gay and

lesbian people in our community.

Like, they couldn't be, and they shied away from that fight.

Um, so, uh, yeah.

And, um, it was part of Labor Party policy, which I think Robin mentioned.

Bristow was just referred to in the comment there.

Was that what he was saying?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was part of Labor Party policy to, to do this.

So you've got a policy.

It's such a simple thing, adding a question, and they're so gutless.

They must have sat around in a meeting, at least a handful

of them, and talking about it.

And they've just gone, oh, don't know, I think it'll just, uh, the Murdoch

press will give us a hard time.

Crucify

us.

And we might upset a few of our Catholic friends, maybe, so let's not do it.

I, I find that so gutless.

I'd rather have Scott Morrison.

In power.

Been a gutless Albanese, I think.

I think, I think Albanese disgusts me more now.

Right.

Because he's normally on the left.

Yes, because he's such a sellout and so unwilling to do

anything that he's just in the road.

It, you know, I'd rather Morrison was in charge and Somebody on the

left might be able to come through, but Albanese is blocking it.

That's my sort of feeling.

I think, I think there are good things going on in the

background, but not as much as there should be for a Labor government.

What do you mean, good things going on in the background?

I'm sure that there's industrial relations stuff happening,

that Well, yeah, there is.

They passed a specific bill in Parliament To shut down the CFMEU.

Well, yeah.

That's

That's what's going on.

That's because they're the wrong faction of the Labor Party.

Yeah.

So yeah, you're right, Joe.

They're working on industrial relations stuff.

Shutting down the CFMEU.

Dear listener, this is One of the benefits of doing this podcast, I say

this to people that I meet who say, for God's sake, why are you still

doing this podcast after nine years?

And the answer is, it forces me to read things and try and understand

what's going on where, otherwise normally I might just let it fly past.

So, um, and the CFMEU thing was one of those where I was ordinarily

might just let it go past.

But, um, Short story on the CFMEU, Joe, is, okay, uh, some talk of bad

actors in the CFMEU who have made threatening and misogynist statements

and possibly criminal activity.

Who knows?

Certainly evidence presented by TV shows, not a court of law, that some

individuals in the CFMEU might not be the sort of people that you want in there.

But the government has passed a specific bill dealing with the CFMEU, throwing it

into administration because of some bad actors, when there are court processes and

other means available to deal with that.

So we have laws in place to deal with people who are office

holders behaving inappropriately.

And so Max Chandler Mather, I've got to get his name right, he was on the 7.

30 report, um, with Sarah Ferguson, and he did a great job, uh, because he was also

at one of the rallies with the CFMEU, and he was basically saying that proposition

was Okay, there are individuals, there's stuff about them that doesn't look good.

Let the courts decide, not trial by media and not trial by the executive.

Like, we're supposed to have a separation of powers in this

country where Parliament, you know, makes the laws and the judiciary

interprets and enforces those laws.

But by creating a specific statute, putting the CFMEU into

administration, they've really, um, overtaken the role of the judiciary.

And even if you really hate the CFMEU, and you think that in that

case, you like the idea of them being wiped out, it sets a precedent

now for any membership based group.

That the Parliament, a future Liberal National Party, that takes a dislike

to some membership group, might say, well let's pass an act like the CFMEU

Act, put this group into administration and um, and that will fix that problem.

So I did see there was a question about So, did they

appoint an administrator when, um, who was the big consulting firm?

Yeah,

um, PricewaterhouseCorp.

PwC?

Yeah, and KPMG were also in doing dodgy things as well with, um.

With the tax?

Um, advising, one of them was advising their

clients on ways to avoid tax.

The tax before it had been announced, like, sort of.

So they were

advising the government and also advising their clients.

Yes, yes.

So did we put those accounting firms into administration because

some of their Key operators were seemingly doing the wrong thing, no.

And the other example that Max gave in the 7th Edge Report, Joe, which was

a cracker, Was the Catholic Church.

Right.

He said, here's some evidence of, of an organisation where some key

players have been proven to be.

Covering up for all sorts of dodgy acts, yeah.

Or indeed committing the dodgy acts.

Well, yeah.

And did we ever talk about putting the Catholic Church into administration?

Well, I

did, but

I talked about shutting it down and stripping its assets,

but apparently I was vetoed.

Yeah,

yeah.

Really good effort by Max on the 7th Editorial Report.

If you haven't seen it, dear listener, go on to iview and watch him in action.

Particularly because Sarah Ferguson gave him a hard time.

And she was really saying, what the hell are you doing, um,

at this rally for the CFMEU?

This group who have done standover tactics and hired bikies and blah blah, what

does that say about you sort of thing?

The End.

And he was really, really calm and collected and stood

up to her very, very well.

I couldn't fault his performance.

I thought it was very, very good.

So, um, top marks.

10 out of 10 in that interview.

And Sarah Ferguson, honestly, there's a You can play devil's

advocate where you could say

Well, your opponents would say this, you know, what do you say to that?

But she went way beyond the role of a devil's advocate.

She was really, obviously, um, uh, way too heavy on the side of, of painting him as

a stupid Um, supporter of, of bikey gangs.

And what the hell did he think he was doing?

And he was trashing his name and that of the Greens.

And, and how could he possibly be doing this?

Like, it was more than just a devil's advocate sort of,

um, role that she was playing.

So, yeah, full marks to Max Chandler Martha for his work on that one.

So, yeah.

So yeah, Joe, you're right.

That's, uh, that's, uh The government is working on some

industrial relations reforms.

Well, Labor has, I would say, long since ceased to represent the unions.

Yes.

Yeah.

Certainly the working man, it's much more worried about the

inner city elites, isn't it?

Hmm.

Um,

look, I, I,

I just don't know who this Who do they think their supporters are now?

I think the Labor, it's just kinda, people are gonna leave

them in droves as evidenced by a Northern Territory election, Joe.

Did you know there was some sort of Northern Territory election lately?

I think I heard.

Yeah, so Labor got thrown out, Country Liberal Party came

in, and big swing against Labor.

So, um, unfortunately, Joe.

A big Law and Order campaign on that one.

Not a surprise.

Gotta lock up these 12 year olds.

Yeah.

Going too soft on them.

Yeah, we're talking about changing the age of accountability down to 10.

Yes.

So, a lot of it was on Law and Order stuff.

And, for God's sake, um, kids, 12, 14, Um, I think I saw something in one of

the Murdoch papers complaining about how the rate of incarceration of 14

year olds for grievous bodily harm was less than that of the adult population.

And it was like, yeah, that's how it's supposed to work.

Yes.

People are 13 and 14, they don't fully understand what they're doing and there's

lots of other factors at play here.

We say they can't drive, we say they can't drink, we say they can't

smoke because their brains aren't formed.

But we're perfectly happy to lock them in prison for 30 years because

they've done something stupid.

Yes, so unfortunately that was a law and order campaign and

I think that's going to be the campaign here in Queensland, Joe.

Have you seen the

WA campaign?

Oh, Albanese is saying, watch out, Peter Dutton is going to take away your GST.

Really?

Yup.

Oh, I haven't seen that.

So, dear listener, Western Australia gets an obscene deal under the GST carve up.

A carve up that needs to be reversed.

And now, under a A Labor government that was interested in equality, in a fair go

for all, and you know, those in good times helping out those in not so good times,

um, so he's basically, um, bearing down on the promise of retaining the GST carve up.

And alleging that the Liberals would change that?

That's what he's saying.

As if they would, because I love it as much as

Wow.

No, I didn't see that.

Okay.

Oh, Joe.

Yeah.

Anyway, some big swings in that Northern Territory election.

Potentially a lot of big swings to come in the federal election.

Richard Dennis was writing an article and he was really saying there's

not really a safe seat anymore.

That, that the Teals could take almost any, uh, LNP seat and the Greens

could take almost any Labor seat.

So I think there's going to be a big swing, um, against Labor.

Apparently it's round 50 50 two party preferred at the moment.

So,

getting what they deserved, gutless labour, just gutless, um,

Yeah, I think they assume that the preferences will flow to them, but

I think if there's enough of us, well, obviously the independents will get it.

Yeah.

Sue says, is there a reason why Trevor is so much louder than Joe?

See, in the recording, Joe, I reckon I was louder than you.

Yeah, okay.

I'll turn it up.

Yeah, turn yours up.

So, um, um, Hello in the chat room, Allison, Don, Sue,

um, who else is in there?

I need to get this chat up so I can scroll through it.

Hang on one second, chat there, uh, yes, uh, Don, Allison, Wotley's there.

Wotley says Sarah Ferguson is a right wing character assassin.

I think that is correct, and there's a few of them in the.

Um, and the ABC, so, I think I've got everybody there, and Landon of course.

If you're in the chat room and you want to propose a topic, feel

free to, um, happy to talk about anything that you come up with.

Right, um,

Don says, they will take my GST out of my cold dead hands.

No wait.

Actually he died, Charlton Heston, I think.

Is that it?

Only recently?

Bye.

No idea.

Yeah, I think he, um, cause he was with the gun lobby in the US, I think.

He was, yeah, I think, the NRA.

Yeah, and I think one of his lines was, they'll, they'll take my gun out of

my cold dead hand or something like that.

Which I think they could now do, seeing he's, hmm.

Ah, what do we have to say?

Anything more about this, um, Wrap up of this Census question before

I move on about gutless labour.

Um, Bernard Keane, writing in Crikey, A more confident government would

have let the process run, accepted a new question, and pointed out how

weird it is that Dutton opposed it.

But this isn't a confident government.

If you don't want to do things because they might be labelled divisive, you

shouldn't be in the business of politics.

I agree.

Philip Adams said, Albanese memorably complained that, People

have always underestimated me.

It seems they were right.

And, uh, Sure, they

overestimated him, not underestimated.

Mm.

Cause they thought he could do something.

Yeah, well, um, Maybe he's living up to the underestimated tag.

Cause he's not doing anything.

Well, yeah.

Yeah.

Uh, and, uh, somebody else who has contacts reckons that, um, that the

voice was really the only divisive issue that the Albanese government

were going to give any energy to.

And once they lost that they were, they were no longer gonna do divisive

issues, they'd used up their ration.

So.

Yeah, the whole argument that this was going to be divisive in our community

as a reason for not doing a policy.

For God's sake, you're always going to find people who disagree with you.

You just got to explain your position and keep going if you think you're right.

Ah, Joe.

A bit of religion.

Um, Tasmanian Parliament.

I'll just play a little bit by the Speaker of the Tasmanian Parliament.

Ah, here we go.

Without being disrespectful, I don't, I'm the only member of the House.

Does no one else know the song?

I now invite members to join me in reciting the Lord's Prayer, or

to stand in silence and pray or reflect on their responsibilities

to the people of Tasmania.

Almighty God, we humbly ask you to grant your blessing upon this Parliament.

She goes on.

You don't need to hear the rest.

But the beginning was Anyone else want to sing the Lord's Prayer?

Am I the only one here who knows the tune?

The Speaker of the Tasmanian Parliament, Joe, wanted to sing the

Lord's Prayer and was a bit bemused that nobody else wanted to join in.

Didn't want to be disrespectful but, you know, why doesn't anybody

else want to sing the Lord's Prayer?

Yes.

Because of course it represents so much of the Australian population now.

So that's Tasmania for you.

Um, what else have we got here?

Um,

well, I anticipated that Scott would be here, and he's not.

So I had a whole section about voting for the Greens.

Um, there was an interview with, um, I don't know.

Max Chandler Mather.

Mather?

Mather?

Ma?

Sometimes Mather is pronounced Ma, is it?

You don't have a T.

I'm guessing listen to an interview where he pronounces

it, or somebody introduces him.

I should do that.

Max, anyway, interview with him.

Greens.

Some of their current policies, Joe.

Recognising Palestine at the bare minimum.

They want Australia to sanction the Israeli government, expel the Israeli

ambassador, end arms trades with Israel.

I reckon that's a fair start.

Good policies.

Um, they're completely opposed to AUKUS because, number one,

it's a colossal waste of money.

Two, it's It makes us less safe and three, it endangers our sovereignty.

Well, wasn't it him who was holding, um, that, uh, Admiral to account?

No, that was a different guy.

That was still the Greens, wasn't it?

Yeah, I think it was.

Yeah.

Yep.

So a great summation there.

Um, they want to bring dental and mental health under Medicare.

We've been saying for nine and a half years.

Is mental health not under Medicare?

Apparently not.

Okay.

The dental, we know isn't.

It's just crazy.

So, bringing dental under Medicare.

Um, rent controls.

I don't know how effective rent controls would be, but I'm happy

to see someone give it a go.

Building

more

affordable housing, public housing, I'm sure that will help.

And, um, he says about, um, the government should make

supermarket price gouging illegal.

I'm going to talk about price gouging and profits in a moment.

It doesn't actually look like the supermarkets have been price gouging, Joe.

There's certainly

a much larger individual market share over here than in other countries.

Yeah, so we'll get onto that in a moment.

Um, also taxing large multinationals, particularly coal and gas corporations.

Make universities free again, funded by these larger taxes on the multinationals.

And forgive all outstanding hex.

Um, Sounds good to me.

And a long term plan to phase out coal and gas.

Sounds even better.

I know.

Tremendous stuff.

Um, so, tick, tick, ticks across the board there.

Um, big corporations tax.

A 40 percent tax, this is a Greens propose, on excessive profits.

This will apply to profits earned on turnover after the first 100 million.

So, The Super Profits Tax allows a reasonable rate of return for

companies, effectively defined as 5 percent plus the long term bond rate.

So, the long term bond rate is a sort of prevailing interest

rate of sorts, plus 5%.

So, and they're saying if a corporation earning more than 100

million earns profits more than that rate, Then they're going to pay some

extra tax on that extra part, so.

Did you see, um, the Crikey article about that?

Uh, Bernard Keane?

I think?

Might have been, I can't remember.

Basically saying, saying we shouldn't do it because, um, our superannuation is

basically invested in the stock market.

I did see that.

But they were saying that 40 percent of the profit stayed on shore, which means

that 60 percent goes offshore and that's an awful lot of money that we're losing.

Correct.

If you look at the foreign ownership of the Top 100 in the

ASX, or in particular the top 20, a significant amount is foreign owned.

So, that's a stupid argument by Bernard Keene, um, when it, he's actually quite,

sort of, he's got some odd ideas when it comes to economics, Bernard Keene.

But, um, uh, I think If we were to tax them and a government used that tax

appropriately, that's going to be better for the working class than relying on

superannuation, the profits being kept in their superannuation, particularly

when so much is foreign owned.

And particularly when so much of shares is owned by the top 5

percent of our population when you look at share ownership as well.

So it's, it's skewed to foreigners, it's skewed to.

Um, the top end of town, so to suggest we should leave it alone

because that's the workers money.

Yeah.

It's a stupid argument.

You know, and Crikey though, I'll give them to their credit.

They often on some occasions now will pick a topic and they'll have one writer

who writes in favour of something and another writer who writes, uh, against it.

So you get two sides of the story.

So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I quite like that, and I don't really see it anywhere else,

so, um, yeah, so that was good.

Um, Greens, revamping the tax on offshore oil and gas, and, um, yeah, so someone

like, um, with this extra tax, for example, someone like Woolworths would

ordinarily pay 735 million in tax.

And this would cause them to pay an extra 425 million.

So, um, and it gives the example of various companies.

Commonwealth Bank.

So they're not price gouging, but they are making super profits.

Yes,

in the sense that price gouging

seems to suggest a recent increase in prices taking advantage of the situation.

Whereas I think when we get to it, The graphs will show that they're

only doing what they did 10 years ago, which might be, Joe, that they

were price gouging 10 years ago.

And it's been a consistent price gouging policy that, um Wasn't

Barnaby saying this 10 years ago?

Or was it Katter?

I don't know, but um Have you got somebody from the country?

If you're thinking of supermarkets price gouging, especially in the last few years,

Not really, but anyway, we'll get to that, um, but certainly some super profits,

um, so look, you could argue about the details, maybe, but at least the Greens

are proposing the sorts of stuff that I've been whinging about for nine years, so a

lot of that stuff,

good on them.

Um It's because they're watermelons, you know.

Yes, green on the outside and communist.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They got the Batuta Advocate on side.

The Batuta Advocate had a headline with Max Chandler Mather on the, as

pictured at a CFMEU rally, and the headline was, whoever this little

freak is, he's talking a lot of sense.

Think disenfranchised Labor voters.

Um, yeah.

Um, okay.

Yeah, we've done the CFMEU, um, because Max Chandler Mather

was on that, he was very good.

Um, even the New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties also says that the,

the specific bill putting the CFMEU into administration is a dangerous

precedent that Um, Overcomes principles of natural justice and the normal

court system that we should have.

So, yeah.

Now, um, Price Gouging.

Saul S.

Lake, uh, used to be an economist for ANZ.

Don't know who he works for these days, but I've followed his progress

for decades and he comes out with stuff that I think we can trust.

And so he had an article on price gouging and, um, he says that our high inflation

rate that we currently have, highest inflation in 35 years, is in large part

the result of producers being able to pass on increases in costs to their

customers in the form of higher prices.

Um, so He says criticism would be warranted if businesses were raising

prices by more than their costs in order to boost profit margins.

Um, but there's no evidence that businesses are doing that.

And he's produced some graphs in an article that are in the

show notes that the patrons get.

If you're not a patron, you should consider becoming one.

And, um, he says, consumer prices as measured by the CPI have risen 21.

3 percent over the past four years, but costs incurred by businesses in

producing goods and services have risen at a faster rate than consumer prices.

So where's

that come from?

Cause it certainly hasn't come from, um, labor as in people working.

Uh,

it's not, it's not wages that have gone up by that much.

Yeah.

Ah, he says, um, uh, Domestic producer prices of goods

and services have risen by 17.

5 percent over the past four years, prices of imported goods have risen 19.

9%, and nominal unit labour costs have risen by 32.

1%.

partly because of falling labour productivity.

So, Joe,

unit labour costs have risen by 32 percent in that period.

Wage increases?

Yes.

Maybe people are on a go slow because they haven't had a wage increase.

Wage increase and falling productivity, increasing the labour,

nominal unit labour costs by 32%.

Anyway, excluding the mining sector, Pre-tax, pre-tax profit margins, a rose,

um, from an average of 6.5% in the 10 years to 2020 to 7.5% in 2021, boosted by

job keeper, but then fell back to 6.5%.

So, and it remained at that level.

So.

In the 10 years from 2010 to 2020,

pre tax profit margins excluding the mining sector was 6.

5 percent and that's what they are now.

So if there is price gouging, it's been going on for 14 years.

If, if 6.

5 percent is price gouging.

So, um, so he says, in other words, there is no evidence to support

the proposition that price gouging or profiteering has been a major

contributor to the rise or persistence of inflation since Mid 20, Mid 21.

So that's according to the statistics, Joe.

I know that in the business I'm involved with, I don't get to set prices.

Uh, it's in the art supply world, but I do know that there's just been relentless

cost increases for the stuff that the company imports and also big increases

in freight costs as well over time.

So,

Currency flucuations haven't helped either.

So, we've passed on a lot of price increases over the last four

years, but I don't think that's been getting any extra profit.

I

know that the youths have

had an impact on free costs.

Mm, yep.

So, uh, so yeah.

Um, what have we got here in the chat room before I get to the next one?

Um,

um, are there any?

Um,

just the young people like Greens and the holding Labor to account.

Yeah, yeah, um,

Alison says, Seems like they're still going ahead with changing of the religious

affiliation question, which is good.

I agree, that was good.

Um, uh, Robin says, Will the right wing fundamentalist Christians

have any power in the Queensland LNP in a future government?

I'm sure they will, unfortunately, Robin.

Um, uh, Don says, um,

um, actually Alison says Greens make the ALP do better.

Do they Alison?

This current mob, I don't, I don't know that they do.

I think they're in for a shock.

And um, Alison says my newly 18 year old tells me all of the people her

age except one support the Greens.

And that one doesn't support the LNP.

Lots of the people she knows.

So, um, uh, and Watley saw Bant's press club address and he's on the

Greens page these days as well.

So, yeah.

Um, right.

What else have we got?

Um, ah, Essential Poll, Joe.

Let me just see if I can bring this one up.

Um, get rid of that, get rid of that, share a screen over

here somewhere, if I can.

Um, no, that's not that.

Let me see, Lord's Prayer.

Hmm,

I'll just go through this essential poll, the bit I want to do anyway.

Actually, get rid of that, Joe, put that there.

Sorry, we're back.

And, um, bear with me, dear listener.

Uh, essential report, 27th of August.

By the way, thank you everyone for the happy birthday wishes

for my birthday the other day.

Turned 60, Joe.

And, uh, nice quiet time.

Yeah, nice quiet time with the family.

Um, actually, dear listener, um, you might be wondering, how many

birthdays has the Iron Fist got left?

Well, I've In 2020, life expectancy at age 60 years for Australia was 25.

7.

So, if I stick to the average, then at least another 25.

7 years is what's ahead.

And Australians do better than most when it comes to life expectancy.

We do better than other anglophone countries like Ireland, Canada, New

Zealand, Britain, and of course we do much better than the United States.

Um, so there's that.

Um, so yeah.

I don't know about the other colonies, but the UK

has had 14 years of the Tories

ripping

the guts out of the NHS.

Yep.

So I know that our Medicare isn't in a great state, but it's

a damn sight better than the NHS.

Yes.

Yep.

Um, and that would be one of the reasons for the life expectancy

in the US to be down because of their terrible health system.

Yeah.

Um, so yeah, looking for another 25 at least, but back to the essential report

and Joe questioned Australians about their support for Peter Dutton's call to

pause arrivals of Palestinian refugees.

And they asked Australians, as you may be aware, opposition leader Peter

Dutton has claimed that Australia should pause arrivals of Palestinian

refugees fleeing the conflict in Gaza.

To what extent do you support or oppose Dutton's cause for pausing

arrivals of Palestinian refugees?

Whatever you do, don't call him a racist, because he'll go and cry.

Yeah.

Well, Joe, strongly support Peter Dutton, 23%, and somewhat support, 21%.

So we're up to 44 percent either strong or somewhat support.

With a 26 percent don't know, that leaves only 30%.

He'd disagree with him.

Pretty damning figure, that one.

Like the poor people of Gaza.

And the wretched conditions they're under.

And we've already got, you know, no doubt strict requirements for

people to qualify to get here.

But to say, it's not like we've thrown out the restrictions and

we're just going to let anybody in.

Do you agree with that?

It's, we've got a system in place to accept, and we're saying we're pausing it.

He's saying that these people support Hamas and Hamas

is a terrorist organisation, therefore they support terrorists.

That was his argument.

Joe, people have not seen enough pictures.

Honestly, they don't see enough.

We just had the other day where the six Israeli hostages were

found dead and that got news.

Every day, 50, 100.

Palestinians are killed, shredded by some bomb, dropped on a school.

And we, we don't see the pictures in the mainstream press, but I see them

in the places I go to and they're just the most gutting images where you've

got, you know, fathers just cradling dead six year old girls and boys, or

You've got young toddlers crawling over the bodies of their parents.

Or, you've got just 20 kilos of assorted meat in a garbage bag

where they've said, that's all we could ascertain as human remains.

And, uh, that's your family member right there.

These people have no heart, they, because I don't think they're

seeing enough of what's going on.

Ah, interestingly enough, with those statistics of support for

Peter Dutton, you click on the gender profile and you know what?

It doesn't make much difference.

Males 47 percent support Peter Dutton.

Females 42%.

Not as big a difference as I would have thought.

And a few more don't knows for the females.

So, um, yeah.

Age, guess what?

Older people support Peter Dutton, younger ones don't.

At least in the younger group, 18 34, only 29 percent would

support Peter Dutton's view.

In the boomer category, 55 we're up to 77%.

No, 57 percent support him.

And of course, when it comes to voting intention, only 22 percent of Greens

support Peter Dutton, whereas 65 percent of Coalition voters support Peter Dutton.

There we go.

I really

worry about the Greens who support Peter Dutton on anything.

Yeah.

A fair number of Greens supporters put LNP as their second preference.

It's something like 20%.

It's

bizarre.

Yeah, it is bizarre.

Just can't imagine how they, how they get to that place.

No, it

seems diametrically opposed.

Yeah.

In the chat room, Alison says Um, it just moved on me.

Um, I'm hoping LNP is putting massive dollars into Ali

France's campaign to beat Dutton.

It's the most important seat in Australia, as far as our future goes.

Joe?

Yeah?

Your seat.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I am willing to get out there and do whatever.

There was, I think the last election, there was organising,

but didn't see anything come of it.

Ali?

Do you remember there was There was that Overtone group that was, it was being

alleged that they were funded by the ALP.

They were doing, basically, they were putting funds into seats

that they thought were critical, and Dutton Seat was one of them.

Okay.

And is Allie France is a green?

Labor.

Labor.

Labor.

Labor.

Okay.

Right.

Okay.

Yeah.

Is her a good green or?

Candidate there?

Really, I think you'd be pushed to get a labourer in.

Right.

I've been Dutton for, what, 15 something years?

Right.

In fact, no, since I've been here, so over 20 years.

Mm.

Don says he's not a monster, he just looks like one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, um, that was that.

Let's get, where are we going for time here?

8.

49, another 10 minutes.

Uh, what else have I got here?

Um, um, News Poll, Censure Poll, Donald Trump, for a bit of comedic relief, Joe.

Did you hear the Arlington story?

Yes.

So in case you missed it.

The Trump campaign plan was to stage a fake ceremony at Arlington, which

is the sort of military cerem um, cemetery, pretend it was a public

ceremony, and then condemn Vice President Harris for not showing up.

And the U.

S.

Army issued a statement condemning Trump's uh, actions.

And yeah, in a sane world, This would be campaign ending.

So, um, so yeah, they went to Arlington and

He claimed he didn't know that the TV cameras were following him.

Well, you know, for a start he's breached federal law because

you're not allowed to use this sort of federal facility for campaign purposes.

There was a woman there on sort of an official in charge of the cemetery

who was sort of pushed over in the process as they bowled her out the

way to do whatever they wanted to do.

Completely trashed the place.

And here's an interview where Donald Trump was questioned about

that and let's see him use his fine debating skills and knowledge.

I'm not you

are.

To sort of get himself out of a tight situation here.

Should your campaign have put out those videos and photos?

TikTok people, you know, we're leading the internet.

That was the other thing.

We're so far above her on the internet.

But on that

hallowed ground, should they have put out the images of those?

Well, I don't know what the rules and

regulations are.

I don't know who did it.

And I, it could have been them.

It could have been the parents.

It could have been somebody.

It was

your campaign's TikTok though that put out the video.

I

really don't know anything about it.

All I do is I stood there and I said, if you'd like to have a

picture, we can have a picture.

If somebody did, if this was a setup by, uh, The people in the administration

that, oh, Trump is coming to Arlington, that looks so bad for us.

What do you think Joe, was that convincing?

It wasn't me that stole the cookies.

With the big brown cookie crumbs all over his mouth.

I have seen people saying the buck doesn't stop there.

He's ready to blame the families.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

He's not willing to take responsibility for anything.

What a shocking cad.

Yeah, yeah.

Just a shocker.

But maybe, Joe, we just don't understand.

Like, people accuse him of rambling and going off on tangents and of, of just

being a bit kooky and loopy and, but they're not recognising the genius of, of

his persuasive arguments as he weaves his.

Concepts and ideas into a coherent form.

Let's see how that works.

But what happened so with Afghanistan, you know, I do the

weave, you know what the weave is?

I'll talk about like nine different things and they all come back

brilliantly together and it's like, and friends of mine that are like

English professors, they say, it's the most brilliant thing I've ever seen.

But the fake news, you know what they say?

He rambled.

That's not rambling.

When you have, what you do is you get off a subject to mention another

little tidbit, then you get back onto the subject, and you go through

this, and you do it for two hours.

And you don't even mispronounce one word.

But you can get a good discount on your gold and silver.

You're talking about the ad that was.

Yeah, that was rolling at the same time.

Um, people have accused him of being a liar and he's not, because to lie,

you need to know what the truth is.

He doesn't care what the truth is.

He just makes it up as he goes along.

And, um, you know, he keeps on going on about the late great Hannibal Lecter.

Because he's convinced he's a real person.

Well, the parallels have been drawn.

They've both appeared in public behind bulletproof glass screens.

There you go.

Ah, I've got one more clip here.

Unrelated, I guess.

Although, you know, you have to say on that Arlington one, the reporter sort

of shot back at him pretty quickly, just when he was saying, Oh, I don't

know who it was, maybe it was And she said, well, it was your TikTok.

Have you seen the debate about the debate?

The debate?

Yeah, the debate.

Yeah, yeah, there's supposed to be a debate between Harris and Trump.

Ah, so arguing over the conditions and all that?

Yeah,

because, um, The original conditions basically said that both of them would

have muted microphones when the other one was speaking and Harris team are

going, no, no, no, have the microphones open because apparently when Biden

was debating, Trump was going off on one, which was throwing Biden off,

but because he was muted, the audience didn't see that and they want everyone

to see that Trump is rambling on and just make him look as unhinged as he is.

So that when she's thrown, and she's perfectly capable of dealing with him,

but rather than having her arguing back at him with the audience not having heard

what was going on, at least they'd know that Trump had made another interjection,

and that's why she was addressing it.

Yeah, okay, because having him muted would work to his advantage.

Yes.

So, and, And Trump is insisting on a muted mic.

Trump's

team is insisting on a muted mic.

I think Trump would quite happily ramble.

Trump's team knows that he's a liability when he's let unfiltered.

Mm.

And, and so they want to shut him up when he's not speaking.

Mm.

Yeah.

No, but none of that surprises me.

Um, you've been watching, um, Robert Kennedy Jr for a while, and Oh,

I've just listened to the Behind the Bastards episode, sorry.

Four episodes on the history of.

R.

F.

K.

Jr.

Um, they're saying he had a very disturbed childhood, obviously his uncle getting

killed and then his dad getting killed, uh, and he dealt with it badly, but, um,

just the whole people dying around him.

Um, the general lawlessness because as a Kennedy they could get away with anything.

Apparently as a teenager he, he, he created a gang that were into causing

trouble in their very expensive neighborhood and one of his family members

got arrested so he went back to rescue him and then approached the copper who'd

arrested his cousin or whoever it was and said, you're never gonna guess who I am.

What I've got under my jacket.

Mm-Hmm.

, Joe: uh, he, he's going, I've got a hawk under here and it's trained to kill cops.

And the cop's going, I don't believe you don't be stupid.

And then he pulls that hawk 'cause he was a hawker,

like a falcon type Hawke.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Jesus.

Apparently he's character.

Yeah.

Well, I'll play this clip and it's, uh, it's interesting because.

The reporter was ready for his denial of being a vaccine denier.

And she poses the question and he says, I never said that.

And she says, stop right there.

And let's play a clip, which I think is what, um, people need to do more often.

If you're going to be a decent journalist is have some of this stuff.

Cause you know.

What these guys are going to do.

You should have the clips ready.

Um, Don in the chat room says, Falconer is the term.

He was a falconer.

Fair enough.

Fair enough.

Okay, here's uh, RFK Jr.

being interviewed by a reporter who had done some preparation.

You have gained notoriety for your skepticism about vaccines,

and over the summer in an interview you said, quote, There's no vaccine

that is, you know, safe and effective.

Do you still believe that?

I never said that.

So stop me.

We have the clip.

Please play the clip.

I just

talked about that the media slanders you by calling you an anti vaxxer.

You're not anti vaccine, you're pro safe vaccine.

Difficult question.

Can you name any vaccines that you think are good?

Um, I think some of the live virus vaccines are probably, uh, solving

more problems than they're causing.

Um, there's no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.

What I'm saying is

So she gets him with the clip saying there is no vaccine

that's safe and effective.

But he just denied saying that.

And also he

went to Samoa, was it?

Mm hmm.

And of course, basically there was a huge measle outbreak not

long after he'd been there.

Right.

Decrying the measles vaccine.

Yeah.

Dangerous man.

Mm.

Yeah.

So, uh So, that's what we need our, sort of, reporters to be,

ready to go, with clips like that.

But you know, a cad like that is about to deny everything, so.

Right, Joe, that's, uh, we're nearly there.

What else did I have in here that might want to fit in without doing it next time?

Um, uh.

Did you want to say anything about the Telegram founder being arrested in France?

Yeah, I mean, um, from what I hear, the French authorities are

basically accusing him of creating a, an encrypted tele, uh, messaging

system, uh, that has no oversight for what goes on and therefore he's

enabled bad people to do bad things.

And apparently, well I've got here part of the French claim is

refusal to communicate upon request from the authorised authorities the

information or documents necessary for the performance and exploitation

of interceptions authorised by law.

So French law allows French authorities to intercept communications.

And to have, um, sort of, platforms cooperate with that

interception, and he basically failed to do that, so they're saying

Yeah, and that's the thing about end to end encryption, is you can't do that.

Mm.

If you create a backdoor for the legal authorities, you

create a backdoor for anybody.

Mm.

And Telegram was set up, basically, I think, in Russia, And

a lot of, there are a lot of pro Russian groups on it, but there's also

a lot of anti Russian groups on it.

A lot of dissidents, all of whom would very much like the encryption

features, the end to end, and don't want governments to have access.

So the question is, do you allow dissidents,

to use a thing even though bad people are going to use it?

Or do you shut it down for everybody and make it unsafe for everybody?

Hmm.

You know, if a platform's being used to traffic, you know, child sex slaves,

for example, we absolutely want to be able to intercept what's going on.

So, there can be legitimate reasons.

Yeah, but that's

always the excuse, isn't it?

The police will always pull out the But think of the children.

And there are other techniques.

So, it just makes their life harder, and they don't like

their life being made harder.

Um,

you know, when, in an ideal world, we'd all be living in a

police state, according to the cops.

You know, they'd have the ability to bug anybody's phone, because

people might be doing bad things.

Well, they can bug phones.

They can, but they

have to

apply for a warrant.

Yes.

Yeah, and we're kind of happy with that, aren't we?

Well, are we?

I am.

Well, but you know, um, we want people to be caught.

Yeah, but you and I grew up with the Berlin Wall and Soviet,

well, the Communist Europe.

Where that was taken to extreme and in fact you grew up in Sir Joe's Queensland.

Mmm.

Where do you think that the police listening in on phone lines was always

in the best defense of the public, or was in the best defense of Joe?

I guess I'd rather a system that enables interception with, with, uh, some

sort of ombudsman oversight than, than a system that just doesn't allow it at all.

And the point is there are always other methods, but they are

more expensive and they're difficult.

Yeah,

it just might not work.

Well, yeah, I mean, so if you're really after a criminal, you can get onto their

phone and, um, put bad software on it.

Or you can sneak in and bug their house.

It's, it's the level of pervasive surveillance that

modern technology allows.

And you kind of want roadblocks in that, because otherwise you get the

American program where they're just, siphoning up huge amounts of data because

it might be useful at a later date.

And

that is a worry.

Yes.

Well, I guess I would, I would want the laws to say you can't do that.

But the law

said that in America, it didn't stop them.

Yes.

Yes.

Meanwhile, in Brazil, they've banned the use of X, formerly known as Twitter.

No, we're calling it Twitter.

What's that?

I said we're calling it Twitter.

Okay, let's do that.

If

Elon won't stop deadnaming his child, then we won't stop deadnaming Twitter.

Yeah,

yeah, yeah.

We've got 22 million users in Brazil.

Mm hmm.

If you were in Brazil now, and you try to use a VPN to access Twitter, You

could be fined up to 8, 874 per day, Joe.

You probably just wouldn't bother with the VPN.

That's a big fine for people trying to, to get around it.

Um, and that was the, uh, Supreme Court that banned Twitter in Brazil.

Um, let's see, of course, the US government.

Moved to protect its business interests, issued a warning to Brazil, U.

S.

Embassy is monitoring the situation between the Supreme Court and Twitter.

And we, the U.

S.

Embassy, as in the USA, reiterate that freedom of expression is a fundamental

pillar of a healthy democracy.

From the country that told TikTok, you've got to sell up or else you're banned.

I wonder how, um, who's the green, what's his name, the journalist

who lives there with his husband?

Greenwald.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's Brazilian.

Yeah.

Or lives in Brazil.

Yeah.

I wonder, I'm fairly sure he was strong on Twitter.

Yes, he's very much a libertarian free speech advocate.

Yeah, I just wonder what he's got to say about that.

Yeah.

Um.

So.

Yeah.

They were, um, the judge responsible for the ban had been spearheading an attempt

to force Twitter to purge anti democratic far right voices in the wake of January

2023 uprising in the capital, Brasilia, carried out by supporters of the former

far right president, uh, Bolsonaro.

So,

quite possibly colour revolutionary types, um,

I think they were more January 6th types.

Yes.

And basically the Supreme Court wanted Twitter to cancel those accounts

and Twitter was uncooperative.

So the Supreme Court said, um, see these accounts here, you need to cancel them.

And they said, I'm not talking to you.

So I said, okay, that's it.

You're out of here.

What do you think of that one, Joe?

Just cancelling accounts.

Purging accounts?

Well, uh, it's not a public space, is it?

Hmm.

Uh, twi Twitter all along have argued that, um, first

Amendment doesn't apply to them.

Mm-Hmm.

. Joe: Um, it's not a public space.

It's a private, and they're a private corporation.

They can choose to do whatever they like.

Mm-Hmm.

. Okay.

Um.

Yeah, that's all that, I think.

Um, and, um, oh,

just on subs.

Can't have an episode without it.

Do you remember the time when Canada cancelled its nuclear submarine order?

Uh, no, but

Back in 1987.

When no one knew that the Cold War was just about to end, the

Canadian government signed up to build 10 nuclear powered submarines.

And that program lasted for two years before being cancelled in 1989.

No nuclear Canadian sub ever began construction, let alone put in the water.

One of the reasons was the price tag.

And, um, basically, the ministries involved in construction became embroiled

in conflict, choice of vessel design came under withering criticism from

the Treasury Department, finally media support eroded with 71 percent of the

population opposed to the project.

And so two years after the deal was announced, it was cancelled.

Canadians have done it.

There you go, Albanese.

It can be done.

It'll have to be done at some point.

Maybe Trump will do it for us.

Yeah,

hopefully not.

Hopefully Trump doesn't manage to get to a point where he can.

Well, dear listener, thank you in the chat room for your participation.

Falconer was the last comment there, or Falk ner.

Um.

We'll be back next week at the special new time, permanent time, of 7.

30.

So hopefully that might help Scott.

We'll talk to him, see if that suits, and um, yeah, so if you want to join in the

chat room half an hour earlier in future.

Until then, bye for now.

And there's a good night from him.