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, 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.

We're back, episode 423.

I'm Trevor, aka the Iron Fist.

Joe the tech, Joe the tech guy's with me.

How are you, Joe?

And unfortunately, Scott's not with us.

He's gallivanting around Mackay, entertaining friends

and having a good old time.

So, it's just the two of us, Joe and myself.

We'll be talking to you about, ah, news and politics and sex and religion.

Had the week off last week.

You know, Joe, I just, after celebrating the crucifixion of Jesus, I just

didn't have any energy left to podcast.

You needed three days to respawn.

I did, yeah.

So, um, if you're joining us, uh, in the chat room, say hello.

I'm going to try and, um, put it up so I can see what the chats are.

Where is that little code?

There it is.

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

We will try and incorporate your comments if we can.

And a huge agenda for this particular show.

Not sure if we'll get through it.

Joe, have you got anything to do tonight?

Any pressing engagements?

Well, actually,

I realised that I'd double booked myself because my friend in England

has a day off and we were going to play

computer games together.

Right, okay.

So, Is that still happening afterwards or?

That would be good if we could.

Okay.

Oh, somebody in the chat with a strange name.

It's just cropped up.

Waving hi.

Yeah.

Hopefully that doesn't get worse.

Hmm.

Where would that be from?

I wonder if that's from Rumble.

No, no, no, that's um, YouTube.

Oh, is it?

Okay.

Well, um, on the agenda, what have we got on the agenda, uh, dear listener?

A little sort of crime rates boomer story, um, we've got Max Chandler Mather, uh,

we've got stuff about real estate pricing and how that's working in Australia.

Is capital gains tax concessions and negative gearing the

problem or is it other things?

We've got a bit about, um, the report about religious discrimination.

Some fun stuff about Donald Trump, a little bit about, uh,

Easter with Jesus, uh, a Sub Zote update, a US hegemon update, um,

China, Guyana, and of course Gaza.

So, that's on the agenda, and see how we go.

But, now, dear listener, if you don't want to listen to our introductory guff,

as we're talking about our personal lives and other things that have happened

during the week, uh, Have a look at your podcast app and you'll see that

I've taken great time to put in there chapter marks to show you different

segments so you can scoot around and fast forward or repeat things if you want to.

So that's up to you, you can do that if you don't want to hear our guff because

I like starting off with recounting what might have happened during the

week and um, Joe, I had an incident at a cafe, so dear listeners, some of

you may know that I regularly do an ocean swim these days, and The beach

was closed so we all had a coffee instead afterwards, and it was with, uh,

let's just say, the boomer generation.

And one guy started talking and he was talking about, you know, what's wrong

with the world and got onto, you know, crime and how that was out of control

with kids today and kids being able to, uh, kids basically being arrested but

then being able to, out on bail the next day and able to go home and stuff, and

Um, I said, you realise of course that crime rates are decreasing, and the look

on this guy's face and another guy's face was immediately, this other guy said,

oh here we go, you must be some sort of card carrying Labor member, are you?

And um, he said, where did you get those statistics from?

Where'd you get that from?

And I said, Well, it's from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Crime rates are down.

Except for sexual assault, which reports of are slightly increased, but there

are reasons for that to do with people willing to, more willing to report.

And by the way, usually the perpetrators are not strangers.

And, um, they just were not happy that I'd given them some facts that contradicted

an idea they had in their head.

And I said, I know where you're getting this from.

You read the Courier Mail.

And they said, yes.

And I said, because I read the Courier Mail every day and I see

that shit that they have been producing for the last two years.

Every time there's some sort of crime that's gone on in Queensland, they've

plastered it over the front page and made you think that there is some

sort of crime epidemic going on.

And, um, and one guy said, well, you know, if you don't like the papers,

you know, why do you even buy it?

I said, so I know what people are thinking.

I know what you're thinking and why you're thinking it.

So, afterwards, I apologised to my wife and said, I just couldn't help myself.

But Joe, I love that statistic from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

It's great to have something authoritative and objectively neutral on such an issue.

Sorry.

That was fun.

Yes, but statistics don't change people's minds.

No.

And I have the, I've got the statistics to prove it.

Boom, boom.

Very good, Joe.

In the chat room.

What is going on here?

John's there.

Hi, John.

You haven't missed anything yet.

So, right, um, I'm only operating on one screen, Joe, so I will not

be looking at you as I go through these notes, um, but let me just, um.

That's your lot.

Yeah.

It is.

So, okay.

Um, oh, and the other part of this conversation was, uh,

we're talking about, um, China.

Because one of the guys had visited Darwin, and I said, oh, you know

that China owes the port of Darwin.

You know, who let that happen?

And I said, well, hang on a minute.

LNB.

Yeah, I didn't actually say that, but I said, so what's the problem?

And they said, well, they can monitor everything.

And I said, well, they could just hire an apartment that overlooks the

harbour and monitor everything as well.

Like, what do you think they're going to see when containers

just get unloaded at a dock?

I said, it's entirely at China's risk.

Say we go to war with China.

And they own the Port of Darwin, we just say to them, uh, guess what,

you don't own it anymore, we own it.

Like, and what are they going to do if we're at war with them?

Like, it's this, sort of this furphy that China owning a port is somehow a risk to

our national security is just complete BS.

When you just put these things out there, people don't have a response

and just sort of shake their heads and look at you a bit angrily.

But, uh, anyway, um, that was my, my My little experience.

Joe, you have become a fan, well, fan boy of Giannis Varoufakis.

What have you been up to with Giannis?

Uh,

so I watched the documentary that you recommended and I've also listened

to his book, uh, A Letter to My Daughter, Something to My Daughter, which was a

good introduction to, uh, economics, at least from a socialist viewpoint, um,

he's definitely Um, probably a Marxist, from what I can read between the lines.

And whilst I might not agree with all of him and, um, think that

possibly some of his assertions were a bit of a stretch, uh, it was

definitely an interesting listen.

Hmm.

Um, and explaining, um, some of the, some of the reasoning why, um,

things like austerity don't work.

and why you'd think that automating the workforce, automating labour

would be a good thing, but that it actually has a deleterious

effect on the economy as a whole.

So there's only so much efficiency you can get.

So I think it was quite good at explaining consequences of a lot of

the policies and also, you know, why government debt isn't a bad thing.

So it goes into a lot of those.

Um, the, the documentary, um, the first three parts are very much a story of the

Greek financial crisis when he became, um, finance minister and his recounting of his

negotiations with the, uh, EU ministers.

He

recorded those as well at some point.

Yes, well some

of them.

So

apparently.

He was wired.

Apparently, uh, after the first meeting he asked for the minutes.

Only to be told that there weren't any minutes, and he decided from that point

on he was going to record the meetings.

Um, not that they're in this documentary, there are some, um,

clips of him afterwards, some video diaries of him afterwards.

recounting things.

Uh, but it was certainly the Greek economy and there's a bit of politics

or economics involved in that recounting of what happened in Greece.

Um, and then parts four and five are much more about economics and then part

six is about his vision for the future.

Which is a pan European political

party.

I might get to it in the next couple of days.

Um, I'm away from my wife for a couple of days and There are no Squash

tournaments on Squash TV for a few days.

That frees up a bit of my time.

So, uh, yes, it is on the list, and you have inspired me,

Joe, to get to it eventually.

John asks where's Scott, and Scott has another pressing appointment

of entertaining people in Mackay, so Yeah, so that's where Scott is.

Right, let's talk about topics in general.

And so it's a shame that Scott's not here because, uh,

he doesn't Max Chandler Mather?

Marver?

Mar?

Max Chandler Mar, I think.

Not sure.

I should know how it's pronounced.

But, uh, I think he is a much better communicator than

most of the parliamentarians.

And let's be honest, that's not saying much.

It's a pretty low bar.

So, uh, there was a clip of him on Q& A and I'm going to try and find that now

and play you this to sort of give you an example of the communication skills of Max

as he was dealing with a boomer about, uh,

Investors.

Property investors.

So,

it's coming up.

Here he is.

I'm just so angry that as a landlord, I shouldn't have to feel guilty about

owning property or properties in our case.

Why does it appear that all landlords are demonised and put in the same bracket?

I'm sorry, I just don't think that's fair.

And the human consequences of a tax system and a rental system where

a landlord can put up the rent.

Buy as much as they want at the end of every lease.

Like we desperately need caps on rent increases right now because the

human consequences of that are the people I've spoken to, single moms

choosing between buying their baby's nappy rash cream or paying the rent.

But isn't it the case that that actually interest rates have risen as well?

That some, some landlords actually are in significant finance.

Trouble as well.

The worst consequences for that is selling an investment property

and making a huge capital gains.

I'm sorry, but I just think

the set of this country rents, and right now, um, just like federal

parliament, uh, there's more Andrews than renters on this panel.

And I think that really the voices of renters continually get silenced because

the interests of landlords get put up against renters as if they are equal,

but they are not because if a renter loses their home, it's their fault.

They're sleeping in their car on the street.

If a property investor has to sell their home, that might be bad, but they still

get a huge sale price out of that home.

I think we just need a little bit of perspective.

Authorised by Jay McCall, Australian Greens, Canberra.

What do you think of that, Joe?

Um, yeah, I think he didn't, um, mention that, uh, all property is theft.

That, um Well, he didn't.

He's been criticised for what he didn't talk about, and we're

going to get onto that in a bit.

You can't talk about everything.

No, no, no.

I mean, um, I think that maybe the individual landlords are investing

in the way that the government encourages them to invest.

And the problem is, um, a system that is skewed into, uh, forcing up

the price of property as a method of people who have spare income.

Uh, to, to dispose of it, whereas it could be invested in, as a, as

a, for instance, companies that are producing things, rather than in

a limited resource like housing.

Um, so, maybe Landlord shouldn't be demonized, but at the end of the day,

They're doing very nicely out of it.

Yeah, I thought

he made a great argument.

I thought it was good communication.

I think the Greens are going to get a lot of votes over the next elections.

They're going to get a lot of votes.

Well, a lot of renters probably.

Yeah, and I just know my daughter in Sydney has got a good job, well

paid, but she looks at the property market and thinks there's just no

way of getting into this market.

It is impossible.

So there's, the Greens are going to be picking up.

A lot of votes for that reason and others, so um, so it's just good to

see somebody selling a story and, okay, there was a pushback from

somebody and dealt with the pushback, I thought quite well, so, yeah, um.

The real question is what can the Greens do, um, that realistically

is going to have an effect?

Well, I think they can put pressure on Labor, you know, the next, after the

next federal election there's going to be a minority Labor government, and the

Greens will be saying, well if you want this and this, then we insist on this and

that, and increasingly they'll Has been

said, you know, how can you have a fair vote in Parliament

when the average number of investment properties per MP is over

two?

Exactly.

There's a lot of self interest in maintaining the status quo.

Yeah.

Basically, the whole of the house would have to

recuse themselves.

Yes, if they were to say, I've got a conflict of interest when it comes to

making laws about investment properties.

Yeah, absolutely.

Because I happen to have one.

That's right.

Yeah.

Ah, anyway, Crikey, um, had an article by a guy called Benjamin Clark,

who's also a young, um, Journalist.

And the title of it was, Australia deserves a better left populist

than Max Chandler Mather.

And he says, if Max is trying to be Australia's answer to Alexandria

Ocasio Cortez, his antics this week expose him as a poor tribute act.

He goes on to say that, um, Max is brash and unapologetic, forged

in the fires of student politics.

The system was rigged, he told us, and it was about time someone shook things up.

This journalist says, I was briefly intrigued.

He's certainly a gifted orator, a savvy content creator, and a talented

channeler of millennial and Gen Z rage.

Um, he's pushed the interests of renters up the Canberra's priority

list, and he's championed the victims of the housing crisis.

For this, he is to be commended.

But his communication now unfortunately overcompensates for glaring patchiness

and unsophistication on policy matters, particularly with housing.

So he says here, when challenged, he doubles down on his worst impulses.

Take his performance on the ABC Q& A this week, which of course

was the clip I just played.

Uh, Max stated categorically that the planning system was almost Or has almost

no impact on housing affordability.

And this journalist says that was despite fielding the question from

the CEO of Nightingale, perhaps Australia's foremost developer of

affordable, high quality homes, who had witnessed the planning system

stymieing his developments first hand.

I'll just pause there.

The journalist is criticising Max, who pushed back against the CEO of

Nightingale, and the journalist says, well, the Nightingale CEO He's complaining

about, um, the planning system, and he should know, well, maybe, maybe Sorry,

a property developer is complaining about the thing that restricts a property.

Yeah, might restrict In other news, water

is wet.

Yes, Australia's foremost property developer complains

about the planning system.

And why wasn't Max You know, cognizant of that, for goodness sake.

Um, this journalist says evidence is increasingly mounting that planning rules

that limit the supply of homes such as height restrictions, heritage protections,

cumbersome neighborhood consultation and the like, reduce thrill of affordability

of housing, particularly for renters.

So that's the crux of his complaint, is that max ignored

planning rules that limit supply.

And, um, uh, uh, it's more than just the tax issues of capital

gains and negative gearing that Max is, um, sort of concentrating on.

And this journalist is blaming the NIMBYs, Not In My Backyarders,

for blocking developments.

And that was in the Crikey.

You know, Joe, I quite like Crikey because it's a good mix of stuff where

I agree and disagree with what they say.

Right.

This is an example where, yeah, he might have some point kind of here,

but not entirely sure that I agree with his delivery of this particular piece,

but anyway, well, dear listener, you can't have a, you know, media outlets

that give you everything you want in 100 percent agreement with you.

Joe, maybe even this podcast.

Oh, apart from Murdoch Press.

Yes.

Maybe this podcast.

Yeah, well that's right.

The Murdoch Press gives a particular section of the community exactly what

they want, 100 percent of the time.

All the time.

Absolutely.

Although, I did see an article.

Today's Courier Mail, Joe, had a comic making basically fun of

Dutton pursuing the whole nuclear power thing that he's on about.

What?

So.

I think things are starting to turn where the Murdoch press is trying to tell,

uh, Liberal Nationals stop with this.

I think the reason is that they know it's going to cause, cost them an election.

I think that's their reason.

But I just started to see pushback against the, the nuclear option

starting to appear in the Murdoch rag.

So they're just massaging public opinion on that one.

Um, Anyway, I've digressed.

Uh, yeah, so, thought provoking article.

You're listening, you don't want stuff that always agrees with you.

I noticed in the comments section though, on the Crikey website, under

this article, was just packed with people calling BS on the article and,

um, taking the writer to task, and comments like, Relaxing development

rules doesn't improve cheap housing, it just improves developer bottom lines.

Another guy said, And yet I work on local government conference after

conference and see Clark's opinion, that's the journalist, elucidated

by developers after developer.

Developers who, at the same conferences, Go on to spruik the

value of their land banked portfolios.

And while, um, Max may have missed some of the evidence, uh, the

writer of the article, Clark, is ignoring his share also.

So, here's the conundrum, dear listener.

Is it that planning rules are too restrictive, decreasing

supply of housing opportunities?

Or, is it that developers are sitting on applications that have been successful,

and are just not going ahead with the developments because, uh, if they flood

They've suppressed the low price of land.

Yes.

They've figured out that, um, if they supply too much, the prices will go down.

So they're just, um, leaking out or dribbling out.

What they need without disturbing the market, you know, which

How often are land valuations

done up?

I think they're done every year or two, aren't they?

Land valuations?

Because

I've just got my new land valuation.

It's been up 30 percent since the last

valuation.

Ouch.

Maybe it's And of course, that's what your rates bill is based on, Joe.

That's what my rates bill is based on.

So a significant part of your rates bill just went up 30 percent as well.

Yep.

It's not, if, if you're living in the property, the fatality of my

property going up means nothing because even if I sell it, I have to buy

somewhere else.

Correct.

Yes.

For your home.

Yes.

Yeah.

So it's, it's not a good thing for me.

Yeah.

In the comments section still, um, this guy said, Pascoe, that there

is, um, no evidence that development applications are refused by councils.

Um, And strong evidence that developers are deliberately sitting out the

approvals to keep the prices high.

And I'm going to get to that article by Michael Pascoe in a moment.

Let just me find some other comments.

Um, another guy talked about the article by Michael Pascoe pointing out approval

numbers or timeliness are not the problem.

And there are generally more approved projects in the system than there are

actual projects under construction.

Um, what else we got here?

Game of Mates talks about land developing quite

a lot.

What's the name of the guy who wrote that?

Um, yeah, there was a

QUT and a, what was it, UQ professor and a University of Sydney professor.

Yeah, I'm going to be quoting him here, um, Murray, Cameron Murray.

That's it,

Cameron Murray

and Paul Freighters.

Yes, we're going to be quoting them in a second.

So, um, Just one more comment before I get into the article by Michael Pascoe.

So, um, this guy says, Max is making a macro argument that zoning and planning

are not systemic constraints on housing.

Of course, there will be individual counter examples.

His position is supported by evidence like, um, approval's always running

well in advance of completions.

Developers sitting on, in some cases, 10 plus years of approved supply.

Developers withholding completed dwellings from sale.

Merriton does this with apartments to help support existing prices.

And um, and no incentive for developers to build fast enough

to generate surplus supply.

And Joe, it seems that if And we'll get into it in this article.

It is true.

The developers sit on excess supply, and you really need a government

builder that's just throwing supply into the market, um, to stop that.

If you just rely on private enterprise.

A

government to force the

prices down.

Yeah.

And the same guy makes the argument that, you know, um, the property industry has

huge influence on the political system.

End.

Really, does the average person have a lot of hope in stopping property developers?

Um, um, suddenly the real estate system, the sort of plucky underdogs

against the NIMBY terrorists, doesn't really sort of stack up.

But anyway, the Michael Pascoe article that they referred to, I thought,

well, I better go look at that.

And the title of it is, You're being fed garbage about councils

creating the housing problem.

Joe, I've got an awful feeling I'm going to be in a cafe at some point.

in a few weeks time, and arguing about this point, but anyway.

And in this article, Pascoe says, Councils are not to blame for the housing crisis.

They are not responsible for the shortage of housing.

Before a council can approve an application, the

application has to be made.

Turns out, applications and approvals are pretty much in balance.

Very few are rejected, and there are generally more approvals

than dwellings proceeding.

It turns out there's a large stock of potential housing already approved,

but those planning approvals are being sat on by developers, awaiting the most

profitable moment to start building.

He says, uh, building approval numbers are easily acquired from the Australian

Bureau of Statistics, it publishes them monthly, and there were fresh figures

out on Tuesday, and it's clear that The approvals are nowhere near enough

to meet projected or the promised 1.

2 million homes over five years, based on the current building approvals.

He goes on to say, um, the applications that have to occur, um, for the

building approvals are not as easily or frequently offered the statistics.

So he asked, um, Two housing experts, one from the University of New South

Wales, Dr Cameron Murray, and also, uh, a property buyer independent, Pete Wargent.

And Pete Wargent used Victorian Department of Transport and Planning statistics to

demonstrate that indeed, approvals can only be made after they're applied for.

Um, for the first half of this financial year, 19, 231 planning

permit applications were received.

Rounded up to 20, 000.

Two and a half thousand were withdrawn.

Only 532 out of the 20, 000 were refused.

Not only is planning approval process not to blame, um, uh, it's running ahead

of developers willing and able to build.

And then that, um, Cameron Murray, Joe, that you referred to as the

writer of, what was the book again?

Game of Mates.

Um, he says, uh, a planning approval is the first step in a development process

and a building approval is the last step.

A planning approval is needed to assess a project.

A building approval assesses a building.

Because there are risks in property, property owners will pre sell.

Because of this, the market regulates how quickly planning approvals

are converted into dwellings.

When the market is booming, many approved projects are

pushed through to construction.

When the market is soft, approved projects are delayed, increasing the buffer stock.

Ah, market risks, variations and lags mean that it's sensible for property

owners if you're trying to maximise.

Profit, uh, to keep a buffer stock of planning approvals, but they don't need to

keep a buffer stock of building approvals because these are quick and come after the

sales have verified the project is viable.

So using Queensland as an example of just how big the

buffer stocks are, he says, Dr.

Cameron Murray, at the current rate of new construction, there are five or six

years worth of detached housing lots.

Um, as buffer stock approvals just sitting there waiting to be utilised.

So he says, forget the developer's whinge about planning approvals limiting supply.

It's a distraction from the main game of needing bigger governments than your

local council to push ahead building themselves when the market won't.

Um, and there we go, Joe.

So that's the, you know, uh, planning restrictions

constricting supply or in fact.

Is it, not that's the problem, but it's just that developers are sitting

on approved stock and they just don't release it until the pre sales justify

it, because otherwise the prices go down.

So, I mean, a game of mates talks about planning approvals and says that

planning approval takes a 2 million block of land and makes it a 20 million block

of land.

Right.

Because, yeah,

as agricultural use, yeah, a couple of acres is 2 million.

But as housing stock, it's 20 million.

Uh, and he said, or they are arguing that that 18 million difference goes straight

into the pocket of the developers.

Yeah.

And effectively that is a loss that we as ratepayers are losing out on.

Yeah.

That we could auction off these approvals to the highest bidder

so that the developers would be.

Effectively, they'd be bidding the maximum that they thought

they could still make a profit at.

And so, a lot of that difference in value that the approval gives them, would be

coming back to us as rate payers and therefore we would end up paying less

rates, rather than developers getting

richer and richer.

And the reason is the prices go up, is the community has built an infrastructure

of, of Transport corridors, whether it's train lines or other shopping centres

nearby or other things have been built by the community that adds to the value.

Um, which somebody can just cash in by just sitting there and waiting.

Um, yeah.

Yeah.

Uh,

it's probably a good call that maybe there should be a Department

of, um, Construction, of building and selling off land plots.

Yes, because I just don't see any other solution with

developers just sitting on these land banks until the time's right.

Yeah, as Whatley says, why should we, sorry, we should stop

relying on private enterprise to supply the basic needs of humans.

Yeah, yeah.

Anyway, um, still on the Greens, they want religions to pay tax.

Is that a good idea, Joe?

Ah, a caveat, yes.

Okay, what's the caveat?

So I think, I think we should, uh, remove the advancing

religion as a charitable aim.

Mm hmm.

Uh, we then move the charities away.

Split them off the church and have them as standalone charities, possibly

affiliated with their church, run as separate businesses as a charity.

And then the churches themselves are run under the not for profit laws,

the same as any other sporting and pastime club, under the same reporting

requirements, and basically exactly the same as a thousand other things.

Yes, so the problem is that automatically at the

moment, promoting religion is considered a charitable activity.

Yes, and,

and, and a lot of the pushback against taxing them is, Oh, but

my little, you know, 50 people church couldn't afford to be taxed.

And realistically, we're not talking about taxing the 50 people church.

We're talking about making them exactly the same as your footy club,

exactly the same as your swimming club.

It's a not for profit, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, It's a hobby, it's a pastime.

No different to any of the others.

Mm-Hmm.

. And what we will be taxing is the Sanitariums.

Yes.

And

the Hillsong.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The ones who are

making Stu and also the Catholic church.

Yeah.

Have huge property

investments.

Yeah.

So there are renewed calls for religious charities to face a day of financial

reckoning and pay their fair share of tax.

As the government prepares to table a report in parliament

on Australian philanthropy.

The once in a generation review, announced just over a year ago as part of the

government's election vow, um, is being undertaken by the Productivity Commission.

And the Green Senator and Justice Spokesman David Shoebridge told

Crikey, why should the amount of tax paid by a serial company or

an aged care manager depend on the religious beliefs of their board.

It's a bizarre anachronism.

And he says the Productivity Commission recommendation to limit tax breaks is

well supported by the community, who know that commercial businesses should

not get an unfair advantage just because they are associated with a religion.

Joe, you said sanitarium, and when he refers to a cereal

company, I'm pretty sure that's what he's referring to as well.

I would assume so.

What I'd also like to

see is a report on how much property has been handed to churches

by the community in the past.

So not bought by parishioners, but actually given by various governments,

councils and governments, to religious organizations on the grounds that they

were a benefit to society, because I think all of those lands should be forfeit.

Back to the

community.

Yeah,

because there was some city center blocks I'm fairly sure during

the original carving up of the cities.

Mm hmm that were just handed over to the church as a Hey,

you do good for the community.

Here you go Here's a block of land for you to build on

and the Catholics said we'd like the block of land at the

top of the hill please Yes, so

I'd like to know whether they bought it or whether they were given it and if

they were given it I'd like that land back and the profits from the sale of

that land to be given to the victims

of the church.

Yeah, anyway Another reason to vote Green, I reckon.

Yep.

Get on your shoe bridge.

I mean, these are policies that Labor could easily be taking.

See, we really did leave Scott here tonight.

Yeah, we really did.

Maybe he knew.

Actually, he did know.

He looked at the agenda.

Scott, are you listening to this replay as you're walking or whatever?

Did you dodge it, Scott?

Because you knew there was too much good stuff about the Greens on this one?

Maybe.

I'm sure he had a good, just a conflict.

He couldn't make it.

Right.

The Australian Law Reform Commission, dear listener.

We've been talking the last few weeks how the religious groups have been worried

about this Law Reform Commission report because it's suggesting that some of the

privileges that religions have when it comes to discriminating against people,

particularly in schools, um, a so called religious belief that allows them to

discriminate against, uh, LGBTIQ community and Non sort of Christians or Atheists.

Uh, the Commissioner's saying we need to curtail that a bit.

So that has the religious groups worried.

And just to recap, Albanese said to Dutton, Uh, I'll only go ahead

with this if you guys agree to it.

And Dutton's not keen on that arrangement, so who knows whether

anything will actually change.

But anyway, Bye.

Yes, I did see some of the arguments.

They were lumping schools and churches in together, not churches,

schools and hospitals in together.

And whilst there may be a case to be made that you want religious teachers in your

school, I don't see how you can make that

for a hospital.

I wouldn't have thought so.

Who was, who was lumping the two together?

I don't know.

Um, uh, one of the religious leaders, I can't remember right.

Saying, saying, we, we won't be able to discriminate in a, we won't be

able to employ the people we want in our hospitals and in our schools.

Yes.

And I'm going, okay, you're saying that you want to indoctrinate

children, therefore you need to have people indoctrinated in the schools.

Yes.

But when it comes to, when it comes to medical things, you,

you're not indoctrinating people.

You're chopping them up.

Yeah.

Pills.

Really, what does it matter

what religion they are?

Yeah, um, so in this report, it was basically saying, um, looking

at circumstances, it might be considerable, sort of reasonable,

when you might allow discrimination.

And, um, one of the sort of guidance, um, dot points they gave was, The nature

of the institution, including the extent to which religious beliefs, practices,

or teachings are infused throughout the activities of the institution.

So, the Law Reform Commission would be saying, you just run a hospital

as a hospital to get people well.

Um, you know, a school's gonna have Oh, and

there's complaining about Calvary.

Ah.

Canberra Hospital.

Yeah.

Recently taken over.

Yeah.

Sorry, was taken back.

Yes.

From the lease.

Yes.

By the Canberra government.

Yes.

And saying,

well, so they, they were basically saying, well, that was taken off of us

because of this horrible, horrible law.

And that we're going to get more of the same if this,

Yeah, well, the Law Reform Commission is saying one of the

requirements as to whether it's going to be reasonable to discriminate is

to be to look at the nature of the institution, including the extent to

which religious beliefs, practices, or teachings are infused throughout

the activities of the institution.

So, that's going to make it more difficult for a hospital.

But, what I think I could see happening, Joe, is schools that normally Only provide

a very token reference to religion.

Um, some of our more expensive private schools that are, um, uh, back.

Did you disappear then, or are you back?

I did.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I think that that's gonna encourage some schools to go, geez.

If we want to be able to discriminate against non Christians in employment

and against queer kids in enrolment, we've got to show that we're

super religious in our activity.

We've got to infuse religion more and more into our activities.

And so You're going to have to have a prayer

at the beginning of each class.

Yes!

Yes.

And, and, and the sports coach is going to have to pray over the

team or even pray on the team.

Indeed, and there's going to be a regular mass ceremony they go to

every Friday and there's just going to be, I could see that the legal

advice to these schools was going to be, if you want to use religion as an

excuse to discriminate, you need to infuse more religion into the day to

day activities of what you're doing.

Let's see how that pans out, because people send their kids to these

schools not for the religion, but for the perceived benefits of class.

But, but if you believe the, um, the religious people, people

are choosing the religious schools not because they are perceived to be

better than state schools, but because they want the religious teachings.

Which, having been the parent of a child in a private school, is not the case.

Uh, parents jumped through the hoops, but they didn't give a damn.

Yeah, and really the skills we're talking about here are high schools.

And high school students are just going to give a lot of shit back on this

stuff if there's too much religion.

Push down their throats, they're not going to cop it.

I remember talking to these girls who went to um, Stuart Holme,

and they had compulsory religious instruction lessons, and they were

questioning the nun about all sorts of stuff that she was coming up with.

It was quite an ordeal for the nun to go through when these grade 11 and

12 girls were basically pushing back.

Us

giving our Catholic RIT job shit about Vatican Roulette.

Right, yep.

Uh, sorry, the planning method.

The, the, the, what was it?

The rhythm method of family planning.

Oh, okay, right, yeah.

So, hey, Alison's in the chat room.

Alison, did you look at that Law Reform Commission report, and did you come

to the conclusion that I have that, uh, religious schools are going to

have to sort of infuse more religion?

I in order to use religion to discriminate.

Um, anyway, we'll see if that's, um, what pans out there.

But, um, yeah, essentially you've had states restricting what can be done.

And if, if the federal system implements laws, They'll be more in line with the

States which will be more restrictive.

So the religious groups are gonna hate it.

Yeah Anyway, we'll see what happens

That's the Australian Law Reform Commission Next topic a bit of levity

Joe Donald Trump always good for a joke We were talking what could go wrong?

Yeah Two weeks ago, wasn't it?

We were talking about Um Yes, I played the clip about Trump the athlete.

Oh, yes.

And how this, um, Trumpster guy was saying, don't know if you guys

know, but President, well, former President Trump is quite the athlete.

And in fact, just the other day, he played with a couple of

pros and he put them to shame.

And it just reminded me of the story of, um, of the North Korean dear leader, um,

Kim Jong, Kim Jong il, and how there was the story of him going out and playing

golf and shooting multiple holes in one on his first and only ever round of golf.

And how we all laughed.

Oh, those stupid Koreans.

So taken with their propaganda that they'll believe almost anything.

You And it just sounded to me like the same thing, with this

guy going, Donald Trump's quite the athlete, let me tell you.

Like, no way.

Equally as implausible.

Yes.

And, uh, I said, look, I think it was multiple holes in one that this

Kim Jong Il did on his first round.

Not just one.

And, so, I was compelled to look it up and I found an article about a guy who

was a bit of a golf pro who visited North Korea and entered a tournament

and, um, he spoke to the club manager at the course where this fabled round took

place and he asked the guy whether he had witnessed the dear leader's fabled round

and the guy chuckled but said nothing.

Puffing on an unfiltered cigarette, and, um, this golfer asked him about the record

shattering score and the unforgettable five holes in one, and he says, this

time, to my surprise, he answered.

Him, the manager says, was of course, a staggering golf talent.

Possessed of an enchantingly rhythmic swing, that even for a

player of his abilities, five aces in one round were out of reach.

How that stat had entered into the official record was pretty simple.

The scorekeeper tracking Kim's round that day had relied on a relative to

par system, marking down zero for pars, One for bogey and two for double bogeys.

Unfamiliar with that scorekeeping shorthand, the North Korean state news

agency covering the outing had read the five ones on Kim's card as holes in one.

Forget the fact that Kim, a rank beginner, probably never sniffed a bogey all day.

His alleged aces now made some kind of goofy sense.

A mundane error had annals.

Dispatched proudly on the news wires by the North Koreans.

Only to be snickered at by the rest of the world.

There you go, dear listener.

You get the full story here.

However,

that doesn't change the fact that all the birds burst into song.

Did they?

Birds burst into song at his birth?

Well, there might have been a Sorry, sorry.

We're

singing in Korean.

Ha ha ha.

Singing

his praises.

Joe, just like the golf hole in one story, there might be

a simple explanation for it.

Of course.

Yeah.

So, uh, could be.

Anyway And of course

he doesn't go to the toilet.

Uh Or had

you not heard that?

No, I didn't know that.

Okay.

I

can't remember which one it was.

Right.

One of them allegedly doesn't go to the toilet.

Uh

huh.

Didn't go to the toilet.

Uh huh.

Well anyway, um, we've got an Easter message.

It's a bit late, but uh, we've got an Easter message from Donald Trump.

So, uh, sit back and enjoy this one.

Alas, one of you will betray me.

No, not me.

What?

It is foretold, and though I have committed no crime, I will be

arrested, tried, and found guilty.

Sound familiar?

Hey, so much.

A famous, wonderful man arrested for no reason at all.

If you haven't put it together, folks, I'm comparing myself to Jesus again.

And what better time than on his birthday, Easter?

As we speak, I am being persecuted on a level the likes of which

the world has never seen.

And even worse Even worse than the late great Jesus, you know, many

people are saying we're very similar.

We're both very tall, very popular, and both, frankly, white Americans.

You know, Jesus did some incredible things, some would call them miracles, in

terms of fish and with regard to bread.

A lot of fish and bread, you know.

He rose from the dead on the third day, I would have done it faster, possibly two.

Possibly two days, I think we could have done it a lot faster.

He had a good mind for business, water into wine, pure profit.

And he had big, big rallies, just like me.

And a lot of his followers got in big, big trouble, just like mine.

All because I told them exactly Three.

What Jesus would have said, get very violent and start a war.

And I've even got my very own Judas, Ron DeSantis, Ron DeSantis

came to me, tears in his eyes.

He said, help me, Mr.

Trump.

I'm going to lose my election.

So I very generously.

Pretended to like him and then he did a Judas and now he can't even

get the gays out of Disney World.

It's an awful show.

Look at these guys back here, huh?

They just have to sit here frozen while I talk.

Can you believe that?

Mr.

Jesus, quite a guy.

Ah, he goes on.

That's, that is an outstandingly good Donald Trump impersonation, I think.

Yeah.

The

hands were the wrong size.

Right, yeah, that was good.

So, uh, so yeah, we, it's good to mix up a bit of levity.

Uh, of

course the, um, uh, Jesus telling his followers to be violent

is actually what he said in the Bible.

Yeah, uh, one more Trump, um, video as well, just the real thing this time.

So, um, the guy is completely shameless.

He, Joe.

I am increasingly convinced he is going to win the next election.

Um, yeah.

Possibly.

It's going to be incredible.

But he's going to pull it off.

The, the, the, the base that the Democrats rely on are just sick of him.

And, uh, um,

And only if he'll have a heart attack before then.

Um, you know, as I said, Joe, He's He'll probably make it clear that he's

not going to support the AUKUS deal.

And, from an Australian point of view, that's probably good.

He'll probably pull out of a lot of stuff.

He'll probably say to the Ukrainians, no more arms for you.

He'll probably, maybe even the Israelis, he might say, no more arms for you.

He actually might Well, I think his son in law will bend his ear on that one.

Yeah, so he can sell the real estate at the Gaza Strip, the sort of waterfront.

Yeah, that's it, yeah.

Maybe, but, as crazy as it seems, it's possible that there

are some silver linings on a Donald Trump second term cloud.

But, uh, um, but fear not, um, in the meantime, he's helping out

the world with another project.

Here he is.

What can we do?

Stand up, speak out, and pray that God will bless America again.

I'm proud to endorse and encourage you to get this Bible.

We must make America pray again.

Pray, get educated, get motivated, and stand with me and the legions

of Americans asking God to bless our great nation, to bring our great nation

back, and to make America great again.

I'm proud to partner with Lee in this offering.

He's a very special man.

Both as a talent, but maybe even more so as a human being.

He's very, very special.

And I think you all should get a copy of God Bless the USA Bible now and help

spread our Christian values with others.

There you have it.

Let's make America pray again.

God bless you, and God bless the USA.

Mikus, make America pray again.

Got a ring to it?

Yeah.

Apart from they don't actually want them to read the

Bible.

Nah, just pry.

This is the fastest way of making an atheist.

They don't want them to read it, Joe, they just want them to buy it.

Yeah.

60 bucks, I think it is, for the Trump endorsed Bible.

Um, pretty cheap.

So, yeah.

And the thing

with his name on it,

yeah.

Look, we're on a bit of a roll here with clips.

There's just one more.

It did look

like a pseudo leather

bound as well.

Yes.

Fake leather, no doubt.

So, um, Look, this one is as much visual as it is audio, and

this is for the 12 people viewing this live stream as we talk.

Just to finish off with a bit of, um, religious fun, um, here we go.

Now when Jesus was talking to his disciples, He spoke of the

Holy Ghost's power and might.

When He had spoken, Isaiah beheld Him, A great cloud deceived

Him right out of His sight.

But Jesus is coming, Jesus is coming.

When is He coming?

Just today, now.

Why is He coming?

The bit I like about that is, why is he coming?

He's coming to get us.

I mean, if you've read the Old Testament, that's possibly not good news.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

And why had the singer been licking an electric

sock?

Oh, great visuals on that.

So, Jesus is coming.

He's coming to get us.

He had a big smile on his face, yeah.

Yeah, all good fun.

Uh, now, a few weeks ago, Joe, I introduced the dear listener to George

Galloway, who had some really good things to say about, uh, Palestine and other

stuff, and he had a really good, straight talking mannerism when dealing with, a

reporter who was talking about Rishi Sunak and the reporter was saying, Oh, Rishi

Sunak has said this and has said that.

And, and George Gallo was going, I don't give a toss what Rishi

Sunak says about something.

Why would I care what he says about anything?

And it was good, straight talking sort of stuff.

And I thought, Oh, that's good.

That's a, here's a new shining light on the horizon.

But unfortunately, Joe, Turns out he's a bit of a climate change denier.

What a shock.

It's almost like when you meet people these days, you've got to Like, before

we go too far in our conversation here, can I just quickly ask you your position

on climate change, uh, COVID vaccinations and uh, what would be the other topic?

People of dark skin.

Yeah, and, and wokeness.

And Jordan Petersen.

and Just to test, just to test people.

And Ayn Rand?

Yes.

Most people, that's, she's not topical at the moment.

So people would, Margaret Thatcher would be a better one.

They said, oh, the great lady.

But um, because you had an experience recently at a party

or something, didn't you?

Started talking to some guy and he seemed

quite And he was recommending Ayn Rand.

Oh, was he?

Yeah, in the middle of the park was quite vocally telling us all how great

Campbell Newman had been, getting rid of all the po It's somebody from I

can't remember what department, uh, State Department, walked past and

said, No, the man's a complete bastard.

Not a fan of Campbell Newman.

Yeah, um, So anyway, just so that you're fully informed of George Calloway,

I was talking of the looted idiots.

Yes, uh, Russell Brand.

Yes.

Is doing the interview and, um, Russell, like a lot of gurus Yes.

Has just gone further and further to crazy right wing territory and I'm not saying

it's a conspiracy.

No.

But you should look very

carefully.

Yes.

Anyway, we'll just play a little bit of this.

Well, no farmers, no food, and I'll be on Parliament Square on Monday,

uh, meeting the British farmers who've joined that worldwide movement, uh,

and, uh, we, we, we have to defend our ability to grow our own food.

And the idea that we can close down our farms under the bogus, uh,

climate change, uh, apocalyptic cake.

Uh, Catastrophism of, uh, the, uh, so called, uh, climate change, extinction,

rebellion, and so on, is perfectly absurd.

This, what we're going to do, eat insects, uh, eat bugs, uh,

some of us will never do that.

Uh, some of us are unreconstructed red meat eating white straight males.

I'll get my coat.

I know I'm no longer wanted.

And don't let the door hit you on the arse on the way out.

I'm fairly sure that Russell Brand is the sort of person who

would be a vegetarian or a vegan.

He probably would be, but then he might well also move on to a

fully sort of carnivore diet as well.

Who knows?

Russell Brand, where he's at.

So, look, if you carefully read the transcript of what Galloway just said,

did he actually deny climate change?

No, but he sent all of us He was

saying the farming Basically, it's something to do with the nitrogen

fertilisers and they've banned a particular type of fertiliser

because it's causing climate change.

Yes.

Well, it relies on, on sort of fossil fuel energy to create it.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

And there's a

question whether we can feed people efficiently without using Yes,

and there might be a perfectly reasonable argument in relation to

that and questioning all that, but, but he was throwing a lot of red

meat out to a particular audience with all that and giving a vibe that,

uh, wasn't well thought or rational.

So, there we go.

George Galloway, you just can't get perfection anymore, Joe, and

your political leaders, they've all got some little problem.

As perceived by me, or you, or us.

What's

wrong with Bernie?

Bernie Sanders.

He's a bit pro, um, Israel, I think.

It took him a long time to come around.

Okay.

Yeah.

So, yeah, okay, um, what have we got next?

That's probably, uh, enough clips for a while.

Um, ah, I've had this just for a long time.

I had a butt roast when she quit ABC.

The ABC has been targeted relentlessly by News Corp, especially during her tenure.

And when she resigned, she chose to give her exit interview to a

Murdoch journalist from the Sunday Telegraph in return for recording

a podcast with Sarah Lee McQuand.

Um, so, where she got superstar treatment in a photo shoot in the Stellar magazine.

So.

Instead of telling Murdoch to F off because of the years of torment they

gave her ABC, uh, her exit interview, she actually did everything with them.

So, thanks for nothing, ITER.

And her contribution to the ABC was pretty poor at the end of the day.

Um, I remember when she was appointed by Scott Morrison, I thought, oh.

Yeah, I remember you held out such hope.

I did.

Turns out he knew what he was doing with that one, I think.

Yeah.

Labor has been rushing through new immigration powers, or trying to, and

it's because they're frustrated by people who are subject to deportation

or removal, and Joe, guess what, they're not cooperating with their removal.

They simply refuse, they simply refuse to sign applications for a passport,

or for transit visas, etc, that would enable them to be taken out of Australia.

And, um, it's been compounded by some governments, notably

Iran, refusing to take them back.

Um, if they don't return voluntarily, and so the government has proposed

new legislation to make it a criminal offence if a non citizen does not

cooperate in their deportation, um, getting at least one to five years jail.

So, okay guys, if you're not going to sign these forms, we're going

to make you guilty of this offence.

Um, so, uh, seems to be

Joke's on the government, because they get

to stay in jail.

Yeah, uh, particularly directed at Iranian detainees.

And there's 186 of them in detention at the end of December 2023.

Um, of course, there's concern that the way the legislation is drafted Even if,

just on the face of it, you don't like the sound of that, it's potentially

going to catch a lot more situations than what people think, and, um, Uh, really,

we've got to give these people some sort of pathway to permanent residency.

But, um, I reckon, well, I've been saying for a while, Albanese

is just ScoMo without the smirk.

And, uh, from Paul Bojurno in the Saturday paper, he writes, Earlier in the month,

legal advisors in Home Affairs were asked to draw up new laws to deal with

these people who refuse to cooperate.

Legislation was duly prepared, sent to the Ministers last week, but

someone in the back rooms of the Labor Party thought it would be a

good idea to keep it all secret.

There's an Immigration Minister, Andrew Giles, and, uh, he said

that these were, uh, Sort of laws targeted at non citizens who are on

a removal pathway and um, so on 7.

30 on Tuesday morning, the government's cunning plan swung into action.

The Shadow Immigration Minister, Dan Tehan, was contacted and told that the

opposition will be given a briefing, um, half an hour later on legislation.

And similarly, the Greens and the Crossbench were briefed and told the

legislation would be introduced later that day and forced through the Parliament with

little or no debate and scant scrutiny.

And the Government had the numbers to pass it in the House of Reps,

but was counting on the Coalition to waive it through the Senate.

Um, so, um, in the end, uh, it got through the lower house, but when it got to the

Senate, um, the, uh, Greens in the cost bench decided more inquiry was needed.

But Joe, this is the sort of shit that the Morrison government would

do, is like, just throw a piece of legislation like that at the

opposition the morning, and say we're running it through Parliament today.

No wonder we get crappy decisions when there's no chance to examine

this stuff and talk about it.

It's just crappy.

Crappy bullshit politics by Albanese, he's very disappointing, I had a bit like Ida

Buttrose, Joe, I had high hopes, alas.

Yeah, I mean he was a bit of a grey man from the beginning, wasn't he?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, John Major had more

charisma.

Yeah, I think so.

He might have had even more principle.

What sort of Labor government is this?

It's just a shocker.

Just, he's making all the same mistakes as Morrison without the smirk.

Well, you know, Labor are concerned that the Murdoch press

might say something bad about them.

Yeah, they say something.

Desperately chasing after pleasing Murdoch.

Yeah, they say something bad anyway.

Sigh.

And I mean Joe, don't get me started on the subs, again.

Here's Richard Marles talking about the submarine program.

We are spending an enormous amount of money.

There we go.

Is that it?

That is the true thing he said.

Okay.

We are spending an enormous amount of money.

Hmm.

Ah, how are we going for time?

9.

10.

Let's keep going.

Joe, America has been in charge of this world for a long time, and could just

throw its weight around and tell people what to do, but it's all changing now.

Is hegemony pronounced hegemony or hegemony?

I

think it's a G, a J rather than a G.

Yeah, I was listening to a podcast today and they were using

hegemony, so I'm not sure the correct pronunciation, but let's

just go with hegemony for the moment.

So, Um,

Iran is planning to unload 50 million worth of oil from a Marshall Islands

flagged tanker seized by Iranian naval forces in the Gulf of Oman last year.

Washington had seized several ships of Iranian oil in what it said was

operations and enforcing US sanctions.

This is a list of 10 things you need to know before making a decision.

As a result, Tehran accused the U.

S.

of engaging in maritime piracy and, um, and, um, the U.

S.

had seized a, um, uh, Iranian oil and in response, Tehran, uh, seized the

Suez Rajan as it transited in 2024 and they're going to sell off the oil.

Joe, I just see that as indicative of, uh, piracy.

A little change in power, really, where, uh, you know, America has enforced

sanctions against Cuba, and Venezuela, and other groups, and, you know, they

stole some Iranian oil, and Iran turned around and said, Okay, we'll steal some

American oil, and, uh, you no longer the hegemon when countries can do that to you.

When countries can challenge you.

Yes.

Yeah, and as Yemen has done with a few drones, um, as Russia has done

in the Ukraine, um, yeah, sort of, you know, the thing about the Russian

Ukrainian battle, Joe, is that, that Russia's producing the armaments.

And the ammunition and whatnot that the West just can't produce.

So while America has been spending a huge proportion of its GDP on defense,

they just don't have enough of the sort of infantry bombing stuff to

match what the Russians are doing.

And they're just running out in the Ukraine.

They just don't have the stuff to give them.

Interesting.

Yeah,

um, wow.

Um, I was watching Perun again talking about the Baltic States.

And?

Effectively, yeah, Russia is throwing everything at this, um, because

they think they can outlast America.

And the West's will and focus, they think that we are fickle

and that we will get distracted.

And we will lose attention, and if they carry on for long enough,

they will win by attrition.

And the Baltic states are very worried that this will be the

case because they fear that

they are next.

So, has this Piran character, has he, are you still there?

Yeah, I'm back.

Has he, has he given up on Uh, the skirmish line changing and all, does he

concede now that Russia will keep that territory it's got, or does he still think

that the Ukrainians can mount a successful counter attack and it's all just a

matter of, or has he given up on that?

It's a

question, well no, it's a question of logistics.

Yeah.

So But what is he saying will happen?

He thinks it's still possible for Ukraine to regather that territory, does he?

Basically, if they can outlast the Russians,

then yes.

Okay.

But they could actually force them back?

Uh, yeah.

Okay.

I don't think many commentators are saying that.

I think he's on his own now.

I mean, he's

not really talked about it.

I mean, he's much more about

logistics.

Yeah.

But he used to say that, didn't he?

Yeah.

But he was very bullish on New Cranes.

Well, uh, he was always hedging his bets.

Okay.

Alright.

I just thought, I've never liked the guy's, um, proposals, I just felt that

you and Scott were sort of on board with him, and I know that Decoding the Gurus

were kind of on board with him as well, and I was like, I don't know, it doesn't

seem to make sense to me, but, okay.

You reckon he was a bit more cagey than that, initially, so.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was, it was always a, um, give them proper support.

The problem is with the Republicans in the US refusing to provide funds.

Um, the Ukraine doesn't have the logistics.

They've done incredibly well with the restrained, the constrained

logistics they've been given.

Um, you know, the, the shooting down of, uh, even very, very expensive aircraft.

Um, uh, was totally unexpected, their drone strikes into the heart of Russia,

um, they have exceeded what everyone thought at the beginning of the war.

Right.

And, and given an equivalent amount of arms, ammunition and

men as the Russians have had, they would have done considerably

better.

Yeah, well I just don't see them, even now, if they were getting all that

It's very hard to push back against a line that's already been set.

So Oh, it is.

Absolutely.

You're going to have to give up on that.

Of course, Joe, one of the things when, like, when it comes to free trade, um,

lots of countries would like to be able to set up trade barriers so that people

can't sell stuff to their economy.

Um, but You know, it falls fouls of free trade rules.

And, and effectively when, when the West put those sanctions on Russia,

it actually created an advantage for them because suddenly they had

to make stuff that previously, um, they couldn't make because it would

have been uncompetitive with imports.

So the Russian economy actually benefited from sanctions

because it gave their local.

Manufacturers and producers a chance to, but they have been borrowing

very heavily Russia

in the future.

Yes.

With so much oil internally.

With so much oil.

Like they sold so much oil.

You're saying that

Yeah.

Yeah.

That, that their defense spending has been so huge that that will cause a

huge problem for them in the future.

Mm-Hmm.

. It'll be interesting to see how this war has impacted them long

term.

Wow.

Yeah, look at GDP.

Russian economy is going very well.

Yeah, well, we all know about

GDP,

don't we?

Yeah, but what else can we measure?

I mean, um, anyway, yeah, okay.

I'm interested to see what the figures are on that.

Yeah, you know,

setting fire to Russia would increase their GDP.

Yes.

Well, give me some other, okay, so you reckon that there's been

a big shift in, uh, We know

their overseas arms sales have dropped considerably.

So they've had

to It's a big source of money.

So they're borrowing?

Is that what you're saying?

Basically, they've had to spin up their defence sector, which

has pulled in a lot of labour.

But effectively, there's

a lot of things that aren't being produced because they're

producing arms and ammunition.

Right.

And that, uh, all of this is government spending, which is

great for the economy in the short term, but longer term may not be so

great.

Right, but the government, you're saying, is getting into

debt through that spending.

Effectively, there will be a war

debt because of this, whether they're selling bonds or I don't know what.

Right, a debt owed to some other country somewhere.

No, I think

it might well be internal,

I don't know.

Okay, well how do you get an internal debt?

You borrow from the people.

Right.

Okay.

So they aren't getting enough revenue from, from gas and oil sales and

they've had to borrow from, borrow from private lenders in the Russian economy.

Yeah.

I dunno where they're getting this money from.

I just know that, uh, I, I don't think it's from their revenues.

Okay.

Well, Joe, you've set me a challenge.

I'm going to have to look up the sources of the Russian economy

over the next couple of weeks.

I suspect it's doing better than a lot of people think, but we'll

see where we go with that one.

Um, let's see, uh, what else have I got in here?

Oh, new topic, Joe, the TikTok ban.

So, support for the TikTok ban in Australia.

Ugh.

We've got strongly support, somewhat support, neutral, somewhat

oppose, and strongly oppose.

And from March 24 in the Essential Poll, uh, we're asked the question,

there have been calls for the Australian Government to pass laws that would ban

the use of TikTok in Australia unless the parent company sells to another

company that is not based in China.

To what extent do you support or oppose the ban on TikTok in Australia?

And overall, Australians?

28 percent strongly support and 17 percent somewhat support.

So that was 30, 45 percent Joe with a 31 percent undecided.

So, so 45 percent in favor and 30 percent undecided.

Pretty strong opinion.

Um, only, only 25 percent against in some manner.

Most people want TikTok banned.

Now.

I don't blame them.

And what's your reason, Joe?

Because of the evil China or some other

reason?

No, no, no, no,

because it's, uh A blight on our youngsters time?

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But then, Joe, they're just going to go and use some other program, aren't they?

Like, I'll go back onto Facebook, where all their parents are.

Yeah, I was going to say Facebook's awful too.

Yeah.

Let's do it by age.

If you ask.

18 to 34 year olds, whether they want TikTok banned,

only 26 percent would agree.

Meanwhile, 45 percent would disagree.

The rest were undecided.

But let's talk about that boomer generation, shall we?

Well, the 55 plus.

After they had it,

TikTok explained to them.

You want TikTok banned, old man?

44 percent strongly support, 18 percent somewhat support.

What are we up to?

60, uh, 50, 62 percent in favour.

Only 11 percent against.

27 percent did not know.

Captain Hook wants it banned.

Yeah.

And if you're looking at it by voting intention, uh, if you're

a Greens voter, the majority don't want it banned compared to.

Of course, if you're

That's because they're communists and they align with

the Communist Party of China.

Yes.

And, uh, the Coalition and Independent or Other Party, I'm thinking Pauline

Hanson and Teals, perhaps, um, strongly in favour of banning TikTok.

Um, 53 percent in favour.

Amongst Labor voters, let me see, Labor voters, 38 percent in favour of banning.

28 percent wanting to leave it alone.

More votes for the Greens coming, Joe.

There we go.

I went crazy on clips this Easter.

I've got some more clips for you, dear listener.

We haven't done much on China.

We haven't done enough on China.

Those evil Chinese and their TikTok.

God damn them.

Let's just see what they've been up to with another clip, shall we?

John in the chat room says, how do the figures trend with actual users of TikTok?

If we just go on age, John, I think it's the 18 to 34 year olds who

use it, who don't want it banned.

And it's the old fogies who don't use it, who want it banned.

Funny how that works.

Um, oh, also on Perron, um, uh, It's because you disagree with him.

He's an analyst, not a predictor.

That's Perun.

I thought, I thought he was predicting.

I don't think he was.

Okay.

He's just saying what was happening, rather than what will happen.

Yes,

I mean, he might have said

what could happen, but John says I'm ill informed on this topic.

Thanks, John.

Maybe I'm informed, but just wrong.

I mean, that, that could be more likely, perhaps.

Anyway, let's get back to China.

What have they been up to, Joe?

If you look at the Western and the imperialist countries, they

come with their own interests.

The Vice President of the US came to Zambia, landed at a Chinese

built airport in Zambia, moved on a Chinese built road in Zambia.

The venue of this summit was actually a gift to Zambia by the Chinese government.

And that is where the Summit for Democracy was held, in Zambia.

To tell African people, don't work with China.

And the key agenda of this summit was to curb, Africa's cooperation with China in

a Chinese gift to the African continent.

One of our major referral hospitals in Zambia, which is called Levi

Mwanawasa, uh, teaching hospital, was a gift to the Zambian people by China.

But even in Zambia, very few people know that this hospital was a gift.

Zambia did not pay 1 for that hospital.

If you went and saw the little placard that says gift from the Chinese people,

it's the size of an A4 sheet of paper.

And this is a massive hospital that deals with over 2, 600 referral cases a month.

But China is so humble in the way they deal with us on the African continent.

If this was an American gift, it would be reported in media, From the US to

Latin America to Europe to Australia, the whole world will know about

this gift to the African continent.

See how sneaky they are, Joe?

Giving away money like that?

I don't trust them.

Not to be trusted.

Well,

the question is what price a free gift?

Yeah, I mean, I mean if there's a falling out between Zambia and China

China might just take that hospital back.

Possibly.

Yeah.

Just not sure how they're going to put on a ship and get it all the way back.

But, uh, that's, uh

Or like the people who didn't get paid for the driveway and ripped it up.

People who paid for a

driveway?

What?

No, no, no.

There were some builders who laid a driveway.

It was in

the press.

Oh, okay.

Ah, I think I did see that.

It came back.

Because they didn't get paid, they jackambited up or

something like that, did they?

Yes.

Yeah.

So, uh, People in the, uh, global south, dear listener, are

fighting back and saying, F you, um, more often than they used to.

Here's Joe, we're travelling all over the world.

Guyana, you know, in this ill informed little podcast that I'm running here.

See how we go with this one.

Let's take a big picture look at what's going on here.

Over the next decade, two decades, it is expected that there will

be 150 billion worth of oil and gas extracted off your coast.

It's an extraordinary figure.

Good.

Think of it in practical terms.

That means, according to many experts, more than two billion tons

of carbon emissions will come from your seabed, from those reserves,

and be released into the atmosphere.

I don't know if you as a head of state went to the COP in Dubai.

Let me stop you right there.

Let me stop you right there.

Do you know that Guyana has a forest forever, that is the size

of England and Scotland combined?

A forest that stores 19.

5 gigatons of carbon.

A forest that we have kept alive.

A forest that we have kept alive.

Does that give you the right?

Does that give you the right to release all of this carbon?

Does that give you the right?

To lecture us on climate change, I am going to lecture you on climate change.

Because we have kept this forest alive, that stores 19.

5 gigatons of carbon, that you enjoy, that the world enjoy, that you don't

pay us for, that you don't value, that you don't see a value in, that

the people of Guyana has kept alive.

Guess what?

We have the lowest deforestation rate in the world.

And guess what?

Even with our greatest exploration of the oil and gas resource we have

now, we will still be, uh, net zero.

Guyana will still be net zero.

With all our exploration, we'll still be net zero.

No, no, no.

Powerful, powerful words, Mr.

President.

I'm not completed as yet.

I'm not finished as yet.

I am just not finished as yet, because this is the hypocrisy

that exists in the world.

We, the world, in the last 50 years, has lost 65 percent of all its biodiversity.

We have kept our biodiversity.

Are you valuing it?

Are you ready to pay for it?

When is the developers going to pay for it?

Or are you in the pockets?

Are you in the pockets of those who have damaged the environment?

Are you in the pockets, are you and your system, in the pockets of

those who destroyed the environment?

Revolution and now lecturing us.

Are you in their pockets?

Are you paid by them?

Are you paid by them?

Something about me, Joe, just enjoys people who just say F you to people

who are previously pompously in charge and maybe no longer are, I just

Well, um, absolutely, Britain enjoyed two centuries of burning

coal and oil, uh, and absolutely.

Fair play for him to say, look, you lot have polluted, and maybe if you

don't want us to sell our oil, maybe you should be paying us for the

forest that hasn't been ripped down.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And just, I just enjoy that turnaround where they've just

gone, You big goddamn bully.

F you.

And just don't lecture us.

I'll lecture you.

Like, I just enjoy that sort of straight talking, as you might have come to.

Joe in the chat room, China pay for influence, the US bomb for influence.

Exactly right.

Mind you, China's not allowed to buy, uh, companies and other stuff.

So if they're going to use the money that they've acquired over the last couple of

decades, they've got to put it somewhere.

So, yeah.

Uh, the Belton Road is what they're doing, and they can buy some opium,

yes, and they've, you know, creating railroads and things, and in case

the seaways are blocked by, I don't know, American submarines or something

like that, it seems like a good idea just to spread infrastructure around.

Well, they certainly won't be Australians.

Well, it might be Australian, but just run by an American.

We would have paid for it, Joe.

Well, exactly.

Yes.

Yes.

We might have the title of it, but somehow it's on a permanent lease to America.

Yeah.

So, uh, yeah.

There we go.

What else have we got here?

You know, uh, what are we up to?

Look, I couldn't do justice to what's going on in Gaza in the remaining

time, and this has been long enough.

I think next week will be a bit of a examination of the atrocity

that is occurring in Gaza.

Gaza and what is happening there.

I think, I think it'll be a bit of a Gaza episode next week.

Joe, there we go.

Um, what else is in the chat room?

John says, don't worry, Trev.

We will never see us.

We will never see US subs.

I know we'll never see them, John.

I'm just worried how many billions of dollars we're going

to hand over before we realize.

We're not gonna see them.

That's the problem.

I think we're gonna buy them with, um, Apple Pay gift

cards.

Ah, anything else in the chat room I should have seen?

Um, Whatley says, Ida was always a corporate stooge.

Yes, um, John says, Jordan Peterson has gone right off the reservation now.

He sure has.

Shock horror.

Yep, um, um, yeah.

Ah, okay.

Right, well, dear listener, hope you enjoyed that episode.

Um, we'll be back next week.

Talk to you then.

Bye for now.

And it's a good night from him.