Hello, dear listener.

Welcome.

The Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove podcast coming to you 7.

30pm on a Monday night.

And Scott's with us.

How are you, Scott?

I'm great, thanks.

Trevor, and yourself?

I'm very well, so.

That's good.

And Joe's here as well.

Yes.

He's here as well.

In the chat room, if you're there, say hello.

This is a podcast, of course, where we talk about news and

politics and sex and religion.

If you make a comment in the chat room, we will try and incorporate it.

So, um, Scott, on the agenda, because I know you've been busy and haven't

had a chance to look at much, but um, I thought, I threw in at the last minute,

maybe we should talk about France and what's happened there with the Prime

Minister, and then maybe a little bit about the Greens, and whether we should

forgive them for 2009, and uh, I know you're reluctant to forgive them.

Ah, National Anti Corruption Commission.

Uh, some interesting things happening there.

We'll see where we end up, but, um, Uh, Joe, have you kept track

of what's happening in France with Macron appointing a Prime Minister?

Uh, no, I actually haven't.

Okay.

So, um, basically, Macron, well, there was a European election.

And, uh, as a result of that, the left wingers did quite well.

And so Macron pulled a, a sort of a, sprung a general election on the French

people in their sort of normal parliament, and it looked like the right wing, um,

Le Pen was going to do quite well in the initial voting, but when it came

down to the final voting, she did not.

And the left wing did well.

There were sort of three different groups.

There was the left, which got a coalition of left leaning parties, got 188 seats.

Um, there was the centre right, got 161, and then there was

the far right, Le Pen, 142.

Kind of more or less a third each, but with the left wing doing the best.

And, um, Strange way they operate in France, Joe and Scott, where the President

then decides who the Prime Minister is going to be out of all of this.

And it's a strange mixture of responsibilities.

It seems that the President is responsible for sort of foreign policy,

foreign affairs type stuff, but then the Prime Minister is responsible for

more domestic politics that they've got to get through the Parliament.

Has to be able to maintain a majority.

So Um So anyway, with McCron, with his centre right group, he could have,

uh, teamed up with the left wing and nominated somebody from the left to be

prime minister, but instead he nominated somebody from the centre right and

that's going to require the assistance of Le Pen for everything to get through.

So essentially, nice guy Macron, who everybody loves because

he seems so handsome, a bit like Trudeau, um, is really.

Ignoring the swing to the left in French voting and has hooked up a Prime Minister

who's going to need the support of the right wing Le Pen to get through, so, so

even though the French people voted for a shift towards more left wing politics,

they've ended up with a right wing result.

When's he moving

the government down to Vichy?

What's that?

So when's he moving the, um, centre of power down to Vichy?

What does that mean when you say down to Vichy?

What does it mean?

The

Vichy government, the Vichy, Vichy France was the, uh,

side of French that, uh, supported the Nazis and that sort of stuff.

The Vichy Republic, I think it was called.

So, so the northern half of France was occupied by Germans.

The southern half of France was free, nominally, but Vichy France

was allied with the Germans.

Right.

Yeah.

And the central power was in Vichy.

Yeah.

And that's why, um, uh, what's his name?

Churchill went and sank the, uh, French fleet.

Yes, in North Africa.

In North Africa.

Because they had been lining up with the Germans.

Exactly.

They were worried that

the French fleet would become a German allied fleet.

And

they were worried about that and that sort of stuff, which would then

screw over Britain's supremacy of the sea.

So that's why they went in and attacked them

while

they're at harbour.

Anyway, under Macron, the rich are getting richer.

I saw some statistics, which was incredible about the, the, how the sort

of top 1 percent in France have, have gathered even more wealth in recent times.

And also he's responsible for raising the retirement age, um, for French people.

So they don't like him and they voted against that sort of policy.

And the way democracy's worked, uh, it hasn't really worked in the French case

and it hasn't shifted things in the direction that the people have asked.

So a bit of a failure of democracy is occurring in France, I think we can say.

Well, I think the people are going to have their opportunity

to vent their anger at, um, Micron when he gets, when the presidential

election comes up, and I think that this is going to be his last term.

I don't think he, he can actually run for another term, can't he, Joe?

No idea.

Okay.

Well anyway, I thought that he could actually run repeatedly.

He's not actually restricted to only run for two terms, so it really

wouldn't surprise me if he does run again, but I just think to myself

that he's probably dead in the water by the time he actually gets there.

Because the French people have moved more to the left than

the French government has.

And like you said, the uber rich in France are getting wealthier and I don't know.

And you know, the whole thing about raising the retirement age, I think

it was to move it up to 64, wasn't it?

Or something like that?

It was

67.

67.

Okay.

I thought it was a couple years.

I didn't know how many it was, but yeah, they certainly raised it.

Yeah.

Yeah, 67, which was only, um, you know, which is the same sort of, which is the

same age as the pension ages over here.

You know, it's just, and their pensions are more generous than ours are.

I think that you end up having a percentage of your final income and that

sort of stuff being given to you as a, as a government rung pensioner, I believe.

Okay.

So that is why they had to actually reduce the.

Pension expenditure because they they would have been suicidal for them to

actually cut the pension, but they had to reduce the Number of people

that are actually on the pension

because they're too generous.

Oh, it's way too generous.

Yeah

Don't know about that.

But um, yeah So anyway, that's what's going on a bit of a failure of democracy

in france Um, now, Scott, there was a bit of a discussion in Crikey about

the Greens and um, and the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme back in 2009.

Which they torpedoed?

Yes, and in Crikey there was this article by Charlie Lewis saying

how Labor has reminded the Greens yesterday of the party's 2009 rejection,

um, because um, Labor is seeking the opposition support for its watered

down, um, industry approved version of the Environmental Protection Agency.

And they're basically, Labor is threatening the 2024 Greens, Scott,

saying to them, if the Greens party doesn't support the government,

Uh, with its current EPA laws, this could be their Carbon Pollution

Reduction Scheme Mistake Mark 2.

That's what Tanya Plibersek is saying.

And in the Crikey article, they are saying that, um, uh, lots of

people can't even remember the 2009 Carbon Price Reduction Scheme.

But that Labor's always trying to remind people of it, and, um Well, they

could have every right to remind them of it, because that

was a bloody disastrous thing that the Greens actually did.

Because they were insistent on a fixed price for carbon, which left Julia

Gillard with no choice but to call it a tax, because it was a carbon tax.

It wasn't.

It was a carbon tax.

If you had the fixed price on it, it was a tax.

Now, the other thing was the CPRS was an actual genuinely market

driven approach to reducing carbon.

The Greens said no.

They were forced, they were forced into negotiations.

It was a genuine

way of the government transferring large amounts of money to major polluters.

Whilst pretending that they were costing them or taxing them money.

Who was that?

That's Joe saying that, not me.

Yeah.

If, if that article says that.

Yeah, I know the article says that, but you've got to take everything

Crikey says with a grain of salt.

I'll just, I'll just give you what the opinion is on this.

So the opinion they're putting forward is that, um, um, that, that, um, carbon

price scheme from 2009 was widely regarded as an inadequate policy and friendless

in all directions after it was voted down in the Senate in 2009, including by the

Greens, and Labor replaced it with a more effective scheme, they're saying, and

he's saying that it's been a hobby horse of Labor to keep, um, Banging on about it

ever since, and, um, um, and they tell a bit of a story here, um, If the Greens had

voted for that legislation in 2009, when Tony Abbott became leader of the Liberal

Party in 2009, a carbon price would have been introduced and by today would have

been embedded in the Australian economy.

That's what, um, Henny Wong was saying, and, um, uh, actually I haven't

highlighted what I need to highlight here, but basically, um, basically saying

it was a terrible scheme that didn't achieve anything close to what was needed,

so it was okay for the Greens to knock it back, because it was just so bad

it wasn't worth supporting in any way.

So there's a comment in here.

In 2009, a question was asked of the Minister for Climate

Change, Penny Wong, by Dr.

Richard Dennis.

But as the Senate vote gets closer, the first question the Climate Change

Minister must answer is, if the CPRS doesn't increase the cost of transport

fuels, doesn't apply to agriculture, and as Treasury modelling shows, doesn't

lead to a deduction in our climate, our reliance on coal fired electricity until

at least 2033, What does it actually do?

Hmm.

So what they were saying was it's a toothless, yeah, it's a paper tiger.

Yes.

So Scott, is it possible that we've been propagandized by Labor, uh, on this one

and that the policy that they were putting up was so weak that it was the right thing

to do for the Greens to knock it back?

Because it just wasn't going to achieve anything.

No, I think it was the only thing the, the Greens had to knock it back

because that was their political game.

You know, I just think it was all a game of politics and all that sort of stuff.

Had we have actually started from there.

Yeah, it was very weak, but it was only the first time that we had ever

started to tax carbon in this country.

Had we have actually gone down that road, we would have actually got the polluters

and everything used to paying something.

Then over time we could have, you know, they would have actually reduced the

They would have reduced the subsidies to the carbon polluters and that sort of

stuff, so they would have had to pay a higher price on their carbon pollution.

Do

you believe though that Dr No would have accepted that?

No, he

wouldn't have, he would have actually pulled it apart,

absolutely, which is what he did.

When he got elected, on that basis of lying, saying it was a carbon tax.

He lied.

Yeah, he lied, and he got elected, and he won because the Greens forced them

into having a fixed price on carbon.

Yeah, but even if it had been the CPRS, he'd have still

lied.

He didn't want any price on carbon.

I know he didn't want any price on carbon, but I think to myself, had

they have actually done that, rather than actually forcing Turnbull into

the position that he was left with no alternative, but to go, then I don't know.

I think that Turnbull's leadership possibly would have survived.

Tony Abbott would have won the next couple of elections, but then he would have lost

in the time when, uh, what's her name, Zali Stegall, would have taken over.

It's one of those things I don't think we're ever going to know, but it was the

first time that we'd actually moved into this country to actually pricing carbon.

So the first one was going to be weak.

There is no doubt about that.

I think the problem was it was, it would have been a hell of a lot

less than what the Greens wanted.

But I think it included a lot of subsidies for polluters.

Of course it did.

It included a hell of a lot of subsidies for them.

Like I was just saying, over time they would have reduced the subsidies to those

polluters that would have left them to actually pay a higher price on carbon.

Anyway, the point of this whole exercise is there's been a debate in

Crikey and in the comment section was Um, full of stuff, people toing and froing.

But there is a counter argument that, that it was such a bad piece of legislation

that even in the benefit of hindsight, looking at it today, many argue the

gene, the greens were justified in knocking it back because it was so poor.

That,

and more to the point, this, a PA act apparently, is so

toothless and allows basically the polluters to carry on polluting.

That the Greens are equally right in saying, no, this isn't an EPA.

It's just like the Corruption Commission that is so toothless that

it can't investigate corruption.

We'll get on to the Corruption Commission next.

But, um, yeah, it's, um, where's the line?

At some point, Scott, you're right.

You could say, if it's a little bit of progress along the way,

then maybe it's acceptable, even though it's got a long way to go.

But then a counter argument is that if it's so bad that it achieves nothing

and sets up subsidies for decades And really is, is even worse than just

a weak beginning, then maybe it's the correct thing to knock it back.

So.

Well, it's something we're never going to know the answer to.

Yes, we could argue over that for weeks, but it's just, um,

just letting people know that there's two schools of thought out there.

What was that, Joe?

Some interesting commentary about how Labour is likely to rely on, uh,

LNP preferences at the next election, particularly in inner city, uh, seats.

Right.

Because, you know, it'll be the Greens versus Labor are the real running

parties in the, in the election.

Yes.

And the LNP absolutely won't vote for the Greens, so they might vote

for Labor instead of the Greens.

Yes.

We're just going to wait and see actually what happens, because if, if

the, if the LNP decides that, decides that a weaker Labor government is, is better

than a stronger Labor government, I think they will actually preference the Greens.

If they decide that a, where was I going with all that?

If they decide it's, if they decide it's better to have the Labor Party in a weaker

position, they will preference the Greens.

If they decide that the Greens are far worse than the Labor

Party, they will preference the Labor Party ahead of the Greens.

What did they do last time?

I don't know.

Right, I don't know either.

It's one of those things, I just don't think that either side should be,

I don't think it was a good idea to preference the Greens

or One Nation or anyone else.

I just think to myself that they are fringe parties and that sort

of thing and we shouldn't, we shouldn't be preferencing them.

Hang on, you're putting them down number one.

Yeah, I know I am, but, and I'm not very, I'm really

not looking forward to it.

Okay.

I, I think this whole preferencing thing is a bad idea.

fast, because anybody can vote any way they like.

It doesn't matter what particular party goes, oh, we're preference or doing

a preference deal with this person.

How many people follow the how to vote card is really what you're saying?

A really large number of people do actually follow a how to vote card.

Yeah,

I think a large number do as well.

Yeah,

they do.

Gut feel?

Yeah, they just don't think about it and that sort of stuff.

See, I actually refuse to follow a how to vote card.

I work out ahead of time who's going where and that type of thing and

I vote in that way I wish to vote.

And I already work everything out before I actually go into the place,

but I'm a nerd, so you know, I've got time and that sort of stuff so I

can put my, put my thought onto it.

But a lot of people just grab a, just grab a Liberal or Labor how

to vote card and work out which way they're going to vote that way.

I think they do.

So I think that will be important.

Um, in the chat room is, uh, Don, Essential or Don, uh, Don Toovey.

Is that the same Don or is it a different Don?

Yeah.

And, um, Allison and.

Tony Wall, good on you Tony.

So yeah, if you would like to raise a topic feel free to if you make a comment

I will do my best to incorporate it.

So anyway, just putting that forward because I know it's one of your

hobby horses Scott and For those who get the show notes, they can

see the arguments that I was reading about and figure out a position.

So National Anti Corruption Commission need to talk about that a little bit

So What we had was a robo debt inquiry that was superbly handled by the lady in

charge of that inquiry that really found damning practices within the government

department dealing with robo debt and people who were doing awful things

knowing that there were awful results and Um, Labor comes in and creates,

um, an anti corruption commission.

And that commission has looked at the findings of the Royal Commission

and has said, well, they've already done an investigation.

There's no point in us doing another one.

And a lot of people are completely floored by this.

Yes, they

bloody well should be.

The, the, the Royal Commission Named eight people that they've sent

off to the NAC to be investigated.

The NAC took 12 months and then turned around and said, well,

there's nothing for us to see

here.

Because it's already been done by the Royal Commission.

But the Royal Commission, everybody knows that they can't actually prosecute.

They can't prosecute and that sort of stuff.

All they can do is hand people over to the relevant legal authorities.

Yes.

The first one was the NAC.

Yes.

I'll just read exactly here a few things to put this in context.

So this comes from New South Wales Supreme Court Judge, or former New South Wales

Supreme Court Judge, Anthony Wheelie.

And, um, he talks about this announcement that the Commission

is not going to investigate the referrals of the six public officials,

um, that were explored by the Royal Commission into the Robo Debt Scheme.

And, um, because Uh, the reason given by the NAC was further investigation

was unlikely to produce significant new evidence, and, um, he says that

unlike Royal Commissioner Catherine Holmes, the NAC has the unique and

specific jurisdiction to make findings on whether people refer to it had

been engaged in corrupt conduct or should otherwise be dealt with within

the meaning of the legislation.

Commissioner Holmes, from the Royal Commission, did not have

that jurisdiction or that capacity.

It was beyond her jurisdiction to make any finding of corrupt conduct.

That, dear listener, is what the NACC is supposed to do.

And, apparently, the Royal Commissioner delayed her report for a week to make

sure that the knack was open for business.

And this former Supreme Court judge is saying it's simply no answer to say,

well these people have already been investigated of course, um, so, um, he's

saying, Um, that it's up to the knack to do its job, and by refusing to do

it, it has betrayed its core obligation, and it's of grave concern, and none

of the reasons given were compelling.

Now, in a separate article, there's a guy, Stephen Charles, another

retired judge, served on the Supreme Court of Victoria's Court of Appeal.

Um, and is a member, um, of the boards of the Centre for Public Integrity

and the Accountability Roundtable.

So, the first guy and this guy are pretty well qualified to be

talking about this sort of stuff.

And, um, he says that Commissioner Brereton, it seems, was good mates

with Catherine Campbell because of links through the Armoury Reserve.

So Catherine Campbell, of course, was the lady who came out very

poorly in that royal commission.

And Commissioner Brereton told Attorney General Dreyfus, Oh, I'm

going to recuse myself from these considerations as to whether the

NAC should recommend prosecutions against people like Catherine Campbell

because of my conflict of interest.

And.

In the end though, he didn't recuse himself, he was actually

in all of the meetings leading up to the very final decision.

And this judge is saying, that's not a recusal.

You needed to get out of the room from the very beginning and never enter it

when these discussions were taking place.

And, and hanging around while those discussions were taking place, um, and

just removing yourself at the final decision time is not good enough.

So It's an outrageous, um, this, this national anti-corruption commission.

It had one major job to do

and it didn't fucking they,

they're, they've been acting corruptly

and it's balls.

Careful, Joe, it's balls it up from the very beginning.

Let's say, um, let's not call it corruption, but

let's just say a ball's up.

Um,

no, I think it would be ironic though if they had been

so.

How disappointing is that?

And

Incredibly disappointing.

Yeah.

You know, if Morrison was in charge, I'd be just going fucking Morrison.

But it's funny, Ivor and Albanese But no,

no, no, but the Corruption Commission was always set up as a gentleman's

agreement between the two major parties that they wouldn't investigate each other.

And

just the fact that people expected That's

why the Greens were so adamant that it was

different.

Right.

Yeah, it's good on the greens.

And yeah, of course, none of this stuff is public, which it's supposed to be with

these sorts of inquiries, everything's held in secret, behind closed doors.

Yeah, but it

needs to be public for, uh, sorry, it needs to be public to

inspire confidence in the process.

Exactly.

So, um, so yeah, um, there we go.

Like, that's just so disappointing that we have just got such a poor result.

Yeah.

There's terrible things done in that robo dead and people need to be held

accountable for what happened there.

Absolutely, people died and I just think to myself that that's got

to be the one thing that should have animated the knack into doing something

about it was that they, you know, they have got blood on their hands

exactly the same way as the bastards that were behind the fucking thing.

I, you know, I just, so this guy is mates with, um, the Attorney General, is he?

Uh, no, the Commissioner Brereton.

Has said that he had a conflict of interest He hasn't said exactly

what his conflict was, but people seem to understand that he's good

mates with Catherine Campbell

Yeah, and they

know each other through the Army Reserve So it seems very probable

that that's where his conflict is and she of course was the main person ready

to be nailed by potential allegations.

So, uh I mean,

at least he didn't get a camper van out of it.

Who got a camper van?

Uh, who's the What are you

saying here, Joe, by the way?

Clarence, Clarence Thomas in the Clarence Thomas, okay, well that's Supreme

Court.

Okay, we can

He has received a large number of benefits, which are very, very suspicious.

Right.

Uh, and didn't recuse himself from a number of cases that directly impinged

upon people who had given him large S.

Yeah.

Yes.

Which is why I think AOC wanted to impeach him and one other

justice.

Right.

Yes.

I have heard bits and pieces along those lines.

Yeah.

So, so anyway, that is disappointing.

Scott, have you been, oh, you wouldn't have been, Scott.

There's a new Star Casino in Brisbane.

Brand new building on the Riverbank.

Is it open?

It's open.

Yes, well, the building's open, at least the public areas of it

are, and some of the restaurants and things are, so, um, Yeah,

that's assuming that you've got a casino company that's able to operate it.

Yeah, I don't know if the casino part's open, but you can

walk across the bridge and walk through the building and whatnot, so.

And they're already broke.

Yeah.

Well, they're broke not because they're moving into the new building,

they're broke because of the fines and that sort of stuff that they got

carried over from their misbehaviour in New South Wales, don't they?

Yes.

And they had form.

So the Queensland government should never have approved them.

Absolutely, they shouldn't have operated.

You know, it's, and then there's all these, there's rumours and everything

coming out that they're, one of their, one of their mates is, um, hooked up with

the Chinese triad and everything else.

You just think to yourself, bloody hell, it just gets worse and worse.

Who operates treasury?

Say again?

Who operates treasury?

I think they do.

Star?

Yeah, I think.

Yeah, yeah.

So in other words, it's going to be in competition with the

casino that's, that's operating.

No, Treasurer, Treasurer was going to be closed down, I think that they, I

wouldn't be surprised if they've already moved out of that building, haven't they?

I'm not sure where that's at, but we've got the Queensland

government is looking to inject money into the company to keep it going.

In

return for shares, hopefully.

Because no,

what they do is

they say, oh, we'll let you off gambling taxes and we'll let you

off payroll taxes and we'll, we'll, we'll make it a loan for these things,

but they never take bloody equity.

I just, because of jobs, they're saying, oh, we've got all these people

who are employed in terms of the hotel accommodation and the retail

and what not, and I just think to myself, you Why don't we just let the

whole thing fall over financially and then the bankers have to sell it to

some new operator and off they go.

They'd be able to sell it

to someone that's got a, that's got form for running casinos.

Yeah.

You know, they've got casino

operators

coming out of their wazoo in Macau.

Macau is only just to the north of us.

They're just on the same sort of peninsula as Hong Kong.

I'm sure one or two of them will be looking for a new

operation and that sort of stuff.

They'll look down there and say, Oh, this is okay.

You know, it went belly up because of fines.

We'll just take it over and start up.

They want it all nice and spick and running for the Olympics.

That's a long way off.

It's 2032.

Exactly.

Let the whole business, I say, let the whole thing go into financial ruin and

let somebody else buy it on the cheap.

Um, under a mortgagee sale of whatnot, and And let them run it.

It's not up to the government unless the government wants to.

They're gonna take an equity position it to take the whole thing, like let it

fail and then take an equity position.

And if you wanna run it, you know, why would you want to, no, the government

shouldn't be running a casino.

Let's face it.

So, so the government Absolutely.

Government can own, land

it.

Yes.

Yes.

And uh, indeed.

So I'm, of course this is the one idea of the, um.

Stephen Myles Government that the Courier Mail approved of.

Ha ha ha!

As I was reading the editorial, which, dear listener, I read,

so that you don't have to.

And it was like, ah, as much as we don't like the idea, I think, we

think that Stephen Miles would be doing the right thing by supporting,

uh, the casino operator in this case.

You're

telling me that a Murdoch newspaper is supporting the idea of transfer

of public funds to a private owner?

Yes.

A wealthy

private owner?

Yes.

Shock.

Shock, don't tell you.

Uh huh.

It was the first time I've ever seen them.

Uh huh.

Support Labor, yes.

Supporting an idea that Labor was considering.

Yeah.

Um, so anyway, um, I'm jumping all over the shop here.

It's 62 days since the Morrison government, not the Morrison government,

it may as well be, um, since the Albanese government appointed the

special envoy to combat anti Semitism.

And they were supposed to appoint a similar person for a similar

role to combat Islamophobia.

And 62 days later, nothing.

Hey, I'm no fan of Islamophobia.

Islamophobia is a made up thing.

What's that?

It's that Islamophobia is a made up thing.

Yeah, I mean, just Has anyone actually reminded them

that they had 62 days to do it and they haven't done it yet?

Well,

it's one of those things I really wouldn't be surprised if they, uh,

they forgot.

They're probably deliberately dragging their heels on it

because they're not getting reminded in the media about it.

Yeah.

Well, not in the mainstream media, they're not.

No, they're not.

Yeah, so.

Yeah.

Um, on that score of, uh, anti Semitism, um, Mary Costa Kirby, Kiedis,

used to be the SBS presenter, quite active on Twitter, and she basically

reproduced some tweets, retweeted some tweets, which were, um, uh, from pro

Palestinian, um, sources and It was a

myth, wasn't it?

Yes, um, da da da da.

Um, a video of a speech by Hezbollah leader, in which he allegedly called

for the ethnic cleansing of Israel.

That's what the Jewish lobby is saying.

And, um, uh, her defense is, um, that, I'll actually, let me get a

bit more specific about what it said.

Um, um, in the retweeted video, Hezbollah leader says, Here, you don't have future.

And from the river to the sea, the land of Palestine is for the Palestinian people.

And for the Palestinian people only.

That's not necessarily calling for wiping out of Israeli people.

Killing of them.

It could be, they've got to go because this is our land.

Doesn't mean we're going to kill them.

I

Let the foreigners go back to where you came from.

It's, it's, we're reclaiming

our land.

This is our land.

We want our land back.

It is for Palestinians and these settlers, colonialists have to go.

So it doesn't mean they're going to, it doesn't mean they're going to kill them,

but it's just saying they've got to go somewhere else because this is our land.

Second thing is, um, above that, um, quote, um, Costakidis wrote,

Israeli government getting some of its own medicine.

Israel has started something it can't finish with the genocide.

So, that's the sort of crux of what she's accused of tweeting.

And, um, someone from the Jewish, um, from the Jewish organisations has made a

complaint to the Human Rights Commission.

And she's now facing a massive legal case and it's a concern that she also

argues you need to know what both sides of this conflict are saying.

Like this was one of the leaders of one side of the conflict saying

something and we need to know what these people are saying.

If we can't do that, well, we're just, we don't have the information

we need to talk about issues.

So, I think she's making a fair point.

Anyway, she's having to battle through the court system now, um, faced with

charges against the Human Rights Act.

And it really is a way of muzzling dissent if you are to Make any comment

that, um, may be seen to be, um,

uh, anti semitic, that you'll be taken on and run through the courts.

And even if you are eventually successful, you'll be so battered

and bruised afterwards that you wish you'd never said it.

So this

has always been the counter argument to these hate speech laws,

which is technically what it is.

has been that they will be used by the powerful to oppress dissenting voices.

Yes, even if the

case It's a blasphemy speech under another, a

blasphemy law under another name.

Yes, and even if the case is not particularly strong, but if you're

powerful, muddied up, you just run people through the court system and beat them to

death, which is what sort of Clive Palmer would do to a lot of people as well.

Allegedly.

Yes, allegedly.

And yeah, so, um So she's facing a battle there.

Good luck to her.

Um, um, um, so that was her.

Um, what's the other thing I had on sort of Israel while we were at it?

Um, something about, um, just a reminder that the International Court of Justice

on the 19th of July said, Palestine is comprised of the West Bank, including

East Jerusalem and Gaza, and Israel is illegally occupying Palestine.

Israeli settlements in Palestine are illegal and must be dismantled

and Palestinians have the right to resist illegal occupation.

So that's not a whole lot different to what that Hezbollah leader was

saying in that Palestine is for Palestinians and Israelis have to go.

Yeah, well, wasn't the American, weren't the Americans trying to

arrest the international court?

Yes.

Yes.

But.

Before we move on to that, like, when the, when the court is saying Israeli

settlements in Palestine are illegal and must be dismantled, and Palestinians have

the right to resist illegal occupation.

How dare they be anti

Semitic?

That's that far off from what that guy was saying.

So, um, but of course, um, you never hear in this whole conflict with Gaza

when there's talk of the latest bombing, which there just isn't enough of, But you

never hear, oh of course, um, uh, Israeli settlers have killed another three, um,

yeah we can hear you Scott, you're there.

Israeli settlers have killed another family of Palestinians

in the West Bank or something.

You never hear them say, of course, the settlement, the Israelis are

there illegally, and that the, uh, International Court of Justice,

um, supports the Palestinians.

It's just, it's like it's ignored as if they never said it.

And of course this is, we always get the statement about the

international rules based order.

And how important it is.

And if the International Court of Justice is not part of the International

Rules Based Order, then what is?

But it

Well it isn't.

It's found against, um, America's allies.

Indeed.

So when it says the International Rules Based Order, you'll notice

it doesn't say International Law.

It's the International Rules Based Order.

Which means The status quo that we've had for the last 70 years,

thank you very much, that's what international rules based order means.

It doesn't mean international law.

It's incredibly frustrating.

Where are we up to?

Um, I'm still chopping and changing all over the place here, um, Orcus, another

critic, this time, New Zealand's former Governor of the Reserve Bank, basically

saying, August is such a shit deal.

Um, uh, what else we got?

Um,

um,

Scott, thoughts on Kamala Harris?

Do you like her?

She's much better than Donald Trump.

You know.

In what way?

My left testicle's

better than Donald Trump.

I wouldn't suggest he should be president.

She was probably the best of a bad lot that they had left.

You know, they had to choose someone.

Because Biden refused to stand down and all that type of thing, there was

no time to run an open campaign or anything else, so we didn't actually

find out where her weak spots were.

So, you know, we've just got to hope for the best that she's going to actually win.

Now, whether she actually wins and that sort of thing, whether or not

she wins convincingly enough that, um, that'll put to bed any of the

anti Kamala Harris forces that are left out there is another story.

Um, I personally hope that, um, the whole abortion ban thing is going to

backfire very badly on the Republicans.

To the whole point that, um, that, uh, Senator from Texas

who went across to Cancun with his family to get away from the

Rubio.

Yeah, no, not Rubio.

Um, he's got a beard now.

Yeah,

yeah.

Um,

I know the one you mean.

Anyway, he's apparently Ted

something?

Ted Cruz?

Cruz.

Ted Cruz, yeah.

He's apparently got, he's in for the bite of his life right now because he's only

two points in front of the Democratic contender for his Senate seat, which

is not a winning position for him to be in, whereas previously he's been 10

or 20 points ahead of the Democrats.

Now he's barely two points in front, and they reckon most of that is

because of the abortion ban, which he was very proudly, very proudly in

favor of and everything else until it became law, and then suddenly Every

bit of it was erased from his website.

So, I think that the Democrats are probably going to win based just on that.

And because she is the, uh,

head of that party right now and everything like that, I

think that she's in a commanding position to win the presidency.

Do I actually believe she's brilliant?

No, I don't.

I think that Hillary Clinton would have been a far better

candidate than what she is.

Really?

But, well, she would have been better.

She was still not, she's still not, she's still not an AOC.

I get, I understand that.

She's not an AOC, but she was better than, she was better than, um, Kamala Harris.

Because Kamala Harris isn't the sharpest tool in the shed.

I don't think there's any doubt about that.

She's not the sharpest tool in the shed, but she's better than,

well, she's better than Joe Biden because Joe Biden was far too old.

Right, but in terms of policies, she hasn't had to,

she hasn't said a single policy.

No, she hasn't.

She hasn't got a single policy on her website.

What

she has actually said, though, she has actually said that, um, she

has taken a tougher line on Israel.

She hasn't been as tough as you would want her to be.

But she has actually taken a marginally tougher line than Joe Biden

did.

Okay, let's just see what Kamala on, what did she say, um,

Kamala Harris's Jewish outreach chief has just confirmed that she opposes

returning to the Iran nuclear deal.

And also speaking on the panel organized by American Jewish Committee, Uh, who

says he spoke yesterday with the Harris Campaign's new Jewish Outreach Chief,

who assured him that the Democrat Party's presidential nominee would

oppose a returned, uh, sorry that was Iran nuclear deal, again, sorry, um,

I think she's being pretty hawkish in her support of Israel.

She might say some words like, oh, it's all got to come to a,

we want this to be resolved.

Not happy.

I'm

going to wring my hands a little bit.

She hasn't actually said that.

What she said is, you've got to have a ceasefire now, which

is something a hell of a lot stronger than what Biden ever said.

Biden never actually, Biden never actually called for a ceasefire.

He's called for humanitarian pauses and everything else.

She's actually called for a ceasefire,

which they have.

She hasn't called for stopping.

It's, you know, America could force a ceasefire on

By refusing to supply them with arms.

I agree wholeheartedly.

So it's just

words to, to massage the feelings of And then

lose the next election because of the Jewish vote in America.

So

she's just playing word games to keep her constituency happy.

Yeah.

You've got to actually look at where the Jewish constituency lies,

that is in New York and Florida.

Florida has already been written off to the Republicans, New York is

solidly Democrats, so she doesn't really need to pander to them.

It's about the propaganda and forces that they will bring

to bear if she doesn't support it.

Do they

honestly believe that they'd be far better off under Donald Trump?

Uh, if Donald Trump is supporting Israel, yes.

And Donald Trump is supporting Israel because his fundagelicals want him to.

Correct.

Because they want war in the Middle East.

Yeah.

So, it's very easy to see.

I think that a very pro Israel person would be very tempted to vote for Trump if

they thought he was a 5 percent stronger pro Israel candidate than Kamala Harris.

She has to make the noises.

They might regret it in the long run,

but they'd vote for him.

She's just making noises, Scott.

She's not serious.

She's

making the, she's making the right sort of noises though.

To keep people

happy, but not to actually do anything.

Yeah,

okay, but she's actually saying something, whereas before they weren't

actually saying anything at all.

It's an improvement.

It's not brilliant, but it's an improvement.

Okay.

You've got to actually look, you've got to actually look for

improvements among some people.

Now you're not going to get anything.

The US is so far down this whole Israel support thing that they

don't know how to get off it.

Can't we reach a point though where we look

at actions rather than words?

Because we've heard so much bullshit that we have to say, I don't believe

a word you say, I will start, I'll pay attention to your actions.

Yeah, okay, that would probably be better.

And then you'd say, nothing is going to change.

Do you, is she going to stop arms supplies to Israel?

Not initially, no.

Is she ever going to?

Um, I just think to myself that she could, she could actually say that and

that sort of stuff, because she actually, she refused to go to Netanyahu's speech

to Congress, which was, Quite a big thing for a vice president not to attend.

She did have private talks with him and all that type of thing after that.

Now, what actually said was there was no one would know

because it was a private talk.

But maybe she did actually say to him, you better stop fighting or I'm going

to pull the pin on your weapons supply.

I don't know.

I hope that she did, but I doubt that she did.

She didn't say it.

No, you don't know that she didn't say that because you

went there as part of the meeting.

She,

she, why wouldn't she tell the rest of us if she said that?

I don't know.

Because she's

too,

too scared to Maybe there's a deal that allows them both to say face.

There is no deal that

I mean, who, who ever thinks that the Democrat party is Anything

other than at all of the state.

Yeah.

They're both the same.

Well, sorry, they're not both the same.

Uh, in terms of international affairs, in terms of bombing other countries,

in terms of being captured by corporations, they're both the same.

They are.

However, The Republican Party seem to be lurching their way

towards, um, uh, Handmaid's Tale.

Absolutely.

Your choice is It's

one of those things, like, you're either voting for the

Republic of Gilead, stage one,

Yeah.

Or you're voting for a continuation of the United States of America.

You might not like the United States of America, but it's a

damn sight better than Gilead.

Better than

the Republic of Gilead, exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah, and the Republic of Gilead, I said to your wife once when she refused to

watch The Handmaid's Tale, I said, uh, I think that America's two, possibly three

bad decisions away from the Republic, from the coming the Republic of Gilead.

I think they've already got the first decision down under control,

which was the, um, abortion ban.

And, you know, they probably only got another two, two very bad

decisions before the Republic of Gilead becomes a real thing.

In the chat room, Alison says Kamala Harris won't try to overturn the

constitution like Trump wants to, so the choice between them is about democracy.

Well, it's true.

If she loses, she will accept the decision when, of course, Trump won't

accept the decision if he loses, so.

No, I think it's only a matter of time, a couple of weeks away from when

Trump starts talking about, that they're already starting to rig the election.

Oh, he's already been saying that for months, if not years.

Yeah, I

know, but he's been talking about, he's been talking

about his election that he lost.

He hasn't actually been talking about the next election.

No, no,

no.

They've been saying, if I win, it'll have been a fair election, basically.

He's already setting up for, if he loses it hasn't been a fair election.

Yes.

He's also apparently pissed off his base by saying that

he did lose the 2020 election.

Did he say

that?

Yeah.

I don't remember him saying that.

Because

there's, there's a bunch of fascists have been up in arms that he said that

because he, he could have told them before they went out and committed treason,

did insurrection on January the 6th.

Look, he would have said two conflicting things in the same sentence.

Oh, absolutely.

So, yeah, chop and change your story all the time, um.

John Sammons, uh, Hillary was a terrible candidate, I agree, she

was awful, so, um, I don't think she would have been any better than

Kamala Harris because Well, she was

a

cuck,

of course, famously.

Mm.

So she was, a what,

sir?

A cuck.

Because of Monica Lewinsky.

Did I say something?

She was a cuckold.

What do you mean by that?

Her husband had cheated on her.

Yes.

Do you not remember Trump making the whole debate about that?

No,

did he?

Yeah.

It's hard to keep track of his outrageous statements, isn't it?

It's like they were trying to talk politics and all he was going

was, Ha, your husband cheated on you.

Yeah, yeah.

John also in the comments, did you start at 7.

30?

Yes, John, we said we would last week.

So you have to pay attention, but we did say we were going to start soon.

It's so that I can

go to bed at a reasonable

hour.

That's right, yeah.

Geriatrics.

I am very much an old man, yes, absolutely.

Yeah.

Well, you know, yes, uh, Kamala will be better for democracy, the

democracy that gives you the choice between the right wing Republican

Party and the right wing Democratic Party and, um, doesn't represent.

Anything like what people might be wanting.

I mean, the biggest laugh I see

is I've got to get you sitting down with my brother, next time he's back

in Australia, because he actually says, he was actually talking about a Chinese

girl and that sort of stuff that was whinging to him about, um, somebody in the

school, and she was keeping her voice down very low so that no one could hear her.

Mm.

And Grant actually said to me, he said, uh, sorry, Landon actually

said to me, he says, well, you know, it's all very well for Trevor to say

democracy is flawed, but at least you've got a choice in a democracy.

You can actually have a choice between two parties.

Is that a choice?

Uh, it is a preferable choice to having no choice at all.

Is it a choice?

And is, is, are you It's, it's, it's, there is no choice at all in China.

China decides the way things are done and it comes from Xi Jinping and a clique of

men around him that decide what's going to be happening over the next 10 years.

That is not a choice for any of the citizens of that country.

They are told what to do and they just do it.

Okay.

On the other side, as an, as a counterpoint anecdote, Scott,

I've had Chinese homestay boys here and I've said to

them, hey, look

at the situation here in Australia and we've just had our election.

And do you guys, would you want that system in China?

And they were like, no, the system that we've got works perfectly fine.

Which I can understand, but it's just one of those things, they've never

actually had a long term history of democracy like we have here in Australia.

Yeah, but this can be seen as a cultural thing, Scott.

Like, a two party or three party, uh, electoral system and

democracy as we understand it.

Is, is also a cultural thing that we're familiar with and the Chinese

have been operating for a long, long time with a different method of

leadership and of appointing leaders.

And just because it's different to ours, are we saying it's no good because

we're, you know, ours is the best and anything else is an authoritarian mess?

When really.

If you're in that other culture, it's culturally appropriate and accepted.

And is it really just a cultural difference?

Is, is the Communist Party and the way it operates so bad?

Or is it that culturally, where it's so unfamiliar to us that

we can't get our head around it?

It's culturally unfamiliar to us, I agree with you there.

But is it, is it, uh, operating terribly badly?

I don't know.

I suppose you'd have to talk to one of the thousands of people that was shot at

the Tiananmen Square massacre to find out whether or not they really appreciated

their authoritarian government.

But maybe you could also talk to the hundred million

people lifted out of poverty.

Poverty, exactly.

By the, by the international rules based order that you

often do talk down and deride.

It is one of those things.

By the very Communist Party

that you're deriding.

No, I'm not deriding.

I suppose I'm deriding the Communist party because the way they treat their people.

Scott, here's the point.

I,

yeah.

Mm.

Scott, if you were able to wind the clock back 50 years,

Mm-Hmm.

. Trevor: And you are put in charge and you can determine how China

operates, knowing what you know now, that if they follow this particular

system, they're gonna lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty

and China will be what it is today.

Or, you could 50 years ago say, you know what, let's, let's impose

a Western style democracy on this country and do that instead.

I would say, shit, I can't take the risk.

What has been achieved in the last 50 years, I couldn't be comfortable that

that's definitely going to be achieved under a Western style liberal democracy.

And for the sake of hundreds of millions of.

people lifted out of poverty, I wouldn't take the risk.

For a million a year, I'll be your benevolent dictator.

I promise not to skim any more.

I promise not to set things up to, to, to, to, uh, help my mates.

I'll, I'll govern for the good of the country.

You know, but for every, you know, Tiananmen Square you want

to nominate, there's such a big, I

think this genuinely is a cultural issue where we've been propagandised, because

here's the thing, the argument today isn't that capitalism is better than socialism.

Because Economically, looking at GDP and lifestyles, it's clear that

America is falling into rack and ruin.

Absolutely.

And countries like China and Singapore and others

are becoming very successful.

So the argument that, oh, um, communism is evil and, you know doesn't

work, isn't, isn't cutting through.

So the argument now is, oh, they're awful authoritarian regimes and we

are Western liberal democracies and they will try to impose their will

on us if we don't control them.

So that's how the narrative has had to shift in the last 10 or

20 years from, from our economic system is better to one where.

The authoritarian system of theirs is a dangerous thing that we just don't

want to enter our, our, our country.

So,

it's John Simmons has just raised a very particular, a very good point there.

He says cultural revolution, that, that could be, that could

have been done without that.

The Cultural Revolution was something that I think that they

would have been better off avoiding.

It had what's he mean by that?

Well, it's the same.

Keep it going the way it was.

What's he

saying?

By keeping it going the way it was, the Cultural Revolution was happening.

Had the Cultural

Revolution not happened, China would be a better place further.

So not everything that the Communist Party did was a good thing.

No.

No, I wouldn't.

Of course not.

But if you look from Deng onwards, Dung, Deng, Dong, from the 70s

onwards, the last 50 years.

It's been the Communist Party in charge, and it's been a bloody good result.

Yeah, it has been a very good result.

I've got no doubt about that.

And the people there

are enormously happy.

Like, Scott, you mentioned, oh, um, your brother's, you know, um, student who

was whispering, you know No, it wasn't

a student, it was another teacher.

Okay,

but if you look at, uh, things done, say, by Pew Research or others,

where they do How happy are you with your government and your democracy?

Invariably, China leads by the top of the rankings.

Yeah, of course, when

the Pew researchers are out there with the secret police following

them.

No, it's not because of that.

And when you read the fine print of how they do the

studies, people are not scared.

They're giving their honest opinions.

So, we're just refusing to accept that the people in that country could

possibly be happy with that system, when all the evidence is that they are.

And it's a different system than ours.

Well, they probably

are happy with that system.

Would you like that system imposed on us?

Well, culturally, I don't like the Asian aesthetic of

temples with red and gaudy things.

Because culturally, I've been attuned to a different aesthetic.

In the same with Democracy is I've been culturally attuned to accept

and expect and want a certain thing.

So no, I don't want it, but I'm saying that for those people, I

get that it makes sense for them.

So you're saying that Afghanistan, because they've been raised with women

having no expectation of being a human being, that's their culture and therefore

who's to say that's a bad thing?

No, well you see, I get that the women in Afghanistan are pissed.

And I totally

well that, but that's only because they've had Western ideals

imposed upon them by the colonial invaders that came the last 20 years.

Yeah, they do.

I

just think, but you've gotta look at, if you've gotta look at those

photos and everything that were taken in Iran and also Afghanistan 50 years ago.

Yeah.

We

had women that were in short skirts.

They were just down below their knee and that sort of stuff.

They looked very attractive.

They had their hair was unveiled and everything else.

Yeah, very Western looking.

They were very Western looking.

Now in 50 years time that has been turned around entirely because of theocracy.

And, you know, I'm not here saying that, that, um, an Islamic

Republic is a great, is a great thing.

No,

it's not.

It's an appalling thing.

That I am saying.

that the system of government that the Chinese people have has been extremely

successful and is very well supported by their population and undoubtedly

has, has performed very, very well.

And we have to keep in mind that maybe it's just because we're not

culturally attuned to it and it's different to what we're used to.

And we've

got people who are, who are in the business of propagandizing us.

To, to try and make us think that we've got to have an enemy in China.

Yeah, I know, it's, um, one of those things, I don't understand how

anyone can see China as our enemy.

They're not our enemy or anything else, they are a trading partner, they are

a big country and everything else.

We've got to actually, we're a little country, we've got to suck up to

all the big countries on both sides.

Now, um, AUKUS is going to make that incredibly difficult for us to do.

Secondly, though, I would actually ask,

I'm not sure how to put this, but Taiwan is basically China.

It is, you know, the history and everything else says that

they were all the same stock.

They are the Chinese people that were defeated in the Civil War.

They went across the ocean and that sort of stuff.

It was only that the Americans parted carrier group between the two sides

that stopped them invading, you know?

Um,

culturally they're the same and everything else.

They speak the same language.

They haven't modernized the way they write the language or anything like that.

They, they still write in the old fashioned way, but they are basically the

same people, they speak the same language.

Democracy has taken off very well in that little country,

but it, have you seen the Taiwanese parliament and the goings?

Yeah, I know.

Do you have a, we showed the guy grabbing the bill and running out the

P and running out of the parliament

with it.

I know.

Do you remember that?

That is, that is, I have seen that.

But in the public, in the public's mind, they have a democracy

that they're quite proud of.

Yeah.

Now they have built that themselves.

They were a dictatorship for a very long time.

I've got no doubt about that.

You know, the Kuomintang were not the nicest people in the world and they had a

military dictatorship for several decades.

However, it has evolved into a modern liberal democracy now.

Now, um, if it can work on that side of the Taiwan Straits, why

couldn't it work on the bigger side of the Taiwan Straits and the PRC?

It, it,

it possibly could, but, but if it's, Which is working better?

I would say that a lot of the gains that China has, um, received,

uh, achieved, have been at the cost of pollution, uh, and other such things

that people haven't yet seen the cost of.

Yeah, but China is actually leading the world in renewable energy though.

It is.

They are, they do have, they are, they are making the batteries of the world, which

are very pollution, sort of, it's a very pollution intensive, intensive industry.

More renewables

in terms of solar power and wind power.

Yeah, than what we have out here.

Yeah, because that makes sense.

I would agree.

But they are still, they're Forgetting carbon pollution, other pollution, so a

lot of these huge rapid changes wouldn't have been able to occur under a democracy

where people are being held to account.

No, that's state system, you can get away with rapid changes that

require large amounts of pollution.

No, that's a very good point.

Do you know what?

The UK has got sewage running into open rivers and it's a democracy.

Yes, because people aren't being held to account.

I'm

sorry.

But it's a, and it's a democracy.

Oh, I know.

But, you know, at least there's going to be a chance that

maybe this new Labor government will actually hold people to account.

But only if the Greens can get a, a, a real EPA in that's not toothless.

Because, you know, this is the problem in the UK is effectively the pollution laws.

Say it's going to cost you a 50, 000 fine, whereas it's actually going to cost

you a million to fix the infrastructure that's causing the pollution.

And they go, all right, we'll pay the 50, 000 fine.

It's worth it.

Hmm.

I think, um Tony Wall in the chat room said something about, uh,

it's been said democracy is the worst form of government except for all

others that have been tried so far.

Yes.

I've seen

that attributed to Churchill.

It could be wrong though.

I've seen

the same thing, I've seen the same thing attributed to Churchill too.

Socrates believed voting either directly or for representatives requires

a skill and wisdom that not everybody has.

And getting those people without the skill And giving those people without the

skill, the ability to vote, could lead to the equivalent of societal shipwreck.

This is Socrates.

Socrates famously characterises democracy as the rule of the unwise, corrupt mob.

Like children loose in a candy store, the democratic herd pursues pleasures

only, rewarding sweet talkers, and flatterers with the power of

political office, who in turn exploit politics for their own gratification.

The result is injustice.

Accordingly, Socrates says, democracy ultimately dissipates

or dissolves into tyranny.

A population of citizens dominated by their basest desires and

an opportunistic ruler that manipulates them for personal gain.

I reckon America has reached that point.

We should bring in voting licences, you have to prove that

you're actually engaged with the political process before you can vote.

The problem is we know that the voting licence will be scrapped.

Skewed in favor of whoever is in power.

Yes.

Yeah.

So, uh, yeah,

there you go.

Tony says he prefaced the statement with it has been said,

so it wasn't his sentiment.

He was merely repeating it.

Oh, okay.

Yes.

So, from, uh, you know, what else can we say?

He was quite good with, he was quite good mates

with Stalin too, wasn't he?

Uh, were they?

Well, they were better mates than they were, than the Yanks were with him.

Probably.

I mean, Stalin at least was European.

None of these uppity globules.

John's going to send me a video about, uh, that

he saw about voting systems.

Um, so, okay, John, thank you for that.

Well, gentlemen, I reckon we've, uh, We've done enough for this episode.

Good to have you, Scott.

No worries, Trevor.

A regular time of seven 30 will make it a bit easier for you.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Mm.

Uh, next week I think I'm around school holidays coming up.

We'll see how we go.

But, uh, at this stage, um.

Mixed bag of babysitting and down the coast, so not sure.

But anyway, at this stage, 7.

30 Monday next week, we'll aim for that.

Otherwise, bye for now.

We'll talk to you then.

Bye.

It's a good night from me.

And it's a good night from him.

Good night.