Suburban Eastern Australia, an environment that has, over time,

evolved some extraordinarily unique groups of homosapiens.

Despite the reputation of their homeland, some are remarkably thin skinned.

Some seem to have multiple lifespans, a few were once thought

to be extinct in the region.

Others have been observed being sacrificed by their own, 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.

Yes, and what a collection of meerkats we have with us in

this episode, dear listener.

I, of course, am Trevor, aka the Iron Fist, looking to live up to

my name tonight as I do battle.

Uh, with me as always, Scott the Velvet Glove.

G'day Trevor, g'day John, g'day Joe, g'day Liam, how are you

all, and how are the listeners?

There are more of us.

Joe the Tech Guy's here.

Good luck, Joe, maintaining all this tonight.

It'll go swimmingly, I'm sure.

Yes.

Also, we've got Liam.

You might remember Liam, dear listener, who debated successfully, ultimately.

He did not successfully debate me.

He has got me to change my position for two electoral terms and I just hope and

pray that the Labor Party actually picks up on it and moves slightly to the left.

That's my definition of success.

Welcome back, Liam.

I'm pretty happy with that, that definition as well.

Yeah.

And also, also in his car with the windows wound up so as to reduce

road noise is, uh, John Diastrates.

John, who you might see in the chat room previously on different occasions.

So John's going to join us as well.

Welcome aboard, John.

Thank you, Trevor.

Right.

Happy to be convinced either way.

We'll see how we go.

Yeah.

So guess what?

We're going to talk about The Voice.

Because it's coming up, isn't it?

And we've been holding off.

14th of October.

Yeah.

And Liam reached out and said, Trevor, I think there hasn't been

quite enough pushback on some of the ideas you've been putting forward.

And so, Liam's put his hand up as this devil's advocate yet again, or just, no,

well not, you actually, you are a, you're going to be a yes voter, is that correct?

Yeah, I'm, at this point I'm pro yes.

Yep.

Yep.

So, so Liam's going to put the yes, um, side forward and we're

going to just see where things go.

I've got a mountain of notes.

That we can fall back on if the discussion falters, but, um, but yeah,

we're going to talk about the voice.

So without any further ado, if you're in the chat room, say hello and Liam,

do you want to, um, kick off with your thoughts, having listened to the bits

and pieces I've said over time and, um, You know, where I'm not, uh, giving

enough weight to something, perhaps, or I'm just totally wrong on something,

or something I've missed, or just give us, give us a bit of a spiel, Liam.

Uh, I think maybe I'll try and just summarize what I feel is kind of the

reasons why I'm a yes voter, and then maybe we can, and that's, I think, you

know, I've got, I think, four succinct points in front of me, and then we can

delve into more detail as required.

Um, So, starting off, point number one, I think there's sort of a time element

to this, so while there may be issues that you have with it, this is the

opportunity we have, and if not now, it's sort of been mentioned that it's

not going to be for another two terms.

I think at least, sort of, something like this goes up again, and during

that time, we'll still continue to have sort of poor results for Aboriginal

and Torres Strait Islander people.

So, there's an opportunity we have at the moment, and while you may

have problems, this is kind of a good opportunity to see some results, I feel.

Um, secondly, I think the, um, putting it into the Constitution is,

uh, required, basically, through, we've had the historical dissolution

of all the previous bodies.

So, uh, ATSIC, and it was the, was it the NAC?

The, yeah, the NAC.

Second Knack, Atsik, and The Nick, um, have all sort of been dissolved

at different points, and one of the biggest things I think we need

is sort of continuity and support.

Um, just the different programs need to be stood up, um, administered, and

then continued for a period of time, and possibly adapted, um, to provide support

to get to bridge the gap effectively.

Um, I think we've talked a lot on the podcast, or you've talked a

lot on the podcast, about sort of being a racist proposition, uh, I

think it is a racist proposition.

I agree with that.

I think, um, it does separate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people out, um,

and confers upon them a very small right.

And I think we should emphasise that it is a very small right.

So, they'll be able to make recommendations to Parliament, but

will have no, actually, hard power.

The key here is that they'll have a voice, and they'll be there and be

consulted on issues that affect them, and I think that's been lacking in the

approaches the government's had so far.

Um, also I'd like a sort of sub point on that one, is given the way that

sort of lobbying and sort of money is affecting our politics at the

moment, I feel this sort of levels the playing field a very small amount.

Um, to some of our most disadvantaged people.

Hey, I'm just going to interrupt briefly, Liam.

Just when you turn to the right, your mouth goes right over the microphone,

which then gets all breathy.

So just put the microphone a bit more to the right, so that you're

not breathing straight into it, because it's getting quite breathy.

But sorry, keep going.

That's a good comment.

I'll move my notes to...

I'll move my notes to the right.

Perfect.

Um, , so, uh, and then the final point, um, I don't think we can sort of just

call them out as any other sort of low socioeconomic group, um, that can be sort

of assisted by our standard programs.

I think they're sort of distinct and different enough that we need to look

at them and administer culturally appropriate programs to assist them.

Mm-hmm.

. Yep.

Um, so that's the sort of crux of my argument.

Um, four points.

And we can go from there.

Yeah.

Yep.

Uh, I guess initially I would say this is a balancing act depending

on the priorities you have in your mind and different people

will weigh things up differently.

So other issues we talk about...

Nuclear submarines.

I can pretty much categorically say that if you're in favour of

those, you're just wrong, right?

But, um, this, this is one which will depend on your life experiences

and your thoughts about different things and how you prioritise things.

So, I...

I guess it's one of those ones where I'd say it's a judgment

call of weighing things up.

And I don't particularly, um, begrudge people or, I don't

know, begrudge is the right word.

But, um, I certainly can understand how people come to the yes vote.

And I can understand how people come to the no vote.

And I can see how, um, people get there each way.

And I understand that.

It's not crazy.

In either case, is what I would say.

So, um, so first off, um, urgency of this.

Um, you know, things need to be done to address poverty,

particularly for Indigenous people in rural and remote communities.

It doesn't have to be done through a voice.

We could be implementing programs today to do stuff.

So, there's no reason why things can't be done.

Without a voice, for example.

So, to me, almost urgency might be a reason why not to have a voice.

Because that's just another body that things are going

to potentially go through.

So, it's, it's not as if things...

Have to be done through a voice to get things done.

So, so I don't see the urgency argument as, as compelling.

Um, I would have thought it is probably urgent because, um, well Marcia

Langton's not getting any younger.

It's urgent if you want to pass the voice, but if you want to do

something in Indigenous communities, that's a different matter.

Yeah, I understand that, but what you've also got to understand is

that the voice is still yet to be designed by the Parliament, still yet

to be implemented by the Parliament.

This is just making a, a part of it in our Constitution that they could

then rely on and that sort of stuff if they ever wanted to sue the government

for not actually setting the voice up.

The voice is also only something that is a, uh, what's the word I'm griping for?

Uh, is only something that is giving advice to the government,

which they are more than able to ignore if they so desire.

So, I don't think we're going to end up with, I don't think we're going to end

up in high courts or anything like that.

I don't think it's going to clog the courts with arguments that,

well, you, you didn't listen to the voice, so we're going to sue you.

It's just something that has been worked through.

It was put together with the Uluru Statement, which was a gathering

of, I don't know, a few hundred.

People and that sort of stuff.

And yes, 20 percent of them didn't, didn't want to sign up to it.

I do agree with that, but 80 percent of them did want it.

So, I would have thought if it's something that they have actually

asked for, then it's something that, um, we've got to actually.

If you said to any, if you said to any group, here's some

special stuff, do you want it?

What, what, what group is going to say no?

Yeah, okay, but what's, what's the sort of special stuff

they're going to get out of it?

All they're going to do is have an advisory body and that sort

of stuff that's going to...

Filter everything through this one body that's then going to

talk directly to government.

Can the government ignore it?

Yeah, absolutely, they can.

Of course they can.

The government can ignore it.

This has led to arguments from the no case and that sort of stuff that are

saying that you'll end up with the same problem that you had in Canada.

Where their, I can't remember what it was called, but their voice is

what it amounted to, ignored the, ignored, was ignored by the government.

So the government found themselves in court and it's only just been ruled on

by whatever their, whatever their high court is, saying that the government

can ignore the advice if they wish to.

I think that our voice will be able to do the same thing, so I don't think

we're going to end up in the court.

Yeah, I don't have a problem with that.

I don't have an issue with that.

I'm just, I'm quite I think that the largest mechanism is A, that they

contribute to the discussion, and then B, that in the event of the government

ignoring their advice, there is capacity for the, you know, there be a spokesman

or the media to actually run with that.

Yeah, exactly.

So, in the voice, we've got to say we suggested A, and

they did not take that advice.

Which is something that could be argued in a court of public opinion,

but I don't think it's going to end up in law courts or anything like that.

So it's a special right of lobbying, is essentially what's being offered here.

Yeah, okay, which is not really a big problem because they're

not getting paid for it.

Well, Scott, my problem is to do with the treatment of different

categories of people based on race.

So the problem is, alright, the actual right being granted

ultimately probably isn't going to be particularly powerful, although...

I wouldn't mind being able to sit in Parliament with a, with Parliaments

forced to be my audience while I tell them what I think should happen in the world.

And get a pretty penny for it as well.

We're not even sure, we're not even sure if they're going

to get paid for it, Scott.

Scott, companies pay a lot of money for lobbyists.

To go into Parliament and make representations.

So it's not insignificant power to be able to have that access to

people and to put forward your case.

Like, it is a right of some significance.

Now, sure, the Parliament could ignore it.

But it's genuinely a right that is going to be given and the point that we're

going to get to eventually is that this is not a right that everyone's been given.

It's a right that's been given to a particular cultural

group, Indigenous people.

And that is, that is the only problem that I've got with it.

Now, you know, Liam was talking about the culture group and that sort of stuff.

And my hair on the back of my neck went up when he started talking like

that, because, you know, culture is not something that we have to respect.

It's got to earn our respect, and there hasn't been a hell of a lot

of the cultural practices of our Indigenous brethren that I think

deserves any sort of respect.

I think that's a, it's a very tough point of view, in terms of

like, their cultural practices.

Like we've kind of been as a dominant culture and basically

wiped out their whole population, then exploited their labour.

Yeah, I agree.

They weren't allowed to vote.

Yeah, I agree.

Yeah, I agree.

And then, at this point, we're saying, oh, the culture is not

something to be respected when...

I don't know, like, there's a whole bunch of alcoholism and issues with their...

Yeah, I don't think alcoholism is part of their culture, you know, it's um...

No, but like, what are you pointing out as parts of their culture that need to...

Like, they shouldn't really even have to justify their culture to you, I feel.

Like, they should be able to exist peacefully.

In their own sort of world, and they shouldn't have to

sort of be absorbed into ours.

Yes, and then you've got the problem that, you know, you've created.

So that's, that's a good point to just repeat that again,

that they shouldn't be...

They shouldn't have to sort of justify their existence or justify their

cultural practices as significant to you to be able to practice them.

Yes, and shouldn't be absorbed into ours.

Is that right?

Yeah.

Well, I've totally, I've heard previous arguments.

Yeah, yeah, okay, so then you're going to have the, then you're going to have

the situation like they have in the Northern Territory, where, oh, it was

years ago now, there was a case, where there was a guy that was convicted,

was, was accused of rape and that sort of stuff, and they said, I will handle

it, so he spewed through his leg.

And they said, well, that's it, it's over now, rather than, rather than the cops

getting involved and that type of thing.

Yeah.

Right.

Keep, keep.

I was going to say back to when you were saying about, uh, access and

whether or not they get paid or not.

See, Aboriginal people don't get the same access that religious groups and big

companies get, and that's through money.

So maybe this is a way for Aboriginal groups to have some sort of...

Always up there that that, that the power and the money has

been able to get totally before.

Okay.

I'm conscious.

That makes sense.

I'm conscious that we're chopping and changing here, so I wanna run through

to the end of some of these rabbit holes before we move to another one.

Just just back to this comment, 'cause it's a crucial one is about

being absorbed into our culture.

John, I promise you we'll come back to that.

Hold that thought and bring it back.

One of the things I find in this, Liam, is.

We're talking about closing the gap and what, what is often measured there in

terms of the gap is education levels, health levels, wealth and income levels.

Um, these sorts of, you know.

How many doctors do we have that are Indigenous?

How many Indigenous people have a degree, a PhD?

How many are in the middle class, upper class?

And so one of the things that we do with figuring out whether

we've closed the gap is measure Indigenous people by their success.

in our society.

So, if we're going to say Indigenous people don't have to merge into our

society and take on our culture, then how can we then insist that key criteria

Uh, matching up, and how can we be surprised then if we don't have the same

number of doctors, lawyers, teachers?

Because if we're saying to people, keep your own lifestyle, do your own

culture, you don't have to merge into ours, but then we start measuring things

about how well they've done in typical features of our culture, I'm okay

with saying, you don't have to merge.

But then you have to acknowledge that, that the counting criteria

is flawed, the assessment criteria isn't going to make sense.

You're on mute, is it?

I can't hear Liam.

No, no, they can't.

No, I still can't hear you.

What's going on?

You must have muted it.

Oh, there's a little bug there.

Is that back?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I accidentally muted myself.

Okay, so, yep, in terms of that, I think, yeah, tend to agree with the A few

things there, and maybe disagree on some.

So I think the criteria that we're measuring by are inherently sort of our

cultural criteria, and that ideally in a perfect world they wouldn't, um, they

wouldn't just be absorbed and that would be, you know, but they like they will

realistically I think before when I was talking to Scott, it felt like they're

having to justify their existence and their culture to even exist, right?

Which I feel is like fundamentally wrong.

Well, I don't think they need to justify their existence to us.

You know, it's, they exist.

You know, it's, and you know, on the 26th of January, I'm very much with

them, I think we should change the date, you know, it is a, um, you know,

it's, it's a celebration of invasion, really, is what it comes down to.

So I think we've actually got to change that.

Okay, so anyway.

Anyway, that's something else that's going to be done.

We're diverging again.

Okay.

Dictate Trevor's argument.

I think, go on Trevor.

No, I think you kind of agreed with me, didn't you?

That, uh, that there is an issue that if you're not going to

join into the Western culture...

I think everything needs to come to the table a little bit, right?

Like, there is going to be some assimilation, there's

not like, you know...

We can draw a line in the sand and they exist over there, and

like, we're far past that point.

Um, I'm just making the point that they should be able to have their own

culture and have a sort of quality, uh, quality of life similar to that

of, uh, you know, the Western European kind of people on the continent.

Um, But yeah, that will involve some integration, um, so, I just...

Won't it disappear though, Liam?

Sorry, Landon.

If, if you're bringing up the average of forest rate on a level of, um,

what do you call it, the general quality of life, won't that make...

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders more like us, to put it bluntly?

Well, I think, yeah, there's going to be some level of assimilation, I think.

There's going to and probably over time, would they be sort of

realistically distinct or not?

I don't know if you went far enough into the future, but I think for, like, right

now, they should be able to exist as I sort of have their own practices and

cultural norms and things and not have to do exactly the same way that we do.

And then, sorry I'm sort of losing my my track here, but I feel the the argument

from Trevor, right, is that where Yeah.

I'm basically saying that if you're not aiming to bring Indigenous people

into the modern Western lifestyle in Australia, and if you're wanting

to keep them in a traditional Indigenous lifestyle in a remote...

Town or area, then it's really unfair to expect these key criteria

to match up if it is my point.

And so closing the gap is a problem if people are not going to, uh, assimilate

into the, into our lifestyle to a significant degree because otherwise

you just can't expect those things to a few metrics, right, that you could

probably highlight as, you know, they could be culturally distinct and then

still not, um, have what they have.

So like, you know, the lower life expectancy, ideally you'd be able to

have, live in your own sort of ways, but have a similar life expectancy.

You'd also expect to not have their So, such a high proportion of their youth

sort of locked up behind bars, so they're kind of two key issues, I think, that

are issues at the moment, and that, you know, they could, they can have like

in a healthy society or healthy sort of culture town exist with their own culture.

But not have everyone, you know, going through the courts and being locked up

in But don't something like 90 percent of Aboriginal people live in suburbia?

Aren't they already essentially assimilating?

So there are, yes, there are.

There are some, so I think we're probably talking about,

there is different groups here.

There are probably people assimilating, living in...

There's probably low socioeconomic groups that are probably more remote and,

you know, where there is large issues.

So yeah, it's not all sort of, they're not all the same.

I mean, there's an emerging middle class of Indigenous people and I'll take a

punt that they're living in urban areas.

Technically, I'm one of them.

So, um.

Aboriginal in my community.

Yeah.

So, uh, my point is if we want Indigenous people to join the middle class, we

probably need to get them out of remote communities where there's nothing to do.

There's a whole range of social problems that come out of that living condition

and it's an unrealistic expectation that people could live in those communities

with nothing to do with a social welfare system that's going to prop them up

and not have drug, alcohol violence.

Uh, um.

So yeah, so I'm just sort of caught your point about assimilation, if you like,

or expecting Indigenous people to adopt Western lifestyle, and I'm saying, I don't

expect them to if they don't want to.

It's just, don't complain if the metrics don't add up to

the same as an urban lifestyle.

I would agree to that to the point, like if you want to live a life out

in the bush, hunting, game or doing something, um, I would probably not expect

you to have the same life expectancy as someone sitting in metropolitan

Brisbane living a fairly cosy life, uh, with all the access to healthcare.

Uh, however, I would think that there are certain metrics that

should be closer than they are.

So, the ones I pointed out.

Yeah, for sure.

So, circling all the way back to the beginning about urgency as your very

first point, um, it's urgent to get the voice passed in the sense that

if it doesn't happen this time, it's not going to happen for a long time.

But if you disagree with the voice...

And that's not an argument for the voice, do you know what I mean?

So, yeah, so what is urgent, what is urgent is, is helping people out in

particularly remote communities, and that can be done without the voice.

So isn't that going to, is it going to end down, isn't it going to end up

then Trevor, it's going to be a top down approach where government decides

what's good for you and that sort of stuff, and they'll chuck money at it.

Yeah, I know, which is exactly what they're complaining about.

Whereas if you give them a voice and that sort of thing, if you

actually listen to them, then you might actually find out that the

programs could be better targeted.

That you could have...

Have we not been listening?

I don't think we've been listening to them.

How do you know that?

Well, I don't know that, but I'm just looking at, I'm just looking at the

results and I think to myself that.

Ah, so the results are poor.

Yeah.

Because we have not been listening.

Um.

That's your evidence for us not listening.

We haven't been consulting, we haven't, uh, when major decisions have made, I

would agree with that because we haven't You've had a different commission.

We, yeah.

I, my biggest argument along those lines is I think there

just needs to be continuity.

So there was the four different bodies that were stood up and disbanded.

Yep.

And I'll get to continuity.

It's on the list.

Well, yeah.

Along this point though, we're talking if you, if you put it

into the constitution, victorious can't come in and just scrap it.

No, but it's, Scott, you said we haven't been concerned.

We haven't, they haven't had a voice, they haven't been consulted.

If we ask them what they want, then something might be done.

And my question to you is, how do you know that people have not been consulted?

Well, I don't know, because I'm not part of that group or anything like that.

When I've looked at reports on different things, like I looked

at one, because we spoke a few weeks ago about, um, what was it?

It was the income management.

Uh, issue, um, in the Northern Territory with, uh, social welfare

cards and things like that.

And, you know, one of the things that strikes me about these inquiries is the

enormous level of stakeholder engagement.

Of going into communities and seeking opinion from people on the ground.

That's what strikes me with a lot of these big decisions.

Yeah, okay.

But how many of them were consulted for the, um, intervention

and that type of thing?

I think, well, onto his, like, current point though, I think.

There is, like, consultation, but then there's also continued, sort of,

improvement, which is, I think, Dan goes back to my point about continuity.

We need to have programs, and they need to have the time and space to change

and see what works, and then properly implement it for a long period of time.

As you know, I am in the party, but any politicians in such a bubble, when

they talk about consultation about anything, it's very rarely coming

from the people, it's always coming from whoever shouts the loudest.

But there's no continuity or, um, uh, politicians hearing what needs the top.

Well, I can just say that on some of the major decisions where reports are done.

You can see there's an enormous level of on the ground consultation

to work out what's going on.

And we've got people in the Parliament who are Indigenous.

So, just, uh, you know, there is this notion put forward

that they haven't had a voice.

You know, most, most cultural groups are, uh, a department, say education,

the education department's going to make some changes and, uh, to religious

instruction or whatever, you know, they'll go outside and consult with, uh, groups

like, um, Queensland Parents for Secular Schools, that various religious groups

get their feedback and, and then report to the minister and make a decision.

And then totally ignore it.

Exactly.

Exactly.

But that's the normal process of government is to the department going

out and reaching out to stakeholders.

So the Indigenous example has been a little bit unusual

in that within government.

There has been five different commissions set up by government to say, we're

going to give you some help here with giving us stakeholder feedback.

So we had five that, and then there's a history of them

failing and being disbanded.

And here we are with nothing.

I think Julia, the moment a point there, isn't it that that ALP usually set them up

and the leads tear them back down again?

Is that Yeah.

But is that an argument for the Yes.

Vote to, to keep one of them going?

So, so, you know my po my point is that stakeholder groups are normally

outside of government and departments would go out to them and consult.

And we have had a series of different groups.

Funded by government, working like ATSIC, actually delivering government programs.

So, it's, it's, it's just a furthy to say, for the last 40 years, we

haven't been listening at all to what people, Indigenous people have to say.

And it's as if there's some secret, some secret solution, that if only...

We'd had the voice, we would have been able to tell the government, Oh,

here's the silver bullet, or here's ten silver bullets, but never got acted

on, because nobody listened to us.

But I've yet to hear what these things are that never got up

because nobody was listening.

And if I was running a campaign for the Yes campaign, I'd be saying, right,

tell me, tell me concrete examples of things that have been missed

because we didn't have the voice.

And if we had it, then this would have been different.

And I haven't heard one.

Look, I'm not in the detail of individual programs, but on your, like, point about

consultation, I think the biggest issue is there's consultation, possibly, but

whether it's actually listened to or not is probably the, the bigger issue.

And I agree with that.

I agree with that.

I agree that it may not have been listened to, but the first part of your sentence

was there's probably been consultation.

Yeah.

And there's no guarantee that the voice...

Is going to mean it's going to be listened to.

Yeah, this isn't like a black and white thing, right?

Like if we have the voice, it doesn't magic bullet solve all our issues.

If we do have the voice though, there is a continuous part in the government

that can keep relaying these messages to government that this should work or this

won't work and we can keep improving.

Yeah.

Okay, so let's move on to, um, overcoming inconsistency.

Of regularly disbanded bodies, all right, so that's an advantage that you see in, in

this, this proposal and look, there's no doubt that it would mean it'll ne there'll

always be something because it's just got to be according to the constitution.

I think I know where you're heading with this.

It might be one dude in a shed in the NT or it could be a full

blown body across the country.

It requires money.

Yeah, if, if, if Tony Abbott or somebody like Morrison or you know,

somebody just doesn't like the idea of it gets in, uh, they, it's so, you

know, the proposal is so vague that there's no compulsion for a massive

infrastructure to do the job properly.

So if funding's not provided, then.

The whole thing just, um, could be just a, a useless shell of a, of a, of a voice.

There's no guarantee that the government will fund anything

of significance by this.

It could be, as you say, a handful of people in a shed, if, if it's

a government that is of that mind.

There's probably two points I'd say on that.

So the first is if the referendum passes, then that would be a sort

of strong indication from the people that this is something that they want.

And it would be unpopular for a government to go in and sort of cut

all the, cut the whole thing to shreds.

Uh, the second part is that, uh, look.

It's not a perfect solution, uh, but it's probably the best that we can do,

given, so, you know, we've had bodies stood up and taken down, and then this

gives at least some level of permanence.

So, yes, the Libs could trash it the next time they get in government,

sure, but that's impossible to stop.

Yeah, um, so, so, so I've said my bits on urgency.

And overcoming inconsistency, and you've also said that, look, Indigenous,

um, people have issues that are different because of location and

culture to other poor people, I think is what you're sort of getting at.

Am I right that they need a special body?

to deal with their peculiar circumstances.

Is that...

I would say that when you're designing a program to assist any

sort of group of people, if they have distinctive characteristics,

then you need to have the program...

work along those lines.

So, um, yeah.

And, and there's, without a voice, there's nothing stopping

a government giving an opinion.

No, no, it's again, like, we're like wrapping around on, like you, in a

perfect world, you can do all these things, but the problem is that they'll

probably take longer than three years, or maybe six years, and then when the

Liberals get in and they just pull the pin on the program, that can...

The voice isn't going to change any of that.

Didn't you think that, um...

Yeah, what I'm saying is, this is not the silver bullet, but

it is a chance to make progress.

Political pressure, Mike, Trev.

Yeah, so there, yeah, there is the element I was talking about before,

so it's a referendum that passes, so there is some political pressure

not to just gut the whole thing.

But yeah, look, if you, if you were a government that, you know, didn't want

to help Indigenous Australians, then of course there's avenues for you to...

Just cut the entire thing and throw programs out the window and, you know,

shift blame onto the body, which I think is what I read in one article,

what's happened with ATSICS, so like, yeah, there are avenues where as a

government, you could tear it all down.

Yep.

So it, it, it might, um, it might do something, but it doesn't, but my point

is by its very nature, it doesn't, doesn't solve any of these problems.

It might just add a little bit of weight to make it a little bit more embarrassing

to shut down an Indigenous commission, but these people are beyond embarrassment.

Your argument now is verging into the, you know, it doesn't go far enough.

You know, we're doing too little.

No, um, cause I'm saying it's a balancing act and I'm saying that

the benefits that are obtained from the voice are, I consider, small.

And then we get to the negative of the racism aspect.

Okay.

And so what I'm, previous, uh, 38 minutes was about...

In my mind, the benefits aren't as strong or as good or as powerful as people think.

And, and on the other side, I have an issue with the inherent racism in the

proposal, which I think outweighs it.

So, um...

So it's not a case of saying it doesn't go far enough, which you'd need to do more,

it's, it doesn't add much, and the problem is it comes attached with this other

big disadvantage of racism, so, uh, Can you explain the racism part a bit more?

So I feel like, you know, there's the, there's the racism brand, which

seems bad, but this is like, you know, positive racism, basically,

I would sort of liken it to.

Yeah, yeah.

So, but also very, very mild.

Positive racism, giving very mild powers to a small part of the

population who historically we've done absolutely horrendous things to.

Yeah, so it is a form of positive racism.

Um, the problem with that is when you...

Open the door to saying it's okay to provide special rights based on

cultural groups than other cultural, than your argument to deny other

cultural groups special rights.

Starts to fall away.

So when a Christian...

a slippery slope kind of thing going on.

Uh, well, hear me out.

When a Christian...

See, when, you know, last eight years we've spent rallying

against Christians wanting special privileges, who say, we're different.

Because of our culture, we need to group together so we can only employ

people as math teachers who are Christians, because we're special.

And in my argument, the first thing that I think of with these issues is We're

all, we all have the same equal rights.

You Christians are not special.

You have to work in the same system that we all have to work in.

And if you start saying, uh, cultural groups can have different rights, then

you can no longer maintain that argument.

You are saying, well, you can have different rights for different cultural

groups if it's a positive thing.

Right, and I would say it's a positive thing in a very rare exceptional

circumstance, given the fact that it's sort of over a hundred years.

And you know what, if 99, 90, 85, 80 percent, if 90 percent

of Indigenous people were...

Uh, uh, poor and disadvantaged.

It was so close to a hundred percent.

You thought it just doesn't matter.

It's like indigenous equals poor and disadvantaged.

Then I'd be inclined to say, okay, let's just, let's just say all indigenous people

need, need these special rights because they're all disadvantaged, but they're

not, there's a burgeoning middle class and upper class of indigenous people.

There are, there's a spectrum of, of success and disadvantage

in indigenous communities.

So I'm all about.

Helping people who are disadvantaged.

And, dear listener, if you've tuned into this and you've never heard this before,

triple, quadruple the amount of money that goes to poor Indigenous communities.

Fine with that.

But you just have to make the distinction that people should get

this money and advantages and help.

Because they're disadvantaged, not because they are part of a cultural group.

You need to look within that.

And the problem with the voice is, it's ignoring class.

It's saying that Indigenous people, uh, as a cultural group,

will get these particular rights.

And I have a real problem with that.

And so I accept that my emphasis on equal rights is, is...

May be higher than other people, because of my experience with religion and

what I think of that in particular.

And it's just me.

And other people may say, yeah, that's not such an important thing.

Uh, can live with some, some good racism, and I don't care about these arguments.

Um, but, I do.

And so I prioritize that, and that's my judgment that that's, uh, more

important than the other factors that we've just talked about.

Yep.

Look, I can, I can understand all that.

I would say that I don't weigh that nearly as highly as you seem to.

Um, I also don't see the sort of slippery slope of us undermining

our general premise of how we operate, um, through sort of, like,

giving the okay to this one voice.

So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Can I.

Okay, can I say that, um, I think Marcia Langton, in a previous form,

an earlier format, kind of agreed with me on the importance of, of...

So, I'll just, um, go through some of my notes here a little bit, but we had a, um,

an expert panel on recognizing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, uh,

in the Constitution 2012 and a joint select committee, um, shortly after that.

And in an article, um, Where, and, and, and so this is in 2013, 2015,

and they were saying, what should we do to recognize indigenous

people in the Constitution?

And what they came up with at that point after consultation was, let's get rid of

the race provisions in the Constitution, and let's put in a section that recognizes

the history that indigenous people were here first, and that they suffered.

And, and that was the proposal that came out in 2012 2013,

recognition of Indigenous culture and people and their history.

And removing the specific race provisions in the Constitution.

Now, that, I could agree with.

Not a problem.

All perfectly fine.

When people say, Oh, this changed the voice, it's about recognising people.

I say, No, it's not.

It's more than that.

We've moved beyond what was proposed in 2012 2013.

If they had stuck to that proposal, The referendum would get up,

because it doesn't, it doesn't have a racist element to it.

And people would say, fair enough, that's history, and yeah, let's get

rid of race from the constitution.

And Marcia Langton at the time, wrote an article...

Basically saying, we need to get race out of the constitution,

it shouldn't be there.

And we should move to a situation where we're just talking about, being

indigenous is just an interesting little sideline, and it doesn't make

who you are, and what's important is let's look after disadvantaged people.

Like, that's what she was saying back then.

And it's Noel Pearson and the Uluru Statement.

That introduced the idea of the voice, and that's the one where your average

Australian, who's not a racist, I mean, there are racist Australians, of course,

but the people who are voting no in this referendum are people who are saying,

I think we're all should be the same.

I think we should treat people equally.

I don't think I'm special.

I don't think anybody else is special.

I think we should all have the same rights and just help out poor people.

That's what people are objecting to the idea of, of racial, um,

categorization and, and division.

The, the irony in this argument, the debate in Australia has

been appalling in that the...

No voters, well, the yes voters are accusing all no voters of

being racist, and you could be.

As in my case right now, if you understand the argument, dear listener, is you're

trying to be as race blind as possible.

That's the issue.

And these people are being accused of racism.

So, um, So, so if they'd have stuck to the original 2012 2013 idea, without

introducing the voice, it would get up.

And...

Yeah, but would that make a difference, Trevor?

Would...

No.

None of this makes a difference.

No, there's...

Nothing is going to make a difference, because ultimately, nobody's able to,

to deal with the hard, uncomfortable truth in this whole thing.

So none of it's going to make a difference.

It's all window dressing.

Uh, I would disagree with that.

I think it can make a difference.

If you had a body that's set up and listened to by the government

for a continued period of time, then it could make a difference.

Why, why hasn't, why hasn't it made any difference in the last 40 years?

Because they tore it apart.

They tear everybody down.

Like no, no body's lasted, I don't know, what's the longest

duration of any one of the four?

And then, yeah, and then also, you know, you get Liberal governments

which have been fairly dismissive of the Indigenous peoples.

We had, uh, the NACC was from 1977 to 1985.

We had ATSIC for 15 years, 1990 to 2005.

So, none of these, nobody wants to deal with that.

I'd have to, like, go into...

Well, I'd have to do more research into how all these bodies function,

what programs they ran and then, you know, how much they were funded

and listened to by the government.

But like, but what's the, what's the, what's the policy that's, that's been

missing that the voice proponents say, we needed this and we didn't get

it because we didn't have a voice.

If only we'd had it.

No, we're not disputing that they haven't had a voice at different points in time.

No, the idea, the policy.

Like, the whole point of this is there are ideas that Indigenous

people have about how to improve the lives of Indigenous people.

And the reason that we have not been able to do something is because nobody's

been listening to us about these ideas.

I don't think that's...

Not just listening.

It's about putting them into positions where they can sort

of control their own destiny.

But the voice is about nobody's listening to us.

That's the crux of the voice, is nobody's listening, we need a

voice to tell Parliament stuff.

And I've yet to hear the argument that says, like, A, B, C and D, if only

you'd listened to these ideas, we'd have been somewhere different by now.

I think it probably goes down more to sort of like lower level, like, smaller

programs in different communities, like, they're all not homogenous.

Yeah, yeah, well...

This, you know, that is true.

So one of the things out of, uh, particularly with the, um, income

management program, which the reports I was reading, which was sort of post

the event and interviewing people afterwards as to what they thought, 50 50.

In these communities about whether they thought it was a good idea,

the income management or not.

And so one of the things that come from it was, uh, different

regions have different desires and wants and needs and circumstances.

And so, uh, so yeah, in fact, in fact, if that is correct, and if, um, If

there's a spectrum of answers to things, quite often the role of the voice

would be to say, you know what, in this community we should be doing A, B, C,

and in that community D, E, F, and this community over here is completely split.

It would be hard for the voice to make a recommendation on, um, income

management if they looked at the results in some communities where

it was 50 50, and they'd go, well...

Some want it and some don't.

It, uh, it, uh, a lot of the reports are showing that regional

solutions are what's needed.

I don't know that a central body in Canberra is necessarily the

right place to start if the, if regional answers are the solution.

Yeah, but they're also, they're also saying that a certain number

of those representatives have got to be from the regions, don't they?

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's true.

That is true.

And there's also like, you know, different levels of represent like different levels

of government for different things.

So the federal government could be mainly around sort of Giving up funding

and you know, which programs continue to go ahead or which don't and making

fairly high level decisions But then really pushing down the majority of money

and you know autonomy to lower levels.

Yeah But you know what all the money in the world for people in

remote Locations with nothing to do who have been . Yeah, you need to

fix the root cause of this issue.

Heard it intertribal, um, groups who just fight all the time, then all the money

in the world doesn't solve that problem.

Some of these problems are actually insolvable without, without

dislocating people from the land.

And nobody's going to do that.

I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that.

I think that's, you know, they're more creative.

Like you can start up businesses or, you know, you kind of need to give people

meaningful things to do with their life.

So, I'm not sure exactly what that means, but there's surely got to be

mechanisms to do that without taking them away from wherever they are.

I don't think that you can just set up a business out there though, because you're

going to end up with, um, you're going to end up with a problem that you're not

going to have clients or anything else.

Businesses only, only prosper where there's clients.

And what Trevor's talking about is a.

Very remote area where there's a five or six people living, so, you know, you're

not going to be able to Get a very large customer base from five or six people.

Yeah I think as a...

Unless you're doing some sort of, you know...

Yeah Ultimately, that's why I see it as hopeless for remote communities in,

uh, there's just no solution to bring those people and bridge the gap while

they continue to live in those, while they continue to live in those areas.

And they're the ones who most concern me.

And, and ultimately.

What's required there is, is cultural evolution, um, where we say, you

know what, there's some parts of culture that were great, uh, 300

years ago, but are just not going to work in the current environment.

So, uh, if you continue this way, it's not going to be successful.

In, in, in the metrics that we measure for closing the gap,

it's just, it's just impossible.

And the sort of people who are going to be in The Voice are unlikely to recommend

cultural evolution, because to me, they seem like people who are in the industry

of maintaining Indigenous cultural purity and They would perhaps be the last

people to, to, to give up on culture.

I don't, they don't need to give up on culture, we're talking

about sort of in evolutions.

Give up on a significant part of it, the land component.

The attachment to land.

That's a big part of it.

And also, I agree with some of your points around, like, it's going to be almost

impossible to, you know, education and living standards for people out there.

I'd point to the bigger problems being, you know, the communities that are

in sort of semi metropolitan areas.

I don't know, uh, what's that?

Townsville or something like that.

Where there is sort of like a youth justice issue.

Yeah.

Um, and you know, we've got...

90 percent of Indigenous kids might like being in juveniles.

90 percent of juvenile.

Kids being locked up for Indigenous.

So, they're things that, you know, we can actually bridge the gap on

and aren't these sort of very rural issues that you're talking about.

And I think, you know, you'd probably, if you really wanted to be clever

with the stats, you'd maybe make some allowances for things like that.

So you could probably segment the Indigenous population by the people

living in, you know, non remote areas.

And that would be a far more fair representation of the stats.

And I don't know if they'd do that or not.

Was that sorry, John?

Sorry, mate, maybe that's where the voice of hell pointing to areas like...

Education, especially, and um, juvenile detention or that sort of thing.

I think education's the key.

Yeah, education's a big one.

But also, it's a whole, it's a whole span of issues, right?

Like, you've got kids that have parents who don't have a purpose and are

struggling with their own issues, and then you've also got poverty, putting them

out on the streets or not enough food, and then you've kind of got boredom, not

being, and then yeah, education as well, not being in schools and things like that.

So it's, there's no one simple solution to the sort of youth justice

issue faced by Indigenous people.

As long as you don't end up going down the road where that woman that was arguing

for the, what was she arguing for, Trevor?

She was arguing that they should have education in their own language.

Rather than English.

Well, amongst a bunch of other things.

Yes.

Yeah, that would be...

Yeah, was that a couple of episodes ago?

Yeah, I wasn't particularly involved with those suggestions.

So, yeah.

I think, yeah, everyone needs to come to the table a little bit.

Well, I don't know that I've got a lot of pressing other bits to say about it.

I mean, have you, Liam?

I mean...

Uh, no, look, I think if I were to summarise our positions, I think

you weigh the rights element.

quite highly, whereas I don't value it nearly as much.

Um, I think that this, I would feel more inspired that this is actually

an opportunity for change, rather than I feel you are quite cynical

of the process being a, you know, mechanism that will actually help.

Um, I think they're the two main things that I feel we sort of disagree on.

Mm-hmm.

Is there another one?

Mm-hmm.

Uh, no.

I was, um, I did mention just briefly that Marcia Langton, after that sort

of 2013 period was quite happy with just a more modest proposal, which

was, let's get rid of race and let's, um, let's just recognize history and

suffering and put it in the constitution.

I think that would be fine.

People would have been on board with that.

My...

My emphasis on downplaying race and, and upplaying class disadvantage, I think is,

um, you know, now that's just personally me compared to you, um, but I'm not alone

in that some of the great American black activist thinkers Were along the same

lines in many cases, or mentioned multiple times, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X,

um, I think I previously mentioned, uh, Franz Fanon and Amira Baraka.

I mean, these are people who are making comments like, Let's stop

talking about race and deal with it.

It's a class issue.

And that's how American black activists moved.

Our black activists have not moved in that direction yet.

Look, I can, I can see the, the pros of that argument.

I just think that, yeah, I feel that there, this is such an

opportunity for change and that, um,

I feel that it's also such a small, small right that's being

granted, that, uh, it's just a body that can, you know, have a voice.

Um, and I feel that kind of is something that's also quite heavy

in how I've sort of judged this.

They're really asking for like so very little, um, and we don't seem

to even want to be granting that.

So yeah, like I can, I can, I've listened to the previous episodes on and heard

those arguments, um, and maybe if the race thing was more prominent in this for

me, I just don't think it really is that.

They get a small body that can have a voice to Parliament and

then hopefully it can do some good.

Um, that's kind of where I sit.

I'll let you finish on that highlight, if you like, Liam.

Highlight?

Lowlight?

Who knows?

See, dear listener, I don't have to get the last word in every time.

He says getting the last word in.

Well, should we have a show of hands?

Who's planning on voting yes?

Um, I'm still undecided.

You're still Eced . Hard job.

We couldn't get you to make a decision after.

Well, I, I certainly agree with both of your points a lot.

I'm really worried about that.

What I term as identity policy, um, aspect of it.

You know, the people I'm aboriginal in my community.

Yeah.

Two of my sons are aboriginal community.

Two older ones aren't.

Does that mean two of them could get on this commission and two couldn't?

That, that, that worries me.

I don't know.

Yes.

I don't think they've actually said.

That's what it means.

I don't think they've actually, I don't think they've actually said what they're

going to do to actually say, you know, Are they going to do blood tests to

determine whether or not someone can vote?

Yeah, I mean, that's the bit that worries me and leans me towards no.

The bit that leans me towards yes is that I think all these commissions

that have been there in the past, um, were basically getting run down

from the get go, you know, they only lasted as long as they did till...

Um, somebody got in with enough power to dismiss them, so if a voice gets in, maybe

there will be more access to Parliament.

Which is going to help things along a bit.

Yeah, which is, you know, Trevor's made the whole point about there being

lobby groups and that sort of stuff.

Um, considering the history and all that type of thing, would it be

such a bad thing if the government actually gave them a lobbying,

um, straight into the, straight into the halls of power, you know?

It certainly would be more power than what, like I'm a member, um, and quite

heavily involved in my local Labor branch.

Yeah.

Okay.

I can tell you the voice will get them a lot more access than members do.

I was arguing that I was arguing with our local South Wales MP on, uh, Monday

before last of our branch meeting, and they, they're quite happy to continue on

L N p, um, uh, policies, um, because it's convenient for them and all their local

branches are screaming at 'em, but, you know, we're not getting anywhere with it.

Ah, democracy.

You know, Liam, I've got a nickname for you when you come on next time.

You're, you're the Scott Whisperer.

No, I was leaning towards a yes vote right from word go.

You know, he's, he's not Scott Whisperer, you know, and he's only, he's only

got me to vote for the Greens for two terms just to hopefully kick the Labor

Party in the pants so they actually start to behave themselves again.

Yeah, I'll come back in two terms, Scott, and we can have another debate.

Yeah, alright.

Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna call this, uh, done

and dusted for this episode.

Um, I'm gonna look, uh, for another topic where Liam can

convince Scott to change his mind.

He has not convinced me to change my mind.

I'm now going to come in here and justify my position to you, Trevor.

I'm just joking, Scott.

Fair enough.

You, uh, you told me you're already a yes.

Yeah, I know.

I mean, next time, Trevor, we can go on, um, I can push back a bit about polls

and Ukraine, there's the other two.

Oh, now you're tempting me.

I think if you were to come on here, John, and argue with him about Ukraine,

you're going to have me supporting you, you're going to have Joe supporting

you, and, you know, it's just...

How's that counter offensive going?

The counter offensive is actually starting to make some progress, but it is very,

very slow because they are trying to take out some heavily fortified areas.

Apparently they are within striking, artillery striking

range of the main supply route, going down to the crime area.

And as soon as they can move artillery up there, then the

war changes quite significantly.

So my, my, my issue is in the middle.

Um, I, I feel Trev that you think that Russia was justified.

Is that true?

Uh, they were provoked and they told you what they were gonna do and they,

that's, that's very different though.

And provoked, they did what every other superpower would do.

Yes.

Yeah.

But do think was justified.

Do I justified?

Tricky word.

So every other superpower would steal, would steal the children, take them

back to their own country and give them to their childless citizens?

Can we just stick with the invasion to start with?

Alright, so the, the invasion is, that's where I'm in the middle, I, I

agree with you Trevor that America has, is everything that you say they are.

Was, was NATO justified in...

No,

I don't think any major power is justified installing their,

um, ideals on other countries.

So what you've said just doesn't necessarily, isn't necessarily the case.

Yes, but then it comes back to, like every, you know, pseudo invasion that

America's done, was Russia justified in taking some of the population who

wanted to be with Russia and doing a full scale invasion of the whole country?

If, if the majority of the population wanted to be in Russia, Is anyone

justified in stopping them?

I don't think you're getting the...

No, no, no, it's totally different.

You can't justify an invasion for anything.

I'm sorry, you can't.

In 92,

they had, um, referendums and every province had a majority.

That wanted to be part of Ukraine, including Crimea.

Crimea was one of the highest...

We went through the polls that puts all that into question.

Yeah, and that's the other part that I disagree with you.

Polls, if you have a poll to answer...

Well, you just used one.

No, no, they had a referendum.

That's a big difference to a poll.

My main point is...

That's a really big difference.

The main point with Russia is, and the Ukraine is...

The Ukraine has to give in.

Whether you think it's justified or not doesn't matter.

It's, what's done is done.

What matters is what you do.

And it's, it's criminal what they're doing in just sending young and now

middle aged and old men in to be blown up in a minefield for no good reason.

But you can't point the finger at Australia or Ukraine with

that, with that including Russia.

Because they're doing the same thing.

Well, blame both then.

I mean, nobody's innocent.

Nobody's innocent and all sides are to blame.

How's that?

Definitely.

You can't just say, you can't just say Ukraine should sue

for peace rights right now.

So can I say all sides, can I say that all sides are at fault?

Yes, definitely.

There you go.

There we go.

I'm happy with it.

But I think Ukraine has to give in.

No, they won't.

Well, they won't.

Do you think they should?

No, I don't think they should.

So you've, how, you got any sons?

You got a son?

No, no, no, no, that's not the point.

No, it is the point.

It is precisely the point, John, that young men are being sent to a battlefield

where there is no hope of victory.

And they're getting slaughtered.

Um, yes, but equally on both sides.

Russia invaded.

So they're sending their young men in.

The point, yes, but the point is Ukraine is throwing young men against machine

guns in the same way that The British told our boys to get out of the trench and

start running towards those machine guns.

And we said at the time...

The difference is they're defending their own country.

They don't.

That's a huge difference.

The big thing about it is they're both hopeless wastes of life that they

should be ashamed of for continuing.

Yeah, both sides should be ashamed.

But you can't say, as soon as Ukraine sues for peace, all right, then, okay,

yes, we're going to save lives now.

Yes.

Alright.

But Russia wants the whole of Ukraine.

Live to fight another day.

You live to fight another day.

At some point...

You'll have another war in 10 years.

You may well do, but guess what?

You get 10 years to regroup, and you get to save lives.

Yeah, but you've got 10 years.

That gives the Russians 10 years of opportunity to get

themselves set up for it too.

You know what should happen?

Everyone in favour of this should grab their...

21 year old son, put him in the tank and send him off with a kiss.

So you're telling me I'm not in favour of it?

No, you are.

You're telling me that they should keep fighting.

I'm telling you the Ukrainians should stop and you're saying

they should keep fighting.

You're saying more young men should be sent into a hopeless battle.

I'm saying, it is a hopeless battle.

The evidence is the line's not moving.

The Russians have fortified that line.

It's not moving.

It's not worth the cost of human life to regain some territory so that

you can call it Ukrainian territory.

It's not worth it.

It's not worth it must be worth it for them.

Because their country's being voted.

It's only, it's, it's not worth it to, it's easy for, it's easy for the

people in charge to send young men in there if they're not their young men.

It's easy for people to sit back here and say, Ukrainians should fight till the last

Ukrainian, and they shouldn't give up.

Well, it's not them who are actually doing the fighting and the dying, so,

so someone, the dying Australia then.

So if someone invaded Australia for whatever reason, take out the, the

theological of it, so, so if someone invaded and took over the top half, we

could just, we just sue for peace and say, all right, you can have that top half now.

Yes, if there was a trench line, heavily fortified that invading forces had set

up, and it was a hopeless situation to try and breach that trench, then yes, I

would say Let's give up, regroup, save our men, and live to fight another day.

And if I was in Ukraine, you don't need the hypothetical.

If I was in charge of Ukraine, I'd be saying, Let's, uh,

let's not try and breach this.

Let's...

Regroup, and we're going to have to settle a new border.

So when the Nazis invaded Western Europe, Uh, the UK should have

just said, Okay, that's it.

War's over.

We'll sue for peace.

Well, they had a chance of winning.

The Ukrainians don't.

The Ukrainians do.

I think that's...

They don't have a chance.

The Ukrainians do, yeah.

They don't have a chance.

They do.

It's hopeless.

But it was hopeless as day one of the war.

They were going to be invaded.

They were going to be overrun within a matter of days.

No, no, it was worth fighting then.

I'm not saying they shouldn't have been fighting then, but now that this line's

been established, heavily fortified...

And it's been broken.

They've taken Robitine.

No, it hasn't.

There's no Brit...

There's no, there's no count...

successful counter offensive.

I just think you're misjudging it, Trevor, because, you know, it's one of those

things, a war's not over in 90 minutes.

A war takes a very long time to get, uh, get moving and that sort of stuff.

When the breakout actually happens, then you will see, then you will see either

a very successful Ukrainian counter offensive or a very successful Russian.

What, what would you say if in 12 months time, it's apparent the line never shifted

to where we're talking about today?

If it was in 12 months time, then I'd actually, then, then I'd actually.

And another 5, 000 young Ukrainian men have died between now and then.

Would you just say, oh, that's a shame, got it, got that one, gosh, sorry.

I dunno.

I don't know what I'd say, but I think to myself, you the line, what to say?

If the line, if the line hasn't shifted in 12 months time, then I think then

he is that at that stage then he is actually gotta throw in the town and

say, look and go to the bastard in Moscow and say, right, you can keep

what you've already taken, but you know you're not gonna take anymore.

What do you say took all those Ukrainian women who have lost their sons, brothers,

husbands, fathers, Between now and in the next 12 months if the line doesn't

move, and it's, and they're wasted.

I don't think you can actually argue that the line hasn't moved.

No, I agree with Scott there, and, and you can also say, it's like World War One.

No one, no, everyone was going to keep the war going while

they thought they could win.

As soon as Germany realised that they couldn't win, the war was over.

And it'll be the same here.

As soon as one side realises that they can't win, Then it'll be over.

At the moment, both sides think they can win.

Yeah, I'd, if I can jump in, I don't follow this a hell of a lot.

That's, like, I'm kind of on board a little bit of both.

So I think, like, there's a shocking loss of life, which is terrible,

and I also very much object to sending people to war, generally

from the, you know, political arm.

Um, so, but I also do feel that...

If the Ukrainian people do want to try, then they also do have a

right to try breaching the line, if that's what they want to do.

But I wouldn't like the idea coming from on top.

So, like, I think ideally everyone needs to opt in.

These are the odds.

I think it should be Zelensky versus Putin.

Bare knuckles, fight to the death.

Winner takes all.

But the point being is that, like, at some point the Ukrainians...

May not want to roll over and just take it and they may want to make a stand and

it might result in a shocking loss of life and they probably have the right

to do that if that's their choice.

But yeah, and they need to make the choice around whether the

sacrifice justifies the outcome.

Soldiers on the front line are not given a choice.

They're arresting people in Ireland to extradite them back to the Ukraine.

Because they're saying to writing to the citizens and saying, well,

to the countries and saying, this Ukrainian citizen is there in Ireland.

Um, and we want him back here in the Ukraine because he's got to fight.

That's what's going on.

There are also, there are also troops on the ground in Ukraine,

fighting for Ukraine, raising money so that they can keep going.

Of course there would be.

I'm fairly sure that my Russian friends, given the choice, would be there in

the front lines fighting against Putin.

Uh, your Russian friends would be fighting against Russia.

Yes.

Right.

Why don't they?

Because they know what it's like to live under Putin.

Why don't they?

Well, uh...

Because they find themselves getting shot.

Right, right.

They're gonna volunteer for the Ukrainian army.

Well, yeah, but it's not their territory, so...

I'm fairly certain there's a lot of Ukrainians on the front

line who don't want to be there.

Possibly in every war that and would in every war.

That's true.

Yeah.

So that's one of the shocking things about war though, right?

Mm-hmm.

. Yeah.

If that's the case, then I think that, you know, Ukrainian,

like the Ukrainian should stop.

People don't wanna be there and don't wanna sacrifice a lot of men against a

line that isn't currently budging then.

And, and, and the ones who've done what?

Oh, it, it's punching.

And the ones who do want to be there have potentially been fed a whole heap of

bullshit propaganda about how we're just going to win next week when all this other

stuff arrives and they wouldn't even know.

They're just relying on their superiors who are telling them, spitting them a line

to say one more week guys, one more week.

Anyway, look, you know what?

Uh, a year from today, uh, Leon's birthday, 12th of September, 2024,

let's just revisit where the line was and where, uh, how many lives

were lost in the meantime and.

And see what people think.

But anyway, that's that.

And what, there's one other issue, John, while I've got you there, you

said something about my, you said something about polls, my love of polls

or my reliance on polls, what you said.

Yeah.

It seems in recent episodes, the last, oh, six months or so, you,

you've, you've really come to pointing out a lot of polls now.

I just think polls in general don't have much credibility.

The one, if we go back to the voice one, all my, my, my boys are all under, um, 30.

Not one of them, until recently, knew that there was a, uh, a referendum on.

None of them ever would answer a phone for a poll, so there's no

credibility in that poll, I think.

It's only grasping a minority, and you've already just got to ask who is conducting

the poll, and what answer that they want.

So, I just don't see polls, you know, for years.

Um, all right.

I can take a punt at that.

Like, um, so polls are becoming a little bit more reliable from the fact

that nobody has a landline anymore.

And so it's very hard to take representative statistical samples,

but they are representative and a good indication.

So I wouldn't hold it as gospel.

But they are an indication of what's going on.

So like you'll see in, yeah, like your points are valid, although there's a lot

of people who don't know what's going on or, but you know, you ask them questions

and you can structure the questions very carefully, and you know, they can

provide an indication of what's going on.

I'll be interested to see how close to the policy it's referring to me.

Either way.

It's not looking very good at the moment.

No, I think it's gonna be lost.

Yeah, I think it's gonna be lost as well.

So there goes my argument about polls, . Well, next time I raise a poll, you can

just, you can just look at the chapters in the podcast and skip it again.

The next section, John.

If you don't like the data's good.

Yeah.

Okay, on that point, we're done and dusted.

We're gonna go.

We're in the chat room, it's, uh, you've been making your comments, good on you.

Next week, episode 400.

We'll do a bit of a review of things, I think.

That's what we'll do.

Holy shit, 400?

Yes.

What the hell have I done with my life over the last six years?

Devoted to the noble cause of podcasting, Scott.

I reckon 400 means eight years, doesn't it?

It does, yeah.

But Scott went walkabout for two.

That's true.

Yeah, so, yep.

Well, I've been around for more than half of those, yeah.

Very good.

Okay, I'm gonna go.

Gotta call it off.

Okay, thanks guys.

Thanks, uh, John and Liam in particular.

Everybody says goodnight.

We'll talk to you next time.

Bye for now.

Black History Month you find...

Ridiculous.

Why?

You're gonna relegate my history to a month?

Oh, come on.

What do you do with yours?

Which month is White History Month?

Well...

Well, come on.

Tell me.

Well, um...

I'm Jewish.

Okay, which month is Jewish history month?

Uh, there isn't one.

Oh.

Oh.

Why not?

Yeah.

Do you want one?

No, no.

No, I don't either.

I don't want a black history month.

Black history is American history.

How are we going to get rid of racism?

Stop talking about it.

I'm going to stop calling you a white man.

Yeah.

And I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man.

I know you as Mike Wallace, you know me as Morgan Freeman.