Suburban Eastern Australia.

An environment that has over time evolved some extraordinarily

unique groups of Homo Sapians.

But today we observe a small tribe akin to a group of mere cats that gather together

a top, 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.

Thank you, sir David, for that introduction.

We're back for a regular podcast notebook review.

Tonight it's back to the normal review of what's happened.

, well in this case, in the previous two weeks.

This is the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove podcast.

I'm Trevor, a k a, the Iron Fist, all the way from regional Queensland on the line.

the Velvet Glove.

Scott, how are you, Scott?

Good, thanks.

Trevor.

Goodday.

Joe Goodday.

Trevor Goodday listeners.

How are you all?

We are well.

I was fine until I read about a submarine announcement, but we'll get onto that.

Joe, the tech guy, holiness, how are you?

You are good.

Good.

Right.

So yes, I nearly, I was gonna say I nearly had a heart attack when I

saw the submarine announcement, but I didn't because my expectations

of this labor government are pretty low and getting lower by the minute.

So we're gonna talk about the submarine deal.

We're gonna talk about The whole China scare campaign that's been going on in

the age and the Sydney Morning Herald.

We'll talk about some religious stuff, religious instruction in

Queensland, lots of coverage of that.

Gary Linnea, former English footballer, had a run in with the bbc, which I

find is a really interesting story.

Much bunch of different things.

Maybe get to some media shortcomings, maybe get to the

latest Nord Stream theories.

I sent the guys sort of, I reconfigured the notes and sent it

to them in an email and I thought, gentlemen, how long that is?

And I looked at it and it was 46 pages.

So if we get through every topic, we'll probably be here for another six hours.

So, , we won't do that to you.

We'll see how we go.

It wasn't just Gary Lin, it was also So David Attenborough Yes.

As well.

So a whole bunch of people.

Well, It was a very interesting situation.

So we're, we've got a lot to cover if you're in the chat room saying, well,

I did think it was rare, amusing that the Brits were criticizing their own

government for instituting basically what Australia has instituted.

Yes.

You know, which is I'm not sure what that says about us.

It probably says that we're a pack of pricks, which I've got.

No, well, we didn't have a famous doubt, much beloved footballer who

made a noise about it at the time.

In a really powerful position, probably.

No, exactly.

We'll get onto that.

But footballers, I mean, another ethical conundrum with freedom of

speech, workplace rights, there's no stopping these footballs when

it comes to ethical conundrums.

It's, it's an amazing source of, of material.

So, yeah.

In the chat room we've got Andrew and John and David say hello if you're there.

And yeah.

We'll incorporate your comments if we can as we go along.

So, see us coming to in the leafy western suburbs of Brisbane.

Scott's in regional Queensland, and Joe's in the less leafy northern

suburbs of Brisbane, Queensland.

I won't say Australia.

Perhaps I should refer to Australia as the US South Pacific Command now.

No, it's not that bad, . I think that's what we've deteriorating into.

So the big announcement today was that under this orcas agreement and the details

are a bit shady, but it seems like we are committing to spend between now and 2050.

Are you sitting down?

Dear, dear listener, 368 billion at the top end.

in order to acquire eight submarines nuclear power apparently.

And that's just the budget.

When you say the top end, what you say?

The, you said the top figure or what'd you say?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They said between 260 and 360.

Yeah.

And I mean, defense contracts always run on time and on budget.

Of course they do.

There's no chance that this would be even double or triple that amount.

Scott, we talked about submarine so much over the years.

It had cropped up in Yeah, I'm getting a little bit bored with it.

Yeah, it cropped up in nearly episode six or seven I reckon.

And, and at the time of the Abbott government, they announced

50 billion for 12 submarines.

And we talked about it so much that I knew off by heart that

50 divided by 12 was 4.16.

We talked about it so much.

That's a figure in my head.

And at the time that was an outrageous figure.

4 billion when we could buy.

Yeah.

I remember at the time you were saying, yeah, I remember at the time you were

saying that, you know, they, they probably wanted eight, but they, they thought to

themselves, I'll put it in an ambit claim and asked for 12 and then they fell over

themselves when the government agreed.

Yeah.

And, and that was an over the top crazy figure given that we could buy

them for 1 billion or a bit over 1 billion each from Japan, for example.

Japan, smaller ones.

Mm-hmm.

. So, so already 4.16 was well above what we should have been

paying of a bit over 1 billion.

And now we are up to what does a figure come to when you get 368 billion divide?

Well, 400 would be 50 each.

So it's 46 billion.

46 billion submarine.

And they're not even the right submarines.

Scott, you say you're bored with a topic you find, you find the topic boring.

Not really.

It's just that I find the media, the media handling of this is, is ridiculous.

Like the age and that sort of stuff.

Their front page was absolutely crazy.

We had this picture of China with jets flying out of it and that sort of thing,

and they're saying, Australia must prepare for the threat of war with China.

You know, it's I would've thought that cooler heads will prevail eventually.

And that don't look at me like that Trevor.

I just think that they will, they will prevail eventually.

And that when the greens get into power, well, I hope not, but anyway

that's the only way it's gonna happen.

Sorry.

That's the only, that's the only way it's gonna happen.

When you say cooler heads, we've, we've had Okay.

But China and the United States have been walking this tight

road for a very long time.

And I would've thought that the two countries are big enough and

ugly enough to resolve these things peacefully rather than getting involved

in a scrap, because both sides know that the war that would come would

be bloody and it would be very long.

Mm-hmm.

. And that there is no guarantee that either side would be successful.

Mm-hmm.

, but both sides, again, have very, very significant casualties.

So I would've thought that both sides would understand that both

sides would want to walk away from a, a potential conflict.

The problem is, even if they do walk away from it, that's all peace and harmony.

We would've spent 368 billion on eight seven.

Yeah.

Which is a ridiculous amount.

No, no, no, no.

Hang on.

Because we're gonna have eight nuclear power plants that we

can park off the coast to do.

So when our coal fired PLA power system falls into ape on the ground, , yeah.

We can make some hydrogen.

We can.

Or something like that.

Maybe.

Yeah, look the shovel, it is a, it is a ridiculous, it is a ridiculous sum

of money that they have just agreed.

It is.

I would, now that's 368 billion apparently includes now I could

be wrong, but apparently it's got something about upgrading the bases

and that sort of stuff in Western Australia and also the eastern seaboard.

Mm-hmm.

. So that's apparently to give the yanks the ability to project their powers

and that sort of stuff down here in the southern, in the Southern Pacific.

But 368 billion is an eye watering amount of money.

It's a criminal amount of money.

What we could do with that, and also we'll get into it, but

it's actually counterproductive.

We're actually less safe because of these submarines because as we've mentioned

over the previous 375 episodes on way too many occasions, these nuclear

powered submarines are designed for.

Heading over to the South China Sea and firing missiles at China.

It's not about defending Australia.

These guys are designed for attacking China.

So we're actually spending money to make ourselves more of a target.

If we had acquired cheap off the shelf Japanese subs that are defensive

in nature and designed to sit in the shallow waters on our northern

coastline, we could say to the ch, the Chinese, look, nothing to worry about.

These are defensive subs.

If you don't attack us, you don't have a problem.

Meanwhile, the Chinese will look at these subs and go, what the fuck?

By the way, language warning on this episode, dear listener, cuz

this really rolls me up, this topic.

So there will be plenty of F words dropped in this one or F bombs.

Look, the Chinese could you know, really should say what the hell,

Australia attack submarines.

For the clear purpose of attacking China, we would've been fine, but defensive ones.

But this is an act of aggression.

So the we're spending the money that actually makes us less safe.

That's, that's all part of the criminal action that this is, this deal.

So, actually the shovel had the right idea.

They, they released a report which said Australia has canceled it's

368 billion submarine purchase.

Just hours after announcing it after someone realized it would be cheaper

just to give China 300 billion in return for an agreement, not to invade

Yeah.

But Ro Russia had one of those with Germany.

How did that turn out?

? Yeah.

So in the announcement, Albanese said that his government was also determined

to promote security by investing in our relationships across our region.

This is not a good relationship builder with China, let me say apparently

the deal will mean Australia will build some in the early 2040s using

a British design and US technology.

Meanwhile, we're gonna have us submarines visiting in our

ports from later this year.

And there's gonna be a deal where there's a rotating presence of, of UK and US

submarines coming to our shore basically just to say to China, we've got these

submarines and sort of as a bit of a cover in the event that the Collins class

ones start failing due to maintenance.

And but yeah, those visiting ones will be under ultimate command of the US

and UK owners of those submarines.

And yeah, so that was the announcement.

Another guy on Twitter said breaking the reserve Bank governor has

announced an immediate 500 basis point increase in the target cash rate to

try to restrain defense spending.

That makes sense.

We, the governments don't borrow money in the same way though, do they?

Well, what is this?

I'd like to know what denomination this is.

Are we paying in US dollars?

What's the deal here?

I'd, what's, I would've thought we are paying them in

US dollars in British pounds.

I didn't see it written anywhere.

If we'd just said, I'll pay Aussie dollars.

But if we, if we've we're, we're gonna pays are going, I don't think

the Yanks are going to take that.

They're gonna actually buy them, they're gonna sell them in US dollars or once.

Yeah, so Joe, we can print it, but then we've gotta convert

them somehow outta us dollars.

So that's not easy.

Chat room seems to be going off.

And.

Sing out guys, if you can see anything in there.

What else have we got to say?

So, yeah, these are big sub.

John wants you to define what defensive means.

Defensive means designed to shoot ships heading in ships.

That's right.

Rather than designed to pumble a land based infrastructure.

So stuff with torpedoes designed to sink ships rather than firing missiles

designed to end up on somebody's city.

That's what I would define as defensive.

And the off the shelf Japanese require less manning, less personnel,

more suited to our shallow waters.

We can get 'em for the comparatively cheap price of a

bit over a billion dollars each.

And we're not subservient to the US or the uk.

And we could man them like we can't even find crew.

To Nan the Collins class submarines.

How are we gonna find people?

Funnily enough, it's not easy to find people who want to sit in a submarine

that might be underwater for three months smelling recycled fats for three months.

this, will it ever happen?

Ugh, it just, this, obviously, I'm so glad I voted green.

I've been so pissed if I'd voted for this stupid labor government.

I mean, we all know that the previous coalition was full of

duds, not very smart people.

And clearly this labor government, the parliamentarians and the cabinet

are smarter men and women, but they are obviously incredibly naive to have

fallen for the spin of the military industrial complex and to have marveled

at the shiny objects and to have signed up for it just naive country bumpkins.

Willing to be the lapdogs of the US.

Again, I just marvel at how easy it was for the military

industrial complex to pull it off.

So easy.

What, what have these people not been reading stuff?

Do they not comprehend how the world works?

But it's insane.

It's an an insane decision.

Beholden to Murdoch just as much as the other side.

Are I?

No, I think mal miles is all the way he, I think he, I think

he thinks it's a good idea.

He sits in an office and listens to the defense chiefs

and goes, yeah, okay, whatever.

It's like Albanese said in the, either very close to the election

day or shortly afterwards, he said defense is a bipartisan stuff.

We, we accept the same advice that the coalition would accept.

from our defense department officials.

So we will always be of thinking of the same mind is essentially what

he said was we both take advice from the same people and we just

take the advice and accept it nuts.

It's infuriating and it will just roll on is another disaster for this

country if it, if it ever gets going.

Hitching our wagon to a declining USA and a big FU to China,

our major training partner.

There's so much pressure on China's got no oil or resources in that sense.

It needs trade with people.

It's not about to invade Australia for goodness sake.

It's, this is just propaganda 1 0 1, which is make up a story about an

enemy, create an existential crisis.

and make it scary enough and people will agree to anything.

And so, you know, that's what's been happening in our media with

the relentless anti-China sentiment that's being displayed not only by

Sydney Morning Herald and the age, but just the A, B, C channel seven.

They all in their reports talk about the dark shadow of China and the

rising tensions and what China's been doing and how we need to be

aware of it and face up to it.

And I say, what have they been doing?

But like, well the quote attributed to Joseph Gerbers Gables was, if you tell

a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.

Let me give you an example I think of, of Of how this is playing out in

the way that we've been manipulated, that the public has been manipulated.

Let me just grab a video here, which is this one was from before the

announcement when Albanese was in India.

I mean, oh, we've got this great relationship with the quad now again

because we might potentially be doing battle with those nasty Chinese and

their terrible human rights record.

Meanwhile, Maori in India, and here's human record, honestly isn't any better.

Anyway, this is just have a listen to this report.

These leaders will discuss closer military cooperation, stretching

the hand of friendship and security across an Indian ocean.

Under the shadow of China, but together we are building a better

world, a world in which leaders need their friends in Delhi, Mark Riley.

Seven News.

You'd swear China had just put some nuclear weapon aimed at Canberra,

you know, on Port Mosby or something.

One more, just illustrate this point and then I'll stop Scott, so you can,

you can attack my rants, but let me just no, I'm not gonna attack your ranch.

Let me just show you this one here.

This, I was listening to this one earlier today.

This is Laura Tingle on Late Night Live speaking with Philip Adams.

Now, Laura Tingle is, is normally very sensible, is one of the most

respected political journalists in Australia, probably the most.

And in talking about this issue.

This is what she had to say.

I mean, look, it was a very unique way of approaching things in the

twen 21st century in a media sense.

I thought, Phillip, the, the way the the sm as we finally

refer to it approach that issue.

I mean, look, there is a legitimate question of what are the Chinese doing?

They're obviously getting much more assertive, and it is alarming and it is

driving the way policy makers in Canberra think about foreign policy, the way

Americans are thinking about it, the way the whole world is thinking about it.

Yeah.

China getting much more assertive.

Oh, how?

In what way?

And that's what's driving this, not the other way around the, this is the sort

of commentary that just keeps going endlessly as you listen to commentary and.

. This is the sort of soft propaganda where people hear this often enough

and they just go, oh, China's doing some really bad things.

Obviously never specified exactly what it is, but Oh, China, the Bergy man.

Oh, China's doing this, or China's doing it.

Well, the demand of Hong Kong and Macau back, I mean, come on, it's, yeah.

But they were given back and they, they were, they were returned as

part of the whole colonization agreement and that sort of stuff.

Yeah.

Which was, which was just contractually bound that they had to return it at 1997.

So, so even a respected reporter like her just refers to this nebulous,

China's being aggressive and assertive, and that's what's driving this

whole thing without ever talking about what the specifics of it are.

And without ever saying, oh, is anybody else being assertive here?

Maybe?

I think it's just so frustrating that someone in her position.

Doesn't have the awareness to think about these things and just blurts out and

repeats the, the, the mantra of the, you know, the common discourse if you like,

and just repeats it as if it's a fact.

This is how propaganda works, that if enough people say it,

then good people like Laura Tingle pick it up and, and go with it.

That's what's so frustrating about this.

Ah, so

Scott, any feelings?

Am I totally off the mark or No?

I'll just, no, not really.

I mean, I can understand where you're coming from, but it's one of those things.

It's

I would honestly believe that if China thought they could get away

with it, they would invade Taiwan and that would be the end of it.

And that they would, they would just invade them.

They would take them out.

Mm-hmm.

. But I don't believe that they no longer think that they can just get away with it.

You know, they've seen the way the Yanks propped up the Ukrainians

and all that sort of thing.

So I think that they're probably thinking to themselves, oh shit, you

know, we've got the Japanese to our North, we've got the Indians to our

South, we've got the Yanks to the East.

So they're actually thinking of them.

They're probably thinking to themselves that, well, we don't, we can't fight

on all these fronts at one time.

So that is why I think that that's why I think that cooler heads will

prevail, because I honestly don't believe China is that hell bent on.

undoing the, what was it, 200 years or 300 years of humiliation.

Mm-hmm.

, you know, over one tiny island that the rest of the world still

considers is part of China.

You know, it's just one of those things, you know, I just, people

like Laura Tingle and the guy in Channel seven would you know,

talking about the voice, for example.

People are always prepared to, you know, label people as racist

and they're not prepared to say except the argument of the voice.

But really, if you look at it, a lot of this anti-china sentiment is racist.

It's, yeah, I've forget about that.

It's a xenophobic racism and please explain.

Well, yeah, please explain.

Yeah.

Xenophobic fear or the other that's what's going on here is.

There's, there's a racism towards China and I'm gonna play it's a little

bit long, but I really want to, the narrative is so strong on anti-China

that I wanna counteract it with at least something that's positive.

And it involves Giannis for Farkas.

And you all know I'm a Giannis fanboy.

So apparently he got attacked, like attacked in Greece, got beaten

up by some guys the other day.

Oh really?

Yeah.

So he ended up in hospital and, and got beaten up by a bunch of thugs.

So, so for all those people who just want to be racist towards China and consider

them the big bad bogeymen who are just looking for trouble sit back and listen

to this for five minutes and one second.

As a, as a counter to the narrative that we just keep hearing all the time.

Here we go.

I'm been very concerned lately about China.

They're in Africa, they're, they're lending money to countries to build

ports and different infrastructure.

To build what?

Port hardware.

Yeah.

What's wrong with that?

And, well, because countries that need ports get ports, but they're making

people dependent on, I mean, I know it's the same thing that we've done,

which is, no, it's not around the world.

They're, they're far more humanistic than the United States ever was really?

Okay.

Absolutely.

Great.

So maybe give give an example.

Of course they're trying, they are pedalling for in, for, for influence.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But they are non-interventionist.

Absolutely.

Non-interventionist in a way that Europeans, the West

has never managed to fathom.

But I, I have a feeling they have a longer term thought process.

That's, that is more interventionists.

But let's judge what we see.

Let's judge what, from my understanding of China, There is a very, it's a very

interesting social experiment in the sense that at the local level, the

regional level, you now have a boisterous democracy at the local and regional level.

Yeah.

With even with popular success stories in overthrowing local authorities,

local bureaucrats who have been corrupt, who have been this, who have been that

who have been the other, when it comes to the influence of China outside

its borders, I have to say firstly, it's quite remarkable that they don't

seem to have any military ambitions.

Secondly, Africa, I'll give you an example, a specific example.

Ethiopia 2004, cuz it ha happened to be there and I.

I have some first person firsthand experience of it.

They went into Ethiopia.

I'll tell you why they went into Ethiopia, because they suspected it was

oil, because China is a major industrial power, but it lacks primary resources

Now, instead of going into Africa with troops, colonially destroying the

country, killing people like the west has done for the last hundred years,

what they did was they went to ADIs Ababa and they said to the government, we

would like, we can see you have problem problems with your infrastructure.

We will like to build some new airports.

Upgrade your weight system, create a telephone system and rebuild your roads

and we'll do this all, all for free.

No strings attached.

We don't want anything from you.

And they did.

Why do they do it?

Because it's soft power.

Because now because they knew that if oil is discovered and it was discovered later.

Then of course, the, if you govern, will be much more open to

Chinese oil companies coming there.

They have never combined their investment with imperialistic.

I, I, you know, when I was minister of finance, I had a, a very interesting

ex experience with Costco, one of the Chinese national companies that

in the end bought the Port of Pires.

When, when, when I, when, when I moved into the ministry, I found the contract

from the previous government that I had already sold the Port of Pires

for a pitance and under ridiculous conditions to the Chinese under the

guidance of course, of the European Union International Monetary Fund as well.

And in other words, I was, as a minister, I was Bound to a particular

deal that was terrible for grace.

And I went to the Chinese and discussed this it with them

and I was really astonished.

I said to them, look, you're paying too little.

You're not committing to a sufficient level of investment and you are

treating our workers as father.

You are effectively subcontracting labor to horrible companies

that exploit the workers.

And I can't deal with this effectively.

I propose to them with, to renegotiate the contract.

So instead of getting 67% of the shares of the port, they

would get with the same price.

51, the remaining shares would go into the Greek pension fund

system in order to bolster the capitalization of the public pensions.

Secondly, I want you to commit to 180 million euros of

investment within 12 months.

and thirdly, proper collective bargaining with the trade unions

and no subcontracting of labor.

And to my astonishment, they said, okay, , can you imagine if that was a

German company or an American company?

. That's why I'm saying, I don't think you should worry.

Okay.

I won't.

Ah, yes.

Giannis, I could listen to him all day in the chat room.

John, what's the evidence of no military intentions?

Well, what's the evidence of, what is the evidence of military intentions?

Tibet . What, what evidence?

Well, that was invaded by China years ago.

Yeah, yeah.

I know.

It was invaded a long time.

Yeah.

Go back.

Go back long enough and you'll get anybody with like, 50 years ago.

Is that the best that we can do?

Where is the evidence, John of military intentions?

I had an argument with not an argument.

He'd never got into an argument with right wing Tony, cuz he was

talking about China and the Belton Road and the Sri Lankan port.

And he said, you know, they, they line these people up with with

really difficult loans and then they foreclose and take over the assets.

And he mentioned Sir Lanka port and said, no they didn't.

Bullshit.

That's just propaganda.

That's not what happened.

And we left at that, I read it up later and it was, you know,

that's not what had happened.

But you do hear these false stories.

So look, they've got money to spend and they're doing it to

try and acquire soft power.

And that's just, if, if you listen to that and your immediate reaction

is to try and say, Bullshit.

The Chinese are conniving, scheming assholes.

Well ask yourself if you're a racist.

Is it just because of the Chinese by so much that you've become a racist?

Really?

If you objectively compare their actions with other countries you have

to come to a different conclusion.

So, yeah.

There we go.

So, keep talking in the chat room.

What else have I got to say?

So, there was a big scare campaign in the age and the Sydney Morning

Herald, where they ran an unbelievable front page, multi-page three day

extravaganza on the fact that Australia must prepare for war with China.

And they just trotted out a bunch of characters who are known as.

As Greg, she's hawks and had no voice that might have contradicted them.

And Paul Keating, former Prime Minister he was just appalled by it.

And he wrote an article in response, you know, basically objecting to everything.

I just refused to run it.

Wouldn't print a former Prime Minister's objection to their

multi-page propaganda spiel.

Wouldn't even run it.

So he had to print it in John Mendy blog and essentially ran through the

he said the first point is there's no threat from China in any strategic sense.

There never has been such a threat from China, either implicit or explicit.

, you run through the credentials of the people who were involved in writing

the various articles and pointing out that they're just beholden to, largely

to aspi, which is a think tank that purports to be an independent think tank.

Providing advice on defense matters to the government, but

there's no way it's independent.

So, ASBE established by Australian government, 2001 employs 64 people

described itself, itself as an independent nonpartisan think tank.

Who funds it?

The Department of Defense, 4 million federal government agencies, 2.6,

overseas government agencies, 1.9 million.

Bit further on, we've got We've got Asbe lists sponsors, including some of the

world's largest armament manufacturers, Lockheed Martin, sab, and Thales.

And if you go beyond their website and look at the Australian Government

Transparency Portal, you'll see that other sponsors providing funding include

the US State Department, US Department of Defense, US Embassy, UK Foreign and

Commonwealth Office, Lockheed Martin, Naval Group, Australia, Northrop,

Raphael, Raytheon, Sam, and Thales.

Again, this is an organization completely funded by people altruists, who want to

sell , altruists kind and generous people.

People who want to sell armaments, gosh, of course they're going to have a position

that promotes a fair campaign that.

They'll just conjure out of thin air in order to scare people

to wanting to buy armaments.

And nowhere do they disclose that sort of conflict of interest in this stuff.

It just outrageous that what used to be trustworthy news organizations

have, have just ascended.

I'm sure that China is funding the drag queens as well.

China's funding the drag queens just another one of their illegal act.

Yeah, exactly.

Activities.

One of their undermining immoral activities.

That's it.

Yes.

Yeah.

Getting blamed for nearly everything.

So that's, that's Sydney Morning Herald, like Fairfax nine in many respects is

descended to the level of the Murdoch press Once Costello got in charge where.

We're really in a position where, Scott, what do you read?

Do you, what newspapers do you read these days?

I just read Crikey or the abc.

Really?

Right.

Don't read any of those.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Joe, do you, sorry, Joe, you just, you're Apple News or

something, are you or, yeah, apple.

Apple News generally.

Yeah.

Which is a broad swath of everything from Sky News across to The Guardian.

Yeah.

It's still all mainstream.

There's nothing independent in there.

Mm-hmm.

, the problem is the, a ABC is not much better because it, as I've

just demonstrated with law, tangle, regurgitates, the talking points,

even to the, to the extent where I think on that Insiders program with

David Spears, they'll say, let's look at what the papers are saying.

How, how on earth is that newsworthy or legitimate for the ABC to say, Oh,

let's go through all the Murdoch and Fairfax, nine papers with their crazy

headlines and repeat it as if it's valuable information of some sort.

They give credibility to these people, the people who are arguing for this,

who are pushing for this war to try and create something out of nothing.

They should be treated like pedophiles, like they should be ashamed.

We should not be seeing the likes of them anywhere on any self-respecting media.

We should be saying you are one of those pricks.

He's trying to drum up a war out of nothing.

Not having you on goodbye.

Ooh.

Should be canceled.

Interests.

Yeah, but ABC will, will ring out Greg fucking Sheridan on any panel

that's short of a, a talking head.

What did I do on it?

Had Gigi Foster on q and a the other night, give us some sensible people.

A, B, c, stop regurgitating.

It's more than just silly nonsense now.

It's really dangerous.

This stuff, promoting a war out of nothing and even if there is no war, eventually

just getting us to spend 368 billion on, on this, what, what are we missing

out on that we could have Medicare.

Exactly.

You know, this is the whole bloody point you've got.

Dutton saying that he's prepared to go bipartisan with the, with the

government to reduce the, to reduce the budget and that sort of stuff so

they can afford the orcas agreement.

Mm-hmm.

now, you know.

, I've never had to rely on the N D I S or anything like that.

I'm in a very, I'm, I'm quite a healthy bloke and that type of thing, so I

don't have to rely on it, but it's nice to know that it is ever there

should anything ever happen to me.

Mm-hmm.

, you know, and Dutton's already talking about, oh, well we might have to, we

might have to cut back the N D I s the fact that Peter Dutton agrees with this

policy should be a, a, a warning sign.

No, I agree.

And, and this was, it's one of those things, this was a scheme

dreamt up by agreed to by Scott Morrison, the whole or thing again.

Yeah.

Look, I'll just divert as well.

Yeah.

But what would Jesus want?

Yeah.

Well he, he was in the Australian in an article saying how

clever he was for keeping orcas secret until the deal was done.

And so, from the Australian, by the way.

You know, I quit my Australian subscription like three months ago.

Mm-hmm.

and only just stopped letting me read the article, so Oh, really?

Got a good extra few months from that.

But anyway, from the Australian scene, your diplomats and former foreign affairs

minister, Maurice Payne, was kept in the dark over the orcas negotiations

amid concerns that plans about it could be leaked and would scuttle the

landmark deal amid concerns that it would distract her from the ironing.

Yes.

Scott Morrison here, it was the most remarkably held project that

I suspect many could ever recall.

He said the secrecy was so essential because the second it moved outside, those

who only needed to know it was a risk.

He said, this wasn't oh oh seven, but it was essential to its success.

It was hard enough to get agreement on this, on its merits, but had it broken

outside the lines of containment.

It would've proven fatal to the project because it would've

been in the public domain.

He said it was so in the national interest to keep this tight.

What a load of crap.

Yeah, I know.

It is a complete load of crap.

Why can't we openly say, oh, we are thinking of going into an agreement

called Orcas with the UK and the us.

Let's all talk about whether that's a good idea.

Ah, but if we allow that, it'll never happen.

Well, maybe that's a good reason.

Not if it, if it can't be discussed in the light of day.

It has to be done in a shadowy way by Scott Single-handedly No, no.

It wasn't single-handedly.

Come on.

And, and this guy as multiple ministers,

Yes, that's right.

. Exactly.

And it, it, he's boasting about it as if it was such a, a great thing.

. Ah.

Ah, where was I?

I'll get off this in a second and we'll talk religion just to cheer us up.

, ah, it's frustrating that Albanese and the labor government are

just walking down the same road.

It's it's frustrating.

Alan Patience wrote an article, this was bef about a week or two old,

this one saying that worried about how compliant it looked like labor

was gonna be with US interests.

And he said, miles.

Richard Miles, of course, belongs to the hard right faction of the Labor Party.

His views on the Alliance with the United States are more at home with

the views of the matter factions in the Liberal and National Party.

Penny Wong is the other player in this end.

She's from the a's left faction, yet her timidity in the defense debates.

I've seen her more aligned with the males view of the world

than with the labors left.

They're really just, just wired everything.

Are they allowed to speak out though,

against cabinet solidarity?

Yeah.

I guess you read between the lines of what people are wanting.

Anyway, we'll talk a little bit later on about media

shortcomings, but what do you do?

It's just the military industrial complex.

It's just way too powerful.

I see no ability or resolution to stop this happening.

And even if five years ago you said, this is what's going

to happen, what could you do?

it, this, these things rest on such a, a handful of decision

makers at the end of the day.

and and they just get enough people in these positions who

agree to these principles that they end up getting what they want.

E even if you put it to a popular vote, it would still get passed.

Yeah, yeah.

I had a statistic here that so in 2018, 45% of Australians thought

that China would become a military threat in the next 20 years.

So 2018, 45%.

Four years later, that proportion had jumped to 75%.

And what had China done in that four years?

Well, nothing really.

2022 they'd said you wanna come in here and have weapons inspected like

powers to investigate our wet markets.

We're not buying your wine and your Bali.

That's it.

Well, Muji has also made inroads into centralizing his power.

Reducing the power of the poll bureau.

Oh, that's their business.

That's, that's nothing to do with us.

In the same way that you wouldn't want Donald Trump having ultimate

control over a, a known war Munger.

Like maybe that's a good thing.

Maybe he's a pacifist.

Maybe he's far better than the rest of them.

Who knows?

Maybe it would've a, a step forward for peace that he acquired more power.

We don't know.

I don't think we're ever, we are never going to know exactly what type of man

he is because he, he has never well, because of the, the system and that sort

of stuff that they have there, they make these decisions behind closed doors.

Mm.

So all the arguments and all that sort of stuff that would actually

tell you what type of man he is, no one ever gets to see those.

We, we know that he does like honey, though.

Yes, cuz.

Yeah, I know.

Yeah.

Winning the pee . Yeah.

Alright.

Okay.

That's a good Ran.

We're up to an hour and, well, eight 18.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Let's talk a little bit about religion because after all, this is a

podcast that promotes secular issues.

And I think I saw Alison in the chat room and Yeah, she was in the Alison

has been doing some great stuff, Alison, in getting some coverage in the media

to do with the religious instruction lessons and was a video was released

where they talked about harvesting of children in religious instruction lessons

and the word harvesting of children.

Word harvest really grated with a lot of people and.

. Fortunately people misunderstood it.

Yeah, that's right.

Well, I think that's one of the arguments, shit.

One of the, one of the people behind one of the churches said, oh,

they didn't, you've misunderstood.

They didn't use the word harvest, but it's clear as day when you hear it.

And fortunately there's been a guy called Mattie Holdsworth at the Curio mail

who's taken this story and run with it.

So the courier male actually had three articles at least big prominent articles.

And and there's also been coverage of three labor state politicians who have

basically come out declaring their position in one way or another through

Facebook lights and Facebook comments.

So just for the record, for those interstate who may not have heard

it, this is channel seven news religious instruction story.

Here we go.

An alarming leaked video from a Brisbane, Brisbane church shows

volunteers discussing harvesting school students to turn them into disciples.

They were talking about religious instruction in state schools.

Reigniting calls to ban the program.

Preaching to a crowd.

It took just one word to turn a church.

Talk into a public debate on religion.

You can have a potential to harvest hundreds for the Lord.

In the video, volunteer promotes the Religious Instructions School program as

a way to harvest then disciple students.

It's more than that.

I mean, it's indoctrination.

I just think it was an unfortunate choice of words.

Words that are reignited, calls for a ban or overhaul of the weekly program.

Call review.

Do a proper review into it.

Stop just pretending that it's not a problem.

But those who lead religious instruction argue it's about exploring

faith, not just Christianity, but others like Islam and Buddhism.

That helps a child understand and see where they fit in the world.

Half of state schools have religious instruction, but it's not compulsory.

Students need written consent from their parents to attend.

While all the content must be inclusive, families can do it in their own time.

And we need to give that time back to the teachers religious groups say there have

been no complaints about the video or any of its school programs in the last year.

It's still a very popular program in a statement.

The education minister said there are no proposed changes

to the legislation or policy.

Like it or not, will depend on who you put your faith in.

Garth Burley seven.

Oh.

. You put your faith.

Good on you, Alison.

Alison's in the chat room.

Oh, Alison, you're doing so well.

Really, really good stuff.

Like it's amazing all these years suddenly get a flurry of, of activity like that.

Really good.

And yeah, again, I think shows the importance of just having.

, well, a reporter willing to report, and then Alison and her group

from the Queensland Parents for Secular State schools being so up

to date and knowing all the latest and be able to feed information

and facts and provide commentary.

Absolutely sensational work.

Allison.

So well done three cheers to you and yes.

Congratulations, Alison.

Yeah.

Well, I just con before I continue with this religious instruction

stuff, just in the chat room, John says, you're clutching Trev.

Do you really hate the US that much?

Well, let's say John, is that everything I've said would be

in agreement with at least 10 commentators on the John Menchu blog.

Former diplomats, former Chinese diplomats, people with 20 and 30

years experience in foreign affairs.

People with expertise are all saying exactly the same stuff.

So, there's been, I don't know how many articles in the John Mendy blog by, I

can't recall how many people, but that's what I'm saying may seem contrary to the

mainstream media, but it's completely in line with well credentialed opinion.

Alright.

Back to the religious stuff.

Holy smoke.

Somebody in the chat room's gone off some crazy bot saying, okay, that'll

keep Joe busy, . Yeah, so there was three articles in the cur mail and

we've got some labor politicians who have come out saying Enough is enough.

Let me just find one of them in particular.

Member for Capalaba, Don Brown has said, As a father of a son who

just started prep at state school, this video sickened me to my core.

Time is up for religious instruction in our state schools.

State should always equal secular and he says, before you start labeling me

as anti-religion, my son is baptized and I went to a Catholic all boys school.

If you want Sunday school for your kid, feel free to go on a Sunday.

Not at a state school.

Scott.

Yeah.

Remember for Capalaba Don Brown, that's exactly what should be said.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Karine McMillan, she was the other one that came out and that's sort of stuff.

I think she was a former principal or something like that, and she said

that it was disgusting and all that type of thing, and she was my former

member when I lived in Brisbane.

Yeah, so that's really important that there's three voices in that parliament,

at least, of people who are very public.

. Presumably at some stage in party room meetings, we'll be saying to grace,

grace, you've gotta cut this crap out.

Here is my position.

You should be doing something about it.

If they're feeling that strong, that they're prepared to come out publicly

like this, hopefully some traction.

So once again, well done to Alison.

Right.

Oh, just I think Bronwyn sent me this one about what's happened in Victoria.

So in Victoria, as people would remember, they didn't with religious

instruction lessons, they said You can still have them, but they've

gotta be before or after school.

And of course it makes perfect sense.

Yeah.

And of course no kid wants to do that.

No, exactly.

No parent, no parent wants to have to leave home early or, or late.

Yeah.

And so this marvelous system that people love.

In 2013, there were 93,000 Victorian students enrolled in special religious

instruction, and now previously 93,000.

Now 50.

Fewer than a thousand.

Yeah.

Wow.

So I, I think that just speaks volumes to it all.

You know, it's just like there was one guy there and that sort of stuff

that was quoted in the article saying that that's the reason why you've got

so many more kids going into Muslim schools and that type of thing.

Because it, it, it's a, it's the fact that they've no longer

got the they've no longer got the religious ed in this school.

Mm-hmm.

. Well, yeah.

Okay.

That's fine.

If you, if you, if your faith is that important to you, that you need to spend

the money to actually send your kids to a faith-based school, then that's fine.

But, you know, I, I think that It really should be a secular

experience in a state school.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

We've been over that crown nearly as much as well, even more than we've

been over the ground of submarines.

But yeah, no doubt.

Yeah.

The other thing, Scott, is that the a c C is investigating Hillsong.

Yeah.

That was very amusing, wasn't it?

? Mm-hmm.

Oh dear.

What a petty.

No, that, that's because of the Tasmanian Independent, what's his name?

Andrew Wilke.

Andrew Wilke.

He was actually saying, he said some beautiful stuff in Parliament.

Mm-hmm.

All the parliament parliamentary privilege of course, but now that

the ac n c is actually woken up to and said, oh fuck, we'd be

actually gonna have a look at this.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

So he spoke in parliament and obviously somebody's leaked a

whole bunch of stuff to him.

He had two large stacks of folders of documents.

And claiming all sorts of financial irregularities about Hillsong.

So that will be interesting to see where that ends up.

We don't talk about it too much cuz I'm not sure of the rules of us repeating what

he said in under parliamentary privilege.

But anyway no surprising that there's some skullduggery in the accounts of

Hillsong and yeah, see where that ends up.

And there was an article in the age by the son of Melbourne Turnbull, Alex

Turnbull, and he was writing about the Christian takeover of the Liberal party.

And actually there had been another conference where David PE was

in a panel session encouraging people to, it was join up.

It would be ridiculous, you know.

I actually hate time.

They do actually do it because then the public's going to just

turn around and say to them, no, well, they can go and get fucked.

Yeah.

But then the problem is he doesn't have anybody to hold it to account.

Yeah, I know.

Which is the other problem.

There's no doubt about that.

But it's just one of those things that I hope that the teals, the teal

independence and all that sort of stuff get together and form some sort of

political party on their own and then they end up moving the whole thing.

I would hope that they move the conservatives to the left just a little

bit because they're too far to the right.

Right now.

And then you'll end up with the rural rump of the National Party and the

and the crazy Christian Ners on the other side of the liberal party.

You know, it's just one of those things that is absolutely ridiculous that

you've got a position that you had, you know, George Christensen was one of the

dickheads and that sort of stuff, who was speaking in that particular conference?

Hmm.

He was actually saying that you've gotta get out there, you've gotta, you

know, that the, they're just going to, they're just trying to copy the they're

just trying to copy the Republican party, which hasn't worked for, it,

hasn't worked for them over there.

They're, they're big into culture war as well.

So, at this conference, which was the what was it, the church and State summit

in Brisbane where David PE was urging people to, to join up to the liberal party

so they could get religious candidates.

At that one, George Christiansen argued, Western culture was possessed by Satan.

. Literally, literally, or metaphorically.

And civilization would end within our lifetime, unless Christians comes

back, Jesus or Jesus returned first.

Ah, the rapture.

Yes.

We can only hope that he gets raptured and leaves us alone.

We can only gets raptured back to the Philippines.

Yeah.

So, yeah, and I was talking about Alex Turnbull.

He wrote an article and he said increasingly if you wanna get pre-selected

in the liberal party, you don't, do not necessarily have to be a member of one of

these religious groups, but you probably need their indifference at a minimum.

I think he's understated it there.

I think it's, it's worse than that, he says.

So this is the son of Malcolm Turnbull.

I suspect at this point the liberal party is too far gone on this account.

The branches have been stacked.

The organization fundamentally cannot be pulled back from control exerted

by these more extremist groups.

And worst of all, for all involved, it appears much of the Australian

public has figured this out.

So he's the first commentator I've seen other than myself talking about.

, the actual more or less demise of the liberal party and where we

would head to a, a splintering.

So, so yeah, that was Alex Turnbull, right?

I think he's right.

Hmm, I think so as well.

Splitters?

Yeah, splitters.

You get a , didn't you, Joe?

Yeah.

Gary Linah.

Have you guys ever heard of Gary Lenka before?

Not until the last couple of days when it all blew up.

Right.

Strangely enough I have.

Right.

All because you've got an accent that sounds like you're British.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Famous football.

I must have been a good striker in his day.

Former English captain.

I think I, I, I'm not interested in people kicking a pig splatter

around a piece of grass anyway.

Well, the, the UK has adopted.

So Braman is the sort of chief Yes.

Who happens to be an obvious sort of Pakistani sort of background

or eth ethnicity, I think.

Is that right?

Indian subcontinent, I believe.

Yes.

Something like that.

He's, he's very much in favor of adopting Australia's sort

of turn the boats back policy.

So now, now that I'm here, shut the door behind me.

Yes, that's it.

, which, which carries on from the argument that I raised a couple of weeks ago

in relation to indigenous fairs, that just because you get representation

of people of the right color doesn't mean you necessarily get policies

of, of the right type for that color.

Representation doesn't necessarily mean you get.

The policies you want.

Anyway.

Oh, by the way, on that score, still reading I've decided already if you were

listening at all, Paul from Canberra, I've decided book club next month is

Ken Malick, not so black and white.

So really really enjoying that book and I'll be drawing lots from

it in the indigenous discussion when we eventually get to it.

And still in that point.

Paul, the 12th Man, and I did an episode on Indigenous Matters

about three years ago, and I've put that on a different podcast feed.

So, dear listener, you need to subscribe to another podcast called I fvg Evergreen.

If you just on your podcast app, type in if Fvg search for that,

you'll see I Fvg Evergreen, and.

In that the latest episode is a little introduction from me and a repeat of that

indigenous episode as a little bit of a primer of some topics to consider when we

get to the indigenous episode eventually.

Plus there's other episodes there as the name implies.

I F E g.

Evergreen is topics that are evergreen and will not date.

And so if you had a friend and you were wanting to recommend the podcast, you

could say, have a look at this one.

And all the topics there are still relevant, right?

Back to Gary Lin in the uk.

So he put out a tweet, so he is the compare of the match of

the day for soccer football, as it would be called there, Joe.

Mm-hmm.

Cool Soccer.

Yeah.

Now referencing the turn back, the boats type policy.

Because of the thousands of votes heading across the English channel.

And he said there is no huge influx.

We take far fewer refugees than any other major European countries.

This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people

in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the thirties.

And I'm out of order, question mark.

So that tweet riled the executives at the bbc, which is like our

ABC public broadcaster, ABC, sort of modeled on it if you like.

And and he was told he had to step back from presenting the match of the day.

And for that tweet.

And there was a lot of pressure put on the BBC by government ministers and

they succumbeded to that pressure and told him, you're off for the moment

until you apologize for that tweet.

And he was taken off air.

And what happened was he got enormous public support.

So his colleagues, his fellow commentators said, well, if you are

keeping him off the program, then we are not going to appear on the program.

So the match of the day coverage where they normally have the

segment with the commentators just didn't appear that weekend.

And lots of public support from all sorts of people.

And basically people were pointing out the hypocrisy that

had been used against Gary Lin.

and it turns out that the BBC is just riddled with all sorts of

political sort of operators both on the board and in commentary.

They say all sorts of things all the time, but guess what?

Most of that time they're actually saying things that are positive towards

the government rather than negative.

And Gary Linnea was, was making a statement which was factually

correct in many respects.

But it was against the government line.

So the government has since had to back down exam.

Gary Linco is a, is a guy with power that's not beholden to anybody, like

he's independently wealthy and doesn't need the job on match of the day.

and there's a lot of public sympathy and warmth for the guy.

And obviously also a lot of people are just not liking the policy.

So it was a really interesting situation, which we'd, Scott, I think you pointed

out, we never had here in Australia, any public bigger No of popular figure

like that, make a statement and get the same sort of support, so Oh yeah.

Obviously.

What's his name?

Yeah.

Talking footballers.

Yes.

Israel.

Yes.

Yeah.

How, yeah, exactly.

So what's the difference?

Is he made political statements, did he?

Well, he, yeah, I hope the gays go to hell.

He made some outrageous statements that made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Yes.

So I've got no problem with him getting canceled the way he was.

Well, you run the risk, don't you?

If you're gonna make a statement, you've gotta be, you've gotta be

prepared for the possible blow back.

Yeah.

And if you're out of kilter with accepted social standards Yeah, then

you're running the risk as Yeah.

Whereas the government, I think was out of accepted social Yes.

Standards on this one in, in this case.

Indeed.

And and there was a lot of hypocrisy surrounding it as well.

So it was an interesting sort of exercise at the bbc.

Yeah, essentially he could, he was sort of powerful enough.

And I'll just play one clip that I think is sort of interesting here.

Cause it sort of matches in a little bit with what we were talking about before.

If I can find it.

Just bear with me a second.

This one here.

So his business partner, like he's a wealthy guy, he's got

all sorts of things happening.

I think it's the BBC was interviewing his business partner and sort of

before getting into the, the, the interview proper, tried to sort point

out this guy's connections to Gary Lea.

Anyway, play this, this, I guess in a some ways you have well you, you've,

you've got business links, shall we say, with Gary Lea cuz you, you, you work on

that podcast that is part of his company.

But what do you think of this announcement by the BBC that is

stepping back from match of the.

. Well, I'll come to the second part for later, but lemme just say that is

unbelievable that you feel, you have to make that point clear right at the top.

Well, it's true.

Isn't does it?

Wait a minute.

Yes, it is true.

But does it mean, for example, that every BBC bulletin now should begin

with the words we should point out to viewers That the BBC is

chaired by a man who makes massive donations to the Conservative party.

A new help Boris Johnson get an 800,000 pound loan.

I, I'm just pointing out, explaining to the viewers, yes, I know you do

have a business connection with him.

Well, love it.

When people take on people in a proper debate on camera, we

so hard to see it more often.

It's really powerful when it happens.

Yeah.

So, okay.

You've pointed out a conflict.

Fine.

Are you gonna do that every time now in future with every other person?

This is what gets me about Aspy and and the ABC and their panels, like,

they're so lazy that they, they just, you know, throw a bunch of people on

a panel and just throw topics at them and say, why don't you chat about that?

They don't do the sort of background work that we do here on this podcast.

And um, and, you know, they'll get these people who are incredibly compromised

because of conflicts of interest.

No declarations at all.

We're assumed to know that Greg Sheridan has, has got these

connections with the Australia and not all the other experts they get.

So, anyway, well done to that guy for sort of pointing out the hypocrisy of

wanting to, of the BBC wanting to point out his connection with Linah Linah, but

not pointing it out with other people.

All right.

I had a lot of stuff on that, but I'll skip through that.

Really.

There's a lot where the b BBC, it seems is appeasing the right wing.

And I think we see that a bit with the ABC here is guilty of that as well.

And there's a commentator called Ima Hark who said British conservatives.

Conservatives had three great post-war goals and none of them were constructive.

One breakup with eu two got the NHS and three kill off the bbc.

And they've been successful working their way through those three things.

And you know, the local coalition here, Tony Abbott in particular was vehement

about trying to cripple the ABC.

to make it less effective.

And Oh, and the conservators in the UK have managed to cripple the nhs.

Yes.

And, and LMP over here wants cripple Medicare.

Indeed.

Well, and just underfund it so that it no longer performs, so that then

people will complain and you then hold up the solution of privatization.

Mm-hmm.

. Oh look, it's in such a shambles.

These people can't organize anything.

We better privatize it.

So yeah, these things are repeating what's happening in Britain with

bbc also happening to some extent here in Australia with the abc.

Yeah, Scott, it's gonna be a state election in New South Wales shortly.

Yeah.

And it's looking like the ALP will probably win that in.

, which is somewhat disappointing because the ALP has gone so soft on the whole

gaming machines that I would've thought that we'd probably actually needed

a dose of the Tories to actually try and pull them back into line anyway.

What a, a dose of the, to bring They've been there for the last 15 years.

Yeah, I know, but they haven't, they've only just acted, they've only just

acted on the on the gaming devices.

ARO wanted to become the head of clubs in New South Wales.

I know.

And that was ridiculous.

Yeah.

Sorry, we, you're suggesting that we should have the liberals in the,

in New South Wales in order to take care of the, in order the pokies.

Take care of the ps.

Yeah.

Okay.

That's a theory.

Well, it's a theory.

I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's a theory.

Herk has come out with an idea of Kid's Future Fund.

Did you see this?

Yeah, I did.

I did see that very briefly, but I didn't actually read what it was about.

So basically the New South Wales State government, if reelected, will set up kids

for success with a new investment vehicle for each child born in New South Wales.

Parents will be able to contribute to the fund and the government will match the

contribution up to $400 per year with a $400 contribution made by the government.

So Scott, they've since said it also applies to kids born outside New

South Wales if their parents are residents, but up to $400, parents

can put 400 say $400 in an account and the government will match.

It sounds like the Catholics are, are gunning for more money for their kids.

Well, this is just, which strata of society is going to be able to.

put $400 aside for their kids and get a government matching donation and which

strata of society might actually need it?

Struggle.

We're finding the $400 and therefore unable to get the top up.

It will benefit from the ones that'll struggle are the ones who are

putting all their money into pokies.

what a, what a terrible idea.

No, it's a good idea.

Conservatism is all about transferring taxpayer funds

into the pockets of the wealthy.

It's all part of this middle class, upper middle welfare.

Yeah.

It's, ah, still a list's, not 514 million superannuation.

Hmm.

Just on superannuation.

Yeah.

Apparently in question time.

David.

Little proud asked Labor, Steven Jones, if a wealthy family with a

farming business will pay more tax under the government's changes to

superannuation, and Steven Jones replied.

Yes, that is the point.

We wouldn't be doing it otherwise.

Good answer.

I, I think this is the same when we put a price on carbon and people are

going, but my electricity's going up.

Yes.

That's the point.

That's the point.

So you use less of of it.

Yeah.

Ah, have you guys heard of the Shepherd Center?

Is this a Kiwi thing?

It's a center that provides helps people with their hearing, particularly for kids.

Look, I'll tell, I'll, I've got something here to tell you all about it.

See if you recognize this.

The Shepherd Center has grown with centers all around town.

Their students are going to mainstream schools.

Their talents, they're abound.

We shout and sing your praises.

You bring joy to children's ears for all you do.

We give our thanks.

You all deserve a cheer.

The Shepherd Center gives the gift of hearing.

Thank you for the joy and love your bringing

at.

That's at that point, I'm gonna get back.

At that point, they all wanted to hand back their hearing aids.

, didn't anything My God.

It was better without them.

Yeah.

You're supposed to play trigger warning before that.

Come on.

Yeah.

Well, I like a bit of fun with you.

Yeah.

Yeah, actually you didn't realize she was actually that ugly Scott.

Yeah.

You some nasty things like that, that's not very nice.

But look there are ways of, of getting a political message or a message out

there in song perhaps a little bit better than the Governor General's wife.

He's a little snippet from a guy.

I'll tell you who he is after.

Robo

pistol shots ring out in the media as you expect.

Their, they're protecting politicians, especially one man.

We got 2000 suicides.

It's on Morrison's plan and is a story of Robo Dead who won the

public service pretend to forget.

Is it something that they should not have done?

Okay.

You guys on the whole thing?

He's good.

Very good.

Good.

Let's head to a song.

Yeah.

If you wanna get a message out there.

His name is it's Gallo and Ruben on Twitter.

Alright.

Where are we heading to?

I, I'm waiting for the Tim Minion song.

Right.

Which one?

I, I've, I'm sure he will do one.

Right?

He's, he's, he's commented on various other things.

Yes.

Let me just see here.

I've done that one on me.

Yeah.

Shortcomings I've got.

Yes.

So just speaking on Robodi hearing public hearings have finished.

Yes, they have.

Look again, our mainstream media has been terrible in relaying what's going on.

It's been a shocking story of the things that have gone on.

It's very disgusting as what it is.

And as the commissioner said, the mainstream media really

only showed interest when former ministers were in the dock.

Mm-hmm.

, giving evidence otherwise, you know, the commissioner sort of came out and

made a comment about how the coverage was quite patchy and basically the best

place to get coverage was on Twitter.

It sort of congratulated the people on Twitter who were taking extracts and, and

putting 'em up there and explaining it.

I have to say I've learned everything I know about robo debt from the Twitter

sort of files and extracts that are there.

So, it, it was interesting though.

There've been a number of comments in mainstream media about, oh my

god, social media, how bad it is, you know, how biased coverage.

But the truth is actually mainstream media is also very biased and they're

just clickbait and they're making money off pushing their narrative.

Mm-hmm.

, and they're jealous that social media is doing similar in a different direction.

Yep.

And that you can, you can pick and choose.

Yeah.

If you, if you yeah, that's a bad thing.

If you want to follow a total idiot, you can, but, it, it's nice to be able to

pick a, an uncensored feed sometimes.

Yeah.

But this, you know, mainstream media is just so much, you know, fireman

saves a cat and a tree type stuff.

There's no analysis even on Okay.

Four corners occasionally and media watch, but just the lack of analysis is terrible.

So, there's a tweet by guy talking about insiders.

So insiders is a weekly program.

ABC is supposed to be looking at what happens in politics each week.

And on the 12th of March, they did four minutes on robo debt,

which took a total of 11 minutes for the whole of 2023 11 minutes.

Just pathetic coverage by these groups.

Of course, they'll learn every week, devote some time to what's making

news and look at the mainstream newspapers and see what's going on.

So yeah, sort of really struck by how poorly the media has been

operating in the past two weeks.

So some examples of media not operating very well.

Our old friend, Rowan Dean at Sky News, let's just have a little bit

of Rowan 24 seconds because Daniel Andrews and the labor government were

using your money for secret polling just to drive their decision making.

These people should be in the dock and they should be in jail.

That is my opinion, Rita.

It drives me nuts.

This stuff, those people who are brave enough to speak out were

demonized, and yet we learn it was all b s, it was polling driven.

. He's like me with submarines.

Mm-hmm.

him with Dan.

He just doesn't give up.

He wants him, he wants Daniel Andrews in jail.

just continually going crazy over there.

It's Sky News.

Here's another one.

I mean we've seen plenty of footage about the January 6th riots and

what went on there, like shocking stuff in terms of the violence that

happened in that, that this is just No, it was a peaceful demonstration.

Oh, you must be watching Sky News cuz this is just from the other day, but Fortune.

But rather it was about the extraordinary revelations we will be

chatting about later this morning.

But what really happened at the so-called January 6th insurrection.

So cool.

Having watched Tucker Carlson's amazing at irrefutable revelations that this was no

wild mass protest at the Capitol that day.

Quite the opposite.

Expecting flat earth theories.

Mm-hmm.

from these guys now that denying the January six riots, the

so-called there, there was and I forget what it's called now.

There's a website that has archived all of the social media they could

get their hands on, on from that time.

And there is a timeline of videos from all the people posting on social media

and it shows everything that went on Yes.

From people who were filming inside the capitol.

Yeah.

And then, you know, from the different inquiries that have been on, there's been

all sorts of foot footage as well, Sean.

So it was extremely violent stuff going on there.

So.

Well they wanted to hang Pelosi and Pence Yeah.

Just to be denying that.

What are we doing?

Just, just, we've got the media ignoring important stuff and completely.

Lying about other stuff is such a misleading, evil force.

There's no solution.

Have you guys seen much of the dominion voting machines lawsuit that's taken

place against Fox News in America?

O only the revelation of the emails.

Yeah.

A lot of evidence that they knew it was complete bullshit.

They were allowing people to say, and dominions, the amount

of money involved is huge.

And apparently there's another voting, another company similar

to Dominion who's also caught up in This's, also going to sue.

It's the figures that they're talking about are enough to bankrupt news court.

Apparently.

We can only hope.

Well, exactly.

Yeah.

Although I.

. I follow a security pundit, less so these days, but in the past, and he

has for probably 20 years been saying voting machines are a bad idea.

Pencil and paper is really good.

It's slow, but it's accurate.

You can recount as many times as you'd like.

It's really difficult to screw it up.

And that's why sensible countries use it.

Voting machines, everything happens inside a black box.

You don't know who you voted for or whether your vote is gonna get counted.

There's no accountability.

Mm-hmm.

So yeah, it doesn't matter who the manufacturer is.

The, the problem is accountability.

The problem is visibility.

Yeah.

With a pencil.

Yeah.

With a pencil and paper.

You know, you voted, you've seen it go in the ballot box.

And as long as you've got an independent of observers, the chance, the, the ability

to scam it is very, very restricted.

Mm-hmm.

. I agree.

And you know, there's something community about it as well where

people go, and, and the counting, have you democracy sources trench.

Yeah.

And the counting is so transparent.

It's done there at that building Yes.

Where the voting was.

They're not transferred all over the place in bags generally.

And voting's done there and then seems, yeah.

Perception.

Good point, Joe.

Yeah.

Finally, dear listener, as we wrap this episode up, Nord Stream Pipeline,

New York Times came out with new intelligence reviewed by US Officials

suggested that a pro Ukrainian group carried out the attack, the North Stream

It's called the US Military, the Pro Ukrainian Group.

. That's right.

US officials said they had no evidence that Zelensky or Ukraine or his top

lieutenants were involved, or that the perpetrators were acting at the direction

of any Ukrainian government officials, just rogue Ukrainians in a boat.

And this is anonymous US officials just dropping a leak to the New York Times.

And the New York Times, of course, presents it.

And in referring to it for the first time, mentions Sahu Revelation.

In the sort of last paragraphs of their story, they finally mentioned Cy

Hurst and his scoop if you like, after repeating the bullshit from anonymous.

sources within the government.

Honestly, the, they're basically saying that a bunch of renegades from Ukraine

unconnected to the military or the government hired a boat and put enough

explosives in it to, to paddle out to their necessary spot and, and then had

who were capable of diving that deep Yes.

And not be seen by anybody uhhuh, and then leave and in, in

a fairly busy shipping channel.

It's just insulting to, it just insults our intelligence.

Mm-hmm.

, well, Ukraine's on entire, the wrong side of the continent to get away with that.

The Nord stream, two pipeline goes into Germany, which is on

the other side of the continent.

Yeah.

So I think to myself, yeah, that does, doesn't cut the master,

just, just the capacity of a group.

to do.

This is just ludicrous.

Yeah, it is.

And that's the best they could come up with.

It's just insulting.

So, ah, there we go.

I think we've reached the end.

Anything you wanna get off your chest, Scott or Jay before we sign off the chat

room's been going really well tonight.

Good on you guys in there.

So that was good.

Yeah.

Alright, well we'll see what happens.

I won't talk about submarines next week.

Give it a rest.

You can take a, you can talk about submarines as much as you want.

Okay.

Well head over to, as I said before I F V G Evergreen.

Look it up on your podcast app now and you'll see a thing about

indigenous matters, which is your homework preparation for that.

And also, I'll probably find the episode that we did on.

Submarines previously.

Put that on there as well.

And I'll just find different evergreen stories and put them on there.

So if you are dear listener, I have to say we don't have nearly as many

don't have as many people listening to the podcast as did a few years ago.

Say, tell your friends word of mouth is the best way of

people finding out about this.

And I'm sure you've heard more on this podcast in an hour and a half

than a lot of other stuff out there.

So if you think it's worthwhile, tell your friends and consider becoming a Patreon.

There's a link in the show notes.

Otherwise shoot me an email or a message.

Say hello, tell me how much you enjoy the show.

And that'd be nice.

I get occasional ones of those.

Alright, well it's time to finish.

Talk to you next week, Scott and Joe.

Bye everybody.

Yep.

Thanks very much for tuning in.

Bye now.