Suburban Eastern Australia.

An environment that has over time evolved some extraordinarily

unique groups of homo sapiens.

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.

Hello, dear listener.

We are back the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

I'm Trevor, AKA, the Iron Fist.

Over there.

Well, I used to say, uh, living in, in Peter Dutton's electorate

of Dixon is Joe the tech guy.

But now I can't say that.

Not because he is moved, but for other reasons.

Joe, how are you?

I'm fine.

Happy that, um, that, uh, Lord Voldemort is no longer my, uh.

Local member.

Yes.

So, um, so there we go.

A bit of a shock.

And, uh, Peter Dutton out.

The whole election result was a bit of a shock.

So, um, that's what we're gonna talk about, the result of the election.

Uh, what happened, what does it mean, what are the theories surrounding it?

So if you, in the chat room, tonight is a really good night, if you wanna

make a comment, then you are likely to have your comment heard and we'll, um.

Talk about stuff.

So it's a bit of a free for all on what happened on the election.

So, um, so Don is there.

Hello Don.

Welcome aboard.

Yeah, so, so that's the agenda is, uh, looking at the results,

looking at, um, the polling beforehand, trying to figure out.

What happened and why it happened.

So join in if you feel like it.

Alright, well really, uh, this episode Joe should probably be dedicated to, uh, a

keen listener dire straits, John, because, um, uh, John in particular is a labor man.

He's a member of the Labor Party.

He's also got a be in his bonnet quite often about how polls are wrong.

I think he hates the idea of, well, it just, he really.

Pushes the idea that polls are often wrong and I think the

polls were wrong in this case.

And third, and possibly most importantly for John is he's been

pushing the line on North Korea.

I. Soldiers in, uh, fighting against the Ukraine for Russia.

And I'm gonna have to eat some humble pie dear listener, and

concede a beer to John on this one.

'cause the evidence has come in and it looks like indeed

there were, can you believe it?

North Korean soldiers, uh, enough of them to justify what, uh,

what's been, has been being said.

So, so yeah, we'll get to that right at the end.

So, so yeah, this, um, dire straits.

John will have a big smile on his face.

At this stage, so, oh look, as we go through the episode, we're going

to sort of have a few theories of, of what went wrong for the liberal

party, including sort of demographic things like aging boomers are, are

disappearing and the younger generation are not voting for the liberals.

So stuff like that.

One article I did see was by Karen Middleton.

Which had an interesting theory, um, I'll read a bit of it here.

She said, Peter Dutton tapped into a widespread reluctance about the voice

that was right for reinforcement.

And when voters overwhelmingly rejected the idea of the voice, he took it

as vindication obvious approach.

He had correctly read.

The people were hesitating about the voice he misread.

W why?

Well, some opposed the voice because it represented wokeness.

A good many voted no because it wasn't clear to them how it would work.

Or what it would do.

And the referendum result convinced Dutton and liberals that they could beat

labor simply by continuing to amplify the resentment of those outer suburbs.

So a sort of a theory, Joe, that the voice victory.

Uh, led them into thinking that Australians were much more concerned

about wokeness and just a negative campaign would be successful.

What do you reckon?

Is that, uh, a, a good theory or part of the many things that

add up to I was gonna say, if

anything is one of the many, isn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's no

single thing that causes

Yes.

So add that to the list of things.

You know, Joe, as I just think about this result, um, I. Thinking of the,

you know, you talk to people as I do down here on the Gold Coast, quite often

in coffee shops and whatnot mm-hmm.

With boomers and, and all the rest of it.

People will often say, ah, they're all the same.

These politicians, they're all blah, blah, blah.

They're all in it just for the money.

They're all the same.

Doesn't matter which one.

And to some extent that's true, like the world isn't gonna change that

much 'cause this is a bit of a duopoly where both sides on some pretty

critical issues are in lockstep.

Like neither is gonna do anything about the property crisis, neither

is gonna do anything about orca.

Um, it's just a lot of tinkering at the edges.

Lay bad to be, you know, dragged kicking and screamed to get rid of stage

three tax cuts in the last election.

So, sort of practically on the ground.

Perhaps not a lot of difference between them, but when you look at the caliber

of people involved, this liberal national party group are the most talentless and

lazy politicians, I think, that have been collected together as an opposition.

Um, at least in Morrison's.

Case they were a bit more hardworking and would get across the detail a bit more.

These guys have just been lazy and hopeless.

Did it strike you that way?

I, I've not really seen much messaging for them.

Yeah.

But then the flyers from Dustin, I just thrown the bin anyway.

Yes.

But, um, you know, they just weren't across the policy detail.

So when you, you can, uh, agree and disagree about things about, you know.

The philosophy of, of the, the having the priority of the market and less

government and lower taxes and, you know, can talk about those things.

You might disagree with them, but you should know your numbers

and your facts and figures.

And whenever I saw these guys talking, they would just stumble

over the most basic facts and figures of their own policies.

Um, so.

You know, a number of them have gone and the ones who are left, Joe will talk

about the sort of potential new leader.

Yes.

Who might come all across.

It's pretty slim pickings in terms of talent that's there.

Well, I've heard two names, I think.

Yeah.

Which ones?

Uh, Sulay and Hangers, something I can't remember.

Yes.

Angus Taylor.

Yes.

Uh, the guy in Western Australia.

Christie and um, Dan Teon.

It's a pretty, um, talentless bunch that they're looking at, and it's

hard to imagine them resurrecting things over the next three years and

putting up a good fight ready in three years time just based on the talent

that they lack on that, on that.

In that cohort because Joe, why would anybody with talent wanna join the liberal

party and go through the preselection process when you, first of all gotta

be a right wing nut job, Christian nutter to sort of get preselection?

'cause the Christians have controlled the preselection process in the liberal party.

Um, well, certainly young in

Victoria, haven't they?

Yeah.

So, um, for anyone with talent.

Looking at joining, uh, they wouldn't make it through the pre-selection process.

So, uh,

are you saying that all right-wing Christians are

talentless well, when it c Yes.

Okay.

Particularly when it comes to forming policy that might be for the

betterment of, of the common good of the community, they're just gonna do

stuff that benefits themselves and God.

Yes.

Yes.

And unfortunately, they've adopted this.

This, um, oh, what's it called, Joe?

Um, prosperity Gospel.

Mm-hmm.

Where, you know, having more money is a sign that you've been, um, favored

by God and having less money means there's something wrong with you.

So it's a nasty sort of, um.

Philosophy that these people have and Yeah.

Yeah.

The poor people deserve it because God doesn't like them.

Yeah.

And it, and it's far, so far away from the, from the idealized message of Jesus.

It's, it's, it's, uh, yeah.

So that's the sort of inherent problem that's in the liberal party.

Nobody mentions that.

You just get that on the Iron Fist Velva Glove podcast.

So, yeah.

Uh, what do we got here?

Um, Don Tuy says, uh.

We'll see your LMP and raise you one nation and trumpet.

No, no.

Trump of idiots.

One notion, one nation and, and trumpet of idiots.

Yes, true.

Uh, there's another talentless bunch, so, yeah, right.

Um, the actual result then, uh, put something up on the screen and, um,

so this was from earlier today that I grabbed this, these figures and.

Um, basically the primary vote for labor was 34% 0.8.

Um, actually, let me expand that so I can read it properly.

Yeah, 34.8.

So up 2%, 2.2%.

And the primary vote for the coalition down 3.7.

The greens.

Overall the vote was 11.8% down, 0.4%.

Remember that figure for the greens?

'cause this is an interesting thing that the greens, there's a lot of

talk as you read things about how it was a disastrous election for the

greens and it was in the lower house.

They lo in the lower house, they lost two seats.

But in terms of support.

Uh, they got 11.8% of the primary vote, and, uh, they're

only down 0.4 of a percent.

And we'll explain it a little bit as to, well, actually, as to why

they lost two seats and, um, well, it comes down to this dear listener,

that in a seat, like, um, the two in Brisbane, the main thing that, uh, the

reason why the Greens won previously.

Was that the Greens candidate finished just above the labor candidate.

So the labor candidate finishing third in the 2022 election meant that

all of the labor, um, preferences, preferences went to the greens, which

gave the greens then the numbers to beat the, uh, liberal party candidate.

So all the, the, the crucial thing was for the greens to get ahead of labor.

And then collect all of the preferences.

The problem for the greens in this election is that the liberals did so

badly and lost about 5% in many cases, and that went to the labor candidate,

which put the labor candidate into the second position, and that then meant

that the green's preferences went to labor and the labor candidate would win.

So it only required.

Uh, in many cases, something like 3% swing from the greens to, uh, well,

a, a 3% swing, not even from the greens, but a, a three or 4% swing

in favor of labor from liberals.

That was enough to push labor.

Ahead of the greens and to, um, and therefore to win those seats.

So, oh, I've got 'em here somewhere.

I wonder if I'll be able to find them.

We might get to 'em later.

Sort of demonstrating that one.

So that's sort of a key part of this is it's not all bad news for the greens.

They just got, um, a bit unlucky in how that worked out.

Maybe they were lucky.

And how it worked out in 2022.

I think that's part of the point, isn't it?

Yeah.

And thing, and their luck evened itself out.

So, um, so yeah.

Um, labor overall up 2.2 and on a two party preferred up 2.8.

So

I think the interesting thing was, um, both of the major parties

only got one third of the, the vote.

Y

Yes.

Of the, um, of the initial first preference.

Yeah.

Of, yeah.

Yep.

Which means that a third of people are first referencing, uh, a sm a minor party.

Indeed.

Or an independent Indeed.

Yep.

Yep.

So continuing the trend that we've seen.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Um, so just looking at the polls.

So, um, I was thinking to myself in preparation of this podcast.

Hang on a minute.

All these polls, none of them were saying how strong this result was gonna be for

labor and, um, am I imagining things?

So I've grabbed one, which was from The Guardian.

This was printed on the Friday before the election.

And um, it's a poll averaging model by Dr. Luke man and based on

work by Professor Simon Jackman.

The, uh, shows a range of.

Potential results in the election.

And they had 95% certainty of what they were saying.

And so they were saying for, um, the Labor Party that the two party preferred

vote for the Labor Party, it was gonna be somewhere between 49.7 and 53.1.

And it ended up being 54.9.

So it was well outside their range of 95% probability.

Now, they were basing theirs on a pole of poles, if you like.

They were taking all of the poles and averaging it out

and out and stuff like that.

So, um, in a similar story with, uh, the LMP, um, they thought that the lowest

two party preferred vote that the, uh.

The co the opposition would get would be 46.9 and it ended up being 45.1.

So well outside the sort of, um, the probability range, Joe, we

just can't trust these poles.

We can't.

One

of these East Europeans ever done to you?

Yes.

Voting polls?

Yes.

Uh.

Uh, so, um, what else have we got here in next slide?

Um, I'll, I'll just skip that one.

That was an awkward one.

Um, Queensland, a 3.4% swing to the a LP, so pretty high in compared

to, um, uh, what was predicted.

And actually

interestingly, um, whoever you got this from, mm-hmm.

Have counted trumpet of Patriots as the United Australia party.

Yes.

That's where I Where that whereas A

EC, don't, a EC count them as a completely different party.

Yes, that's right.

This came from the ABC's website.

Okay.

I took this forum.

So, yeah, in terms of swings, so overall the swing against the greens in the house

of reps in Queensland was only 1.4%, but it was enough to cost them two seats.

So that's just the way the numbers worked out for the Greens on this occasion.

Um, what have I got on this one?

Uh, other interesting ones down South.

Joe.

Tim, Tim, bloody Wilson.

Yes.

Looks like he might get in against Zoe, Daniel in the seat of Goldstein.

Like he's been out.

Uh, so she was one of the Teal candidates?

Uh, yes she was.

And, um.

It's looking like he might get in.

Wasn't, wasn't he a rabid Christian?

Yes.

A Rab gay Christian?

Yes.

And there was an awful scene where he was fighting over who should lay

a wreath at an Anzac Day ceremony.

But, uh, forgiven by the people of Goldstein.

I think there's been a slight change in the boundaries that

might have aided him, but, uh,

maybe

you'd have to be depressed, uh, as Zoe Daniel.

If a guy like Tim Wilson can come back from the dead and knock

you off, you'd begin to wonder.

But didn't

she, uh, get him out in the first place?

Yes.

Yeah.

And to come back like this, like some sort of zombie that you just can't.

Uh, finish off properly would be, it'd be quite depressing.

Uh,

I, I wonder whether it's disaffection for her or whether that people really

liked Peter Dutton as a leader.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, so yeah, back to just temporarily for the green.

So Max Chandler Mather, he lost his.

Seat in Brisbane.

Um, because of that, uh, arrangement I mentioned before, he had a 2%

swing against him, but it was enough to lose, um, because the

Labor Party got a 5.7% swing, which included a lot of liberal votes.

So that's what happened there.

And a similar story, uh, in the other one.

Meanwhile, Joe, mm-hmm.

If you look on social media, you'll see.

Bullshit representations like this one I've got on the screen from Just Media

Watch, which basically shows that, um, based on the preference count, the

Labor Party has 57% of the vote, and Max Chandler may the 43% of the vote.

And it says here, uh, you know, he previously had one with the margin of

10.5 and now he's losing by margin of 14.

And they're basically saying.

You know, that's because of the shitty policies of the greens.

It totally misrepresents, um, that whole preference, arrangement and flow.

Like it just, uh,

weird things happen.

I remember watching the state elections.

Yeah.

Uh, and weird things were happening with flow.

Yes.

With the, with labor.

Labor and greens flip flopping.

I think it was the green seat.

Yeah.

Um.

It was also, I'm just trying to remember now.

No, lost it.

Yeah.

So quite disingenuous to say, uh, max Chandler Mather previously held

it by a margin of 10.5 and has now lost it by a margin of, um, 14.

It's all to do with.

Losing enough to get into third place and then losing badly from

then on because of preference.

Yeah.

You didn't have a lunch effect Yeah.

Because of the preferences.

Yeah.

Um,

similar results in Brisbane and

Joe, it looks like, um, where I am in the seat of Ryan mm-hmm.

That the Greens candidate might hang on Elizabeth Watson Brown.

In the leafy western suburbs of Brisbane.

Yeah.

I didn't know you were a, a green, um, voting area.

Yeah.

Later.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, she looks like retaining it so.

What about the Senate?

Just a little, uh, Senate Basics update.

Um, the Senate, uh, is made up of 76 senators, 12 from each of the six

states, two for each of the territories.

Half of the state senators face election every three years, and the

territory, senators face election every time the lower house goes.

So, um.

So that's how that works.

So essentially just over half of the Senate up for reelection and,

uh, labor Party gained a few.

Liberals lost a few, and, um, the greens have five continuing from

the, and four have been won and two are likely to be in their favor.

And I think I've got the overall, uh, maybe I don't, um.

Uh, yeah.

Overall in the Senate, the greens got 12.6% of the vote, which was up slightly.

So, so they were down a little bit in those house of rep seats and they

were up just marginally in the Senate.

So that's how that panned out for the Greens.

Um.

We, uh, I forgot to look up the socialist equality candidates, see how they went.

But, um, are you, have you ever heard of Drew Pavle at all?

No.

He's this mad guy on, um, social media, just insane.

And, uh, he posted on his, um, on his, must have been Twitter, I guess.

That he put Cameron La Lackey dead Last at number 55.

He went through and numbered all of the candidates and, um, he wrote

this time round I had the honor to number every single Senate box to

place pro language warning coming to you listener, uh, to place the

Pro Kremlin Cunt, Cameron Lackey.

Last.

Fatima Paman literally ran a pro Putin sto.

Pleasure, pleasure to put them last.

So, um, Cameron, lucky, a badge of honor to appear last on the

Drew Pavlov, uh, Senate ballot.

Um, no shame in that all honor to you.

Um, that's a good achievement.

If he thinks you are dead last, um, that's a good thing.

'cause he has no idea what he's talking about.

What else have I got in these?

Um, uh.

Yeah, I think, I think that the, what did they call themselves?

Australia's voice party got 0.9 of 1%.

Unfortunately, I think they were outvoted by trumpet of Patriots I think.

Got around.

Oh no, certainly.

Yeah.

I think they got around 2%.

Yeah.

That's our democracy at work.

What?

What's

the cutoff for federal funding?

Um, I dunno, dunno, trumpet of patriots.

You sent me an article, Joe, about, um, uh,

from what, why he doesn't care whether he wins any seats or not.

Yeah,

yeah.

It was an article by Chris Stevenson on her blog.

Um, and it was about, uh, it's all about, um.

Yeah, basically getting his name out there, but also learning how to,

or not learning how to, um, getting enough of a preference, um, ability.

Yep.

So people he knows he's not gonna get an MP in.

So it's about controlling which way the preference is flow and being

able to bludge in any party that threatens his interests with a,

wouldn't it be a shame if I swung this 2% against you at the next election?

Yep.

And as we've seen in this election, so 2% can be vital, um,

to, to get you across the line.

So if he can pick up two or 3% of influence in enough seats, then that

can be enough for him to influence the major parties, uh, in terms of their

decision making to keep him on side.

Mm. Yeah.

Right.

Um, I, Joe, I thought that, um,

like three weeks ago, I thought that Dutton would scrape in, in

some sort of minority government.

'cause I hang around a lot of boomers.

Mm-hmm.

And they were all stuck on him.

And, um, uh, but I guess this election has proven a couple of things that, that, um.

The Murdoch press and the influence of the boomer generation has

finally, um, come to an end perhaps.

So, um, I've got a peer dear listener again from previous polling, but does

show just in terms of of age group voting preferences in the 18 to 34 age group.

Uh, 63% vote labor and only 36% vote, uh, for the coalition.

Um, in the 35 to 49, it narrows a bit, 56% labor, 43 opposition.

In the 50 to 64, it's still in labor's favor.

51% to, uh, yeah, that's 49.

Sorry, in the.

It, it changes over, uh, around the age 50,

uh, sorry, it does 50, 64.

You're right.

Sorry.

Um, 51% opposition, uh, liberal national party and 49% labor.

And then of course, in the 65 Boomer territory, uh, 59%, uh, liberal

national and only 40%, um, labor.

So.

That's a bad demographic mix for the liberal national parties because the

18 to 34 is super strong against them, and it's hard to see that turning

around as again, over the next three years, more of that boomer generation

pass away or end up with dementia where they can't even lodge a vote.

Um.

Uh, it's hard to imagine this turning around over the next three years.

Uh, similarly, males and females, uh, females much

more likely to vote for labor.

These guys really didn't appeal to the female vote at all.

Dutton's.

Um, he's such a charmer.

Yes.

Um, and the whole sort of work from home thing, um, as well was not

of appealing to the female vote.

Um, and the other sort of thing about how this splits, Joe is on education so.

People with university degrees, 54% typically vote labor and 45% vote

liberal national and TAFE and tech, uh, 50% vote labor, 49% liberal national.

And the only category where the liberal nationals win in terms of education is

those with no tertiary uh, education.

Uh, 51%.

Liberal national, 49% labor.

So in a, in summary, the educated part of the population is more

likely to vote for the Labor Party.

And Joe, that's an interesting one in terms of, uh, when you're looking on

social media and you're looking at, uh, excerpts from Sky News mm-hmm.

And places like that, which crop up on my newsfeed, unfortunately.

Um.

The Andrew Bolts of the world, the Peter k Credlin of the world, uh, the,

all of these commentators are basically saying the electorate is stupid and

they just don't know what they're doing.

Yeah.

And

which is how you feel when your team loses an election, but

objectively, according to research.

Yeah, it is the educated part of the population that folks labor at the moment.

Yes.

So

sorry guys, but that argument doesn't really cut it.

The other one is you'll see people saying, oh, you guys are gonna

be so sorry in three years time.

Mm-hmm.

You dunno what you've done to yourselves.

Well, they've just had a labor government for three years.

And they've gone Well, that'll do us, I want more of that.

Yeah.

So you might have, or

maybe we're, we're just afraid of the alternative.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, you might have been able to say that when the liberal

nationals had been in for.

A couple of elections and you could say to 'em, you know,

you dunno what you're doing.

It'll, mm-hmm.

It'll will be ruined in three years time.

You're gonna regret this.

But they've had a taste of it for three years, so that

argument doesn't work either.

So Joe, as you look at the comment, like you mentioned before, the commentator on

a, b, c, during the election coverage, um, McGrath or something like that, wasn't he?

Or, uh, who, whoever he was.

They, they seem to be delusional, these guys about, about how they're going to fix

this from the opposition's point of view.

How are they going to recover the votes they need to recover?

Like it's a lot of seats they've gotta pick up and, and like, there's

two schools of thought within the, the pro liberal commentariat.

One is that we've gone too far to the right.

And we need to dump stupid right wing policies like the nuclear policy and

some others and become relevant again to the middle Australia that they've

missed the other school of thought, which seems to me, Joe, to be the

one that's the most predominant.

Yep.

Is the one that says.

We haven't been true enough to ourselves.

We haven't properly, uh, gone embraced the fascism enough, enough

hardcore of true conservative values.

We've been wishy-washy in our explanations, in our policies, and if

only we, the liberal nationals had been more, had more faith in our ideology.

And, and double down on these things, then the people voted for us.

Yes.

And I think they honestly believe this.

They do.

And they're the ones who are gonna be pressuring, um, candidates and members

of the opposition and opposition leaders.

Yeah.

To, uh, to double down and go harder.

That's all that's required.

That's seems to be the most, and the long way they

carry on like that,

it's, it seems to be the most likely direction.

The only problem, Joe, is it's not good for our democracy.

The, it just allows labor to

No, it, it doesn't, 'cause I think the greens will hold them to account.

Okay.

I, I, I think it just makes the LMPA minor party and brings the greens

and laborers a as the ruling duopoly.

Mm-hmm.

I, and I'd rather that than labor and the LMP.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think the greens could be a bit spooked by what happened with

losing a couple of seats and,

um.

I dunno.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But it does seem to be the case that that, that the liberals and the

nationals egged on by Sky News and the Murdochs and by their extreme

right wing party membership mm-hmm.

Are just going to go harder and harder and.

It's hard to see them turning things around.

So my worry is that labor will just be complacent.

But who knows?

Maybe, maybe they'll surprise us, but

who knows?

If there was more pressure on labor, maybe they'd be keener

to do something about Orcus.

They might just let that go, for example.

I don't know.

Yeah, well possibly,

yeah.

Kind of hoping for Hung

Parliament, won't we?

Yeah.

So, um, so it still means that, um, uh, Democrats are required in the Senate.

Like it's not as if, uh, labor can do whatever they like and get bills passed.

They have to, to find some agreement from somebody in the Senate.

Yeah.

And most of the time that'll be the Greens and maybe Pocock and.

Um, Fatima Paman, sort of as a sort of progressive side.

There's enough there that they can, between the Greens and those two,

they've got enough progressives.

They can get their, their stuff through Destination.

Through.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, no, Jackie Lamby, she'll be gone by looks of it.

So mad hater.

O Oftentimes she spoke more sense than a lot of 'em, though.

Yeah.

She was a bit of a straight shooter in that sense.

A a bit random sometimes.

She was great, sometimes she was awful.

Yes.

There was no happy in between.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm conscious that people think that way about Trump to some extent, like

at least he's a straight shooter.

No, he's not, but she was.

No.

On some occasions, so, yeah.

Yeah.

Um, so anyway, she had a good run, uh, and a good go at it.

Um, uh, what else have I got here?

Um,

um, I mean, last I looked, uh, the seat of Dixon

Yes.

On, on First Preference doesn't want,

okay.

Yep.

But.

But as it gets distributed,

as with the, yeah, with the preferences, then labor comes out.

Four points in the lead, I think.

Yeah.

Yep, yep.

So, and I really

thought that Ellie Smith was in with a chance, but she only got 15%.

Right.

Okay.

Yeah.

Um,

just briefly, the four potential candidates, uh.

Hapless Angus, dopey Dan, crazy Susan or the Christian soldier.

That's the choice.

Just to remind people, Angus Taylor is the laziest, most ineffectual nincompoop

as an opposition treasury spokesperson we've had in a long time, like he was not

across his brief at all and was hopeless.

And if he gets.

He's large, he is one of the big factors responsible for this disaster.

I can't imagine them naming him as the opposition.

I can't imagine it actually, of course they could.

Yeah.

Um,

re those no bounds.

Yeah.

Even Jim, Jim Chalmers, the treasurer, chipped in and said that, I think

you're saying this genuinely

Yeah.

To, uh, the opposition.

I'm like, Angus Taylor did a terrible job basically, and is largely

responsible for the disaster, and you'd be nuts to appoint him as your

opposition leader, but you know.

Mm-hmm.

It was like he, I think he was genuinely giving them some helpful advice, but

uh, maybe he knew that they would purposefully want, not want to follow it.

Well, exactly.

Yeah.

Anything to own the liberals?

Yeah.

Susan La Joe, when you think of Susan LA what do you think?

I, I think a woman who spelled her name deliberately wrong because

a Numer Numerologist told her to

Yes.

Changed her name to put an extra s in 'cause a numerologist told

her that would be good luck.

So I,

I mean, how can I take anybody sensibly seriously if they do that?

Exactly.

Exactly.

But is it any crazier Joe than thinking that a man was nailed to a

cross and resurrected after three days?

Well, that, that's, that's the default crazy in this society.

And so it's considerably more acceptable.

So you actually have to go outta your way to be a bit wacky, to go off and talk to

a numerologist and take what they say.

So seriously, you change your name.

Yeah, that is true.

Yeah.

So, uh, the other one was, um.

Dan Teon.

My memory of Dan Teon that we've spoken about in the past was,

uh, I, I think he referred to, uh, um, the Country of Africa.

Mm-hmm.

Not realizing it was a continent.

And, uh, there were a number of, well,

Australia's a continent and a country, so why not?

Yes.

Uh, I think he did it when he was education minister.

He's, uh.

He's one of the four candidates, Uhhuh and, uh, Andrew Hasty, I

believe is a, uh, a pretty hard, nutty Christian, um, and a, a defense man.

So he unfortunately, if he gets it, will be all in on Orca.

Uh.

So, um, he's, he's like, um, Cameron Lackey sort of flipped over

in an alternate universe mm-hmm.

Sort of thing.

Uh, EXD defense, but, um, hadn't seen the light as Cameron Lackey had.

So, yeah.

Uh, so that's the choices.

Um, can put your money on any of those.

Joe, anybody in the chat room wanna have a guess?

Uh, an estimate of.

Who they think is gonna get the opposition gig?

I have

no

idea.

Yeah, I think, uh, I, I reckon Angus Taylor will get it.

That's my pick.

I, I think he's, I dunno, he's the, the front man of that lot, isn't he?

Yeah.

And I think he actually wants it, right?

Whereas the others possibly think.

Why would I wanna be opposition leader over the next three years

where I'm just gonna get crushed?

And, um, you know, the smart play might be to sit back for a while and let somebody

else, um, do the hard yards, take, take all the shots, and, uh, and so, whereas

I think Angus Taylor really wants it, perhaps more than any of the others.

So how's that for theory out there?

Hmm.

I. Um, what else have we got here?

Of course, neither party, um, wanted to address the housing crisis properly 'cause

that's gonna require tax reform and the property investor is the only species

granted full protection in Australia.

So their wealth is the source of most problems in the country and

will be defended at all costs.

So don't expect anything to be done in that regard.

And then, um, job, we are wrapping, we're running through these quickly.

Mm-hmm.

And we are gonna finish up with North Korean troops.

So, um.

It looks like I age out with John Beer.

I was pretty adamant, uh, that there wouldn't be any North Korean troops

because that seemed like a stupid idea.

And how could Russia possibly coordinate North Korean troops as

part of the infantry And, uh, that this all came from, uh, either the

Ukrainians or the South Koreans or the American, uh, defense sort of.

Agencies.

You can't trust any of them, Joe.

But, uh, and you said to me, what proof would it take for me to come

around and say, okay, fair enough.

Um, and I thought at the time maybe it would take, you know, some soldiers

captured, interviewed by some.

Independent group, like, I don't know, some UN independent group

who would, they'd say, yep, we're Korean, north Korean, and we are here.

And that's kind of what I was thinking would be about The only way this could

be proved, I. And um, and also then the story came out that they'd, they'd left.

Yes.

So we're thinking, well, we're never gonna know now for sure.

'cause they'll never be captured and mm-hmm.

John and I will argue over this for the next 20 years, but less

you, Joe.

Thanks a lot.

I actually, it was my friend Matt in England who sent that article to me.

Did he know about our running

dispute?

I, I believe so.

He does listen to the podcast from time to time.

Okay.

So there's an article from Reuters, um, um, basically, uh, quoting

North Korean, um, government, um.

Spokespeople as they print stuff on their websites, et cetera.

So North Korea confirmed for the first time on Monday that it had sent troops to

fight for Russia in the war in Ukraine.

Under orders from leader Kim Jong-Un, the victorious end of the battle to liberate

KIS showed the highest strategic level of the firm militant friendship between North

Korea and Russia State News Agency, KCNA.

Um, cited the north, the North's ruling party is saying.

So I think when the state news agency, uh, says it, then we have to say, well, that's

also the Russians have all, uh, uh, also admitted at the same time.

Indeed.

So I

found a bunch of Pravda.

Umu sites Yes.

That were going on about how the, the Great North Koreans had

in fraternal assistance fought off the the fascist Ukrainians.

Yes.

On Monday, Russia's president Putin expressed his personal

gratitude to North Korea.

Quote, we will always honor the Korean heroes who gave their lives for Russia

for our common freedom on an equal basis with their Russian brothers in arms.

Putin said in a statement released by the Kremlin.

So

now

fairly,

I I didn't read that.

That was

in that article from Reuters?

No.

Oh, I see.

I I didn't actually pay attention.

I was just, I was guessing the, the phrasing that it was gonna

be, and it wasn't that far wrong.

The best part is when you read the, um, the part

from the Korean State Agency.

Well, this is the translation of it, uh, from.

Pong Yang, April 28th.

Um, I'll just quote a bit here.

Um, uh.

The subunits of our armed forces, which participated in the operations

for liberating the Kisky area.

According to the order of the head of the of the Democratic People's

Republic of Korea, fully demonstrated their high fighting spirit and

military temperament, and made an important contribution to annihilating.

The Ukrainian neo-Nazi forces and liberating the territory of the

Russian Federation by displaying mass heroism, matchless bravery,

and self-sacrificing spirit.

It is a source of pride for our state and a greatest dignity for our people

to have such excellent soldiers.

Joe, that sounds like genuine North Korean speak to me.

Absolutely.

Uh, so there you go.

Dire straits.

John, it's been quite the episode for you, A labor victory, uh, poles

proven to be completely wrong,

and dust and dumped du

and dumped and proof of North Korean soldiers.

Yes, I'll pay up whenever you're in the area, so, yeah.

Joe, we might make it a quick one today.

I reckon Scott wasn't with us Dear listener.

'cause he's on a plane somewhere.

I, um, uh, the other topic that we can get into next time is, um, the

latest Trump and the tariff fiasco.

Joe, this, this will be coming to a crunch.

Mm-hmm.

Because, um, China.

Uh, stop sending and Americans stopped wanting 'cause they're too expensive.

Yeah.

Chinese products, but a number of products were already on the

water in chips on their way.

Um, that's all stopped and, um, there's no more leaving and the

ports are starting to slow down

mm-hmm.

In terms of delivery of product.

And so it's going to take a few weeks.

Not many more.

And the shortages will start showing up on the shelves of retailers.

Yeah.

Can blame in the US and people are gonna get angry that, um, they

can't buy stuff that they wanna buy.

And uh, the mangers

will still blame it on Biden.

Yeah,

of course.

But, um.

That'll probably really reach a crescendo close to the 90 day limit.

Like he said.

Um, I'm just gonna charge everybody 10%.

Mm-hmm.

For 90 days.

Except for those nasty Chinese.

'cause they were, uh, 'cause they retaliated.

Um, and the whole point is at some point he's going to capitulate on

all this, but it's gonna then take.

Um, many weeks or months for the stock to then be loaded onto new ships and

then for the flow of goods to commence.

So there's gonna be a number of, even, even if he overnight, uh, changed his

mind on these tariffs, there's a big lag in terms of the supply of these products.

So.

I, retailers have got nothing to sell, will start putting off employees.

Yeah.

And um, it's gonna be an interesting situation over there

that could spook a lot of people.

So we'll talk about all that next week.

Um, uh.

In the chat room, Andrew says, story.

I saw that these DPRK soldiers discovered uncensored internet access in Ukraine and

were preoccupied rather than fighting.

So they were just, uh, watching porn rather than fighting the story.

Look, I'm gonna call BS on that one, and if anybody can prove

it, I'll, I'll buy him a beer.

I don't think that the Korean State Agency is gonna provide proof of that.

No.

Uh, that'll be a hard one to prove.

I'm calling BS on that story.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Anything else Joe, you wanna get off your chest?

No.

No.

I can't think of anything.

Okay.

Alright, dear listener, thank you for your attention.

A bit of a short one, but, um, we'll be back next week.

Um, bye for now.

And

it's a good note from him.

Marty, quit drinking, found religion for a while.

I didn't love that.

To be honest.

I preferred him before he had a sense of humor Then.