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.

I'm actually jealous of the mere cats because it's probably easy

for them to identify good guys and bad guys as they're looking out.

Yeah.

In anyone who wants to eat them is probably a bad guy.

Yeah, that's right.

Things they want to eat.

Let's heading that direction.

It'd be simple, wouldn't it?

It's not so simple in our world to identify the good and the bad, to sort

out the wheat from the chf, to just get through the mountain of distraction lies,

to work out who's Jesus and who is Satan.

That's it.

Yeah.

It's not easy, but that's what we are here for on this podcast.

That's our job is to, is to work our way through it and help you out, dear

listener, because you are too busy.

You'll work away nine to five.

You've got other commitments.

You can't read all of the shit that we have to read and all the posts and

social media stuff that we follow.

You're relying on us to provide a few guideposts, I guess.

But Trevor, you and I don't agree on everything.

That's true.

At least well.

Trying to find common ground.

Yes.

Common understanding.

At least we, at least if we can find the truth of something mm-hmm.

Then we can argue about the merits of things.

I, I just, just getting to the truth is the hard part

re-watched a, a eulogy to hitch.

Yes.

Yesterday actually.

Yes.

And one of his friends said you know, I, I often disagreed with 75% of what

he said, but he was still friends.

He actually enjoyed being challenged.

Yes.

And, and I think that's the important point, is that you can

challenge and still be friends.

Mm-hmm.

And, and that you appreciate somebody challenging your point of view.

I've actually enjoyed the last couple of weeks where you guys have been pushing

back on the China Russias business.

Mm-hmm.

So quite enjoyed that.

We were having a bit of disagreement, bit of to and fro saying, yeah.

Anyway, I didn't think we actually disagree over China.

I just think to myself that we've got to actually not restrain them, but manage

their re rise, you know, because they are, they are getting, they are getting back

to where they originally belonged for the last 18th centuries, outta the last 20.

Mm-hmm.

They were down below where they were, and now they've, they're starting

to come back to where they were now.

Mm-hmm.

And I just think to myself, okay, that's fine.

But I just think to myself, they've got to actually step back from Taiwan.

That's all.

All right.

Well see, we do disagree on some things anyway.

Exactly.

Let's work our way through some topics, see where we agree and disagree.

And what is, what's on the agenda?

Well, we're gonna talk about religious instruction in Queensland.

There's been a bit of stuff about that.

And then really there was a bunch of topics that, to me, were all

centered around our media and.

What a poor job it's been doing, particularly in Australia.

So a lot of things where, what's going on, a fair amount of the discussion is about

how it's being treated in the media as in addition to what is actually going on.

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

Who is in the chat room?

We've got John and Andrew.

Tanya and Mel here over the moment.

Mel, good to see you there, Mel.

So, right.

Ah, she's the, well she was up there at the Mackay meeting.

Was she?

Yeah.

She's one of our, one of the instigators.

So, right.

Or let's talk about religious instruction in school.

So, we revealed a week or two ago that the Queensland Labor Party at its conference

agreed unanimously that to have a policy that religious instruction lessons

should either Be taken away out of school completely or alternatively that they be

offered during lunchtime breaks or before or after school, not during school time.

So that was a clever, a clever little thing to put in there as a

way of, of appearing reasonable.

And it is reasonable to offer them, you know, that's, that's still something

that they shouldn't be allowed to do in a absolutely secular state

school, but as a tactic of trying to get something through the parliament.

Excellent move.

Because of course, when the religious instruction lobby objects to it

the answer is we can still do it, just do it before or after school

because, you know, in America it, it's not even allowed in school.

Yes.

So look at our system and think they'd love to have it.

Yeah, they have.

So the, the, the religion.

Mob have wet dreams about it.

The secularists go, what the hell were you doing?

What were you thinking of?

Yes.

Because kids associate school with knowledge and so they're

coming here and they're getting assertions rather than knowledge.

Yes.

So yeah, you go to church for assertions, you go to school for knowledge.

Yeah.

Well anyway, so we had that, which was great.

And we did think at the time, well, it's one thing to have a policy, it's another

thing to actually have laws changed.

And unfortunately it's been reported that Grace, grace living up to her

name possibly has basically said she's got no intention of changing

the law to match in with this policy.

And it's also came out because there's been some great work in

particular by a writer at the Career Mail, Mattie Holdsworth who's been

writing lots of articles, which.

Have quite succinctly put forward the secular case very well.

I mean, we would've been dreaming for years about having a journalist

like maybe Holdsworth at the Courier Mail doing what he's doing right now.

He's doing a great job.

So he's coming out with articles and the latest one was had a lady called Karen

Gring and she's from the Queensland Christian Religious Instruction Network.

She's the chair and she's not happy about the proposed change.

I think there should be a g and E on the end of that Q cringe.

Yes.

Cringe cringing.

Is that what you're saying?

No, no, no, no.

The Q C R I N.

Right.

Oh, I see the, an acronym.

Yes.

Anyway so.

Also in this article, it talks how that the Queensland Teachers Union

is, is in favor of the change.

And also the state school principals association, Queensland Association

of State School Principals.

They've been very coy in the past and difficult to get any sort of commitment

from in years gone by, as I recall.

So I find it very encouraging and interesting that the Queensland

Association of State School principals also backs the changes.

Of course Karen living up to her name as a Karen must be

terrible to be a Karen these days.

Yeah.

And as soon as you have a bit of a gripe about something mm-hmm.

You're accused.

No.

What a Karen.

Yes.

It would be terrible, wouldn't it?

Anyway, living up to her name, she she didn't like the compromise.

Because, you know this is of doing it before or after school because she said

it would mean the end of RI in Queensland.

She says, when the Victorian government decided to do that, we know the numbers

fell overnight, effectively killed.

There would be no program.

Ms.

Grinning said, we don't want hundreds of thousands of parents to miss out

on the important part of education.

That is the consequence.

So what she's basically admitting, as we all know, is the kids don't wanna

really do these things and they're not going to give up their lunchtime.

Also, the parents, 99.9% of the time would not be interested in getting their kids

to school early or picking 'em up late so they could attend a before or after class.

So she's effectively admitting that the Victorian experience would be replicated

here, that the kids and the parents.

If they have to put in a modicum of effort, we'll not want to do it, and

the whole rock shadow will collapse.

And she says that without Yes.

B awareness.

She's all about values.

Yes.

Because people can't have values without being indoctrinated.

Sorry, be instructed in religion.

Yes.

She also tried to run the argument that the people, all the children who don't

go to religious classes they get some valuable religion revision and quiet

reading time that's very valuable to them that they'd be missing out on.

So she's trying to say that this downtime with kids are twiddling their thumbs

would, would be lost or ludicrous.

The problem is, of course, if you look at the comment section on

the Curia mail with these articles they've been pretty heavily in favor

of religious instruction continuing the way it has, because guess what?

The average reader of the courier male is is that sort of demographic.

So unfortunately if Grace, grace is paying attention to the comment section, then she

will be, have a full sense of entitlement yes, to keep it as it is and be scared

to change it because she will go, oh no, all the comments section are against it.

I better not do anything like possibly she thinks that way.

Who knows?

Really surely in the Labor party.

Now, if you are criticized in the courier mail or you are criticized

by commentators in the courier mail, you should see that as a green light

for a thing you should do, because exactly, it should be a signal to you.

But that's something you should do.

If the courier mail's telling you not to or the people are telling you not to, it's

probably something you should do anyway.

That's where we're at with religious instruction.

It will be interesting to see what pressure can come to bear on

Grace, grace over this issue by Labor party colleagues, I guess.

Sounds like next election.

We're all out in her electorate, campaigning for the greens.

Absolutely.

We are.

Absolutely.

We are.

We are going to make contact with whoever the Greens candidate

is and we will be offering as much support as we possibly can.

Because the Greens, of course, have a policy of getting rid of this RI and

Grace Grace's electorate is one of those that's in danger of the greens.

Taking it over.

You should see that.

Hmm.

Anyway, right in the chat room.

What's been happening there?

Let me just, why can't I scroll on this chat and see what's been happening?

Why isn't that scrolling?

Oh, no, why?

Let me go back to here.

Okay.

Let me see.

Yes, and Mel, we are gonna help on the Sunshine Coast as well.

Actually Julia says the comments section on previous articles have

a majority saying, get it out.

That's good.

That's what she said.

Check out the videos.

20th.

There's some links there to some videos that Julia is aware of.

And John says he knows a couple of Karens and they prefer Kaz now.

Yeah.

Julia says principles have wanted changes since 2015.

Okay.

And hello to Allison's mother, Bev.

Now also asked, did we pick up on the orcas at State conference?

No we didn't.

So presumably the state conference said they didn't like the sound of orcas.

I would hope Is that same?

Hopefully they said stage three task cut tax cuts were crap as well.

Yeah, yeah.

Let us know, Mel, what the story was with orus at that stage conference as well.

Alright, so in the chat room, you're firing away already.

Good to see.

Before we move on to more of my media stuff, is it a

strange buzzing coming through?

Yeah, it's Scott's fridge, that's my refrigerator.

It's just turned on.

Okay.

Okay.

Sorry about that.

No, it's all right.

Joe, you were concerned about AI and Christian email campaigns.

What's the story?

So I was listening to a podcast.

Science versus, which generally dials into delves into controversial matters.

And this time was AI and how it was gonna end the world.

And shock horror up it isn't.

Mm-hmm.

But they did say one of the most concerning things was the ability

to generate convincing sounding letters to generate a flood of

replies on a controversial issue.

And they'd taken a bunch of generated and real letters to some politicians in

the US and they couldn't tell which ones were generated and which ones weren't.

Hmm.

And so there's a very real possibility that with a bit of knowledge, you could

generate an email campaign as a single person and generate hundreds or even

thousands of e emails to politicians pretending that their electric cares about

an issue that really isn't of interest.

Yes.

And, and knowing that the a c l engage in these huge letter writing campaigns

where they just dump out the same form letter over and over to the point where

I think it was the voluntary assisted dying, said we ignored the form letters

and took 'em all as a single letter.

Yes.

The in future they could be using this to auto-generate non-standard form letters.

So still a form letter, but it doesn't look like one which would

make it seem like considerably more of a groundswell than it really is.

Maybe it will so discredit the email lobbying sort of industry that people

will be tempted to just ignore email campaigns if it is such a chronic issue.

I, I think maybe in the long run.

Mm.

But in the short term, there's a, a very high possibility that yes.

And I think, I think you're right there, Joe.

I just think to myself, in the short term, you're gonna have a hell of a

lot more of this sort of nonsense.

Whether they're going actually just sign, try and flood their email inboxes.

That's all given that the Christians think it could, I think it could actually

work in their favor in the short term, but in the longer term, I think Joe's

right, that you just, I think Trevor's right, they'll start to ignore it

after about six or 12 months, given that the email campaigns, normally the

Christians outnumber the secularists.

Mm-hmm.

Maybe it's an opportunity for the secularists to use

the ARI to even up the field.

I know that it's one of those things that we, we, you know, it's just

that you're gonna get into an arms race with them who can actually fund,

who can fund the inboxes faster.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, well, we'll see what happens with that one.

All part of an interesting world.

So, oh, look, as I was going through these topics, I got quite

depressed and negative, so let me pass on some of that to you.

Well, I was listening to James O'Brien talking about Boris Johnson.

And Boris Johnson has resigned and, and his fuck off letter.

Yes.

Basically blaming everybody except himself and saying it was

a completely undemocratic process.

The inquiries that have been against him, all to do with the parties that were held

at Downing Street during lockdown period, and his array of lies that he spewed

forth in, you know, once hints of this came out and really just caught out and.

You know, as James O'Brien was explaining it, there is a committee

looking at his behavior, which is a majority conservative committee.

The parliament is still majority conservative.

The worst that would happen is that they would recommend some sort of

by-election take place, and then it would be up to his constituents who are

majority conservative to boot him out.

So for him to say the whole process is undemocratic beggar's belief, what he

means is he's a privileged, spoiled brat.

And he doesn't like being held to account.

Correct.

I think he's right.

He's, he's jumping now and so he can say the whole thing is a kangaroo court.

Mm-hmm.

And so I was, I was listening to that and really to any observer looking at

Boris Johnson from the get-go, you just have to go, this guy is a lion prick and.

Trump was the same.

You just had to look at him and listen to him for five minutes and know

that he was a conman snake salesman who was only interested in himself.

Yeah.

But I don't understand how he's still the front runner in the

Republican nomination race because it's all politically motivated.

It's all a plot to take him down.

It's all tribal.

It's tribal.

It's tribalism will excuse anything.

Mm-hmm.

That's what it's come down to.

Yeah.

But you do have a number of other people up there who are trying to take him down.

It's just I don't understand why.

I mean, Ron DeSantis is, is an idiot, but you know, you do have a

few others there that are possibly a hell of a lot better than him.

Mm-hmm.

Well, he's created his own tribe, the Trump tribe.

Remember he's taken over the Republican party and.

Refashioned it as the Trump party, and the other people are Republicans are

trying to just nibble away at the edges.

So, you know, tribalism.

And then, you know, lately with this sort of Brittany Higgins saga, which I will

not be talking about you're free to now.

Well, just except for this one moment right now.

Remind kept reminding me of Scott Morrison and, and he was also

to my mind, obviously a liar.

And a charan.

And a buffoon.

No, no, no.

None of them were liars.

They were bullshitters.

The difference is a liar knows that it's a lie.

Yes.

And cares about the truth.

Right.

A bullshitter doesn't care what the truth is.

What they say is what serves them at the time.

Yeah.

Well, that's true.

Yes.

And, and, and they were all bullshitters.

So there's certainly a common thing about these guys, guys, as you look at them.

To me.

Buffoons, blustering, stupid, selfish, buffoons, full of chutzpah, which is

extreme self-confidence or audacity comes from the back of the throat.

It's chutzpah.

Thank you.

Or the Hebrew lesson y Yiddish, I think y Yiddish.

Yes.

Their only talent was self-promotion and self-preservation, and they

invariably relied on a thin veneer of lies and tribalism, the three of them.

And the thing is, they got away with it for so long because they just weren't

scrutinized by the media properly.

And we just have Trump, Trump got so much and Trump became the leader

because he got so much free press.

They, they looked at the amount of press he got before the 2016 election.

Yes.

And said if he'd had to pay for that, that would've been worth hundreds of millions.

Yes.

Well, okay.

That's just another example of how the media has not worked the way it should

to expose these snake oil salesman.

The complete failure of the media, if its job is to inform

people of what's going on.

But I, I think they no longer think that they now think that their job is to

pick aside well set agendas, set policy.

Yes.

They, they think their role is to to drive the populace into persuading politicians.

That's what it's become.

Certainly for the privately owned media.

For example, even, even the state owned media to an extent.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Which way are they driving people, Jane?

BBC abc, I, I, I think they are undecided.

I see they are a lot on politics.

They're afraid to call out the right for, for what they are.

But on social issues mm-hmm.

I see that quite often they are very left-leaning.

Yes.

Okay.

They'll drive a left wing bedroom issue, won't thinking, well, welcome to country.

Yes.

As an example.

Mm.

And, and or any of the gay rights and marriage equality.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Transgender and all that.

Yeah.

Yep.

They'll drive that.

That's true.

But, but politically they really don't hold politicians to

account around climate change.

No.

True.

And, and other political issues.

That's because the powerful people.

Don't really care too much about marriage equality and transgender issues.

These make up a good distraction to keep the masses occupied.

But the things that are important to them, especially oil companies, for

example, don't want climate change.

And rich and powerful people don't want, you know, income inequality dealt with

or other, no major changes like that.

So, so the ones that the abc, the publicly owned media will drive are things that

powerful people don't care too much about.

Anyway where was I going with this?

So, obviously private owned sectors captured by powerful interests,

the families who own them, but the public sector, the ABC is captured

by the same powerful oligarchs.

So they fill the board positions, Ida Buttross, and the other

cronies on the ABC board.

They feel the comparing roles.

If you look at David Spears, pat, Patricia Cavalla, Stan Grant, these

are all right-wing corporate types.

Any honest independent journalists risk losing, access to scoops via leaks.

If they rock the boat, the smart ones have already left.

The ones left behind who are not right wing insurgents are timid

dullards who don't understand and can't provide analysis.

I think the analysis on the ABC is pathetic at the moment and the way

James O'Brien was talking about the bbc, it sounds like it's no better.

There's no analysis.

So the only time they introduce ideas outside of a narrow Overton window is when

they allow crazy right wing panelists like Greg Sheridan to give a right wing view.

And the effect is to shift the Overton window a bit more to the right.

It, it's like this nonsense that he's got written here.

You know, Boris and Trump targets of undemocratic attack, the la persecutions

of both Donald Trump and Boris Johnson.

Demand designed to make sure they never come back as shocking.

Yes.

You know, I, I can't understand how someone who has a brain on their

shoulders could suggest that either of those men are being persecuted, like

they've been given such a free ride.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's Greg Sheridan.

He's an idiot.

Yes.

As marquee lawyers described, he's, he's entered the weird uncle phase of his

career, but he's been there a while.

Next week the ABC will have him on, I know, on some panel

somewhere, and not him either.

No.

Give us your viewpoint.

And he'll give his extreme viewpoint and that that will

be part of what its acceptable conversation in the Overton window.

But they never have anybody from the socialist Democratic Party or some other

extreme left when it comes to economic issues or, or climate change issues.

They're just, anyway, that's the abc.

It's, it's been taken over.

So, so what do we do?

So to understand people need to read, but who's got the time?

Who can avoid the distractions that cripple our attention?

Like, I have to do this podcast every week, so one reading stuff,

but I'll often get distracted way too much by social media and get

taken away from more in-depth things.

It's not easy to avoid all of these bells and whistles and read something

of significance and difficulty and try and understand an issue.

And look, while I'm on this topic, I am going to provide a little bit of a video

from James O'Brien who was maybe I'm not actually, this is by Roger Waters.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

So he's been in the news lately because he's been accused of antisemitism

and he had quite a good rant explaining why he's not antisemitic.

But he had a good in his rant, there was an interesting passage I

thought about how do we understand topics and learn about things.

I'll play this one for you just to break up my monologue.

Here we go.

A lot of my political ideals have hosted through this, mainly following my mother.

She once said to me when I was struggling with something or other, she

said, Roger, through your throughout your life, you're gonna come up

with all kinds of naughty problems, things that you have to wrestle with.

This is my advice to you.

Read, read, read, read, and then read some more.

Find out everything there is to know about whatever the question might be.

However long it takes when you've done that, you've done all the heavy

lifting, the hard work is over.

What do I do then, mom, she said Next bit.

It's easy.

You just do the right thing.

You know it's not hard.

But you do have to do the reading and you cannot believe what the BBC tells

you cuz it's completely a mouthpiece of government and the ruling class.

You are not being told any of the truth.

So what I would suggest you should do is like my mother would suggest

you do, and read, read, read, and don't read The Daily Mail.

Or The Guardian.

The Guardian.

What is our guardian of, Ugh.

Read what people who know about these things have to say.

That's the other thing, isn't it?

You gotta be careful what you read.

Mm-hmm mm-hmm.

Head down some rabbit holes and you could be believing all sorts of crazy stuff.

Gotta read critically.

That's the thing.

You gotta be able to evaluate the credentials of the writer and

the strength of their arguments.

People need to argue, talk, discuss about our civilization and

how it's being organized, but we don't, it's impolite to talk about

news, politics, sex, and religion.

I remember again, going back to hitch him talking to someone and there

is a classic putdown of his, and he says, it strikes me, I'm sorry to

have to say this, that you have read nothing of your opponent's position.

Mm.

And he said, effectively, if you can't succinctly put your

opponent's position into words, you shouldn't be having the argument.

Mm.

Yeah.

You should know both sides of the argument before you have it.

Mm-hmm.

In the chat room, are you having dinner parties, meetings with people?

Will you actually argue stuff with people about, I reckon Mel does.

Surely you know, I feel like I go to things.

I went to a function of 60th birthday on Sunday at this brewery in

Brisbane, and introduced a few topics.

You were being the weird uncle again, weren't you?

Yeah, I was.

I feel like I'm the only time people ever come across these discussions.

Like this guy started to say about Russia blowing up the dam.

And I said, well, how do you know they did anyway?

They kicked something.

Sorry.

Yeah.

In the chat room, tell me, do you have discussions where you actually talk about

the sorts of things we talk about on this podcast with people and argue and discuss?

I'm, I'm interested to know.

I think, I think there's a lack of it.

So, all I get is a work meetings.

Oh, God chose off on one of another, one of his friends.

Yeah.

So if people couldn't see through Schmo Johnson or Trump obvious

charlatans, how are they meant to evaluate even simple policies?

How is the average person, I suppose to look at the house crisis at the moment?

House prices, rents you know, they might hear something like

oh, let's give people access to their superannuation to buy houses.

Like that's gonna come up over the next 18 months.

And I think it's a really bad idea cause it's just gonna lead

to increased prices fairly.

Sure.

Juice media, honest government ads did a thing about that.

Did they?

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Again, at this 60th birthday, we got to house prices and somebody

said, well, it's all about supply and demand and sort of walked away.

Cause I wasn't actually in the mood, but okay.

Supply demand plays a, a role, but with housing you've got interest rates.

Low interest rates leading to people borrowing the maximum they can borrow

from the banks, increasing the price.

You've got vacancy rates we talked about where there was like a million

properties on census night that were just vacant, which we haven't had before.

We've got our tax laws that incentivize people to have multiple properties.

We've got a culture in Australia of home ownership that is quite strong

compared to some other countries.

And we've got record low public housing, construction.

Like there's a whole bunch of issues in there that as nuanced

and complicated and intertwined.

It's just not easy for people.

You need to do a lot of reading to get across all of those things.

It's not easy.

So, in the chat room Mel says, most of my robust discussions are with

colleagues, mostly conservative, but usually well informed, and

it helps me hone my arguments.

Lol.

So Andrew watches a run on YouTube.

Dunno what that is.

Ron says, I'm finding these days people just want to hold forth.

They don't want to discuss.

Mm-hmm.

I hope I'm not holding forth these things.

I tend, I like to think I listen to people.

Julius says people don't wanna think about the tough stuff

and I think she's right there.

It's, it's true.

I, I remember my daughter as, as a little one asking questions and I'd

say, you know, what do you think you, what, what information do you have?

I don't know, dad, just give me the answer.

Right, right.

That was like tough man.

Talking about the Asian student was encouraged to talk about something and

he said, just tell me what to say, right?

Yeah.

Where am I getting to with this rant?

So yeah, our leaders have improved since Morrison Trump and Johnson, but not by

much a powerful, rich, and religious.

Haven't lost anything.

The powerless haven't gained anything.

The blatant lies and tabloid shit.

Fuckery may have eased, but the policies haven't changed besides bedroom issues.

The parties are the same.

So I always like this quote from Chris Hedges about whether there's a difference

between the Democrats and the Republicans.

He said, well, of course it's a difference.

It's how you want your corporate fascism delivered to you.

Do you want it delivered by a Princeton educated Goldman Sachs criminal,

or do you want it delivered by a racist nativist, Christian fascist?

And we've certainly got the the Christians here in our.

Liberal national party.

Ah, look, finally, there's a, besides the housing crisis, Scott, there's a recession

coming and Albanese is going to own it.

Mm-hmm.

I reckon, and at the next election, people may not understand all the economic issues

in details, but they're gonna feel pain.

And I think they're gonna see the greens are offering meaningful relief.

Really?

Yes.

Because the Australians already been touting that we're in a recession.

So the Austral, it was one of the Murdoch rags.

Mm-hmm.

I, I saw the headline, something about Australian recession.

Mm-hmm.

And I thought, yeah, what a surprise.

Right wing media, left wing government.

Well, it was close.

The, the quarter that's just finished was like 0.1 of a percent.

I know it was very pitiful.

It was a very pitiful for performance and God knows why.

The RBA thought that, oh, now's the time to jack up interest rates again.

Yeah.

Point two of a percent GDP growth was 0.2 of percent for the margin quarter.

They, they're really worried about inflation.

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, the only way it achieve in by jacking up interest rates as

far as they have now, it's only you know, it's maybe we can start

increasing taxes on corporate profits.

I agree wholeheartedly.

You know, that that would be the, probably the smarter way to do

it, but you're not gonna be able to get the government to do that.

It's one of those things.

I just think to myself, the only way that they're going to actually

bring demand under control is to have a lot of people put outta work.

Now it's already resulted in what was it called?

It was called a recession of the households or something like that.

They reckon that the households had to cut back their own expenditure

to the point that they're saying that it's recessionary type.

Of that sort of expenditure.

It's one of those things God knows why they are just got their

blinkers on, and that is still driving up the interest rates.

Well, would you like to hear from the Reserve Bank governor and to

hear exactly what he had to say?

Yeah, I know what he's gonna say.

Here he is.

And those calculations that you referred to were based on the assumption

that people made no adjustments.

So if people can cut back spending or in some, some cases find additional

hours of work, that would put them back into a positive cash flow position.

It's not to say that there's not very significant stress out there

and households at the moment.

But as I showed in the chart here that arrears rates remain low, people are

affording to, to pay their mortgages even as they roll off from the fixed

rate loans to variable rate loans.

The arrears rates remaining low, but.

The banks are telling us, and this is understandable, that people are

having to cut back and sending.

And I think that's going to be that the environment we're operating

in a while for a while yet people will make their mortgage payments,

but they have to cut, they'll be cutting back, sending in other areas.

So I'm, I'm hearing he's saying, put food on your table, don't pay your mortgage,

and then the r b will cut into his rates.

Yes.

I think what he is actually saying is that, you know, he, he's basically making

a what's the word I'm grabbing for that?

He's making a, a He's trying to justify his position of jump jacking

up the interest rates the way he has.

He said that it's going to impact your expenditure outside

of your mortgage payments.

Mm-hmm.

So you can, you can still put food on the table.

You can still buy your kids new shoes, but you can't buy them the expensive shoes.

You've gotta buy them the cheap shoes and you gotta spend as

little as humanly possible.

And that is the whole point.

It is just one of those things.

It is starting to hurt now though, and as the interest rates go up

and as the mortgage payments go up, it's going to hurt even more to the

point that people are going to then eventually end up selling their homes

and they're going to not get as much for them as they were hoping for.

Yeah.

There's still a lot of people on fixed cheap rates that

haven't gone the variable yet.

They are going to, I think they're calling that the cliff, aren't they?

They're saying that they're gonna fall off that cliff this year.

Yeah, so our RBA refuses to accept that increased corporate profits

has a significant effect on this, and they're basically blaming wages

and apparently in their report.

According to an article by Bernard Keen in Crikey, he says, the report in

devoted an entire section of its most recent statement on Monterey policy

to discrediting the argument that profits played a significant role.

So our reserve bank is focused on blaming wages for inflation, but

according to Bernard, keen and Crikey elsewhere in other countries, central

banks are actively engaged in the debate about the role of profits.

So, let me just see here.

The European Central Bank released research showing that the latest

increases Driven by both unit labor costs and unit profit unit profits.

Unit profits increased by 9.4% in the fourth quarter and contributed more than

half of the domestic price pressures.

So European Central Bank is acknowledging the role of corporate profits, whereas

our reserve bank is refusing to.

And the European Central Bank president went further and said, sectors have taken

advantage to push costs through entirely without squeezing on margins, and in some

cases pushing prices higher than justified by the, the cost of their inputs.

So the, there was another country there I think as well that had a similar thought.

Let me just, lots of them used the lockdown.

It's a layoff staff.

Yes.

And then complain of that increased costs, pass that onto consumers.

Yes.

When actually running at reduced costs.

Yes.

One of the arguments you'll see is that, okay, there's been increased

profits in business in Australia when you look at a chart, but a lot of that

is in the mining and energy sector and separate to the rest of the economy.

And Bernard Keen says, well, okay, if we admit, if we forget about energy, what

other structurally important inputs?

And Steve Adore profits have soared.

Coles and Woolworths have enjoyed surging profits.

The banks have enjoyed higher profits Qantas higher profits.

Mm-hmm.

Department stores higher profits, so.

In the spirit of John Cleese he says apart from energy, freight, construction,

materials, groceries, interest rates, airfares and retail where is the

so-called profit driven inflation?

That's a good line from Bernard King.

So, so yeah, our reserve bank, ignoring profits, other reserve banks are accepting

that they're playing a role in inflation.

And if you see the argument, well, it's all about the resource

energy sector, super profits.

Remember all those other sectors that have had strong profit growth, it's

gotta have some impact on inflation, but nobody's gonna address that.

It seems, I could have sworn though, read something today that they reckon that the

outrageous profits and that sort of stuff that the mining companies were making are

on the way down because the The per ton price of coal and the barrel of oil has

gone back down dramatically, hasn't it?

I think some of that has, yes.

I, I'm not sure what commodity prices.

I think some of that has dropped down.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But here's what I like about Crikey, at least on this one, is okay, that was a

argument run by Bernard Keen in Crikey.

And then there was another argument run by Adam Schwab also in Crikey,

basically saying, eh, Bernard Keen's sort of exaggerating what

the real cause of inflation is here.

He's missed the real point, and I'm about to explain what he suggests the real point

is, but I think it's quite refreshing that in the same publication you've got

people solve a problem, but having a different view and you just gotta work

your way through and try and figure out who's right and So he admits that Keen was

correct in a sense that some businesses are making the most of the situation

and fattening their profit margins.

He said in normal times, unless you've got a monopoly, a business that tries

to increase prices is gonna lose market share as customers switch to competitors.

But what has happened recently is that businesses without monopoly

pricing have been able to increase prices without losing customers.

And the reason is that following the global financial crisis, we

had a decade of gluttony where debt levels massively expanded.

And in 2020 when the economy should have contracted, covid came along and

governments lost their collective minds.

Encouraged by much of the media politicians chose to lock up their

population, which had the effect of significantly slowing economies.

And to avoid being voted out by people, governments undertook the

most aggressive fiscal stimulus in modern history in Australia.

290 billion was created and handed to all sorts of people,

and that didn't get returned.

When the pandemic ended, all that money remained in the system.

So inflation, he says in its most basic form, is too much

money chasing too few goods.

So the covid related stimulus created a torrent of cash.

And unlike previous decade of monetary policy largely causing asset prices

to skyrocket it materialized in higher consumer goods and service costs.

So cust corporations have been able to fatten their profit margins because

their customers have more money to spend.

That's an interesting.

Angle to it.

I, I, I disagree.

I think.

Mm-hmm.

The, the, the biggest benefits of Job Keep was Qantas was hard, hardly

normal, who did really, really well.

Mm-hmm.

By the average people not being able to get out, I don't think it

created zombie businesses at all.

I think a lot of small businesses died out.

I think the zombie businesses were Harvey Norman and Qantas, and, and the

ilk who got huge amounts of government money and the people who needed it, you

know, I, I think the 12th man needed it.

I, I think that was one of his major arguments against the lockdown was

that he suffered personally and he wasn't seeing government large s it

was the, the corporations that saw the, the large s and note that got

that money hasn't been paid back.

I think I agree with you, Joe.

I don't think it did trickle down to the consumer level.

I think it stayed at the corporate level.

Yep.

So probably Keen's correct.

And swabs probably incorrect.

Well, I, I, I think the government bailouts could well be the cause

of the inflation, but they'd never got to the poor people.

Yeah.

But you know, and that's all punishing the poor people is the wrong place.

You should be going after the corporations.

Yeah.

There would different sectors in the boomer sector.

Let's, let's pick on baby boomers again.

Mm-hmm.

Who have had their asset prices increase mm-hmm.

And their superannuation, you know.

Okay.

They haven't been spending money on overseas holidays and they've had

their sort of, every Boomer I know is currently overseas at the moment.

They're all, they're all there.

They're, Facebook is littered with people.

Mm-hmm.

In Europe traveling around.

So I think there was a bit of pent up money to be spent by those people

who weren't going on holidays.

There was a lot of holiday money, for example.

Yeah.

Unspent that went into vehicles, people bought caravans and yeah,

there was a big shortage of vehicles.

I, I think some sectors would've benefited from, from boomers having

spare money that they couldn't spend as they were locked up.

I think there's a little bit of that at some point, but yeah, you, you're right.

The general Joe Blow.

I, I, I think not traveling into the city, not commuting five days a week

what's it, $8 a day in train alone?

Yep.

So $40 a week, times that by 50 weeks, two grand a year.

So it's another two grand in my pocket, which was discretionary spending.

Mm-hmm.

And, and yes, of course there was the need to upgrade the home office.

Mm.

Because I'm working from home now, so I, I think spending patterns did shift, but

I don't know that people had more money.

Mm-hmm.

Anyway, good to hear some arguments about what's going on.

Dear you listener, if you get the show notes, read through it yourself and figure

it out as to who you reckons most likely.

Correct.

Okay.

I think there's gotta be a bit to both of those arguments.

Mm.

Yeah.

Now, just backtracking, if you guys are with the notes, head

back to Greg Sheridan's picture.

Mm-hmm.

Back up that way because ABC has lost its way and Green's mp, max Chandler Mather

appeared on the Insiders Program and.

David Spears was questioning the questioning Max about their housing

policy and I've got a link on the show notes or just Google it, you'll find it.

He was, he was, his view was always, well, if you do that, then this

terrible thing's gonna happen.

Or you can't su seriously suggest this, or, you know, you

don't really mean that, do you?

Or of course if you do that, that's gonna cause a problem here.

He was very combative in his approach to what the screens guy was saying.

And Scott, I have to say that the Greens mp, max Chandler,

ma Mayther was all over it.

He was good.

He was one of the most impressive politicians in Australia that

I've heard in a long, long time in terms of being over the topic.

The detail wasn't drawn to the side issues that Spears wanted to go to.

Brought it back where he wanted to when necessary.

Didn't dodge the questions, gave good answers.

I thought he was excellent.

I think you know, cuz when before I said you know, next election, the greens are

gonna, people are gonna listen to the greens and they're gonna feel the pain.

And I think you grim a little bit, but I think that, that

Max can, he can sell a story.

If people listen to him for 10 minutes, they'll go, okay,

that guy understands this shit.

Like, he obviously does a lot of door knocking, talks to a lot of people,

and he's also got a lot of stats and figures and facts right on the

tip of his tongue ready to go and ready to throw back at David Beers.

He's very, very good.

Yeah, I've got noted about that.

He was he's in Brian's electorate.

Mm-hmm.

Brian calls him the 12 year old.

Right.

One of those things, I think at the time I said that if you had teal independence up

here, Griffith would've fallen to a teal and Brisbane would've fallen to a teal.

And the one out in the western suburbs, which named Escapes

me, would also have Teal Ryan.

Ryan, yes.

Mm-hmm.

I don't think those three would've been picked up by the Greens, but Max has

probably got this seat for at least two, possibly three terms, because he

understands his electric very well.

His electric's got a, a large number of people that live in it that don't

own the properties they live in.

They've got twice the number of rent of share accommodations in that, in that

seat compared to what other seats do.

So I think he's.

I think he's, by giving him the housing portfolio and that sort of stuff that

he's got with the Greens, they certainly have chosen him for the right reasons.

He has got, he's right across the, he's right across it.

He's got everything under control and he's really hammering it.

Mm-hmm.

So I think to myself, well, they've probably done the right

thing by giving it to him.

Yeah.

I think people listen to him, the renters and people who aren't comfortable

in the housing market are gonna go.

Yep.

That sounds good.

So, there was an article in the shot by this guy talking about a little

bit about that interview, basically saying how David Spears really took the

conservative line in questioning him.

And and, and that's, you know, yes.

It's, you've got on the one hand, Greg Sheridan's of the world, who

are the extreme right wingers.

And then you've got like the David Spears and Patricia Cavalli of the

world who are not so extreme, but they appear center because of the

extreme right that's given so much airtime, but they're really promoting

a, a very center righteous viewpoint.

And this is out of the abc.

So, so yeah, have a look at that on YouTube.

Max Chandler Mather on Insiders was very impressive.

And there was an article in the, in the Saturday paper this one was cost Samarius

ended 14 years working for labor as a strategic and campaign director years ago.

But he doesn't mind giving his old employer labor A bit of advice.

And in a nutshell, it's this housing is a huge issue with voters.

Labor's policy response is not cutting through and the

greens are coming to get them.

So he's currently part of a polling research and strategy outfit.

And that's what the focus groups are telling him.

And he says that for people under 45, housing is just as

important as climate change.

I, I think labor really is no longer the party of the people.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

And, and yeah, maybe the, the rank and file is Yeah.

But certainly the people at the top just do not reflect the average working person.

Yeah.

So, so that was him.

I won't go into that in detail.

I think what Koons, is that a lady or a, or a bloke?

No, it's a bloke.

It's, yeah, it's a bloke.

You know, I think he's I think he's hit the nail on the head

over the Housing Future Fund.

It's I think it's gonna be lost on the general public.

They're not going to understand what it's about and that type of thing.

And you know, I think Max Chandler, whatever his name is,

you know, the 12 year old has also got a very good point there.

He said if you, if you look at the way the Future Fund performed last year and

you compared that to, if you compared that to the same thing on a 10 billion housing

future fund, then you would immediately have the amount of money you were

spending on public housing every year.

Mm.

You know, it's one of those things and one of the arguments that I've heard him

say before, which was very powerfully put, he said, you know, you don't fund health,

you don't fund education like that.

Yes.

Why the hell would you fund housing like that?

Yes.

He's very good with that.

Yeah.

Now that is a very good point.

You know, I, I just, because he's saying it's a punt on the stock market.

If it's bad idea for the stock market, then no.

Housing not, there's no housing.

It's funded.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He says, we don't do that with other essential services.

Mm-hmm.

He's right.

Yeah, I know.

He's right.

Yeah.

It's one of those things, I, I think the Labor Party is trying to, you

know, just say, look, we can be just as, we can just be as financially

conservative as the tourist were.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, anyway, that's housing.

That's Australia and the R B A.

Let's look a little more internationally and we're gonna

get onto Ukraine and Nazis.

And given the transcript of what we're about to discuss, is gonna

be referring to Nazis a lot.

I think I'll just delete this from YouTube as soon as I finished recording it.

Just save myself getting struck off.

Cause clearly we couldn't talk about Jews and Nazis without

being anti-Semitic or pro-Nazi.

It's probably what the claim will be.

So anyway, let's just dive in and see where we end up.

Ah, Julia says, Scott, you can keep calling Max the 12 year old, but

he's listening to and communicating effectively exactly what you're saying.

Julia, I agree wholeheartedly with you.

He's listening to them and he's making a very good point.

Yes.

You know, it's just something that I just, I couldn't remember his name, so

I just referred to him as a 12 year old.

Yes.

Alice says, Max's whiteboard video is excellent, and Broman says Barry Jones

labeled the Labor Party, the tepid party.

In his last book, you can see why Julia makes the point.

Max is a renter himself.

He understands That's true.

There we go.

Okay.

That's a reason.

Perry Jones, the former yes.

Science minister.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, he's disillusioned as well.

Right.

Let's talk about the Ukraine for a little bit.

Okay.

In New Zealand, new Zealand's National Radio broadcaster is conducting an

internal investigation after evidence emerged that an employee had edited.

Wire reporting on the Ukraine War to add Russia friendly phrasing.

So instead of just taking the Reuters wire service and doing a copy and

paste, somebody at New Zealand Radio National had the temerity to actually

insert some words of their own.

And there were four articles and in the articles in question,

there was a range of amendments.

Adding the word coup to describe the Madan revolution.

Changing a description of Ukraine's former pro-Russian president to read pro-Russian

elected government, adding references to a pro-western government that had been

that had suppressed ethnic Russians.

And on several occasions adding references to Russia's concerns

about neo-Nazi elements.

I mean, it's not completely over the top ridiculous added commentary.

You know, in one article, a paragraph was added reading, the Kremlin also said

its invasion was sparked by a failure to implement the mince agreement.

Peace Accords designed to give Russian speakers autonomy and protection and the

rise of a neo-Nazi element in Ukraine.

Since a coup ousted a Russia friendly Ukrainian government in

2014, that's all true, like Russia.

The Kremlin also says that, I mean, that's what Kremlin says.

There's nothing false about that.

That is what the Kremlin side of the story is.

And it starts off with the Kremlin also said, blah, blah, blah.

So that was fair enough.

Another added that Russia launched its invasion claiming that a US backed

coup in 2014 with the help of neo-Nazis has created a threat to its borders

and had ignited civil war that saw Russian speaking minorities persecuted.

Well, again, it starts with Russia claims, blah, blah, blah.

So person adding these paragraphs, at least with those things is really

saying, well, here's what the Russians are saying, they're gonna, all the

coals and sacked are adding that, you know, you've got to you've gotta stick

to the, the, the accepted narrative.

Even in the New Zealand National Radio broadcaster, heaven forbid that you,

I mean, the number of times, I bet they have two sides, two sided, a

story to bring in the pro and the con.

But not on this issue.

So I thought that was an interesting sort of censorship taking place in

the New Zealand public broadcaster.

Just a reminder, by the way, 2021, Maurice Payne, she canceled a former

Australian soldier's passport because he was planning to fight with a

notoriously neo-Nazi as of battalion.

Do you remember that?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So can I remember that?

Yeah.

No one's allowed to suggest that there are Nazis in the Ukrainian armed forces.

I, I was gonna say, there are Nazis in the Ukraine, the vagner battalions there.

Yes.

We, so we actually canceled a guy's passport and wouldn't leave,

leave the country because he was gonna fight with the neo-Nazi as

of battalion in the Ukrainian army.

But now if people want to suggest there's some nasty Nazi elements in the

Ukrainian military, just a no-go zone, like even I'd forgotten that incident.

But this goes to show where we were thinking what we were thinking about.

I, I remember the documentaries about the as of battalion and the Neo-Nazism.

Mm-hmm.

So, so there's that article about think tanks that get quoted in the

media dealing with the Ukraine war.

There was a study done of those and it found that media outlets have cited think

tanks with financial backing from the defense industry 85% of the time, or seven

times as often as think tanks that do not accept funding from Pentagon Contractors.

And the media outlets rarely identify the conflicts of

interests that are entailed there.

So, so many of these think tanks funded by fence forces or contractors in military

supplies, and they get quoted in papers and they say things that are, we need to

spend more money on this war in supplying more munitions without being required to

de, to declare their conflict of interest.

Happens all the time.

Happens on the ABC all the time where they have representatives

from Asbe or whatever.

Come on.

Okay.

We had the Nor Stream pipeline.

Who done it.

And the prevailing narrative was that the Russians blew up their own pipeline, but

they could have easily just switched off.

Now we've got the car, car, Kafka.

Damn as Nova.

The Nova, let's just call it the Nova.

The Nova Nova means new.

So Nova . Okay.

And it's been attacked and with a result that floodwaters have now

entered the area below the dam.

And the prevailing narrative is that all the Russians did it.

Yeah.

Que bono means who benefits and well, who benefits from this?

The people who argue the Russians did it say, The Ukrainians are about to launch an

offensive against the Russian lines, and this is going to hamper that offensive.

Other people would say, forces them its choke points.

Yeah.

Other people would say, well, the water supplies from that canal

that's fed by that dam provides 85% of crimea's water and supplies.

However, if Russia expected to lose the crime in peninsula mm-hmm.

In the upcoming battle.

Yes.

Then it would be in their interest to cut off water supplies to the Crimea.

Yes.

And they have to do that before the battle even begins.

No, the the, the reason they do it before the battle begins is to stop them

crossing the nepro further downstream.

Mm-hmm.

And force them into choke points where they can put lots of reinforcement.

Mm-hmm.

I would've thought the Crimea is, is where Russia would, would give

up almost any of the territory that it's gained except the Crimea, cuz

of its importance for the shipping.

They might, but the point was they, they realized that they couldn't keep

the crime Crimea with Alan Bridge.

Mm-hmm.

So you think on the Cubo argument than the Russians did it.

Cause they had, they had more to gain by that.

There's also another fact, which was they'd already let

water out of the dam Right.

To a certain point and then they closed the gates and with the winter,

or sorry, the spring thoughts, the gates, which the Russians control.

Mm-hmm.

The waters are now at the highest level they've ever been, from the

lowest level they've ever been.

Right?

So the people who were controlling the amount of water

in the dam was the Russians.

And if you wanted to create a downstream flood to force troops into

choke points, in other words, to stop troops crossing, then you'd want as

much water in the dam as possible.

I thought the Ukrainians controlled dams upstream of this one.

Possibly.

I dunno.

But this particular, see I had the exact other opposite, was that in fact the

Ukrainians had allowed extra water to flow through into the dam, the dams that

they controlled upstream of this one.

But then, but then, but then why didn't the Russians let the water

out rather than building it up to the highest level possible?

I dunno.

Cause they'd like to have a full dam.

I don't know.

Somebody is saying that Chatter suggests the dam failed you to

neglect by the Russian occupiers.

I, I thought the seismographic monitoring had shown that it was

actually caused by explosions.

Mm-hmm.

Did you hear about the interview with General Andrew Cav Ka

Chuck in the Washington Post?

So this is this is from the 29th of December, 2022.

Mm-hmm.

And he's interviewed in the Washington Post and it reads, Kacha

considered flooding the river.

So he's a he's the Ukrainian general of some sort.

He said that they considered flooding the river, the Ukrainians.

He said even conducted a test strike with Amar's launcher on one of the floodgates

at the Nova Kaka Dam, making three holes in the metal to see if the water

could be raised enough to stymie Russian crossings, but not flood nearby villages.

The test was a success, he said, but the step remained a last resort he held off.

So back in December, 2022 in an interview of the Washington Post.

Yeah, major, a major general.

The Ukrainian army says, you know, we thought about blowing up that dam.

We had a test and put some holes in it.

Well, they blew up d dam's north of Kiev to stop the, so,

so when the, when the military.

Flow was in the other direction with the Russians advancing.

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

The Ukrainians thought about it.

Mm-hmm.

However, this is just before the Ukrainians start to do their counter

offensive and push Russians back.

Yeah.

But, okay.

The Ukrainian counter offensive mm-hmm.

You really think it's a thing?

Yes.

You do.

Yeah.

They're not going to sit on the leopard tanks from Germany or the aprons,

tanks from the Yanks and not use them.

You don't think that the, what's been going on so far is that the

Russians give up territory, allow the Ukrainians back in, bond the shit

outta the territory and move back in.

Like, it seems like the Russians are, are, have been mounting fairly clever strategy

in recent times where they actually give up towns, let the Ukrainians back in, bond

the shit out of 'em, and bond their supply lines and then, It and it sort of makes

it easy for them to group them together.

You, you actually, you actually think the Ukrainians are capable of

a successful sort of counterstrike.

They, they have unsee, they have done incredibly well so far.

Alright.

This is something that was supposed to be over a fortnight.

Well, exactly.

And, and the Russians have proved how they're on, on paper.

They were the second biggest army in the world.

Mm-hmm.

And in reality there had been so much grift going on that what existed

on paper didn't exist in reality.

I think the Ukrainians have been taking a pounding over the last few

months and they're just, it's a, just a meat grinder of young Ukrainian men.

And I don't think the Russians at all are worried about it.

Anyway, here's the point.

I reckon there's arguments.

See Trevor, we will have to wait and see, because I think myself,

that it has started, but it's not a, it's not a, its full strength yet.

They're probably probing for the Russians to find the weakest point, and

then they're gonna smash through you.

You've got whole battalions and that sort of stuff that are armed and equipped

with Western material, which has not been committed to the battle yet.

Mm-hmm.

So once they get committed, then, then we're gonna find out who's actually right.

Yeah.

Here's the point.

Mm-hmm.

There's arguments on both sides point.

Absolutely.

Where there are, nobody knows really who is responsible for blowing up this, Dan.

Yeah.

But the prevailing narrative, if you read anything, is of all corrupt Russian.

The Russians blew up.

Yeah.

And they're, you know, there's good arguments to say, well,

actually it was the Ukrainians and that's not what you did.

It could been either side of them.

Either side could have blown it up.

Yeah.

So, that's right, but that's not what you hear.

If you are reading the Guardian, yeah.

Read any mainstream paper news, Western paper media source, you are getting that.

Of course the Russians did it, and you've gotta dig around a little

bit to find the counter arguments.

And I'm not saying it's, it's not like Nord Stream, which to me is

pretty clear that Russia didn't do it and the Americans did.

After all they said they were going to.

But it is one where you can say, look, there's arguments both ways.

We won't know.

You can't be sure.

. Ah, moving on.

Roger Waters.

Any Roger Waters fans here?

Yes.

On the panel?

Yes.

Does he look and smell like an anti-Semite to you, Joe?

Anybody who calls him an anti-Semite is not aware of his body of work.

Mm-hmm.

Well, Siria Stama, oh, I'm aware.

Leader of the Labor Party in the uk wrote to the Board of Deputies

of British Jews and said, thank you for bringing this to my attention.

I found the examples listed in your letter of instances in which

Roger Waters has clearly espoused anti-Semitic views to his audience.

Highly disturbing.

There is no place for anti-Semitism anywhere at any time, and those who

hide behind the excuse that artists in the entertainment industry should not

be held to the same standards as others are utterly wrong, blah, blah, blah.

See, I disagree.

He might've espoused anti-Zionist views.

Yes.

I don't think he's espoused anti-Semitic views.

Of course he hasn't complete opposite, but people conflate anti-Semitism and

anti-Zionism the same as they quote criticism Islam with Islamophobia.

Yes.

So it's hiding behind the religion.

Yep.

Or, or, sorry, hiding behind racism to avoid valid criticism.

Yes.

So let's just play a little bit of what's Roger Waters

describing, what is going on here?

Two minutes.

The narrative that I'm an anti-Semite and that I'm promoting

fascism by wearing a leather coat.

And I'm cavi symbols, which are crossed hammers, by the way, S or anything

that is literally Nazi third, Reich German, 40 years I've been to 40 years.

Every single year, almost between 1980 and now, I've been doing bits of that show.

Why now?

Why suddenly now would people be picking up and going?

He's wearing a replica of a Nazi uniform on stage.

He's obviously glorifying the Third Reich and Nazim.

He's doing that as part of his general attitude, which is that he hates

Jewish people all over all the press in the Western world, everything.

Roger Water's, antisemite glorifying nazim, wearing a thing.

Okay.

Well, if we could deconstruct that little bit in my piece.

The wall at the end of the.

Fascist bit in the film, it's Bob Gildor when he is the fascist leader.

He's singing all this stuff, which I wrote about who they are, the forces of evil,

and they're in the song waiting for the worms they're waiting to take over the

world, waiting to cut out the deadwood

Pink.

Bob Gildor internally realizes that he's made a terrible mistake

by wanting to become a powerful demagogue and rule the world.

That's why he tries himself in the trial.

He tries himself for having become a Nazi.

So how you can transmogrify this work of theater into me glorifying the

Third Reich and Nazim Beggar's belief.

It's all a little bit too nuanced.

Mm-hmm.

For most, for many people, including Sir Keith Starer.

Well, if he's dressed up as a Nazi, he must be antisemitic Nazi.

It, it just reminds me of the whole Scottish comedian.

Mm-hmm.

We, with the dog he talked to put its paw up when he said, guess the Jews.

Yes.

And, and the police hunted around to find a Jewish group that could be offended

by it so that they could prosecute him.

Yes.

It's just the, it, you know, it, it might have been a joke in poor taste, but the

whole point was the, the juxtaposition of something atrocious and this cute

little puppy doing something atrocious.

Yes.

It, it was no way glorifying it and, and this blatant misunderstanding

just to make a political point.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

I've mentioned before that I feel that Tide has turned a lot on the

state of Israel with the, with the words Apartheid really seems

to stick as to what's going on.

That's the way they're behaving.

And I think that's causing damage to the Israeli cause

worldwide in terms of acceptance.

And so Roger Waters has a theory on why is he being attacked now when

he's been doing this for 40 years.

So, and he's been vocal about Palestine for the last 10 at least.

Yes, indeed.

So here he is, and suddenly now, You are all going, oh, it's anti-Semitic.

It's this, it's that.

The other why now?

Well, I know the answer and if anybody would listen to me and you are listening

to me, I can tell you the answer.

The Israeli government sees me as an existential threat to their settler,

colonials, racist, apartheid regime.

That is why now.

And they've done everything that they can think of to discredit me.

I'm definitely deleting this from YouTube,

tingling soon, saying, what is this video about?

Please explain yourself.

You've used these words way too much so, yeah, he speaks very well.

Tim's a really likable guy.

Richard Waters same.

Right.

Mel says, go.

Roger Ramen says it's no accident that Israel was one of the main supporters

of the apartheid regime in South Africa providing armament training

to their secret police, et cetera.

Oh, here we go.

And Mel, not to banging on about the Labor Party, but in addition to voting

down motion supporting Orcas the left also supported a motion to recognize

Palestine for the Upteenth Upteenth time.

Yep.

There we go.

Keep the comments coming.

Mel was probably convincing me more and more that I should join the Labor Party.

I'm trying to convince you to join the Greens.

Well, you're never gonna get that to happen.

Right.

But we're definitely gonna help on the North Coast in the next

election for the Labor Party as well.

Right.

We did Trump.

So he's been indicted fucking idiot.

And sometime the next 12 hours or so, he is gonna appear somewhere and he's

gotta appear court in Miami, doesn't he?

You, you know, if they come for Trump, they'll come for any former

government minister that keeps classified documents in their public

bathrooms and deliberately hides it from the authorities who ask for it.

And he tells his lawyers to do some illegal activity to deny that it's

there and then shows it to other people and says, of course it's classified.

I shouldn't be showing this to you and I should cheat you for this,

and I know I can't declassify it.

Yes.

Yeah, so there is an indictment, dear listener, which you

can read on the internet.

There'll be a link in the show notes.

It's quite, it's, it's quite good reading actually.

It's all politically motivated.

Yeah, it was all the set up.

It's not in Lee Lee's it pretty much dispels out the fact that during his

time as president, he collected all of these documents that he took them

with him when he left the office.

A lot of them are about military secrets.

It seems a lot about nuclear armaments plans, possible plans

to attack another country.

Weaknesses, pros and cons of the defenses of different countries,

including the United States.

Lots of military secretive stuff.

And it's clear when you read the indictment that he was in a conversation

that was recorded with his consent, cuz I think it was about a book deal

that were discussing what he was.

What they could do in a book deal.

And so part of some of his most terrible admissions are like, he's telling people,

oh, check out this secret document.

You know, I shouldn't be showing it to you, knowing his, so that's recorded.

Clearly, his lawyers at the time have turned on him because they have clearly

provided evidence of conversations.

He's, he's gonna end up in a court in Florida and the judge who's going to hear

it, is going to be one of his appointees.

A apparently he said to somebody, oh, they paid God, who was the

president before him, Obama.

Oh, they paid Obama, however many dollars for the return of these

classified documents that he had.

He was angling for a payout.

From what I can understand, he took this classified information on the

grounds that the US government were then going to pay them to get them back.

Pay him to get them back.

Well, okay.

Well that was not in the indictment.

No, it wasn't in the indictment.

Yeah.

It's worth reading if you got the time and Yeah.

But it's gonna be heard in Florida and the judge hearing it is an appointee of Trump.

The one, the one who already demanded a special moderator.

What was it?

The right who was the, when they originally went in to

search through his stuff.

Yes.

They wanted somebody to go through and, and make sure it

really was classified material.

Yes.

So the judge put this person special counsel, I can't remember.

Yes.

Yeah.

So it's the same judge again that got admonished last time.

Mm-hmm.

So she's very pro-Trump is the pot in, in front of any.

Half normal judge, you would say Trump is completely sunk reading the indictment.

There's no way he could get out of it.

It's terrible.

He's a traitor.

He's a complete traitor.

Showing and keeping these documents and then, you know, the bathroom that was

held in and the ballroom that was held in these, the facility, anybody could have

come in and, and found these documents.

There was a great tweet by David from conservative commentator who said, I

was about to say he's conservative.

Yes, any hostile foreign intelligence service that failed to steal US

secrets from Trump's Mar-a-Lago stash owes its taxpayers a big refund.

I reckon there would be some.

Foreign intelligence services that didn't, and they'd be getting

their asses kicked right now.

Like their superiors would be saying, why didn't we have someone

in Mar-a-Lago going through that?

Even friendly foreign intelligence services.

Yeah.

Yes, sure.

As egg, surely the Chinese hold of it, surely it was literally there's

thousands of people would've had an opportunity to just walk through,

unlock doors and go into these boxes.

Incredible.

So with any normal judge, he'd be completely sunk.

Who knows Anything is possible with Trump.

Who knows, but it's a very, very damning indictment.

Hmm.

Right.

What else have we got?

Cuz we're nearly at nine o'clock, which would be a good time to finish would

be just briefly on essential poll.

That's still holding firm with the voice at 60%.

Yes.

40%.

No.

And it's been more or less that way for the last for this

one and the three previously.

So I thought barely steady.

I thought it'd just been announced this morning that the percentage for Yes.

Had gone down below the 50% mark and the percentage for Yes,

percentage for no had gone above 50%.

That was on a news poll or a, or gotcha.

A another obscure poll.

So the essential one is being consistently now at 60%.

So, there's that and oh, they had an interesting thing about

social class identification.

So, do you consider yourself to be any of the following upper

class, middle class, working class?

None of the above and don't know.

So, upper class Australians, about 4%.

I think they're upper class, 49%.

I think they're middle class, they're 30% think they're

working class 10%, none of these.

So, and if you are young, you are more likely to consider

yourself upper class and otherwise everything else was pretty similar.

So that was essential poll for this week.

Oh look, and just very quickly seeing with Pat Robertson.

Oh yes, sorry.

Pat Robertson noted Evangelical preacher in the us.

Passed away.

I, I saw a cartoon which had death in front of the, the grabby machine.

You know the one you put them?

Yeah.

And, and pulls out Pat Robertson and goes Bloody hell.

Can't it be Henry is, has Henry Kissinger even in this thing?

Oh, that would've been good.

That is good.

Yeah.

And then somebody else, Matt mentioned Bescon.

Yes.

Yes.

All the good ones going.

Yeah.

Well, hat Robertson Bescon was actually mourned by President Putin.

Yes.

Course he was.

Yeah.

Pat Robertson he talked with Jerry Falwell shortly after nine 11 Bastard School.

Blame the blamed the terrorist attack on the pagans and the abortionists and the

feminists and the gays and the lesbians.

He implied Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for abortion.

In 2010 after the Haiti earthquake that killed over a hundred thousand

people, he said Haiti's founders brought the earthquake on themselves

because they declared independence from France and after the Wisconsin

Sikh shooting that killed seven people.

He blamed it on atheists and people who hate God.

In actual fact, that shooter was a white supremacist with ties to neo-Nazis.

You thought Nazism would be such a thing?

Yeah, I know.

It's this day and age, it's really comes up everywhere.

It's coming up everywhere in Britain, Australia, the United States and the,

these were all countries that were, we jumped on that bandwagon first.

The anti-fascist bandwagon.

Yes.

It's always been a small but vocal minority.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I don't have a recording, but putting mis tweet.

Including this tweet, vice Regal songbird, Linda Hurley said to

be hard at work on her rousing new ballot of Ben Robert Smith.

Though insiders say she's having trouble finding a rhyme for

amputee in the comments people have said proud military legacy.

Good work.

No sense of humanity.

He murdered an amputee.

Yes.

So there we go.

Let's, of course her husband was involved in Ben Robert Smith.

So he was chief of the Australian Defense Force and appears he may

have misled the Senate regarding a handcuffed prisoner who was shot dead

by an Australian Special Forces Officer.

So General David Hurley told an estimates hearing.

It was a combat related death, but a previous secret internal defense

report said the man was shot when the Australian officer was left

alone in the room with the prisoner.

So her husband has some involvement in that sort of thing.

And I reckon that will probably do, unless you guys had something

pressing you want to talk about.

It's not really pressing.

Just that bloke that sent you that complimentary email and that sort

of stuff last week, saying that he disagreed with you on Russia.

Yes.

One of the mates up here.

So Lloyd, how are you?

And also Oh, okay.

Special.

Hello to Matt too.

Cause I only just told him about the podcast.

Yes.

Okay.

Very good.

Mm-hmm.

Well do listener.

Our, our listenership is not increasing, so you might think of just telling

your friends That would be good.

You might think about becoming.

A patron, cuz I've lost one or two in the last couple of months.

Pretty steady, but still not growing.

If you're not a patron and you've been listening to 15 to 20 episodes,

you kind of know what you're getting.

And so it does help.

And that would be good.

Go to the website or look at the link in the in the

description on your podcast app.

Pony up.

I'm almost outta grog.

That's it.

And Joe's Mixer blew up the other day.

Probably needs a new one by the sounds of it.

So, yeah just to show your support doesn't have to be a lot.

What else is there?

Yeah, tell your friends.

Need a few more listeners.

That would be good.

Alright, well, alright.

And also we've got chapters.

So if you look at your podcast app, you'll see all these things are in chapters.

So if you like to segment, you can go back to it.

If you wanna skip a segment, you can.

And John says he's sharing stuff on Twitter.

That's good, John.

Thanks for that.

Alright, well until next time, we will talk to you later.

Bye for now.

It's a good night from me and it's a good night from him.