Hello and welcome back to the Iron Fist Velvet Glove podcast.

I'm Trevor.

With me is Scott, the Velvet Glove.

Hanging on to a beer there, Scott, in regional Queensland.

How are you?

I'm good, thanks, Trevor.

Yourself?

G'day, Joe.

G'day, Trevor.

G'day, listeners.

I hope everyone's well.

Yeah, and Joe, the tech guy, is with us as well.

Evening, all.

So yes, episode 434.

Dear listener, 1st of July.

This podcast, uh, our very first episode, was on the 4th of July.

9 years ago, or almost 9 years ago.

So, kind of like the 9th anniversary edition.

There we go.

Congratulations to us for 9 years.

I know we're going to make 10.

I don't know if we're going to make 11.

I'm just not so sure.

Or it might be quite different.

We'll see how we go.

Scott, you were surprised.

It was a very long

time.

Yeah, I was very surprised, actually, for 9 years.

I just think to myself, my hair is certainly great in those years.

And um, it's no longer salt and pepper, it's now salt, and

um, yeah, it is what it is.

I consoled you with a list of all of our achievements in that time.

Yeah, which I then pulled you apart on, so anyway.

Because yeah, we haven't really achieved, I feel we've achieved nothing, but anyway.

Um, if you actually look at what we have attempted to achieve,

we have not achieved it.

However, we have, we have got a conversation that has

started, and even amongst some of my more right wing friends.

They have indicated that socialism is no longer a dirty word.

Right,

thanks to

us.

Well, partially because of us.

Um, I also had to remind them that had the government not thrown out its

neoliberal policies and all that sort of stuff during the pandemic, that Australia

would have been in a world of hurt.

So, you know, it's just one of those things.

I think that, um, You're probably right, it probably was a good one for

the Labor Party to lose, you know, because had they have come in and been

in government at the time, would the Tories have got it out of the way?

No.

But would the Greens have actually blocked the extra spending?

No.

So, I think to myself that it would have Look, the big argument

is always that the, is that the Conservatives are the

great financial managers.

Yeah, which is a load of shit.

When Rudd spent all that money on, on his emergency, blew out

the budget, looked really bad.

But then Morrison went and did it just as hard, so

it's a

great, it was a great election to lose.

Yeah, but

the difference is, um, Rudd gave the money directly to the people

who needed the money, whereas Morrison gave it to his mates.

That's true, big difference.

Yeah, so, um, so yeah, this episode, you know, I decided to do

something a little bit different.

Even before I remembered that this was the ninth anniversary, but

anyway, it works out quite well.

So, um, you know, I was, I've been contemplating democracy, Scott.

As I look around, you reckon it's failed.

As I look around the world.

And I, you know, I witnessed the presidential election,

we'll talk about that.

I'm witnessing French elections, we're about to see a UK election.

I'm looking at, um, you know, Fatima Payman in the Senate at the moment.

I just, I'm just looking at democracy, Scott, if,

if it's what the people want, even if it was what the people wanted, but

the people have been brainwashed by powerful oligarchs So you're really

just getting what the oligarchs want.

Is, is it democracy?

If, if, if you've successfully brainwashed a population on a policy

and convinced them to have it.

Is it, is it democracy?

Well, that was always the argument, wasn't it?

The working class were not capable.

They didn't follow politics.

They weren't engaged.

They didn't have the time.

They were too busy earning a living.

So why would they get the vote?

I don't kind of see the point.

I'm going, maybe

Even the upper class don't understand the issues.

Well, no, no, I know that.

But maybe you need a voting license.

Maybe you need to sit an exam to prove that you're actually engaged

in politics and you understand what all these things mean.

I think some of the most engaged, most engaged intelligent people are

completely brainwashed and coming up with the craziest, of ideas.

So I'm struggling to find a solution for this because, you

know, as I said in the sort of

Benevolent

Dictatorship.

Yeah, in the, in the, so the promo thing was, you know, I'm done with democracy and

I'm ready for the Benevolent Dictatorship.

Because I just see that, um, how do you overcome this situation where

democracy at its heart says, um, let the people express their will.

And then, you know, hopefully our leaders do what they want.

But if you've allowed oligarchs to convince people to hold certain positions

that suit the oligarchs, I don't see how you can stop that at any point.

I think you have to change the laws to stop capture of the

system by interested parties.

Yes, yes.

So, uh, taking money out of politics?

Yes.

Yes.

Funding arrangements, uh, in America, that Citizen United was a horrible decision.

It was.

Um, you know, so anything like that.

And I think, uh, there was a revisit on The Voice, I can't

remember where I saw that.

Oh, that's right.

Um, all of these retrospectives on why The Voice, uh, The Voice vote failed.

Yeah.

That was an article.

Um.

But the newsletter.

Yeah.

A bunch of books have come out.

Yeah.

Um,

yes, all of which were.

As far as I'm concerned, completely off.

If, if you understood the real meaning of equality, you'd understand

that it meant that some people were more equal than others.

Yeah, dear listener, in the, in the weekly, well, actually this newsletter

goes out three times a week where I grab articles and throw it in there,

and one article is a review of books that have come out that are sort of, um,

reflecting on The Voice and why it failed.

And the very first book This author basically blames Australians for having

an unsophisticated Um, view of equality, and if only we had been more sophisticated

we would have come to a better decision.

Yeah.

So, um, you know, imagine,

I'm trying to get to with this, is we want politicians who have the

interests of the masses at heart.

The middle.

And lower classes, you would hope, which are the majority of people.

And why not everybody?

Yes.

Well, you'll never please everybody.

And because you're actually going to have to take some stuff off.

The top 10 percent But that's

not necessarily in their disinterest though.

True,

yes.

They may

It would be cruel to be kind.

Well, but also, you know, um, a working society, a working

economy would benefit everybody.

Yes, they won't see it that way though.

No, they weren't there

that way.

Yeah.

So, just, just the leadership we've got at the moment, the way that politics

is set up with, at least in our major Western countries, Australia, US, UK,

we've had this sort of two party system.

And, you know, even in the Labor Party, Which, in theory, should

be a little bit immune from this.

We've still got the jobs for the boys afterwards.

Like, you can have these guys sort of making decisions, granting contracts

to, um, in defence and whatever.

And they leave office and, and less, you know, 12 months and one day later, they're

working for some, um, Lockheed Martin defense contract company or, or whatnot.

And

I'm just trying to find ways that would incentivize, you know, one

thing I had this was idea was, I think actually maybe they did this

in Greece or Rome or something, was a random sort of selection for.

Uh, our leaders, you know.

I thought that was in Rome, in Greece, wasn't it?

Yeah.

And I thought at one point I thought, you know, maybe having a random,

um, ballot for leaders would be good because, um, that would at

least have a chance of avoiding the control of, of powerful interests.

But if powerful interests have propagandized the majority of

the population, then that's not going to sort of work at all.

And maybe the breaking up of media is an answer.

Yeah,

I think so.

I'm just seeing more and more that propaganda is the sort of,

um, the thing that is really hard for us to, to somehow overcome.

Because it's eroding democracy, where it is manipulating people.

People's, um, uh, genuine attempt to understand issues.

And it's, it's, it's basically causing our democracies to become dysfunctional.

They're not, they're not, um, we're not getting the people we want in charge.

Look at, at this present rate with America faced with Donald Trump or

Joe Biden, the system has worked in such a way that that's the choice

for the Americans at the moment.

It's drastically wrong.

Psycho democracy has just failed completely.

Um.

Well.

I don't know what you

want.

Well,

you've got a

system of primaries in the U.

S.

where they actually have votes against each other and everything else.

They have a runoff and then they decide who their most preferred candidate is.

And that's why Joe Biden got to the top of the tree.

But the system has created two parties and Yeah,

I know, it's created two parties because you've only got a first past

the post system in the United States.

There's no room for a third party.

You know.

And also, um, even when they win the primaries, because,

um, what's his name, dude?

Bernie Sanders.

Yeah,

Bernie Sanders came very, very close to actually winning

the Democratic nomination.

I've got no doubt there.

No, no, he won it in the popular vote.

It was the super votes that the Republican, the Democratic Party had.

Oh, okay, gotcha.

It was the committee that chose Clinton over Bernie.

Bernie.

Bernie.

Okay, gotcha.

So, the will of the people spoke and was overridden by the party.

Hmm.

Fair enough.

Yeah, I wasn't aware of that.

I'm just trying to think of ways, institutionally, if we were to create

a new constitution that could somehow

In an ironclad way, help to sort of reduce this influence of powerful people

distorting the public will and distorting the kind of leadership options we get.

So, I had this one crazy idea.

This would be an idea, I reckon, for a dystopian sort of science

fiction type novel, Scott.

I don't think I've mentioned this one before.

But imagine a situation where you said to all politicians.

In the federal government, for example, that, um, that at the conclusion of

their term in office, they're going to, um, they're going to go into a lottery

and, and there'll be a 25 or 20 percent chance that they will be reduced to

the poverty line in terms of wealth.

If you said to them, there's a 25 percent chance that at the end of your time in

parliament, Uh, the number will be rolled, you roll a dice, and, and you'll be poor.

Well, I quite

like the idea of

their super going into a super fund the same as the rest of us.

Well, well, the point is, that I reckon the decision making that would occur

would be completely different if people in their decision making went, shit.

In 3 years time, or 5 years time, I might be one of these people.

I'd better make some, I'm going to make sure that the various social

services are working as well as they can, or as well funded as they can.

Cause there's a chance I'm going to be one of them.

And it's a kind of a dystopian sort of, um, you know, novel type idea, but

that's sort of, I'm, I'm searching for an incentive that would be realistic

that would achieve that sort of thing.

Talks of ancient societies where the king was selected by picking

a bean out of a bag or something.

So they became king until the bad times happened, at which point they would

be sacrificed to appease the gods.

Yeah.

Well, the problem is, if you've got people to pick a bean out,

they've been propagandised, so you'll still get Yeah, but

then the bad times happen and we sacrifice them.

Yeah, and then you just insert another person who's also been propagandised.

So, well, you sacrificed them.

Yeah, you start to just run out of time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm thinking, um, cause what do we do on this podcast is, I was just

thinking about it before, is, um, uh, we point out really bad policy

decisions or inaction by our leaders and we summarise a rational argument.

And then we bemoan that our leaders refuse to do the right thing, because

either, uh, our leaders are wanting to keep or gain power, or they're

afraid of upsetting powerful enemies, or they're part of some tribal

solidarity, uh, quite often religious.

Or they're just plain ignorant, or maybe they're greedy because they want

a job with, um, some defence group afterwards or something like that.

So, so we just don't get what would be good for society, um, uh, and then we

sit back here on this podcast and observe how propaganda shifts public opinion, uh,

to approve the bad ideas such that the bad ideas are whitewashed as acceptable.

Um, because not enough people object.

And that's, it's just a litany of bad ideas we've looked at for nine years.

Clearly bad ideas.

And the only two where anything has happened have been voluntary

assisted dying and marriage equality.

And I think that's because in both cases people could have a personal experience

Where, uh, you know, marriage equality.

They would have a son, a daughter, a niece, a nephew, a friend, a

relative who was gay, lesbian.

Whatever.

And they had personal experience and thought, well, that's just unfair.

And, or when it came to voluntary assisted dying, they had an elderly

relative who had a bad death.

So they had a close personal experience on those issues, which overcame all

of the normal, uh, sort of effects.

And we ended up with some sort of progressive change.

Not a lot else.

Has actually changed, Scott, in nine years.

Can you think of anything progressive other than those two things?

Well, those two things, there was

no money in

it.

There was no money in having a vested interest.

It's not like someone was getting rich out of either direction.

Yes, that's true.

Uh, that is true, actually.

There was not a money interest involved.

A powerful money interest.

Um, good point, Joe.

Mm.

Sad.

A sad but true point.

Um, yeah, I think, um, you know, we talked about a long time ago, um,

shock Doctrine and by Naomi Klein.

And the whole idea of Shock Doctrine was that these countries, poor and struggling,

would be put under enormous pressure and eventually some shock would come,

whether it was a massive devaluation of their dollar, maybe a natural

event like a typhoon, or some other calamity would befall these countries.

And the neoliberals would jump in, um, while people were still in shock

and say, well here's what you've got to do, institute all these austerity

measures, you've got to privatise the public services, you've got to

cut out all these social services, you've got to let foreigners come in.

and buy stuff up and you've got to, um, expose yourself to

world trade, blah, blah, blah.

While people were still in shock and had no capacity to respond.

And

it's literally, here's, here's the playbook, we've written it

for you, just go and implement.

Yes.

You don't even

have to think.

Yeah, and,

and people couldn't

object because they were still in shock.

And when it all goes to shit, I think we need to have some sort of

new constitution Sitting on a shelf, ready just to quickly dust off.

And, and, and say, we've been waiting for this moment and here's what we need.

Because we got into this position because of all these systemic problems and we need

a new constitution that looks like this.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Yeah, I mean, do you fix education so that people are more sceptical,

more, better able to see through, um, indoctrination in terms of propaganda?

Hmm, media literacy.

Media literacy, which of course goes against the vested interest,

so that's never gonna happen.

Yeah, well, that's why you need the shock, and when the, when the, when

the, when the, so really, shit has hit the fan and there's marching

in the streets or something like that, like, it's all pie in the sky.

Right.

Do you, do you rewrite your political laws in terms of, uh, funding of institutions,

government institutions, the parties?

In the UK it used to be, when I was growing up in the UK, you couldn't

Advertise politically, there was no political advertising allowed,

um, every party was given their own half ass lot on public broadcast,

uh, and, you know, you could tune in for the party political broadcast

of whatever party it was that day.

And there was no other political advertising allowed.

So there was none of this.

Bring it back.

Bring it back, I say, Joe.

Yeah,

absolutely.

Yep.

These are the sorts of ideas you could think about in the cold light of a

day now, while you've got plenty of time, and then, um, When the emergency

comes, you can say, Well, we've thought about all this, and here's the

document, sitting here, ready to go.

These are the reasons.

Yeah, I mean, it's all just thought experiment, pie in

the sky stuff, dear listener.

I'm not seriously suggesting any of this is going to happen tomorrow or next week.

How about

if anybody's personal wealth goes above a hundred million?

We take it all off them and they're put on dole.

So there's no incentive race to get as much money as possible, because

once you hit that a hundred million cap, we're going to take it all away.

Uh, and leave them.

Oh, okay.

Take everything.

Yes.

You can have up to the a hundred million.

You go above that and you lose the whole, Oh, Joe, Joe, I like that one.

It's actually number two in my, in my list here, the new constitution

wish list, which I sort of was quickly knocking up this afternoon,

um, in the event of an emergency.

Number one was, Uh,

number one was, um, the members of parliament subject to the poverty ballot.

So that was the one where they'd be forced to, to think very seriously

about making sure that, um, welfare systems are working really well and are

well funded because it could be them.

Uh, I had down a law against excessive private wealth of anyone,

Joe, I really liked that one.

That not only are you, is there a maximum.

But, you know, I was always thinking, well, if you go past the maximum,

we just keep skimming off the top.

But yours is, we will penalise you, take the whole lot off you.

You better be careful.

No,

I don't think that you should penalise them or anything like that.

I just think you've got to actually let them hit the hundred million.

But this is the ultimate incentive.

Yeah, I know.

But the thing is, let them hit a hundred million dollars.

And then after that, you know.

Anything above a hundred million dollars, you forfeit to the

government at a hundred percent.

Yeah.

In the chat room, Landon Hardbottom says, hold on, hands off my hundred mil.

Yeah, I know that because Landon would be very defensive of his

hundred million, wouldn't he?

Yes.

And he says you've got more facial hair than you had nine years ago.

Yes.

Well, that's

very true.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

So, um, Robin says, did propaganda shift public opinion on The Voice?

Uh, I would, I would say it did, um, I think it did, Robin, certainly.

The opinion changed.

So the question is how, why?

And certainly some of it was disingenuous, um, racism argument, but some of

it was, um, genuine moral argument.

So there was certainly a component of, I mean, what's propaganda, but, um, Some of

it was disingenuous allegations of racism.

Yes.

There was no doubt about that.

It did change.

Now, you know, probably the master stroke was getting the

white guys to stay out of it.

And then, um, after that you have the, um, the black opponents to it.

You have, Jacinta, Nampatimpa Price, and who was the other guy?

Warren Mundine.

Warren Mundine.

You know, they were the head of the No Case, and they were both Indigenous.

Now, that was probably why it was successful, because you

had those two there that were out there arguing against it.

Now, I wasn't.

Turned by their opinions or anything like that.

I thought they were both rather poor arguments.

However, I just thought to myself, well, you've got these two arguing for it.

It's going to be very hard for anyone else to overcome that.

Number three on my list, laws to control propaganda.

So obviously media ownership laws are a problem and Um, I don't know

the specifics of how you would do it, but when you've got, you know, here

in Brisbane, Courier Mail owned by Murdoch, Australian Murdoch, so any old

fogey's reading a newspaper, that's what they're getting is whatever Murdoch's

pushing, and there has to be ways to,

to somehow limit the propaganda one media mogul can.

Can levy against a population.

I don't know how.

Yeah,

but then you've also got the same problem with, um, the Fairfax papers

that are now called the Nine Papers.

You know, they're no longer a patch of what they were.

You know, they're no longer as good as what they once were, but, um

There's no money in, um In

print, no.

Yeah.

There's still power and influence.

Yeah, God knows why, it's just one of those things, it's gonna be,

it's gonna be a dying influence and all that type of thing.

It's um, we're probably only gonna put up for another 20 years until

the last, the boomers are dead.

Yeah.

But there's still the internet.

Yeah, there is still the internet, yeah.

As we saw last week, the whole CIA propaganda.

See, I just look at um, you know, China for example, when, when um,

Uh, Abbott was hosting, you know, Chinese leaders and, and Gillard was

organising mutual defence um, exercises.

And everyone was perfectly fine.

And that all changed, not because of anything that China did, but because

of a massive propaganda undertaking.

And that's been in the era of declining newspapers.

Sales, and, you know, they still manage an effective propaganda

campaign, even with failing newspapers.

And, and Russia, as, you know, Russia, and it's difficult to understand

until you've actually looked at it.

They are They are not just propping up Trump, they are

deliberately sowing division.

They will pop up adverts for Trump, adverts against Trump, with the same,

all they're trying to do is sow discord and discontent, because all the time

the West is squabbling amongst itself, it's not paying attention to them.

So, I just don't know how we do it, but certainly, number three was, uh,

somehow, laws to control propaganda.

Number four is an IQ test for parliamentarians.

Um, just basically, I don't think Joe Biden had passed it at the moment.

Scott and Joe, did you watch parts of the debate?

I don't know that IQ is the thing we need to be measuring, but

certainly a common sense test?

Well, I think that Joe, Joe would pass that right now, but if he actually, if he

actually measured his cognitive decline, Then you would actually conclude that

the guy is senile and all that sort of stuff and is no longer fit for office.

I would like some sort of mental competency test.

Yeah, exactly.

Somebody can sit and concentrate on something for eight hours.

For five days a week.

I was going to say Donald Trump.

That's right.

Neither of them would possibly pass.

No, exactly.

You know, they're stuck in a position where It's tricky to get rid of somebody.

Like, you really need to have a sort of an in place test.

of mental competency that happens every 12 months.

And if you fail, you just fail.

Like you have to sit at every 12 months.

Just otherwise nobody's going to institute this sort of, uh,

competency test on a, on a leader.

It's too hard to do.

It should be in place as an automatic thing.

And the two terms for an American president was brought

in by an American president.

Right.

It's kind of a, you've got to have somebody going, this is too powerful

an institution, we need limits on it.

So you need somebody who doesn't have a vested interest going, right,

we do need, um, competency tests.

It's all part of the new constitution, Joe.

Someone was saying Bill Clinton was a president 30 years ago and he's still

younger than both Trump and Biden.

Yes, yes.

So, so yeah, one

of those things, I think the Americans have got to get over this, um, age and

experience thing that they've seemed to inhabit with because two of their

better presidents were younger men, you know, JFK was only 40 something

when he was in the job, wasn't he?

You know, if you were running a major international organization

where you needed and experience.

You'd be, you know, looking for somebody in their fifties, something

like that, sort of ideal, sort of age, I would have thought.

It's

one of those things, I was listening to a podcast this morning that they're actually

saying that, um, if the Democrats could replace Joe Biden with a 55 year old,

Governor, right now, they reckon he'd win because they'd be able to wipe the

floor with Trump, but no one actually has.

broached the subject with Joe and said, well, it's time for you

to stand down or anything else.

And nobody's in

crisis

talks, wasn't he?

He was in crisis talks.

There's no doubt about that.

It was, but again, it was only with his family and his family is only going to

tell him what they know he wants to hear.

And nobody in the last two years could have positioned themselves to be this

obvious next person because in doing so, you're seen to be undermining the deal.

And therefore you would be ostracised and driven out, so.

Which is precisely the problem, you know, it's one of those

things like, you know, um,

like we all like to laugh at the speed at which we tend to go

through Prime Ministers down under.

But I do think there is some sort of validity to that, that um,

you can actually serve only at the pleasure of your opponent.

colleagues.

I do believe that having that sword of Damocles hanging over their necks and that

stuff keeps them a little bit more honest.

So you think they need a cabbage for U.

S.

President?

No, I don't think they need a cabbage.

They actually need, they actually needed, no, a lettuce was the um, a lettuce was

the thing that they put on that woman.

Liz Truss.

Liz Truss, yeah, you know, they said will she last longer than

this, longer than this lettuce?

And the lettuce lasted longer than she did.

Um, where was I headed with all of that?

No, it's gone.

I don't know.

But um, you know, is it a democracy when

Prime Ministers are chosen by the Parliamentary Party

and not by the public anyway?

Like, it's such an important position that, you know, nobody voted for, for

No, but does it really matter who's running the job?

You're voting for the party and not for the person.

Exactly.

You know what, in our current state, it doesn't even matter which party.

Like, honestly, we got Albanese in here.

Yeah, he's

about as inspiring as a dishcloth.

Not a lot different has happened that wouldn't have happened had

Morrison got back in again, except Assange would still be in Belmarsh.

What, what else?

Oh, stage 3 tax cuts, I guess.

The stage 3 tax cuts would probably have gone through if

Morrison was still in office.

Yeah,

um, but otherwise, you know, the bullshit in terms of quantum computer

deals where we've given 900 million to different groups, the freedom of

information, um, knockbacks that Rex Patterson's getting all the time where

this government's very secretive.

The Whistleblowers who have been persecuted, imprisoned, um, uh,

basically continuing to sell, uh, uh, allow spare parts to go to Israel for,

for, for deals and, and government money going to Israeli companies.

All that shit is all still going on.

This is There's not much difference between what we've experienced, um, and

what we would have got under Morrison.

Had Morrison had actually won that last election, then we wouldn't have had

any movement on climate change at all.

Well, what movement have we had?

Well, we've actually had some in, we've had some investment in renewable energy.

But, you know, this Labor government's been, you know, approving more.

Um, mining and gas fields and all sorts of stuff.

Yeah,

but they've been improving mining and gas fields for export more

so than our domestic consumption.

Yeah, I know, it's just going to be burnt overseas, which is okay.

It's just one of those things, it's just going to throw a lifeline to the coal

miners and that sort of stuff so they can continue to sell their poison overseas.

But, you know, here you are, there's virtually no difference, I don't think.

Minimal difference between the two parties.

If you look at America, minimal difference, minimal difference

between the two parties.

You know, it's hard to talk about things that would be done

differently under either party.

Um, who knows what's going to happen in the UK, whether, whether

this Labor party is going, under Keir Starmer, is going to do.

Anything particularly different to what the Tories have been doing?

They've been a really small target.

They're just saying, vote for us because we're not the Tories have

been shafting you for the last 10 years, but they haven't actually

shown They haven't actually said anything different, have they?

Yeah, so It's just one of those things.

I hate the small target.

Like, you know, it's, it was set up under, um, Paul Keating, he decided he was gonna

be a small target when he went, when he was trying to knock off John Husson.

Did, did.

Mm-Hmm.

. Yeah.

John, John Husson went in with a very detailed plan

about what he was going to do.

Fight back.

Yeah.

Fight back.

Mm.

And that was torn apart by Keating.

Now, you know, it's, it was destroyed by Keating.

Keating made this, made the small target, the new political science.

And that was it.

Mm-Hmm.

. But just think about a dear listener.

Not only does it not matter who our leaders are, essentially, and often

we don't get to choose because it's done by a parliamentary party, but

even if the actual parties change, the end result, it's not that different.

Um, our democracy is not offering us a sort of a choice.

And on a lot of issues, they're, they're contrary to what most people

would, would want at any time.

So, um, so yeah.

Uh, number five on my list.

Strict control of post politics careers, because it just gives me the

shits, these guys who, uh, basically can't be accused of corruption when

they're awarding contracts to various defense contract groups, but then 12

months later, get a job with them.

And this is all considered perfectly fine.

Like it just shouldn't be on, because it leads to the understanding.

Well, of course, you then say to the next incumbent, You know what happened

to the guy who did the right thing by us?

Um, got a great cushy job with us.

Now, of course, can't promise you anything, but just

look at our track record.

When people are good to us, we're good to them post their parliamentary career.

And that's a, that's a dangerous incentive where billions of

dollars just go down the tube.

So it's just be, should be a full stop.

No, you're not working for any company that had any involvement with any

portfolio you were, you were dealing with.

So, um, I reckon this one, Freedom of Information.

Um, so much of, we haven't even dealt with the deal listener, we've given like 900.

Million dollars or something to some quantum computer group to,

to build a computer in Brisbane.

And the deal is really sketchy.

And the problem is, we don't even know what the deal is.

We don't know whether we got equity or loan.

We don't know what our return on investment is, because we get

this bullshit response of, Oh, it's commercial in confidence.

We can't tell you what the government has done 'cause it's commercial in confidence.

Complete crap.

Um, so I like the idea where, um, essentially all documents, I'm done

with the secrecy on these things.

Even conversations, prime Minister.

Basically, every conversation you have as Prime Minister

should be recorded, Nixon style.

And publicly available.

I was going to say, presidential record takes in the US.

And 12 months later, or at a certain time in the very, very

near future, it's released.

So when you're doing a discussion or a deal or something.

In a very short time you're going to feel a lot of pain if

you've done the wrong thing.

I think that's all in my new constitution, Scott.

Do you like that one?

Yeah, I do.

I was going to say a corruption commission that actually has teeth.

Yes.

One that's actually prepared to investigate things.

Like, I can't believe I'm not allowed to

investigate things.

Well, it's just one of those things that God knows why they didn't

investigate the, um, why they didn't, why they didn't investigate those nine

people that referred to them under the Royal Commission into robo debt.

You know, that was bloody crook, what the hell the government was doing back

then.

See, that's the sort of thing, Morrison, you would have expected.

And we got the same from Albanese.

That's what I'm talking about, as in getting the same

shit from this label group.

And they're

worried that it's going to come for them.

Yes.

But see, you know, the National Anti Corruption Commission was

set up with a, you know, a Blaze of Glory and everything else.

It had, you know, nine people were handed to it by the Royal Commission.

You know, their heads were already in a platter, ready to be served up to us.

And they elected not to investigate it.

So God knows why.

Now someone's actually investigating their neck now to find out why they

decided not to investigate them.

Yeah.

Investigation of the investigation of the non investigation.

Yeah.

So clever.

Yeah.

Um, number eight of mine's a favourite, War can only be declared by Parliament,

so none of this bullshit of just the Prime Minister deciding after

consulting two or three friends.

You need joint sitting, House of Reps, Senate and a majority to agree to war

and every six months that you're in that war, you have to revisit that vote

and decide whether to continue with it.

Is this non defensive wars we're talking about?

Any

war where we're lobbing bombs at somebody in any sort of use of our military against

We have to wait until Parliament sits.

How long does that take?

No idea.

Yes, yes, Joe, it's not that hard to, it's not that hard to gather people together.

I don't care if some of them are electronic or not.

I don't care.

But it's not that hard to get all of them together and, and say, hey.

They started loading troop ships in China and they're heading this way.

Do we want to declare war or not?

Or, the US have asked us to engage in a war against the Yemens.

Or, um, you know, in Afghanistan, or Iraq, or like, or in Vietnam, or Korea.

Like, none of these wars were so urgent that we couldn't have

held a full parliamentary debate.

None of them.

End.

It wouldn't be that hard to be able to rack one up within 24, 48 hours

if it was a really dire emergency.

Particularly in the lead up to a war, things are heating up and you're

saying, Hey everybody, make sure you're close to the internet because

we might need to make a decision soon.

So, I don't see that as a problem.

That's a great difficulty.

If it's important enough that we go to war, then let's just get

everyone together to make sure that we agree that we should go to war.

Hmm.

Ah.

Limit the outsourcing of the public service.

Our public service now needs consultants to advise it how

to, how to hire consultants.

They've completely lost capacity to do stuff.

So,

um, Mariana Mutzogid, sir, who, whatever her name is.

Yes.

As a thing about, um, government outsourcing and saying that basically

you lose all your skills in house.

Corporate knowledge,

corporate memory.

Yeah.

Yep.

And you're then just left at the mercy of these consultants.

You've lost the ability to even know whether your consultant's

advice is good enough or not.

So, you know, there's a regular task that you know a government is going to need.

You keep people in house to do that.

I saw a charity that, um, was outsourcing all of its, um, infrastructure,

and they had no knowledge.

They had, basically every time any change was done, you had to

do a scoping exercise to go out and find what equipment was there.

To be able to say, alright, this is what's there, this is what we need to change.

This is what the future state will be.

But there was a re engagement every time, and the managed service provider

was the cheapest one they could find, um, and it just, it didn't work.

Yeah.

So, but you know, people have fallen for the propaganda of public service

bureaucracy is a waste of money, these fat cats, when in fact The fattest

of the fat cats are in the consulting industry, which is where you're going

to have to resort to if you don't keep it in house, so that's on my list.

Um, no lobbyists in Parliament House, no donations, or um, uh, Scott, it makes

no sense that we have parliamentarians representing districts, the seat of

Ryan, or Dixon, or something like that.

Like, in our federal parliament.

I think we should just have X number of politicians and a proportional voting

system, and that they don't represent any particular district at all.

Because they end up having to attend every fate and um,

other minor things, pretending to represent these local constituents,

when they're there to be really passing policy on national issues.

Yeah, I'm not really sure how I feel

about that.

How do you get your FaceTime in front of a politician,

if you don't

have a politician for your area.

See, that's a very good point.

I don't know, but we could find a way, surely.

Absolutely.

I'm saying that is the one upside to having a locally representative

politician, is that in theory you could write to them and they are

supposed to represent your interests.

But, you know, when your local parliamentarian is some right

wing Christian and he goes saying, I want to, um, I want you to

stop funding private religious schools, it's falling on deaf ears.

So, that's where you'd like to be able to It's falling

on deaf, it's falling on deaf ears with your local politician, until you actually

say to him, OK, that's no problem at all, you're not going to help me, I'm going to

talk to your opponent, and you're going to go raise Mary Hill with his opponent,

Doesn't do you any good.

You go to the Senate and then after that you get the crossbench involved and then

after that they start to Raise merry hell about it until something's actually done.

So Yeah, I'm not convinced of that Trevor.

I've got to think about that.

Mm hmm.

Well, I was gonna get rid of states

Yeah, absolutely.

They should go there.

There is there there there a Handbrake on the country there, a old

colonial hangover, they should go.

Hmm.

Keep local government.

Yeah.

And, um See,

what you can actually do with that is if you divide the states up into 12

areas and all that sort of stuff, you could have the mayors of those states

The 12 mayors of the state would then become the 12 senators of that state.

So the Senate wouldn't sit every week or anything like that.

They wouldn't actually sit down there together.

They'd get everything emailed to them and then they'd come back up with their own

votes and that type of thing afterwards.

And then you only pull them down there for the more important votes.

Uh, I don't know that I'd want to mix up their jobs of being mayor of a local

government and being in the Senate.

Um, I think it's too much to get your head around.

Each job is a pretty big job, I would have thought, but you couldn't be on top of it.

Everything, if you had that much on your plate.

But anyway, we could get rid of the states, and

Yeah, I was gonna say, local government, there's a mayor and there's a CEO,

and the CEO actually does the work.

Yeah, exactly.

It's one of those things, I just, I I understand where you're coming from

with abolishing states, that would be absolutely no problem whatsoever.

I think that if you're gonna do that though, you gotta merge Victoria

and Tasmania into one state.

Because it's a little bit ridiculous that you've got 12 senators.

There wouldn't be any state.

There wouldn't be any state.

No.

But for the Senate, each state gets 12 senators.

Well, we'd have to change that.

Exactly.

Which is a ridiculous thing that Tasmania gets 12 senators.

Yeah.

So we have to get rid of that.

That's, that's undemocratic.

The, um, the way that works as well.

Add that to the list.

Um, what else have I got on my list here?

They're the main ones.

I start repeating myself, I keep going.

The

states don't get protected us from ScoMo during COVID.

They did.

Yeah, they did.

It was the states that actually did stuff, and ScoMo just sat there and looked lost.

Yes.

True.

You see, that's the whole point.

Everyone forgets about the states until you're actually in a crisis.

And that, um, COVID crisis did actually bring out the best and it also brought

out the worst in us as a country.

And the best of it was probably when the states were in control.

The worst of it was when the Commonwealth's trying to go in control.

You know, it's one of those things, like, I honestly believe that we were

very fortunate to be an island nation, girt by sea, that we're just surrounded

by a natural moat and everything like that, and we just blocked it out.

We kept it out, and we didn't have those refrigerated vans and that sort

of stuff, sitting outside hospitals dealing with the dead, you know?

We were lucky.

Oh, we were exceptionally lucky, you know, and Britain, you know, they had

a ridiculous number that were killed over there from the disease, you know,

and um, Boris Johnson was apparently circling the drone pipe too, you know.

Yeah.

Missed opportunity.

Yeah.

So.

Hand

now, Joe.

Yeah.

So I guess, uh, I don't know how long I could keep banging on about

this, but I just think that, yeah, looking back at the last nine years.

An enormous number of policy failures that are just obvious.

Top of the list being submarine hawkers, working our way down.

Nothing really changing.

Democracy fundamentally flawed in that it's relying on the will of the people.

And we have a system where the will of the people can be

manipulated by powerful interests.

And I don't know how we go about stopping that from happening, but

I also think it needs to be in the constitution.

National infrastructure needs to be owned nationally.

So no selling off of national infrastructure, and I think CSIRO needs

Permanent funding for long term scientific research that is in the interest of

Australia has no financial reward.

You know, the things that um, low cost medication that are, people are reliant

on, that there's no business case that we have to go, oh yes, we're going to

make millions of dollars back on this.

If it's a loss, it's a loss.

It's uh, it's an investment into the well being of the Australian population.

Profit doesn't come into it.

The other one along those lines as well would be, if we're extracting minerals

out of the ground in this generation, the proceeds from that should not be

spent by this generation with nothing left for the future generation.

That should be, if, if you're actually.

If you're selling off capital, then it should be quarantined forever

as capital, and you could only ever access the income that comes from it.

So, otherwise, it's just a current generation ripping

off a future generation.

So, add that to the list.

Um, yeah.

But until, until some fundamental structural changes are made,

we're just gonna head more and more down the toilet, I think.

The only thing that might save us is, is our preferential voting system here in

Australia might get more of the greens.

You'll be pleased to know Scott involved.

And that's going to potentially shake things up.

Or all the United States doesn't have it.

UK, does it have preferring?

No, that's past the postcode.

It used to have,

um, single transferable for something, but they've just changed that.

I think councils, um, local councils were, and they changed it.

Yeah, um, so, um, Um, that might be the only thing that delays our spiralling

demise that, to match the UK and the US, is our preferential voting system

allowing us to get the Greens in, and, and they, to me, appear to be a voice

that largely is listening to what

the masses need, I think.

But, um, anyway, remains to be seen.

There we go.

I wasn't going to throw any other bits of Two Cents worth in, because

I'm done on this one I think.

Oh, did we mention on air about the nuclear reactors and what they

were worth in terms of capacity?

No, we didn't actually do anything.

That was on a, that was on something that Trevor sent around to us.

And it was, the estimates were that it would produce approximately 4

percent of the electricity that the country would actually need by 2050.

So, uh, I don't think the national party is right when they're saying

that this would remove the need for large renewable projects.

It's a pipe dream and a very expensive pipe dream at that.

That was basically.

Looking at the current generating capacity of, of standard nuclear power

stations, and assuming they put two of them on each of the seven sites.

Yeah, so it was 2.

4 gigawatts was the The largest power station that's been

built, I think in Europe?

It's in Finland, I believe.

And so, seven of those at 2.

4 kilowatts is, uh, 18 kilowatts?

18 gigawatt

or something like that.

Sorry, 18 gigawatts, yes.

And they

were talking about us needing 300 and something gigawatts by the

time the 2050 was turning around.

I mean, we have to be realistic.

We are very profligate in the way we use energy over here.

Absolutely we are.

Um, I, I, you, you show an Australian house to any European and they would

fall over laughing that the levels of insulation and, um, energy efficiency,

um, it was shocking when I first moved over it, how flimsy the houses were.

And I'm very glad that I live in a subtropical climate because

Hobart is the same distance from the equator as the south of France

is, if I remember correctly.

And we consider that cold.

And you try and build a Hobart house in the south of France and you get

shot down by the planning laws.

Yeah, so, um, uh, John's just made it into the chat room and we're

about to just finish off, John.

Um, he's been at a Labour Party meeting.

Um, yeah, so.

We're not touching on Assange?

Julian Assange is out.

He's coming back to Australia.

Um, well, I'm happy that he's out.

Yeah, so am I.

But it's sad that he had to take a plea deal.

Um Because

effectively, well, now, now they've validated that they can charge a

And a reporting journalist, yeah.

Who was not on US soil for committing a crime that wasn't a crime in either his

home country or where he was at the time.

It's one of those things I just think to myself that um, he had to take the

plea out because the Americans weren't going to back down or anything else.

That obviously said, John, look, we're just, we're just Give your time served

and then you'll be on your way home.

It's probably the best deal he could hope for.

Now, I understand that the legal team and everything else is starting to argue

with him and all that sort of stuff about getting him a pardon, which I

don't think they should bother myself.

I don't think the Yanks are actually going to give it to him.

Have a rest.

The thing, my thought on the whole thing is, Guys like, uh, James

Patterson and other people like that, we're just, what are we doing?

We should have let the US have him and he should rot in jail, the damn traitor.

I think, you know, this sort of language, Simon Birmingham

might have been of a similar ilk.

And, uh, you know, just other comments you see from other people,

and you just go, God, some of you people are just miserable shits.

Like, honestly,

some of these people are just goddamn awful.

No matter what you thought of, of the guy, he's had a pretty harsh time, and you

would have thought, well, enough's enough.

But these guys are just mean spirited assholes, is what I, is the impression

I got from some of these guys.

The whole, um, sexual assault case, and if he's still bringing that up now, um,

one, yeah, there was something there, I think there was a chance to put it

to bed, um, I think there was no desire to put it to bed, and I think it's been

a very useful thing to smear him with.

It would have been nice to have seen that as a court case and see what

the actual facts of the case were.

Hmm, yeah, anyway.

Um, you know, watching the guy get off the aeroplane and that,

you'd just be He's a broken man.

You'd just be thinking, his head would just be spinning totally out of

control with all the emotions and the sensations would be going on in there.

Like, I'm really glad that they kept him away from making a statement, and,

um, you would imagine somebody in that position really needs Some time to

just digest where they're at and um, it would have been really unfair to shove a

microphone in his face and And get him to start answering questions at that point.

So I'm glad they sort of looked after him in that sense and, and, um, kept

him away from an interview of sorts.

When they showed him landing in Saipan, I saw the video of that and

thought, that's a very familiar face going through those doors with him.

And it turns out it was, it was Kevin Rudd.

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, um, who, who, who knows how much sort of credit to give the Albanese

government and Rudd and where all of the credit lies and doesn't lie.

But his legal advisor was pretty clear in saying that, um, that

Assange was certainly giving Albanese plenty of credit.

So.

Well, I think it's because Albanese was the first of our PMs that

actually Took it up for yanks.

Yeah, you know, it's one of those things, you know I don't know what the

hell happened over that sexual assault thing either You know, it, I think Joe

could have, could have hit the nail on the head, then it could have been

something to besmirch his character with.

I don't know.

However, I honestly believe that we shouldn't lose sight of that was the

original complaint was sexual assault.

Anyway.

Yeah,

and apparently he was willing to go to Sweden if they guaranteed they

wouldn't extradite him to the US.

Yeah, I know that.

Uh, so had they given that guarantee, we could've had this dealt

with, what was it, 15 years ago?

Uh, it does all seem to be.

It was an excuse to pick him up, to hold him whilst they got their

ducks in a row to extradite him.

So, uh, yeah, I, whether it's been blown out of proportion.

And just finally, uh, Senator, Senator, very much.

Payments got, um, crossed the floor and voted with the

Greens for a set up of Palestinian state.

Yes, for recognition of a Palestinian, of Palestine.

And, uh, the Labor Party have, uh, said that's, uh, contrary to

caucus solidarity and have basically

pushed her to the outer and, uh,

They haven't kicked you out of the party or anything like that.

They have Everything.

Yes.

Almost.

They have kicked you out of the caucus and John Seaman says, I have

a bit of feedback on the Senator suspension, maybe, maybe next week.

So if you've got his email address, better email him and find out what

he knows and, um, find out whether it's okay for us to talk about it.

But what do you think of the principle of the party

selling to members?

Ah, the principle, no, that is one of the, one of my main objections to the Labor

Party is that, um, at least in the Liberal Party, you can actually cross the floor,

and

they can't actually kick you out.

Right.

Now, the Labor Party has made it a article of faith and all that sort of

stuff that says we will kick you out.

If you actually cross the floor, which is absolutely ridiculous because you then got

that, um, you've then got that decision that was made when What is it, what's his

name, was the leader of the Labor Party?

No, lost it.

No, before him, Latham.

When Latham was leader of the Labor Party, they all rolled up to the Senate

to vote for John Howard's changes to the Marriage Act that would make it illegal

for same sex unions to be recognized.

And who had to go and do that?

Penny Wong, an outwardly lesbian woman.

Who has since got married and adopted a child.

Oh, no, she didn't adopt a child.

She had to, I'm pretty sure her wife gave birth and that sort of stuff.

You know, yeah, that was utterly crazy, you know, that they had to go and do it.

They had to dutifully obey their leader and go in there and she

voted against her own interest.

Yeah, that was wrong.

Hmm.

What was Labor Party policy at the time?

No, the Labor Party policy at the time was that they were

opposed to same sex marriage.

Right.

Because the Labor Party policy at the moment, I believe, is that they're

in favor of a two party solution.

A two state solution, they are.

Absolutely.

Which is why I think to myself My

problem with this payment issue is It seems to me that she's pretty

much in line with the Labor Party, with stated Labor Party policy.

So to me, uh, you know, maybe I'd have less sympathy if she was maintaining a

position that was, um, that was completely against stated Labor Party policy.

Policy, but she seems to be somewhere within it to me.

So that's why I'm a bit sympathetic to her and saying, Oh,

that's your policy.

She's within the bounds of it.

There you go.

Right.

John Seamans

is going to be in Brisbane on Wednesday night.

I'd like to stop here for a coffee with you.

I

will not be in Brisbane, John.

So I'm still down the coast.

Background you can see.

All right.

Well, there we go.

A little bit on the current issues of the time, a little bit on the

big picture, where, uh, I think we need some major institutional

changes that won't come, but, um, who knows, we'll see what happens.

But, um, yeah, just looking at other countries in particular, America,

UK, France, now, pretty diabolical what's happening to democracy.

Democracy is, is throwing up as the options.

In our own democracy here has given us An Albanese government that's still

doing deals with private contractors, not telling us what the deals are because

it's commercial in confidence, still locking up whistleblowers, um, still

supplying, um, Israeli defense contractors with money, still passing laws to enable

further mining, a whole host of things that we would have expected from Morrison.

All happening.

So.

There we go.

I've run out of solutions.

All right, John, message me separately.

I'm not going to give you my, uh, over the, over the public chat where we are.

So, right gentlemen, uh, thanks Scott for nine years and Joe as well.

No worries.

And, uh, onwards and upwards towards number 10.

Exactly.

We'll talk to you all next week.

Bye for now.

Sentence you to time served.

Thank you.

Yes.

And that's a good night from me.

And a good night from him.

Good

night.

Good night.