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Episode 408 - Albanese is Morrison Without the Smirk
21st November 2023 • The Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove • The Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove
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In this episode we discuss:

  • What is the point of Labor Governments?
  • Robodebt – 57 recommendations
  • Move to double Qld first-homeowner grant to $30,000
  • Boomers are spending
  • Have Babies
  • Indefinite detention
  • David McBride
  • Optus CEO Quits
  • Tuvalu
  • Gender Pay Gap
  • Uk Rwanda
  • Argentina
  • Gaza
  • Jordan Peterson
  • Elon Musk on Gaza
  • China Update
  • Xi In San Francisco
  • America can’t stop China’s rise
  • Ukraine

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Transcripts started in episode 324. You can use this link to search our transcripts. Type "iron fist velvet glove" into the search directory, click on our podcast and then do a word search. It even has a player which will play the relevant section. It is incredibly quick.

Transcripts

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

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evolved some extraordinarily unique groups of homosapiens.

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But today, we observe a small tribe akin to a group of meerkats that

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gather together atop a small mound to watch, question, and discuss the

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current events of their city, their country, and their world at large.

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Let's listen keenly and observe this group fondly known as the

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Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

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Yes, we're back.

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Episode 408 of the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

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We had a week off because I was sick.

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More about that in a moment.

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I'm Trevor, aka the Iron Fist, with me as always, Scott the Velvet Glove, calling in

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loud and clear from Regional Queensland.

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Yes.

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How are you, Trevor?

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How are you, Joe?

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How are your listeners?

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I hope everyone's well.

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I am a lot better now, thank you.

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And tech guy and UK correspondent Joe.

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How are you, Joe?

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Good morning, all.

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Joe's with us.

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Right.

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So yes, we missed out last week because I was sick and got a bout of pneumonia.

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Briefly, I had a virus prior to Melbourne Cup Tuesday.

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I lingered around for a week, thought I was getting better, and then after doing

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the podcast Tuesday night, woke up with a terrible cough and feeling awful, and what

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had basically happened was that my immune system was weakened by the virus, and...

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Both Joe and myself, with Crohn's disease, take medication.

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Joe, you're on mesosalazine as well, or not?

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No, no, no.

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I'm on a bunch of other drugs, so...

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Right.

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Okay.

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I'm on one that suppresses my immune system, because Crohn's is, to some

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extent, sort of a thing where your immune system goes a bit haywire, so

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they need to tone it down a little bit.

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So, after the virus and taking the medication for Crohn's, I had a

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compromised immune system, which allowed a bacteria to get in, and I

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ended up with pneumonia and was in a shocking state for five days at home.

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I really should have gone to the hospital a lot earlier.

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Anyway went on the Monday morning, raised the white flag, went in and spent

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three nights at the Wesley Hospital.

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A lovely private room, using some of my private medical cover.

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I highly recommend the grilled barramundi on the menu, and I was well looked after.

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And feeling good now, except if I do anything energetic I run out of gas.

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But sitting here and podcasting is something I can do, uh, I'm podcast fit.

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At least, so we'll run through the topics of the last two weeks and do

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our best to sort of describe what's going on and what's been happening.

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If you're in the chat room, say hello, let me see, is anybody there at the moment?

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Four people apparently.

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Okay.

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Say hello if you're there.

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John Simmons is there.

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So, diastrates.

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Thanks, John.

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Yes, I'm on the road back, but it's going to take a few weeks to get fully back.

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Lost a few, lost a bit of weight too.

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Lost about three kilos.

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I didn't really need, I was at my fighting weight and after losing three

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kilos, I looked a little bit like really an old man on, or a bit of a,

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sort of a concentration camp victim.

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So I was looking really skinny.

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So anyway, I'm, I'm trying to beef up, trying to actually put

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on weight if you can believe it.

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So, there we go.

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Get on the bears.

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Yeah, that's it.

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Indeed.

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So, right, we're going to talk about what's the point of this Labor

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government robo debt Queensland first home owner grant extended, another bash

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at boomers, The indefinite detention sort of decision out of the High Court,

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David McBride, Optus CEO, Tuvalu, the gender pay gap, Argentina, Gaza, the

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China update, maybe a bit of Ukraine.

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See how we go in the next hour as we run through the topics.

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But guys, um, a couple of things happened and we'll talk to you about

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in more detail, but the, the robo debt.

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Inquiry was a really good one and the commissioner in charge of that

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came out with 57 recommendations.

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Ah, but the government's not mentioning that they're not mentioning number 57.

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Correct.

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The government's being really sneaky and saying actually there

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were only 56 recommendations.

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Yeah, they, they mentioned this morning on 7am when I was listening to it,

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they reckon it wasn't any, they reckon it wasn't a recommendation, it was...

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It was a talking point or something like that.

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That's what the government's saying.

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But immediately after the report was presented, Bill Shorten

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said, there's 57 recommendations.

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The report itself says, there's 57 recommendations.

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It just happened to be that the 57th was in this sort of final thoughts

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chapter, but it was undoubtedly a recommendation, which was basically...

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Looking at the way that information is held secret using cabinet

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secrecy arrangements, and really information is presented to cabinet.

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Well, you want some certain, you want some secrecy around cabinet deliberations.

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It's a fair enough thing.

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People in cabinet need to be able to talk about potential

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decisions and argue about them.

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And maybe you might argue we should not do this thing.

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And other people are arguing, well, we should do it.

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And at the end of the day, the cabinet decides they're going to do it.

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You really have this principle of sort of cabinet solidarity and everyone in the

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cabinet then gets behind the decision.

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You really don't want that sort of backroom negotiation and discussion

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to be hashed out in public.

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And for ministers to be questioned, to be said, Oh, well, you, you

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were initially against the idea and now you're saying you're for it.

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Of course, it's all about Covenant solidarity.

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So there are legitimate reasons why some things should be kept secret.

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What we've got is sort of information going to Cabinet, factual information,

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and that then being declared Secret Cabinet business, where really

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it's just factual information that should be available to everybody.

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And it's being misused and abused.

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Well, there was a comment that they've got a trolley that they wheel through the

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Cabinet room every week with information that they don't want released, so that

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it's being considered by Cabinet because they wheeled it through once a week.

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There you go.

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That was hyperbole, I don't know.

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Yeah, but that's the sort of, gives you an idea.

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That's a good description of kind of what's happening.

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And so this Labor government has basically said, Oh, well, there were

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only 56 recommendations that that final one wasn't a real recommendation.

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And everybody knows it was a recommendation.

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It's Orwellian doublespeak.

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It's a fucking joke that they're trying to describe it as not a recommendation.

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Now, if they had a decent, if they had a decent pair on them and that

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sort of stuff, they'd actually say to you, look, we accept and we'll

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implement 56 of the 57 recommendations.

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Number 57 is problematic because it deals with in cabinet incompetence.

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We agree that the Tories did misuse this.

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But, you know, we don't want to open the doors and that sort of stuff.

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Because, you know, it's one of those things.

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It's, I agree with you, Trevor.

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It's a double edged sword for them.

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Because if they say that, if they say they're going to accept number

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57, then you could end up with...

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Freedom of information requests every other week, and that could actually

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end up undoing the whole cabinet of incompetence thing, which I know people

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that are all about transparency and that sort of stuff wouldn't have a

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problem with, but I agree with you.

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You've got to be able to have a forthright debate in cabinet.

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And I think that you wouldn't have that forthright debate if there was

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any, if there was any chance of it being leaked outside of Cabinet.

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I'm sure it would be possible to structure the rules such as, such that things that

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should be kept secret are kept secret, and things that should be open are open.

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Yeah, so you're going to have to have bureaucrats and that sort of stuff that

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actually go through it and that type of thing that they can say, well, we've

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got this, we've got this FOI request, so you've got a bureaucrat that goes

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through it and that sort of stuff.

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Then they're going to have to take it to the ministers and say, this

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is why we're going to hand it over.

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Yeah, but that happens all the time with freedom of information

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requests, they're assessed.

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And evaluated.

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But an FOI request can't actually undo anything that's in cabinet though, can it?

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Correct.

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So, look, the way this is handled though, I reckon, is exactly how the Morrison

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government would have handled it.

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I agree wholeheartedly.

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Just a really bullshit explanation and a bluff and, and which is precisely why

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I just said, if they had a decent pair on them and that sort of stuff, they'd

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actually take it to the public and say...

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We are accepting the first 56 recommendations.

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Number 57 is problematic.

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It's problematic because of ABC.

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And then you might have it come back and then you might have journalists

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saying, well, can't you do X, Y, Z?

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And they say, good question.

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We will go away and think about it.

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And they can come back and say, well, you can't do X, Y, Z because of 1, 2, 3.

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You know, it's just one of those things.

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If they had a, like I said, if they had a decent pair and that sort of stuff,

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they might be prepared to argue it.

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But they clearly don't want to argue with it, and it's one of the things

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that's most disappointing about the Albanese government, is they, they

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always want to look for the simple things in life, and they want to go

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through and tick off the simple things.

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And then they can say, well, we've done 70 percent of what

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we promised we were going to do.

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The other 30 percent is a little bit too complicated, so we're going to hold off.

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You know, it's one of those things, I honestly believe I'd have a hell

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of a lot more respect for them if they said, we're going to handle

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the, the tough 30 percent right now.

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We're going to actually talk to you about why we're doing what we're doing.

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And we're going to have, we're going to have a lot of you disagreeing with

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us, but we've got to actually do this.

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And it's this.

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Just treat us like adults, not like idiots.

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Like Morrison treated us like idiots.

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And these guys are doing the same thing.

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This is precisely how Morrison would have handled it.

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And it's one of those things like, you know, Paul Bongiorno, who turns

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up every Friday on 7am talking about it and that sort of stuff.

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He says, look, the Albanese government's got to pull their finger out.

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He didn't use that language.

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But he said, he's got to actually, he's got to actually start taking the

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electorate into his confidence and that type of thing, actually talking

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through, he's actually got to actually put something on the table and say,

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this is what we're going to do.

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Because, you know, you've actually got to look at the reforms and that

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sort of stuff under Hawke and Keating.

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They were not classic Labor reforms.

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They were Liberal Party policies that the Labor Party pinched, you know, and

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they got up and that sort of stuff.

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Argued them, and they actually put up persuasive arguments for them, and they

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told the public why they were doing it.

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Hmm.

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And these idiots are just saying to us, Oh, there was

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really only 56 recommendations.

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Yeah, I know.

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And do they honestly believe it?

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Exactly.

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You know, it's, it's one of the things the Fourth Estate should really

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be ashamed of themselves because they're actually swallowing it.

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They're actually reporting to the public there's only been 56

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recommendations, which is nonsense.

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But they know that some of the public is stupid, will accept that.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I'm going to mention that because my old man will be up there watching Sky News

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saying oh yeah, we're going to accept 56 notes, 56 of the recommendations.

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So that really struck me as ScoMo esque, the whole approach to that problem.

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Oh, exactly.

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We've had David McBride before the court, basically the

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whistleblower on on war crimes.

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And, you know, ScoMo would have run that the same way, just

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kept going with the court case.

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Whereas you would have hoped a Labor government would have said,

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great, a whistleblower exposed what had happened here and...

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Yeah, public interest.

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He actually, he pleaded guilty didn't he?

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Yes.

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To three charges, yes.

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Yeah, because apparently public interest wasn't a defence, it turned out.

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He tried to argue and they said, well no, that's not true.

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That's bloody ridiculous.

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So we've got Robodebt shenanigans, we've got David McBride hauled through the court

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when really he's an honest whistleblower.

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We've got something like Tuvalu, a little Pacific Island note.

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Sorry, Dave.

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I was going to say the whistleblower thing, they were saying that the people...

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He has alleged committed war crimes, is still out free walking

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and he's already pled guilty, if not been sentenced what the hell,

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where, where's the justice in that?

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It, it'd have been better off committing the war crime.

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than revealing the war crime.

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Exactly.

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The way it's panning out.

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Exactly.

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It's one of those things I find that really ridiculous that you've got a

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situation that the whistleblower is the one, the only one that's going to face

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any time behind bars, and the guys that pulled the trigger, they're going to

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get away with it completely scot free.

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Yeah.

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So, as Kamo esque approach, we'll talk about Tuvalu, a

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little Pacific island nation.

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We're going to provide them with aid, but in return, we're bullying them

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into basically handing over their sovereignty for, for their relationships

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with other countries, and they have to sort of get the okay from us before,

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beforehand, which is something that the Conservative government would have done.

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The Slaver government's been reluctant to criticise Israel.

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Scammer would have come out and praised Israel, but you know, We've got cuts to

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infrastructure spending have happened now because government's got a budget problem.

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They're still running through the Stage 3 tax cuts.

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We've still got orcas happening.

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And we've got no pro sort of secular things happening at

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all with this Labor government.

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There, we'll talk about the indefinite detention changes with, uh, the High

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Court came out and said, well, all these people you've got on detention,

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uh, with no hope of actually getting out, you just can't do it.

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And we've got a lot of chest beating by Labor politicians saying, Well,

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if we could throw them back in the clink, we would do it immediately.

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I want them all behind bars, sort of thing.

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Rather than just saying, you know what?

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We release into the community rapists and murderers all the time.

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Exactly, once they've done their time.

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Yeah, once they've done their time, absolutely.

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Now these guys, these guys have, these guys I take it have already been convicted

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in a foreign jurisdiction, have they?

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Some foreign, some here, combination, but, you know, many of them have done

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more than the time that would be required for the crime that they committed.

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And sure, there's some ugly, nasty characters there.

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But our prisons have been full of ugly, nasty characters who we eventually let

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out, because you just, as a civilised society, can't lock people up for the

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rest of their lives, except in the most extraordinary of circumstances.

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And so we just got chest beating by the Labor again on that front.

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It all just strikes me as, what would have happened different if Morrison

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had won that bloody last election?

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Would much have changed?

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I think, well, the only thing that would have changed is they would have

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walked away from the Stage 3 tax cuts.

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Morrison wouldn't have.

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Yeah, I really reckon he would have.

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No, he wouldn't have.

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No, I reckon he would have.

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He could see, he could see that that was going to give away far too much money.

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Oh, there's a theory, Scott.

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I know it's a theory, but it's a theory.

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It's an out there theory, but it's one of those things.

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I think that they, I think they set this up.

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to make it very difficult for the Labor Party, it was set up right from

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word go to make it very difficult for the Labor Party to oppose.

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So they actually, they actually, they voted it through and that sort

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of stuff, then they went to the election and rather stupidly said,

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yeah, we're going to allow that.

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Which I honestly believe he should have actually said, no, we're not

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going to, if we win this, if we win this government, we will be tearing

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back the stage three tax cuts.

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We will be paring them back.

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They were too gutless.

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I know they were far too gutless.

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They were absolutely shit scared of what happened to Bill Shorten.

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Yeah, they didn't want to differentiate themselves from the Tories.

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And now that they're in office, They still don't want to differentiate themselves.

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Yeah, I know.

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And oh, God, what's his name now?

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DuTton is trying to wedge Albanese on the refugee thing even still.

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Yeah, it's all his fault.

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Because if you see the Murdoch press, they're all about how Dutton was

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holding Albanese to account about this.

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It's like it's a high court judgment.

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Yes.

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On a law that I'm fairly sure LNP implemented.

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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It's just the gutlessness of this Labor group to try and tell a story.

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And instead they have to do the chest beating that's demanded by the

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Conservatives and the Murdoch Press.

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And gutless, is all I can say.

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No, it's like, like Turnbull.

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Turnbull was beholden to the figures on the right, and it

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looks like Albanese is too.

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Yeah, yeah.

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So, we'll talk about some of those things in more detail as we go through

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them, but that was just my initial thoughts for this episode, is what is

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the point of this Labor government?

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We're just getting ScoMo without the smirk, I think, in many ways.

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I think it is still preferable to the Tories though.

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Yeah, but...

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Realistically, is there that much difference?

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No, there's not that much difference, but it's still preferable to the Taurids.

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Yes, it's a, it's, it's a prettier wrapping.

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It's more palatable, but there's a lot of the same shit underneath is the problem.

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Absolutely, it's one of those things if you, if you peel it, if you peel away

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the onion and all that sort of stuff, all you've got is a smaller, shinier onion.

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You know?

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Yeah.

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So we talked about Robodebt and those recommendations, and that was just

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an Orwellian denial by Labor of...

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Of the facts treating us like idiots.

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Mm-Hmm.

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. Did you guys see that in Queensland the state government announced

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will double the first homeowner grant from 15,000 to 30,000?

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I liked what Saul Slake said about it.

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Yes.

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So saw Westlake is a, is a well-respected economist.

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And he's had 60, he said we've had 60 years of evidence that giving cash

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to home buyers to let them pay more for housing than they would otherwise

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results in more expensive housing, not in more people owning their own home.

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Exactly.

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All it's going to do is just look after people like me that are

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already in the property market.

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I already own my place up here in Mackay outright.

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I own my place in I donated it outright.

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I've got a mortgage on that one in South Ripley.

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You know, it's, If you could increase the property values by

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30, 000 on all those properties, that would help me out very nicely.

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Just a bunch of people who maybe their budget for buying a new home

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was 600, 000, it's now 615, 000.

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Exactly.

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And Saul S.

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Lake said, It's hard to think of a policy that governments have

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pursued for so long in the face of such incontrovertible evidence that

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it doesn't work than the policy of giving cash to first home buyers.

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The news so I was reading this on the Courier Mail website, and it

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asked people, Is doubling the first homeowner grant to 30, 000 a good idea?

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In the Courier Mail, amongst Courier Mail readers, 90 percent

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said no, not a good idea.

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Yeah, but hang on, if you ask a Tory readership whether giving

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free money, giving taxpayer money to poor people is a good idea, of

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course they're going to say no.

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True.

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And the other thing is, that all those readers of the Courier Mail,

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none of them are first time buyers.

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Because they're all old boomers.

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Yeah, so there you go.

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But they don't realise it's going to push the value of their properties up.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Ah, okay, what else did he say here?

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Saul Eslake said the argument was just bullshit, essentially.

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But he did propose a new name for it, didn't he?

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What was that?

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It was the, it was the House Builders grant.

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Right.

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Because, because, because the value of the money would go straight to home builders.

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Yeah, the builders.

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Yeah.

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So, there we go.

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I'm surprised it will actually stop a few of them going

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belly up though, wouldn't it?

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Builders?

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Yeah.

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Maybe.

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If they could increase their prices by 20, 000 a build.

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I don't know.

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I think.

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I don't know.

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Scott?

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Yeah.

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Thank you.

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I mean, a lot of them are in trouble because they entered into fixed contracts.

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Yeah, exactly.

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It's one of those things that a hell of a lot of them, a hell of a lot of

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them bit off more than they can chew.

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And what they did was they said to Pepe, yeah, we'll, we'll build your

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house for X dollars and we're going to, we're going to, we're going to honor

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that contract price for years to come.

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I mean, they should have actually said, if it's not built in 12 months,

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then we've got to relook at the price.

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Yeah, well, even within 12 months, some of the pricing of, of of wooden frames, for

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example, went up really quickly, so, just some of them got caught out like that,

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so, anyway still on boomers, so, I think I mentioned, oh, I can't remember if we

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mentioned it last week, or last time, but so we had the rise of the interest rates

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on Melbourne Cup Tuesday, and, anyway.

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What we had was one of the banks, the Commonwealth Bank, looked at its credit

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card and debit card transactions from 7 million customers and looked at

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the spending patterns based on age.

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So that's interesting.

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The Commonwealth Bank knows the age of its card holders and can then

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look at the spending patterns and remember what we were complaining For

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the umpteenth time, of what a blunt instrument interest rates were, because

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you stupid consumers out there are spending too much on, on discretionary

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items, forcing the prices up, thereby increasing inflation without regard to

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the fact that a lot of the components of inflation were things beyond people's

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control, like filling up the cars, yeah, and also interest rates themselves.

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add to the inflation rate.

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And anyway, um, got here a chart, which you guys may not have seen because it

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wasn't in the notes, but essentially showing different age groups as it moves

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from left to right, it increases in age.

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And It's got discretionary spending and essential spending

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and total spending and guess what?

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As people have been getting older, the old boomers, they're the ones

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spending more money on discretionary and essential spending and it's

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the young people who have not.

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So that sort of 18 to 39 year age group are the people who have not been.

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Spending Money, whereas it's the Boomer Class and the Gen X, who

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have the no surprise there, but just interesting that those statistics are

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available from credit card information.

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So just adds to the intergenerational conflict that we've got

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going on in this country.

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Tweenie.

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Between all those, so, essentially younger people forced to spend more on essentials.

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It's the older people who are spending money on non essentials.

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And guess what?

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Raising interest rates probably helps them because they've got money in the

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bank, increases their interest rates.

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It's totally misguided policy.

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Thanks again, Reserve Bank.

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I, I have not heard any whispers.

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Somebody at some stage will talk about the government taking control

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of interest rates and taking it away from the Reserve Bank.

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At some point, somebody has to talk about it.

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Greg Sheridan in The Australian, he's got another problem with young people.

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You're not having enough kids.

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Not having enough babies.

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He says we need babies more than we do migrants.

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Every individual has a right to make their own decision about having children,

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but these choices are being increasingly made in the face of coercive, who's

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doing, what are you doing there, Joe?

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Unwrapping the chocolate.

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Every individual has a right to make their own decision about having children,

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but these choices are being increasingly made in the face of coercive, feminist

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and green ideology that depicts children as enemies of self fulfillment.

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What a load of shit.

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And guess what?

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Greg Sheridan, speaking shit like that, will be invited on to Q& A next week.

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He'll be on the drum, he'll be on whatever ABC panel show needs

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a talking head, despite the crap that comes out of his mouth.

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Mum, you know...

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Family values, the modern, it's just breaking up.

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Women should be barefoot and pregnant back in the kitchen.

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Come on.

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Yeah.

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Gonna blame that coercive feminist and green ideology.

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That's it.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Right.

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Just back to the indefinite detention.

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Good chocolate there, Joe.

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So...

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I Was trying to figure out what is going on with this indefinite detention

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and, ah, maybe I didn't copy it.

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It seems to be that because it was mandatory and there wasn't any

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consideration of, um, circumstances that, um, there was no real administrative

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decision making being made.

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And it was almost a judicial power being exercised by executive government.

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And our High Court has decided that there is a separation of powers, that

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the judiciary looks after judicial matters, and the government looks after

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administrative matters, and therefore the way that this had been framed was

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a breach of the separation of powers.

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Won't know for sure until the decision...

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Reasons are published, because this is a really unusual situation with

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this detention, where the High Court basically heard the arguments, and

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then said Right, everyone come back in 20 minutes, and here's our decision,

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and we'll give you the reasons later.

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And that was a highly unusual approach to it, so...

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Why'd they do it like that?

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I think that they saw the urgency of getting people out of detention.

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They knew what their decision was.

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And they didn't want people held in detention any longer than

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necessary while they rode up there.

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Detailed reasons.

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But detailed reasons only take a week for them to put down on paper, wouldn't they?

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Oh, Scott, no.

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Really?

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No, not at all.

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These often take months to get right.

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So they knew what their decision was going to be, and so they

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announced that and said, we'll give you the full reasons later.

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But that appears to be kind of the argument.

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So we've made our mind up, we need to rationalise it afterwards.

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No, I'm okay with this, where the court says, we're really confident

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we've got this right, but the actual writing of the decision is

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complicated and will take time.

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And, because you've got to cite lots of authorities and whatnot.

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And so I'm okay with that part of it.

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Yeah.

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So that was that was the indefinite detention.

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Sort of people.

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that have been held in detention are a stateless Rohingya, unauthorised maritime

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arrival, sentenced to five years jail for aggravated sexual assault of a victim

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under the age of 16, who had been in immigration detention for five years.

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peOple smuggler, um, a man convicted in 1999 of the murder of

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his wife, sentenced to 22 years.

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With a minimum of 18?

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I mean, murder of his wife sentenced to 22 years back in 1999.

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Like, we let murderers out into the community.

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Eventually.

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That's normal.

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Convicted sex offender, currently on Child Protection Register.

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afTer assaulting a 12 year old girl in 2012.

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Again, ugly, awful stuff.

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My understanding is these are people who would normally be expelled.

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But because they're stateless, they can't be.

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Yes.

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Because under international law, if they're in your country and they are

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stateless, you have to accept them.

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Yes, indeed, yep, um, quite a few people smuggling, rape, false imprisonment

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trafficking of a controlled drug, meth, um, supplying of prohibitive drugs, fair

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number of drug runners it looks like in here I thought I saw at one point there

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was a lot of connections to motorcycle gangs, but I'm not so sure about that,

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but anyway, that's the sort of people who,

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who are now being released into the community with leg bracelets and

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reporting conditions and let's face it, that's what goes on all the time.

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And I've got no problem with them having to wear ankle bracelets

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and they've got reporting and everything else that goes with it.

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It's one of those things.

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They're the same as Australian citizens, if it's not happening to an

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Australian citizen who's been guilty of the same crimes, it shouldn't

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be happening to these people.

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It seems like there's an additional layer of punishment just because

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they were born in the wrong place.

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Yeah, that's a good point, but I think to myself, you know, I'll have

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to go away and think about that.

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Right.

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We've already mentioned David McBride, not much more to say about him

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except he's pretty guilty it seems.

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How much time is he going to do?

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I don't know.

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Don't know.

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Poor bugger.

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Yeah.

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Optus CEO quit after the Optus network failed.

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I found this part interesting.

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She was being questioned in the Senate hearing and she said, She

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previously carried a spare Vodafone sim in case of an Optus outage, but

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now also carries a spare Telstra sim.

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That doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

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I think you'd be an idiot not to.

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As the CEO of Optus?

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It's not I have so little faith, it's when the network goes down, you

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need to be there to make decisions.

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And you need a guaranteed, as a business I wouldn't trust

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any single network provider.

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If I was running my own business I wouldn't be saying...

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There's Telstra, they have the best network, or there's Optus, they

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have the best network, I'm 100%.

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If I want resiliency, I want to make sure that I have a backup plan that is

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completely separate from the other ones.

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So Joe, every CEO in Australia, every major political leader, anybody with

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an important job should have a spare SIM card on a different network?

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If you need to be contactable in a crisis, yes.

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Right.

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If you're the chief of the fire services or something, or something like that.

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That you should have an alternate method.

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Right.

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And, and more, and more and more as the systems are digitized.

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What, what scares me is the infrastructure now is switched.

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Every phone call in Australia is switched, either in Melbourne or in Sydney.

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And if you have a regional outage that disconnects you from Melbourne and

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Sydney, even if your infrastructure is still up and running, your calls

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cannot be switched because they're switched in Melbourne and Sydney.

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Look, if I was the CEO, I would be saying to my personal secretary, You

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make sure you've got a spare sim, because it's just a bad look if I do.

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Yeah, I think you're probably, you're probably right there.

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There probably was a fairly bad look that she actually admitted

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that she had the other sims.

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But I honestly think it was quite sensible to have a, a all purpose plan B.

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When I, when I worked in a telephone exchange years ago.

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We had an out of area line that actually ran from Guernsey into Jersey.

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Because when your telephone exchange blows up, you need to be able to

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call the manufacturer for help.

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Yes, yeah.

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Watley in the chat room says all the drug dealers I know have multiple sims.

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Don't blame them.

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Yes.

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I've actually got two sims sitting...

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Two Sims on my phone right now.

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Yes.

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Lots of men conducting affairs also have two Sims as well.

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Well, that's true.

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Yes.

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While that goes on, ah, there's a phone out there that you can have two

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sim cards in, swap between them on one phone, don't need, don't need two phones.

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All of the, all of the iPhones recently support electronic sims, and you

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can have up to eight sims loaded you can only have two active at a time.

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Right, okay.

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Well, there you go.

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So anyway, that was Optus CEO, she's gone, and Tuvalu.

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I have a little soft spot for Tuvalu because when I was

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backpacking in New Zealand...

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I met, can you guys hear me okay?

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Yeah, we can hear you, go on.

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I met some Peace Corps workers who were working in Tuvalu.

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And so anyway, always sort of aware of the country.

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So, we've made an offer, Australia, to Tuvalu, allowing residents

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facing displacement from climate change to resettle in Australia.

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But we've attached conditions to that.

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And we'll have veto power over Tuvalu's security arrangements

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with any other country.

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So Tuvalu is bound to Australia, uh, for not just defence, but must seek

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Australia's mutual agreement on any of Tuvalu's security arrangements,

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covering defence, policing, border enforcement, cyber security.

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and critical infrastructure.

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So, although not directly stated, this is clearly aimed at China.

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Well, this is the sort of bullshit thing that...

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Morrison would have done.

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Yeah, here's some money, but hand over your sovereignty to us.

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Such a bully boy tactic.

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It is now, particularly with something like climate change that, let's face it,

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Australia's largely responsible for the fossil fuels industry and that sort of

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thing, so we are the major cause of it.

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It's honestly believed that it sounds okay that we're opening up

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our borders and that sort of stuff to allow these people to move over here.

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I have no problem with that at all.

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It's just that, you know, if you're then going to put, attach the strings

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to it the way they have, you know, that's fucking criminal actually.

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Yeah.

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Couldn't we have just said, here's some money, here's assistance, here's a deal.

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Bring your people over if your island gets flooded.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, by the way, if you get approached by things, just let us know.

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Talk to us beforehand.

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We'd like to talk if the Chinese come and want to...

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Do some deal with you, just talk to us first.

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Exactly.

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Just imposing conditions.

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It's one of those things.

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I don't believe bully boy tactics.

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It's one of those things.

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It's just that again, the government clearly can't ever

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have a conversation with anyone.

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You know, they actually should have had that conversation with them saying,

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look, if China comes to you first.

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That's no problem at all, we just don't want you to make it public

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until you've come and spoken to us.

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That's the thing so that sort of deal was let me see it's a copy of conditions the

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Americans apply to the Marshall Islands, Palau and other, and the Federated States

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of Micronesia, giving Washington authority over their defense issues in return for U.

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S.

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government services.

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And the right to live in the U.

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S., so we've just taken a page out of the U.

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S.

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playbook there.

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Meanwhile, of course, China provides infrastructure.

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Doesn't attach any deals like that, but they're the bad guys, apparently.

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Gender pay gap.

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Have you guys heard about this?

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I guess we're all kind of aware that it's happening where there is a gender pay gap.

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Yeah, there's a Jonathan Pye chat about it.

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The skit he did.

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Have you not seen the Jonathan Pye skit?

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No.

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Ah, okay.

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Talking about the fact that it isn't that women are being paid differently from

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men, it's that over a lifetime historical things, uh, basically past injustices

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are still showing up in today's.

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Right.

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Pay outcomes.

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So women fall pregnant, stop working for a few years and just don't catch up, was it?

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So basically people who are CEOs now were juniors 20 or 30 years ago and so

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the decisions of 20, 30 years ago impact the number of women in senior management

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and because of that when you take A gender as a whole compared to another

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gender as a whole, there are more men in higher paying jobs, which means that

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as a whole, men earn more than women.

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Yes.

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I think what they're finding though, is that people doing the same job,

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men are getting paid more than women.

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Okay, that was supposed to have stopped.

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For the same job.

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So what's going to happen in 2024 is...

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Every company with more than a hundred employees it's going to be

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published by the government's workplace gender equality agency, what the

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pay rates are at different levels.

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So, companies are now scrambling to make sure that they don't look bad in that

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women in senior management positions.

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have to be paid the same as men in the same senior management position.

Speaker:

And so when this happened in the UK, the gap got smaller and some big name

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companies were embarrassed by the revelation that they pay women less.

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So, so yeah, that's going to come out in 2024.

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My daughter is involved in HR and she tells me that companies, the ones that

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she's involved with, I certainly got an eye on that and conscious of what it

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will look like if, if there is an obvious gap for people doing the same role and

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the only difference is their gender, so.

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Yeah, I mean, there was a lot of discussion about that and then

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there was the whole how do you put a value on a presenter's worth?

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Yeah.

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Who, who is, who is the draw card of the morning show?

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And so, yeah, the, the relative amounts that those presenters get

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paid, and quite often there's a lot of discussion around that.

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Hmm.

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Hmm.

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Anyway, that's going to come out in 2024.

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So, that will be interesting.

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UK, Joe, their Supreme Court ruled.

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So, the British had an arrangement where basically boat people would

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be sent to Rwanda of all places.

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And the UK courts said, Rwanda's a dangerous place.

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You can't do it.

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And, fair enough, so the UK Parliament is having to reassess.

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They've also talked about shipping people off to Ascension Island, kind

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of like we have done for, um, Manus, uh, they also have a floating Hulk.

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Was a...

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Ah, that's that boat that they've converted into, isn't it?

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Yes, and apparently they've refitted it now and they're trying to get

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asylum seekers back on it again.

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Yeah.

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Is the latest I heard.

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Mm hmm.

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Because the fire inspector came down and said, Yep, doesn't pass

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any of the fire safety regs, you can't have people on board.

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Yeah.

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So just interesting in both countries, Australia and the UK, the court system

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has basically said to the government, in Australia, your detention arrangement.

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is unlawful, and in the UK, your extradition

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arrangement, also unlawful, so.

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But believe me, the UK government is looking at Australia as a leader in

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this, and they want to emulate Australia.

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It's one of those things, I find it really bizarre that you've got,

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you know, in their British accent saying, you've got to stop the boats.

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It's exactly what we've been saying over here for years, but you know, it's...

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I'm not actually saying it's a good policy or anything like that,

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I'm just saying that we've been saying it over here for years, and

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now it's been copied by the polls.

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Indeed, they definitely have copied from us, no doubt about it.

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Argentina has elected a madman, they've got their own Donald Trump, um, possibly

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the more They're on Bolsonaro's.

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Yes.

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So, this guy.

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Xavier Millet, um, he is a right wing libertarian nutcase so, very eccentric

Speaker:

he was once the frontman of a Rolling Stones cover band, that's okay, he

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currently owns five cloned dogs, each named after right wing economists.

Speaker:

That's not okay.

Speaker:

He's warned leftists, sons of bitches be afraid.

Speaker:

And so he's anti woke, anti globalist, anti abortion, anti

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climate change, anti central banking system, and anti socialism.

Speaker:

And he is pro guns, pro family, pro education, pro US dollar, and pro Trump.

Speaker:

He's promised to move Argentina away from the peso.

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to using the US dollar as its currency.

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Now, no other major economy has shared currency with the United States.

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I cannot imagine how that could possibly work, that they would

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adopt the US currency as their own.

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Not a country as large as Argentina.

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Any country.

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You know, I know they, I know that the US dollar was the currency of East Timor for

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a little while until they got themselves up on their feet and that sort of stuff.

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Right.

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But it wasn't ever a long term solution, it was only ever going

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to be a stopgap measure when they first became independent.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

It's, it's, it's impossible to imagine.

Speaker:

It's like they, you listen to these Bitcoin bros saying that it's a great

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idea that El Salvador has adopted.

Speaker:

Bitcoin as its national currency or whatever, but people don't

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understand how money is generated.

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It's generated by private banks giving loans to people and they

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don't need the central bank.

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So you walk into a bank, I could walk into a bank tomorrow and say I've got

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this 2 million house, want a mortgage against it, give me a million dollars.

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And The bank will just look at the assets that it can secure against the loan.

Speaker:

And your income to see whether you've got the capacity to meet the repayments.

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And poof, out of thin air, generates a ledger account and

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provides a million dollars to me.

Speaker:

Well, hang on a second, because the economist that came on did say, but

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the flip side of that is the government creates debts and tells you what.

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format, it will accept those debts paid him.

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Yes.

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So the government taxes you, and if the government taxes you in US dollars,

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you have to pay them in US dollars.

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Yes, but my point is, just in general business of operating an

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economy, the Argentinian banks are not authorized by the U.

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S.

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to issue U.

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S.

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dollar loans.

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So it's impossible for them to issue the normal sorts of loans that are

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issued by banks every day of the week because it's not the local currency.

Speaker:

The central government can't authorize them to issue U.

Speaker:

S.

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government dollars.

Speaker:

The U.

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S.

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government isn't going to authorize Argentinian banks to do it.

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So the kind of basic...

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Banking function can't work in that situation.

Speaker:

And what was the thing that you just said, Joe?

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It was what were you saying about...

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So the government basically implements taxes to take money out of the economy.

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Yes.

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To cool it down.

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Yes.

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And those taxes are paid in a format.

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And that's how they force a national currency is by saying,

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you have to pay us in X currency.

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Yes, correct.

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But at the end of the day, you just become a vassal to the US.

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Yeah.

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How are these, how are ordinary Argentinians going to generate

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US dollars to pay tax to the government in US dollars?

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Just it makes no sense at all.

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They're heading for a complete disaster, and this guy...

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It's alright, they'll just invade the Falklands and everything will be fine.

Speaker:

Yeah.

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So, he's been popular with the 16 to 35 year old age group, and he's a

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Trumpian type character who appeals because he's seen to be outside of

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the, the standard political sort of parties and fighting against

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the system, rebellious sort of guy.

Speaker:

He often appears on stage at rallies.

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With a chainsaw.

Speaker:

Pies up a chainsaw.

Speaker:

Pies it up.

Speaker:

You can see the smoke coming out of it.

Speaker:

It's one of those things...

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Vowing to slash public spending.

Speaker:

Yeah, no, he wants to cut up by 50 percent or something ridiculous like that.

Speaker:

He wants to reduce the number of government departments from 18 down to 8.

Speaker:

You know, he's just got a slash and burn mentality, which is absolutely

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ridiculous in this day and age.

Speaker:

Yeah.

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And I can't imagine him lasting any more than a term.

Speaker:

Because if he actually does what he says he's going to do, then the

Speaker:

public are going to turn around and give him the middle finger.

Speaker:

He couldn't last a full term if he does what he says he's going to do.

Speaker:

Exactly.

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Just couldn't happen.

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yEah.

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So anyway, poor old Argentina.

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That's where they're headed for.

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It's one of those things, I can understand the Argentinians

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being pissed off with Peronism.

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I can understand that.

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Because Pyrrhonism has caused a hell of a lot of problems, but it's also, on the

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other side of the coin, it has actually also helped in curtailing poverty.

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It hasn't eliminated poverty, but it has helped.

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You know, it's one of those things, I just think that they've got to have a long

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hard look at themselves, and I think that the middle of the road bloke, who was the

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main guy that was up against this idiot, would have been a far better choice.

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Yeah, I'm not exactly sure.

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He was the economy minister and that sort of stuff in the current regime, so

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it's understandable why people would have thought to themselves, well, you know, our

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economy is in free fall because of you, so we're not going to go with you, you know.

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My suspicion is that just unfortunately Argentina's a very corrupt society.

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Oh, it is.

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Controlled by...

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Oligarch families who have their own interest at heart and encourage

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the government to get IMF loans so that US dollars come in so

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that they can cash out and...

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Then take their dollars offshore and bugger the rest of the people and

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it's be something along those lines Unfortunately, I think for Argentina,

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but yeah Plenty of news will come out of Argentina over the next couple of

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years if that guy lasts and implements half of the ideas that he's been Well,

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he doesn't have, he doesn't have the he doesn't have the legislature or

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anything like that under control because he's only got 38 out of the however

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many hundred seats in the lower house.

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Right.

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Okay.

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Well, watch out for the military to get involved then.

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Exactly.

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So, you know, it's one of the things, the only, the only thing you could

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actually rely on him doing and that sort of stuff is actually tapping

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the military and that sort of stuff saying you've got to back me up here.

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So you couldn't end up with a, because they've been down Dictatorship Road before

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and all that sort of stuff, they could end up sliding back into it very easily.

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And then I think you're right, Joe, then you've got to be worried

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about the Falkland Islands again.

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Just quickly on Gaza, Jordan Peterson, he's able to sum

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up what's happening in Gaza.

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He was interviewed by Piers Morgan.

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He confidently stated that, quote, this is a last ditch attempt by the Iranian

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mullahs to use the Islam against Jews story to prop up their own dismal reign.

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So that's Jordan Peterson blaming Iran.

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For the Gaza disaster.

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I've got no doubt that Iran's got something to do with it

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But I don't think either is as heavily involved as he makes out.

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Even the Israel, as I said, Iran's had nothing to do with this.

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So.

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Well, it's one of the things because Hezbollah hasn't

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moved or anything like that.

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That's another, that's another proxy for Iran.

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So, you know.

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Apparently there's a lot of gas offshore, off Gaza.

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So one theory is If they, Israelis, control Gaza, then they'll be able to

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control 450 billion worth of offshore gas.

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Hmm.

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Elon

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Musk on Twitter, or X, basically if you do things like use the word

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decolonization and from the river to the sea and similar euphemisms.

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He's decided that that implies genocide of Jews and your account will be closed.

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So, so much for the free speech that Elon Musk was saying he would bring in.

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And finally, a little bit about China, uh, Xi was in San Francisco, um, everyone

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was fawning over him, American CEOs.

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Apple, Blackrock, Mastercard, Qualcomm, Pfizer, FedEx.

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They're all one.

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It's a billion customers.

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Why wouldn't you?

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Exactly.

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So, the American multinational corporations and their CEOs, um,

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were fawning over him, uh, cheering everything that he had to say and this

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idea of trying to sort of isolate China.

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It just isn't going to work.

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It is too late just on the chip, briefly America can't stop China's rise.

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And so America's trying to slow China's economic rise, and the Biden

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administration has not reversed the trade tariffs that Trump imposed, and

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it's tried to increase pressure on China by banning the export of chips

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and semiconductor equipment and selected software, and it's persuading allies like

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the Netherlands and China to follow suit.

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So it's trying to isolate China in that regard, and so it's prohibited American

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investments in China involving sensitive technologies, and the big question is

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whether America can suc can succeed.

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The answer is probably not.

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It's too late.

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Closing the barn door after the horses bolted.

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And throughout history, uh, there's been efforts to curtail

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China's technological rise.

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In 1993, the Clinton administration tried to restrict China's

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access to satellite technology.

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That was in 1993, Clinton administration.

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Today, China has 541 satellites in space and has a competitor to Starlink.

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Same thing happened with GPS.

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America restricted China's access to geospatial data system in 1999.

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China simply built its own parallel system and in some measures it's

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better than the American based system.

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It's got 45 satellites compared to 31.

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And seemingly much more powerful and the other thing is that they haven't

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factored in China's capacity to retaliate.

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So the China's July ban on the gallium and germanium exports was merely an

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opening shot across the bow to remind America of China's dominance in the

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rare earths and critical metal space.

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Has a near monopoly in the processing of Magnesium, Bismuth, Tungsten,

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Graphite, Silicon, Vanadium, Rulurispar, Tellurium, Indium,

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Antimony, Barite, Zinc, Tin, I didn't mention it, but probably Unobtanium,

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I reckon is also on the list, Joe.

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I reckon.

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China also dominates midstream processing for materials essential to

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most of America's current and future technological aspirations, such as

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lithium, cobalt, nickel and copper.

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America China controls a lot of these, um, rare minerals, rare earths.

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It also controls a lot of the processing of the ones that maybe aren't so rare.

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And it'd be really tricky for Western countries to develop the

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capacity to process those minerals.

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Because guess what?

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It's really hard to get approvals, environmentally,

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to start processing this shit.

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Because it's pretty ugly when you start processing it, so.

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A whole bunch of reasons why the idea of America being able to curtail China

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is it's just not going to happen.

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There's a quick summary.

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Oh look, and just briefly to finish off, Ukraine.

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The Wall Street Journal acknowledges that the narratives it's been pushing

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for months Of a successful Ukrainian counter offensive, uh, magical thinking,

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and there's a headline in the Wall Street Journal, it's time to end

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magical thinking about Russia's defeat.

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Putin has withstood the West's best efforts to reverse his invasion of

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Ukraine, and his hold on power is firm.

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The U.

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S.

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and its allies need a new strategy, containment.

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What's your favorite YouTuber, Perrin, saying, Joe?

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Is he still, are you guys still bullish about Ukraine's ability to force

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Russia back in any significant way?

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I, I think the Putin has this idea that all he has to do is wait the West out

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and it looks like the West is gonna get bored and so all he has to do is Carry on.

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Putin doesn't want peace.

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He's said his terms for peace are the acceptance of Ukraine, of the four

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O blasts that he doesn't even have complete control of, and also the

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complete demilitarization of the Ukraine.

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So those are his terms for peace.

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I hadn't heard that.

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I heard his terms were, give me the territory I've already got, uh, change

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your constitution so you never join NATO, and, and there was, I thought

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one other one, but I couldn't remember.

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That's what I thought his terms were.

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But anyway.

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Are you, Scott, are you, are you still bullish about Ukraine's chances of

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pushing back here, or are we giving up?

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I think that Ukraine is probably on the last legs now because they

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have tried, but it hasn't worked.

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So I think it is time to actually sit down and talk to the bastard.

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But I don't believe that you can trust anything that comes out of his

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mouth, you know, it's, I know you've got a, you're looking at the world

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through rose colored glasses here, Trevor, but I honestly Yes, you are.

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Because this, this prick has lied before.

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Realistic.

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Yeah, I mean, all Glasses.

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Hang on a minute.

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I'm not saying you're not going to lie.

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Sorry, sorry, what was that Joe?

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No, Joe's gone, shut up again.

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It's one of those things, I just think to myself that you can't trust

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him because he has walked away from every agreement and that sort of stuff

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that was on the table before this.

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Well, you also can't trust the Ukrainians, because they, they also...

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Yeah, okay.

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They walked away from, they walked away from, from the Minsk agreement, which

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is okay, because you know, it's just one of those things, like, you know...

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They have no intention of...

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No, no, no.

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We, we, we can have peace in our time.

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All he wants is a little Lebensraum, and then Putin will leave them alone.

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Yeah, it's one of those things, I just think to myself that you can't actually

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trust anything that comes out of his mouth, because he's a, he's a lying prick.

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Yeah, well, that's true.

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You know, it's one of those things, it's just, I never said you can

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trust him, but I'm just saying you have to be realistic about it.

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Yeah, and the, the only realistic solution for this is for the Yanks to get

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involved and actually, is to actually go in toe to toe with the Russians, which

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would then result in nuclear, nuclear weapons being tossed across borders

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and that would just be a disaster.

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So I think to myself, you know, I hope the guy actually does have a, life

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threatening illness, and I hope that he does die sooner rather than later.

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But the risk is a further right.

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I mean, apparently the next election he may well be up against somebody

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who is even further right than him, who wants to go all out on the war.

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Which would be an absolute disaster if that actually happened.

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It's one of those things, I suppose if you, I suppose if you've got someone

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that's even further right and that sort of stuff, then you're going

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to be able to, that will then break the nexus between them and China.

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Which means Russia would then be on their own and that sort of stuff.

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So then after that, because they're on their own, if they don't even have

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the, if they don't even China backing them up, then they would fall away

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by a hell of a lot faster, faster, but it's just, it's a hell of a mess.

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I do believe that.

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Ukraine did actually put up a reasonable fight and that sort of stuff.

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They did actually fight, they did actually try and push back, but the

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pushback apparently is failing right now.

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So, I think to myself that they've actually got to talk to the bastard.

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But, we'll have to see where his demands are, because I think to myself that...

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If they actually do actually try and negotiate and that type of

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thing, then that will be perceived by Putin as weakness on their part.

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So he will actually try and push for the maximum of a settlement, which will mean

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that Ukraine's gotta kiss goodbye to you.

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Is has gotta kiss goodbye to crummy and they've also got a kiss.

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Goodbye the DSK.

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I think so.

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Right.

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But there we are.

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Well, anyway, I'm very happy that it didn't actually work because the whole

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thing was supposed to be over in two days.

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18 months later, it's still going on.

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Well, I think Pete's got what he wanted.

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Ah, no.

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He wanted all of Ukraine.

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He did, he did.

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He wanted all of Ukraine.

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You know, he did want, he did want all of Ukraine.

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So

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he didn't he, yeah, he did.

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Did he?

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He did.

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Did he?

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He did.

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Yeah, he did.

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There's.

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There's certainly comments that he's made in the past that suggests that

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Ukraine is part of Russia and that it was a mistake letting it go in the 90s.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Which is one of those things, I just think to myself, all those former

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Soviet republics have probably...

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I think a lot of them are shitting themselves.

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Exactly.

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You know, that's why the three Baltic states have all joined NATO.

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And...

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I think if Ukraine hadn't gone in a different way, it would

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have ended up another Belarus.

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Exactly.

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Right.

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Which is basically a vassal state to Russia.

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Precisely.

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All right.

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Well, we've run around the world.

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There we go.

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Australia, Argentina, Tuvalu, UK, Gaza, China, Ukraine, covered it all.

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Solved all the problems of the world in a bit over an hour.

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That's what you get, dear listener, on this podcast.

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So, ah, John Severs, Trevor, his first move was on Kiev, of

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course he wanted all of Ukraine.

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Well, if you want to draw the troops away from the Donbass, you would draw

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some troops No, he actually tried to take, he tried to actually take

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Ukraine's capital very early on.

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He had a whole thing, then he went in there.

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Just because you fanked in a direction doesn't mean you necessarily want it.

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Okay.

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True?

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No.

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How many times?

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You know, it's not true.

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It's not true, Trevor.

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He was actually Chinese.

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Was the Chinese one in the Art of War?

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Yeah, the Art of War, that sort of thing.

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Yeah, that's true.

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You'd say, oh, well, we don't want all their troops over here in the Donbass.

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Let's, let's send a few up to Kiev to make them worry about that.

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So they'll have to withdraw some troops back there.

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So it's not going to be so bad over here.

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Like that's just.

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Just because his first move was on Kiev doesn't mean he wanted to take it, John.

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That's not how it works, necessarily.

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Here we go.

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I think Alright!

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I think that the troops that he wasted in Kiev and that sort of stuff would

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have been very pissed off with that.

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Well, I don't think he's worried about whether his troops are pissed off or not.

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No, exactly, because he's sending them all to a slaughterhouse.

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Yeah.

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Because he's a prick.

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Yeah.

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Ah, John says I'm way off the mark.

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Well, at least I'm right!

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There we go.

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You guys battle it out in the chat room.

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Okay we're done and dusted.

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That's another episode.

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We'll be back next week.

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See what happens.

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We'll talk to you then.

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Bye for now.

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And it's a good night from me.

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And Joe's dead.

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So anyway, good night everyone.

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