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

evolved some extraordinarily unique groups of Homo sapiens.

Despite the reputation of their homeland, some are remarkably thin

skinned, some seem to have multiple lifespans, a few were once thought to be

extinct in the region, others have been observed being sacrificed by their own.

But today...

We observe a small tribe akin to a group of meerkats that gather together atop

a small mound to watch, question, and discuss the current events of their city,

their country, and their world at large.

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

Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

Well, hello and welcome dear listener.

The Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove podcast and, uh, we're here to talk about

news and politics, sex and religion.

Three white guys, middle class, upper middle class potentially, are going to

solve all the problems of the world.

Which is going to infuriate, um, at least half the population, possibly even more.

So, I'm Trevor, aka The Iron Fist.

With me as always, Joe the Tech Guy.

Evening all.

And special guest, Paul from Canberra, who's joined us and is going to,

um, take me on on a few issues.

Welcome aboard, Paul.

Glad to be here, thank you.

Yes, the podcast, uh, once or twice before.

I think when we had sort of an open mic and he came on

and, uh, another time as well.

So...

You might recall, dear listener, um, a few weeks ago I mentioned about, um,

Uluru's statement, or just, uh, a voice to Parliament, and I thought that was going

to be quite tricky for Labor to pull off, and would cause them to lose votes, and

how I personally have an issue with it.

Um...

And Paul is going to, um, sort of, um, argue a bit of that point

with me, which will be good.

And also we're going to talk about the, uh, Reserve Bank of Australia as well.

I mean, that's another point of contention.

And before we get to all that though, we'll run through a few other topics.

As I said to Paul, well, we'll let him warm up a bit on some easy

ones, so, so we'll run through some.

I've got to ease myself into this.

Yeah.

Joe, we had problems with the tech stuff with the chat room, but now it's working.

Is that right?

Is it all good?

It looks like it is.

It just said it hadn't sent my evening all to everybody, so I'm just looking at that.

Well Landon Hardbottom's there, Bronwyn's there, so.

Look, they're the two most important people in the chatroom,

I would have thought, so if they've made it, that'll do.

Good to see you guys there.

So, um, so first off, I want to talk a little bit about the census and

I did download some of the data and play around with it in a spreadsheet

and It was really interesting because you could break down the data quite

easily into state uh, electoral zones.

And I think this is going to be particularly useful for our um,

religious instruction campaign that we need to run in the run up to the

next state election electorates.

For example, I'm in the electorate of Cooper, currently held by John D.

Bush, and the non religious vote in that electorate, 48%, the Christian vote, 44%.

So I think it's going to be really good ammunition to go to a number of these

candidates or existing members and say, hey, you in the federal election

lost a lot of votes to the Greens.

And that looks like it's going to repeat itself in the state arena, because it

already has at the previous election.

And you need to worry about the Greens.

And look at your particular electorate.

It's majority, you know, the biggest group is non religious.

We've got these religious instruction lessons and, um, we want you to come

aboard and, and come out, uh, in favour of abolishing religious instruction.

Um, you know, all, I think it was, um, it might have been Paul Keating

who said, you know, uh, just always rely on politicians self interest

if you want to get something done.

And I would have thought this is a good example where we should...

make advantage or take advantage of where self interest might help us out?

What do you think as a theory, Paul?

Does it make sense?

I think you're right, but I think the what's going to count more is all those

people writing to their member and saying, Hey, you know, I'm an atheist

and I'm unhappy with Yeah, so I'm just, I just don't go to church and I'm

unhappy with this religious, um, you know, chaplains only being religious.

And the only way you can become a chaplain is by being certified by a religious body.

Um, you know, it's, It's good if you're, like, yes, good, the Rational

Association or the Rational Society, um, should, should do that and approach

members, but politicians are also going to look at, like, if you get three, you

know, I've heard, um, I think someone, you know, politician Here in Canberra

said, you know, if they get three letters that are on the same theme,

then it's serious because they know that, like, that represents 300 people.

Yes.

You know, out in the electorate and probably 3000 people will

think that when you tell them, Hey, this is what we're doing.

Mm-hmm.

For those who've just joined, uh, Paul is, uh, with us, not the old Paul, the

new pool Paul from Canberra, and, uh, Uh, uh, an avid listener and he's going

to take me up on some issues later on.

Uh, there you go, John.

That's who Paul is.

Um, I was speaking to Deep Throat, um, who was heavily involved as, uh,

Vice President of, of the sort of Dying With Dignity in Queensland and

talking to him about their campaign.

And he said that a key thing that they did was actually visit and talk

directly to Uh, the politicians, so they would make appointments and so

they would contact members of Dying With Dignity in the different electorates

and say, hey, are you available to come to a meeting with your MP?

And, sometimes they're a little bit scared, a little bit worried about going,

so Craig would offer to accompany a group of voters in a particular electorate.

And he would then kick off the meeting with a few stats and figures,

and then people would warm up to the whole idea and off they'd go

with a tough death and whatever.

And really engage with the politician and um, and he thought that was

particularly valuable and I think that's what we need to do in Queensland

is, is actually organise for people to sit down and visit with their MP.

Like if you are in their electorate, you can make an appointment and

say, I'm in your electorate.

I want a meeting, I want to talk about an issue, and, um, and I want to bring

somebody with me, uh, if you need help.

So...

Yeah, absolutely, and especially, uh, to that point, I think the fact

that, like, a lot of people, I mean, I'm feeling this myself here, um, I

don't have all the facts and figures.

Having someone that can...

come in and say, okay, you know, the answer to that question, we know

from blah that, you know, the number of people, the percentage of people

that are actually wanting, you know, dying with dignity is this many.

And it takes the pressure off the individual people, but they're still,

they can still tell their personal story and that's just as valuable, right?

Yep.

People just don't want to be pinned on, well, we've got, you know, 2000

people who don't want this, so what are you going to do about that?

So, dear listener, If you're listening to this podcast and you are in Queensland,

I want you to commit to meeting with your state member and talking

about religious instruction lessons.

And, um, email us here, or reach out and tell us what electorate you're in,

and we'll try, if you like, to gather some other people who might be in the

electorate with you, and you can go as a little group, and if you want

somebody to help and go with you, um, to sort of help kick off the meeting

and have some facts and figures, we're, we'll supply somebody, and...

Um, and let's just try and get half a dozen of these things

going and see what happens.

And then we'll, we'll go from there and see what response

we had and work from there.

So, so yeah, if you're in Queensland and you've been listening to this podcast

long enough, you know how important it is.

You know how much blood, sweat and tears has gone into this.

And we really do have the chance to, um, push for something at this point in time.

So.

Particularly, um, I look through as the, uh, the, the electorates with

the highest non religious count or percentage, and they are South

Brisbane, Ninderry, McConnell, Noosa, Barron River, Morayfield, Cooper,

Nicklin, Maywar and Kerwongba.

There's satanists in there again, for NUSA.

Yes, there would be, um, for NUSA.

But, um, so the really interesting one, dear listener, this is the really

interesting one, is McConnell, held by Grace Grace, State Education Minister, who

has refused to do anything about getting rid of religious instruction lessons.

And in her electorate, 49 percent non religious.

And only 32 percent Christian.

It's a, it's, it's a huge gap and she is really under threat from the Greens.

Like at the last.

election.

She nearly lost out to the Greens.

It was close.

And, um, she should be extremely worried.

So, in particular, if you are in the electorate of, um, of McConnell, um...

But Jesus will win the election for her.

Oh, you know, she doesn't think that.

Did he do it, did he do it for her last time?

Yeah, she doesn't, you know, the thing is, I don't think she is into the whole...

God will save me stuff.

She just doesn't want to fight with the Christian lobby.

She wants to avoid fights unless she really needs to be in one.

Well, they've reached the point where they need to be in one, I think.

Yeah.

So I think it's an ideal time.

And vice versa.

If she can go back to the ACL and say, well, I'm sorry, but I've got.

You know, half a dozen people that literally had a meeting with me, wanted

to have a meeting with and, you know, complained about chaplains, you know.

Um, I can't just go and do what you want.

Um, I don't know if you've followed the Senate, um, battle in Canberra?

Mm, oh, with the rugby union player ended up getting treats?

Yes, David Pocock got in.

What, the significant thing there is that he overthrew Zed Zaselja, who's

been a hard right liberal who has consistently voted against the will of the

Australia, sorry, the ACT for Canberra.

Like, you know, there's a lot of support for, um, voluntary assisted dying here

and he has consistently voted against it.

Um, and the fact that we don't have him anymore is, you know,

there's a lot of people here that are pretty happy with that.

You know, it's a lot more, it's a lot more likely.

So I was going to sort of ask, throw this back to you a little bit and say

one of the, yeah, it's okay, maybe going to Grace Grace and saying, you know, if

you don't do this, we won't vote for you.

She may just already say, well, okay, you're not going to vote for me, whatever.

Well, it's going to be more than that.

It's going to be more than that.

It's, we're going to campaign in your electorate with letter

drops, leaflet drops, we're going to stand at shopping centers.

and tell people what's going on.

And we're going to say that Grace Grace is a, is supporting...

Correct.

Yeah.

And we only need to sway a few thousand votes.

It's not many.

So, um, and you know, there's a bunch of other electorates where the, where

the members will be feeling the heat.

And, you know, even in the electorates where it's a fairly safe and conservative

Christian majority, Some of those, uh, electorates, the sitting member,

may not want to be openly in favour of getting religious instruction.

But might want to understand they need to keep their numbers in the parliament.

And go, you know what, personally I don't really care, I need...

You know, they might well vote for it or be in favour of the proposal without being

particularly public or vocal about it.

Because they might just recognise that they need to keep their numbers.

Because the latest poll numbers in the Courier Mail was, uh...

Suggesting that Parliamentary Government is now on 50 50.

It'd be a hung parliament if there was a vote today.

So So it's just a good moment in time where they will feel the pressure

finally and things have added up in that regard So if you are a dear

listener, a listener to this podcast and you're in Queensland No excuse.

Shoot me an email.

Tell me what electorate you're in.

We'll be in touch.

We'll try and organise some people If you, if you want a chaperone

to be with you, we'll do it.

If you just want some fact sheets, we'll do it.

Um, we'll talk to you and, and just let's try and have half a dozen meetings with

different people and see what we get.

So, so yeah, so it's interesting running through that census data and

seeing what, um, what's come out of it.

And, um, yeah, I mean the overall statistic about non

religion in the census was...

Very good from our point of view, but then there's these individual areas

where it was particularly good, and that's where we need to finally start

throwing some weight around and seeing if we can get some changes in the law,

so So yeah, so that's all good What was I would imagine down in Canberra?

Do you know what the local statistics were for non religious and Christian?

I would have thought it's above average that it would

be non religious in Canberra.

I'm pretty sure.

Um, I couldn't tell you off the top of my head.

I'll have to look it up.

Yep.

Okay.

Um, so what would the, what was the response from the, uh,

religious groups about the census?

And, um, this one came from the Catholic Weekly, uh, The church is no

longer the power in the land we once were, Archbishop Colleridge said.

Um, it's been clear for some time that the church is no longer the power in

the land we once were, but we remain a large minority, engaged far and

wide in service of the community.

including in education, social services, health and aged care.

So in other words, yes, they're a minority, but they have influence far

in excess of what it should be because they control all of these institutions.

Like a blood sucking tick, they've got their head buried in deep

and they're not going to let go.

Well, also, you can see that they're really trying to sort of spin it to

be anyone with any vague Sense of spirituality must be Christian, right?

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Or should be counted as religious.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

Um, yeah.

Um, there was another thing here with Chris, uh, national Church

Life Survey, um, said that while, uh, religious affiliation may be

falling, the story is more complex.

And according to their director, uh, we go wrong if we confuse

this identity statement with how religious or spiritual people are.

And um, he says that more than half of Australians, 55%, say they believe in God,

6 in 10 pray or meditate, 2 in 10 attend religious services at least monthly.

He says, we are able to conclude that people who identified as having no

religion Religious affiliation still had spiritual or religious lives and, um,

he says, Oh, conservative lobby group Family Voice claimed the census results

were flawed because religion option was voluntary and said that, um, People

should be forced to have a religion.

Forced to make a response.

Yeah, so, so, what was it, 4 percent didn't bother to answer and

even if you gave them the 4% They still wouldn't be the majority.

Yeah, well, Dr.

David Gruen of the Australian Statistician said 93 percent of Australians answered

the religion question, an increase from 2021, so 7 percent didn't answer it.

But I think even given the 7%, they still wouldn't be the majority.

Yes, um, so that was that, um, so that's that on the Census.

I really love that, I've said, if you have a census that doesn't

mandate the ticking of religion, you'll end up with a skewed result.

Yes.

Because it doesn't reflect faith.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes, sure, right.

Yep.

Whilst totally ignoring the fact that lots of people ticked religion

because it was the religion they grew up with, not because it's what

they believe and practice daily.

Yeah, Tom the Warehouse Guy says, I remember having an argument with

my school preacher during religious instruction about what the census

statistics would be in 10 years.

And he says, I think I won overwhelmingly, and um, Sorry Alison, I don't have a

subscription to the Canberra Times.

Um, uh, and also the other argument Brahman makes is that people who are

Hindu or Buddhist are probably not crazy about evangelical Christianity

being forced on their kids, so.

That's all true as well.

So, lots of good arguments that we can give to people when they

talk to their local member.

So, um, And I was going to add there that if you're not in Queensland,

find your local rationalist or, um, non faith society and see if you can

kind of organise something similar.

Yeah.

Find your local member.

If you're in New South Wales, talk to...

There's a Victorian election coming up this year as well?

Well, yes.

So, Victoria's certainly done it already in terms of religious instruction, but

in the chaplaincy issue, I think...

Well, let's talk about chaplaincy.

Basically, the new Labor government has said that, um, they're

changing the rules so that you now no longer have to be religious.

Um, in order to be, uh, appointed as a chaplain.

However, all of the providers are Christian.

Correct.

So, if Labor thinks that solved the problem, they are completely wrong.

Because the system is geared up after all these years to be only

done by Christian providers.

And, uh, well, and there are some others, uh, who's the other group, um,

Baha'i are really strong on religious instruction, not so sure about chaplains

actually, um, but, yeah, simply changing that rule doesn't solve the problem when

all of the providers are Christian, so, you know, the answer to it is, if you,

if these kids are needing help from a chaplain because they need counselling.

Then, get proper counsellors who are qualified, put them on the

payroll of the state education departments as a proper employee.

You know, that's the answer.

We don't want these volunteers, uh, or underpaid, unqualified people

roaming the corridors of our schools.

So, Labor has not fixed it.

They probably think they have.

So...

I mean, the Lawrence Krauss quote was...

Brilliant.

What was that?

On Q& A, he was saying, so these people aren't there to proselytise

and they're not there to counsel.

He said, so what are they there for?

You don't employ clowns and then ask them to not be funny.

Is that what he said?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, uh, Alison says chaplains are not allowed to counsel

as that is not their role.

Yes.

Correct.

And they're not allowed to proselytise.

Non religious pastoral care.

So what are they there for?

A shoulder to.

Making tea.

To cry on if something's going on.

Maybe they can help marking the homework.

Yeah.

Yeah, they don't, they do do playground duty, apparently.

Look, you know, but the thing is, Chappies, lots of good reputation

and, and kudos within schools.

Schools love their Chappie.

I'm sure, I'm sure.

They're a helping hand on different things.

If you had a free volunteer who somebody else is paying for, sure, why not?

It's somebody else to do playground duty, to all the little tasks

that you don't want to do anymore.

And I think you don't have to, like, you don't have to...

proselytize in order for, you know, a chaplain to say, see someone, a

kid who's fallen over or, you know, is a bit upset and go to comfort

them and talk about the word of God.

That's not, you know, that's not a conversion per se, but it

is a Christian point of view.

It's, it is a religious point of view.

Um, But there's also, um, you know, we're having a fun festival this

weekend, come along and join it.

Yes.

And it's the Easter Festival.

Yes.

And there's the Young Earth Creationists are there.

Yeah.

Or whatever it is.

It's all of these little insidious, just come along to things that are

outside of the department's purview.

Yes.

Got this little Christian camp happening on the coast.

Come along.

Yep.

Yeah, oh well, um, that's all still to come, uh, I think you were keen

on this one, Joe, the, uh, the football coach in America who was,

um, leading the team in prayer at the end of matches and, and halftime.

Yes, so the Supreme Court had come back and said, oh, he was praying on his own,

you know, this, this was nothing to do with him leading the school in prayer and,

um, people are, this is all a beat up.

And, um.

It was the local press who said, no, no, no, we had an interview with him before

he went and did this, where he was going on about, he didn't care, he was proudly

going to do it, in the middle of the football field, in front of everybody,

and he was going to lead students.

And whilst there was no, you must come along, A number of parents said, we

felt pressure, the kids felt pressure, that if they didn't come along and

play with the coach, they would not be on the team for the next game.

Your absence will be noted.

Exactly.

I mean, yeah.

Despite him presenting to the Supreme Court that, no, no, no, no, this was

purely personal, he had made statements to the press the week before about how

he was going to do this, and how it was all political, and you know, this was,

uh, his freedom and his rights, and you know, he was standing up for himself.

They've really distorted the facts in this judgment, um, where, you know,

the judges who are happy to, to make sure that this coach had permission to

pray in this public way, really, um, Described what he was doing as offering,

offered his prayers quietly while his students were otherwise occupied.

But one of the dissenting judges, uh, took the unusual but welcome step of

exposing this lie by including photos of big groups of players surrounding

the coach as he led the team in prayer.

And, um, so, yeah, just reading on from that article, uh, Not only are

these judges now, on the Supreme Court, happy just to throw away

precedent willy nilly, um, they're also now just giving a distorted

version of the facts, where necessary, to beef up what they want to say.

Their respect for truth in terms of the facts is now...

Uh, in question.

Well, so Science Vs.

was talking about, they just did a emergency episode on Roe v.

Wade, and saying that in the judgment there were a number of claims that were

not backed up by the best evidence, you know, such as that fetuses at 12 weeks

felt pain, uh, and they were talking about, you know, the science of what do

we know about fetuses at various ages, uh, and saying that effectively some

of the statements in the judgment were.

I agree, but I also think that kind of stuff ends up being irrelevant

because to me, sorry, we shouldn't sidetrack this into Roe v.

Wade, but to me, ultimately the, um, the whole argument should

only boil down to bodily autonomy.

No one can take.

a kidney from you, even if this kidney is needed to save the most important person,

even if it's like your own partner, you still can't be forced to give a kidney.

You can't even be forced to give it, give a kidney if you're dead.

That's where the bodily autonomy goes.

Yes.

And the fetus needs a favour from you until it's viable.

The whole question of whether it's viable, where it's viable or not, and,

you know, what, what it's, whether it's ethical, you know, like it is.

It is my choice to give a kidney or, you know, to have my appendix

removed or something like that.

Yes, but once the fetus is viable, then the argument is, well, your consent is

no longer required in the sense that this baby can now be delivered and, and you are

no longer encumbered with this obligation.

So, so that's why I think the state could say, you know what, once a,

once a fetus is viable, then, uh...

I will look forward to the point at which all of the, um, there are, uh,

I'm sorry, the number of children awaiting adoption is zero, so that

we can then proceed to take the fetuses of people, you know, women

who are raped and bring them to term.

outside the room and so forth, you know, sorry, this doesn't happen.

And also that we get, um, scientifically correct sex ed in school, you know,

throughout the age of the children, you know, starting at a very young

age, as is done in European countries, that contraception is either free or at

least heavily subsidised and is easily available, um, and that there's...

that there's a good parental leave and that there's a suitable, um,

uh, social welfare system that actually means that these parents

can afford to have these children.

Then we can start talking about whether or not people should be having abortions,

because until all that happens...

You know, uh, you're effectively damning them if they don't have an abortion.

So there you have it, dear listener.

Three white men have solved the problem of abortion.

As we mansplained our way through that, I hope you enjoyed it.

My point was that the Supreme Court, no matter the arguments, are not above

stating whatever evidence they like.

As truthful as, uh, persuaders to their argument, to their judgment.

And I think, I think if we're talking about activist judges, the

current mob are activist judges.

Yeah.

Yes.

And, and Trevor's summarized that whole thing.

I think in a previous episode.

The whole process of, um, Selecting those judges, um, to make sure that

only the ones that, um, um, you know, have been correctly or religiously

indoctrinated get to be in the Supreme Court, that sort of stuff.

Um, I was just going to reply, reply on the, sort of back to the coach sort of

praying in front of the students that, you know, this is the opt in versus opt out.

argument that it is much harder to opt out if some, you know, someone comes to

say a football match and says, I'd like to offer a prayer with all of your children.

Whereas if you have, if someone has to say, I need a, You know, a priest to offer

a prayer to all of the children, then it's much harder to get that happening.

Hmm.

I don't know, I quite followed you there, but, um, you know, pressure

on sportsmen to be political.

These are the last people that we want making political statements,

really, but, um, or religious statements for that matter.

Like, actually, it's sympathy for...

The athletes who are asked to take a knee, for example, um, where a team has

decided, oh, we're going to make this statement, and we're all going to do this.

I just feel sympathy for the players who say, you know what, I'm just a

soccer player, football player, like, I'm not elected as an official to

represent an ideology of any sort.

And to be honest, I don't have the time to study or understand it.

I just want to play the sport and that's what I'm here for.

The pressure on some of those to join in, I think, would have been difficult.

I'm sympathetic to those who felt pressured in that situation.

Yeah, I'm with you, but I mean, all, everyone.

Ends up being involved in politics, you know, you, you can't, um,

So let me get this straight.

You've you're sympathetic for the non Christian who's being peer pressured

into the prayer at the halftime or full time break in America, but you're not

sympathetic to the guy who's pressured into taking a knee in the same game.

Is that what we're talking about?

Is that where you're at?

I'm sympathetic to both.

Where I'm, where I disagree is, um, that for a person to say, I'm just

here to play football and I don't care about any of that politics stuff, can

ignore the, you know, as an example, can ignore the fact that if you're in the

Socceroos, you're paid about 10 times the amount that the Matildas are paid.

Um, or more than that, I think.

Um, and that's a, that's a political decision by the organisation you work for.

Well, it's a financial decision based on sponsorship.

I didn't make that decision.

I'm just here to be, you know, to play football and be

paid a million bucks for it.

Is it convenient?

And the taking the knee was a response to them all standing with hand on heart

singing the Star Mangled Spanner, which is an overtly political thing anyway.

So when you open with an overtly political act and some people say, I want to opt

out of that, which is what taking the knee was, it was opting out of this jingoism.

It was saying that this jingoism doesn't represent a large proportion of.

The people I am playing in front of.

And after a while it became an opt in into a different type of jingoism.

Absolutely, yeah.

I mean, when it started spreading outside of the US, I agree.

Opt in, opt out.

Yes, yes.

So, I mean, Israel, well, you know, okay, I still don't accept your,

I don't get this argument though, that a sporting player Cannot just

be silent on an issue like this.

I mean, if they want to open their mouth and be a, um, a spokesperson on an

issue, then they will have to, um, take the consequences, good or bad, of that.

But, if they just want to be a sports person, and do, kick the

ball, without offering commentary on ideological stances, Uh, they

should be allowed to, in my view.

Um, it feels like we're approaching the territory of critical

race theory early tonight.

Um, I'm, no, I'm, I, I'm with you.

Um, the, and because I can see that there's a, uh, a difference between

taking a stand to say, yep, I'm for racism, uh, and a stand where you

say, yep, I'm against racism and just remaining silent and not wanting to.

Not wanting to be involved in your sport.

And just saying, I'm a dumb footballer who just wants to play football.

That's what I'm here for.

Come and watch me play football.

I'm here on that basis.

And, or, you know what, maybe I'm extremely intellectual about these

issues, but you're going to have to read my essay about it in, in this blog

post that I've done, or this podcast.

But at this point in time, I'm here to play football.

And I'm...

There's a time and place for everything.

I'm with you, uh, and I would...

You could also point to the, um, say, you know, that whole

problem of, um, journalists and interviewers sort of finding some,

um, footballer or tennis player who's just come off a, you know, rag.

four hour match and sticking a microphone in front of them and

saying, what do you think of, you know, how do the other person played?

And what do you think of so and so not, you know, like, um, the Chinese,

um, tennis player, not being able to be here and things like that.

It's like, I've just come out of a four, four hour tennis match.

You just leave me alone.

But we can't, and this is sort of one, this is one of my arguments for the.

Greg, share in an article, we can't totally, we can maybe divorce

ourselves from the politics in the specific act, say, of Playing soccer.

We can't divorce ourselves from that context forever.

At some point we step outside and go back to being people who are involved.

But we as a society can say, you know what, we just want our sporting

events to be sporting events.

And our political discussions to be somewhere else.

And some of us might say, we don't want politics in sport.

Because...

It's not a good venue.

It's not, it's like conducting debates on Facebook.

It's not the place to do it.

And the people, you know, who, who genetically can run fast and hard

without pain are not necessarily...

genetically the best, or have the time to examine our social

issues and commentate on them.

Like, it just doesn't make sense that these things should go hand

in hand, where people are forced to make a statement one way or another.

I mean, sure, if somebody wants to run the gauntlet of public opinion and wants to be

out there and make a statement, go ahead.

Run the risk.

Yeah, and John, John in the chat is making the point that, you know, that in a way

we are paying them to play the sport, to stand up and give political opinions.

Perfect.

Yeah, that's why they're on the, that's, they just risk losing the

money if they make themselves a bad role model for whatever reason.

If they All I'm, all I'm really getting at in that is, um, for example, You know,

to look at the number of, say, African American, um, men playing NBA basketball,

um, it's just an overwhelming number.

To expect those people to...

You know, if, if there was a, a group of white supremacists in there, in one

of the teams yelling out racist insults at another, and at a person in the

other team, like what happened to Adam Goodes, then You, that's the point at

which you've now involved the politics and the race back into the sport.

Um, so to expect those, um, you know, to...

I don't expect them to remain silent if they don't want to.

Sure.

But I...

But you're kind of saying if you remain silent you're being coerced.

Some of those people may be being coerced into the...

Footballers are being coerced into saying a prayer with the coach.

Like, there's a, you know, there's a, we're talking about

the peer group pressure there.

So, so I've got sympathy for, um, the non Christian footballers, and I've

got sympathy for the non political footballers who just want to...

Play the game and leave politics out of it.

Politics is, you know, is for podcasting.

Touche.

Right.

Well, let's, let's move into then, uh, Uluru's statement, shall we?

Let's like, just jump into it now.

We've warmed up.

How are we?

We're.

Goodness me, it's 8.

12 already.

Crikey.

So, um, so I made a comment...

I made a comment a couple of weeks ago about, um, how Labor

had, uh, indicated, uh...

Uh, sympathy for the Uluru Statement and we're looking at introducing

something, maybe introducing some sort of referendum or whatever.

And I think I made the point well, don't agree with it.

I don't think it's going to be good in terms of trying to sell

that to the public at large.

Because I find the whole thing inherently racist, to tell you the truth.

Even though I'll be accused of being racist for holding this

view, but we'll get into that.

So, um, and you, uh, because we've talked about this in private conversations at

different times, critical race theory and whatever, and you feel that that

has a place in this whole argument.

So, so, uh.

So, um, do you want to kick off with your response?

I called up your, the, the article you quoted from Greg Sheridan.

And the thing, the first thing that I think, the thing that I see all the way

through that is the assumption that Race should have no part in our politics.

Race should not be, um, you know, no race, no social status, no sexuality has

favour with God compared with anyone else.

And that's a lovely utopia to believe in, but it's not actually true.

Our Australian society has inherent racism built in and whether it's

the overt racism of what people call Adam Goodes, or the covert racism of

how we find, you know, like the um, Northern Territories intervention, or

whatever it's called, um, where they're just jailing Aboriginal people at

much higher rates because apparently solves the problem of crime, um, um.

It's still a racist society, so...

So this would be where, if, I don't know if this is what they've done, but

if a, um, if a state introduces a, a new law for jailing people for drunk,

public drunkenness and the law on the face of it says nothing about their skin

colour, just says anyone who's publicly drunk, we're gonna, we've run out of

patients, we're gonna put you in jail.

But if in fact turns out that the vast majority of people

who commit that offence are...

Indigenous, then it's a racist result in that sense.

Is that what you're getting at there?

Yeah, so that's, that's, that's the sort of the, in an inadvertently racist

outcome from what is a colorblind law, but has a, as a racist result.

But the racist result can also be that the only people that the police

ever charge with public drunkenness.

are Aboriginal people, and they might walk past a drunk white guy in the street.

And arrest the Aboriginal guy who's, you know, maybe doing exactly the same

thing, maybe minding his own business.

Yes, it might also be, it might also be an Indigenous police officer who

walks past the white trunk and arrests.

It may well be and you know, I know, um, you know, in other contexts I've seen,

um, you know, people who are of a minority in, you know, in an organization or in

a, um, you know, in a social context.

Kind of have to be seen to be scrupulously fair at not favouring their own minority.

But even subconsciously, like there were things in America where they

had these like shooting drills where people, police officers were presented

with, um, scenarios where, you know, a

pop up figure would appear and you had to quickly assess whether

it was a, a, uh, a foe or friend.

And even the, and what they found was that white officers would

more quickly pull the trigger and shoot the, sort of the, the black.

Um, figure, and, and, but strangely enough, they also found that the

black officers did the same thing.

So it was, it was a thing that was inherited in both.

Again, because, you know, even though there may be no law that says, you

know, African American men are...

Yeah.

Um, my point is that was a reactionary thing that wasn't thought out.

It was a spare of the moment action.

Like, uh, it wasn't like, Oh, I have to think about my superiors.

Yeah.

Sorry.

Um, that's all based on your culture.

And if you have grown up as an African American guy watching All of the

bad guys, all of the drug dealers on the cop shows be African American

guys, then, yeah, you're just biased.

So, you know, even though you might then be going in to the police

force to try and correct that, you've still got that cultural bias.

So that's, that's my first problem with the whole...

reading of this sort of how, how lovely it would be if our society wasn't racist.

And because it's not racist, we can't possibly support an Indigenous voice.

But the second fundamental problem is that the actual form that that voice

takes is It has, it's not even, there's a whole bunch of ideas on the table.

There's no actual decision at all yet.

It is, that is like they've deliberately said, we are not even deciding

this until we get the sign off that at least we can think about it.

Because we have to then find out what people, uh, will want.

Um, and yet you see in this article, as we saw with, uh, Malcolm Turnbull,

immediately after, um, in the reaction to the Uluru Statement from the

Heart, Characterise it as a third voice to Parliament, which is a

lie, because that does not exist.

Uh, let me read some of the Uluru Statement.

Not the whole thing, but just gonna grab bits from it, um, to give

people a flavour of what it says.

Um, uh, Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign

nations to the Australian continent.

This sovereignty is a spiritual notion.

This link is the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better, of sovereignty.

Uh, peoples possessed a land for 60 millennia.

These dimensions of our crisis tell plainly the structural

nature of our problem.

We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people.

We seek a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement making

between governments and First Nations.

and truth telling about our history.

We invite you to walk with us.

One of the key concepts out of the thing there.

And I'm really sorry because I forgot this, but I was going to say,

greetings from Ngunnawal country.

Right.

Let's start.

LAUGHS

Okay.

So, here's my problem with the Uluru Statement, is, I think it's, um, it

emphasises division between Indigenous people and non Indigenous people

and difference between the groups.

And so I don't like things that divide us.

And it emphasises also Australian Aboriginal Islanders tribes were the

first and an ownership of the soil and a possession of the land that to

me derives from being Well, we were here first, and I think that's a flaw.

Oh, so they're claiming Terra Nullus.

What's that?

Yeah.

They're claiming Terra Nullus.

Yes, and they're saying, well, we were here first.

And my view of, uh, land is it's a finite resource, and Uh, and we're all just

here for a brief while, they were able to use it, hopefully, and we're under

an obligation to future generations to look after it and hand over something

that's not spoiled and is hopefully a little bit better than the way we

found it, but at least not worse.

And, and, you know, I buried my mother a few, you know, well, it's getting on

a bit, a few weeks ago now, and, you know, she's now in a plot at Gold Coast.

And I think to myself at times...

Mum's just here on this planet for a very, very, very short time, but she's

claimed ownership of a, of a few square metres of earth in perpetuity, as hers.

Yes.

And it's a flawed concept to me that you would do that.

No, you don't own it forever.

You're just here briefly.

It's, it's, it's for others to come along and use and leave in a fair state.

So, I, I, I don't like this, this ownership by anybody of the land

that is then passed on and, and to me, it's kind of like a bit of a...

Uh, an aristocracy that is somehow leaving land rights to future generations

to the exclusion of other generations.

I see that as, um, as an inherent problem with, so yeah, so for me, the

Uluru Statement emphasises division.

There is a difference between Indigenous people and non Indigenous people.

It emphasises an ownership.

A right to land that, um, arises from a we were here first kind of notion and, um,

and an ongoing, um, an ongoing separation where there's First Nations and there's

the government and, uh, again, divisive.

Okay, I think there's a couple of approaches I'd like to take there, and

kind of like the first one would just be to say, like that last line, we invite

you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.

To me, that actually says we, we are actually wanting to join.

We are not wanting to divide.

We want you to join with us.

So we are, all of us, the Australian people.

What do you think of that interpretation?

Um, you and us, to me is not, is, is a, is a division.

Um, so it's, it's an emphasis of a division, particularly when it's preceded

by, we seek a Maura commission to supervise a process of agreement making

between governments and First Nations.

So it's, it's, it's setting up two different.

groups.

It's saying we are a different group.

So I, it would be interesting to hear, you know, an actual scholar, you

know, an Aboriginal scholar talk about this, but my, um, my, the sense from

the discussions that I've heard about This kind of topic is, we already,

we already have a division, right?

We, whether we, you know, class people based on some set of ancestry

or what they, whether they tick the Australian Tolerant Islander box on

some survey or anything else, um, we've, we have a problem in that

we are already a kind of divided.

So, to me, this statement acknowledges that we have the

division there to begin with.

And in some ways, I think you could argue that for a long, you know, in

a lot of, uh, historical interactions with Aboriginal people, there have

been a lot of those that have just been equally, um, Aboriginal people

working alongside white people, um, European people, uh, you know, welcoming

them in, teaching them where to...

Um, to, to fish and hunt.

So I've just spent, uh, two weeks down the South Coast and at Eden

there is the old whaling station.

Um, the Aboriginal people there had a relationship with the killer whales.

The killer, they, over, over, you know, a long time, no sort of documented

start to this, but over a long time, the two groups had learned.

So the killer whales would isolate a, a whale as they're migrating up the coast.

They would drive it into Eden Bay and then they would signal to the

Aboriginal people who would come out and swim out spear the whale, the.

Killer whales would eat the lips and the tongue, which are the best parts for them.

The Aboriginal people would get the rest.

The killer whales are marked in white and black, and those were

the markings of the local people.

The Aboriginal people had white paint and black skin, and so they saw them,

the Aboriginal people, saw the killer whales as their ancestors, as their

spirits, um, and to the point where when the Um, white whalers came on the scene,

the, the killer whales learn, Oh, these guys have boats and they have harpoons,

they're much better at hunting whales.

We're going to work with them.

So they, there's this.

You know, passed on, um, relationship and knowledge, uh, to the point where when a

European guy through a mistake, um, killed one of the killer whales, the policemen

there said, you better get out of town because I cannot guarantee your safety.

Because the Aboriginal people will want to come and kill you, and I can't stop them.

So, the overall picture that I want to paint here is that, yes, there have been

divisions, there's been fights, mostly they have been grossly unequal in favour

of the Europeans, but there's also been periods and incidents of working together.

So we have the division.

And we want to move forward as one Australian people.

And to me, that's an overall unifying concept.

You can't, you know, in the same way that I have to talk to you

as a separate entity, they're just saying, we invite you.

That's the language.

Yeah.

But it also says we see constitutional reforms to empower our people.

So Yeah, because that they, they have realized that there is no other way that,

that we can begin to address the overall.

system of racism until we have a system, something in the constitution

that can't be removed by a previous, sorry, a subsequent John Howard esque

government to take away that voice and, you know, But we do it all the time where

we fix injustice, and it stays fixed.

Mmm, yes...

You had your example, you had your example of the, um, of the

disabled, um, hotel or whatever.

Is it...

Yeah, so...

People might be familiar, just for the listeners, um, there's a meme that

went around a little while ago, um, of, imagine a hotel that was built by some

guy who hated disabled people, and he built it with stairs everywhere and made

it difficult, you know, all the toilet doors were too small to get a wheelchair

through, and all that sort of stuff.

And even if someone, um, bought that hotel and said, we want to make it.

Uh, we, you know, we, we are not against disabled people.

It doesn't stop the whole structure, the whole system of the hotel

from being anti disabled people.

So I'm not sure where we were going from that context.

We, we, we created buildings.

I mean, that happened inadvertently or whatever, where

we created buildings that were.

Uh, inaccessible to disabled people.

Yeah.

And we said, you know what, that's unfair.

We need to, first of all, any new buildings have to have disabled

access, and then secondly, we need to implement over time, enabling

disabled access into buildings.

And we did that.

We fixed an injustice without having to have it enshrined in.

a constitutional change.

Like, I think a good friend of mine who has multiple sclerosis would

violently disagree with you on the, that, that wheelchair access is fixed.

But has it gone backwards?

Has it gone?

No, it hasn't gone backwards, but it hasn't been fixed.

Right.

We are still having to work on it.

Okay.

Well, I'm not suggesting the world's perfect, but, but we don't,

there's any number of problems in our society where we don't.

Lock in constitutional amendments because it's also quite dangerous to

lock in things like bills of rights that we've spoken about before.

So, um, so, uh, you know, the example, I was reading that

example from you, um, about that.

And I thought, well, what, what do we do when we recognize a problem like that

is we consult with, uh, disabled people.

And we say, tell us your story, what's wrong, why doesn't it work, how does

it affect you, what would be solutions that you think would fix this problem?

And we work with experts of design and building or whatever, and, and come up

with solutions, but we don't create.

A, a, uh, a body of exclusively disabled people who, who tell us, um,

uh, what, what, what has to happen.

Because victims are poor.

Victims are actually, are not necessarily the best people to provide

the solutions in all circumstances.

So people who are victims are not necessarily well placed to know solutions.

They can contribute, and they should contribute, but they're not the

font of all knowledge, and other opinions, expert in other areas,

are vital for a good solution.

So if we allow victims to make our laws, like the One Punch Law in New South Wales.

I mean, there was a family whose son was punched in a nightclub

incident at two in the morning.

Well, you know, and they argued, well, the solution to that is shuttle nightclubs

at 11pm or whatever it was, you know.

Now, a grieving family will come to that solution, but that doesn't

mean that was the right solution.

And, um, so victims are not necessarily, um, well placed to know solutions.

They can describe their...

They're issues, but they can't necessarily provide all of the

solutions and they can't necessarily speak on behalf of other victims.

Yeah.

That was a point I was going to get to, but I, on the other hand, I would

say, would you say Tony Abbott was a good minister, uh, minister for women?

I have no idea.

I don't know enough about.

Would you say a woman might do a better job?

I would have thought so.

I would have thought we could have found a woman who would have been a better...

I think, um, an onion would have done a better job.

Yes.

Yep.

But just, I like this wheelchair disabled analogy.

I want to run with it a bit more.

Just to try and paint the picture that I'm coming from here, so.

Because that too is an area, like, I think I'm following your, your point

and I would certainly agree that victims have a very, uh, narrow lens that

they're seeing things through and often, um, you know, people are prepared to,

you know, want a really sort of eye for an eye kind of punishment on some.

Somethings especially.

Yes.

Um, but where, you know, because the, the, the thing that I'm kind of thinking of

with the, like the disabled access mm-hmm.

Um, you know, is, um, the sort of two aspects on this one is the, uh,

when Abbott came in, um, they knew they couldn't get rid of the N D I S.

What they did was just make sure it was harder than ever and reduced funding.

Just keep, do not add any more funds to this thing until it

makes it just too difficult.

Um, you know, I know a friend of mine, um, has multiple sclerosis,

you know, has said, you know, it is, it was just so much harder.

As Turnbull and then Morrison got in, when it just became increasingly obvious that

they were not, you know, they were, they were happy to listen to their particular

experts, but also the agenda of, we actually, we actually really don't care

about disabled people and we want to make their lives difficult, came through.

The other is that...

Um, the big, the analogy I kind of want to draw here is if we, you know, when,

when those building codes first come through, builders will naturally say,

Oh, well, this is too difficult to do.

Of course they will.

Um, and then they'll say, Oh, we, we don't want to have another

government body doing this.

We only want to have this as a voluntary code.

All progress, all progress is blocked by interests who are against the progress.

Of course.

Sure.

Of course.

And that's where I think we have to see the, uh, the, the opposition to

the Uluru Statement from the Heart and the opposition to, um, consulting

with the First Nations people on how they should be treated by our laws.

It's, it's not an opposition to consulting and this is, I'm just going to interrupt

here because Brahman said in the chat room When the disabled access provisions

of the Australian Building Code were introduced, a consultative committee

of people with varying disabilities was set up so that the Building Code

developers were properly informed of the problems and their potential solutions.

It turns out that victims are exactly the right people to ask.

So I think your theory just fell over, Trevor.

Brahmin.

That's exactly what I said.

You ask the disabled people, what are the issues?

What do you need?

What will work well for you?

What are the problems?

Like, you did say that victims are not a good people to ask.

No, no.

I said, they're not the people to make the laws.

So I said, ask these people what their experience is.

But you then have to consult with other experts as to, as to, um,

the best way of doing things and other, uh, aspects of life that

need to be taken into consideration beyond the victim's, uh, input.

For example, you have to say to the fire chiefs, well if we install

some sort of lift mechanism here in this place here, how's that going to

affect fire exiting from a building?

Right.

So, it's, it's about consulting with, uh, the victims, taking, uh, from

them their, uh, their advice about what they see as being the best thing.

And they might well turn around and go, you know what, I see your point.

If we were to do it that way, it wouldn't work.

Okay, we would have to do it this other way.

So, so I think you've misunderstood me, Brahman, in that obviously, uh,

Australian society needs to consult.

With indigenous people about how to solve indigenous problems.

Yeah, but the this seems to be a inherent in this discussion about From

the Uluru statement is is is setting up of a body which will be comprised

just of indigenous people and It having some special powers Of some sort.

Because, what did I say from the statement?

It said something like, um, we seek constitutional

reforms to empower our people.

So, they're seeking some sort of reform for some sort of power for

some sort of Indigenous people.

That's there in the statement.

Okay, dear listener, this, uh, podcast ended up going for a total of two

and a half hours, can you believe it?

So, I've decided I'm gonna split it and you'll hear the

rest of this podcast next week.

Or if you can't wait that long, you go to YouTube and just watch the whole thing.

But anyway, in terms of the audio podcast, the rest of it will be next week, 12th

of July, which is my wife's birthday.

So I'll have the night off and that all works out quite well.

Alrighty.