Topics include:

• Democracy
• Follow up on Injection placement
• Springtime for Hitler
• School Year Backflip
• Djokovic
• A grim grand slam calendar
• It's not just tennis, even the NRL
• An Australian Republic
• Covid
• Poor Government – Blame neo-liberalism and Religion
• How Does Morrison Win from here?
• From Bernard Keane in Crikey
• From Alan Kohler in the New Daily
• From Michael Pascoe
• From The Age
• Hillsong
• Police allege parents took daughter off insulin medication to be ‘healed by God’
• Religion is Special
• Teachers can be sacked over sexuality under bill, A-G’s department confirms
• Catholic teacher moved out of job after IVF
• Irish Education
• Property Prices
• Inflation and Interest rates
• Australia’s CPI
• Tanks

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

evolved some extraordinarily unique groups of homosapiens.

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.

Hello dear listener.

Welcome back to the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove podcast.

And I say that with emphasis on this occasion because Scott, the Velvet

Glove is back with us for a performance.

Welcome back, Scott.

G'day Trevor.

G'day Shea.

G'day listeners.

I hope everyone's well.

Good on you.

We're all well, Scott.

Well, well, who knows, yes, people could be ill and not even know it.

And Shay, welcome back again.

Hi, thanks for having me.

All right, so we've had some technical issues that caused

us to be a few minutes late.

Had technical issues last week where we had Shay on the wrong microphone,

so she's going to sound a lot better this week, so apologies for that.

And we were mucking around, desperately trying to get Scott's sound and audio

working, and I think we have, so Alright, if you're in the chat room, say hello,

and Joe might be able to join us later.

He's somewhere in Rockhampton, scurrying around at the moment, and will try and

get on with us when he can, so Well, Scott, it's been a while since you've

been on, and It has been a while.

Yes, and anything that we've said over the last couple of months

that you want to take issue with?

You know, get something off your chest where you want to disagree with anything?

No, nothing really has upset me or anything like that.

I could understand where a lot of you're coming from.

I mean, I probably still don't 100 percent agree with you on China.

I think that I do think that Australia should take a tougher line with

China and that sort of stuff and tell them to go and get stuffed.

But anyway, I don't think we're going to do that.

Last week's episode was really good.

I was really impressed with that.

And I think we're going to be talking about rats and stuff tonight, aren't we?

We've got, uh, a bunch of topics dear listener, uh, we're going

to be talking about a bit more about Jokovic, it's hard to avoid.

We'll be talking about COVID, we'll be talking about poor government, we'll

be talking about religion and Hillsong.

The whole intersection of religion and COVID with Hillsong is fascinating.

It was bloody disgraceful that the If government didn't crumb down on them

like a ton of bricks, I mean, they should have come down on the bricks.

Yeah.

Well, we're going to get onto that.

So, hello, um, in the chat room, Jack H, Mel, Daniel, Joel,

and Anne, Anne's on as well.

Ah, G'day Anne.

Yeah.

So, a couple of, uh, things just to follow up on, you might remember I did

a podcast a few weeks ago where I was.

Criticising the views put forward by Carrick Ryan on democracy, which was

basically, his argument was that all these countries are doing really well

because they're democracies and he can't believe that he has to defend democracy.

And I was arguing that there are other factors at play.

Anyway, Simon from the Rationalists likes the idea of debate because that was a

Rationalist article and so he's massaged my comments into an article and there's

a link in the show notes or you can just go to the Rationale magazine and you'll

see my comments have been massaged into an article and yeah, who knows what back

and forth might arise from that so yeah.

Tom the Warehouse.

You've become quite famous, aren't you?

Yeah, I did like Tom the Warehouse's comment there.

Yeah, he says, Evening all, glad Djokovic is gone and get tougher on China.

How can we be tougher?

I've explained this before, we just stated them very politely.

You don't want our bar, you don't want our wine, you don't want our lobster,

guess what else you're not getting?

You're not getting our iron ore.

Then in six months time they'll come back.

Okay, also I mentioned, well you also had Deep Throat, speaking of,

you know, old faces coming back.

Yeah, he was very good.

And about the site of the injection in your arm for your COVID injection.

And, funnily enough, I was playing squash with my mate, Noel, who I play

squash with every Monday afternoon.

And, uh, he was complaining about a sore arm from his COVID injection that hadn't

happened on the previous injections.

I said, oh, just out of interest.

Yeah, whereabouts did they put the injection?

He said, oh, it was weird.

It was way off to the side.

I said, oh, where exactly?

And he wasn't exactly sure, but he said it was significantly off to

the side, and there were two marks.

We couldn't be sure which one was the mark of his needle, but it

was, if it was either of them, he, he, he got an injection into

his tendon rather than his muscle.

And, and no wonder his arm was sore.

So, so dear listener, if you get a friend who has an injection, just

have a look and see where it goes, because I've got a feeling this

could be part of a wider problem.

Based on a small sample of two?

Well, even just ignoring the pain and that sort of stuff that's going to

cause, if it's an intramuscular vaccine, I think is what it was described by

Dethrotus, if it's designed to go into the muscle, to get into the bloodstream

that way, it's not going to make it into your bloodstream all that easily

with going into your tendon, is it?

Yes, it may not make it in there, so it could be a failed injection.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So, uh.

I had my, um, booster on Monday and I was, I'd gone in blindly the previous

two, but I was paying very close attention to where she put it this time.

So, I was successful.

Good.

I've had all three of my shots up here at the Mackay Base Hospital Clinic,

which is now down at the showgrounds.

And, you know, they could do it blindfolded.

These ladies know exactly where to put it.

They do it day in, day out, one after the other, and they are brilliant at it.

So, you know, I just think that you've got to go with someone

that does it all day, every day.

Yeah, my advice would be If the person doing it is blindfolded, don't let them.

LAUGHTER Ah, nice comment from Jack H there.

Thank you, Jack.

That's good.

Alright, have you heard of the movie The Producers at all, Scott?

I have heard of it, but I don't think I've ever seen it.

Shay, have you heard of it at all?

No, I haven't.

Yeah, it's an old Mel Brooks movie and basically Three years, yeah.

The thing about the movie was that this guy, one guy's an accountant and another

guy's this crooked Broadway producer.

And they've worked out a scam whereby they basically want to produce a Broadway

musical, but they want it to be a failure.

And so they find the worst musical they could possibly find, which was

one called Springtime for Hitler.

And, and they, you know, run the show and due to a series of catastrophes,

the director ends up playing the main part and he is as gay in his

camp as could possibly be and totally overplays a gay Hitler in this musical.

And the crowd initially goes, what is this crap?

Like, this is terrible, this is awful, it's, you know, it's

almost sort of glorifying Hitler.

But then the campness and the gayness of this guy comes through and they

see, and the ones who had started walking out of the cinema sort of

come back in and go, oh, this is a satire, this is a send up of Hitler.

And then they really enjoy the play.

It becomes a massive hit.

And it ruins the plans of these guys who had a scam that they

actually wanted a failure.

And I've worked out the Morrison government.

I think it's a similar thing.

It's a satirical performance of what a government should be.

I think, potentially, that Morrison and his cronies are a bunch of left wingers

who went out of their way to caricature a horrible right wing government.

So that nobody would ever vote Liberal or National Party ever again.

And people have taken them seriously, and they're just waiting for, they're waiting

for the audience to recognise the satire.

That's, I've worked it out, that's what's going to happen.

Oh, I wish.

I wouldn't be surprised, but I just think that Morrison's a very much, what's

the word I'm groping for, a bloke that just moves with, he just, he takes the

temperature of the room and that's where, that's where it's going to lead to his,

I wouldn't be surprised if he goes into a press conference and he's got two

speeches, one speech depending on how the room looks, the other speech depending

if the room looks more favorable to him.

So that really wouldn't surprise me.

Now, you know, it was, you Once described by an old friend of mine about

Cheryl Kerner, who said that she just moved whichever way the wind blows.

Now, I think that's very true of Morrison.

Morrison moves depending on which way the wind is blowing, and

that's been about all he's done.

You know, I honestly believe that had the Labor Party been in office

when coronavirus had actually hit.

We would not have had the response that we've got.

We would have had a better response around vaccines and all that sort of stuff.

But do you honestly believe the Liberals would have got out of the

way of the Labor Party and the Senate to allow the government stimulus

and all that sort of stuff that did keep the economy moving forward?

No way.

I honestly don't.

Exactly.

And the Murdoch press.

And the Murdoch press would have been screaming about it.

Yeah.

I said we're actually lucky in a sense that we had these guys in power

because they wouldn't have allowed Labor Party to do anywhere near the

sort of money printing that they did.

No.

Exactly.

And that's what saved the economy from going belly up completely.

Yep.

And So far.

Yeah, and it also Yeah, so far, you know, they've still got a, you know, now

that the economy is starting to turn and that sort of stuff, you've got idiots

from the backbench who are now saying, well, you can't keep spending money,

you've got to bring everything under control, you've got to, you've got to

tighten your belt and all that sort of stuff, well, I don't think the country's

ready to have their belts tightened yet.

No.

Modern monetary theory says no.

I know modern monetary theory says no and I still, I've still got to, I sort

of understand that now but you just gotta, I understand where it comes

from but I do think that having a, a budget that's got a lower deficit than

what we've been reporting would be preferable but that deficit was necessary.

to try and get the country out of the shit that it was going into.

I disagree with you about Scott Morrison.

He's actually rigid in his thinking and he just can't move from it and he just

tries to cover up and bluster his way without actually changing his position.

So he's all about classic neoconservative ideology, small government, low

regulation, and this is his problem, is that in times of crisis, like a

pandemic, You actually need a government.

You need a big government.

And you need regulations and controls and people doing things.

You can't leave it to the market.

You don't leave agree wholeheartedly.

So he's fixed on his ideology and he just is trying to bluster his way around it.

I don't see him as moving, as you say, with the wind so much as

just covering up when he can't do what his instincts tell him to do.

Or when he has done what his instincts have told him to do

and it results in a stuff up and he'll just blame everybody else.

Yeah, which he's very good at doing, because he never, he never

takes responsibility for itself.

Yeah.

He was caught out over going to Hawaii and all that sort of stuff.

Now, had he have told the whole public that he was going to Hawaii well and

truly ahead of time, and he says, by the way, I'm leaving Mike McCormack in charge

while I'm gone, then the fires could have happened and all that sort of stuff.

But he would have got out of it.

You know, rather than the whole coverup and all that sort of stuff

being blown up the way it was.

Yeah.

He, he has an ability where a small problem becomes a large

problem because of Oh, for sure.

His coverups and, and all the rest of it.

So, so, yeah.

So anyway, you really don't think he's just bending with political will me, no.

Yeah.

Uh, no.

Even when he changed the law overnight, while Novak Vic was on the plane that

was incompetence and then had to medal.

That, that, that was, I didn't think he actually changed the law.

I just think he got Alex Hawke to kick him out.

Yeah.

But apparently from what I read from the fifth to the sixth, they had to

shift the law around, around exemptions.

They, they didn't have to change the law at all, so they just

relied on a different law.

So they just relied on a different law.

So they, so first he is not meddling, but then he is meddling.

No, no.

He'll meddle.

But it's whether he changes or not.

So this is, this is the man who talks about stopping the votes,

like he loves stopping people coming into the country, doesn't he?

But he also, but his problem is that he also has been getting votes from

the anti vax sort of right wing crowd.

So he's been allowing people like Christensen and, and the like to sort of

on the sidelines make noises that would be appealing to the anti vax movement, where

the anti vax movement would be going.

You know, they're all bad, but at least it sounds like the

Morrison government is a bit more supportive of the anti vax movement.

So he Oh, Joel Bradleys, Joel Bradleys made this comment, he said,

you know, Morrison backed George Christensen's freedom of speech on

anti vax, then joined the bag wagon with Jolkovich, he's all about polling.

And I agree with him there.

You know, but he had a conflict then, because he wanted to But if he honestly

believes that, you know, I don't think the Greens are going to be stupid

enough to do another Adani convoy up to Queensland this election time around.

Because I think that even privately, I think that Bob Brown would

accept that that was a mistake.

So you would imagine they're going to stay out of Queensland.

So I don't believe it's going to be the same sort of happy hunting ground for the

coalition at the next federal election.

There was an article by a guy, Andrew Street in Independent Australia,

and he said that essentially the only way Morrison can win is to, is

to win in New South Wales a virtual clean sweep because he's going to

lose seats in all the other states and his only hope is New South Wales.

You know, see, I just think that, I just think to myself that him kicking

Djokovic out the way he did in Victoria was to safeguard the liberal Victoria.

Exactly.

Because the Victorians have put up with a hell of a lot of

crap over the last two years.

They have been locked down more than any other city on earth and they have had

a gutful and then when Djokovic turns up and says, well, I'm not vaccinated.

You know, that must have been a hell of a spit in the eye to them.

But, you know, it's not out of character for Morrison to want to

keep people out of the country.

Like, that's, that's in character.

So that's part of his long standing, you know, stick, so, you know, he's got, he's

in a world of problems, one would think.

And I, you know, I've been despairing over the last few weeks as to

whether it's gonna be enough.

Surely people can see through it, but I just don't know.

I just don't know.

I understand where you're coming from, Trevor.

I don't know either, because You know, I was very surprised at just

how conservative it is up here.

You know, the people I talk to and all that sort of stuff, they all

sort of laugh at Christensen and that sort of stuff, but they say,

who else are you going to vote for?

You know?

Can't vote for those socialists.

Well, there's honestly a fair amount of thinking like that up here, but you

know, very bizarrely, the state seat of Mackay is held by the Labor Party up here.

Right.

But Dawson is held by the LNP.

Yep.

So it is one of those more marginal seats.

Now, I suppose it depends on how much of a fool Christensen continues

to make of himself before he actually retires from Parliament.

But anyway.

In the chat room, Tom the Warehouse Guy says, would appreciate

thoughts on Albanese 2 and his meetings with the Maritime Union of

Australia in Queensland this month.

Very little coverage on what Albanese has been up to.

I wasn't aware of him meeting the Maritime Union.

No, me either.

No.

No, neither was I.

But, you know, I'm, I'm not at all impressed with Albanese.

I don't like politicians that have a small targets, a small target strategy.

Now, you know, I know that people often perhume and that sort of stuff

for thinking, longing back to the days of John Hewson, but John Hewson took

a very detailed plan to the public.

He argued it and lost.

You know, that was it.

But he didn't away through a scare tactic.

Shy away.

Yeah.

Through a scare tactic.

Oh yeah.

That was a very Keating, it was a, yeah, there was a very

clever scare tactic by Keating.

It was, you know, and you know, one of the things that I think that they didn't

actually hammer home, the point was that.

The GST that was proposed by the Liberals back then was not at all

dissimilar to what was proposed by Keating back when he was trying

to argue for a GST as Treasurer.

You know, that sort of thing.

But anyway, there's no point crying over spilt milk.

But, you know, we ended up with Howard out of that, and then we ended up with

12 or 13 long years of that government.

Yes.

So, you know, and you just think to yourself, yeah.

Anyway, alright, let's move on a little bit.

Good on you, Scott, because you've, you've scattered me, my notes all over the place.

I have a, I have a tendency to do that because I'm a

columnist, I just talk, so yeah.

Yep, that's okay.

So, um.

That's why I'm out here every few months, because you can't, you gotta

get yourself back in order again.

Shea, the, with the advent of the Omicron variant, the Queensland

Government decided probably a good idea to delay the school year by two weeks.

And the Education Minister came out and said, yeah, and what we'll

do is we'll extend the school year at the end of the year by a week.

Did you read what happened?

Was there backlash?

Yeah.

Correctly.

The Teachers Union.

Said, no, no.

We've got people who have made plans, booked holidays and no.

And the government backed down and said, okay, we'll, and when we

normally do, and the school year will be just two weeks shorter.

And I'm very confident that I'll be able to do it.

So that dear listener was just a strong union putting the foot down.

Mm.

There's not many of 'em left.

No.

And basically telling the government no.

I thought that was a Well, Scott, you don't like that?

No, because they were only extending it by one week.

You know, it's One of those things, I do think that the union should have

actually sat down with the government and tried to negotiate something a

little better than just saying no.

You know, it's One of those things, I do think that the union should have

Talked it through and that sort of stuff to come up with something that's

a little more workable because like you said, you know They're starting

a fortnight later and they're gonna finish at the same time Mm hmm.

Yeah, do they honestly believe that fortnight's worth of study over that time?

Well, Scott, if they get rid of religious instruction classes Then they'll have

plenty of time to do that if they get rid of religious instruction studies.

I agree with you That's but they're not going to do that short of the

Satanists having their win in the courts.

Mm hmm still waiting on a decision Yeah, so when will they let

you know if it's coming out?

I just get an email at some point to tell me that the judge is

ready, but we've gone past five months now since the decision, so.

So it's got to have merit in your argument.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, so.

It makes me think, well, has the judge actually sat down with the government

and warned them that this is coming?

No.

And, well, I'm just saying it's a possibility that maybe the government's

already, maybe the government's already been alerted to the fact.

That the change is coming from the courts, and they'd better make a plan for it.

No.

I don't know.

No.

No.

Yeah, okay, you've got a much clearer view than I do, but I just thought

to myself it could be a possibility.

I just hope he's inspired by the judge in the case with Jokowicz, who actually,

you know, found in favour of Jokowicz in the first instance, you know, so, um.

Anyway, we'll see, um, I just thought I'd add, it's possible that there's been

more consultation since because I, this is just anecdotal evidence, which you

can take with a grain of salt, but I've, it's part of a New Year's resolution.

I've been going back to the gym and my instructor was saying she's also a

teacher, that she is, she is leading her classes from the 31st of January via Zoom.

She feels so bad about it because they're grade seven, so it's

their first year of high school.

Right.

So I just think there's a possibility, I think there's a possibility that some

schools might have just said, no, we can do it by, we can do it by Zoom.

It starts the same day.

What was she, state school or private school?

I should have asked.

I'll follow up with that next time I see her.

Indeed.

Yep, because I think there's a difference in the union as well, because if you

think about it, in the private school sphere, they're having arguments with

the government about This proposed religious discrimination bill and the

fact that religious school employers are able to sack teachers because

they've had a baby by IVF, you know, or something as innocuous as that.

So the union, if it's a proper union So it's not even just being gay.

Yeah, so if it was a proper union supporting its members and had real

clout, they'd be doing more on that scale.

So I think the union in the private sector for teachers isn't as As a

militant and a strong and I don't think it's members are and I think

maybe membership might even be low.

Yeah, it could be.

So, so the answer to that might be, yeah, be keen to know next

time when you're at the gym.

Yes, I will.

Is it a private school?

There you go.

You should go back at least three times a week.

I was already scrounging.

Scrounging for reasons.

Scott, you lost a lot of weight at one stage.

That's day off.

Yeah, I have.

It has stayed off and I've lost, I was as sick as a dog last week.

Yeah.

So I haven't eaten anything for a week.

But anyway, um, I thought I had COVID.

But I, I passed the RAP test on Sunday, but then I still was feeling

bad on Friday, so I went and had a PCR test and I got a negative result

on Saturday, and I started to feel better on Sunday afternoon, so I'm

over it now, but it was bloody awful.

Mel in the chat room says, I'm pretty sure some private schools are

starting next week or the week after.

Yep.

That wouldn't surprise me, Mel, that the private schools do have

a different start and finish date.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yep.

So, okay, alright, so yeah, just on Mjokovic, basically the, I think it was

the Home Affairs Minister was able to use a different section and expel him,

and essentially under that Migration Act, there's enormous discretion for

the Minister to just use their, a very very personal and And not necessarily

well thought out reason, just to have a reason, provided it wasn't completely

insane, then it would be enough for the Minister to exercise power.

And this is sort of highlighting a problem.

Like, to a lot of people who wanted Jokowicz out, it was

like, great, we got rid of him.

The problem was that the Minister used this, these god like powers that

the Minister Particularly in this Migration Act, like it doesn't exist

in, to the same extent in other Acts.

So, there was a 2017 report by Liberty Victoria Rights Advocacy Project, which

noted the Minister is granted more personal discretion than any other

Minister by an overwhelming margin.

So, and this is the words of a former Minister for Immigration, Chris Evans.

Who was the minister at the time and said, in a general sense, I've formed

a view that I have too much power.

The Migration Act is unlike any act I've seen in terms of the

power given to the minister to make decisions about individual cases.

I am uncomfortable with that, not just because of a concern about playing

God, but also because of the lack of transparency and accountability.

for those ministerial decisions.

So, it goes on.

So yeah, it's, it's, it's not great for us that we have these

god like powers for a minister.

And, I mean, these are the sorts of things that allow a minister to authorise

an au pair or two to come in and work.

And just this, this sort of stuff.

God like powers.

They've got to, they've got to That was wrong.

You know, you've got to give them a certain amount of power, but you've got

to be able to pull it back and You know, if you pulled it back, then, you know,

Jokovic probably would have been allowed to stay, but I'm pleased that he's gone.

However, I can understand where those on the other side are saying that

they've got too much power, and I think they do have too much power.

I think they should actually sit down both sides of parliament and say we've

got to reduce the power, and they should come up with a list of do's and don'ts.

Yep.

It should be more prescriptive, and the government should be forced

to follow it, because that's what happens in every other walk of life.

Like, I applied to run a satanic religious class, and I got knocked

back by the government, so I'm able to appeal to the Supreme Court, and

rely on the laws of natural justice to say, you relied on reasons that

you weren't entitled to rely on.

And, you know, we've got a chance of winning.

The whole process is unavailable to people under this Migration

Act when the Minister has so much discretion, so, so it's not good.

And it's very handy for a government like the Morrison government that just likes

kicking out refugees and keeping them out.

I mean, it's just appalling what we've got highlighted that Jokovic in that

hotel and there's guys in there who've been in detention for 10 years or so.

We as a country don't give a shit.

I know.

It's cruel.

It's really, you know, it's just that we've taken the whole keeping

our borders closed and all that sort of stuff to the extreme because, you

know, ten years that you've got someone locked up, that's a bloody long time.

You know, there was a case that I heard about just recently.

It was a bloke who was Turning 28 or something like that.

He arrived here in a boat when he was 19, nine years in detention.

You know, and he only just made it in via the skin of his teeth on that

Midivac bill before it was repealed by the government, you know, and he was

allowed out in the out in the streets for three months and then after that

he got sent to to a detention hotel.

He's been locked up there ever since.

Yep.

You know, it's.

You don't get those 20, you know, the 20s are the best years of your life.

You don't get them back.

Exactly.

He's lost them.

He's lost those years because he was in detention that whole time.

And you know, it's, I just think to myself, we've, we'll talk about

that another time, but I think we've got to find a more compassionate.

Way forward and those 1, 000 that are still in detention that have been

there for a decade I think we've got to bring them on shore very quietly in

the middle of the night Release them into the community give them all the

support and all that sort of stuff and just say if you want to stay here You

just don't talk to the media Yeah, you just got to try and keep it as quiet

as possible Stay here and be a citizen.

Look at that Biloela family Like, for goodness sake.

Oh no, that is just cruelty that is just taken beyond a joke.

Yep.

You know, they reopened that bloody Christmas Island detention centre at

an enormous cost to house four people.

One of whom was born here.

You know, and that was just incredibly cruel.

They've obviously made themselves valuable members of the community.

Exactly.

It's just outrageous.

The guy's working in an abattoir.

The, the wife does volunteer work and all that sort of stuff, and their two

little girls were starting school.

Mm.

Just back to Jogovich, he has got some problems ahead of him, because

he may not be allowed to defend his French Open title in May.

Mm.

Exactly.

Because the French government just changed the rules, and said that all athletes

have to be vaccinated in order to attend and compete in sporting events in France.

And they just recently changed the rules, and so He's in trouble with

the French if he wants to go there.

Wimbledon, uh, UK travel requirements for the unvaccinated demands a negative

test pre travel and 10 days quarantine on arrival with further tests.

So, so that's not easy to be in quarantine for 10 days.

You'll, you know.

Lose your edge.

And the US Open, travellers to the United States must be fully vaccinated.

Really limited himself to the Serbian tennis fields.

Yes.

So, so yeah, very interesting.

Father Time is marching on and he may have lost his opportunity to

get ahead of Nadal and Federer.

They might all be stuck on slams each.

Very interesting.

So it's not just tennis.

That's changing its rules and affecting athletes and what they can do because

it's even happening in the NRL, Scott.

According to the Batuta Advocate, new NRL restrictions result in players having to

host sex parties outdoors from now on.

Yeah, it's very amusing.

Scott, here's a topic that I know you can wax on about for quite a while.

So before you start, let's have a say.

On this one, an Australian Republic show, there's been talk about how

the President, and the President's going to replace the Governor

General, so how should this figure be?

Okay, Scott's grabbing a beer.

How should the President be chosen?

So the choices are, you know, maybe a large majority of the Parliament

picks a President and the other choice is that there's some sort of

A pool of, of potential applicants and that the Australian public

chooses the president directly.

And, do you have any thoughts on what you think would be the best way, or

even not the I like Ireland's way of doing it, so they have a Prime Minister

who they call a Taoiseach, and then they have a President who doesn't

really have any other powers apart from holding the Taoiseach to account.

And they're elected similarly to the way the Prime Minister is,

so it's a vote by the public.

Okay, so what I've got on Ireland is that in order to get elected as the

President, if you like, they've got to be nominated by one of the following.

At least 20 members of the Parliament, at least four county or city councils,

and basically if there's a pool of those sorts of people who have been nominated.

Then it goes to a vote of the people, so, and seems to have gone smoothly,

so, and on occasions there's only one candidate nominated, so they're

deemed elected without the need for a ballot of the people, so,

so that's what they do in Ireland, but, so here's Keating's argument.

Keating is against the, uh, an election of the president by the people.

And Bob Carr's against it as well.

And they're sort of saying, well, Bob Carr says, well look, when it comes to

the voting process, and it's sort of a beauty pageant, and people are sort of

wanting the job, they're going to say things about what they're in favour of.

And that could potentially create almost a mandate for them, like they might

come out and say I'm, I'm very strong on climate change, um, and renewables

and, or things like that, they might actually have an almost a political goal.

statement about what things they approve or don't approve of, and while they

technically don't have any power, it creates a, an entity that, that's sort of,

sort of voted on separately by the people, and, and might be given some weight.

So let me just Find some quotes here.

You know, I understood where Keating was coming from, but I do think that he's

got to accept that the 1999 referendum was lost basically based on the model,

you know, the public are not going to accept a head of state that's appointed

by a two thirds majority of parliament.

Yeah.

They're just not.

And, you know, I put my hand up and say that I voted no in the last election.

in the last referendum because I did not want a president

being appointed by that model.

Yeah, I favoured the Irish.

Sorry?

Why not?

Because I think that you're going to end up with a situation where

you've got now a backhanded sort of compliment to former party leaders.

Now I'm going back a hell of a long way to Hayden and those sorts, and the likes

of them, who were given the top job by the government and that sort of stuff on

the recommendation, they were given, they were given the top job by the Queen on

the recommendation of the Prime Minister.

Yep.

Now, if you've got that sort of thing that's being designed and that sort

of stuff, you end up with two thirds majority, and then it could come down

to, well, we owe such and such a job, you know, we've got to give him a job.

It'll be a job for the boys.

Exactly.

Yes.

And I honestly believe that even with the two thirds majority of

Parliament, you'd still end up with a job for the boys mentality around it.

But if it's just a ceremonial role Yeah, I know, it's a scary moment.

What's the problem with a job for the boys?

Because there's no, there's no merit based performance.

There's no KPIs you could apply to this position, is there?

No, unless of course it goes really bad as it did in November 1975.

Yeah, but we're, under the structure we're saying you can't sack the government.

Yeah, I know, we're saying, we're saying that under this new structure

that you can't sack the government.

We're saying it's purely ceremonial.

Purely ceremonial.

Yeah, under this new one it is purely ceremonial, which

I agree wholeheartedly with.

So, you know, it comes down to, you know, do we need a separate head

of state and head of government?

And I'm no longer convinced that we do.

I think that we could just have them in the one person.

That if the Prime Minister was elected by the Parliament and that sort of

stuff, then he or she becomes head of state and head of government.

Now, you've got to have a very strong constitution then, backing

that up and saying, you know, these are the sorts of things you can do,

these are the things you can't do.

And that is where I think that our current constitution would fail.

Because it's got a hell of a lot of unwritten implied stuff in there that you

rely on, what's the word I'm groping for?

A convention.

Conventions, exactly.

So you've got all these sorts of conventions and that sort of stuff

that there is no Model for they're just things that you've always done so that

is why I Not in you know, I'm prefer this model of I prefer this model of

Constitution that the ARN has come up with But I would prefer to go I would

prefer You know, I would prefer to throw the whole thing out and start with a

blank sheet of paper And actually say what are we going to do as a country?

And we've got to remap our entire constitution.

And then after that, we send that to, you know, you could probably, it's a,

it's a process that's going to take 20 years, but I would think that the thing

to do is to map out four constitutions and actually put them in a plebiscite.

And you have people come up with their most favoured plebiscite.

And then you have them as a runoff match between the existing constitution.

With the proposed Republican Constitution, which one do you prefer?

And I think that would be a better way of doing things.

Now, I'm not convinced that we need to have a separate head of

state and head of government.

You know, because it's Just do away with it.

Just do away with it entirely.

I mean, if you look at it just do away with it entirely.

If you look at it, we haven't had one for the last two and a half years.

Like, the current guy in the job Why?

What was his name?

What is his name?

He's the one who's wife.

hula hoops while reading the Bible.

Oh, Jesus Christ, that's right.

Yeah, he's a fallen military man, isn't he?

Yeah, and, and this is the thing, when he, when he got, he got,

he caught COVID just recently.

Oh, did he?

Yes.

And people are like, how's that happen?

Because this guy was the most effective isolator in the country.

Nobody had seen him for two and a half years.

So you're right.

I'm with you on that.

We don't need one at all.

If it's purely ceremonial and this guy doesn't even perform ceremonies.

Like, yeah, it's like, you know, William Dean was the last governor

general I can actually name.

No, there was that other military guy.

What was his name?

Anyway, William Dean was the last one I can name because he was the one that was

involved in that brouhaha over opening the Commonwealth, over opening the

Olympic Games and all that sort of stuff.

Yep.

Because they were throwing rocks at Howard at the time saying, well, you've

got to have your head of state open the games, so are you going to ask her majesty

to come over here and open the games?

Yeah.

And You know, he said no, we're not going to do that, so he eventually relented

and gave the job to Sir William Deane.

Yep.

The current one is David Hurley.

That's it, yeah.

In my notes here, he was raised an Anglican while

wife Linda is a Presbyterian.

They both keep fit.

Miss Hurley hula hoops while reading the Bible every morning.

But it is their faith, they say, that binds them.

Strangely enough, he hasn't turned out to be a really good governor general.

Oddly enough, yeah.

Well, it's one of those things, it's one of those positions that, provided

you don't offend anyone, you can get the gong as being a good Governor General.

Yeah.

But anyway.

And then, like, the recommendation is they put forward 11 people

for a populist vote, don't they?

Yes.

So you'd be able to do a little Google search and find out which of the 11 are

secular and which are Which are talented and who has a degree or you know,

you can line it up with your values.

Yeah That is why I prefer this that's why I prefer this model to the model

that was originally running 1999 because you've got a situation that you've got a

shortlist and that sort of stuff that's going to be put to the public And like

Shay said you can just do a Google search on them to find out what they're what

their likes and dislikes are and that sort of stuff and then you can confer

from there what their likes and dislikes are as to what type of person they are.

Mel in the chat room says probably caught it in Rebel picking up hula hoops.

Ha ha ha, oh that's good.

All right, Quintin Dempster said it appears the only viable pathway to

republic is to put the fundamental yes no referendum question first.

Do you want Australia to become republic?

Then we can decide on the model, so Can I just ask one more question?

I actually agree with that argument.

Why isn't Paul Keating on that panel?

What was that?

Why isn't Paul Keating on that panel?

Why isn't he with the ARM?

Because, this is a very harsh view of Paul, is that he likes to throw rocks at

things once they're actually contemplated.

It has been a very long time since superannuation became compulsory in

this country, but if you listen to Keating, it happened five minutes ago

and he was the architect behind it.

He designed it and he did this and he did that.

So, Paul, God love him and I do love him.

I do think he has got an overinflated opinion of his own self worth, but I agree

he should have been involved in this.

Yeah, he would have been sitting on his hands.

Breeding and that sort of stuff, saying that you, you can't do that, you've got to

go back to two thirds majority and then a two thirds majority would fail at the next

referendum as it did the first referendum.

Yeah.

So, you know, I think this is a step forward, but I don't believe it's perfect.

Mm hmm.

The other thing I was going to say with all the hot water Prince Andrew's in,

it might be a appetite for Republic.

Maybe.

Yeah.

Because when I saw this on the notes, I was like, no, no, no.

People even care about this?

It's one of those things like, you know, there's this whole, there is a whole

argument, you know, we've got to wait until Her Majesty is actually dead.

And then, you know, do you really want her son?

Charles?

No.

Her grandson?

Possibly.

But not their son, you know, it's one of those things.

Anyway, now Essential Lord Don's got a very good point here because Paul Keating

has all the charm of a striking cobra and, and he, and we hope he never changes.

Well, I understand that.

Yeah.

Well, okay, so that's enough on the Republic and really, you

know, nothing's going to happen under this present government.

No, it's not going to happen under this present government.

Yeah, and I wonder if we'll have to wait for all the boomers to die as well.

Yeah.

Probably.

Yeah.

I think so too, frankly.

I think you've got to actually wait until, uh Don't rock the boat!

Wait until the population is dead.

Before you can actually ask the question again, and then you're going to have

people like me with even greyer hair than what I've got now, arguing for something

that everyone's going to be sitting there saying, what's he talking about?

You know, it's, you know, and November 1975, well, I was only two when it

happened, but I was alive back then, Shay, you probably weren't alive, were you?

No.

Exactly.

So one of those things is that, you know, one of the seminal moments of

our political history is, you know, I'm 48 now, so it's one of those things.

I was only two when it happened.

Well, okay, um New topic, well, not a new topic, but just getting onto

COVID, I, there's interesting comments, interesting comments from the Queensland

Chief Health Officer, John Gerrard.

He said, Queensland was in an enviable position with just 27 patients

in intensive care units and six on ventilators across the state.

To put that in context, I was in Tokyo at the beginning of the pandemic, dealing

with the Diamond Princess outbreak.

Where we had 700 people infected with COVID 19, of which over 30 were on

ventilators in intensive care units.

So, that is a thing.

We sort of forget how serious it was back then.

700 people on that ship infected and 30 of them had to be on ventilators.

So, we have come a long way.

And in Queensland we've got over 100, 000 people infected and just 27 people.

In intensive care units, so the vaccines are definitely working and,

and we should keep that in mind.

Like, it's been an amazing achievement, really.

So, it is an incredible achievement.

I think it's something humanity should be proud of.

Because we did, as a species, develop it very quickly.

Yes.

Yep.

You know.

Yep.

So, there's one thing Australia can be proud of too, is the uptake.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

You know, we're at 90 percent across the country, but Queensland's getting

closer to 90 percent double vaccinated, but it's one of those things.

It's, um, you know, it's just a pity that the UQ vaccine was a

non starter and all that sort of stuff, but they are still going off,

continuing to do their research.

So they reckon they're probably going to come out with,

COVID Mark 3 vaccine in a UQ.

Yeah.

It's a real shame we didn't develop a rapid antigen test locally that we could

have used and accessed and provided.

Well, we did develop a rapid antigen test locally.

Exactly.

It's been exported to the United States now.

Exactly.

We did develop one.

It's giving me the shits.

It really is.

You know, I handed, I managed to get my hands on one rat when I was sick, and

that was from a box of five that one of the ladies at the office bought, and she

said, I've seen these at the chemist.

Do you reckon I should get them?

I said, yeah, grab a box.

We've got one left now.

We've used four of them already.

And this is just people not feeling well.

So we've given them a rapid antigen test and.

You know, I was speaking to a friend of mine who lives in Wales right now, and

she was saying tonight that she laughs at us over here because, you know,

they're swimming in rapid energy tests over there, they call them lateral flow

tests, you know, they've got them all over there, and in Germany, you can buy a

rapid energy test from a vending machine.

In France and Portugal and Spain, exactly the same.

You know, it just, I don't understand why Europe can learn from their

mistakes but Australia can't.

And this is vaccines all over again, where the government sort of said, Oh, we don't

need to do that, until shit hits the fan and they say, Oh, jeez, maybe we should

have done that, and now they're running.

Well, I've got an explanation for you, Scott.

Oh, okay.

As to why.

And according to Bernard Keane and Crikey.

Yeah.

Blame neoliberalism.

Because essentially these guys have this theory of small government.

Government's bad.

And so they've allowed government to be just white anted and reduced

and all we have now is consultants.

And so we don't have the government structure that we, other countries have

and that we used to have where we can fire things up and get things done.

So the public service has been decimated.

by this view that small government is good, big government is bad.

So there's nobody there to do the thinking and the planning,

and then, and then the delivery.

So, there's no one there.

And that's why these guys haven't planned, and even if they came up

with a plan, couldn't implement it.

Because government work has been outsourced, there's

nobody left to sort of do it.

So, I think one of the things to come from all this is a recognition

by people that, hey, actually, Having big public hospitals is good.

Having a public service available Is good, so's, and I honestly hope

that's, I honestly hope that's what's going through people's head.

Mm.

Because, you know, I don't know about down there, but up here, the

vaccinations were basically carried out by the Mackay Base Hospital.

Mm.

Now, you know, now I know we're near city of 50,000 or something like

that, but you know, we went from being the laggards of the state to

having 94.1% of us first vaccinated.

Up to 89.

4 percent of the second vaccinated.

So, you know, that's a very big achievement and it was done

through a government hospital.

So, it's one of those things.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's exemplified by this delivery of the rats where Morrison

didn't want the government to be handing them out for free because he didn't want

to undermine free enterprise, you know.

I agree, and now the ACCC is taking some of the court over price

gouging and all that sort of stuff.

Yes.

So, you know, you can't even buy the bloody things for love nor money up

here, they're just not available.

Same here.

So, so, you know, these guys, when they want to, they talk about the government

in, in like a third person, where Barnaby Joyce says, you know, I'm sick of the

government interfering in my life, I want the government to get out of my life.

Mate, you are the government.

Stop talking about it as if you're something else.

And Morrison will often do that himself as well.

So, so yeah, it's one of the more infuriating things is

to hear that Mm-Hmm mm-Hmm.

You know, because in Barnaby Joyce is, he's always been an object of derision

from me, but he's a complete nutcase now.

He has absolutely lost it.

Mm mm You know, and.

He has just, and that nonsense where he, he said, you know, I believe

the climate is changing, but it just comes down to whether or not

you pay a tax to try and stop it.

Well, you know, we've just got to look back on what actually happened.

And when the carbon tax was, well the carbon price was in there, not the carbon

tax, the carbon price was in there.

Carbon pollution actually went down.

Now that the tax is gone, carbon pollution is starting to rise again.

These guys are just hamstrung by this ideology that, you know, all tax is

bad, all government is bad, and people have been swallowing it since Reagan and

Thatcher, and it's time to spit it out.

Yeah, I agree.

It's probably, it is time.

I mean, it's beyond time, actually.

I think it's Hmm.

It's probably something that, you know, they should have experimented with in

the 80s and all that sort of stuff, but by the time the 90s come around,

I think they should have actually had a long, hard look at themselves

and said, no, this isn't working.

You know, because you can just see on the graphs and that sort of stuff.

Wages growth is flat, but the profits and the The so called

trickle down never happened.

It doesn't trickle down.

No, all it is is that, you know, all it is is the wealthy

just got bigger wine glasses.

That's to make sure that they caught everything that trickled down.

Yeah, and publicly owned infrastructure, the commons, was sold off and to

the detriment of the community.

You know, intergenerational theft, basically.

One, one generation saying we're going to sell off Parts of the Commons, for a

temporary sugar hit to our budget, our government budgets, and whoops, it's

going to be a future generations problem that the infrastructure of electricity,

internet, Water housing is no longer owned by the government, so, yeah.

Yeah, and the internet's a very good one because, you know, the government

would never have taken it on board because it was Mark Latham's idea.

But he actually wanted to split Telstra and maintain government

control over the wholesale business.

But then sell off the retail business.

And then what he would do is he'd give equal access to anyone that wanted to

sell off, sell off the retail things.

So then you would have a government infrastructure, government owned

infrastructure that would say, Oh, it's probably time that we do something

about internet services in this country.

Let's have a look at.

Fibre to the premises.

And they would have very coldly Considered the cases and that sort of stuff and they

would have realized that it was a good idea So they would have slowly rolled

it out and we would have had fibre to the premises in 90 maybe 95 percent of

the country by now And no one would have ever known it was bloody well happening.

And that's what happened in New Zealand.

New Zealand retained ownership of their telecommunications.

Right, Scott, did you see Hillsong ran an event?

Yeah, and she's always pissed off about that.

Right.

So there were laws in place saying you shouldn't be holding festivals

and having singing and dancing and, uh And they were singing and

dancing unmasked the whole lot.

Yes, but it wasn't a religious event, so It was a religious event, was it?

Yeah, so it had nothing to do with the entertainment side

of it or anything like that.

Well, that makes no sense to me because it is one of those things that you've

If it looks like a dog and quacks If it looks like a duck and quacks

like a duck, well it's a bloody duck.

And that was not a religious event, it was a It was a music festival more

than anything else, and I do think that they should have been fined for it.

Hmm.

Well, according to Michael Bradley in Crikey, the legislation was

such that the government wouldn't have won if they tried to.

Because it was legislation that applied to certain premises, and

they had to be either hospitality venues, entertainment facilities,

nightclubs, major recreation facilities.

Or music festival locations, and essentially this was done

at some sort of, uh, scout camp.

So, it wasn't any of those things.

And so, and while it might be that the kids spent all three days and nights

singing and dancing their faith away, Hillsong would say that that wasn't the

focus, and who's to second guess it?

So, according to him, an attempt at prosecution would have failed.

So, that's why they weren't.

It probably would have failed, but anyway, I just wish they'd tried it.

Scott, some, some very religious families in Toowoomba.

That's where I grew up.

Yes.

Allowed eight year old Elizabeth Struss, uh, health to decline, and she

was taken off her insulin medication a week before her death to allow

her diabetes to be healed by God.

Police will allege.

There's quite a few religious nutters in your old stomping ground.

Oh, there are.

There are a hell of a lot of religious nutters up there.

It has got worse.

I mean, it was always a fairly religious town, but it has got out of control now.

And, you know, you've got these big churches on the outskirts.

Well, it's not the outskirts anymore, but what were once on the outskirts,

they're now Part of the suburbs.

And that really made me sick, that story that I read there, because she was only

eight or something like that, wasn't she, when she was taking off her insulin?

And, you know, you've got to be able to sit down and say to yourself,

this insulin is a miracle drug.

Okay, where do miracles come from?

They come from God.

God must have, must have worked in the, must have made this man develop

this drug that keeps my daughter alive.

Yeah.

They honestly thought to themselves the sanest thing to do was to stop giving

the child insulin and have a prayer circle around the child to pray for

the child so that the child would get over it and all that sort of stuff.

Now, that crap might have worked in the United States.

I hope it doesn't work here in Australia or I would have thought that the courts

are going to throw the book at them.

And I hope they do.

I wonder where Libertarian anti vaxxers stand on this issue.

Ones who sort of say the government shouldn't be forcing people to

have vaccinations as a matter of personal liberty and freedom.

I wonder where they stand on this sort of case, how they reconcile it.

They say, oh well, go on.

One would have thought that because it's a child.

That they would have thought to themselves, well, maybe we've got to

actually go with the whole coercion thing, because a child's not old

enough to make their own mind up.

I would have thought.

Just be uncomfortable for some of these libertarian anti vaxxers who

are all about personal freedom.

The government shouldn't be telling people what to do.

I agree.

This is a classic case where we say, you know what, sometimes We, the

community, do tell people what to do.

Yes.

Absolutely.

And the only reason I agree wholeheartedly with you.

Probably the only argument or reasoning these people could try and use to

justify it would be as to the proof of the efficacy of these drugs.

And they would be saying, well, of course, kids with diabetes needs

insulin, but it's not so obvious that kids need a COVID 19 vaccine.

So it's all a question of degree then.

Anyway.

I mean, I understand that because, you know, the hospital wards aren't full

of kids, but this disease apparently is now spreading to younger kids and

that sort of stuff, so I just think to myself, well, they're going to

have to take the vaccine, aren't they?

Yeah.

Right, the Religious Discrimination Bill still being done by Michaela Cash, and she

has admitted that with what they've got as their draft that they'll come out with.

Schools will be able to sack teachers on religious grounds, so as we

mentioned before, if you are a teacher and you've had a child by IVF, and

you're at a Catholic school, and they're against the whole idea of

IVF, then they could just sack you.

And she said, yep, that's what's going to be part of the bill.

If it's part of the doctrines, tenets, beliefs or teaching of the religion.

And the employee, teacher, is against it, then, or practices a contrary

lifestyle, then it'll be up to the, uh, school, could sack them if they want to.

And the protection for students, because you'll remember when this whole thing

blew up years ago, and they talked about students and how they could be

sort of expelled from the school for being gay or things like that, and

Morrison said, I'm going to protect that, I'm not going to let it happen.

It already does, it's existing law, but I won't let it happen.

Well, they haven't done anything about it and Michaela Cash has said, we won't

be putting that protection in this bill.

So, so, after all this time and all these drafts and all this effort,

they can have all the energy to put in the bill a provision that

says schools can sack teachers.

But it's all too hard to put in a provision to say that

they can't expel gay students.

Just a terrible bunch, these guys.

Just a terrible bunch.

They're absolute pricks, aren't they?

Yep.

Nothing's improved in that regard, Scott, since we started the podcast

six years ago, whatever it was.

And here's the thing I worry about is, you know, like we were talking

the last time we discussed this about how the Labor Party capitulated.

And Joe Biden ran a small target for his election, and from some of the podcasts

I'm listening to, he hasn't been able to deliver a number of his promises.

So this is the thing, you know, small targets, and I know they have a different

system, and he's got a different system.

Yeah, they've got a different system.

But this is what I worry about, if you don't show any courage during a campaign.

Then you're not going to show any courage in government?

Exactly.

That is why it is really disappointing that Albanese has taken this

small target syndrome, I call it.

Because we could have won culture war on this bill.

We could have.

We could have.

Had they actually prosecuted the culture war, they would have won.

Now, Sky News would never concede, but they could have won.

But, you know, Sky News, if you'd really fought it And if they'd really

argued it, then you could actually turn around and say, look, Pauline Hanson's

the only one that's in favour of this.

And then the more moderates within the Liberal Party would be saying to Morrison,

you've got to walk away from this.

That's right.

And then they'd have, and then they'd have to walk away from it.

Yes.

It's one of those things that's a hell of a mess.

And I agree with you, Shea.

I think that had had Albanese actually proven himself and taken, then taken

the bull by the horns and actually argued the point then I think that

they could have won that culture war.

Yes.

But he decided to keep himself a small target syndrome, make himself a small

target, which is, he doesn't care.

He doesn't care about this issue.

He actually thinks it's fair enough.

That's the problem.

Albanese does.

Yes.

Yeah.

What did he say in his maiden speech?

He says it all the time.

I was, I was raised on, on three great faiths, you know, South

Sydney, South Sydney Football Club, Labor Party, and Catholicism.

He actually, and a fair number of his colleagues in the Labor Party,

think, think that, you know, oh it's okay, that's fair enough, school can

have an ethos if that means that.

People don't like it, go to a state school.

Like, they actually just don't care that much, I reckon.

Well, that's why it's You know, it's one of those things that I find incredibly

frustrating about Albanese is that, you know, he doesn't want to fight anything

You know, and because he just wants to be this pussy, pardon the language,

but he is And I do apologize to anyone that's listening that doesn't like

that sort of language, but he has been behaving like a pussy He has not fought,

he has not fought any of the fights, he has not taken anything up to the

government, and it's one of those things that I find incredibly disappointing.

Now you compare that to Shorten, who, he took a very detailed plan to the

public, and he got criticised, he got crucified for it, and he lost the

election, but he lost the election fair and square against the government.

Now, you know, Morrison was telling half truths the whole way through it.

But!

It's one of those things, like, you know, better to go down swinging.

I agree.

And to fall over the line with a victory without having,

without having thrown a punch.

Yeah.

Exactly.

You just like, we just keep, it feels like we just keep learning the wrong lesson.

Like Bill Shorten came with some really good, strong policies.

I really see how we could be in such a different position now if

some of those had been implemented.

But it was his inability to persuade the people.

Yeah.

And you know, it's absolutely ridiculous.

Like you've got this situation that, um.

You know, I'm not talking out of school here.

My old man's worth a few pennies.

And he actually said to us, he wrote in his email and he says, now if Labor

wins this, the next election, you're going to have to reduce your, you're

going to have to reduce your, um, inheritance expectations by 35 grand each.

And I thought to myself, you know, because he'd actually gone and calculated and he

said, well, you know, this is the amount of money I get back from my refunded

share, my refunded imputation credits.

Right.

And I thought to myself.

Dad, that's a hell of a lot of cash that you are stealing from

the Commonwealth, basically.

You know, he's not paying any tax because he's got everything going through

his super and all that sort of stuff.

He's a fair age and all that sort of stuff.

I don't have a problem with him getting his income tax free.

But I do have a problem with him double dipping and saying, well, those

imputation credits, they're mine.

No, they never were yours.

They were Supposed to be a refund of income tax paid to prevent the double

taxation of, of corporate profits.

Did you talk about that over the dinner party at Christmas time that year?

No.

No, absolutely not.

You know, it's one of those things, you just don't have that discussion

with him because he just gets angry and he's 86 or whatever he is.

Right.

And I just thought to myself, you know, and you won't understand, you won't

even look at the history of it all.

Because imputation credits only became refundable back when Howard and Costello

were so embarrassed by the rivers of gold that were flowing into Canberra

that they had to find new and inventive ways to give some of the money back.

So they said, let's, let's make imputation credits refundable.

Oh, okay.

You know, now that was only 15 years ago that they did that.

Yeah.

You know, talking to dad, you'd swear that they'd come through

with their guns and they said, give me your imputation credits.

You know, it's one of those things that I find ridiculous.

Anyway, sorry.

That's what they heard.

Overwhelmingly.

That's what people heard.

That's my retirement.

Get your hands off my retirement.

Yeah, I know.

And now had they actually, had they actually looked at that

and thought to themselves, if they get the imputation credits.

And they, Alison, I understand you get a refund of your imputation

credits, but I'm sure it's probably because of your income, not so from

your holdings and that sort of stuff.

But had they have actually looked at it and thought to themselves, well,

the government's going to end up with 5 billion in their accounts if they don't

have to spend this, if they don't have to spend this on imputation credits.

Then they could have raised the level of part pensions and that sort of stuff.

So you could have actually given a little bit more out.

You know, it's one of those things that I've found incredibly frustrating.

Anyway, yeah, so Not bad policy, but terrible salesmanship.

That was the problem for Labor.

And this might be about to happen again, like what Jack says here about,

I suppose after hearing from previous PMs, being a small target for Murdoch may

be a different and possibly good play.

From where I'm standing, Albo's policy on safe and secure work, so

secure work, same job, same pay, particularly in my line of work right

now, we really need that policy.

And it's landing for flight attendants.

But on Facebook, Twitter, which I know is mostly trolls, but you do

get a sense of public sentiment.

People who are in secure work, don't care about people in insecure work.

So it could be another wedgeable thing where Scott Morrison

goes, these are pretty good.

So Albo is going to have to persuade the people who it won't affect

that it's still good for them.

Yeah, I agree.

Yeah, and they're just lacking salesmanship, I think.

Yeah.

Yep.

Mind you, he's lost a lot of weight, so he's looking good.

Yeah, well, I've lost 35 kilos too, you know, it's one of those things.

Yeah, yeah.

Hey, um.

Just back to Ireland, I mean, we think things are bad here.

Do you know in Ireland, Catholic schools account for 89 percent

of primary schools in the state?

Yeah, I did read that and that was really very unfortunate.

Yes.

And they've got a, um, they've got a argument going on over there right now.

Where the Irish, Irish, Irish Atheist or something like that is actually arguing

that whole point and saying that, uh, they're arguing for the UN to go in

and have a look at them, aren't they?

Well, what they're arguing for is they want at least the

children be able to leave the classroom during religion classes.

Yeah.

So it seems like, Alison and Julia, that in Ireland, not only is 89 percent of the

school's Catholic, the kids can't leave the classroom during the religion class.

So, so yeah, that's, that's what's going on in Ireland.

Property prices, Scott.

Yeah, I know.

I just sold my house.

Yes.

And no doubt for an obscene amount of money.

And let's just It wasn't obscene at all.

It was quite legitimate.

Yeah.

It was quite legitimate.

It was quite legitimate.

It was quite legitimate.

So, there's an article here, from class divide to intergenerational

theft, Australia's real estate frenzy leaves many behind.

So, there's a story here about an unrenovated, semi detached home in

Bondi, recently sold for more than 2.

7 million.

And it had last sold, or traded, back in the 1950s, 70 years ago.

A thousand quid, wasn't it?

So, at that time, a thousand, yeah, a thousand pounds at that time.

So, it's in mint original condition.

Three bedroom home, so it's basically the original home, very, very well kept.

In fact, I'll put a picture of it up on the screen with a

bit of luck, let's try that.

So There you go, that's the bathroom.

Neat and tidy, but original in many respects, obviously.

Yeah, I haven't seen pink like that for a long time.

Yes, that's right.

And I mean, this is one of the other rooms.

Nothing fancy about that.

Neat and tidy, but it's just a room.

So, so basically, mint original condition is a good description for it.

And, let's get that off the screen, last traded 1950s for a

thousand pounds, and it sold for 2.

7 million dollars.

Now, had it merely tracked the consumer price index, or basic inflation rate,

over the last 68 years, then its sale price would have been 37, 000.

So if it had merely just kept pace with inflation, it

should have sold for 37, 000.

That tells you what's the craziness that has happened to property prices

in the last 70 years in Australia.

And, uh, some more statistics along those lines.

Saul Eslake, he's a really good economist here in Australia.

He says what's really striking is the decline in home ownership rate

among people under the age of 45.

He's surprised there isn't more anger from young Australians about

being locked out of owning a home.

I'm surprised too.

I'm surprised people aren't angry.

Why don't you think we are angry?

Because I, at parties, where I talk to young people, say to them about these

things, and I say, why aren't you angry?

So I ask, I ask people, I tell them, this is what's going on.

Why aren't you angry?

Don't they say the same old?

I don't know, they just We've got bigger problems, Trevor.

We've got a climate change crisis.

Yeah, well We've got a lot of shit to handle.

You know Well, don't you think that you can chew gum and walk at the same time?

Scott, let her go on.

No, I think that you've got No, if the government has a problem, they

can sort out housing affordability, and we'll sort out the climate crisis.

Or you can get out of the way!

Well, if you leave it up to the boomers, then nothing's going to happen.

That's right.

No, because, okay, I'm not a, okay, I am 48, which, no, I'm

not a boomer, I'm still Gen X.

Yeah.

But, I've just sold my house that I bought in 1997 for an obscene amount of money.

And I can assure you, dear listener, it's, it wasn't a palace, by any means.

No, it was not a palace.

It, you know, it was one of those places that, when I found out what the land value

was and all that sort of stuff, I said to my mates, I said, changing a light

bulb in this place is overcapitalizing.

And that was what I lived by.

The place was a tip.

It's one of those things, it just, and I sold it at auction and that sort of stuff.

And I was getting very close to the reserve price.

And the agent rang me up and he says, look, we're probably going

to hit the, hit the ceiling here.

What do you want to do?

And I said, look, just sell it.

And he came out with those magic words, okay, we're on the market.

And then after that, the price shot up and the price just kept

going up and going up and going up.

So I had no choice.

You know, it's one of those things I've sold it.

Now.

I bought that place in 1997.

I did nothing to it.

It's one of those things, it's just the craziness is it would've gone

up 25 to 30% in the last 12 months.

Oh, absolutely.

For sure.

That's the insanity of what's going on.

Yeah, exactly.

And that was the whole point.

I mean, I was expecting, I was expecting that real estate would go backwards with

the recession and that sort of stuff.

But it hasn't, the real estate has continued to go up, none

of which makes any sense.

Sharni?

I don't, I don't get, get the point, the point for me is, is that, like,

it's not even, it's starting to become not even in the realm of

possibility for young people, that's why they're shrugging their shoulders.

Yeah, they're a bit like the character.

Yeah, and that's a very good point, that is a very good point.

That is.

So we've gotta, we've got all this other stuff that's gotta happen first, like.

Managing the temperature, managing the climate.

I think that the climate and that sort of stuff can be done at the same time.

I agree.

I agree, but we had a value shift.

Hmm.

Now I'm just not sure what you can do with that because, you know, I've sold that

place for an obscene amount of money now.

Which is fine.

Now, I know what's going to happen, you know, the bloke's going to

drive a D4 through my front door and he's not going to stop until

he hits the rear boundary fence.

And then he's going to bulldoze the place and he's going to split the block in two.

Which is fine.

But, you know, that would then mean that even after you develop the place

and that sort of stuff, you put two houses on there, you're going to want

to sell each of those houses for 1.

to break even.

You know, that's the sort of money that we're talking about, that

they're actually paying for land.

Now, you know, the real estate, it was very good and that sort of stuff.

On the night, he said, he said, well, he said, ladies and gentlemen, you

know, they're not making any more land in Mount Gravatt, which is very true.

Land is not, you can't make more land.

It's one of those things.

Now, I was extraordinarily lucky.

There's no doubt about that.

I was very lucky.

You know, I had my father and that sort of stuff at the time

who, He loaned me the money to buy the place and that sort of stuff.

I paid him back with interest.

I was charged interest.

There was no doubt about that.

But it's one of those things, it's, I did buy that place at the right time.

And I think I've sold it at the right time too.

Yeah.

Because, you know, I But Chey, you know you said like, oh, people are worried

about climate change and other things.

It's kind of the same issue in that, in that they're both intergenerational

theft to some extent where, where earlier generations are taking

advantage of things at the expense of subsequent generations, so.

I agree, earlier generations were driving around in V6 and V8 cars.

Yep, so, I just, I just don't understand.

Well, in the chat room here, um, let me see.

Jill says, apparently John Howard said words to the effect of no one ever came

up to him in the streets and complained that their house sold for too much money.

And that's quoted in Paul Keating's biography.

And that's true.

But we're going to get to the point where there's a whole bunch of people who can't

actually own a house who are going to be, who should be getting angry if somebody

was to communicate to them long and loud enough and say, Hey you, wake up.

This is what's happening to you.

You shouldn't be happy about this.

You should be angry.

At the moment, both parties pander to house owners and they're not

prepared to run that argument.

So people People haven't been made aware that they're being shafted.

Sometimes you don't know when you're being shafted.

Yeah.

You have to wake up.

It's like if you're working in a job and you suddenly find out your

colleague doing the same job is getting paid more money than you.

Up until that point you might have been very happy, but suddenly you're really

angry and really pissed and you go, What?

I'm being shafted.

Yeah.

Well, I guess the only thing to say is I'm in the housing market too.

And it was kind of timing as well.

So KevDraad started a scheme called the First Time Savers account.

So if you put in.

Such and such amount of money, he'd put a huge amount of interest on top.

When Tony Abbott came in, he abolished the scheme.

It didn't get a good take up.

I'm not sure why.

I thought it was a really good scheme because you were practicing saving

your money and then the government was assisting you with your savings.

So I am just, I've just bought a little dump in the right suburb, combined

that with the timing around First Time Savers scheme and that sort of stuff.

But it actually is kind of added to the problem, hasn't it?

Yeah, well, those schemes do add to the problem.

Yep.

I mean, this doesn't happen in other countries like this.

Housing isn't the investment vehicle in other countries like it is here.

It's quite unusual.

So, it's, it's a little bit like gun control in the United States,

where we say, you guys are crazy, and they go, what do you mean?

This is normal.

Well, people look at us and go, you're crazy.

It's not normal.

So, people just don't understand.

So then, the people who don't, the people who can't get in the housing

market, they get angry, then what?

They should then vote for a party that's going to do something about it.

Neither of the parties are actually going to do anything about it.

You've already said that.

Correct.

Now, I, you know, I don't know where we can go from here because, you know,

my house was just a tip, but it's sold for an obscene amount of money.

Now, you know, you can't Actually say to someone that's just paid an obscene

amount of money, you paid too much, we're going to reduce the price by 40%.

You can't.

Do you know what age the buyer was?

Sorry?

Do you have any information on what age the buyer was?

No, I couldn't tell you.

You know, he works in the real estate industry and all that sort of stuff.

You know, he's just, he bought the block of dirt.

We've had a house on it, so he's just got to demolish it, which is fine.

You know, I just want pictures when they actually push the place over.

Just according to this article, between the years immediately after World War II

and the early 1970s, houses basically cost three times average male annual earnings.

And that ratio didn't really change much over a period of almost 30

years, according to Sol Eslake.

So the question is, what's changed?

And one of the things that's changed is It used to be really hard to get

a loan in that you needed a really large deposit and banks would, were

reluctant to, to lend to people.

So, you know, banking was heavily controlled.

And that's not the case anymore, so, whereas people used to have to

have huge deposits, up to a third of the value of the property, and

banks were extremely conservative about how much they would lend.

They used to actually, my brother actually said once that they used to look at just

one, if you went in as a married couple, they would look at the income of the man,

and they would ignore whatever the women had made and that sort of stuff, because

the assumption was, well she's going to drop out of the workforce and have babies.

Yes.

Now, that's one of the things that made it a hell of a lot harder for people

to buy because you know you had to be looking just at the male's income.

So that is probably one of the reasons why house prices have gone up

because as banks have been, as banks have increased lending, then that

has increased the ability to buy.

Borrow.

Borrow, which has then led to the increased ability to buy, and that

has had a hell of an uplift on prices.

So I'm not sure what you do with that.

You can't go back and say we, you've got to actually calculate

this based on the male's income.

You know, you can't say that.

But it's one of those things that has hurt the, uh, it has hurt the ability of people

to go into housing for the first time.

It's a very difficult problem to fix now with so many people now

heavily committed to large loans.

It's a really difficult one to deal with.

Of course, one of the reasons why, see, the thing about housing is it's

not just the normal laws of supply and demand, it's interest rates.

And we've got historically low interest rates and interest rates,

of course, tied up with inflation.

And, here's something to bear in mind, dear listener, uh, Scott, U.

S.

inflation rate for the last 12 months, do you know what it was?

It was 6 or 7 percent, was it?

Yeah, 7 percent.

Yeah.

That's pretty high.

It's very high.

That's, that's getting up there.

So, so that's, that's the highest it's been in four decades.

So, Australia and see what the wages actually do.

Australia, 3 percent.

But, the whole idea of interest rates being so low, if inflation keeps moving

along, expect to see interest rates moving and then expect to see problems

in the housing market, potentially.

Right.

Just briefly, we mentioned, Scott, you would have heard me over the

years rabbiting on about submarines.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

So now it's going to be tanks.

This tanks issue, it's even crazier on the face of it than the submarines.

You can mount some argument for the submarines, but tanks that we've never

used and we're replacing a fleet of them.

But here's the thing, dear listener, that I came across, was that eight

months ago, the United States Defense Security Cooperation Agency put out a news

release, basically saying that they're approving a possible military sale to the

Government of Australia for these tanks.

And it listed them!

The 75 M1A2 SEP V3 Abrams Main Battle Tanks, 29 M1A2s.

I 50 or M1 I sold a whole bunch of them.

Anyway, the price quoted in that was Let me find the figure here.

Why can't I find this figure here?

2.