In this episode we discuss:

(00:00) Ep 367

(00:40) Introduction

(05:30) Joe Was Right

(08:35) Robodebt

(12:36) Submarines 49%

(15:43) Timor Gap Continued

(19:48) War Power

(22:08) Perrottet on Confessions

(26:34) Population Cap

(29:06) China's Human Rights Record

(34:35) Patrons

(38:41) Trans Assault

(43:31) Oil and the Petro-Dollar

(45:54) Qld 3 Billion Dollar Bonus

(46:50) Oil and Gas Price Cap

(59:59) 2022 Review

(01:15:32) Farewell for 2022

How to support the Podcast

Make a per-episode donation via Patreon

or

Donate through Paypal

and

tell your friends.

Chapters, images & show notes powered by vizzy.fm.

Suburban Eastern Australia.

An environment that has over time evolved some extraordinarily

unique groups of Homo Sapians.

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

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

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

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

Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

Yes, dear listener, you need to sit back and listen to the Iron

Fist and the Velvet Glove podcast for the very last time in 2022.

This is the last episode.

I, I need a break.

I've decided.

Joe, you asked me a couple of weeks ago, when are we having a break?

And I wasn't too sure.

Yep.

But I decided yesterday I've had enough.

I've gotta stop.

Perfect.

So I'm Trevor, aka a, the Iron Fist.

Joe normally tunes in about 15 minutes early, but he literally

tuned in with running little eight.

Yeah.

So welcome aboard Joe.

Thanks for being here.

Well, dear listener, if you're in the chat room, say hello.

Yes.

A podcast as usual about news and politics and sex and religion and , a

few topics to get through, but being the last episode for the year

might be a little self-indulgent.

Talk about ourselves a little bit, maybe do a bit of a review.

I didn't tell you about this Joe, but I sort of quickly went through

roughly some of the things we've talked about over the past 12 months.

Thought we'd rehash some of them or go over them.

So we'll do that at some stage and see how we go.

So, oh dear.

Just out on our past bullshit.

Yes.

Well, we didn't make too many predictions.

Okay.

So that was good.

Yeah.

We'll leave predictions until the first show in January.

So there's fair warning for you, Joe, between now and then you have

to make some 2023 predictions.

I don't know, January, 2022 was, I don't think anybody predicted that Putin was

gonna invade Ukraine, causing a massive oil and gas issue that the Nord stream

pipe mines would be blowing up by parties unknown and just throw the world, sort of

energy markets into chaos, if anyone did.

That was a good pick.

Yeah.

Well, hopefully they placed bets in the right stock markets.

Yes.

Anyway so yes, I'm gonna take a break at least three weeks I think.

So I'm going to, as soon as the show's finished.

Reach for my phone and delete Twitter, delete Facebook, delete my RSS feed

reader, delete everything, and just not look at anything for a few weeks de detox.

And I don't think much is gonna happen anyway, Joe.

Yeah, I'd be careful with predictions like that.

. Yeah.

That's this country after, after Melbourne Cup Day.

Mm-hmm.

and until Australia Day, the country stops effectively in many ways.

Anyway, we'll see what happens.

Deleting those.

If you're signed up to the newsletter, you won't be seeing anything fresh

on the newsletter, but stay signed up because it'll kick off again next year.

Next year plans.

I'm actually almost certainly doing a second podcast, which will be one about

art supplies, a very niche topic of people who work in art supply stores.

about the ins and outs and chemistry and physics of art supplies.

So not one for the general public, but I'm pretty, I'm sure it'll be Worthing

Thanks Joe.

And I also think I might do a second podcast where I just take bits and pieces

outta this podcast and create a second one maybe with the sort of Australian specific

content removed and make something that's a bit more appealing to international

audiences and more bite sized pieces.

So, something like that.

I'm toying with the idea of there's all sorts of interesting stuff

you can do with podcasts now.

And I feel if I had a second podcast I could play around with that, some

of that stuff thinking about that.

Anyway.

Speaking of interesting stuff in podcasting, I am now doing chapters

on this podcast, so you should on your app, be able to look at chapters.

I might have mucked it up slightly last week, but anyway you'll see hopefully

on your podcast app, a list of chapters.

So if you wanna scoot through some topics say when we read out the patron's names

and you are not one of them and you don't wanna hear the names, you could

just skip that section, for example.

So, and also also you're trying to torture people.

Yeah.

. That's right.

No, we're trying to make them feel guilty.

That's what we're trying to do.

Guilt trip them.

Yeah.

And also with the chapters, you can put images there, so sometimes if I talk

about a graph or something like that, have a look at your phone in your app

and there's half a chance if I'm talking about a graph or an image that it might

be appearing in the podcast app itself.

So all that sort of stuff.

Joe, nobody's in the chat room at this stage.

They're all at Christmas parties.

So what's happening?

There's three people watching now.

There's three people Who are the three people who are watching?

Please just say hello and tonight you've got a good chance of

having any comments read or just a hello greeting cooled out to you.

So please say hello.

It'd be good to know all the people who are in the chat room.

Right Joe, you appreciate.

So remember dear listener, when we talked about the National Anti-Corruption

Commission, and one of the things we spoke about was that the commission

would have the power to make findings of corrupt conduct and refer their findings

to the director of Public prosecutions and the Australian Federal Police.

And you, Joe said, Hmm, dunno about the Australian federal police.

Dunno how good that'll be.

Mm-hmm.

, I was like, I was kind of like, what do you mean the police force?

They're on our side.

It all sounds, why, why are you so cynical?

Joe?

Is what I wanted to say.

Uhhuh.

And now we've got this thing with the Brittany Higgins Bruce Luhrman trial where

the chief prosecutor in the trial has complained that police officers engaged

in a very clear campaign to pressure him not to prosecute the alleged rape, saying

there was inappropriate interference and he felt investigators clearly aligned with

the successful defense on this matter.

And that's on a simple, well, I wanna say simple, but it's not normally

a highly political matter, a sort of a right trial, although it does

implicate the actions of the minister in cleaning the office and mm-hmm.

other bits and pieces, but it's not as political as some things could get.

Like what you mean?

Like, arresting ABC journalists going through all that

stuff, looking for a source.

That the AFP have done in the past.

Yes, yes.

That's right.

Where, where they were alleged to be LMP lackeys at that point.

Yeah.

So it was merely, it's merely a long memory not being prescient.

Yeah.

Well you you've got a good memory, Joe.

Yeah.

And well done because I didn't spot it, but you did.

And so yeah, this, this Brittany Higgins, Bruce Leman matter really

highlights, like this is quite extraordinary for the QC to make these

allegations about the police conduct.

Really, really, actually is a Casey now, Casey?

Yes.

Yes, it would be.

So, actually it depends on the, I'm just trying to think now.

I know in the UK all the QCs became Caseys overnight.

Yeah, they did.

But I'm just trying to think here.

At some point it swapped an se Yes.

Which apparently is Australian.

Yes, that's right.

Where we took away the sort of Queens council so it wouldn't change anyway.

Quite extraordinary.

So we'll see what happens from that.

And then the Australian Federal Police Association did a counter

report where they mm-hmm.

Reported the director of public prosecutions to a Canberra watchdog

because apparently he hurt their fifis.

Mm-hmm.

It's a bit of tit for tat in referring people to bodies,

like I said, on the work for the anticorruption commissions coming up.

Hmm.

So well done, Joe.

You spotted that one.

Oh, in the chat room.

Bronn.

Good on you.

Brahman.

Hello.

So we've also had Joe Robo debt hearings and It's been great because

people are getting grilled and they're not allowed to just fob off.

And say, I, I reject the premise of your question.

You move on because and reject your reality and insert my own.

That's right.

Or I'll just fob around and say any old bullshit and and then the

press conference will be over.

But that's not how this works because they stop and they just say, well, you're not

answering the question and you'll attempt.

Yes.

So Ben Elham and Twitter said The real value of the robo inquiry

is to make unaccountable public servants everywhere Absolutely.

Shit their pants at the prospect of having a Casey methodically go through every

single work email they ever wrote and make them testify under oath for two days.

I reckon that's a good point.

I think you would hope if it's senior public servants.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

. Yes.

I mean the plebs I don't think really have any power.

No, but you know what?

They might be encouraged to write that email off the chain

to say, to cover their asses.

Just pointing out, I told you in this meeting the following situation for the

record, and it's there in black and white.

I, I, I know someone who went to work for the state government from private

industry, been in private industry for 30 years, and apparently he became

unpopular cuz I think at one meeting he went, well one, will you not just

fucking shut up and make a decision because they were just buck passing.

Nobody was willing to make a decision in case they got called on it.

Yes.

Yeah.

I had a friend, years and years ago who was a qualified accountant,

moved into law and ended up in a law firm and there was a matter on.

Some sort of taxation advice.

And he was, cuz he'd only just started in a law, a relatively junior lawyer and

the senior partner was telling him, no, that's not the advice we're gonna give.

And he he said, that's fine.

I'm just gonna put a big file note here saying, I said something quite

different and you are saying this and it's gonna be very clear to anybody

looking at the file whose advice this was.

And that was enough to make the senior partner think, think

twice and change the advice.

Okay.

So cover your ass emails and file notes what you need to do.

And yeah, hopefully it might encourage people to to do more

of that and might scare some people with power into thinking.

Crikey, I might end up in front of some inquiry at some stage.

I better treat this seriously.

Whatever.

It's, we can only hope cuz up here in Queensland we've also had Joe

the There's a lab here responsible for DNA testing, so I hear you.

The problem is they haven't really been doing DNA testing

the way it should be being done.

And so there's been an inquiry here and just again, proving hopeless

administration and, and just terrible procedures and, and just dozens and

dozens of cases where, where DNA evidence has not been properly assessed and

potentially dozens of criminals getting away with it and this organization

fobbing off police and saying, oh, we weren't able to find anything or we

weren't able to, wasn't enough evidence on the clothing or whatever when mm-hmm.

when police are going, that seems strange cuz it looked like a

fair amount of evidence on there.

So that's another case of public service performing badly.

So.

What's Broman say here?

When I was a junior public servant, one of the first things I was told was to

always put my advice on the fire and not take the fall from the minister.

I think attitudes have changed slightly and it now takes some courage to do that

as it potentially exposes the minister.

Hmm.

So there we go.

Right.

Well, can't finish the year off without another mention of

submarines and the ongoing saga that is submarines in this country.

I, I thought the chaser had done something about us renting submarines, wasn't it?

I don't know.

I didn't see it.

We were gonna, the Americans money accrue it with American crew and Yes.

I think I read that out one out last week.

Yeah.

How at the middleman, let's just get them to, to pay for it, crew it, and

record it and, and, and store it.

Air waters.

But what you would think the following article is a Chase article.

It's so outrageous, but it is true.

So one of the most powerful Republicans in the United States Congress has ruled

out the possibility that Australia could buy several US-made submarines.

And this has always been a problem to dear listener, that they can't make

'em fast enough for themselves, let alone squeeze out a few more for us.

This has been known one forever.

So he said this Republican senator Republican congressman, that's not

gonna happen, said Rob Whitman.

Now he's the most senior Republican on the House Armed Services

Committees C Power Subcommittee sounds like the right committee

for dealing with making submarine.

He said the US could not afford to interrupt its own submarine

production to make way for Australia.

He said, quote, I don't see how we're going to build a submarine and

sell to Australia during that time.

So far so good.

That all makes sense.

He goes on, he could see an arrangement working.

Sit down for this one, dear listener, where the US built a submarine that

operated in Australia's area of responsibility and was meant by a dual

crew of sailors from both nations.

It won't belong to Australia, but it'll still be an asset that

they have that element of control with, and I think we can do that.

He said it may be that the US needs to have a 51% control and

command in Australia has 49%.

He says, he quote, listen, in an emergency, it will come back to the

United States, but if it is an emergency, Australians are probably going to want

the United States to be able to have that.

But of course now, because America has always taken care of Australia's defense.

That's right.

You know, Scott Morrison would've jumped at it and said, that's a great deal.

We, we, we get at a half price.

Hopefully the Labor Party is not so stupid, but I'm not so sure.

I'm not so sure.

Cuz there's, they seem to be swallowing the American line

on defense a lot of the time.

Mm-hmm.

. So actually a number of these first topics, dear listeners, are sort

of all continuation of stories that we've done in the past to some extent.

That was submarines continued.

This is Timor Gap continued.

So as I mentioned, labor has decided to drop the prosecution of Bernard.

Now, I think I always say Col Colory, but it's Kri I think.

Anyway, Bernard Colleary, they've decided to drop that prosecution.

But when it was running and Lia Cash was in charge there was this

argument about the evidence and how much of it could be revealed.

And even some of it was not even revealed to, to Killary himself.

And it went to a Supreme the a c t Court of Appeal who said it should

be revealed the evidence in court.

And that was then appealed to the high court.

But it was all put on sort of hold.

And then Drefus has decided to terminate the prosecution, but he

still wants this stuff kept secret and he's somehow got the ACT's chief

justice to review the whole thing.

So it's back in the a c t deciding how much of the evidence could

be released even though the prosecution has a been abandoned.

So Kary believes that the Albanese government is encased by the same circle

of security advisors in and out of the public service who orchestrated the

moves against Witness K and himself.

And he thinks that Drefus is probably accepting the advice that he not allow

publication of this material because of advice from the ACEs director General

Paul Simmons, a retired army general and former head of defense intelligence.

Ary says, when you've got an ex warrior, albeit with no actual experience in

the trade, you've got a man of that sort of standing who's advising you

that publishing it would be in the sort of prejudicial to national security.

You accept that advice Cleary tells me, not tells him, but it's trite.

According to Cleary, it was Carkey dressage.

And Kari wants a royal commission and it should encompass not only

that Asis bugging operation, but also issues of utter, utter treachery.

He says that he hasn't been at liberty to reveal previously.

Interesting.

So possibly giving information to the Indonesians about the, who

knows, utter, utter treachery.

He says.

So on the face of it.

A Royal Commission should appeal to the new labor government, but it doesn't

seem to be falling on fertile ground.

And one reason might be that when Labor was empowered during the Rudd

Gillard years, they might have been doing naughty stuff as well that

would come out in Oral Commission.

Right.

And also, wouldn't it be seen to be political?

So they need to be careful how many True political Royal Commissions.

True.

I mean, the Robo one was the one we really wanted.

. Yeah.

Well, yes.

I mean, I'd like to see this one anyway, according to this article, well, if you

can't have a Royal Commission, maybe they could do it as I referring it to the

New National Anti-Corruption Commission.

They could be a bit more.

But you know, national Defense, the anti-corruption commission

couldn't possibly, well, couldn't do it publicly, could it?

No.

Anyway.

We'll see what happens.

According to the end of this article, it says, this would put targets on

the back of Downer, Alexander Downer, who later accepted a consultancy from

Woodside Petroleum and the late Ashton Culvert, who was Secretary of Foreign

Affairs, who supervised ASIS at the time of bugging and on retirement,

became a director of Woodside.

Now still on defense matters briefly from an article in Crikey.

There is a the def, let me just see.

There's a parliamentary inquiry examining the reform of the war powers.

So at the moment, a Prime Minister can just consult with two or three of his

best mates and send us off to war and.

People have been calling for that to change, where there shouldn't at least

be a vote in the parliament, both houses.

The problem is you have to recall Parliament.

Mm-hmm.

So yeah, that takes time.

And the point was, if we needed to go to war quickly mm-hmm.

Country was attacked.

Mm-hmm.

But when have we needed to go work quickly?

Like all the last wars we've been in have been overseas.

We had plenty of time to bring everybody into the Parliament and make the decision.

They hadn't been that urgent, that we couldn't have gathered everyone in

the parliament and made the decision.

I think the idea, idea is if we were to ever have our own Pearl Harbor.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, okay.

You could make it if Australia is attacked on our own soil.

Okay.

The Prime Minister and, and Parliament is not sitting.

Mm-hmm.

The you know, okay, let the prime ministry's best mates make

the decision if you need to.

But if it's an overseas battle, or if it's one where we're actually

parliament sitting and everybody's there, get everyone together, make the

decision anyway, the Defense Department put in a submission, and guess what?

They don't wanna change the current system.

They like the current system.

Mm-hmm.

. Yeah.

Because I think they like, they like going to war Joe.

If you are in the defense department and you want to I mean

that's what the whole point is.

If you're there, you want to go to war, you're quite disappointed.

If you were in defense during a period where there's no wars, yeah.

How are you gonna earn stripes and stars and, and other stuff.

Yeah.

You want to go to war until you've been in a war and then you don't.

Yes.

Or you're gonna be sitting in an office back in Canberra.

Yeah.

Anyway, so that's the war powers.

Joe there's only, I mean, federally and in the states all those governments,

there's only two now that are not labor.

One of them is New South Wales.

And current premier Dominic Perk took over from Gladys Bean and

after she was badly, badly treated by the anti-corruption commission.

Yes, indeed.

And so this is the premier of New South Wales.

I reckon if the labor opposition just plays this tape over

and over, surely this should.

Make him unelectable.

Anyway, let's go with him speaking.

A little while ago, territory to pass laws requiring priests and other religious

ministers to breach the confessional seal to report cases of child abuse.

Now I understand the motivation and the rationale for this legislation,

as I'm sure everyone here does.

As a Catholic, I find a sexual abuse and subsequent cover ups that have gone on

in the church are crushing betrayal, not only of the victims, but of believers too.

We all share in the responsibility to combat the plague of sexual

abuse of children and minors and make sure it never happens again.

And at the same time though, we need to be clear about what this kind of law does.

It compels and a threat of imprisonment, ministers of religion to violate

their conscience in a way that is so grave that will result in their

summary expulsion from their church.

That isn't just a matter of preference, it's a matter of deep theological

conviction that the confessional seal is sacrosanct for every priest.

In every penitent, no matter who, and no matter what sins are confessed,

it is an essential doctrine for many Christian denominations.

And no state legislator can change that fact.

But if governments claim the authority to outlaw one religious

doctrine, it's only a matter of time before they will outlaw others.

So each of these examples reflect changes that are taking place right now

and suggest the prognosis for religious freedom in Australia is not good.

We've reached a point where, in a very practical, tangible ways, Christians

are being forced to, to, to choose, to serve either God or is that someone

you want in charge of your state, Joe?

Well, doesn't the Bible say render unto God?

What is God's render unto Caesar?

What is Caesars?

Mm-hmm.

But also, you know, I, I understand their reticence, but they're

not even meeting us halfway.

Mm-hmm.

They don't say absolution.

In cases of confession of child abuse would be withheld.

Withheld unless you go and confess all to the police.

Right.

Which yeah.

Is a simple thing to say that is a, a prerequisite of, of absolution.

Mm-hmm.

And, and I, you can still keep your seal of confession and just say, well, you've

come and confessed it to me, but, you know, if you want to be absolved of these

sins, you have to go and fess up, not just to somebody who can't tell anyone.

Mm-hmm.

But yeah.

Faced the music for it because there was that priest who thinks he

confessed whatever it was a thousand times and went on to abuse again.

Yes.

Every time.

Yes.

Because he's, because his conscience was clear.

Because he'd been forgiven.

Mm-hmm.

, the danger with that, Joe, is I don't think it's acceptable for a police, a

priest to say, well, I'm not going to.

Absolve you of your sins.

But I'm I'm also not gonna tell on you.

I just doesn't cut it for me.

So it's not a halfway mark to me.

You know, it's, but, but they're saying we're just gonna keep Yeah.

And we're gonna grant you absolution.

Yes.

We, we will, we will dis communicate, what is it?

Dis communi.

Excommunicate.

We will excommunicate a 12 year old for having an abortion.

Mm-hmm.

But we will not excomm communicate her rapist for, for making her pregnant.

Mm-hmm.

There you go.

Catholics.

Yeah.

I was in the system 12 years.

Mm-hmm.

Six people in the chat room and only Bronwyn has said, hello.

Come on.

It's the last show for 2022.

Just say hello.

You don't make any other comment than that, just so we can see who you are.

I'm very curious to know who you are.

There's only five now.

One left.

Yeah.

You've scared him off.

Yeah, I have, haven't I?

Okay.

Right.

That's Dominic perk.

Good luck New South Wales, getting rid of him when the time comes.

Mm.

There was an article on the John Meninge blog.

It was by Steven Williams, who's very active in the sustainability

sort of world, and he was talking about a, a paper.

Robin Bristow is there.

I'll Good on you, Robin.

A a discussion paper written by a Catholic historian Paul Collins and this guy,

despite being Catholic, this Paul Collins.

He's the author of 15 books, former editor of Religion and Ethics at

the abc, but he actually has a very strong argument about the world's

population level and what it can accept.

And he says that the planet could support 3 billion people in modest

comfort, not the current 8 billion.

And anyway, in this article Collins's figure of 3 billion is similar to

Cambridge UK Economist who quotes 3.2 billion and another expert in Canada,

a William Reese who puts it at between one and 2 billion for the population.

And Australian science writer Julian crib, opts for two to 2.5 billion.

And another one, Phillip Lawn, Australian Ecological Economist,

puts the figure at 4 billion.

So I found the article interesting, just that there was a bunch of people looking

at this and figuring out that somewhere between one and 4 billion is about the

population that the planet can sustain.

And we're currently at eight.

So Joe, when we are looking at vLab Mill and his bookend, the problems of, okay,

we can replace household electricity with renewables, but we've got real

problems with Transport of locomotives, airplanes, trucks fertilizers,

fertilizer, cement things like that.

And really sort of came to a bit of a conclusion I did anyway, that

it's just not gonna be possible with the current population.

I think the only way we'll get to it is through a smaller population.

So, yes.

In the chat room, Robin says hello.

He's on his way to a trip around the world.

Go on your robin.

Roman says in Victoria, legislation requiring priest notified child abuse

was passed a couple of years ago.

To my knowledge, no one has been convicted of failing to do so.

There you go.

So that was in Victoria with, well, of course it was with dictator

Dan passing Such, such dictatorial Yeah, he, he's such an atheist.

Yes.

Yeah.

China's human rights abuses.

I may have mentioned this previously, I dunno, but I came across it again.

It's really hard to know what the truth is about the Yes.

Do you know what the truth is, Joe?

No, no.

I know one of the prop arguers or the proponents about the amount of sort of

human rights suffering of the Uyghurs, some Christian Guy who had a real agenda,

who was responsible for a lot of it anyway, stumbled across this old article.

So this is from 2019.

July last week, 22, mostly western countries launched the world's first

major collective challenge to China's crackdown on the Uighur Muslims in a

joint statement to the United Nations.

The 22 mostly Western countries criticized Beijing for what they called

Disturbing reports of large scale arbitrary detentions and widespread

surveillance and restrictions.

But the next day, 37 other countries jumped to Beijing's defense with their

own letter praising China's human rights record and dismissing the reported

detention of 10 million Muslims.

And nearly half the signatories were Muslim majority nations, you would think

might be sympathetic to the plight of fellow Muslims in China, but on the

other hand, who might also be sympathetic to their own economic benefits by

keeping cozy with China and you know, are they the right sort of Muslims?

Indeed.

Well, what is a mus, what is a UGA Muslim?

Are they Sunni or, or Shia or something else?

Hmm.

So the Muslim majority nations that supported China included.

Pakistan, Qatar, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia.

So anyway, this what's so hard to tell where the truth is on these things.

Actually I've got a little, I've got a little picture I can show you of this,

which is can't in orange posed well, complained about China's human rights

record with the uyghurs and vast, the green, vast majority of Sunni, apparently.

Right?

Okay.

Although additional conflicts exist between Sufi and

non Sufi religious orders.

Okay.

So the vast majority of Sunni and and the countries that we're

talking about here were Saudi Arabia.

They're Sunni, okay.

Yeah.

It's because it's Iran that's Shia and Saudi Arabia Sunni.

So, , they were the right kind of Muslims.

Yeah.

Um hmm.

Anyway, again, it's one of those things where it's really hard

to tell what is going on there.

One of the things that always strikes me about this, Joe, is if they're really

wanting to wipe out the Uyghur population, it must be a fairly recent thing because

during China's one child policy mm-hmm.

there was a group that was exempt from the one child policy.

No.

Is it the Uyghurs?

Indeed.

Okay, so just it's odd that you were wanting to commit genocide of a group.

You wouldn't, I, I was reading about the one part of China that didn't

stick with Beijing's time zone, and I thought it was the Uyghur areas.

Maybe they seem to have an amazing amount of autonomy.

Yeah.

It's the problem.

It's so hard to know where the truth is on these things.

So I'm sure Landon would have a little more information.

Yeah, well you know, that's the other thing is just because you're living

in a country Yeah, that's true.

As anat, you may no disrespect to Landon.

Hardbottom.

, how could I disrespect him name with that name?

But, you know, people living in Australia, Joe, I run into every

day have no idea how this country is operating, let alone expats mm-hmm.

In a foreign country trying to figure out what's happening in a country.

Yeah, just, just cuz somebody's lived somewhere doesn't mean

they are an expert by any means.

I know my a friend, my one of my neighbors was in Chile and and

he came back and he said, oh, you know, the people, people in Chile.

They really hated that socialist, ie.

Government.

And I was like, mate, he's quite well todo guy.

And I was like, mate, you were just obviously hanging around with an do well,

a different, a different class of person.

Mm-hmm.

So you got a distorted view of LAN's current, Chi's impression of, it was

interesting when my brother came back from back backing around Australia.

Mm-hmm.

, his view of Australia, very, very different.

Well, but very different to mine because he'd been living in caravan parks.

Okay.

Yep.

So he, he'd been living with mostly Itin workers.

Right.

And so he'd seen a completely different side of Australia to that, that most of.

He probably didn't see any Australians in, if they were itinerant workers, they were

all probably backpackers and the jeans.

And he said there was some minors in the right.

Is that Al Calgulley?

I think.

Somewhere around there.

There you go.

Yeah.

So yes.

Alright, in the chat room, Antonio says hello.

Good on you Antonio.

There's six people in the chat room.

Three have identified themselves.

Bron, Robin, and Antonio.

Come on.

Three.

Just say hello.

Alright.

Given us the last show time to thank the patrons.

So, dear listener, currently there's 54 active patrons and in summary, only three

people canceled their patronage in 2022.

On the other hand, only five new patrons signed up.

So Ann Net gain a net increase of two.

Give us enough time.

I'm gonna piss years . Yeah.

Wait till we get back to the indigenous issues and the voice to

parliament . That's, that's when the patron is really gonna plummet cuz

you're not gonna like what I say again.

But anyway.

So yeah, net increase of two if you've been thinking about becoming a patron, do

so You could sign up now, even though I'm not gonna do an episode for three weeks.

Cause you won't get charged.

You only get charged when we do an episode.

$1, $2, $5.

You pick a figure there and sign up.

Go to Iron Fist velva Glove dot com au and you'll see the Patreon

donation link head in there.

It's easy to do.

It'd be great.

So yeah, our most recent patron was Danny Boland, who signed up in November, 2022.

And our longest supporting is Janelle Louise who started.

On the 17th of December, 2016.

Janelle.

Next week it'll be six years.

Got reservations

Yeah.

So I'll quickly read through the names.

If you're g Now if you've got chapters on your app, you could

just skip through this part.

Well, you might like to just sit back and silently thank the people for being

a patron and supporting this podcast.

So awesome prayer.

Yeah.

In 2022, signing up were Danny Bolan of Brad Puka, anti Sentiment

Christian Hennessy and Mark Clave.

And in 2021, signing up was si Tom, the warehouse guy Ricko,

Greg p and Shannon Leg from 2020.

We've got Don Tvy, Matt Dwyer, Sue Crip, James Leanne.

Brand.

Wayne David Hamby, Virgil Craig.

Bo Shane Ingram, yam Blue Zuck, David Copeley and Graham Hannigan from 2019.

Yet another Pinker fan, John in Dire Straits.

Donny Daco, Camille Tom Do and Paul Wer.

Alexander Allen, Matthew Craig s Glen Bell.

Professor Dr.

Dennis, Adam Priest, Murray Wer and Andy Dowling all the way back in 2018.

Peter Gillespie.

Gavin an S.

Daniel Cur, Liam McMahon.

Dominic de Massey.

Mad man.

Bronwin is in the chat room.

Kane Jimmy's Budd, Tony Wall and Steve Shinners.

And from 2017, Alison a Yao and Craig.

And as I said, the only ones still left from 2016.

Janelle Louise, thank you very much.

And also some people who support through PayPal rather than Patreon would be Mr.

T, Paul Evans, Anne Reid, Darren Gideons Davis from Cairns

Noel Hamilton and Louise Car.

So, and the big thanks to Smiley Linga, who does the

voiceover of the in the intros.

Right.

There we go.

We don't do it every week, but it is good to acknowledge and also a special thanks

to the people who do tune in live and make comments in the chat room because

it does help to a bit of buzz in things.

Mm-hmm.

. Otherwise, if we were just talking to each other without any audience at all, Joe

just wouldn't have, wouldn't be the same.

So it is nice to have the comments come through.

So, right.

Joe, you sent me a link to a sexual assault in a female

restroom in the US and.

This was last year and a teenager was arrested for sexual battery

and abduction of a fellow student.

Days later, press reports indicated the assailant had committed forcible

sodomy on a fellow student at a different school earlier in the year.

And this had occurred in the female restroom while the

assailant was wearing a skirt.

This is a clash of rights mm-hmm.

As has been discussed in the past.

Mm-hmm.

So,

because this person was transgender, they were allowed

to go into the female restroom.

, even though they had a penis.

Mm-hmm.

, is that what we're getting at here?

And therefore had a opportunity to commit a crime?

Well, or so So there have been loud voices saying just because they said they

were trans doesn't mean they're trans.

Mm-hmm.

. However, this is the same group that says, as soon as somebody

identifies as trans, they're trans.

Yes.

And, and the question is, how do you stop the bad actors when you, when

you act in good faith, when you say, we just need you to say that you

are trans, and we will accept that.

How do you stop the bad actors from taking advantage?

Mm-hmm.

, here's the other question.

Sorry.

I was about to say.

Yeah.

I mean, there, there's a whole question around whether people would go into

a female toilet anyway, you know, just because they're wearing a skirt.

and there seems to be some major letdowns on the school that a teacher walked past

noticed that there were two people in a toilet stall and just waved it off.

Mm-hmm.

because, you know, may maybe one of 'em had had a bad

breakup and needed consoling.

Yes.

There, there were a number of questions there, but I think it was only a

matter of time before things happened.

You know, if, if you are giving people the benefit of the doubt, there is

always gonna be somebody who takes advantage of that, unfortunately.

Mm-hmm.

no easy solution.

No, because you've got two, two groups of people the women who say we

have fought long and hard for spaces that we feel safe in, and then we

have people who are transitioning and want to be accepted as female.

Who aren't necessarily accepted by all of all the women.

Mm-hmm.

And to be on one side or the other is immediately you're branded

as a bigot in one shape or form.

Mm-hmm.

I guess more and more toilets now are becoming rather than

communal sort of spaces.

Yeah.

They're more individual unisex cubicles.

Mm-hmm.

with their own private lock, sort of more and more common.

The problem is you can't accommodate nearly as many people in that

situation, so it's just not practical to do it like that everywhere.

Mm.

Yep.

Yeah, it was just a interesting, where we've discussed before about different

people's rights coming up against and how do you pick between them.

Mm-hmm.

, and, and unfortunately I think, you know, thi this is not

something that's going away and.

There will be more and more clashes, I think.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Of, yeah.

Bad actors who are taking advantages of loopholes that are put in.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

I have a lot to say about it.

It's, I, it's a really sad situation and I don't Absolutely.

It's a conflict of rights and there's no easy answer.

So this, this came from a a grand jury.

Mm-hmm.

who investigated, and the story, you know, the kid who the, the alleged assailant

had been in the guardianship of his grand mother who had gone to police and

had said he keeps pushing boundaries.

He's gonna end up in trouble.

Something needs to be done.

Apparently his parents have been saying the same.

And had been ignored for a long period of time.

They'd reported it to the school saying he needs, you need to keep an eye on him.

He's going to cause trouble.

He's pushing boundaries, right?

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

So a ticking time bomb.

We need to go off.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Okay.

Moving on.

One of my favorite topics of late has been oil and dollar currency.

So just following on from that one the Chinese president Xi Jinping was in

Saudi Arabia, and he got the warmest of receptions possible and where Joe Biden

got a bit of a frosty Fist bump they were all over the Chinese president.

So did, did, did they get a lodge pot of honey out for him?

Honey because of the, no, I don't think they did that.

He got a purple carpet rather than a red one.

Cause purple signifies royalty, extra special and certainly

put on a full show for him.

And so what we've got here is g formally invited Arab nations to trade oil and

gas in Yuan on the Shanghai Ink Exchange.

And according to this writer, now, the way to diplomacy works is that she

would not have made the invitation.

Almost all the Arab states who had gathered, particularly Saudi Arabia,

had already agreed as a matter of joint policy to take up the offer.

Yeah.

Cuz otherwise you lose face if you offer it and they decline.

Correct?

Yes.

So, It's more than just Ishi offering.

We can be quite confident that the Arab states and Saudi Arabia will accept it.

And so oil and gas will price in Shanghai in Yuan Yuan.

Yuan.

How do you pronounce it, Jane?

No idea.

Mm-hmm.

Hi Roman.

And yep.

Romans off.

See you Bowman.

And this will break the dollar monopoly that the US has imposed since 1974.

And when the history of the decline of the US Empire is written, the election

of Donald Trump is gonna be one moment.

And this particular one right here with this Shanghai Exchange, paying in Chinese

currency for oil will be the next one.

It's, and if we oil a dependency on oil, that wouldn't be such a bad thing anyway.

Dependency on oil.

Hmm.

They're still gonna get the oil.

No, no, no.

I said if we didn't need oil anymore Yes.

Because all those petro dollars flowing into the Middle East mm-hmm.

Hasn't helped the region.

No.

Unless you're in the royal family.

Mm-hmm.

So Queensland government increased the royalties because

of record high coal prices.

And the budget's gonna have an extra 3 billion as a result.

That's a lot of money for state budget.

Three billions, nothing.

Just sneeze that, isn't it a trillion here?

A trillion there.

And pretty soon we're talking about real money.

Yeah.

Well, 3 billion.

I, I did look at it as a proportion of the overall budget and it

was a significant component.

Oh.

Oh, that's good.

Just goes to show the minors have been winging, but but anyway,

that's worked to some extent.

So maybe we can put that into retraining.

Of the coal mines when they get laid off.

Yeah.

Teach 'em how to erect wind farm stuff and solar panels and or

grow algee to turn into biodiesel.

Yeah.

All those things.

Like dams for hydro pump.

Hydro pump hydro.

Yeah.

So Joe, did you have time to look at the oil and gas price cap policy

that labor has decided to introduce?

You'll be shocked, but No.

No.

And you know what, dear listener, ordinarily I wouldn't have either.

But for the fact that I do this podcast, I felt compelled mm-hmm.

that I should look into it and explain it to you because that is the

premise of this podcast, isn't it?

Is that I look up this shit.

So you don't have to, and try and give a, a quick summary of what's happened.

and I'll attempt to do that again on this occasion.

So, obviously what we've got, dear listener, is high oil and

gas prices filtering through at a retail level in Australia now.

So Parliament is gonna be recalled on Thursday so that they can pass

a new bill for their energy plan that they agreed to on cabinet.

So gas is gonna be capped at $12 a gigajoule.

This is for selling gas within Australia and coal at $125 a ton, and with

the idea that this is gonna lessen the impact of rising energy costs.

So this article came from maybe The Guardian, I'm not sure, but at the

time of writing the sort of short term spot market price for coal.

Was $580 a ton and this cap is gonna be at $125 a ton.

Remember, dear listener, we spoke about this Queensland government's royalty

increase, like if you can sell coal at $125 a ton, happy days, like it's still

a good price and you know it's the 580.

So that's why the Queensland government said, Hey, we're having more of that.

Thank you very much.

Mm-hmm.

, that's why Queensland's getting 3 billion.

It could be getting more, but at least it's something.

And, and the point is that Australia has the law that basically everything

under the ground, all the mineral wealth belongs to the people.

Yes.

Unlike in the us Ah, what happens in the us Us you own everything as far as I know.

Under your property, all the way down.

Okay.

If you buy a block of land, it includes the mineral rights.

Correct.

Ah, okay.

So yeah.

Where the market price at the moment's, $580 a ton, like unbelievably

high, it's gonna be capped at 125.

And the gas price is 22 at the moment, it's gonna be capped at 12.

So according to the guardian, can we expect lower gas and

electricity prices as a result?

And the answer is maybe, maybe not.

So the majority of Australia's coal fired electricity generators

get their coal from nearby mines.

Much of this coal cannot be exported either because it's low quality

or it's not near a train line.

So the mound mouth, the mine mouth coal, is therefore unaffected by export prices.

It's prices based on extraction and delivery costs, plus a bit of a margin.

So in all cases, this is well below the $125 a ton cap, so they can't export it.

So it's not even at the export rates.

That's the majority of coal used in electricity generators at the moment.

There's two exceptions.

Two of Queensland's eight coal fire generators are supplied by mines

that are able to divert their coal to export markets in New South Wales.

Coal from most of the mines can be diverted to export markets, but

much of this supply has already contracted for years ahead.

So the price is already locked in for the short term, well, next few years anyway.

So at the moment there's only.

Power Station, the error ring station near Newcastle that's paying a

price higher than the cap of $125.

Here's the kicker, this is where it helps.

If you've been listening to this podcast religiously all year in

the national energy market covering Eastern Australia, remember the price

of the most expensive generator sets the price all generators receive.

So the coal price cap is therefore likely to make a difference to wholesale

electricity prices when the error ring Power Station is setting the market price.

And this happens about 30% of the time.

So capping the coal price that ever ring will pay below what

it's now currently paying will.

It could have a big effect on electricity prices.

, but it still depends on the error in coal supplier and how they respond.

Because they might just say, well, we're not gonna supply the

coal at the lower capped rate.

So there doesn't seem to be, at the moment, an obligation where

the government is saying, not only are I'll be capping the price, but

we are forcing you to sell to us.

Mm-hmm.

. So the coal companies could just go, okay, we'll just export it then.

Yep.

If that's the domestic rate, we'll sell it overseas.

See how all that pans out.

So if they continue to supply the coal at the lower capped price, then that

might reduce the price of electricity.

If it chooses not to, then we could have a supply crisis and the prices could go up.

What about gas?

So similar to the coal story, although it's a lot easier to export gas.

So as a result, the domestic gas prices are more closely

aligned with the export prices.

So the question is whether gas suppliers will sell uncontracted gas at the

cat price, or politely declined.

So the government hopes that the the gas suppliers will ensure

supply or it remains to be seen.

So we've yet to see what the deal will be if the government is also gonna

say to the gas suppliers, well, the new cap is $12 and you must supply us

domestically with some, remember dear listener Western Australia, when they

granted licenses, told them in the very first place, you've gotta keep X amount

for Western Australian consumption.

That's part of the deal.

. Nobody else is smart enough to do that, so, right.

So that's the complicated story about the pricing.

And according to this article, are there any better solutions?

Well, they could just increase the royalties, get money from

the increased royalties, and use that to subsidize consumers.

That would make sense.

Would mm-hmm.

Don't care where you're selling it, but if you're selling it at these

rates, we're collecting this royalty and we'll use it to help our local

Australians pay the extra cost.

We, we could also be a little less propagate with our

energy use, but we could.

But now a really good article in Michael West Media where Let me get this straight

and I, on this occasion, I need to put a little graph up again on the screen

and if you've got chapters in your podcast app, you will, with a bit of

luck, see the same chart appearing.

So, so according to this article in the Michael West blog, the plan does

nothing to secure tax revenue from coal and gas exporters who continue to make

obscene profits from resources that ultimately belong to all Australians.

So remember, in the uk, bros.

Johnson's Tories hit the fuel companies with a super flop of profits tax of

25%, and Rishi sunk is hoisting that to 35%, a bit like the Queensland

government, nothing of the sword.

So this article is saying that's what we should be doing is increasing

the royalty and then using some of that money to help local consumers.

And if you look at of course the fuel sectors, companies are all crying.

You can't possibly do that.

And now let me just read on a little bit further from here.

The price caps only apply to the domestic market and the vast majority

of Australia's coal gas is exported.

Around 75% of gas extracted in Australia is liquified into L N G

and exported to the global market.

In the coal industry, it's even higher.

90% of black coal goes to exports, which are currently fetching close to $600 a.

So 90% of coal produced in Australia is selling for almost

five times the proposed cap of $125.

So when these fuel giants cry, poor about the price cap, remember 90%

of their production is at obscenely high prices in the export market.

And there was a report put out by the Institute for Energy Economics

and Financial Analysis showing that if gas was $7 a kilo jewel, then

the gas fields would be profitable.

So the $12 cap is quite generous.

And and the chart refers to what percentage.

Australian government revenue we get from the oil and gas sector as a percentage

of the total oil and gas sector revenue.

And you can see back in the early 1990s, our government was getting 30%

of the oil and gas sector revenue, and now it's somewhere down around 8%.

So we are not getting nearly what we should be getting even historically.

And, and don't even start to compare us with Norway because Norway has been,

it's gas and oil export profits at 78%.

So we, in the early nineties, were about 30%, we're now down to about 8%.

Norway has been collecting 78% and.

It looks suspiciously like it's gone down since around the Howard years.

Yes.

And make sure you're sitting down for this, the Norway Ministry of Finance

estimates that the Norwegian public will receive 204 billion Australian

dollars or $38,000 per citizen in 2023 in in export profit tax.

Like huge figures.

And how and how much do Australians get bugger all.

It doesn't put it, it doesn't give it in a per head and there it does doesn't.

58?

I thought it was.

No, that's 58.

I thought, didn't say something.

Oh, we're gonna get a $58 bill relief from this.

That was it.

Yeah.

So the graph on the screen and hopefully on your app in the chapter.

Shows how our share of the revenue has declined.

Sort of back in the late eighties, it was as high as 58%.

Yeah.

Plummeted fairly quickly.

So, yeah.

As I said, Norway 78% tax on oil and gas exports.

It's now the, the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund is now worth 1.5 million

Australian dollars for every Norwegian family of four, if only our politicians

had had the guts to do something similar.

Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, think, think how many tax cuts you could give to the rich.

Yeah.

with that amount of money in the bank, I know.

So that was a good article by Guy Daniel Bleakley in the Michael West blog.

Bloody Hobbies, one execs, those hardwar, hard working mining ex companies, execs.

Yes.

They're all foreign owned.

Mm-hmm.

, it's not even as, you know, if only they were Australian.

At least not foreign owned.

Right.

Joe Year in review.

I was looking back through the last 52 episodes, but yeah.

Good.

Half an hour.

You not good?

Mm-hmm.

got anywhere to go?

No, I, I have a glass of ru We'll take our time.

Still got five listeners right back in January.

Novavax.

Jock was.

He'll be back.

He was, yeah.

Yeah, he was in the something open recently.

Hmm.

He's, he's, they're definitely letting back into the country now,

even though he is unvaccinated.

So, I'm okay with that.

I kind of feel like I don't really need to police people now because

there's enough of the population.

I think.

Grace Tame was in the news Australian of the Year, not a fan of Scott Morrison.

Gave him the evil side.

That's smell.

Would she?

Mm-hmm.

So, you know, in hindsight she spotted Morrison a mile away.

Well, she was actually just too close to him.

She knew exactly his type.

So good on you, grace Tone.

A brave young woman standing up to a pig of a man.

We had City Point Christian College, Joe.

Had a sort of a contract that they wanted parents to sign with moral clauses

in there, particularly trans biblical marriage was allowed or something.

Yes.

They got a lot of publicity and a lot of heat and a lot of people

suddenly principal lost their job.

Mm.

And a lot of people suddenly became aware of what some of these

crazy religious schools are doing.

Which was a little bit of a problem for the government because that was

all in the lead up to the religious discrimination bill, which fell over.

I thought it was the Religious Freedom Bill.

Yes, that's right.

What was it that was, I think it was called the Religious Discrimination Bill.

Okay.

Yeah.

Which normally you would think means it's a bill that would

allow religious discrimination.

Discrimination precisely what it did.

In fact, it was one that was to enable.

It was mis you're right.

It was, it was not named correctly.

It was should have been the enabling religious discrimination

Bill . And the only reason it failed was because they insisted on the

right to be nasty to trans people.

And that was enough.

But only teachers, I think students were protected.

Correct.

But that was enough to tip over the extra votes.

And had they, had they given in on that issue, the damn

thing might have got through?

It was, it was a near thing relying on the, on, on people's sympathy

for the trans community that actually stopped that building.

I think it was, again, gay marriage, not the trans, no, I'm pretty

sure it was trans on that one.

Okay.

Hmm.

What else do we have?

We had April son in Cuba.

Ah, yes.

That was enough for people to go.

What?

That was still better than the Gigi's wife.

It's a close thing.

, you know, you're right.

Even April something.

Oh, it's a, it's a close thing.

I wouldn't like to, I wouldn't like to pick one of them Ukraine then, so we had

the invasion by the Russians into Ukraine.

We had a debate with Hugh Harris and I was arguing that in the scheme of things, all

of the policy experts from Henry Kissinger to US ambassadors, from professors to

everyone in defense, like just everyone on both, you know, American, Russian,

German, you name it, who'd looked at this matter in the last 50 years, all basically

said if the Ukraine becomes part.

Nato, then Russia will rightly feel threatened by that as good any country and

will do something about it most likely.

And lots of people felt that you know, that, that Russia should have

just bent over and, and taken it and had very little sympathy for the

Russian perspective in that sense.

And if you said to him, Hey, what if China did a deal with Mexico, a

security pact, and decided to butch a whole bunch of missiles along the

Mexican US border and aim them at Washington, how would the US feel?

I, I watched the YouTube video where the guy was saying, well, if

that was the case, they would've withdrawn by now because, Ukraine

won't be part of NATO for a long time because it requires stability.

You know.

Mm-hmm.

, political stability is, is one of the mandates before you can join nato.

Mm-hmm.

, his argument was it's all about Sava.

Mm-hmm.

and the naval base there is that, which is why, which is why they invaded the Crimea.

Mm-hmm.

, and this was all about getting a landbridge to Crimea.

Mm-hmm.

, which is why all of those eastern states, eastern republics were invaded

because it was all about holding Russian territory all the way down into Crimea.

But based on that, okay, Russia pulls out mm-hmm.

, because NATO requires a stable Ukraine in order to allow.

Yeah.

And guess what NATO says, special circumstances given what's just happened.

You're part of NATO now.

What's Russia gonna do?

Oh, hang on a minute.

Your own rules say it's supposed to be a stable country.

You can't do that.

Well, well, we just did it.

Like that's as if, as if Russia could rely on that as a reason to withdraw.

They couldn't.

Well, what was more interesting was Finland talking about, yeah.

Joining nato.

Yes.

Yeah.

The whole Finland thing is, is intriguing because it was Swedish and then it was

Russian, and then because the Soviets in Finland helped the 1917 revolution, then

they were granted their own autonomy.

And then the Russians invaded in the forties.

Yes.

Supposedly.

Because they were worried about how close Finland was to St.

Petersburg.

Yep.

And they only wanted a little bit of territory.

Yep.

And, and, Finland ended up, ended up giving up a bit of territory

as part of the 10% I think.

Yeah.

Of that sort of, not unlike the bit of strip of land that

is the esque and crime region.

Yeah.

So not unlike the bit of west of as Paul again Crimea crime.

So, so they gave up a bit of Crimea, that was fine.

The, the war ended and then it was a bit of Dons and the other one.

And, and then next month it'll be a bit of this and then, yeah.

How, how many invasions do they have to give up?

Just a little bit?

Mm-hmm.

Before Russia is satisfied.

Mm-hmm.

Well, I think Russia's gonna take a lot more now cause they're thinking,

well, we'll just keep going.

We're just gonna grind you in, you know, it's a siege type thing now.

Just, it's gonna be a very cold winter and they're just gonna wear them out.

I was watching this YouTube thing where basically these guys were saying that

Putin expected that there would be some negotiation once he had kicked off things.

And he was shocked that there was no negotiation.

So, anyway, Ukraine, which then kicked off you know, Putin was basically

saying, I'll still sell you oil and gas.

Happy to still keep doing it.

But you know, we had Nord Stream blowing up and we had the German

sort of not wanting to buy stuff.

So we've now got an energy crisis that's affecting the world.

Joe, you've frozen.

If you are still with me you'll probably have to disconnect and reconnect.

So anyway, Ukraine, which nobody predicted at the beginning of the year

would kick off, and it has, and it's led to really some very consequential

things where, You've also got now this sort of collaboration between

Russia, India, Iran, China Arab states, and it's really accelerated a,

a multipolar world as opposed to the unipolar world of American hegemon.

So it's had a really rapid effect on, on creating new alliances and, and

changing power structures in the world.

Really accelerated a lot of stuff.

So, so it's been a really monumental event in that sense.

Lismore got flooded and that's just gonna be a continuing problem

around Australia with areas that are heavily populated, that are regularly

flooded now, cause of climate change.

So at some point government's gonna have to chip in and.

And buy whole towns and move people elsewhere cuz insurance

just won't cover 'em anymore.

We had news Temple of Satan stuff.

We had a great result down in the Gold Coast with the prayer room.

We had a terrible result in Brisbane with the religious instruction classes.

So, we're still sort of update on that is Department of Prop Prosecutions has no

interest in, have not contacted us at all.

So, we're quite relaxed now about that and we'll probably just get

confirmation from them next year that they're not gonna do anything.

So.

And then think about what to do, if anything with satanic activism.

Not sure what we'll do there.

We had a Methodism debate on the podcast, so that was good.

We had Hugh Harris and Cameron Riley talking about whether

Jesus did exist or not.

That was a good one.

And what else did we have?

Carl Fitzgerald talked about land banking in the uk.

We've had Boris giving way to trust, giving way to Rishi Sak, and after the

election we had new labor government, Morrison's Secret Ministries and

Nord Stream Oh, and computer chips has been the other one that has

sort of come about in recent times.

So lemme just see where Joe is.

He disappeared and see if he's trying to make his way back.

Oh yes, he's somewhere in the ether there somewhere trying to

get his connection going again.

So what are the big themes coming out of 2022?

I would say number one, not a good year for Christians in Australia.

So, goodbye Scott Morrison.

Goodbye that conservative government.

Not that.

Shortage of Christians in the Labor Party, but at least they're not as crazy.

The religious discrimination Bill didn't get up, so, and they've took some hits.

People became aware of things and it wasn't a great year for Christian

Power in Australia, obviously wasn't a good year for the liberal party.

They've been exposed as having been contaminated by this sort

of Christian fascist ners.

Other thing about 2022 demonstrating those elections, I think as well is

boomers, their power is in decline.

So, baby boomers have been such a large cohort that any government wanting to win

elections has had to pander to policies that benefit baby boomers sometimes

at the expense of other generations.

So when boomers were buying houses, They would create policies that were

low taxation for people acquiring houses as people were wanting to

increase their superannuation.

And that became important to boomers, a whole bunch of really generous

tax concessions in superannuation.

So, so it's been the case that Australian governments have had to, if they

wanted to get elected, really provide policies that, that were beneficial to

that boomer generation and the recent election demonstrating that the power

of the boomer vote is in decline.

So that's an interesting sort of part of 2022.

Joe, you are back.

I was just saying boomers are in decline.

and it wasn't a good year for the Christians or for the liberal party 2022.

And the other theme coming out of 2022 would be just in the world, I'd say

that China is sort of cemented its ascendancy further evidence of us decline.

The sort of bricks, nations, Brazil, Russia, India China, South Africa,

now being joined by a bunch of others into a multipolar world that's in

ascendancy Europe is in trouble because of energy and just gonna

cause sort of a d industrialization.

And well, if Europe is in trouble, then the UK is just simply fucked.

Like, they've got all the troubles of Europe plus Brexit is coming home

with all the consequences of that.

And.

, honestly, if you had friends and family in the UK who had the opportunity to

immigrate to another country, Joe, you must have you have friends and

family over there who could move?

Who must be considering it?

Or especially young people?

No, nobody's mentioned it.

Okay.

Alright.

I mean, family can't move.

Right.

And the only person in the UK is mom.

Mm-hmm.

, she's not very mobile.

Yep.

Other people are elsewhere.

Mm-hmm.

. Okay.

So, and I think we are just, I think we're also seeing, following

on from COVID where governments figured they could pass laws again.

Questioning of the whole neoliberal free market.

and people recognizing that there is a place for government intervention.

And it's important to have hospitals that function in a community

that works together on things.

So, I think with Queensland passing laws to get extra resource rent, I think,

you know, even the price cap that the labor government is imposing on coal

and gas, while it is nowhere near enough of what should be done, at least, it's

something to show a demonstration of, a willingness of a government to enter the

market and say, we're gonna forcibly do something here rather than just sit back.

So I think there's a mood for people recognizing that free markets left

unregulated don't actually work.

And, and the best markets are those that are, they're, they're talking

about regulated, reimbursing the.

Offenders with a price cap.

Yes, I know.

It's, it's such a, it's such a piddly, terrible, pathetic response.

The only thing going for it is it just demonstrates a willingness to

at least ask some mandatory law, but pretend that it's doing something.

Yeah, I'm trying to find a silver lining on a pathetically dark cloud there.

But anyway, that's my review of 2022.

Another inter, a fascinating one, really locally in Australia and internationally.

I think really turning points pretty obvious.

I, if they continue, will be interesting to see.

So that's a wrap for 2022.

I'm deleting all these social apps from my phone and iPad, not

looking at anything for three weeks.

Read some books and paint some stuff.

And Yeah, talk to you sometime in January.

Thanks, Joe for all your help through the year.

That's all right.

Hmm.

Look, after news article that you shared recently that had a bunch of various

news things, but it also linked off to a bunch of books to read over the holiday.

So I dunno if you are in the market did I link that article?

Did I it was one of the ones you shared on, or sorry, you'd saved on the RSS feed.

Yeah, I'm, I'm actually, yeah, if you go to the website, dear listener you'll

see that there's a link to the books.

There's a books link and it will take you to Good Reads where I've got a list of

books I've read in the last seven years.

I'm actually inclined, Joe, I want to go through some of those books and just, and

just reread bits of them where, cuz I've.

I've highlighted and scribbled on 'em all.

So I actually don't really want to buy many new ones at the moment.

I wanna sort of revisit the old ones and, and remember what they said

is what I'm thinking of doing this was as a for instance, geonomics,

can we afford small government?

Right?

As a book.

Okay.

Who's it written by?

Miriam Lyons and I.

Whoever I is.

Dunno.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, yeah, I don't think I wanna buy too many new ones.

I just wanna go the old ones.

I've got.

Let's the theory.

Alright, well let's get outta here.

Thank you dear listener, for paying attention during the year.

Don't delete us from your app.

I will appear again at some stage in early January.

Talk to you then.

Bye for now.

And it's a good night from him.

Now, a matter of great importance has been brought to my attention.

I speak of course, of the generous contributions made by the patrons of

the Iron Fist Velvet Glove podcast.

He's fine.

Men and women have sacrificed so much for their countrymen never before.

In the field of human conflict.

I have so many, hold so much to so few.

To those of you who are not yet patrons, I say this, give generously of yourself.

Give until you can honestly say, I have nothing left to offer,

but blood toil, tears and sweat.

Let me see.

What is the time?

Ah, 10:00 AM now.