In this episode we discuss:

• Scott Morrison's secret swearing in to three ministerial portfolios
• Make that 5
• More Revelations to come?
• A Coup?
• Secret plan
• But Absolute Power is not a problem
• Urgency is not a problem
• Spreading the risk 1
• Spreading the Risk 2
• Do we have a deputy Governor General?
• Resources Portfolio
• Albanese
• Littleproud
• Barnaby
• Karen Andrews
• Josh Frydenberg
• The Governor General – any fault?
• Twitter Comments
• Tribalism kicks in
• The Courier Mail Comments
• The Australian Comments
• S.64 of the Constitution
• What Morrison will say
• Hillsong whistleblower: more secrets emerge from the Till on the Hill
• Amazon
• Trump and The Documents
• Lockpickers
• Opening Arguments
• From Vox
• Trump and The Fifth
• Barilaro-State government overseas offices are waste of money

Mentioned in this episode:

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the iron fist and the velvet.

Yeah, I talking to Joe and I said, Joe, a few days ago.

I wasn't sure what I was gonna talk about in this podcast.

And a few things happened.

Well, Trump things happened, met Trump.

I thought that'll be good.

And then Morrison with this whole FIEs going, holy smokes, the listener, what

the last couple of days, what a real moment in Australian political history.

I think so we've got lots to talk about and it's all very interesting.

And you know, in the lead up to the last election Twitter was just on fire with

with people just going for Morrison and just, just spewing out hatred for the man.

And it all inquired after the election and Twitter was sort

of like this different zone and.

I have to say that it returned to the good old days in the last 48 hours as

people have gone nuts talking about what Morrison did that we've found out about.

So yeah, this is the iron fist in the V glove podcast.

If you are in the chat room, say hello, and we'll say hello to you.

I'm Trevor.

Okay.

The iron fist with me, Joe, the tech guy as always.

Thanks Joe evening.

All.

Mm.

So we're gonna talk about Morrison and, and just what he got up to with these

secret ministries and the response from politicians and from the public.

It's gonna be quite interesting to listener because as you know, I subscribe

to the career mail and the Australian, and I can therefore read the comments section.

And why would you,

just, why would you inflict that on yourself?

Because it's important to get out of your bubble and just to check on

what's going on out there and it's gonna be as good as YouTube comments.

I'm sure.

Yeah.

So we'll get to that and we'll probably get onto a bit of Trump and who knows what

else we'll get onto if you're in the chat room, say hello, John's in the chat room.

Hello, John.

All right.

Well, Joe I did have a little subheading in my notes about Scott

Morrison's secret swearing in to three ministerial portfolios.

I've just gotta update that.

Make it five to five.

Yes,

I did hear these rumors.

Yeah.

That's probably it in terms of the number of ministerial appointments

and you know, what we are yet to find out is what decisions he

made in those portfolios will.

There's one important one that we'll get onto in relation

to a gas field off Newcastle.

But yeah, dear listener, this is 16th of August, 2022.

So just a couple of a day or so after it was revealed that Scott Morrison had

insec being appointed to five portfolios as a minister and they were health

finance, home affairs treasury and industry science industry, and resources.

So looking at all that right.

Health is one, finance is one home affairs, treasury.

Yeah.

And then industry science and resources.

So in secret Joe and the rationale for this was that it was awkward times

a pandemic was hitting the world.

Decisions had to be made hard and fast and quick.

What if the health minister for example, got sick and there was an urgent

ministerial decision that had to be made and the health minister was sick.

Well, wouldn't it be great if say Scott Morrison was already in place

as a health minister and he could seamlessly make the decision that Greg

hunt could not make on his sick bed.

And therefore the government would continue to look after Australians.

Joe, that seems to be the rationale or have I missed something?

Well, you saw the comment that actually before COVID came in, he'd

already been secretly sworn in.

No, I didn't see that.

Yeah, I'm sure it said somewhere that one of the, at least one of

them he was sworn in before COVID

started.

Mm.

I didn't see that, but okay.

Let's just go back assuming they're all post COVID.

The rationale is that that things could be so desperate that you need decisions

so quickly that you wouldn't have time to

to, to go to the governor general and ask him to appoint somebody else.

It's just ludicrous.

Like it doesn't take long to appoint somebody as a minister.

I mean, what you would do is you would say, Hey, we need a plan

B here in case Greg gets sick.

Whoever his assistant minister is or somebody make sure you go to all the

meetings meetings and be ready to assume his power, if necessary, keep your phone

on at night in case we need to ring you, you know, that's, it doesn't take

long to have a swearing in ceremony.

I, if you are

That level of government you've got AFP stood outside your door anyway.

Yes.

So you don't need your phone on the AFP will come and knock.

Yep.

Yep.

But, okay.

And if you accept that, that's wrong.

My thinking there that somehow there's a problem with that, that, that

waiting 12 hours for a new minister.

Isn't good enough.

Why keep it a secret?

Why not tell everybody, Hey, this is what we are doing.

We are appointing extra ministers because the

press would've crucified him.

oh, no.

Wait, the press is in his pocket

anyway.

Yeah, it just does not make any sense at all.

The only way this makes sense.

If you decide that Scott Morrison is just a sociopathic.

NELA maniac with an unbelievable ego who who'd ever think that I can't believe it.

Yeah.

With a Messiah complex.

And who's just a screaming little grub and has no regard for democracy

or for the rule of law, then it all makes perfect sense, but there's

no way you can look at this.

If he's an honest operator and find a rationale, that makes sense.

He's just a corrupt rub is what he is.

Look,

I, I think the reason was he was worried that the the rapture was going to happen

and he needed to be able to make sure that when all of his party and all of

his cabinet got raptured and he was left behind that he would be able to put

processes in place.

Yes.

That, that, that could be, that could be an explanation.

So, you know, if you were worried about.

People dropping like flies in a pandemic and the wheels of government

grinding to a halt because people are in their sick or deathbed.

So you're trying to build in some plan B plan C plan D.

What you wouldn't do is, is delegate all of this extra power to one person.

Like what if Scott Morrison gets sick, then all of your plan BS

suddenly fall over, cuz you,

you pointed get sick.

He was protected by the blood of Jesus.

You have to remember that

this is where it just, there is nothing in here that people can hang their

hat on and try and make sense of this.

The idea that, oh, we are worried about people getting sick.

We need to spread the risk.

Oh, we'll spread the risk by delegating plan B to one single person.

The prime minister, Scott Morrison.

And not tell anybody about it doesn't make sense.

It certainly looks shady, doesn't it?

Yeah.

One of the things about this is that the the health minister let me just see here,

I'll try and get to some of these notes.

I've, I've sort of rattled through some of the stuff I wanted to say, but so, so this

all became, this has all come to light because of a book that's come out plagued.

I think it is something like that.

And there was an extract from the book printed in the, so for those

of you who don't subscribe to the Australian, I'll read you what the book.

Says or part of it, which will give you a bit of a flavor of,

of how this book is written.

Apparently the author is a mate of Scott Morrison's.

So, so anyway, this is what was printed.

Some of what was printed in the Australian, which is a kind of an extract

from this book plagued by Simon Benson and Jeff Chambers published by Panera press.

Here we go on March 18th, COVID 19 was spreading internationally and

in the, in Australian community Australia's daily case numbers

were running in triple digits.

The pace of the virus was accelerating and with vastly more serious

measures likely to be required.

Morrison was worried that even national cabinet might not always

be able to act quickly enough.

He and hunt had been considering a drastic measure invoking the emergency

powers, the so-called trumping provisions under the little Nolan section 4 75.

Of the biosecurity act, which would empower the governor general

to declare a human biosecurity emergency a declaration under section

4 75 gave hunt as health minister exclusive and extraordinary powers.

He and only he could personally make directives that overrode

any other law, not bad and were not dis allowable by parliament.

It's hell of a section.

He had authority to direct any citizen in the country to do

something or not do something to prevent spread of the disease.

Well, here's the clue.

Dear listener.

How do you think a guy like Scott Morrison would feel knowing that

his health minister has more power than he is, has more power?

Oh yeah.

That's that is where this all starts.

Dear listener.

Is the idea that as prime minister, you would've a health minister with such

power and the power is given to the health minister under this section 4 75.

So personally, I think this is where it all started, where

Morrison was feeling shit.

I don't want, I don't want Greg hunt to have more power than me.

And, and he concocted this idea of becoming a joint health minister.

So he wouldn't lose in a power battle with Greg hunt.

And I think that having done it once he thought and got away

with it, mm-hmm , that was easy.

And then he thought, no, I'll do it again.

And again and again and again, cause he just felt good being

appointed minister for everything.

And he thought to himself, Hmm, this could become in handy.

If I have a dispute with one of these ministers.

I can say, oh, by the way, I'm also a minister, which he did do

at one point, we'll get to that.

But you know, that I reckon is, is how this thing starts.

So, but he wasn't taking a minister

salary.

Well, imagine if he'd been claiming all five ministerial salaries as

well, do we know that he wasn't?

Well, no, we don't.

Yeah, maybe he was.

Yeah.

Maybe that's why he was doing it.

Yeah.

I think this is power thing to start with.

I I'll reading on from this extract Morrison knew that if he asked the

governor general to invoke section 4 75, he effectively would be

handing hunt control of the country.

If they were going to use them, Morrison wanted protocols set up as well as a

formal process to impose constraints.

The protocols required the minister to provide written medical advice

and advanced notice of his intentions to the national security cabinet.

So Morrison wanted protocols.

Sort of slowing the minister down.

Let's just pause, Joe.

I mean, do we really want a section 4 75 that gives such

power to a health minister?

Maybe that section should give it to the prime minister in the

first place or or to like cabinet?

My concern is that it can't

be overridden.

Mm.

It seems a pretty silly section on the face of it.

Yeah.

To be giving such enormous power.

I, I,

I understand emergency powers, but usually you have some form of oversight.

Yeah.

Even if it's to second guess and they say the courts can disallow

this or the courts can do whatever.

Yeah.

It's it seems a section that's very broad and consequently, very dangerous anyway.

So Morrison wanted protocols, which would require the minister pro to

provide written medical advice and advanced notice of his intentions.

Well, his whole thing in this is we need to act quickly.

I need to be appointed as a health minister, meanwhile, he's dreaming up ways

of slowing down Greg hunt, if he needs to mm-hmm anyway, however, Morrison wasn't

satisfied feeling that there needed to be more checks and balances before any

single minister could wield such powers.

One option was to delegate the powers to cabinet, but attorney general Christian

PO's advice was these powers could not be delegated and could reside only with the

health minister Morrison, then hatched a radical, and until now secret plan with

Porter's approval, he would swear himself in as health minister alongside hunt.

Such a move was without precedent, let alone being done in secret.

But the trio saw it as an elegant solution to the problem.

They were trying to solve safeguarding against any one minister having absolute

power Porter advised that it could be done through an administrative instrument and

didn't need appointment by the governor general and with no constitutional

barrier to having two ministers appointed, to administer the same portfolio.

I trust you, mate Morrison told hunt, but I'm swearing myself in as health minister

too, which really means I don't trust you.

I don't trust you.

Yeah, exactly.

He's such a language warning.

In this episode, dear listener, he's such a cunt.

It would also be useful if one of them caught COVID and

became incapacitated hunt.

Not only accepted the measure, but welcomed it, considering

the economic measures.

The government was taking and the significant fiscal implications and

debt that was being incurred Morrison also swore himself in as finance

minister, alongside Mattias Corman.

Apparently by the way, dear listener had no idea that this happened until

he read about it in the paper just the other day, he wanted to ensure

that there were two people who had their hands on the purse strings.

So that's, so if he didn't

know that meant that he wasn't doing sign off for these things, it meant

that he also had equivalent access.

So that was less controlled, not more control who who had.

So if two people were finance minister and either of them

could sign off on purchases.

Yep.

Not it wasn't, both of them had to, it wasn't an end.

It was an all.

Yeah.

Which meant that there was less control, not more control

over the purse streaks were

there, you know, ministers appointed.

Not knowing Scott Morrison is also appointed as a minister and

they could be making completely contradictory decisions about a matter.

And in fact, that is what happened as we will find out about these gas fields.

And, and the question

is, so who wins if they're both ministers?

Exactly.

And the same rank.

Exactly.

It's a recipe for just disaster in case I forget, you know, Morrison's

obviously gonna leave Palm at some stage.

He's scratching around looking for some corporate appointment somewhere.

Nobody in the corporate world is gonna touch him with a barge pole.

Cause he's useless.

And now after this, there's, there's no way he's getting a job on a

board anywhere except Hillsong.

He's gonna end up a preacher.

That's his only avenue left to him is his running, but he

was at Margaret courts church.

Wasn't he?

Yeah.

That's where he'll end up as a religious preacher cuz nobody else will touch him.

If you're in the chat room, say hello, Brahman's there Landon.

Hard bottom is there.

Hi Landon.

What's his,

Background before parliament?

Does he actually have any skills?

Scott Morrison?

Oh, of course he was,

Tourism.

Tourism is, yeah.

Got sacked from that.

Mm guy's got no skills at all.

Oh, so anyway, that's how it kicked off.

I reckon, I reckon he couldn't stand Greg hunt having more power than him.

That's where it all started.

And once he got down that road, like a crack addict, he couldn't help himself

and kept going back for more hits so, there's a guy called let me go back

to the beginning of my notes now.

I mean, Twitter's got some great stuff happening there.

I'm really enjoying it.

Some funny stuff.

There was a tweet from Scott Morrison back on the 19th of August.

I'm not sure what year that was.

Must have been.

Anyway.

It said if labor wins, we won't know who is running the country,

let alone, who is finance defense or foreign affairs minister.

Mm-hmm we're at the point where this coalition government, nobody

knew who was various ministers idea.

Okay.

Don's hit the chat room.

Good on you and Chris as well.

There's a guy called Ryan Little former chief of staff comms, director

to labor leader, deputy prime, and to a deputy prime minister treasurer.

And he's a partner at principal advisory is well connected in the labor party and

he says, Word from furious libs tonight is that there will be a lot more coming

out on Morrison in the coming days.

Apparently he made a gob smacking number of decisions across portfolios.

He was sworn into captain's hill.

That'll be interesting cuz we really only know of one decision so far, which was

to do with the gas fields that we'll talk about, but there he's sort of claiming at

this point that he didn't really do much.

So it'll be interesting to see.

He didn't do much as prime minister either.

He didn't an older hose.

Yeah.

Ah, Aku day guitar Joe mm-hmm French for stroke of state also known as co

or overthrow is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers.

Typically it's an illegal seizure of power by a political

faction rebel group, military.

Or a dictator, many scholars consider Aku successful when the usurers sees

and hold power for at least seven days.

He's well, he's how powerful under than that.

Isn't he, he's getting perilously close, but you know, it's, it's a seizure and

removal of a government and its powers.

Well, I guess it's just some of the powers of a government.

This is a little, little mini COO DeTar by a dictator here.

Who's grabbed power illegally.

Well, isn't illegal.

The governor general appointed him, but corruptly it's

Yeah.

There's questions about that.

Isn't they?

Yeah.

A as to why the Gigi was buying into it.

Yeah.

Okay.

Moving on my notes here.

I've got.

So he was worried about hunt having absolute power and he

was wanting to put in checks and balances, but absolute power.

Isn't a problem.

So as Paul Bonno said

he could have withdrawn Greg Hunt's commission at any time.

Like if hunt went crazy with whatever decision he was making,

he could have just said, yes, sack stop making decisions right now.

And I'm gonna replace you.

So you, you know, if you didn't like what he was doing, you could have

just sacked him as health minister.

You didn't need to appoint yourself as, as an additional health minister.

I've already said in terms of.

It wouldn't take long to appoint a replacement.

You could literally do it within a couple of hours.

If you wanted to.

What he should have done was have a series of assistant ministers ready, willing,

and able, fully briefed attending all of the relevant meetings and told to keep

their phone on at night in case the main minister got sick you know, spreading

the risk by appointing himself as the alternative on these five different

ministries, wasn't spreading the risk.

It was concentrating the risk plan.

B was all around Scott Morrison.

That's not spreading the risk.

And here's the other thing, Joe?

I don't think anybody's mentioned it.

So I should do a tweet about this and hope it goes viral, but you know, the

idea is that Morrison could step in.

If one of the ministers got sick, that's the idea.

Morrison couldn't remember if he's a minister or not.

There was a, okay, because he's quoted in the, in the radio when the

the radio interviewer today said you know, mentioned the three portfolios

that he took on and said to him are there any other, it was Ben Fordham.

Are there any other portfolios you assumed?

And he said not to my recollection, Ben, so this guy couldn't remember

if he wasn't in a, in a portfolio.

So you could have had a position

couldn't remember, or couldn't remember, you could

theoretically have had a situation where home affairs minister got sick with

COVID and they all sat there going, fuck.

If only we'd appointed somebody else as a minister.

And Morrison would be there.

Yeah.

If only we had forgetting that he'd appointed himself because

he can't remember the portfolios that he was appointed under.

It was, well,

he can't remember who

doesn't want to admit to, but this is the argument you're saying that you

were spreading the risk that you are at.

This was your plan B and you and your own admission.

Couldn't even remember if you'd been appointed to a portfolio or not.

How, how, how useless would that be?

You could have had a guy there appointed and he wouldn't even remember.

Ah, he's interesting.

One Joe.

Mm-hmm I mean, all of this hinges on the governor general appointing somebody.

Yes.

Do we have my deputy governor general?

We have the queen mm-hmm , that's what I was thinking as well.

So she, she

can replace the governor general

whenever can't you.

What if the queen was sick?

She's.

You know, one, one of the risks in this, Joe, it seemed to me, was it's

all reliant to part of this process is you need the governor general to

be fit and healthy, to to appoint

someone.

What are the odds of the queen and the governor general

being sick at the same time?

Wow.

One of the odds and Scott Morrison appointing himself to five ministries,

but I looked it up Joe, according to Wikipedia anyway, and this seemed

quite reasonable cause I Googled, do we have a deputy governor general?

Wasn't sure what the process was.

And the governor general is formally appointed by the Monarch of Australia

in terms of letters, patent issued by the Monarch at some time during

the reign and countersigned by the then prime minister, when a new

governor general is to be appointed.

The current prime minister recommends a name to the Monarch who by

convention accepts that recommendation.

So.

If you were to replace the governor general, cuz you incapacitated, it would

require the prime minister to recommend the queen who would then appoint the

governor general to replace them a vacancy occurs on the resignation, death

or incapacity of the governor general.

A temporary vacancy occurs when the governor general is overseas on official

business, representing Australia, a temporary vacancy also occurred in 2003

when Peter Hollingworth stood aside.

Now section four of the constitution allowed the queen to appoint

an administrator to carry out the role of governor general.

When there is a vacancy by convention, the longest serving state governor

holds a dormant commission, allowing an assumption of office to commence.

Whenever a vacancy occurs in 1975, labor prime minister Goff, Whitlam advised the

queen that sir Colin Hannah, then governor of Queensland should have his dormant

commission revoked for having made.

Public political statements.

So there you go.

A deputy is effectively the longest serving state governor at the time.

So, so the governor general is that fair enough?

Yeah, that sound fair enough.

Had the governor general becoming incapacitated.

Hopefully somebody had figured out who the longest serving state governor was

and told him or her keep the phone by your bed in case we need you urgently.

There we go.

What are they saying in the chat room?

You guys are going off in there.

So, Greg Blackshaw, what's the chances of a 96 year old woman being sick and

Don to happened and Don to well made.

We say God saved the queen okay.

Alright, so let's move on to.

The resources portfolio.

So one of the portfolios that Morrison secretly SW himself into

included the resources portfolio.

Okay.

So at a stretch you might say needed emergency powers at hand for health

mm-hmm and another stretch you could say, well, there's a lot of money involved

need emergency powers at hand finance, but resources gotta make some quick

decisions on mines because of the COVID

crisis.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

That

cold's not gonna sell itself offshore.

This one, it could a bit LA I think this was the last one that he took on.

So the, the other min.

Keith pit.

Was it Keith Pitt it's Pitt, I'm just not sure of his first name here.

Let's just say Clinton.

His father's eye.

Yeah.

Pitt has told colleagues he was kept in the dark and shocked to learn of

the prime minister's secret powers during discussions with him in

his office in late 20, 21, over a controversial oil and gas project.

So what happened to your listener is off an offshore oil and gas

project off of Newcastle pit.

Who's a national and the resources minister wanted to approve it.

And Morrison was worried about losing seats to green policy,

loving people in the area.

So he actually wanted to stop the project.

And so.

Some green loving people.

It was Nies.

Yeah.

Well, that good point, Joe, thank you for that.

So, so essentially pit wanted to move with head with the proposals

with the approvals Morrison did not.

And it was during this process when he was presented with a range of options that

the then prime minister revealed to Mr.

Pit, that he Morrison was secretly sworn in as the minister could

make the decision himself.

So basically told pit I don't care what you think.

I'm the minister as well F off mm-hmm so in June yeah, so obviously the mining

company, I think it's B pH energy.

In June they launched a federal court challenge to that decision.

And I bet their lawyers are just scratching their heads now because

having found out like they were just wanting to review the decision as being

a bad decision under judicial review.

And now they've found out all this stuff.

It's gonna be a very, very interesting case where you've got one minister on

the record as wanting to approve the project and another minister on the

record, not wanting to, to knock it back.

Very interesting case that's gonna be.

Well, and we, we know that Scott's coal fonder in chief, so I'm

surprised he was turning down.

Yeah.

Natural, natural resources, because he could see some

votes in that particular area.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm oh boy.

And in the chat room, they're talking about an IAC and how

this proves the need for that.

That's for sure.

What are, what are politicians.

Saying about thisI said that while he was running a shadow cabinet Morrison

was running a shadow government and he described Morrison's actions

as tinpot activity that we would ridicule if it was in a third world

country Nash would ridicule it anyway.

National's leader.

David Little proud, said he didn't know of the former prime minister's

actions, despite him being a minister in the Morrison government.

This is pretty ordinary as far as I'm concerned.

Mr.

Little proud said, if you have a cabinet government, you trust your cabinet,

unless you've got a messai complex mm-hmm Joyce only learned, but don't forget

Jesus intervened and made him prime minister.

Yeah.

Yes.

Lord

works.

If you believe that, and maybe you believe that you are fit to do whatever

you like.

Yeah.

If you believe that I've got a bridge to sell you, or I've got a ministerial

portfolio for you to sign up for Joyce, didn't know about it until pit found out.

It's a, that Joyce says, I don't believe in a presidential form of government.

If you don't like cabinet ministers, there's a simple solution.

You sack them.

I mean, this is a very good point.

It it's this move towards a presidential style of of government,

which is not how we work.

No, it's a cabinet form and it relies on the members of parliament voting

for their prime minister and, and then the cabinet running the show.

Mm, talking of voting for the prime minister mm-hmm I found out the 1922

committee in the UK is all of the back benches in the conservative party.

And what were the, what was the 1922 committee again?

So they vote on who is going to become the next prime minister.

So who's the leader of the party.

Ah, okay.

In that rundown thing that we were talking about, and it was only

back benches, not ministers, it's only back benches, not ministers.

Ah, that's interesting.

Okay.

Karen Andrews, former home affairs minister, she's calling

on Scott Morrison to resign.

She said I had absolutely no knowledge and was not told by the

PM the prime minister's office, nor the department secretary.

This undermines the integrity of government, man, you'd be pissed.

I mean, it's not easy to, to scramble your way up in.

To become a minister of government.

And to find out that this asshole has silently secretly shuffled his way in to

be a K minister, you would be so angry.

I would be

the ABC understands that home affairs secretary Mike Zulo did not know

Morrison had been sworn in as minister for home affairs and the highest

level of Australia's intelligence agencies were also not aware.

According to the chaser

home affairs is the most powerful person isn't he it's, they it's the most powerful

position.

It's got plenty of power in there.

Chinese just says Barnaby.

Joyce reveals.

He also secretly took up home affairs.

Boom, boom mm-hmm Josh.

Friedenberg only discovered today.

But Scott Morrison had secretly assumed the treasury portfolio and is said

to be deeply disappointed in quote.

Yeah.

Yes, but he was so pissed.

He didn't know what was going on anyway.

Yeah.

Allegedly, was he a big drinker?

Was he?

No, just the governor general, Joe, lots of people saying there's some fault here

by the governor general and I'm interested in the chat room opinion on this one.

So the governor General's basically run the line that as a governor

general, I do what I'm told and I did what I was told to do.

Thank you very much.

And no, you don't do what you're told.

Well, what do you think the governor general should have done?

The very least made it public.

Mm.

But wouldn't that risk having an activist, governor general, like isn't this governor

general supposed to be more or less a public servant, like all the other

public servants who somehow knew what was going on, who you just remained quiet.

No, he's he's he's the cutout,

right?

He's he's the, the pin that stops it becoming a dictatorship.

Mm he's the reset switch.

He's

he's just ceremonial figure Joe.

His job, his job is to do what he's told by the prime minister.

He don't authority is he?

He's the reset switch in case we have an author authoritarian government.

Oh, I don't think he

is.

He, he should have, maybe he should have kicked it up to Lizzy.

Mm-hmm

. Here's what I see what she says.

I think personally, this is my current position.

I might change my mind on this.

John in the chat room says, what's the point of a gigg if he can't say no.

Well, I think he could say no.

I, if, if I think if I was governor general, what he should have

done is said, I'm not doing that.

Particularly when he found out after the first one that wasn't publicized, like

maybe didn't know when the first one that it was gonna remain secret, for example.

So, but I don't think it's his role to publicize it.

I think he should have resigned.

And then when everybody said, why are you resigning?

He should have said, I was asked to do something that I am unwilling to do.

And you need to ask Scott Morrison what that was and that's how it could come out.

So I think that would be the way he should do it.

Because I don't think we want an activist governor general.

It's not good.

Cause it's a problem once before and it should be just purely ceremonial.

So, yeah, John says, I, I, I think

it's, it's more than ceremonial.

I think it it's supposed to be so that we don't get a power grab from

any prime minister who wants to make themselves dictator for life.

But if, but the whole point of governor general is does the prime minister

have the confidence of the house then?

Yes.

Do whatever the prime minister says to do.

And if you don't wanna do it, then just resign.

Like, and that's what he did.

He have the confidence for the house on that?

Well, he was the prime minister.

Would,

would he have the confidence of the house?

If the house knew that he was trying to.

Double dip.

Yeah.

Well, while he is prime minister, the governor general, I think just

has to, so, so if he decides to grant himself power of yeah.

President for life mm-hmm , if he's got the confidence of the parliament,

the governor general should just grant

it to him.

No, the governor general should say, I resign.

I'm not doing it.

Find somebody else and then say to the press, I've resigned

and you need to ask him why.

And, and, and that's how it should be handled.

I think so.

Yes.

The governor general can do something.

All they can do is resign.

If something is not right, I don't think he should get involved in.

And, and

by resigning that just passes the can down to the most senior.

Well for start

governor, doesn't it, it stops it.

Say, for example, he'd resigned in this case saying he'd said to

Morrison, no, I'm not going to do this.

I resign.

Then people would've said, why are you resigning?

And he would've said, ask Scott Morrison.

Why, if he won't tell you, I'll tell you, but you ask him first and Morrison.

Would've had to say, it's because I wanted to secretly appoint myself

as as an extra minister minister and people would've said, what the fuck

and or hell would've broken on this.

Like, and okay.

The governor General's out of a job, but that's, that's, that's

all your power is I think.

Yeah.

All right.

Will you disagree on something, Jay?

There we go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I still think he should resign now in disgrace because he didn't resign

back then as a matter of principle.

Who's Scott.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

So what are the Twitter atti saying?

Things like, so you're telling me we had a botched vaccine rollout

and no rats, despite apparently having two health ministers.

We had two health ministers, Joe, and not one of 'em could get on the phone

to Pfizer and organize stuff, you know?

No, I know.

Remember when I was saying, why didn't somebody call us,

Kevin Rudd had to call for us.

That's who it was.

I knew

somebody had called.

Ah,

yeah.

But the reason they hadn't called Pfizer was because that would admit

they made a mistake in the first place.

Yeah.

Yep.

That's I still wanna know what happened about the manufacturing,

the mRNA manufacturing

over.

Why that didn't happen.

I think we're doing it now.

Aren't in Victoria.

Are we?

Yeah, I think I saw something.

That's the question.

I saw something just the other day that Victoria has now got some laboratory up

and running, making that vaccine now.

Cause

I that's, yeah, it wouldn't have saved us back then, but it would save us for future

pandemics.

Mm-hmm somebody in Twitter said everyone's down on Scamo but his empathy

coach did tell him to try putting himself in another person's place.

Mm-hmm . Mm.

Did he feel more empathy for his peers then?

I don't know.

What else we got here?

Journalists?

What did they know?

What did they hold back prior to the election?

And there doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence of journalists knowing what was

going on except the author of this book.

I mean, the book came out on Tuesday today.

Mm-hmm I mean, the manuscript must have been typed and ready months ago in order

for it to be printed and published.

Like he, unless this was

the last minute update.

Yes.

He almost certainly had to know prior to the election and sat

on it until his book came out.

It'd be interesting to know what other journalists might have known about this,

if any of them sat on the information.

Hmm.

I quite like the pretty clear now the real reason that John bar Laro

with withdrew from the New York trade commission to roll last month.

Yeah.

Was because he discovered Scott Morrison was already in the

role.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's another thing Barara we might get onto that as well.

Mm-hmm mm.

Kirin Gilbert asked the former prime minister, Scott Morrison, whether he

wished to respond to today's revelations.

This was yesterday I think.

And Morrison said, no, haven't seen what has said since leaving the job.

I haven't engaged in any day to day politics since the

man representing the secret.

He's electro.

Yes.

Hasn't engaged in any day to day politics.

Who's Bridget McKenzie guy who wrote the book is a partner of Bridget McKenzie.

She one of the politicians.

Oh, I recognize the name, but

it's hard to keep track of them.

Peter just says,

yeah.

Senator the honorable Bridget McKenzie, right member of the nationals.

There we go.

Senator for Victoria since 2011, according to 20.

According to Dr.

Sheep person on Twitter.

Benson is a partner of Regent McKenzie, right?

So depending on what you're reading, whether it's Twitter, the guardian,

the ABC, or the iron fist velvet glove chat room, RSS feed and RSS feed.

Most of what you would be reading would be complete outrage at what has happened.

And you would think to yourself, well, clearly everybody despises

what has happened, everyone.

The average Australian is no out appalled by this action.

And we all think the same.

Don't we and dear listener for my sins, as you know, Using the

money provided by the patrons.

I subscribe to the Korean mail and the Australian.

And so I looked at some of the key articles regarding this issue and

scroll all the way to the comment section at the bottom where the

fellow subscribers you're Australian.

I am well, my fellow subscribers made their comments and it's quite frightening.

Dear listener.

I mean, we look at America, if you, and we're gonna talk about Trump and the

latest fiasco there with the confidential classified documents that he kept in a

store room at the bottom of a golf club.

And we Marvel at how the Trump supporters go, nothing to see here.

Everybody did it.

Obama did it.

They've all done it.

What about Hillary's emails?

That's nothing, nothing to see here.

There's a lot of what, what abouts?

Yes, indeed.

A lot of what abouts and we think to ourselves smugly crazy Americans,

at least we're not like that.

Well, there was one of the articles in the Kerry mail headline was Scott Morrison

reacts to secret portfolio appointments.

Anthony Albanese seeks legal advice.

And I have to say that the articles and editorials in both the cur mail

and the Australian have been pretty neutral to almost criticizing Morrison.

So this is not a case where the career mile or the Australians sort

of reporters and editorials have really come out in favor of Morrison.

I'd say they've really reported the facts.

And if there's been a commentary, it's kind of been slightly negative

on Morrison saying, what the hell.

So, so that's from the, the writers and the, and the editorial,

but in the comment section.

So in response to that article at the time I looked at it, there were 845

comments, and you're able to sort them in terms of you know, most recent or

you can sort it by the most liked.

So I sorted these comments from the most liked to the least liked.

And I'm gonna read some of them to you because if I had to read them, then

you're gonna have to listen to some of it.

Actually, before I go on, Braman says, yes, it's interesting that no

one really wants to defend Morrison.

Even the current libs efforts have been pretty half-hearted.

And it seems that the difference between America and Australia is that Trump's

been able to infiltrate the Republican party with so many of his people that in

order to maintain their position in the Republican party, They've had to tow a

Trump line and to get their pre-selection they've had to, to tow a, a Trump line.

And I don't think the same dynamic is working here in the liberal party.

I don't think people are looking at it going in order to keep my

position in the liberal party.

I need to be somehow pandering to a Morrison infection.

So I think that's the difference there in terms of the politicians and the players,

but in terms of the general Joe public, who are my fellow subscribers here's

some of the comments more concerned about Morrison taking on too much responsibility

than elbow who takes responsibility for nothing, 122 likes, Hey elbow, stop

worrying about the last government and tell me where my $275 power bill cut is.

You said you were gonna reduce my power cost by $275 per year, but

now they're going through the roof.

Five exclamation marks.

Don't tell me, you've been telling porkies again, 119 likes for that commented.

What would a communist like Albanese know about the Westminster

system hundred 16 likes for that?

Although I thought you were on holidays, please get back to delivery your promises

and stop pandering to the greens and unions we are in for a toid time hundred

and five likes if elbow ever turned up.

I'm

sure that toid is the word that they're looking for.

If elbow ever turned up to work and read the briefs, he might have noted

that there was a pandemic on in the last two years of Schmos reign and

foreseeable that a key minister could be incapacitated due to COVID 19, so

needed some under step in quite right.

Not to advertise the fact as unnecessary fear in difficult times.

The ALP on the other hand, lead by instilling unnecessary fear as that way

you can control people absolute rubbish.

And could these talk a big game, deliver donut clowns actually do the job they

were elected to do instead of continual childish whining and nasty PED Inness.

It's the Biden script yet again.

And how has that worked out for him?

Absolute joke that this has even talked, but deflects from the

fact the Herald heralded plan ALP is still on the design shop.

102 likes for that.

I'll keep going.

These are good, poor old elbow only worries about the Westminster

system of government when it involves the liberals nationals.

Yet he is okay with the blatant dismantling of the Westminster

system in Victoria 98.

Elbow.

We are more worried about putting food on the table, paying written mortgages,

getting petrol to do the family things.

So just get on with it please.

97 likes.

Meanwhile in Victoria, one bloke has been personally running every

portfolio very badly and crickets chirp in media land 95 likes

how accurate is that allegation?

I don't think it's correct at all.

Facts have nothing to do with the comment section.

Yeah.

Of news, obviously masters, not only was he doing his job, but

he was on standby to do others.

Meanwhile, his replacement is totally lost in is either out of

Australia or on holiday 94 likes.

There's a lot of comments about holidays here.

A lot of people going bagging on about Albanese being on

holidays and electricity.

Is elbow actually back in the country for a change.

How long has that been now?

Three months or so any chance we could get some movement on this plan or are

we going to get more of the standard labor distract, divert and deny 93 likes

So that was a carry in the Australian the story was the

headline Morrison's secret moves.

I'm swearing myself in as health minister too.

And again, I did the same thing and this was the most liked comment sound

strategy for extraordinary times.

I am so grateful that Scott Morrison was PM.

During this time 120 likes aren't you so grateful.

Thank you.

PM Morrison.

Australia was one of the best performing countries during the COVID crisis.

I will never forget the image of him walking away.

After declaring Australia had chartereds borders, looking like he had the weight

of every Australian life on his shoulder, labor calling his decision, a racist one.

This decision saved many Australian lives.

I thought he didn't.

I thought it was the states that closed the

borders.

It's like creative writing exercises.

It's, it's a parallel reality that these people live in.

Now.

It is.

I challenge you in the chat room to write a pro Morrison piece, put, put

satire in it so that we know it's not with you, but can you match the,

can you match the feeling of these

people?

It's pose Laura, isn't it

what's

pose Laura again, pose.

Laura is there's nothing you can Ize about a creationist that a

creationist hasn't said it for real.

There you

go.

There's nothing you couldn't Ize about a Morrison supporter that

hasn't been said, but a Morrison

supporter hasn't actually said yet

we okay to keep going with this.

I'll just because this is instructive to listener.

Like it's a huge segment of our population that is not only saying nah, but is

also saying nothing wrong with it.

Nothing to see here.

Not only

nothing wrong with it, he did, right.

There are a number of comments, which, which talked about if they were not

supportive of Morrison, they were actually critical of the lockdown itself.

So here's one, for example.

The parallels that are continually drawn with the Spanish flu in the

response of that time, when COVID was never as dangerous, nor as untreatable

are deeply concerning, it appears that it was basically panic stations

from very early in the pandemic.

And that explains so much of the overreaction and abuses of power at

state and federal level level cannot see myself reading the book after reading

this article, the hubris of our so-called leaders is depressing and their inability

to consider the consequences of the decision they make, even more of a worry.

So it was really rather than criticizing Morrison specifically was kind

of like, well, they were all just overreacted to this pandemic and this

was just a sign of that overreaction.

What else have I got here?

I might skip through a few cuz I can feel your pain.

What have it's only as bad as a cold remember?

Yeah.

Chris says, this is Chris's one he's.

He could be a contributor to the Australian.

He in the chat room, he says Morrison.

He turned up, he took what he could.

And we thank him for opening up the cracks.

Let's see.

He complaining about health, the health medical, or chief health officers.

He's one sensationalist headline, sensible and prudent steps

actually described Morrison was a very good PM in this crisis.

58 likes.

The biggest mistake Scott Morrison made was to give these unelected so-called

health experts so much power, 46 likes.

And this one, the last.

If this had been Alban easy, he would've taken six months off due

to the effort required even to think of preparing a plan to do something.

Remember he said the PM only had two responsibilities.

There we go.

Did he?

Yeah, the vaccine and the lockdown or something I think is what easy.

See, had two jobs to do.

And he failed at both.

Look, there you go.

I think that is frightening, but not surprising.

And there are Morrison supporters out there in the public seems that his

MAs support in the parliament on the conservative side is not really there.

It seems like even the commentariat on sky news and in the Murdoch press are

not really going to go into bat for.

Yeah, but

I bet you the

hell song crowd.

Yes.

That's that's about it.

That's all he's got left.

His options of appearing on a board somewhere surely have completely sunk.

So, alright.

I dunno if you wanted somebody who didn't actually do anything,

but was a conduit into the

corridors of power.

Mm.

But, but he shafted so many people in there.

Yeah.

He, you wouldn't think he could actually deliver you any lobbying effectively,

cuz people might do the opposite.

If Scott Morrison asked for something, I would've thought even amongst these former

colleagues, he's burnt so many bridges.

So it's hard to imagine him being on any sort of board.

All I can see is, is in a church as a preacher, that's all he's got left.

He'll probably stay in the job.

He won't probably won't resign cuz he wants the money.

What else is he

gonna

do?

Yeah.

When does he get his pension?

Has he been in for long enough?

Apparently though his pension as former PM is not nearly as good as some of the

previous ones cuz he's entering into the parliament was quite late, so right.

It's not quite as lucrative as some of the other ones.

John says he's he bets?

He's gonna resign.

I don't know.

And Brahman's happy that my comment reading is over, right?

Yeah, Morrison's gonna say, and I think he has come out.

There was something he put on released a statement on Twitter, which basically

was saying it was extraordinary times.

We had to do extraordinary things and I did it for my people and leave me

alone, which ignores all the things that we've already said about it

was a, even if your purpose was to spread risk, There's no need to do

it in secret and appointing yourself.

Isn't spreading the risk.

It's concentrating plan B on one person.

And it's just a, a major erosion in our democracy.

Like when people talk about constitutional crisis, Joe, and they talk about 1975 in

Whittman, we haven't reached 1975 levels in terms of crisis to our democracy.

But it's getting close as the, as, as one of the key moments

in our political history.

I would've thought

was that really a constitutional

crisis?

75 or

this?

Yeah.

I mean, he, he, he sacked the government and went to a general election.

Right?

So he returned, he returned the power to the people.

Yes.

Whereas this was Scott Morrison grabbing the power for himself.

Okay.

So you reckon this is bigger than 1975.

Is that what you're saying?

I, I think this is the exact opposite of

1975.

Yeah.

Well, which is bigger though.

You're a, you're a surprising advocate for activists go generals.

It's it's a good joke.

I hadn't picture for this.

So

yeah, I, I that's the only value I see is stopping dictatorship grabs.

Mm.

If you look at the rise of Hitler to power, he was elected as prime

minister effectively of, of Germany, and then he seized power from there.

Mm.

And so the question is what's to stop that happening over here.

Yeah.

And, and if we have a governor general who happily goes along

with the prime minister, because he has the confidence parliament and

just grants him whatever he wants.

Well, he shouldn't like, that's my point though.

I'm not saying he should, he should just resign.

So that we all find out about it, but I don't think he should act you, you don't

think he should and assume powers you're

MIS misbehaving, right?

SAC?

No, let's call a general election.

No, it's interesting.

Some of this stuff is to do with convention.

Like I don't think the constitution refers to a prime minister at all, for example.

So probably not.

Yeah.

So you know, our laws in this sort of, part of the legal territory are a mixture

of the constitution and also conventions.

So you know this and we've

seen what happens with Trump, with conventions.

Yes.

It used to be that gentlemen would respect conventions, but respect for

conventions has just disappeared.

So, you know, section 64, Which is the section of the constitution where,

you know, the, the governor general sort of appoints people to act in the

executive, you know, doesn't say anything about, well, of course we should tell

people when we do that by publicizing it, you know, it's just a convention

that you don't do this in secret.

And ah, it'd be interesting to see whether this has any effect

on the Republican sort of debate.

People will be talking about the role of the governor general in

this and what would the role be of the president in a Republic?

And I,

I did notice the comments were saying that effectively an IAC

could act as the oversight body.

Mm.

And therefore, if there was a.

Genuine concern.

Yep.

Even if the, the governor general is a figurehead, he could take that to IAC.

Yeah.

Refer to IAC, resign and refer to I to IAC would be mm-hmm

yeah, that would be a solution.

Yeah.

So anyway, maybe when we draft an amendment to the constitution,

when we become a Republic, at some point, there will be an extra

line in there that mightn't have been considered before, where they

say, by the way, when appointing ministers, it has to be publicized.

And perhaps they can only

be one minister.

You wonder how many conventions actually need to be written down and ratified?

Yeah.

Like turning over your tax returns.

Yes.

You,

you heard by the way he lost that part of the battle.

Mm-hmm where at this point, the latest court decision was forcing

him to, he has hand them over.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I dunno what appeals he has from that point.

Well, where is that?

If who knows in the chat room Broman says re Morrison's pension, you'll be

pleased to hear that he's not eligible for the older, more generous scheme.

He can only get the standard accumulation scheme that was implemented

for Poly's elected after 2004.

Yep.

John says maybe hill song CFO in Scotty's future.

Yeah.

And that would be a good thing.

If you got a job in Hillsong, it would help it crash even quicker.

Actually.

We've got something about Hillsong let's let's talk about Hillsong.

Oh, the whistleblower.

Mm.

This is very interesting.

This is from crikey.

If you're not subscribed to crikey, dear listener excellent

publication, highly recommended.

It's not that expensive.

Natalie Moses was employed at Hillsong from March, 2020 to mid-June this year.

In that time, she worked at the very heart of the hill song enterprise.

The getting of money Moses was involved in raising donation revenues,

increasing donor engagement, making grand applications and managing

income reporting critically.

She had access to board papers, minutes of meetings and resolutions for several

hill song entities stretching back around 10 years, documents, documents, documents.

By the time her employment was suspended and her email access was cut.

Moses had downloaded some 40,000 confidential files.

According to federal court records by the end of June hill, Sal's most sensitive

secrets had passed into enemy hands.

Crikey does not know Natalie Moses, but those who do tell us this, she is

incredibly smart, highly experienced, very intelligent and analytical and a

hundred percent ethical, which makes

you wonder what

was she doing there?

Why hill?

Exactly.

but boy, if we could have planted somebody in hillside, it sounds

like the perfect person mm-hmm

She was probably the only person who was ever gonna be able to work it all out

and speak up because she's the only staff member who has ever worked in depth across

both the finance and governance areas.

This would've been necessary to pull together all the pieces of the.

Sources tell her she has substantial experience in the

charity in corporate sectors.

It appears to have quickly identified when something was not right.

So, she was sacked and she is going to court over sort of,

whistleblower protection sort of action, wrongful dismissal.

Yeah.

Something like that.

But I think some sort of whistleblower protection type of thing as well.

So she, in her statement of claim outlines irregularities in the transfer of funds

from Hillsong Australian entities, and it started with concern about $10,000.

That was to be passed to people, seek to establish a Hillsong church in Romania.

Moses warned her boss that overseas transfers of this ilk could not happen

under legislation covering notfor profits in Australia, the funds are eventually

paid via a us based hill song, entity, thereby avoiding Australian regulations.

And this sounds like, Chaplains in schools.

Yeah.

It's real illegal.

So you just send it to the

states instead.

Yes.

Find a different way of moving the money from there.

Moses, according to the statement of claim, briefed Hillsong directors on the

need for better compliance of Hillsong 18 notfor profit entities in Australia.

And it goes on to say, they've got lots of businesses in us, jurisdictions

like Texas and Virginia, where there's very little demand for transparency.

Moses has identified a lot of risks with mingling money from different

pots, and she warned that it might be fraudulent to offer tax deductions

on donations to building a hill song facility at festival hall.

And she warned that it was unethical and illegal for the Hillsong board

to use tax deductible donations to cover the church's 9 million deficit.

How did they end up with a 9 million deficit when I get so much money?

E either by building new infrastructure.

Mm.

Or, or it was some blown out

for various schemes.

Yeah.

Given away to cronies.

Now so she's claiming this treatment, a whistleblower, she painted a picture

of favoritism and CRO cronyism.

She was alleges in her statement of claim that as she revealed her findings

to Hillsong's senior ranks, she was told to quote, come up with a story in quote,

that would be acceptable to the AC C.

So what now she, in her statement lays direct responsibility at the

door of Hillsong's directors, which is about Brian Houston and 10 others.

And in summary Hillsong I've got some problems because somebody essentially

so deep in the organization with so much knowledge downloaded, 40,000

documents, Australian charities and something or other, yeah.

Notfor profits, I think

AC C, C, C.

It's probably at the beginning of this article, but I might have the

it's the, the charities are regulated.

I

think that's one of the regulators.

What else I got here?

Yeah, that's the main thing saying hill song in a lot of

trouble, a lot of documents.

Somebody who knows what's going on intimately, who's really smart

and really pissed at Hillsong.

It sounds like a recipe for disaster for hill.

Hopefully those

documents are in the hands of ATO.

Mm.

I would think so, hopefully.

Right.

What are we up to in timewise and,

and possibly AFP if there's, mm, illegal activities,

all sorts of different groups.

Although I

somehow a AFP, if they're deeply in bed with the liberal party, I

wouldn't be surprised that they're also deeply infiltrated with evangelicals.

Mm.

I dunno, dunno either.

All right.

Just before we get onto Trump if you work for Amazon you know that after every

hour of work at Amazon, the computer tos.

Comes up with a thing on the screen for a 32nd break.

And it tells you to have a mind moment of positive affirmation for 30 seconds

every hour when you're working at Amazon repeat these phrases during each expansion

of the circle, even in chaos, maybe they could use it for a toilet break instead.

Yeah.

Well, you do this while you have your bottle there.

Now these are for people working at a computer at Amazon.

Repeat these phrases during each expansion of the circle.

Even in chaos, I can feel peaceful.

I notice the good while socially distant.

I am emotionally close.

And so Amazon recommends repeating those phrases as a 32nd timer counts down

on your screen and then back to work.

That's good.

Joe Trump and the documents.

So dear, dear listener, extraordinary events in America.

I, what you're talking about were the former president.

He, he was in the right.

Yeah.

FBI basically rated Largo and took a whole heap of boxes, which

totally unfounded because you know, his lawyers had handed

over everything they'd asked for.

Yes.

So it turns out that he took a whole bunch of documents and the national

archives knew the documents were missing and said, Hey, you took a whole

bunch of documents, hand 'em back.

You can't keep those, like, these documents belong to the people, not you.

And this was due to law past following Nixon, I believe.

It was around then.

Yeah.

Basically the presidential records act says anything that the president

does says or signs during his time in office belong to the people to go

into an archive so that whenever it's declassified people can go through

and see how the president acted during

his time.

Yeah.

So they knew things were missing and said to him, Hey, cough up.

This stuff that's missing.

And so apparently they sent some stuff back and they were looking

through it and they were going like, there's some classified stuff here.

And also, I think it was really obvious that there was some thing missing.

Like I think now I was listening to opening arguments on this.

If you want the full details.

I think almost to the extent where maybe they received boxes labeled 1,

2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10 . And they were able to say, Well, we at boxes four, five,

and eight . So they managed to go to a judge and convince a judge that there

were further documents, which were classified documents, an activist judge.

Yes.

Come on and seemingly relating to nuclear secrets as well,

which really got people worried.

And and so then they, and they basically said to him, you need

to send us these documents.

And they basically said, oh, we've sent you everything.

And they knew that they hadn't.

So they gave him every opportunity to produce the documents.

And they said, well, just do it quietly.

We will, we'll come there with plain clothes.

We'll do it during hours.

And in, in ways that people won't know that the FBI is doing this

so that to save you embarrassment and he just wouldn't agree.

So he then just They just pulled the plug and pulled the pin and, and got

a a subpoena or whatever you call it to, to enter the premises yeah.

Warrant and to do it.

So took away all these documents and now people

thought, and, and again, it was undercover till I think he went on the record.

Yeah.

And, and yeah, I know he said they took his passport, but there's

nothing in the cuz there's a list of documents that were taken.

Yes.

It's gen yeah.

It's generic, but yeah, not so generic that a passport would

be in there and not written

out.

Yeah.

One of the documents was quite possibly was information about

the French president Macron.

So that was just documents relating to a manual.

Macron was kind of what it was.

So that's interesting.

Mm-hmm, . So anyway, they've rated that and they're gonna look at it.

And people have said, well, well, he said he declassified everything.

Therefore he didn't have classified documents.

And apparently it doesn't matter.

These are documents of a nature that even if you say they are declassified, which

the argument isn't gonna work anyway.

But even if you were to accept that, that they were declassified, they

still have to be stored correctly.

And he literally had them in just a store room in one of the basement

areas of the Largo golf resort complex.

He lives in with the guy doesn't live in a regular home.

He lives in a private golf club.

There's all sorts of servants and people.

So

Largo was a private mansion that he converted into a private club,

right.

For tax reasons for tax reasons.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah.

And part, part of the tax exemption he got was that he wouldn't live

there for more than 40 days a year or whatever the number was.

Right.

So it was a small number of days a year.

Yeah.

And the fact that he's fully in residence, apparently the local city or whoever he's

pissed about it.

Probably, basically they reckon that he owes them tax

because it's now a residence.

It's not a private club.

Yeah.

So Joe the lock on the door, like apparently Trump put out a picture

of the lock on the door, trying to emphasize the security that he'd taken.

And it was just a really simple lock that you wouldn't use to lock your

bicycle up at a railway station.

And you were describing to me before we started, you've decided

on an interesting hobby, Joe, what, tell the dear listener what you're

doing in his spare time with locks.

Oh lock picking.

So lock picking is a recognized hobby which requires manual

dexterity and, and visual thinking about what it looks like inside

an intellectual rigor mm-hmm yes.

And

so, so don't poo poo at Trevor

. Well, it's, it's more

It's quite scary when you look at it, when you, when you know what

you're looking for, how easy it is to pick a lock and how easy it is

to not even need to pick a lock.

Quite often there are insecurities either in the way that the doors are put on or

in the way that a lock is built, that allows you to not even need to pick

it.

So you've got a transparent lock mm-hmm yeah,

I don't know how well it'll show up.

Mm.

Put in front of your face.

Might.

Yeah, but

there's a double sided.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Transparent lock.

Yeah.

Where you can see the inner workings and as you learn to pick, you can

see it move inside and that allows you to get a feel for everything.

Yeah.

So can, can you actually unpick that lock now or you need more practice?

Oh no, no.

I can do both sides of that.

Right.

I also bought some cheap padlocks from the dollar store

or whatever they were, so yeah.

Okay.

That, that little one.

Yes.

Chinese one.

Yep.

With a, so normally you use what's called the tension tool and then you

use a pick mm-hmm and you don't even need attention tool with this thing.

You literally just scrub it a few times and it'll pop open.

There you go.

So a cheap lock that looks still relatively sturdy.

It would take you some cutting to get through that.

Yes.

I can pop that open within 10

seconds.

Joe's lot picking services.

there you

go.

Do, yeah.

A, a well built lot would take a bit longer and a bit more skill.

Yeah.

But you think a $10 lock from hardware store is secure and

a, a cheap look like that.

There's another thing let's see if I can.

Yeah.

There's, there's a bit of play in there, right?

These are only held together by little metal spring.

Right.

And you actually force something down the inside of the barrel.

There mm-hmm, pops the spring thin bit of metal and it pops the screen.

Right.

And you don't even need to pick the lock.

And my guess is that whatever was securing Trump's secret documents,

you could probably SHM it like that.

Yes.

And pop it open within five

seconds.

Yes.

Yep.

So incredible state secrets of America regarding nuclear codes.

Hidden in the basement of a building that's full of staff, ERs, waitresses,

all sorts of people wandering the halls.

Any Mossad or Russian or Chinese spy.

They've probably got a copy of all the documents already.

They've probably copied them in the last couple of months and, and

they know exactly what's in there.

It wouldn't surprise.

Would it?

Yeah.

What you'd hope given that the secret service are yeah.

Protecting that place that there's at least some rigor around who's

hired.

Yeah.

So apparently it seems that they know that the authorities seem to have known so

much about where to go and what they would find that there could be a mole in the

Trump organization, a well connected one.

Certainly, it sounds

like the Republicans are freshing about that at the moment.

Mm-hmm and I, I think people are pointing the finger at Jared Kushner.

Apparently he got 2 billion from the Saudis for some undisclosed reason.

So mm-hmm, that would be interesting.

I hope I live long enough to find and hear all of the secrets that

come outta the Trump presidency.

And now also the Morrison prime ministership

you know, some of the stuff that's gonna come out about Trump, we

will just shake our heads out.

Well,

is it 50 years before records are declassified?

Oh, I was

kind of hoping it might be 30.

I might, I might last long enough.

I don't know.

Yeah.

So, oh dear.

So what have we got here?

So it's the Trump story.

In summary, I think I don't need to go through all of the sections

in that it's in the show notes.

If you wanna read about it Melania or melanoma did I write melanoma?

Did I,

No, no, no.

John Z said a mole.

Oh, Melania.

Yes.

And I said, melanoma.

Yeah.

People are joking that because that if who's his former wife who was IVA IVA

and she was buried in some nondescript part of his golf course again probably

for a tax reason, cemeteries probably make give you some tax deduction.

I would've, thought's one reason why.

Mm.

Right.

What else have I got here?

And what's the time?

8 55.

We can't go two hours, Joe.

Like last time, that was just an endurance for people.

I think I was testing the friendship with people on that one.

Opening arguments as a podcast.

If you wanna know more about that Trump stuff, it's very good.

And, mm, of course he had a couple of other things happen because he's

being investigated because on the one hand he was overstating the value

of properties in order to get loans against them, this your wasn't it.

And on the other hand for the same properties, he was understating

their value for taxation purposes.

So it seems like there's trial over that, which has got him in a lot of hot water.

And I think that's the one where he was pleading the.

Refusing to testify on the basis that it might incriminate him.

And he's on the record in the past as saying, why would anybody rely on that?

Just tell the truth.

And you'll be fine, obviously guilty if you, you know, if

you maintain your silence.

But I think it

was about a president.

He was saying that as well.

Mm.

So, that's what he's up to.

And there was one other thing that got him as well.

He had bad news.

There's a third thing for Trump.

I just can't remember what it was, but might have been about, oh, being

forced to produce his taxation records.

That was the other one right.

He lost a round in that battle as well.

It's been a bad week for the Donald, but look, he's gonna run again

if he can, because I see in the chat room John says Trump running.

He will see it as his best defense to will these legal actions.

If he can.

When the president, he believes that he

can't get prosecuted as president.

Mm.

So for sure, he'll run and Joe, he's half a chance of winning if he, if he has a go

well, there's concerns about the whole voter suppression laws.

If it's done in key states, of course, there was also the opposite of that,

which if you remember, was the very people who wouldn't take vaccines are

the Republican voters in swing states.

Right.

So they might have died off.

Is that what you're saying?

Right?

Yep.

Yeah.

There's it will be interesting in the next election to see how many voters

actually remain in those swing states,

right?

Yep.

Demographic shift.

Mm.

The other one was the Kansas.

Yeah, abortion.

Yes.

Mm.

So

the, at the attempt to change the constitution of Kansas to allow abortions

or to, to ban abortions, sorry, to allow them to ban abortions, which

at the moment is unconstitutional.

And they were saying that the 20, 20 elections they'd