In this episode we discuss:

00:00:00 Introduction

00:01:07 Witch Hunts

00:10:52 Fran Bailey

00:14:00 Murdoch and Crikey

00:21:40 Long Covid

00:23:55 Labor's Climate Credentials

00:26:26 Shaq

00:29:45 Stage 3 Tax Cuts

00:39:36 Student Loans

00:49:48 Electricity and Privatisation

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Mentioned in this episode:

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Well, hello there.

Dear listener, the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove podcast.

It's me, Trevor.

AKA.

Iron Fist with me, Joe, the tech guy How you going Joe?

Evening All.

So if you're in the chat room at any point, say hello and chat away,

we'll try and get your comments.

And we're just going to rattle through the events of the week

and look at some other stuff.

What's on the agenda.

Witch Hunts, Murdoch and crikey long Cove.

Stage three tax cuts, student loan, forgiveness, and

privatization of public assets.

So that's the sort of stuff that's on the agenda.

I've got a few clips to show you.

John's in a chat room.

Hello, John, John and I are in the middle of a, Facebook messenger

debate over small nuclear reactors.

We had, John is still a fan and he feels that I have strong meaned that and,

cherry picked a good name, the good DS of straw man, and cherry picked the

good name of small nuclear reactors.

So we're in the midst of the biting that, but, I don't think we're

going to do that as a topic tonight.

So, well, first topic we chance Joe.

I mean, what's wrong with a good old fashioned we chant.

I asked you burn the wage.

Yeah.

I mean, I keep thinking of the Monty Python.

Where they've dressed up that poor woman with a fake nose and as a

witch and they want to burn her and she took to a nude, that's it.

I keep thinking of it.

We chant, you know, and which hands are bad, but Joan, what if they

really ask them, which is out there as instant, bad faithful, it's

probably time to hump and down.

I would have thought maybe we can get them to eat 'em oh God, yes.

Be some way of showing them well, appearing before an ICAC or

something, is what needs to be done.

So, so both that Trump and Morrison in particular are claiming that

they're the victims of a witch hunt.

And so, yeah, I'm working on a hypothesis that the problem in our society is

that we haven't had enough, we chance.

And so there's the conflicting arguments with both of these characters.

On the one hand, we've got their supporters who are saying, oh, why pick

on these guys it's over and done with this is just unnecessary, vindictive legal

action against people because you don't like them and they're not of your tribe.

And the other competing narrative is people saying there are serious problems

that went on here in the USA, the capital rights, and in Australia, you know,

signing up to five ministries in secret.

And these things just can't be swept under the carpet and should be examined.

And, you know, if he could just declare, oh, it's a witch

hunt, you would never go back.

And re-examine poor behavior, Joe.

And I think one of our problems in our society of light is that there

hasn't been enough shaming of people for poor behavior and poor decisions.

Well, certainly there's not been enough shame, agreed to by the people.

Yes.

Yes.

So, I, in the park, in the past, if he got caught doing something, most

politicians had the, good grace to, to look ashamed about being caught, doing the

wrong thing and fell on their own sword.

Whereas recently it's just been, oh, well, no, no, it never happened.

I'm pretending it didn't happen.

And plus the way through.

Yeah.

Or I haven't broken the black letter of the law.

It wasn't strictly speaking illegal.

It was just a convention and therefore it doesn't matter.

Leave me alone, nothing.

It doesn't matter whether it's right or wrong to these people.

It's just, you know, am I legally liable?

And if not, let's move on.

So.

So, yeah, it's a, it's the confliction, the conflicting thing they're saying,

incidentally, Joe, I thought about it.

Look it up.

Witch hunt.

metaphorically means an investigation that is usually conducted with matchy

publicity, supposedly to uncover subversive activity, disloyalty and

so on, but with the real purpose of intimidating political opponents.

So Morrison, for example, would say, well, this is all about intimidating political

opponents, but, I'd like to think that it's about uncovering subversive activity.

That's where the emphasis is.

I would agree.

I mean, I don't see holding a minister holding a prime minister to account

for their actions they did in secret.

Yeah.

Or even holding a former president to account for stealing documents and

then keeping them in unsafe locations.

And from what I hear.

The classified documents were hidden inside unclassified documents.

Right.

They had been taken from their original folders and mixed in

with papers of other sorts.

So it looks like there was a deliberate attempt to hide classified documents.

Yeah.

I think the inspiration expression was they'd been unfolded.

I think it was possibly a word that was kind of a hurdle and

someone was saying, oh yeah.

it was his blackmail, trope.

Yes.

These, these were all things that he was hoping to threaten to, to disgrace people

by saying, look, look, you did this.

I'm going to make this public.

If you don't do whatever I tell you to.

Yep.

Yeah.

And certainly that there was a Macron file.

Certainly reeks of him getting some ammunition of some sort, but he might

to have some payback by being toes.

Yeah.

So anyway, Trump on the confidential documents, he says it's a.

Conservatives on the Morrison ministries.

They say that's a witch hunt conservatives on the robo debt inquiry.

They say that's a witch hunt.

And they started with pink bats.

Didn't they?

Yes, that's right.

But you know, when it comes to the robot, did quite possibly Joe it's

a witch hunt of a witch hunt because that, Alan targe, who was the, the, one

of the ministers involved said at one point, we'll find you we'll track you

down and you will have to repay those debts and you may end up in prison.

So perhaps he was conducting a witch hunt and now there's a

witch hunt of his witch hunt.

It's all getting very meta.

so.

it's conflicting.

There's all sorts of different people, in the chat room, by the

way, everyone's going off already.

Good on you.

Alison Bronwyn ITTO and, and, and, and Tanya, I think T

Watkins would be Tanya probably.

Yeah.

Keep talking in there.

We'll try and get to you if you can.

And, what I was going to say, Walid, Allie, are you a fan?

Joe, so somebody posted a link to him and Christopher Hitchens

on Q and a many years ago.

Oh, what happened?

Oh, Walid was being his usual evasive self about what Islam believed.

Right.

Cause Christopher was saying, so does this law firm say that homosexuality is

fine and he's going, oh, well, you know, most Muslims and he's saying, no, no,

no, it's not what most Muslims believe.

What does Islam say?

Yes, because he was calling his Lamar and I think of Christianity as being.

and, and we're saying basically you just, you're not answering the question.

I was trying to hold Willy to account.

Yes.

Yeah.

I could imagine Hitchins nailing him.

So, well, Allie, in a quarterly essay in 2010 road established institutions

are to be cherished and preserved, but, in the last week or so, after Morrison

announced, after it was announced about what Morrison was doing with the

ministries, Waleed Ali is saying, why is it labor kicking him while he's down?

And so when else would you kick him?

Yeah, so, yeah.

Well at Allie he's, off as a conservative and questioning,

why are they doing this attack?

So from a guy who previously wrote established institutions that will

be cherished and preserved and who claimed to be a conservative.

So it sounds like, he's revealing his tribalism there.

So isn't important.

Well, there was a guy RAF Epstein, and now I'm just wondering the Dali's wife

was a member of parliament for labor, or is that somebody else over in potent?

I don't know.

I don't know who his wife is, but RAF Epstein.

I think he's an ABC reporter of some sort.

And I think of all the commentary I've heard, he probably said it best.

So I'll apply a bit of this clip from him and, we'll see what he says.

can I, can I say something about whether or not the inquiry is justified?

Yeah, because a lot I want to get, there's a lot of debate about whether it's, which,

you know, it was going to change anything, but we got to ensure one way or another.

This never happens again.

Do we need to do this?

I think people have overlooked the significance of the

solicitor General's opinion.

Steven here, QC is the black letter of Blackwell.

He's one of the very few people in this country that actually practiced

it practices constitutional law.

He has to get up in front of the high court and prosecute this stuff, getting

them to use an adjective or an adverb is like getting blood from a stone.

He says he fundamentally undermine fundamentally undermines the

principles of responsible government, the functioning of responsible

government and the relationship between the ministry and the public.

The point that this is a very gendered government was surprised.

The government was surprised that it was that it's huge.

It's a huge compulsion to do something and to say for people

who are, who tap themselves as conservatives to say that, I mean,

by the Volvo, it's just a convention.

If you went back to the constitutional convention before Federation

and said, oh no, it's fine.

This future prime minister, he didn't break the law.

He just trashed all of the convention that you all rely on.

Yeah, I think it put it pretty well.

That's a little bit low.

Sorry about the volume on that, but, It's important.

And I think it's entirely justified.

Insure label would be rubbing their hands together with a bit of glee with a bit

of payback, but it is an important thing that needs to be done, particularly as

we're looking at potentially some sort of Republican debate down the track,

so issues to do with our constitution and the role of the governor general.

I think it's a worthwhile exercise, even if it does work in nicely

with labor's desire to, to keep him to kick him while his day on.

So, so there was that.

Okay.

So that's we chance, now it came out, Fran Bailey has come out in the news.

So she was the former tourism minister and she's the one who I sickly, ordered that

Morrison be sacked from his tourism job.

And for years, people were asking.

Why do you do that?

What actually went on and there was this silence about, about what had happened,

what his misdemeanors were in that role.

And it was all very secretive.

And, so she has declined, since 2006, the many requests to explain on

the record what happened until now.

So she, so infuriated with the recent disclosures about Morrison,

secretly appointed himself to multiple ministries that she has agreed to speak.

and she's made a profound point according to this article from John fine, and the

age, Morrison was removed from tourism Australia for the same type of conduct he

displayed in the multi minister scandal.

Quote, what has changed my mind is that all of those characteristics that make up

Scott Morrison the secrecy, the Supreme belief that only he can do a job, the

lack of consultation with those closest.

Those characteristics were evident 16 years ago.

Perhaps we're seeing the end result of those now end quote.

Well, why didn't you come out until everybody back then?

What I'm going to know.

She thought he wasn't going to go anywhere.

She criticized she's criticizing his secrecy and that are

which she kept secret herself.

Just, you know, for people who want to come out and say good on you.

Fran Bailey for revealing.

I just say they'll add on new friend Bailey, keeping it secret.

I don't know that anything would have been done, but at least you could

have done the honorable thing and say, this guy is a secretive narcissist,

Dinah pointing to any position of power, least of all prime minister.

So.

well, it was God who did it.

Yes, that's right.

I mean, a few people have made the same sort of criticism that I have just

made and that we've been admonished by some on the left saying, oh, it

was a woman who got him sacked and why as a woman being blind for Morrison

getting through all this, and it says nothing to do with her gender.

It's just in you.

He was a secret of character and you kept it secret from us that he was

secretive site and try and climb too much.

Kudos for it is all I'm saying, John in the chat room says too little too late.

She should pull her head back in again.

I think she did it.

Political expediency.

Didn't she?

Yeah.

She wasn't going to upset her party.

Yeah, that's right.

Well, he was powerful.

Let him go.

And now that he's got no friends, everyone can kick him while he's down.

Yeah.

Right.

I mentioned was it last year?

About crikey and Murdoch.

I don't know if I actually said it, but, how, how strongly I said it, but

it seemed unlikely that Murdoch would actually Sue crikey because it makes no

sense it will be unleashing, exposure of communication by the Murdoch family

as to what they did and did not do.

And so it just seemed to be obvious that this was going to

potentially open a Pandora's box.

And surely after all of these defamation cases in recent times where the

plaintiff has ended up regretting starting the action, you would have

thought that he would just let it go.

But no, he actually did convince the action against crikey.

So, We'll see where that one goes.

It's going to be very interesting stories that pans out Joe, like.

Yeah, absolutely.

I would like, I, I think, whatever discovery is granted is going,

gonna be very interesting.

Hm.

well, I mean, it's relevant to produce all material that indeed, that might

lead to the conclusion that there was some agreement, some conspiracy, or just

mere assistance for Trump in what he was doing or covering up what he was doing.

It was just, it seems madness, but, he's doing it.

So we'll, we'll see how that one pans out.

That's going to be, with many stories over the times it goes

through, and January 6th inquiry.

yeah, just going back to Morrison with the secrecy stuff.

What Lee, hello.

What Lee says?

I don't think any of the commentary is taking his religious fanaticism

into account as his actions go and Bronwyn says agree wildly.

When you believe you've been chosen by God, anything is justifiable.

There are certainly a Messiah complex operating in the Scott Morrison mind.

Did I mention there have been allegations that the only ministries he hadn't

appointed himself to were the ones that were occupied by evangelicals?

is that true?

I don't know.

I've not looked yet.

Somebody had said it would be interesting if it was, yeah, I don't know.

So it seemed to me at first blush, it was ones where the minister had a fair

amount of personal decision-making responsibility under what the relevant act

more so than some of the other ministry.

Whether to approve a development, whether to approve a immigration visa

for a Sri Lankan family, those sorts of decision-making powers that may be some

of the other ministries didn't have.

So it seemed to me ones where there were a high degree of

personal power for the minister.

And I just think Morrison didn't like the idea of anyone having more power than him.

So, yeah.

Okay.

Back to, crikey and, this lawsuit.

So they're doing crowd funding.

I think they revealed, they've got something like 12 journalists work

for crikey and he came out the figures for their income seemed fairly modest.

It's quite a small organization.

So if you haven't already and you like the idea of supporting them, then just

get a subscription and private media.

Hmm.

What's that private media is the holding company.

Okay.

For crikey, crikey, right?

Yup.

sorry, you might, support them cause they will need assistance.

And also what we had here was comments by Malcolm Turnbull about the Murdochs.

So if, well actually before I get into that, Joe Biden says Rupert Murdoch is

the most dangerous man in the world.

I mean, if you want to start suing somebody for defamation, maybe Rupert

Murdoch could have started with Joe Biden.

because he's propaganda network is one of the most destructive

forces in the United States.

So that's what J Biden had decided that Rupert Murdoch, I don't think

you can Sue a sitting president any, no, I don't think he can eat well.

Of course, it's going to be difficult.

Yeah.

That's why Trump wants to get reelected.

okay.

What did Malcolm Turnbull say?

Let's find out what he said about this whole thing.

The role of, Fox news, which of course belongs to Rupert Murdoch,

in the whole January six, attempted coup by Donald Trump is a matter

of enormous public interest.

The reality is the big lie that fueled that coup namely, that Trump had won

the 20, 20 election and Biden had stolen it that big lie was propagated

and amplified and promoted by Fox news.

January six could not have happened without the toxic influence of Fox news.

I mean, Rupert Marie.

Has done more damage to American democracy than any other individual alive today.

And he's done it through Fox news.

And I can kind of tell you that may sound a bit controversial on the

radio this morning, go to Washington.

You would struggle.

Oh, just the us, UK and Australia as well, I'd say.

Mm Hmm.

The problem is Laughlin is, is crazier than reap it.

He's not as smart, but he's crazier.

So at one point I was holding out hope that when Rupert would eventually, if

he's not a vampire and will actually die at some point, maybe Laughlin

so crazy that the whole rock shower will just fall into the ground fairly

swiftly because of these mistakes come.

Only one is possibly doing.

just an evil malignant force in our community, responsible for a lot of stuff.

And this is the part I, you know, this is one of my big arguments with, pull

12 million over the years was Paul did not accept the propaganda effectiveness

of the Murdoch empire and did not accept that journalists were cowed into

complying with whatever the Murdoch doctorate was, editorial direction.

Yeah.

And actually sort of got into a, I didn't enter into an argument.

I just, a friend of mine played squash with his sister was a sports

journalist for, for Murdoch papers.

And I think I was at a wedding of some sort where she was, and I started

entering into this discussion and she was trying to say that there was no.

Direction on her, in her activities.

And I said, well, first of all, you're a sports journalist.

And secondly, you know, you don't have to be told what to do, people figure it out.

So, and I say, you only hire journalists to align to your views.

Correct.

It's all that, it, it, you know, do you accept the Noam Chomsky

theory of manufacturing consent?

And I think it's a pretty compelling argument and yeah, so it used to frustrate

me with Paul 12 million that he, he would rarely accept that argument.

I think also just the whole science done.

I love fogs, but other murder rags, which is, you know, buying into the, find the

one dissenting voice and amplify it.

Yes.

Provided that voice is one that somehow is in line with your own.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Needs of some sort.

okay.

I got my fourth COVID shot this morning.

Creamies three have been Pfizer, went from the Dern of this

time just to mix it up feeling.

Okay.

No real effects on COVID fourth.

No, no.

I only have my third.

I was, I got nagged by my gastroenterologist to get my

fourth and then the kids got COVID.

So I get the feeling given that I was in the house with the two of them and

they were both sick for a week each.

that I've only certainly had an exposure, probably had it hardly.

Yup.

Yup.

so I've got that, but, long COVID Joe that, I think this treasury, I think

has estimated 31,000 Australian workers are calling in sick every day because of

the debilitating symptoms of long-term.

Treasury data.

Given the news Corp papers shows 12% of the labor force is staying

home sick because of the long-term after effects of the virus.

So we should slash wages, make them more keen to get back to work

because of the, just the poorer they are, the more they want to work.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Sorry.

And this is, I thought, you know, news gore they'd be advocating for such things.

my daughter's friend who's 17 and she was all gung ho let's let's get COVID,

let's get it over and done with, and she was sick for a week or whatever she

had to give up a gym membership really cannot do any form of cardio exercise.

And this is presumably right?

Yeah.

You do hear these stories.

Yeah, I know.

It's not uncommon.

Mm mm.

Just, just, yeah.

Being out of breath.

after walking a couple of hundred meters, well people saying that

their thinking is really fuzzy.

They're not as alert for as long as they used to be.

Yeah.

So, it's, it's actually been pointed out that it's not uncommon after any virus.

It's just, it seems to be because almost all of them, or rather large

numbers of people have had COVID we're seeing post COVID, viral fatigue,

which are around and other viruses.

We just don't usually recognize it.

yeah.

So, long COVID, we'll see how that pans out over time.

let's talk about our new labor government who, have come in and with a lot of

Goodwill around the place, I think from the front, the media, at least, and

from their own supporters and, you know, the sort of conservative supporters.

I think accepted that the Morrison government was so bad, it just had to go.

So they're sort of standing back and giving these guys half a chance.

I, climate credentials out, looking real flesh so far for this new government.

They, they told the world that the climate wars were either climbed.

They will take climate change seriously, and they just approved 10 new ocean

sites for oil and gas exploration.

Just doesn't line up with what people might have been hoping and expecting.

And the grains will be rubbing their hands together.

I reckon with this, it doesn't surprise me.

I thought labor were as bad.

I mean, Palo Shay has been very much on board with Adani.

I really don't see much of a difference between labor might be slightly better

in terms of pushing for renewables.

But yeah, they're still very keen to, I think there's far too much

sponsorship, far too much money in Canberra from the oil and coal lobby.

Yeah.

And they've only had to show themselves just a little bit more progressive

with, as opposed to the conservatives and that's not hard to do so.

Yeah.

You know, approving 10 new ocean sites and you're talking about being

serious about this stuff and the more you just read in the paper about,

but they weren't off of Morrison's electric and that's the important point.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

you know, the, the Greenland ice shelf, the droughts in England at the moment,

you know, canals or Eastern rivers that used to run and try France dry.

one of my English friends was actually saying they're finding

more and more bodies as the reservoir levels are dropping.

I'm sure.

Why could you seem to, the Northern hemisphere is really facing some

catastrophic stuff and we seem to be heading for another wet summer.

It's, it's going to kind of catch up with us and it just

looks like Morrison government.

Isn't serious.

It'll be interesting to see how the public takes it.

Or the greens have just picked up another couple of notches in approval writing,

I reckon as a result of that decision.

Yeah.

So, Joe, if you were trying to, encourage people to pass a future

referendum about the voice, would you be importing a large American basketball

player as part of your media camp?

I don't know whether he was imported or whether he was

over here for something else.

And is it because he is revered by the Aboriginal community?

I don't know.

It did seem a bit left field.

I think the argument from, Albanese was look we're at the point where we're

just trying to raise awareness and we're trying to reach people who may not

necessarily read the newspapers or read political sections or whatever, but who

would, if they saw it, Shaq decide to pay attention to whatever he is here for.

So I think that was the rationale was we've got to message this past the

community we can't reach and a big American African-American basketball

player will reach that demographic.

Could you not have reached it some other way, other than

importing a large American?

Was it nobody in Australia?

It was it now Australian indigenous.

I, and you're not going to point out the point that he's a flat earth.

Is it a flat earth cook?

Yes.

He claims that the plane that flew him here, didn't clue in a straight

line because the earth is flat.

Really?

Yeah.

I'm surprised he didn't say that.

we're all paid actors because you know, the other flat earth

conspiracies Australia is made up within the world actors.

Yeah.

I think he might've been here for other reasons and it's sort of, I

don't think they paid him a thing he did for free, but I just, if I was

the Australian prime minister, I would just not be using American culture

on such a vital Australian issue.

It just to me.

Rankles with me.

And I, you know, there are, there's some successful indigenous basketball

players like Patty mills or others who, I mean, the guy held the flag in

the Olympics or whatever, like this there's all sorts of other people.

He surely could reach that demographic with add, a big American who was

admittedly a great federal opportunity.

Just the size of the guy compared to Morrison was, was Banting

get photographs, I guess.

But, yeah, I just think relying on American culture for such

an Australian problem issue

and you know, how, how relevant to the day as, sports people toward

the average Australian, as opposed to an indigenous rugby player.

Mm mm.

Anyway, that was that.

Kevin says, well, there goes any respect I had for shack, and Brahman, why do

we need the endorsement of a foreigner?

We need to work these things out for ourselves.

I know it's such an Australian issue to bring in a foreigner with no

particular expertise, honestly, that move, I wouldn't have done if I was

him anyway, stage three tax cuts.

So while the conservatives were in power, they proposed some tax cuts and library

grade to them at the time as part of the small target strategy and the tax cuts,

not, were not to take effect immediately.

They were to take effect at some time in the future, which will be

during, this term of the parliament.

So people are saying.

Yeah, well, budget situation.

Isn't looking that flash and you're supposed to be alive a government.

So maybe you could think about not, you know, you could reverse this

decision about the tax cuts so time.

No, no.

It's far too late in the day too many people have made financial plans based

on this that we can't reverse it.

When did they say that the election right.

People have made commitments based on their tax cut.

So we can't, eh, so I think it was either just before.

I think it was just after the election.

They said, no, no, we're going ahead with them because they do use kick in

any time and people have already made.

Because couple's on $200,000 who bought that investment property.

we're doing this spreadsheet out into the next 10 years and had factored in more

disposable money income because of a, of a tax break that they were going to get.

And you know, that landlords are doing art at the moment.

Yeah.

I mean, it's an argument.

so what are the tax cuts anyway?

So they're going to remove the 37 cents in the dollar tax bracket,

and they're going to allow her the 32 and a half cent bracket.

And they're going to rise the top tax bracket to start a 200,000

where it used to be 190,000.

So if you make 50,000 a year, the listener, which is kind of near the

median income, not the average, but the median, you're going to save $2 40 per.

But if you make 200,000 a year, you're gonna save 73 times of that.

You're gonna save $174 a week.

so the richest, 1% of Australians will get as much money from the stage

three tax cuts as the poorest 65% combined and alive, the government

looks like proceeding with this.

so there's two arguments.

One is you're alive.

The government you supposed to be for the working class is supposed

to be about trying to even out the inequality in our society.

And the other argument is, well, you committed to this.

And you promised people that you would pass these.

It was all part of your small target strategy.

If you were to go back on that promise, then nobody will

ever trust you ever again.

And so let's find the two arguments.

I've got clips for the first one, which is, Rick Morton.

I quite like Rick Morton.

He writes for the Sunday paper and, I hear him on different things.

And he's going to give the argument as to why live assured

look at reversing this decision.

So we'll play this one.

I think this government is better than a poke in the eye with the

burnt stick, which certainly is what the previous government offered,

which was basically just terrible decisions after terrible decisions.

So it's very easily.

Let you do a competent job.

And I think they are doing a competent job competent, solid, not spectacular.

And in fact, quite disappointing in some areas.

and you know, it's a really low bar that they've cleared, disappointing them.

What areas?

Ah, well, I think we've got a cost of living crisis and I've, I'll be banging

on about this until the day I die.

But, if you are particularly from the labor party or a party that cares about,

you know, workers and people who are not the top end of town, and you've

got a cost of living crisis and you get into power and you don't do anything

to help the people at the very bottom of that ladder, that why do you exist?

I really, I really wonder about that and I know what they would say, which

is that we are trying to be a government that's here for three terms or longer,

and you can only do good things when you're there for a long time.

And I totally get that, but I worry that, you know, people who are

starving now can't wait three tenths and that's, that's the problem.

Common sort of, talk is that live has got their eye on a decade in power.

I think that the liberals are so crushed that if they play this correctly,

they'll be in payoff for a long time.

I'm now arguing.

The other way would be guy Randall from crikey.

He wrote an article.

So I'm gonna read some excerpts from it.

He says label won't reverse the stage three tax cuts taxes by civilization

only works in a social democracy.

Now working class families, what their own life course reneging on cats would

be a political killer, says Rundle libel would be committing political self-harm

of the first order by canceling or even modifying the stage three cats.

It wave them through when they were brought to parliament

2019, which was something that Rundell was arguing in five ROV.

In order not to get snarled on the issue politically in pursuit of a

lighter majority, it was absolutely right to do so, had it not done.

So its opposition to the cuts, my well of being the means by which it was held

below a full majority, having lost in 2019, partly due to the franking credits

stuff up, it was leaving nothing to chance the decision and its ramifications

indicate where we are all at what libraries now and what's possible.

Spoiler alert, not much.

So, so far Rundle sign, they had to do it in order to get the majority that

they got and not to repeat the franking credits disaster of the shorten election.

he goes on, there has been an implicit and explicit called a focus tax

policy around collective commitment and the common good, but he says,

this is nostalgia for the Whitlam.

When we are on the road or trying to be to a social democracy in which individual

and family Goodwill band up with common good, but that possibility is gone.

It's been gone for some time and it really only existed for a few decades

after world war two and was decisively killed off by Orkin Keating initiatives.

So there was only a brief time post world war two, according to Randall, that we had

the chance to convert to a more European social democracy and we didn't make it.

And now most Australians look over a social landscape in which the

long journey to self and family life must be managed as an individual.

it's a tough to Rhine to try and say taxes by civilization.

And he basically says people aren't going to buy it.

The labor party should concentrate on taxing corporations and.

Yeah, it goes on essentially saying that Australia doesn't value community

and paying taxes for our civilization.

It wouldn't have one.

It doesn't want it now where essentially moved in the American

model rather than the European model.

We're all about individual freedom and our family buggered the community and

he couldn't have done the tax cuts.

And if he was to do then people wouldn't appreciate it.

So they're not going to do it.

That's the sort of guy run ball theory on it, which is quite depressing.

But I am saying the chat room.

And if you tax corporations rather than individuals, I think most

people would get on board with that, especially the way there.

I think a lot of people are very upset with the offshoring of wealth.

Yes, they'll let you go as hard as you possibly can on these

multinationals, but it's not easy.

Just actually designing the text to do it, having the, yeah, I mean it's possible.

And essentially that's what God is saying is forget the tax cuts on personal income.

Let it go and try and make up for it with corporate techs.

So, I guess it shows in the recent royalties changes with the Caltex

in Queensland, where they really bumped up significantly and you

know, a bit of moaning and grounding of course, from the mining sector.

But the average Joe on the street hasn't been, hasn't been

crying any tears for the minors.

So that's a good example, I guess.

all right.

what do we got here?

And also it's a profits based tax.

So if mine is to doing it hard, they don't pay any tax, correct?

Yep.

So if there's a super profits arising through super high commodity prices, then

actually it's based on price per time.

I think so.

Not quite profit, but essentially profit though.

Yeah.

So, yup.

Right.

so we'll see how that pans out, but it's, the money at the moment seems

to be online and not doing something, but some people think they might.

alright.

Did you have a student line, Joe, when you were in the, I never went to uni.

Oh, right.

Okay.

Thank you.

You did an apprenticeship wrong, right?

You have an apprenticeship line, right?

I got paid to study not much, but I did get paid.

In the U S the Biden administration has decided to, write off some student

debts and this, I think between 10 and 20,000, or the amounts that have been

written off and it's causing a bit of a problem in the sense, not so much

people saying we can't afford this, although there's a bit of that, but the

main argument is I paid my debt off.

Why these people should be paying their debt off as well.

It's unfair.

Yeah.

I, it was on a Jordan Peterson who was going, I worked 60 hour weeks and the

holidays and 40 hour weeks whilst I was studying and paid my way, I did, I had

zero student debt at the end of uni.

why shouldn't other people pay their way basically is yeah.

most of the people who say this actually we're in the time when university degrees

were either very, very cheap or free.

Yes.

So most of the politicians here, most of the politicians, the U S well, you

know, not necessarily went through because it'll be a lot of winter

Ivy league, but there were community colleges that you go to for free.

yep.

Yep.

And there, isn't a massive problem in America with people who get a degree,

can't get a decent job with it, end up with a debt and quite a lot of

people with a debt around the $10,000 mark that they'll just never pay off.

And it's an, a real, penalty around their neck.

So, so it's interesting where people who, some of the biggest critics are people.

Essentially had a debt themselves and pay it off and say, well, you

can't let these people get off.

They've got to learn somehow how to do it.

It's a little bit mean-spirited isn't it.

I didn't go as a university.

I think the problem is we've made university.

It used to be, you finished secondary school.

Some people went to university.

If it was relevant to a job, or we've now said, oh, you need a degree to do this.

You need a degree to do that.

And I don't think we do.

I think we are, we we've devalued the vocational training apprenticeships.

Yes.

and we are telling everybody that they need to go to university and they need to

borrow a large amount of money to do so.

I think we should make university free.

and say, we're paying for these particular skills that we

need these particular traits.

Right.

If you want to do anything other than that, and you know, maybe

some of them are arts degrees.

but, but I think we need to cap this and say, right, it's free for

the best students in these areas.

so you would be happy with something that subsidized degrees that led to

definite jobs thinking I'm thinking, teaching engineering doctor, for example,

maybe not so much if it was a generalist humanities arts degree, which examined

English, literature, history or something like, again, I think there's some value

in that, but does nursing need to be.

Nursing historically it was a vocational trade it's optional these days.

I think you can either do it kind of in-house working or through a degree.

I think, I think my son has two different pathways mandatory, but I could be wrong.

I think it's got two different pathways.

I think the problem is we've liberalized the market.

now, now tertiary education is a for-profit industry.

so they're desperate to get people through their doors.

And I think that's the biggest problem is it's gone from being, we want to

educate these people to, we want to make as much profit by selling them

courses that they don't necessarily fit.

Yes.

We've got KPIs measure money.

Yup.

And numbers, and don't necessarily measure.

Well-rounded individuals.

Yeah.

So, you know, I, I, years ago I would have been very much of the view that, you know,

probably should be, subsidized for degrees that were leading to a specific job.

But as I get older and older, I just think we need, I like the idea of humanities.

I think people just, learning stuff about history and about

philosophy and other things.

There's just not enough people doing that stuff.

So I think our society is, suffering because not enough people have been

reading and understanding that stuff and contributing at that level.

So we've become quite illiterate, you know, in a philosophy since so, and

this little podcast, dear listener, isn't it an attempt to redress that.

So, Yeah.

So anyway, that's student debt in America.

So some of the comments I was reading on Twitter was, from a Caitlyn Bern,

she wrote, if you have a problem with the student line cancellation, because

you already paid off your loans, just pretend it's a tax cut for the rich that

you also never got that mysteriously.

Didn't complain a bit like that one.

I saw a Maman that charred, Jesus with the loaves and fishes.

And it said something like the people who brought their own lunch should be pissed.

And, a headline from the shovel, Ted Cruz tells students to become a bank

if they want their debt forgiven.

And, this guy, Jim banks, a Republican politician said student line forgiveness

undermines one of our military's greatest recruitment tools at a time.

actually said it.

If we were, if we wipe off these lines, people won't need to join the

military as a matter of necessity.

Cause that's one of the things about joining the military is

they'll pick up your student loan.

Yeah.

Actually said it.

So, what are they saying?

The chat room?

Alison heck started the year after I got my degree.

Yeah.

I think Alison, I think six months after mine, six, I make

her have to pay six months.

Can't remember I sort of part-time at the end, so yeah.

And John's saying that rich people tutor their kids and

therefore they get better grades.

Mm.

is there a better way of measuring merit?

Yeah.

And well, Joe is merit something that should be rewarded anyway

because the meritocracy argument.

Look back a hundred episodes or so was really making the case that marriage

is not a good way of rewarding people.

Cause it, relies on a whole bunch of things beyond people's control.

Right.

But are they the alternative to that is bringing mediocre students into courses

that they struggle to keep up with.

don't want to let any of that.

None of these things are easy, but I think, I think it's crazy particularly

in the U S because that's what I tend to read more of the, the level of debt that

people are saddled with, is just, you cannot bankrupt yourself out of that debt.

It's one of the few things that's right.

Almost any other debt you could claim bankruptcy, but not the student debt.

Yeah.

I did read that somewhere as well, so yeah.

Alright.

I did have here on a list, some stuff by Caitlin Johnston

been she's such an angry woman.

I admire that she maintains the rage as she just continually criticizes the USI.

And, she just cops it on Twitter from all sorts of people, calling her a simp for

the, for the Chinese and for the Russians.

But she's basically says the U S empire is the biggest bunch of Boston running

around this planet by a long shot.

So we should be concentrating on criticizing them in while

the other guys aren't perfect.

They're nowhere near as bad as these guys.

And that's where she's going to continue to, to focus her efforts.

So I quite like reading her stuff because she's just got a

good turn of phrase quite often.

And just an example, we, Joe, apparently in the last 24 hours,

Biden has asked Congress to approve a $1.1 billion arms sale for Taiwan.

it's important.

These guys really know how to market, you know, send someone over

Pelosi, stir up more trouble and, and get your market really riled

up and then sell them some weapons.

yeah, it's Caitlin Johnson says anyone else getting deja VU and,

and we continue to hook ourselves up with these guys and Marco Rubio.

he had something to say about this stuff.

So let me play a clip from him.

So by this one and our job, honestly, the most important job I will.

If we get reelected.

Well, we got to do real things here.

Okay.

But we need to focus the federal government on what matters.

I don't, we don't need a military focused on the proper use of pronouns.

We need the military focused on blowing up Chinese aircraft carriers.

yep.

We needed a military focused on blowing up Chinese aircraft carriers.

So because we're just responsible citizens in the world that everyone should love.

What if, why don't people love us in America?

He's probably asking.

So just shameless warmongering by these characters.

And, and the propaganda just keeps, keeps supporting them, public assets

and the privatization of public assets.

I sort of thing on Twitter, Joe, about, electricity bills

in the UK are essentially.

For small businesses, five times what they were being, what they were paying before.

So you might have a bakery where your annual electricity bill was

something like 10,000 pounds.

And now that's 50,000 pounds with that incredible price hike in

electricity, businesses, all over the place having to shut down.

I've just got no capacity to pay the extra electricity charge.

Yeah.

I've got friends in the UK who are very concerned that come winter.

They're not going to be able to heat to survive.

so apparently residential has got a cap, so it's not quite as bad as commercial.

Maybe they're paying two and a half, three times what they were

paying previously, but the sort of cap doesn't apply to commercial.

So just a whole bunch of small business.

faced with this enormous increase in their electricity.

And it's not bullshit.

Like they're producing the invoices and the letters that they're getting from

the, from the, electricity providers.

And it spills it out really clearly how much extra they paying.

So many businesses are going to go bust in the UK.

If you were there, you'd want to get out Joe places hidden for ruin.

At what point do you buy your own generator?

Well, and apparently lots of people are buying solar, but

solar, the UK is not exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, the generator needs to go to run on diesel.

Haven't you?

I mean, how much is that going to cost?

I don't know.

Twice as much as it used to, but okay.

But does it still work out, but you could value your business?

Yeah.

It's gotta be a breakeven point where it's cheaper to, to run your own

generator than to buy off the grid.

Quite possibly.

What possibly.

So, incidentally John in the chat room with our argument about nuclear,

if I was in, the Northern hemisphere in Europe or somewhere, I might be a

supporter of it because it might work out.

But here in Australia, we have so much wind, so much solar that

it's clearly the case that we're doing the math in Australia,

that we should be on renewables, not considering nuclear at all.

But if I was in a rainy, either cast small European country that couldn't

generate solar or wind and had huge population basement compared to the

land mass, maybe nuclear would work.

We'd have to be the option there.

I don't know.

I used to live about 40 kilometers from an equally pass station.

So from the, from the roof of my parents' house, you could

see, Flamanville power station.

And kept a log nuclear reprocessing plant, which I looked on Google

maps the other day is all pixelated.

Right?

When you zoom in, just in case a terrorist wants to do some scouting.

but I remember when we got the power cable laid across the bit

of water between us and them.

And yeah, we used to have, how are two hour long breakdowns on a regular

basis of power and suddenly we were getting cheap French electricity.

Yeah.

Which was all nuclear was great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If you went back, you'd probably still getting outages now because of the erosion

and the fact that they can't cool, the nuclear reactor because of the warm water.

But yeah, we discussed the other day possibly because after, Brexit,

the price of the Euro has changed.

Indeed.

Yeah.

So, I've got an article here now.

I'm going to read a fair bit of settling in.

Because it's by yanas for a Farkas and regular listeners would

know that he's the only person.

I only, only guy I admit to having a bit of a man crush for.

So love yanas for far, cause he's such a he's delivery.

When you're hearing speak.

It's got an interesting way of talking and love his ideas

and he's a straight shooter.

And, yeah, so he's talking about, electricity in Europe.

So I'm gonna talk about that and then I'm gonna swing around to Australia, and make

it all relevant to the Australian context.

So, James says I was going to say that about, or horses for courses

are about my, my main crush on yanas.

Anyway, Athens.

The CNC ferric pharmacy in project syndicate Athens, the blades of

the wind turbines on a mountain range, opposite my window.

A turning, especially energetically to die.

Last night storm has abided, but high winds continue contributing extra

kilowatts to the electricity grid at precisely zero additional cost or marginal

cost in the language of economists.

But the people struggling to make ends meet during a dreadful cost of living

crisis must pay for these kilowatts as if they were produced at the most

expensive liquefied, natural gas, transported to greases shores from Texas.

So it's cheap wind power, but the Greeks have to pay as if it was expensive.

Natural gas imported from Texas.

You'll explain why, it stems from the delusion that states meaning government.

Can simulate a competitive and efficient electricity market

because only one electricity cable enters a home or a business.

If you lift matters to the market, it would lead to a perfect monopoly

and outcome that nobody wants, but governments decided they could

simulate a competitive market to replace the public utilities that

used to generate and distribute power.

But our Yannis is going to argue that they can't.

So the EU obliged its member states.

It's a hard thing.

Part of the hearing to privatize the power stations, to create new

companies, which would compete with one another to provide electricity

to a new company that owned the grid.

And this company in turn would lease its cables to another host of companies

that would buy the electricity house.

And compete amongst themselves for the retail business of the homes in

firms sound familiar, previously, government owned it and sold it.

Now, banter, power stations, competing with each other to supply it to

an artificially created entity who then sells it to a bunch of other

companies who are competing at that retail level, the money by building

infrastructure that they don't need.

And then charging interest on that infrastructure.

I that's not the argument he makes in this one.

We'll get to it.

so, yeah, so the theory was competition amongst producers would

minimize the wholesale price while competition amongst retailers would,

would lead to lower retail prices.

So if you are the, competition mindset, competition fixes everything.

This seemed to be the ticket.

less, none of this could be mine to work.

So part of this is that this model faced a contradiction.

It had to ensure a minimum amount of electricity within the grid and

it needed to promote green energy.

So the solution proposed was fold.

They had to create another market for permissions to emit greenhouse gases.

so there would be penalties that you had to pay if you

were emitting greenhouse gases.

So that would, try to entice groups to guy for greener power.

And the other part of this was, introduced marginal cost pricing, which meant that

the wholesale price of every kilowatt should equal the costliest kilowatt.

So if you've got multiple people providing money into the grid,

you might have a wind farm.

It's essentially able to supply $20 per megawatt, and you might have, some other

solar farm able to provide it at 40, but you might have some guests turbine.

That's providing it at 120, and then everybody gets paid 120.

And, that was the way they set it up to make sure that there'll be enough,

supply in theory, the more industry that relied on fuels like brown, coal,

the larger, they would have to pay for their sort of emission permits, which

would drive up their price and would encourage people to switch to renewables.

And this marginal cross pricing was intended to ensure that, there would

be a minimum level of electricity supply and, the low cost guys would

not undercut the high cost guy.

Instead that would just make a super profit on it.

And that would encourage people to go for the low cost renewable, power supply.

Cause they'd be making these super profits.

So to see what the regulators had in mind consider a hydro electric

power station and a coal-fired one.

The fixed cost of building the hydro electric station is large,

but the marginal cost is zero.

Once the water turns a turbine, the next kilowatt, cost nothing in contrast,

the coal-fired power station is cheap to build or cheaper to build, but,

there's a marginal cost reflecting the fixed amount of coal that you need to

burn her kilowatt by fixing the price of every kilowatt produced, in the

hydro electric situation to be no less than the marginal cost of using brown.

They wanted to reward the hydro electric company with a fat profit

to encourage them to keep doing it.

And for people to build more renewables.

meanwhile coal-fired guys would be operating at almost zero profits.

So they'd be wanting to sort of get out of the market, but the reality was less

forgiving for this theory as the pandemic wrecked or wreaked havoc on global supply

chains, the price of natural gas rose and before trebling, after Russia invaded

Ukraine, suddenly the most polluting fuel ran coal was not the most expensive.

So, the most expensive was natural gas in people who were burning coal

would be getting the price from burning the expensive natural gas.

So they were making good money, keep burning coal, Marginal cost pricing

helped power companies extract huge rents from outrage, retail, consumers,

who realize that we're paying much more than the average cost of electricity.

So when the public saying now benefits from these wind farms,

we're thinking, what the heck have we got these wind farms fall?

So, the rising cost in natural prices exposed, problems where

you try and simulate a market.

We try and artificially create one.

So, it's he says it's time to wind down simulated electricity markets.

What we need instead are public energy networks in which electricity

prices represent Everage costs.

Plus I small mock-up.

So when you look at the situation in Europe and the rising cost of

electricity, It's not just that the price of gas went up because

of Russia and all the rest of it.

It's just that also these cheaper forms of energy, the hydro electric and the

brown coal, we're actually able to charge that higher price as well because of

the way that the market is structured.

So it wasn't just one segment of the market, but got expensive hallmark.

It shot out.

Irrespective, where did the money go to large corporations who happened to own?

Imagine Joe, if you owned a hydro electric power generator, it's cost nothing.

Having bought it to generate electricity and you're able to recoup at the price

of super expensive natural gas now.

So, this is the problem with selling off public infrastructure.

Yeah.

And what you could do actually is take those profits and use them to pay to

insulate houses and work basically to make your electricity use much more efficient.

yeah.

single government operating it.

You could be discharging people, the average cost of the electricity.

And meanwhile, you could be directing the market into the types of

production that you wanted to do.

these artificial mechanisms have failed.

Well, I'm not the whole whinge about the carbon tax was going to make

our electricity use more expensive.

And therefore we're going to pay more on the power bill.

The whole point was to make us use the less electricity.

Yes.

The point was to make it worthwhile, to insulate your house rather than just

turn on the air conditioner every day.

Yeah.

it seems to that they're just, there's this lack of, Hey, maybe

we should use less electricity.

How do we do that?

If you remember the whole, the millennium drought, there was a big push by the

Queensland government on water reduction.

And so they said, right, we'll pay for a client, a plumber to come

out for free and he will replace the gaskets on your leaking taps.

And he will put a shower rows in that uses less water.

Yup.

Yup.

Yup.

and there was a thing about late install, a power meter that would measure

your parents or over a bunch of your light bulbs for compact fluorescent.

Yes.

Yep.

But we need to be looking at that more and more about consumption.

Yeah.

yeah.

I cheap loans to replace.

Shitty windows with thesis windows that actually, keep a bit of the heat out

or to put good insulation in your roof.

I mean, that was the pink bat scheme, but we don't know how effective that

was, but we need to look more at how do we reduce the average energies?

And there was also, talk about the problem with rooftop solar, which

is getting more and more is the infrastructure is not designed to

handle the generation of electricity in residential areas and moving it

to, you know, during the day you're generating it and residential areas and

shipping it to industrial areas and the infrastructure is not designed for that.

And so there's discussion about, neighborhood level batteries where

the rooftop solar charges it during the day and then at night, The

local area uses the battery that they've charged during the day.

And that means that you don't need as large cables going into or out of an area.

And it makes sense to decentralize these things as well.

So when there is a disaster it's limited, you don't have

all your eggs in one basket.

I'm still getting my head around Paul wiper in Canberra, giving 56

cents per kilowatt or whatever, even for the electricity users that was

systemizing to put it into the grid, even if he just used it himself.

Incredible.

Yeah.

So it's not, I think if you use it, cause I had a friend who was

on a similar score scheme up here.

It was you, you paid 50 cents for generating it and then you bought

it back from the power company.

So you paid them, sorry they paid you 50 cents.

And then you bought it back from them at whatever your standard meter rate.

Yeah, I don't think you were getting the difference.

I think the Canberra deal was even better than that.

Paul was describing it.

Yeah.

He was literally using it.

And then pied, even though he was the one using it is.

Yeah.

It made sense to, I think use electricity during the evenings

on the, on the old scheme.

And now it makes sense to use that electricity because basically if

you're using the electricity, you're generating during the daytime, are

they going to pay you less for that?

So you're paying less per electricity.

Yep.

than if you're buying it from the grid in the evening.

anyway, that was last week with Paul, now in Australia, ah, it just going

back to that, I'm going to get to a book by a guy called Lev small.

I think his name is.

it'd been recommended to me, essentially.

It's saying that we consume why too much, in terms of electricity, but

also just things like, fertilizer that is needed for growing the crops that

feed the world relies on, on fossil fuel to generate the fertilizer.

I was going to say there's a, there's a world earth day or something,

which is basically the day in the year where we've used up enough

resources that we so a year's worth of resources for it to remain renewable.

So we're not depleting the Earth's energy or the, what are the years

that I think it's sometime around may or June I currently, yeah, it is.

We've used up a year.

A year's worth of.

yep.

Resources.

Yep.

So even if we build this infrastructure of renewables, we're still gonna be

faced with, having to reduce consumption.

And so things like the amount of energy that goes into producing fertilizer,

which is producing crops, which were then feeding into animals and then eating

the animals, it's inefficient where we should just be eating the crop rather

than running it through an animal and having their protein and, just the amount

of energy that's required for steel and concrete and all that sort of stuff.

So I'll get to that book, but I think consumption is going to be a big issue.

there's a big push towards wooden skyscrapers now.

Yes.

Yeah.

I'm just saying, I saw something about how they're getting

bigger and bigger skyscrapers.

They're getting the strength out of what they call manufactured wood.

So where they're building up laminate.

Of, multiple layers, much like plywood and it's much, much stronger than natural

wood because it doesn't have the defects.

Yeah.

The best ones is one day on near, the exhibition down there at bound Hills.

Oh, okay.

A mate of mine, are quite dense lives in it or lives beside it.

It's sort of about eight stories high, I think.

And the reason they made it of wood was because it's over the tunnel and they

needed the white to be reduced in order to build, top of one of the tunnels that was

sort of not that deep in that vicinity.

So that's why they used a wooden interesting skyscraper.

They now back to Australia and, bringing in this electricity idea eventually.

And let's talk about Paul Keating and like.

So many people think of privatization as a policy of

conservative parties in Australia.

However, it was Paul Keating's labor that initiated a gigantic

fire sale of public assets.

in the 1990s, Paul Keating's labor government kicked off one of the most

aggressive waves of privatization seen in the developed world, resulting fire,

Sal transferred a vast amount of public wealth to the private sector, Keating

cyl of Quantis and the Commonwealth bank of the two most notorious examples.

But the damage was deeper and wider than people realize he made sweeping

reforms that lied the groundwork for two decades of privatization and

outsourcing, Cornea this article, which is from Jacobin magazine.

That'll tell you how it's a lefty.

It's a very lefty, it's so left, but it's criticizing, for locating

the, again, it says Keating's near liberalization of the Australian economy

paved the way for his liberal success.

John Howard, who went on to accelerate the transformation that Keating started.

and we can now draw up a damning balance sheet of the whole experiment.

So Hawk abolish tariffs, floated the dollar, introduced the prices of income

accord that drastically undermined the ability of trade unions to organize.

These reforms lied the basis for labor's privatization wave.

there was a national competition policy review known as the Hilma committee and

it inspired a national competition policy.

And it was all about creating competitive markets in Australia

society and in 95, 19 95, Keating's federal government endorsed every

recommendation of that Hilmer report.

So every state government, every state and territory, government followed

suit and soon governments across the nation were aggressively enforcing a

competitive market logic in crucial sectors like electricity, gas, IVI should

finance, transport and communications, crucially it impose competitive

neutrality on public enterprises.

So previously publicly owned services and institutions had benefited from

advantageous frameworks or were able to borrow money at cheaper government.

Right.

They are exempt from tax and they weren't required to turn up.

So competitive neutrality changed all this.

It insisted that governments had district public companies have these

advantages, forcing them to function like private corporations and compete.

John Howard took this to its logical conclusion by

initiating the sale of Telstra.

And then Julie Gilad sell the last of Telstra.

Proponents of neo-liberalism have argued that competitive markets deliver services

cheaper and more efficiently, but the public know that this to be a lie.

And since privatizations, since privatization levels of productivity and

efficiency in the electricity system have declined while the costs have ballooned.

And there was a report from the Australia Institute and what it found was.

Real output per employees in the electricity sector has fallen by 37%.

under private ownership, the number of managers employed by electricity

providers has doubled the number of silo.

Staff has quadrupled, but over the same period, the number of actual electrical

trades people as around about 21%.

So people actually do stuff directly related to supplying

electricity, but it's more efficient.

So they got rid of half of them.

I only grew by 21%, the sales staff quadrupled and, the management doubled.

So incredibly the electricity sector now spends more on finance and banking.

Then it does on the fuel that powers its generators.

This is just the takeover of our economy by the.

Finance insurance sector.

Anyway, I had guys on, in 95, there were a couple of economists released an animal

and an analysis showing that, Australia is publicly owned pharmaceutical company,

the Commonwealth serum laboratories, CSL, the privatization of that cost taxpayers.

This is a 90, 95, $607 million, partly because he's trying

government now had to buy services from the newly privatized CSL.

And partly because of loss of revenue and assets, the fiscal impact of the cyl

is the same as if the government would have borrowed 607 million competed commit

itself to paying interest on that Sanford.

and simply dissipate the funds.

So as disastrous for the public CSL is near the most valuable corporation

listed on Australia stock exchange the market capitalization of 140 billion.

And in 95 we sold it for 607 million.

Ah, excellent.

Him night.

Would it basic, so successful?

Had we not sold it?

All right.

Yes, indeed.

Indeed.

That's the question?

actually it says here in 93, Katie and seldom for 299 million, roughly

half a billion in today's money.

So that's where the 140 and keying solid for half a billion in today's money.

And they underestimated the true cost of it because.

the Commonwealth government just solved a deal that involves paying CSL $1

billion to purchase medical products.

The company had developed when it was owned by the government, ah,

to die the largest shareholders of Telstra, Quantas CSL, and the

Commonwealth bank are multi-national hedge funds and investment banks.

Have you had a black rock?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

BlackRock and the Vanguard group can be something on BlackRock in

the weeks to come huge company.

so what it says here is essential services like electricity or

telecommunications were formerly provided at cost, but now consumers must

subsidize private profit margins and the increased running costs associated

with the bloated corporate structure.

between 96 and 2016.

So a 20 year period electricity prices increased by 183%, three times

more than the right of inflation.

That's what a competition gets.

You.

It's better for the consumer though.

The few remaining, publicly owned electricity supplies have also hiked

their prices because they have to follow the principles of competition.

And why wasn't there objection to this privatization and any internal

labor party review, after the loss to Howard identified that this

privatization was one of the main reasons amongst the disillusionment

among labor's working class voters.

And so Keating did it, and it was one of the major reasons why

he lost a working class voters.

Remind deeply opposed to the south of public assets.

And as an example, Queensland's a clear cut example.

In 2012 Queensland ly bar dropped from 51 seats to just seven after Anna Bligh

pushed through deeply unpopular program of privatizing major ports, roads, and rail.

So, both parties have been pushing through the sale of

assets, ordinary people, object.

They're a result of all this extra competition is all paying more money.

So these things are structural.

The why the been designed to create artificial markets that have provided

sweet deals for the corporations involved.

It's not just all about Russia and a sudden shortage of gas.

It's a case where that particular event is just amplified because of these crazy

pricing mechanisms that are in built.

And, so it's, it's more to it than just blind potent.

It's actually blind Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.

And neo-liberalism whoa, how this is accelerated of what could have

been as much smaller problem.

Milton, is it Milton school of an economics boys?

Yup.

Yup, yup.

And architect of all that.

So, ah, is that not a sad and depressing title and yeah, I mean, I was knocking

around at the time, but it you're busy.

You're raising kids.

I didn't, I wasn't paying attention to these things.

It's like, ah, it must be.

You don't, you're not taught to think about the future.

I don't know.

Did you look at it askance at the time though?

Or do you think I've going to get some of this I'm going to, I'm going

to buy some of these Telstra shares.

Cause they're too cheap.

I was a teenager and that bought shares in British gas in my name.

and then, you know, basically I think we sold them off the next

day because we got on the IPO yeah.

And made a couple of hundred quid on it.

Some, some Palmy friends of ours came out to Australia, just like

the UK was doing it before us.

and they had seen these privatizations happening over there.

And what would happen is the government would, would sell this stuff off

cheap because I, they were convinced by the brokers and B it would look.

That it was all sold.

It was seen as a success if you managed to sell off all the shares.

And, there were well over subscribed and people were making huge profits.

Exactly.

And everyone was profiting in the sales.

Yes.

So in all of our, when these Palmy friends come to Australia, as Australia started,

doing this sort of stuff, now we're into every one of them are piling them

up and, and subscribing to these things because it was just money for nothing.

These things were being just sold too cheap.

And, you know, future generations gonna look back at some of this

stuff and just, be really angry.

I, it was interesting because, Jersey telecom was small government owned

and my former boss got involved with trust drafting the legislation

when it was due to be privatized.

and I had a long chat with him about.

and he was talking about the fact that, the richest customers or effectively

subsidizing the poorest customers to the tune of, I think he was saying 50

pounds a month previously, previously.

So, so the banks, the banks, we were making huge profits.

There was a single bank, which was 50% of our revenue, one bank,

because it was off shore finance and effectively it was subscribed.

It was subsidizing every single home user 50 pounds.

and was saying, when you deregulate people will come in and pick up

the cream and leave the crap.

Yep.

And he says, there's two ways of doing it.

Either you force the companies to.

For every one premium customer, they have to take whatever it is, five home users.

Yup.

Or you tax them.

Yep.

And you say for every one of these, you have to pay the incumbent or

whoever's looking after the, the average customer to, to pay the difference.

And I think that's, what's happened with Telstra is the Bush customers.

Telstra is subsidized by because most of the other operators only operate in

the regional cities in sorry, in the capital cities or in the major cities.

Yeah.

Because infrastructure is relatively cheap and you get good profits.

Whereas you talk out, out in the Bush, if you huge investments

to get a phone line out there.

Yep.

And you, what's the phone company that starts with a V I think Birgit.

No, the other one.

If you get the main ones are Telstra, Optus and Vodafone, Vodafone.

And so they can just put up a few towers and just pick and choose which

ones they're going to lease in the, in the most profitable areas and

leave the regions for somebody else.

There are certain things that should just remind in public Haines and, okay.

Interestingly enough, that's what happened in New Zealand.

Yes.

So they might time.

Yep.

Well, teleco was split into two, so there was retail and then there was

infrastructure and infrastructure has remained a, I don't know if

it's government owned, but certainly all they do is effectively what

NBN co is supposed to be doing.

Yeah.

I'm pretty sure it's government owned.

They retained ownership of it.

Yeah.

and the other, yeah.

Even with NBN co the fact that we said it had to turn a profit,

has just made it unfeasible.

Yeah.

The other part in one of these articles I skipped over as well was just, in

this Keating thing where they'd started introducing consultants as well.

And so the amount of money that is now spent on consultants rather than employing

people directly is just criminal.

So I had another friend who was involved in it in the police service and, you

know, they just had lost all of their capacity in house to do it and had to pay

outrageous sums for the outsiders because they'd completely lost all expertise.

The banks are insourcing.

Now they've discovered that outsourcing is, Hey, a false economy.

There we go.

Yeah, there we go.

Well, D listener, I'm going to, we're up to an hour and a half.

That's plenty of time.

I hope you enjoyed that explanation of electricity markets in

Europe, in Australia and the.

Craziness of privatizing these public assets and we just let it happen,

to our eternal shame and future generations will rightly criticize us.

Hopefully we can get something right in the meantime so that

they will forgive us a little bit.

So there we go, or ideal listener, I've enjoyed it in the chat

room you've been going well.

Thanks for that.

Talk to you.

next week will be part B of the discussion with Paul wiper, which was about cultural

Marxism, which then the following week I can follow up with a bit of

postmodernism any earlier terminology.

Correct.

So there we go.

All right, guys, thanks for tuning in.

Talk to you next time.

See you in Sydney Friday week.

If you are going to join in your patron bye for now.