In this episode we discuss:

(00:00) 383

(00:44) Intro

(01:43) Coronation Thoughts

(20:55) The Federal Budget

(32:59) Alan Joyce

(40:02) Scomo's New Job

(46:25) Bernie Sanders 100% Tax

(54:45) Average Incomes and Wealth

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Suburban Eastern Australia.

An environment that has over time evolved some extraordinarily

unique groups of Homo Sapians.

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

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

their country, and their world at large.

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

Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

Yes.

Here we are, dear listener, sitting at the top of my looking

around observing the world.

I'm Trevor a k a, the Iron Fist with me as always.

Scott, the Velvet Glove calling in from regional Queensland.

How are you, Scott?

Good, thanks, Trevor.

Goodday.

Joe Goodday listeners.

How are you all?

We're all good.

And Joe, the tech guy, that's back again.

Good on you, Joe.

Evening all.

Mm.

So dear you listener, what have we got on the agenda?

Mish mash mishmash of different topics.

We'll talk about the coronation.

That was interesting.

We've got oh, we've got budget tonight.

We'll talk a bit about that and a little bit about Alan Joyce and Qantas and

Morrison leaving to join potentially some sort of foreign company as a, as

a policy expert and no doubt as some sort of, oh, what do they call 'em?

Lobbyist a few bits and pieces like that.

So, yeah.

Scott, Coronation.

Yes.

You didn't actually, you watched it, but you No, I watched between watching

everything else, you know, as I got bored with the other television, that

sort of stuff, I flicked back over.

Just have a look at it.

Yeah.

You know, I'm sure if I was British, like my friend over in Wales, you know,

she went down to London to, I don't know, she didn't camp out or anything

like that, but she rocks was on the side of the street and no, she didn't throw

rocks at him or anything like that.

She did go over there and have a look at it, but that was about

as far as she got, I believe.

Yeah.

You know, if I was British, I'd probably have a very different opinion.

But you've been a Australian, you've been a member of the Republican Yeah.

Movement for a long time.

Ever since I've known you, it's one of your key things is

secularism and the Republic.

Yeah, it is.

You know, I was very much a

Quiet Republican for a long time until Tony Abbot knighted Prince

Ed principal bill the Greek.

And that was the straw that broke the camel's back.

And I thought to myself, fuck you buddy.

I joined the a m that night and you know, that was it.

And I was Well, I reckon, I reckon the coronation is, is is

good for your causes, our cause.

Cause obviously I'm in favor of a Republican Joe.

I'm sure you are as well.

I, I'm waiting for it to hear a good model that is better than what we've got.

Oh, okay.

Alright, well get that.

Well, I think that the, the latest model that has been put forward by

the Republican movement is a dam site better than what we've currently got.

And it's a hell of a lot better than what was put up and failed in 1999.

Yes.

So this the model where they say, well, you want a republic

and we'll work out later.

What, what type of republic in terms of whether we elect the president

or whether Parliament elect the, the thing is we will, we will elect

the president, but the nominations are gonna come from Parliament.

So they, they're gonna come from, there'll be a nomination from each state government

and the federal government will be able to nominate a presidential nominee.

Ah.

Then after that we're gonna vote on it.

Ahs, the president's, the current gonna do, sorry, what's

the president do everything.

The current government General does.

General does, yeah.

Okay.

So political figurehead with the ability to do the royal ascent and

dissolve parliament and nothing.

Yes, exactly.

Okay.

So it's the official position.

Is it of the Republican movement at the moment?

Yes it is.

Okay, I didn't know that.

Right.

Okay.

Yeah, that's the official position because they actually

listened to, you know, there was.

The last president of the Republican movement whose name escapes me, he's a

journalist and all that sort of thing.

Can't think what his name is.

Ah, Fitzsimmons.

He was, yes, Fitzsimmons.

He was, he was at a thing one night and he said that, that he said that

he was approached by a bloke who said that he said that the only way

you're ever gonna get this across is if you give us the final say on it.

Hmm.

And I thought to myself, yep.

He's hit the nail right on the head there.

And that's where they went away and they thought about it and that sort of stuff.

So they have come up with a compromised model where parliament

will be able to come up with the nominations and then these people

will be voted on by the public.

Yeah.

Well, I reckon the coronation ceremony could been a, a boost for the Republican.

Absolutely.

Because it was a joke.

Mm-hmm.

You know, and that, that thing where they asked us all to swear allegiance

to him and all that sort of shit.

I mean, good lord.

No.

Yes.

I was not gonna swear allegiance to him.

You know, he should have been swearing allegiance to us, but he didn't.

Yes, apparently.

Yeah.

There was this okay, I was listening to this this guy on Twitter who was a

broadcaster and sort of friend of Prince Charles who's saying that that that call

by the archbishop where he was in the days leading up to the coronation, encouraging

people to stand up and, and verbally announce their allegiance the way he did.

Yeah.

That that was probably not what Charles wanted.

Cuz he said that Charles isn't the sort of guy who wants people paying

homage to him where they're filthy.

Yes.

But that's not his style.

And actually I've got a bit of a clip here.

So let me, let me play a little bit of this.

I won't play the whole thing, but this will give you a bit of a feel for it.

I can think of nothing that he would find more abhorrent.

He's never wanted to be revered.

He's never wanted, so far as I know, to have anyone pay homage to him,

except in mock terms as a joke.

He, he wants, I think, to feel that people will share in the event.

And I don't quite know how this might have happened.

I, I, I don't know for certain, but it would seem to me that this was a, a,

an initiative by the archbishop who, as we know is strongly evangelical, who

thought it would be a good thing to give everyone a chance to pay that homage.

I thought that was interesting.

Say when you said it was a friend, I thought Dim will be, because he's been

interviewed in the past and he was asked what he thought of Charles as a

possible king and said, look, whilst he's the air of the throne, he can.

Be a little divisive.

He can make these grand pronouncements.

He realizes that when he's a monarchy has to rule for the whole

kingdom and he will settle down.

Right.

So it's interesting that it's dimbleby again.

Mm-hmm.

Who he's respected actually in the uk.

There you go.

So, so the interesting part about that is he's laying the blame with the

archbishop who he then described as everyone knows, he is an evangelical.

So that's the thing that struck me about this ceremony was how religious it was.

Yeah.

And and that really, you know, the, the church considered itself

in charge of this coronation.

Mm-hmm.

Because it was a church service ceremony, the whole Yeah.

Purpose of it.

So, So yeah, that all makes sense, that probably Charles didn't

want that sort of thing and this idiot Archbishop mouths off.

Cause he's in charge of the rock show and trying, you know, the Archbishop

still have 12 seats in the house Lords.

Well, there you go.

Yes.

Why not?

I mean, yeah, why not?

There was a, it was described on Twitter that only the, you know, to

go outside of the United Kingdom to find parliamentary representatives

who are also of a religious faith.

You have to find you have to go to the Repub, Islamic Republic of Iran.

Mm-hmm.

You know, so, Brahman in the Hello Brahman in the chat room.

Hello Anne and John and noisy Andrew and Don who are there.

And Broman makes the point that I was just about to get to that the coronation

was actually a religious service as it's about the Monarch being anointed by God.

And there was an article in the.

ABC by a guy called Ian Bradley who said that God saved the king, the

religious significance of the coronation and its symbolism Coronations.

Point to the sacred nature of the United Kingdom Monarchy Act with religious

symbolism and imagery, they exude mystery, bind together church and state

through the person of the monarch, and clearly proclaim the derivation

of all power and authority from God and the Christian basis on which

government is exercise and justice.

Administered Coronations are religious services rather than

constitutional ceremonies.

The coronation on the 6th of May does not make Charles the third king that happened

on the death of his mother, and his reign was formally inaugurated at the session.

Council held Two days later at his coronation, he'll be anointed,

consecrated, and blessed as well as crown.

And when you, you know, the bits I saw of the ceremony, that was certainly the case.

It was a highly religious ceremony and it was an anointing

of the monarch by the church.

Yeah.

Which was really quite repulsive Of course.

And and surely would help the Republican cause as people look at it and go, really?

Yeah, exactly.

And that is, that is the, that was the overwhelming opinion that

was coming, particularly from the younger people within the,

within the Republican movement.

You could see they were just shaking their head and you know exactly what you said.

Really.

It's interesting cuz in the past he's espoused Islam.

Yeah, I know.

Ah okay.

He wants to be the defender of all faiths, not just the Yeah.

The faith.

So, so I, I think I can understand that he wouldn't be very happy

that a single faith word.

Take over that even though, you know, he is the head of the Anglican church.

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

So, so he's bound by a lot of things like everybody else.

Some of the stuff I was sort of texting a friend and just sort of

poo-pooing the whole ceremony there.

At one stage they kept handing him these relics and trinkets and pieces and pieces.

It's the holy hand grenade of Antioch.

Everything, but that's right.

Oh, no.

So there's been lots of memes going around on Twitter with a

holy hand grenade of Antioch.

Yes.

And then somebody wandering a, a woman wandering down with a large sword and

going, women one waving swords around.

There's no basis of government.

So there's been lots of Monty Python quotes.

There has been lots of Monty Python.

I'm gonna do one in a minute as well.

Right.

But things that I, you know, like in a sort of a 10 minute span that I

was, what maybe it was a bit longer.

He was handed a sword.

A plate, some gloves, a cloak, some cuffs, an orb, a ring, and a septa.

And all these things were seren rosaly handed to him and the

commentator was giving a bit of a blurb on what each item was, and

then they were taken away, you know?

Yeah.

It was all part of the wackiness of the whole show.

Really in terms of entertainment, I much preferred the Queen's

funeral, I have to say.

That sounds,

it's one of those I didn't see.

I'm Greek would've said that.

Sorry.

Said.

I'm sure Phil, the Greek would've made some comment.

I didn't see the Queen's funeral, cause I just thought to

myself, I don't really need to.

You know?

Yeah.

You know, she was an exceptional monarch and all that sort of

stuff, but she's dead now.

So I just think to myself, it's time for us to move on.

Mm-hmm.

You know, you know, she was a very good monarch.

There's no doubt about that, but it's time for us to move on, you know?

Yeah.

I still think it should've gone straight to Will child of Saint Diana.

Mm-hmm.

Why, why was the queen such a good monarch?

Well, because of her successful breeding of, of a wonderful family.

No, not because of their family or anything like that.

Her, her family is pretty much nuts.

Nuts, yes.

I don't think there's any doubt about that, but she was,

don't blame her for her kids.

They were just, yeah, there's that, but she, she did actually

hold the thing together very well.

But I just think to myself, it's time for us to move on now.

You know?

And I just think to, if you actually really want an opinion,

I can't really give you one.

It's just a vibe of the thing.

I think she, she was, she was very good monarch and that sort of thing, but when

she, I'll tell you her best comment.

What's that?

After the financial crisis in 2008.

Yeah.

She, she said to the, to different people, why didn't any of you

people see this happening?

Like, isn't, wasn't that somebody's job to see this coming?

Why didn't any of you economists see this about to happen later?

Really?

Yeah.

So she was sort of, that was her best comment, I think looking at

the financial crisis and saying, somebody's stuffed up here.

Somebody should have seen this.

Something as large as this.

What were you guys doing?

Well there's that, and you know, she was certainly right about the

Icelandic banks and that type of thing.

Mm.

You know, Joe, what can you tell me, Joe, about Kelts, Celtic people?

Kelts they were the original inhabitants of Britain.

Right.

And they were pushed out by the angles and saxes who invaded Yep.

And then by the Normans.

Yep.

And so they are effectively the people of Scotland, Ireland, and

Brittany in France, right, yep.

And Cornwall.

Right.

And a strong affiliation with Ireland, sort of the Irish, or, well, so the, the

Cals are the British people, some of whom ended up in Ireland, but also Scotland

and also down into Britain in France.

Right.

Is there any particular reason why they would be anti monarchy?

The Irish would be Yes.

Yes.

And Scottish again.

Right, because they're an English monarch.

Yes.

Okay.

They are, well, that's not exactly true because James, the first of Scotland

was appointed to become the e, the e English king by Elizabeth I on, she died.

She died, and yeah, she died.

She left, she left him the the role, the role of King.

So did you leave it to him or was he just next in line?

I don't know about that, but it's one of the things that was very amusing at the

time because they said that, you know, for centuries it had a, a, an English crown

presiding over a Scottish parliament.

Now we've got a Scottish King presiding over an English parliament, so,

you know, so well anyway, yes, go on at, at a Celtic football match.

Mm-hmm.

This is what they had to say about the coronation.

In case it wasn't absolutely clear, they were singing, you can

shove your coronation up your ass.

So with full stadium full of people giving opinion, my used

the rock rising all over again.

Mm.

Brahman.

Another interesting factoid I discovered about Coronations is that

among the European monarchies, the UK is the only one that holds such

a service to crown the Monarch.

This is because the other European monarchs are not the heads of

their established churches, eg.

When Queen Marth of Denmark became queen, she was proclaimed monarch

by the Danish Prime Minister.

There was no coronation.

There we go.

They missed out on all that royal tourism.

As a result perhaps.

Alright.

And what else did I have here?

One other thing.

Oh, just last week of course I was banging on about the book, the book

review, not so black and white.

And as you know, dear listener, for me it was all about class.

That's the thing that we should be concentrating on.

And and here's a mixed mixing up of coronation and class in one short clip.

Well, we all are, we are all Britains.

And I am Your king did.

No, we had a king.

I thought we were an autonomous collective.

You are fooling yourself.

We're living in a dictatorship of self-perpetuating autocracy.

And which the working classes, oh, there you go.

Bringing class into it again, what it's all about.

If only people would.

I feel like one of those peasants in the mud just bringing up class.

Yeah.

All the time.

Banging on about it.

There you go.

What about class?

I thought that was very interesting what you're actually

saying in that book review now.

I didn't realize that.

I knew that class was a big issue for Martin Luther King.

I didn't realize it was such a big issue for Malcolm X.

Mm-hmm.

So it's one of those things.

It's just, I've gotta go back and read more about it.

Yeah, it was interesting.

So, yeah, very interesting.

I think people enjoyed that one.

Lots of big ideas in that episode.

Perhaps not so many big ideas in this episode, but as we left our own devices,

no, we're just bagging the monarchy now.

Right now.

Yeah, that's right.

Let me see, what else do we have here?

So that was that.

Ah, just the only other thing is I saw this tweet by solo monk, which

was We're not interested in an old man who has waited his whole life

to have a crown put on his head.

Cause that is his apparent birthright.

Nor do we wanna swear any sort of allegiance.

Utter anachronistic anachronistic.

Have I pronounced?

Thank you.

Anachronistic nonsense.

That is no place in modern Australia.

Speaking of birthright, anyone wanna talk about the voice?

I mean, what is birthright?

But I was, I was watching the Maryam Margolese almost on Australian, and

she goes and interviews Lydia Thorpe.

Right?

She's Professor Sprout from the Harry Potter, English actress, Jewish lesbian

who became an Australian citizen back in Julie Gillard's Day, right?

And has decided she's going to do a docu-series driving

around Australia in a Campa van.

Finding out what it means to be an Australian and, and talking

to Lydia Thorpe, and yeah.

The more I see of that woman, less I am.

Yes, yes.

She's, she looks a little unhinged, doesn't she?

Yes.

Just, just a birthright is the concept of things being due to a person

upon or by a fact of their birth or due to the order of their birth.

These may include rights of citizenship based on the place where the person

was born or the citizenship of their parents and inheritance rights to

property owned by parents or others.

Strict strikes me that lot of the voice argument relies on birthright

concepts as being legitimate and the very people who would, who poo the

monarchy for its Promotion of birthright.

Don't recognize that there's a birthright issue there.

So do they or do they just poopoo it because it was a colonial system?

Now all sorts of reasons, but certainly I can see that there's an issue

there, but I seem to be alone on that.

Scott, yes.

Budget tonight as we speak.

Perhaps the treasurer is making some comment about how the figures are

adding up for the government's budget.

Probably back in black, meaning the government will collect more than it

spends at least this year and probably will not reverse the stage three tax cuts.

Is, is this all it seems to be.

Somebody in the chat room, if it turns out that they've actually reversed the,

the stage three tax cuts, let us know.

But it seems highly unlikely that that was gonna happen.

It does seem highly unlikely.

It's it's very disappointing that they appear to be doing that,

but it does seem highly unlikely that they're going to reverse it.

I honestly believe that they would actually, at the very

least, substantially change them.

But apparently not, because they must be, they must be

seeing exactly what we've seen.

Like, you know, a couple of weeks ago that took my breath away

where it was all in that one, one.

Graph, which showed that people under $65,000 a year were gonna go

backwards and anyone over $120,000 a year was gonna go forward.

And then people earning $200,000 a year, were gonna go forward by $9,000 a year.

Yeah.

You know, that was really crook.

I mean, we changed parties in this country, but we get

mostly the same policies.

But with labor, you get less interest in bedroom activities.

Mm.

Shit.

Shit and shit.

Light parties aren't they really like this.

Yeah, I know what you're saying.

But

it's true.

Couldn't I couldn't vote for the greens, you know, because you'd end up with

a, because they say yes to the voice.

No, not because they say yes to the voice.

Because I'm still on the vo.

I'm still Yes.

On the voice, but they're just, Lunatics, like, you know, they

actually, they actually want to do away with coal and gas immediately.

Now that is crazy, you know, because you just go out to

Gladstone, that sort of stuff.

You can see all the, the ships that are lined up, ready to take our coal

over back to their own countries.

If they were to do that, then they would darken a significant portion

of humanity was, was there, was there a policy to close coal mines and no,

it, it straight away to do away with.

It was to do away with any new coal and gas mines.

Well then it's different to what you just said, Scott.

Okay, fair enough.

I a that's not okay.

They're gonna do away with new coal and gas mines.

Mm.

Which I think is crazy.

Didn't they Possibly not, not so much for coal, but for gas, yes.

I do believe that we should still be, we should still be fracking and grabbing

that outta the ground and that sort of stuff because it does produce electricity

at a lower carbon price than slightly.

Coal is, it's not lunacy though, Scott, that is sort of lunacy because

when you do the sums, what you can generate from renewables Yeah.

Is, I agree.

Quite feasible.

Renew, renew renewable supply grid is very feasible.

Yes.

And I agree wholeheartedly with that.

I agree that we should be we should be we should be doing everything we can

with renewables here in this country and that's why I was very pleased that

we are building the, I think it'll be the second largest pumped hydro dam

in Australia out here in Queensland.

What what we need to do is have another government review into

nuclear power, spend huge amounts of money to private consultancy firm.

30 years down the track, still be wedded to coal and gas because

we've actually not done anything.

Hmm.

Yeah.

I believe that's the liberal way, isn't it?

You can't say the greens were lunatics.

I they just, cuz they weren't saying let's close every coal

mine and gasfield tomorrow.

No, but what they were saying, what they were saying was that

there shouldn't be any new ones.

Well, and that's not, that's not lunacy.

Scott's not, they didn't say was, Hey, regional Australia,

here's our plan for the future.

All of these current mining jobs that your towns are reliant on, this is

what we're gonna replace them with.

Here's the money we're gonna invest in retraining you.

Here's all the infrastructure we're gonna build to replace these colon gas mines.

They might've, I don't know.

I didn't, they didn't place enough and that was the problem.

I, I think people were going, well, you're just gonna kill my way of life and you

haven't offered me anything in return.

Mm-hmm.

Which is precisely why Bob Brown's caravan of lunacy up to

the Carac coal mine was crazy.

You know, because they went out there and basically spat in their face and

said, well, you know, you gotta stop digging this stuff outta the ground.

Yeah.

That was a basket of deplorables moment.

Mm-hmm.

For sure.

It was.

I think the greens avoided that in the last election, last federal election.

Well, they, because that was a, yeah, so that was, and, and now had,

there have been actual, had, there have been teal independence and that

sort of stuff running up here, then I don't think they would've picked

up those three Brisbane seats.

They would've gone to the Teals.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Anyway, it, you know, this budget, you know, there'll be

some tinkering at the edges.

It looks like, you know, there'll be money thrown at people for help

them with their electricity bills and other bits and pieces and, you

know, you'll sort of, yeah, we'll, a billion dollars here and a billion

dollars there, but nothing fundamental.

We, we'll pay electricity money to the providers.

Mm-hmm.

It will carry on making huge profits but we won't actually tax them anymore.

Yeah.

And they'll tinker with things like rent assistance rather than,

rather than actually dealing with the issue of why mm-hmm.

Property prices are so high and rents are so high, it will be sort

of throwing a bit of lose change at renters without addressing the issue.

So, yeah, I, I went back and looked at that report that you remember there

was the economist who came on, was talking about property development

that I had, that I interviewed.

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Prosper Carl.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yep.

And, and they were talking about Springfield Lakes or Springfield.

Mm-hmm.

Which is, you know, a suburb of Western Brisbane out towards zip switch.

Yep.

And it's been on the go for 20 years and if it carries on being developed

at the same rate, it's gonna be another 43 years before they've sold off

all the land that they have planning permission to, to develop, but they

have no incentive to, to develop it cuz then the property prices drop.

Correct.

You drip feed.

Yes.

Rather than, yeah, that was the whole point of his report.

Yeah.

So there's all sorts of issues like that where you should use it or lose it.

If you've received an approval, then do it within a certain period

of time, otherwise it's gone.

Let's talk about taxing unoccupied properties.

Yes.

So you pay higher rates if your property is unoccupied.

Yep.

Yep.

The other one would be taxing higher if you, if you're renting it on short-term.

Airbnb rates is pro probably a good idea as well because people are just pulling

properties, say on the Gold Coast out of what would've been permanent rentals and

putting it just on the Airbnb system.

And that's just another reason why there isn't properties around for families or

anybody to to rent on a permanent basis.

Cause it's all converted to Airbnb.

So, different tax rates could do the job, but there'll be nothing adventurous

or meaningful in the budget like that.

It'll just be a bit of throwing of loose change to say they've tried to do

something so they've got a talking point.

But pretty small beans, I'd say.

So.

So in the chat room, Anne said that I reckon they'll take reversing the stage

three tax cuts to the next election.

I think you're probably right, Anne.

So, and John agrees.

So just a bit more.

Well, yeah, they, they actually, one would hope they actually go to an

election after tonight and they actually says, look, we don't like these tasks.

We've gotta, we've gotta actually, because we went to the last election, agreeing

with them and that sort of stuff, we've got no choice but to go back to the people

and we've got to reverse these stage three tax cuts, so we're gonna have an election.

Mm-hmm.

They win.

I think it's a non-core promise.

Well, I, we can change it's, it was a non-core, it was a non-core promise, so

I think that they could get rid of it.

Exactly.

Yeah.

It's one of those things that Albanese has tried to paint himself

as a trustworthy politician.

Mm.

So I don't think he's actually going to reverse them right now, but mm-hmm.

I understand where you're coming from, Anne and John, but going to an election

promising an increase in income tax.

Yeah, it's, it's a hell harder.

It's a hell bit harder to actually promise an increase in income tax than it is to

walk away from reversing one right now.

Sorry.

Trevor, what were you gonna say?

Well, if they've got any salesmanship, it should be easy.

It should be easy to say to the majority of Australians.

Yeah.

Good point.

Here's an idea, why don't the town get outta politics?

Honestly, if you can sell the town, pay their share, we

are gonna increase their tax.

Yep.

And pay for those people who are poorer.

If, if you are a Labor party person and you are in power and you

can't, you can't go to an election with that cuz you're too scared.

Just give in.

So I think you're right Anne.

I'll do it then.

But yeah, so, guy Rundel writing in Crikey talked about the labor rusted

s and he says the political stakes for labor were high in the lead up

to 2022, but the existential stakes for the leadership were higher.

Still loss in 2022 would've made their lives not merely failures, but a bit of

a cosmic joke goes on to say that they were so shit scared of losing in 2022,

that they were just prepared to sell their souls on anything just to get power.

He's probably right cause I think he's right there.

Yeah.

They were sh they were thinking if we have to spend another three years

in opposition and lose this election, Life's not worth living anymore.

I think he's right.

I dunno.

Ru Rupert's gotta die at some stage.

Yeah.

So he said, no, no, no.

Better to wage a sustained double level campaign against your own

membership, convince them that you are faking a total rightward shift to

appease prosperous outer bourbon voters and News Corps when you're actually

making a total rightward shift and your members are the useful idiots.

So, yeah, that was good.

It's yeah, tell a membership you're faking and move to the right to please

the the outer bourbon voters, but you're actually making a right would shift.

And it's the members who are the useful idiots.

And he's saying, so this has transpired and the rusted ons of the first order now

face a choice that is barely a choice.

Either support the party or Goes on.

So, yeah, so that was guy run in Crikey and yeah, we'll see

what happens in the budget now.

Scott.

Mm-hmm.

Alan Joyce.

Yes.

So pretty Lee that he's leaving, he is leaving Qantas and Alice have estimated

dear list now that Qantas will be spending 12.3 billion on upgrading its fleet with

choice, having not paid for one single new aircraft in his 15 years as c e o.

Can you believe it?

He never paid for a new aircraft in 15 years.

That's bad.

Yeah, I know.

And why would you, when you're set up with a remuneration structure, Where you

just gouged the shit out of a company, maximize profits without concern for

the long-term viability of the company.

Just meet short-term KPIs and and that's what he's done.

Joyce will walk away after 15 years, he will have gathered

125 million in 15 years.

That's 10,000 a year.

So come on.

It's not that much under just a touch.

Under 10 million a year?

Yes, a year.

Now, you know, that's around about 10% of the 12.3 billion that he

should have spent upgrading his fleet.

Why would he do that?

Why would he?

Because it's, it's one of those things.

I remember when I was at university, there was a, there was a simple question

that was put to us in a management accounting to do you your share price?

No.

With the betterment of the company, or do you keep it high so you get better?

No, just listen.

The, the exam question was, the chickens come home to roost, discuss.

Now what you've gotta do with that is you've gotta discuss the

problems with delaying maintenance and all that type of thing.

Now, why the chickens come home to roost is if you don't maintain anything, it goes

down and down and down ends up failing.

Hmm.

So that's where they were saying that this sort of short term nonsense

of remunerating people based on their, on the company profit leads

to disastrous decisions like this.

Alan Joints is walking away with $125 million.

He's got 12.3 billion worth of worth of jets to pay for once he's gone.

So why was this allowed to happen by the other members of the leadership?

God, no, the chairman and the, I don't know.

I don't know.

Well see.

What you do in the UK is what you do is you take a monopoly, you run us into

the ground, and then you turn around to the government and you say, it'd be

a shame if anything happens to that.

Mm-hmm.

And then you get money from the government to bail you out for the

infrastructure that you didn't invest in.

Mm-hmm.

This article that will be in the show notes from Crikey just says

at the end Joyce brought his fellow directors ever increasing board

payments while the ages of other employees were systematically slashed.

So you searched my back and I so would not surprise if the other senior

executives in the company were very well remunerated during his tenure.

And it's like, well, The company might be going to shit, but hey,

with this guy here, my packet, pay packet's gone skyrocketing.

Selfish motives personal pay packet, overriding good of the company.

Too bad for the shareholders in the long term.

Mm-hmm.

Shareholders in the short term may be okay, but so shortsighted.

So he was incredibly shortsighted is a replacement of Vanessa Hudson.

Yeah.

She's been with the company for 28 years, so she'd hardly be a

fresh, a breath of fresh air.

It looks like they've probably replaced her because, well, I'm not gonna say she's

a clone of Alan Joyce because there's only one Alan Joyce, but, um mm-hmm.

It wouldn't surprise me if that was what was going through their mind.

An engineer told Crikey, the 7 87 cabins are atrocious for such

new aircraft, Judah, Los Angeles facility, still being a basket case.

The situation with the domestic workhorse 7 37 also continues to

deteriorate as Qantas awaits replacement planes from Airbus whose orders were

delayed time and again by management according to people in operations who

described the fleet as a disaster.

There we go.

A friend of mine flew back to England a month ago from Brisbane.

And he turned up, I dunno, three hours early for his flight, which

was 10:00 AM they finally said, oh yeah, we were missing a part.

It, yeah, basically something had broken down cuz it wasn't well maintained.

By the time they've flown the part in the air crew had been on standby

for too long and had to go off shift.

Mm-hmm.

So they had to pull in an alternate crew.

They had to pull someone up from Melbourne so they had to fly 'em up on that.

Yep.

So they didn't fly into Singapore until that evening, put 'em up in

a hotel overnight and he didn't, it took him 61 hours to get home.

He sat.

Yeah.

Yep.

It had such a good reputation.

Yep.

And and this, it's not as Qantas, this happens a lot.

Senior executives, CEOs get paid enormous sums of money way more than

is justified and do really shitty jobs.

Yeah, exactly.

But it just keeps happening and happening.

And, you know, they passed laws about remuneration packages that were

supposed to deal with this, where.

There would be had to be passed at, at shareholder meetings.

And if it, if it didn't pass the first time, then the, the next time

positions would be up for a spill at the board or something like that.

But it was never, it was never enough.

It was not strong enough.

And different players, superannuation sort of groups, it's too clubby.

There's too much major shareholding too much where small groups of

mates people who know each other are involved in these things.

So they're prepared to pass these ridiculous remuneration packages.

So a blight to be solved by somebody pet you, this labor government doesn't do it.

But we'll see.

Now apparently, while Scott Rummages in his esky, actually there was a

good joke there when I mentioned how much I was gonna grab a beer.

When I mentioned how much Alan Joyce was getting paid, 125 million over 15 years.

Essential Lloyd Don in the chat room said he won't be able to

put that in the overhead locker.

No good one.

Essential Lord Don.

Yep.

And alright, Scott Morrison has been looking for a new job and the word is,

he might have found one, it's all a bit sort of unnamed sources talking about

stuff, but it looks like potentially he's got a job with a UK defense company.

So sometime between now and the end of the year, it seems he'll possibly go.

To the most obvious candidate being b a e systems, the largest

defense contractor in Europe, and the seventh largest in the world.

And it's British aerospace, isn't it?

Mm-hmm.

There we go.

So the CEO of Transparency International told Crikey Australia should be

very concerned that he would get a job with a UK defense company.

He was the, the heart of setting up orcus and as a result would have

sensitive information and contacts in the government that will give his

potential employer a, for any contract.

And the same group published a report in 2000, that's a long time ago,

recommending that Australia adopt a, adopt an enforceable minimum, three year

cooling off or anti revolving door period before a former minister can accept.

An appointment like this in Canada, the period is five years.

So look, there's a really good article by Jack Waterford in the John Manou blog,

and what he's saying is that it's shameful and unseemly for ministers, former

ministers, and former pride ministers to go and work for, say, like Scott Morrison

here with a UK company that's looking at forming contracts with Australia.

He, he would've inside knowledge of Australian policy, procedures, people,

and will help a foreign company get a higher profit margin and a bigger

contract and protect potentially to the detriment of Australia because

of his inside knowledge of Australia.

Would you find if it was an Australian company though, well, At least the

profits would stay in Australia, but he's really helping a foreign entity

in its negotiations with Australia.

And it's incredibly, when you've been well paid with a pension go

and find another job of some other description, one that doesn't involve

such a conflict of interest in it.

So in this article by Jack Waterford, he says, A fellow does have a right

to make aquit after being in politics.

But why do so many seem to think that the ideal business to go into is the

business of influencing former colleagues using the access their former public

service has given them to those who make decisions and their own close knowledge

and experience of the practical ways of pulling the levers of executive

government on behalf of paying clients.

These clients are usually seeking a favor, a privilege,

or the exercise of a discretion.

He goes on about Christopher Pine has been shameless in the way that

he's gathered Top defense figures from here in abroad into a business

to lobby Australian government on behalf of defense equipment makers to

provide consultancy services offering allegedly disinterested defense advice.

And no doubt, as with all big consultancy companies he'll soon

have Chinese walls and separate units not speaking to each other.

He'll have one group advising government about what they need,

another group lobbying to have it made a high priority matter.

And another arranging the tender process on behalf of the government.

Another one, resolving who won the tender.

And then another one writing independent reports about the efficiency and

effectiveness of the new operation.

So, the reason is because the politicians are career politicians.

Yes.

They don't have a trade.

Yes.

It's not like they're gonna leave politics and go and do something.

That they did in their formal life.

Yeah.

Yes.

But they're paid enough that they don't have to have a And they can, they're,

they're not paid enough something that in their, in their retirement they

are, and then in their, no, no, no.

They, they're not paid millions.

Mm-hmm.

They can make a shitload more money doing this.

Well, I can make more money, that's for sure.

But Yeah, exactly.

So they're not paid enough.

Yeah.

If they can make more money, they're not paid enough.

Enough is never enough for these guys.

That's the problem.

So, you know, there's plenty of work that they could do that doesn't rely on them.

Maybe there isn't plenty of work.

In the case of Scott Morrison, what, you wouldn't even put him in charge

of a secondhand car yard, would you?

But no.

I was an idiot.

I, I think we'd put him out on a crock farm feeding the Crocs y.

Yes.

Short of chickens.

Ah, it's a good article.

It goes on basically saying, enough is enough with this.

It should be, Shameful for these people, but they just go ahead and do it.

And you know, it annoyed me like when Pine quit, does his biography,

then he is on seven 30 getting a softball interview from Lee.

What was her name?

Sales Lee.

Sales, yeah.

Oh, jokey, jokey.

Christopher Pine, funny guy, blah, blah.

And meanwhile he's just doing this sort of stuff, so there's no help from

independent, so-called Independence like abc I saw Christopher Pine

over in Singapore Airport on my way to Hong Kong recently, right?

Yeah.

I said, would you be Mr.

Pine?

Would you?

He said, yes, I am.

Oh yeah.

And that was that?

Yeah.

He was on his way back to Australia from the west coast of the us.

He had been over there.

Presumably something to do with orcas.

Okay.

Yeah.

Was he taller or shorter than you expected, Scott?

No, he was sitting down at the time, so I couldn't actually

comment on his, on his height.

There we go.

Okay.

He certainly got a lot grayer than what I remember.

Mm-hmm.

But than he inside.

I, so, yes.

Yeah.

So, alright.

One of the main things I had here's a couple of other ideas.

Bernie Sanders in the US said that the US government should confiscate 100% of money

that Americans make above 999 million.

In theory, yes.

But the problem is that's not income tax.

That's not income, that's, that's assets which are generally shares.

How do you work out the assets?

What happens if the stuff you confiscate, the remaining amount drops by 50%?

Cuz the share prices are wiped out.

Oops, sorry.

Put or put it in the government hands.

Put it in government ownership.

Oh, you know, these people are, these oligarchs are too powerful.

We not have people with a thousand million.

It's too much.

Well, they, they have as much, much money as a small as any US state.

Yes.

It's dangerous.

It's too, too much power.

When you've got, are you talking about a wealth tax or are you

talking about an income tax?

It wasn't clear actually from this article, but I just like

the idea of a hundred percent.

When you say that there's point, if it is an income tax,

I agree wholeheartedly with him.

If it's a, if it's a wealth tax, no, I don't.

I have actually come around to the idea of taxing people based on their wealth.

Mm, but I don't, I don't agree with a hundred percent of it being

confiscated above a billion dollars.

Why not?

I think if you've got, if you've got a billion dollars or more, that's

fine, but it goes up so that if you make, if you've got a billion

dollars this year, that's fine.

If you've got $1,000,000,002 billion and 1 1 1 0.1 billion, the next year

you gotta give back, I don't know, 20, 30% of that to the government.

So you actually have it going up.

So if you end up going to 1.5 billion, then you gotta give back 40%.

You go up to 1.6.

You gotta give back 50% of the 1.5 no of the over the 1 billion mark.

Why does anyone need a billion dollars though?

Well, they don't, but you've gotta, you've gotta set something up that actually gives

into this insane, what's the worst thing?

This idea that we all have, that we're all gonna be billionaires

one day because we're not.

What's the worst thing that could happen if, if after a billion

dollars people can't make any more?

What's, what's the worst thing that could happen?

Nothing's gonna happen.

So, so hang on.

Why?

Why don't we just take anyone who's got over a billion dollars, shoot

them and take all of their money?

Well, Because that would be wrong.

That why uses a whole range of other things.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, but Scott, yeah.

What's, what is the problem?

Will billionaires suddenly stop working?

No, they won't.

They will still, they will still keep working.

Turn exactly the same.

Exactly.

It will.

And they'll just have one of those less power.

Yes, I agree.

So I just think that, I just think there's no downside.

You should moderate it by saying, instead of having to give up a

hundred percent of everything over a billion dollars, you've gotta give up.

You know, if, if you've got 1.1 billion, you've gotta give up 20 million.

If you've got 1.4 billion, you've gotta give up 40.

You've gotta give up 30 billion, $30 million, and so on and so forth.

That, that would be the way I would actually structure a wealth tax.

What's the current top rate of tax in Australia?

No, 47% plus plus plus Medicare levy.

So the ballpark you are giving here is a lower tax rate mm-hmm.

Than the top marginal rate in Australia at the moment.

This is for a wealth tax, which is a very different tax than what

you are talking about income tax.

I agree with you.

It should be, but, but given the most, you should actually do it at

that rate, but given the most with a wealth tax, billionaires can convert

their income into capital gains.

So they'll never pay, they'll never really earn income.

Like a guy like Jeff Bezos really his income would be negligible

in comparison to a year.

So why would we consider wealth, you know, different to income for a guy

like that who's basically just avoids income and it's all capital gain.

You might have me there.

I've gotta think about that because cuz his income is negligible.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know.

His income's negligible.

I agree.

Base on he's owned in trust.

He's, he's his private jets are owned in trust.

Yeah.

Everything's in trust.

Yeah, I agree.

Which is where it's wrong.

And they've got to actually, they should actually say, look, you are now

worth this amount of money, therefore you've gotta start handing, handing

over a significant portion of this to the federal government every year.

But you know, the beauty of a hundred percent basically says you

are dangerous and we consider you dangerous and, and not good for public

policy, not good for our civilization.

That so much money is actually dangerous.

And it sends a better signal, I reckon, than saying, oh, your fair share of.

Tax is X amount.

When really the argument is at this point you're a dangerous individual.

Yeah.

And I'm even, so Bill and Melinda Gates have given up whatever it

is, half their wealth to the trust.

Mm-hmm.

Which is, yeah, it's great.

It's altruistic.

But the problem is they set the priorities.

Yes.

It, it's not down to the needs of the people, it's, it's whatever

catches his whim at the time.

Yeah.

Which has basically been malaria vaccination and that type of thing.

Malaria is one of them.

Yeah.

And, and, and I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but what I'm saying is it's a bad

thing, rather than him handing the money over to the W H O and going, all right

guys, spend this where you need this.

Yes.

Good point.

So anyway, I think I just like that Bernie Sanders has just gone

for the full hundred percent.

Yeah, I know.

And I just think to myself, Bernie's out for a headline more than anything else.

Right.

You know?

Yeah, yeah.

With a bit of luck, the Greens will take that up for the next election, so Yeah.

We'll see.

And, and says get rid of trust laws.

Yep.

Well, I agree with it.

It, it is wrong that you've got a, you know, well my family's got a family

trust too and you know, it's it's just a tax Dodge for Rich upper class was,

it was, you know, do you know what the corporate trustee of our family trust is?

Teco Tax Evading Family Company Prior Limited.

That's gonna, is that right?

There's an honesty to that, Scott.

Yes, there is an honesty to that, and it's just one of those things.

It's it's one of those things that you just think to yourself, okay, you know,

I think to myself, you know, my family has had it very good for a very long time.

It's one of those things I just think to myself, we should

now actually give that up.

Yeah.

Dad had a trust because he was an auditor and you cannot have a limited

liability company do an audit.

You have to be personally responsible.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

And so he moved all of his assets into a trust so that exactly he

was ever sued, which is basically what my old man was doing too.

He had most of his assets in the trust too.

Yeah.

But and, and it's been interesting.

I did see an article that said effectively limited liability companies have led to

a lot of dodgy dealings because if you can just dissolve your company and far up

a new one, you can Phoenix it basically.

Mm.

And you're left with no liability.

It's, it enables you to take bigger risks Yep.

At the expense of other people.

Mm.

True.

Hey Scott, seeing your family has done so well over the years, here's, here's

an opportunity to compare yourselves.

I did actually look at that and that sort of stuff, and I'm slapping

in the middle of everything.

I didn't make it.

I didn't, as, as an individual, I didn't make a hell of alo.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So this is prepared by the Gratin Institute and it is about how

much average ordinary Australians earn in different age brackets and

how much they they own as well.

So let's go through a few.

So, now the let's look at workers, for example.

So as a.

Cause people can earn income who are not workers.

Like they might have some retirement income or something like that.

So, dear listener, in all of this, as we're about to talk about it,

you've got the, you've got the mean and you've got the medium.

So, as an average, the mean is where, say for example, income, you would add

up all the income of all Australians and you were divided by the number

of Australians to get your mean.

The other way is to line up all of your Australians from the poorest to

the riches richest, and walk along the line and stop at the halfway point.

And what we often see in these statistics is that the mean is a relatively

high figure compared to the median.

And the reason for that is the people at the top end have an inordinately.

High amounts, which skews the mean to the higher level.

So, so back to these figures just dealing with adults, the average income

is 58,238, but the median is 40 2027.

So that's in terms of total income for adults.

Now that, that includes people who aren't working, for example.

So amongst workers are full-time working adults.

So employee earnings, full-time adults, the average is 97,439.

The median is 84,628.

So, so that's That's the typical, if you are a full-time adult and you are earning

124,000, then you're in the top 20%.

And if you're earning 154,000, you are in the top 10%.

So, and in this figures, which is in the show notes, it shows it for

households and other categories.

And the other one I thought was interesting in these in what they prepared

here is, is net wealth, how much you own.

And interesting one for superannuation here, because they've broken

it up into age-based stuff.

So, let's go for in superannuation for people in the sort of 41 to 64

year old age bracket, the the average.

Is 310,000 in superannuation in a household.

Actually, I'll do it on individuals, sorry, back to individuals.

41 to 64 year old.

The average superannuation amount is 176,000, but the median is only 90,000.

So, if you are a younger person, the the average is 46,000.

So this is a 25 to 40 year old.

The median is only 25,000.

If you're retired an individual, you're 65 or over.

The average superannuation is a hundred and is only 171,000,

and the typical is zero.

The actual median is zero.

So, Retired individuals 65 and older line 'em up from the one with the

lowest superannuation to the one with the highest walk along the line.

And when you get to the halfway point, that person's got zero.

That was an interesting figure, that one I thought.

So lots of people elderly who rely any superannuation.

Yeah.

So that's in the show notes.

And you can see, oh, maybe there was one other there that might have

been interesting was home equity.

It's, God, this is the one where you're gonna be doing very

well home equity households.

Why are you trying to make me feel bad about my real estate investments?

Because I love the way that, that Landon called you the slum, lord.

Was it Landon called you the slum lord of No, I, I called myself the

slum lord of Central Queensland.

So, Let's look at middle aged 41 to 64.

That's you, Scott.

Yes, I know.

Mm-hmm.

And it's actually a bit lower than what I've actually got.

So anyway, home equity average level is 508 thousand.

The top 25% of six 50, top 95%, you would have 1.3 in household equity anyway.

If you're out there, if you're 41 to 64 and you've got household

equity of 1.3 million, you are on the top 5% when it comes to that.

So, so basically everybody in Sydney and Melbourne, well, it's equity.

So how big is the mortgage?

Because this is, well, yeah, but I mean, if they're 41 to 64 Yeah.

If they haven't been divorced you're guessing that they bought

a house in their twenties?

Mm.

So the house they bought in their twenties was worth a lot less.

Yes.

I'm guessing that they've probably got a million in inequity.

Probably.

Yes.

Yep.

The problem is if you live in Sydney or Melbourne or Sydney,

you need the house to live in.

So having all that money locked up is of no use unless you're gonna sell

it and move to somewhere cheaper.

Tree change when you retire.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Hence all the Mexicans.

Yeah, that's right.

They're all here.

Right.

Hello to James who joined us in the chat room and Andrew and noisy Andrew.

Good on you.

That was good.

We've had some people in the chat room.

What else have we got?

I think, guys, that's that's about it.

Unless you had something that you wanted to add.

All good?

No, I don't think so.

I think we covered most of it off.

All right.

Next week.

Go back now and listen to the budget.

Okay.

Yeah, next week might be something different cuz I've just gotta do a demo

for a client, which is sort of an after hours thing and I don't think I'll be

able to finish it and get back in front of a microphone to do something live.

But we might be later time, it might be eight 30 rather than seven 30.

We'll see, look at the Facebook page and see what announcements are made.

Not sure what I'll do make our minds up as we get closer to that one.

So yeah.

Alright, well thank you in the chat room for your comments.

Very good.

As always, gentlemen and everybody else out there talk to you next week.

Bye for now and it's a good night from me and it's a good night from him.